To Market, To Market

Today was another Market on Military day. It was also Small Business Saturday and there was a huge craft sale at the Resch Expo Center here in town which we think severely limited attendance at the market. But we each managed to sell something. I sold two of the copies of Open For Business with the misprinted cover spine at a reduced price and one copy of The Seaview too. So three books! Yay! Four hours is a very long time when there aren't that many people to buttonhole to try to sell them books but we managed to keep ourselves awake and mostly sane.

It's so cold and very windy. Look at how frozen the birdbath was this morning. You can see that the birdbath is shallow and the heater (under the rock) is partly out of the water. I braved the cold and wind to top it up so that more heat went into more water and kept it open a bit more.

Look at the other buds on the Christmas/Thanksgiving cactus. In the background you can see the fading flower, then the biggest bud, a smaller one, and an even smaller one as you get to the foreground. I have high hopes that they will all bloom.

Last night I decorated for Christmas. Since I'm going to Kentucky to visit DD and her family I decided not to put up the tree. Instead I went downstairs for the lighted Christmas "present" that one of my neighbors made a few years ago, cleared the plant off the table in front of the window, and plonked the decoration there. Festive!

Even though I was at the market all morning and into the afternoon I did make time to do a little drawing. These are from Draw 500 Fabulous Flowers. Don't ask me what kind of flowers they are because I don't know.

 

I was surprised to see a few Sparrows on the suet cakes today. It was so cold and very windy. If I was a bird, I'd have stayed in the nest snuggled up with the rest of the flock. There were two Sparrows on there but just as I pushed the shutter button the one on the left took off. Oh well.

And finally today I drove to Shawano (about 40 miles) to celebrate Thanksgiving with DS, DIL1, LC, OJ, and all of DIL1's family. We had a lovely meal with two kinds of turkey (smoked and fried), Mom's old Green Bean Almondine recipe, and too many other sides to count. All of it was delicious and some of it made it back to Green Bay in my car. I was nervous driving home in the dark because it's deer hunting season and Highway 29 is a magnet for deer but I didn't see any. I was the little old lady in the red car driving 5 mph below the speed limit but I felt safe and comfortable. (That's DIL1's cousin and aunt in the picture getting ready for the onslaught.) Did I mention that there were three kinds of pie? Two pumpkin, apple, and pecan with either whipped cream, cinnamon ice cream, vanilla ice cream or all three.

Now it's time for me to sign off and hit the hay. It's been a long, busy day and I'm bushed.

--Barbara

A Much More Productive Day

I was much more productive today than I was yesterday. But then I couldn't have been less productive unless I was in a coma. The first thing I did after breakfast, yoga, shower, and getting dressed was to paint. This is Purple Loosestrife which grows where this author lives but is an invasive species here where I live. Someone brought it over and planted it thinking that cattle would eat it. They wouldn't touch it and the stuff self-seeds like crazy. It's pretty though.

 

Then I drew this shark. He was supposed to have bubbles and musical notes coming out of his mouth like he was singing. I tried, I really did, but it just looked too ludicrous with the snarly look on his face to have happy little notes floating away. Nope.

 

The birdbath was almost frozen this morning partly because the heater wasn't completely underwater but mostly because it was so darned cold. So I went out in the cold wind and topped it up. An hour later the part of the birdbath furthest from the heater (on the left edge) was refreezing. Today's high was 28 with a wind chill of -5. Yikes.

 

You can see how cold it was today by how puffed up this squirrel is. It was picking through the grass under the suet cakes to see if anything good had dropped. I don't know what's reflected in the patio door glass that made those stripes across the squirrel's head.

 

I hadn't seen one bird all day until late in the afternoon the wind dropped a little and the Red-bellied Woodpecker showed up to snack on the suet cakes. When I first noticed it I grabbed the camera but I had the light on and my white shirt sleeve moving scared it away so I waited and it came back. I was much more careful to move slowly and snapped a couple pictures. This was the best one. I noticed that the birds are having to work much harder to get a bite of suet cakes. The stuff's probably frozen solid like a rock.

 

 I had time before Friday Night Knitting to draw a gratitude journal page for today. Imagine! I drew the page on the actual day! Amazing!

