A New Place to Have a Beer

I stopped at Zambaldi Beer this morning to return the howlers (half-gallon beer bottles) from last week's knitting night and found DS rigging an extension cord to one of the igloos they've put on their patio. They were given two of these clear igloos, bought some comfy furniture on FB Marketplace, and are getting electric blankets (because the fire marshal says no space heaters) to keep people warm so that their patio gets used in the winter.

I saw a trio of House Finches flitting around the platform feeder and took their picture. It wasn't until I cropped the photo that I noticed the giant Mourning Dove sitting on the roof of the feeder.

I had another eye appointment today because yesterday's eye doc didn't check my vision he just checks my eye health so if I want new glasses (which I do) I had to make an appointment with an optometrist. I had a hard time picking out which frames I wanted--red or multicolored--so I picked both when I found out I got a nice discount if I bought 2 pairs. As usual, I asked that my bifocals be as high on the lenses as possible and it seems like for once that happened. I'm wearing the multicolored ones and I can see better without craning my neck.

This afternoon when I got home from my errands and appointments I spotted this male Downy Woodpecker on the suet cakes. I hope all of the birds have eaten their fill today because they're predicting a major snowstorm tomorrow that's supposed to bring 6" of wet, heavy snow. Ugh. I will be so grateful that I have a snowblower when it comes time to move the stuff.

The next video in the art course started with a page of tree blobs. She had us use markers to make shapeless blobs on the paper and then use a thin black marker to turn the blobs into trees. Not bad. "Pause" is my favorite button on the iPad.

Then the second half of the video was a page of monochromatic flowers and leaves with gouache paint, which is an opaque water soluble paint. She said to thin it at first with a lot of water and paint more floral and leaf shapes, then once they were dry to come back with a smaller brush and darker paint to make more details. It turned out okay. I'm not such a fan of blue and I suppose I could have used red but I was too chicken to stray from her color palette.

Tonight after supper I finished the hand of the first Alpaca Mitten. I put the thumb stitches back on the needles and will work on knitting the thumb tomorrow night. That way I'll have the second one all ready to knit on when Friday Night Knitting rolls around.

I wasn't the only one running around doing errands, having appointments, and getting gas today. A lot of people, especially people my age, were out and about so we can stay home tomorrow and not drive in the snow as it's coming down like crazy. It's supposed to start snowing late tonight and continue all day until Friday morning. Like I said, I'm grateful for the snowblower or I will be on Friday when it's time to move the darned stuff. I know that LC and OJ will be thrilled that we've got snow because they love to play in it, build snowmen, and ski but I'm so over snow.

I haven't been doing any writing this week. I finished rereading the manuscript on the Kindle and am letting it marinate until after the holidays. I sat down the other day to try writing a Seaview Christmas story (for next year), got about a page into it, and stalled out completely. Lots more thinking needs to happen.

--Barbara