Foggy Morning

I was surprised when I opened the shade this morning. It was foggy. Really foggy. When I opened the patio door drape I scared all of the Sparrows away from the feeders, birdbath, and ground. They flew up to the top of the fence along the back of the yard so I tried taking a picture of them lined up. It's a little blurry but then everything looks blurry in fog. They're a little hard to see with that gray roof behind them but, trust me, they're there.

 

Later in the day a House Finch landed on the round feeder and stayed there long enough for me to take its picture too. I like the raspberry red color of its head and breast, although it's starting to drab out for winter.

 

Today's drawing prompt was Sport so I drew something from the only sport I ever participated in voluntarily. It's my scuba mask and snorkel. If I got back into diving I'd have to get a new mask because this one has my vision correction prescription in it and I had my vision corrected when I had my cataracts removed. 

 

At Friday Night Knitting tonight I worked on the first Llama Mitten. I finished knitting the ribbed cuff and then started on the hand and thumb gusset. This part goes pretty quickly. It's the hand that will take a long time, then I'll do the thumb. And then make another one. That whole second mitten is a real slog sometimes.

 

 I spent a lot of the day reading emails I've been ignoring for the past few days. And in my Junk file I found another email from a British book club. I'm leaving that one in Junk and ignoring it. There's also one from another book club wanting to present Island Dreams to its members. I'm leaving that one in Junk too. I'm just too skittish to take any more chances.

I also spent time on the phone with Spectrum which is my internet and cable provider. They've got a 2-year price guarantee promo going so I thought I'd see if I could save some money. And I can. She shifted me to a different plan and added a landline (which I won't install) but it's saving me about $40 a month. A not insignificant amount. There's a whole list of streaming services that are included in the plan so I spent some time getting signed up for those. Not that I'll spend a lot of time watching them but there are shows people talk about I'd like to try watching and now I can.

That was my day. I did take a walk after supper and before knitting. Mostly I walked from the desk here to the kitchen and back. I still haven't carried the clean laundry upstairs but I did take the last load out of the dryer yesterday and folded the towels before bringing them up. I'll get there--eventually. I'm out of ankle socks so I guess I'll haul it up tomorrow. Those little socks are more comfy to walk on than my mismatched socks.

Oh, and when I went to pick up my prescriptions from the pharmacy I stuck around and got a flu shot and Covid booster. I'm going to The Clearing in 2 weeks and have that book event in 1 week so I'd like to be a little more prepared. They say it takes 2 weeks for them to be at peak effectiveness so I figure it's time.

--Barbara 

Confused

You know how I complain about not knowing what day it is? Well, all week I've been thinking that I have a book event in Sturgeon Bay on Saturday September 20 and that it's this coming Saturday. It isn't. Today is September 11 and there's no way nine days can be crammed in before Saturday. I even packed my backpack of books, bookmarks, and keyrings. I love this rolling backpack. It holds a lot of books and has pockets for the keyrings and bookmarks, and even my water bottle fits on the side. At least now I'm ready for next week's book event.

 

Figuring I'd be sharing a table, I set up the book display rack and slotted in the books, putting in Christmas at Seaview, and rearranging them until I liked the way it looked. Then I talked to the bookstore owner this afternoon and kept talking about this Saturday and he corrected me that this Saturday isn't the 20th, that there's a week in between now and then. *head, slap* Well, that was embarrassing. 

 

I spent a little time, maybe an hour, making a couple more Amazon ads for Better Than Mom's using keywords I found yesterday. I did that instead of working on writing more short stories. I'm not too inspired right now so I'm working on the marketing part of being an author instead of the authoring part.

 

The sedum are blooming and the bees know it. I glanced out the window and the raspberry colored sedum has bloomed this week so I went out with the camera and snapped a picture of the flower with a nice chubby bee on it.

 

Then I moved down the retaining wall to find the copper colored sedum blooming with its own bee. There were two bees when I showed up but one flew away when I was getting focused so there's only one.

 

Speaking of taking pictures, today's drawing prompt was Technology so I drew my digital camera. I think I did an okay job, not great, but it's recognizable as a camera. I'm happy with that.

 

Last night at watercolor class we used painter's tape to mask off birch tree trunks in one of our squares. I painted mine in blue and yellow, which kind of turned green. So I decided this afternoon to paint birch trees using real colors like brown and rust. I'm semi-pleased with the way it turned out.

 

And I drew a gratitude journal page. I got to do the after school run again today and had to deliver OJ to a sports bar near Lambeau Field where his Cub Scout den parked cars before tonight's game. DS was there too as was the other den leader so it wasn't just a bunch of 9-year-olds parking cars willy-nilly in a field.

 

There was a flyover before tonight's game but I missed it. I heard it but thought it was too dark so didn't go out to see if I could see the plane. It was plenty loud. I didn't miss that part.