Tomorrow is Small Business Saturday and there's a special farmers market scheduled. I hope that there are lots of people and lots of people who read books, especially my kind of books. Then tomorrow late afternoon we'll have our belated Thanksgiving feast in Shawano at DIL1's folks' house. I really appreciate that they include me in their family holiday meals. They're nice people.

--Barbara

A Lazy Day

Even though we didn't have Thanksgiving today so I didn't really have any claims on my time I kind of just lazed the day away. I spent a couple hours watching the next challenge video from Ad School and making a couple new keyword ads for my most profitable (and only) series.

The way I discovered which books were most profitable was by following a formula from the video. I learned how to calculate Return On Investment by finding Royalties and Ad Spend, then subtracting the Ad Spend from the Royalties to get the Profit. Next I divided Profit by Ad Spend to find the ROI percentage. It was very eye-opening, especially when I split out the two books of the series and calculated their ROI separately. My newest title, Open For Business, is carrying the load for the series right now. Makes sense to me that the latest book would sell the best.

The only drawing I did was making yesterday's gratitude journal page this morning. I'll have to do better, do more tomorrow.

I hauled up the slicer and sliced up both loaves of Onion Bread. I put one in the freezer and the other one is ready to take along on Saturday afternoon to our belated Thanksgiving feast. DS is making Mom's old green beans almondine recipe and I can't wait to have some. I'm sure he'll make some regular green beans for those with uneducated palates.

After supper I pulled out the more complicated of the Christmas knitting projects and discovered that I'd cast on too many stitches so it was too big. So I ripped out all that I had knitted and started over on the second half. I guess it pays to read the pattern before you leap.

I did yoga and got dressed this morning so I did do some things instead of laying around all day like a slug. 

There's a home football game tonight. I just checked the weather and it's 27 degrees with a 46% chance of snow before the end of the game. I'm glad I'm sitting here indoors where it's nice and warm.

--Barbara

I Shoulda Checked

This morning I started to make the onion bread for Saturday's Thanksgiving feast. I pulled out all of the ingredients. I had a moment of panic when I realized that the bottle of molasses didn't have 2 tablespoons in it but there was another full bottle right there. Whew. I pulled out the dry onion soup mix, an egg, measured out 6 cups of flour (plus a little extra), and the can of Crisco. I stirred the yeast into the warm water, added the salt, soup mix, molasses and egg, then I opened the can of Crisco and devils flew out of the can. It was bad! So bad that I recoiled and immediately threw it in the garage trash can. That meant I had to go to the grocery on the day before Thanksgiving. I was trepidatious to say the least but I found a parking place within walking distance of the door, went in, found the Crisco sticks (which I didn't want but otherwise I'd have had to get the BIG can), fresh pineapple, and a bag of clementines. I picked up a few gift cards (starting my Christmas shopping) and got the heck outta there. When I got home the yeast was merrily bubbling away in the mixing bowl so I chucked in the Crisco, added flour, and got busy making bread. I set the dough to rise after some kneading, shaped it an hour later, and baked it making the house smell great. It still smells great but I bagged the bread and didn't cut off a piece. I'll get out the slicer tomorrow and might have to snitch a piece but not today.

I was a good person and washed all of the mixing bowls and other things from bread making plus the stack of supper portion containers that I pile up instead of washing one every day. I stack them together until I can't stand looking at them anymore and then I wash them. I learned my skill at dish drainer stacking from my Aunt Lucille who was the champion stacker in the family. She would have been a whiz at Tetris.

For drawing today I started with yesterday's gratitude journal. I thought and thought about how to draw a furnace because I was most grateful for the furnace fixit guy so I drew a pot-bellied stove. Then I was thankful for my cleaner, MB, who is so much fun to talk to.

Then I segued into Dr. Seuss's Book of Animals and found this bird in a nest. I think it looks like it has on a grass skirt but, trust me, it's a nest.

Most of the afternoon I spent on the computer researching a couple sites I learned about on a Women's Fiction Guild Zoom this morning. One of them is a list of newsletter swaps and book sales, I think, but I can't figure out how to use the information. The other one is a paid review site. I'm thinking about it. Then I opened up the manuscript and finished going through it with ProWritingAid so that all of the spaces after periods are only 1 space and many of the passive verbs are changed to be more active. Some of them I kept because of the way I want my characters to speak.

I spent the evening knitting on the Christmas projects. I'm taking pictures but I'm not showing them to you because, sh, secrets.

