Overachiever

This afternoon I went out to take pictures of the Stella d'Oro lilies that are blooming along the top of the retaining wall. One plant had two flowers, another plant had four flowers, but this one had six flowers and at least that many buds. It's the overachiever working to make the other plants look bad.

The blue star flowers are mostly all open now. I thought that they'd lean together to make a kind of puff or ball of blue stars but they're leaning away from either other so that each star has its own space.

I captured this photo of the female Oriole at the jelly dish with a female House Finch perched on the orange half watching the Oriole eat. I thought it looked like the House Finch was waiting her turn but when the Oriole flew away so did the House Finch. I guess she was hoping for an invitation to join in or something.

 

Tonight at Friday Night Knitting I got through round 12 (out of 45 rounds) on the Monterey Sea Life beanie. I tried it on again and think I'm still doing all right with my yarn tension, not pulling them too tight so that the hat won't fit.

 

Then when I was too tired to face another round on the chart I switched to the Beachy Dishcloth and knitted a few rows on that. I've discovered that I like a smaller dishcloth so I'll be turning around to the decreases in about five or six more rows. And this time I won't forget to knit the three rows even in the middle like I did last time.

Today's bird out of Ink & Wash is a Bullfinch, not a bird that's seen around here. The author of the book lives in Denmark. Denmark Europe, not Denmark, Wisconsin which is just a few miles south of here. This one doesn't have the goofy look on its face like yesterday's Blackbird did but I like it almost as much. And I forgot to page forward to see what tomorrow will bring. It'll be a surprise, but probably another bird.

This morning I buckled down and drew a Gratitude Journal page for yesterday and made sure I had time after supper today before the knitting Zoom to draw one for today. I've taken to drawing peepers in the squares on the Zoom screens. I like peepers, they're easier to draw than real people.

 

Also this morning when I was rolling out my yoga mat I saw an unfamiliar bird hopping around in the grass and realized that it was a Flicker. They're a ground feeding member of the Woodpecker family. They have a red swoop on the back of their head and a black patch on their breast. When they fly away there's a white flash at the base of their tail and that flicker of white is where they get their name. I had the devil of a time getting a halfway decent picture because the camera kept focusing on the birdfeeders and the crooks between me and it, but this one isn't too bad. At least you can kinda see the red patch on its head.

I ordered the first copy of Open For Business this morning almost as soon as I woke up. It should arrive on Sunday. I'm so excited.

 And my plan to offer each of my eBooks for free for five days last month and this month worked great. Better Than Mom's was the big "seller" with a total of 41 books downloaded. Horizon was next with 23.  Island Dreams was third with 11. The Seaview lagged far behind with 3. I know that I've taken potential customers off the board with these promotions but I'm hoping that the people who downloaded them will read them and recommend them to their friends. And maybe they'll read the one they got free and go buy another one. That's my hope anyway. We'll see how that works out.

I've plunged right into working on the third book in The Seaview Series. I had a lovely chat with cda this afternoon about what I've got so far and what I need to put in there. I know I have to add a lot more Rose and Iggy and I'm wondering if I should make scenes with them and without the four other main characters. Don't get your hopes up that this book will come quicker than the previous one, there's a lot of writing and editing to be done. I think I should spend the weekend making character wheels that I can post on the bulletin board by my desk so I don't have to remember details about all these characters. Yeah, that's what I'll do.

--Barbara