I watched The Birdcage tonight. I was looking for something I didn't have to think too much about. It's such a good movie but it makes me sad to remember that Robin Williams took his own life. 

--Barbara 

Focused

Today I was focused on making Amazon ads for my book, Better Than Mom's. I had a lot of trouble figuring out comps I could use to scrape keywords to populate my ads. BTMs doesn't seem to go with any other books I can find. Almost all of the most likely titles are romances and my book is not a romance. It has romance in it but it doesn't follow the romance formula. I finally found a couple books that are kinda like it so I scraped the Also Boughts (I have a tool to use online) and used those titles and authors in my ads. Then I made a few Category ads to give the Amazon algorithm something else to think about. Evidently old ads kind of fade after a while so you have to make new ones. I'd forgotten that so I'll be over here making new ads for my other standalone titles.

 

There was a large flock of Sparrows around the feeders this morning. Two were on the platform feeder, two were on the suet nuggets, and four were on the round feeder. There were more on the birdbath but they didn't fit into the frame of the picture.

 

Underneath the round feeder this chipmunk was reaping the benefit of the Sparrows tossing seed down as they picked out what they wanted from the feeder ports. I'm surprised you can't see seeds in its fur because it was raining down on it.

 

The drawing prompt today was Jewelry so I drew the jewelry I was wearing. I did have on two earrings but only drew one of them. I was surprised that my watch drawing looks quite a bit like my actual watch. The little silver ring is one that Mom's high school boyfriend made for her out of a 1942 silver quarter. You used to be able to see "Liberty" and "1942" on the inside but I've worn it so long that the letters are rubbed off.

 

Tonight was the first watercolor class at the technical college. Former neighbors, DT, MK, and I are taking it together. The school provides all of the supplies like paint, brushes, and paper so all we have to do is show up. Tonight's lesson was washes. We also used masking fluid and salt to make different effects. I think it'll be a fun time. There are two Marys and two Barbaras in the class of nine students. What are the odds?

 

I got a package today. In it were ten more copies of Christmas at Seaview. I have a book event on Saturday in Sturgeon Bay and then in a couple weeks I'll be going to The Clearing so I want to have plenty copies on hand. I have no clue how popular it'll be. I don't want to run out.

 

I did not carry up the clean laundry today. I haven't even taken the last load (towels) out of the dryer.

--Barbara

This is the Day We Wash Our Clothes

My pile of undies is getting low so I had to break down and do laundry today. I confess I really let the dirty clothes pile up before going down there to do something about them. Now they're all clean, just not all upstairs and folded. I'll carry the basket upstairs tomorrow or maybe Thursday and then procrastinate folding until I'm down to the last pair of undies. I know how I work.

 

The drawing prompt today was Something That Smells Bad. I wasn't sure what to draw and then I thought of feet. So that's what I drew. My Great-grandpa Gerst had very smelly feet. So smelly that Great-grandma Gerst made him leave his shoes out on the porch so they didn't stink up the house. I was lucky enough that they were still alive when I was a kid so I got to get to know them. Same with the Stephan great-grandparents. She was named Barbara, same as Aunt B and me.

 

In the afternoon there was a loud noise outside so I looked out and it was the lawn mowers. Here's the kid racing around the yard. He starts at the driveway and goes all the way around the edge, front and back, and then makes smaller and smaller passes until he finishes in the middle. Another kid wields the string trimmer and blower so it's all trimmed and tidy when they race off after only about 20 minutes.

 

I did a gratitude journal page today for today. It was a good day for getting things done. I even took out the trash and recycling for pickup tomorrow. Since there's only me I don't make much trash so I only put it out about once a month, maybe even less frequently. The banana and orange peels in the garage trash can make the fruit flies very happy. I have a thriving colony out there.

 

After my trip to the grocery for bananas, milk, and yogurt I spent a few hours making ten new keyword ads on Amazon. We're supposed to work up to 100 ads for our "first in series" book. I'm getting there. I don't know how many I've got since there are also ads for my three standalone books. I should probably make some new ads for those books too while I'm making ads. 

 

Yesterday I made more jello. This time it's lime, my favorite flavor. Every time I look for it there isn't any lemon. I should probably go to a different store. 

 

Tomorrow night is my first watercolor class through the technical college in town. It's a beginners class but I'm going with friends and figure it's always good to have a refresher on the basics. I'll report.

--Barbara 

Mm, Smells Good

When I put the shade up this morning I noticed that Dad's rose had opened a new flower over the last day or so. That meant I had to go out to take its picture but I waited until I was decently clad before going out to do it.

 

Today's drawing prompt was Something That Smells Good. I picked bacon. I oven fried a pound of turkey bacon last week to make suppertime BLTs and it smelled pretty darned good. Not as good as "real" Neuske's bacon which, as far as I'm concerned, is the best bacon there is, but the turkey bacon's edible. Quite a bit better than last summer's precooked chicken bacon.