--Barbara

Not The Way

I woke up, got out of bed, and realized it was extra chilly in the house so I went to check the thermostat. Six degrees down. Hm. I pushed the UP button but nothing happened. Luckily I don't get up too early so I called the furnace fixit people and they said they could come today. I figured it'd be afternoon. So I went about my usual morning routine, breakfast, and I was just about to do yoga when I heard a van pull into the driveway. It was the furnace tech. He said he tried to call but dialed wrong. I didn't care. The pressure switch was acting up--again--so he went to get a new one and installed it. Fortunately the furnace and part are still under warranty so I only had to pay for the service call and got a discount on that because I'm in the Comfort Club. The rest of the day it was warm but that was not the way I wanted the day to start.

This fat squirrel leaped from the birdbath to the suet nuggets, discovered they were all gone, and came back to sniff around the suet cakes but couldn't figure out how to get to them. It then climbed up on the Oriole feeder to investigate the orange glass ball on top before dropping down to the grass and scampering off. Not the brightest bulb on the tree.

The Christmas/Thanksgiving cactus flower is fully open. It's very pretty and delicate looking and I'm constantly worrying that I'll jostle it and it'll fall off but so far so good.

Here are the itty bitty buds. In past years the tiny buds haven't matured into flowers. I'm hoping this year they might.

I drew out of Seuss-isms today. I don't know what kind of creatures these are but they are both in bad moods. I don't know why.

While the furnace tech was working I drew a gratitude journal page for
yesterday. I'm still grateful for finding the missing chapter rewrite.

And I spent hours working through the manuscript with my new editing program. Or is it an app? I don't know but I'm about 60 pages from being done with the first pass. See the list of corrections suggestions on the right? Today I stopped just accepting the suggestions like a sheep and stood up for myself and the way I write. Take that, ProWritingAid!

Last night I hooked myself up to the new sleep study doodad. I had trouble falling asleep, which I rarely do, and then I felt restless all night. I'm sure I flunked. I have to wait a couple weeks to learn the results and then we'll see what happens next. I don't want a CPAP. I don't know why, I just don't. Maybe there's another way.

I spent the couple hours that my cleaner was here unknitting and starting to reknit that Christmas knitting I've been struggling with for about a week. I worked on it again after supper and think I'm on the right track. It's only the fourth time I've started the darned thing. The brim yarn was looking a little shopworn when I cast on this last time.

Oh boy, did it get cold today. Even though it was sunny it only got up to 30 degrees and it was a little windy. I was glad that I didn't have to go anywhere today plus there was the furnace thing and the cleaner to be home for. She always makes me feel so good about myself. She's a big fan of my books and my writing. It's nice.

--Barbara

A Mob of Sparrows

I know that's not the real term for a bunch of Sparrows. It's really a host. (I just looked it up.) A mob is kangaroos or emus or crows, but I decided that the Sparrows were mobbing the suet cakes this morning so I'm saying it. There are three on the cakes that you can see and there were at least two on the back side. They kept changing places. One would fly in, flutter over the others, and then land. It was a mob scene! There you go--a mob.

Today's drawing is out of Drawing Cute again. It's a puzzle and a book. Well, you can see what they are because the drawings are small but recognizable. I'm liking drawing out of that book lately. I like the simple shapes and I like coloring them in.

I spent a lot of the afternoon going through the manuscript of The Seaview Series 3 with my new ProWritingAid program. I have to say I thought I was doing a lot better only adding one space after a period but evidently I'm not. Although things improved when I figured out that I could select the type of editing aid I wanted. So I switched from General to General Fiction and I seem to have fewer changes to make. I did have a few minutes of panic when I got to the section I'd submitted to the critique group last time. I knew that I'd rewritten parts, adding interactions with other characters, but they weren't there. I opened the file that I'd submitted and it wasn't changed but I KNEW I'd made big changes. Just when I thought I would have to redo it and hope I remembered what I'd done, I thought to open the version on the C: drive, and there it was. Saved. Whew.

I spent the evening knitting on a Christmas knit and came to the conclusion that I have to rip it out--again--and start over making a smaller size. This one is just too big and I'm so frustrated I could spit. So tomorrow while the cleaner is here chasing dust, vacuuming, and cleaning the bathroom and kitchen, I'll be the one ripping out the project and starting over. Grr.

