The Most Pathetic Tomato Plant

In captivity is mine. I went out the other day to trim off the dead and dying leaves and branches and there's hardly anything left. You can see that the tomatoes are starting to ripen but at the top of the picture are the sad looking leaves that are all that stands between life and the compost heap.

Other people's tomatoes are thriving. My knitting friend, NS, stopped over to pick up a couple baby afghans and brought me a container of cherry tomatoes. Oh my goodness, they're delicious. I dipped them in a little honey mustard dressing and had to restrain myself from eating them all.

In the "I thought I'd never see it" Department, the male Cardinal let a couple juvenile House Finches stay on the platform feeder while he was there. I kept watching but he didn't drive them away like the males usually do. He must have been in a good mood.

When I went out to take the picture of the tomatoes I investigated what I thought was a bit of squirrel tail snagged on a Slinky. I looked at it through the camera lens and realized that it's a feather. A Hawk feather? An Owl feather? I don't know but it's sure way too big to be from any of the little birds that usually hang around here. Maybe the Hawk swooped by for a snack when I wasn't looking.

This morning I spent a little time drawing out of 20 Ways to Draw a Butterfly, starting back at the beginning. So I drew a butterfly, an angel, a ladybug, a paper airplane, and a winged shoe. I like the ladybug, the rest are just okay.

I went to lunch with MK. We used to be neighbors and recently reconnected. We had a lovely chat, ate good food, and talked about what we do to keep sane. She commented that she sees improvement in my drawing and painting so I thought I should get my paints back out and tackle the last few lessons in Ink & Wash Florals that so intimidated me that I put it all away for weeks. I took my time, drew a sketch, and dug in. Tulips in a vase of water. Didn't turn out too bad. I'll tackle the next one maybe over the weekend.

I watched a pair of juvenile Grackles standing in the birdbath getting a drink and one of them chased the other away and then proceeded to take a very energetic bath. You wouldn't believe how much water a bathing bird that big splashes out of the birdbath. I had to go out and refill it.

And I made a gratitude journal page. I was grateful for my delicious salmon and broccoli at Olive Garden and I could live on ice cream the rest of my life.

One thing I did that surprised me this afternoon was I got out some recipes and made a shopping list to get back to Investment Cooking. I've spent the summer making soup, grilling chicken breasts, and eating chicken Italian sausages from Aldi and it's time to get back to having frozen portions. I've tried to stick to WW (most of the time) but ice cream is my downfall. I have to stop buying those tempting, on sale pints and eating them. I'm such a trial to myself.

I spent a couple hours trying to learn that new writing and formatting program I bought the other day. I got very frustrated when I discovered that I can't export a chapter into a Word doc to use in my critique group. I sent a message to Support complaining about it and asking for a solution or my money back. A guy responded with a little macro program that he said will let me do what I want. I'll try it and see how it goes but for now I'm not happy with it, not at all. Maybe this dog is too old for new tricks.

--Barbara