I went back to the sleep clinic this afternoon and got the real home sleep study doodad to use tonight. Fortunately there are directions in the box because I'm not sure I remember all the nurse told me. I'll study up and get it over with tonight. She said it'll probably take 2 weeks to get the results but I want to be finished with it. Wish me luck.

--Barbara

Almost Bloomed

My Christmas cactus has turned into a Thanksgiving cactus this year. The biggest bud is starting to open. Just this morning the first petal separated from the rest and I'm being very careful around it so it doesn't decide to drop off.

The next biggest bud is less than a quarter of the size of the big one but it's looking good and there are three more tiny ones on the ends of other branches. Or are they leaves? 

The Downy Woodpecker stopped at the suet cakes feeder this morning for a snack. It seems to land in the same place every time it shows up. It's a creature of habit just like the rest of us.

I was distracted by guests today so I didn't spend a lot of time doing art. I did manage to draw these pansy-like flowers after supper.

I'm working on the crown decreases of the avocado green Alpaca Waffle Hat. There are about eight more rounds to knit. Maybe I'll manage to finish it this week when I take a break from gift knitting.

I spent a lot of the day working slowly through the latest manuscript with my new ProWritingAid program which is very firm about commas and the tense of dialogue tags. Despite my best efforts there are too many places to count where I've got 2 spaces where there should be 1 so the program is getting a big workout. I started at page 1 this morning and stopped at page 78 at suppertime. It's going to take me a while to get to page 288.

Tomorrow I have an appointment at the sleep clinic to pick up a different doodad for an at-home sleep study. It seems that the one I got from my primary care doc was just an oxygen measurement device and not an official sleep study. So I get to do it again. Yippee! I have to say that I'm sorta sorry that I brought up the subject when I was in for my physical last month.

LC and OJ want to read my books. They each picked out one and settled down to read before I called a halt. I had to explain that they're not books for kids. That there's a lot of kissing and a little swearing in them so they have to grow a bit before they can read them. I don't think I'm smart enough to write a kids book.

--Barbara

Two Different Birds

Both of the woodpeckers came to the feeders today but I show them to you nearly every day and I wonder if you're getting sick of seeing them. So today I have two different birds that showed up yesterday that we haven't seen in a while. First was a male Goldfinch in his winter drabness. The yellow on his head is so pale I don't know if you can even see it in the photo. He hopped from feeder to crook and back, not staying on any one for long before flying off.

A Chickadee landed on the suet cakes and just as I got the camera up and was ready to push the shutter button it flew away. But it only went to the birdbath for a drink so I was able to take its picture. They're fast little devils so I was pretty happy to have the chance to snap it.

And third and fourth birds. The male Cardinal flew to the platform feeder and chased away all of the House Finches that were on it but this Mourning Dove was perched on the roof and the Cardinal either didn't see it or figured it wasn't a threat and left it alone.

This squirrel was fun to watch. It tried to climb up two of the crooks that are side by side but the Slinkys were in the way. I don't know how it managed it but the squirrel pulled one of the Slinkys down almost to the ground so it could climb up the pole unhindered. When it got up there it didn't really know what to do so it hung there for a minute, didn't make it to the suet nuggets, and dropped to the ground. I went out later and reattached the Slinky to the top of the crook. Take that, squirrel!

Today's drawing went much better than yesterday's. It's called Room with a View and is out of Half Hour of Pencil Power. I should have used the ruler to make the initial square which is kind of wonky. He said to use a ruler to make the prospective lines which I did. I like the way it turned out. 

And the watercolor today is Goldenrod. It's okay. My lines are thicker and longer than the ones in the book so my flower isn't as delicate looking as the one in the book but I'm okay with that. I like the way the leaves turned out.

 

I made time after supper to draw a gratitude journal page. The big thing I was grateful for was finding the bullfrog that sits on my dashboard. I took my car in for an oil change last week and the next day I noticed that the frog was gone. I looked all over (I thought) and didn't find it so I called the shop and he laughed and said they didn't have my frog. So I pulled the car out onto the driveway so I could really search around and there it was nestled under the basket I keep grocery bags in. I don't know how it got down under there but I'm glad I found it. Grateful even.

I spent some time working on polishing up the December monthly writing progress email letter. I got a new program called ProWritingAid which tells you when you're writing in passive voice or you  need or don't need a comma, when your phrasing is awkward, and when things are misspelled. I could tell how old one of the scenes in the piece I submitted for critique is because the program made me go through and take out one space after each period because now there's only supposed to be one space after a period instead of two. It's no fair when they change the rules like that.

--Barbara

In Focus

The two Woodpecker photos I took today are in focus. I don't know how that happened because I don't think I did anything different but here you go. First came the Downy Woodpecker on the suet cakes. It clung there pecking at the seed and cracked corn filled suet and I took this picture.

Then the Red-bellied Woodpecker showed up, clung to the round feeder, and posed while prospecting for a peanut half in the seeds. Once again, I just snapped the photo and it's in focus. I don't think I did anything different but I sure got different outcomes.

This morning I spent time on the computer working on the December writing progress email instead of doing yoga. I came back here to reread an email from LC about my website and to then email my assistant about a couple changes I thought of. We made a long list of action items for her to do during yesterday's Zoom call and I had a couple suggestions to add. Good thing she's patient.

Okay, this has got to be the worst drawing I have ever done, bar none. It's supposed to be a giant panda and it's out of the 15-Minute Artist book so I tried to draw it inside of 15 minutes. Well. No self-respecting panda will be caught dead looking like this. 

I felt so sorry for myself that I went back and got Drawing Cute and a tin of colored pencils and drew these. I'm better at the cartoon-y drawings than the realistic ones. The 'toons are more forgiving.

I went back and drew a gratitude journal page for yesterday because I wanted to and I had the time.

I also overheated the Chicken Cacciatore I had for supper, took a bite, and burned the roof of my mouth. Now I'm eating pretzels. The salt is stinging my burn. Not a great idea.

--Barbara

Just In Time

Well, I got the snowblower out just in time. Look what I saw when I opened the drapes this morning. That's right, wet heavy snow. Ugh. Not the pretty light fluffy stuff that dances around in the wind, no, this was the kind of stuff that slams into the ground and stays there daring you to try shoveling it. Fortunately it warmed up just enough to melt it away.

 

The Red-bellied Woodpecker landed on the round feeder this morning and rode the twirl, teasing me with glimpses of it. I managed this one shot of it before a Sparrow arrived and slowed the twirl so the woodpecker didn't come around again before it flew away. You can see that the snow was already starting to melt.

 

Today was one of those days. I had a morning doctor appointment but unfortunately the test results that she needed hadn't been sent from my primary doc's clinic. I called and asked that they be faxed over or emailed and they swore they tried both. I did get the email--when I got home--because it went into my junk folder which I can't access on my phone. So that was a wasted hour on both sides of the desk.

From the clinic I drove just a couple blocks north to Zambaldi Beer to visit DS for a little while.When I arrived he was getting a pallet of kegs ready to be picked up by the distributor. So there he stood on the loading dock in the wind without a coat. I didn't yell at him. He's a grown man and doesn't need his mother telling him to put on a coat. I volunteered to deliver the cases of food donations from last Saturday's Chili Cook-Off at the brewery. They ask people to bring a non-perishable food item in order to judge the chilies. They had 15 entrants this year and a lot of people came to drink a beer and judge. He loads it all in my car and I drive a couple miles up the road and get someone at the food pantry to unload it. All I do is drive. An easy favor to perform. Oh, that big black barrel next to him is what he puts the spent grains in when he's done with the mash. A farmer picks up the barrels and feeds the grain to his livestock so DS doesn't have to pay to have it disposed of. Pretty clever.

 

I managed to draw this one flower tonight. I just wasn't artistically motivated today so this is all there is.

 

Oh man, was it windy this afternoon. I had trouble opening my car door at the food pantry the wind was so strong. I felt like my hair was blowing all over the place and I was glad that I had my winter coat on, mittens too.

I had a meeting with my virtual assistant this afternoon. She's going to tidy up my author Facebook page and get it looking good like she did to my website, which is barbara-writes.com. Go over and give it a look. She's also going to connect my author email to my personal email because I never remember to go check the author one. We also discussed finding out how to make my books available through a distributor other than Amazon. That would give me broader reach to find readers. I'm excited to see if all of this helps me sell more books.

--Barbara