 

 A few Sparrows were hanging around the birdbath this morning and one of them decided to hop in to have a bath. I tried to snap it when it was flapping around but didn't manage to get a decent shot. So you get this one of it in between splashes.

 

The purple mums below Dad's rose are really blooming like crazy these days. I noticed that the earliest flowers are dying but many more are taking their places. And the other color mums have started to show buds so they're coming.

 

I got to do the after school run today so I finished this dishcloth while I waited. It's been nestled in the door pocket all summer just waiting for me to have to sit there waiting for the school bell to ring. I'll have to cast on another one.

 

This afternoon I was looking at my Amazon Ads chart and noticed that I'm getting a lot fewer Impressions for the last couple weeks. (Impressions are the light blue bars on the graph.) Things changed when I went through my ads and eliminated "book," books," and "romance" from the keyword ads because "book" is too broad and my books aren't romances. Right after I did that there was a screen to click to check on what search terms were most popular and "book" and "books" were the top two. Now I have to be patient while the Amazon algorithm learns my new keywords. It all takes time. 

 

The fridge fixit guy showed up half an hour early this morning! A whole half an hour! I had just started to empty the freezer into a laundry basket with a blanket in it when the doorbell rang. It didn't take him long to take the back off the freezer compartment and steam away the glacier plugging the drain hole. He's a nice guy and very efficient. Not too expensive either. And he showed me how to catch the water to keep it from flooding the fridge if/when it happens again. 

I went to lunch with part of the St. Agnes Class of '65 today. There were three classmates there from out of town so it was fun to get to visit with them. I handed out bookmarks. One woman said she reads a lot and one of the guys in town said his wife reads a lot so maybe I'll get some book sales out of it. That'd be good. 

--Barbara 

Not Birds

I put out half an orange this morning and thought maybe a House Finch would land on it and have a snack. Instead bees came. I don't know if they were coming to the oranges all summer but today was the first time I noticed them. Also a Hummingbird flew around, checking things out, and flew away long before I'd have gotten the camera up and ready. And when I was having breakfast I glanced over my shoulder and there was a Woodpecker on the suet nuggets. It was a lot bigger than a Downy Woodpecker but it looked like it. Maybe it was a Hairy Woodpecker but I didn't have a chance to really look at it or take its picture because it flew away almost as soon as I saw it. Dang it.

 

On my walk this morning I saw where the autumn leaf came from the other day. The big maple tree where the street curves has a big patch of leaves changing color. It can hold on to them for a while. 

 

I spent most of the afternoon figuring out Substack posts for the next four or five weeks. I can schedule them to be sent on Wednesday ahead of time so I don't have to scurry around on Tuesday getting something ready. Besides I wanted to have one scheduled for October 1, the Wednesday of the week I'll be at The Clearing. Don't want to miss a week. (Don't try to read the titles, they're very blurry. I had to use a long exposure to get a shot and didn't hold still enough.)

 

I forgot to get the mail yesterday but got it today and in the mail was a check for a copy of Christmas at Seaview and a note from my friend saying that she enjoyed it. That really made me happy. She asked if she could get a copy from me instead of online and I said of course she could. So I mailed it off. Thanks, RSC! 

 

Today's drawing prompt was Botanical Study so I drew a couple of the mums in my birthday flowers. I didn't outline the petals with fine liner so they're not so visible but there are lots of petals. Lots.

 

Since I finished the Sunset Doublethick Warshrag on Friday I need another project to work on when I get tired of the Iron Pyrite Sock. I decided to knit mittens to go with the llama hat I knitted earlier. I had to go downstairs and wind skeins of yarn into cakes because you can't knit from that big hank of yarn without having a terrible tangle. Then while I watched TV I cast on the first mitten and knitted a few rounds. I like knitting mittens.

 

There was a home football game today and I hoped for a flyover and even saw something on Facebook about the plane that was supposed to fly over. I went outside at noon but no big plane came. Then I checked and found out that the game didn't start until 3:25. I don't know what I was doing then, probably goofing around with stories, so I don't know if a plane flew by or not. I don't remember hearing a loud rumble so maybe the clouds were too low or something. That's the only part of football I like so I'm disappointed. It's a wonder they let me live in this football town, isn't it?

--Barbara 

Yum

Today I made a Layered Veggie Bake for supper that's going to last me for 3 more nights. It's a layer of potato slices, one of zucchini slices, then eggplant slices, sauteed onion & bell pepper, a layer of tomato slices. It gets baked for a while then uncovered, cheese piled on, and baked a little more. It's so good I could have eaten another serving but I didn't.

 

The drawing prompt today was Faces. I used a thicker fine liner and drew a few faces in my sketchbook. The one in the lower left was an attempt to draw a face without looking. Totally unsuccessful.

 

I filled the feeders and this chipmunk came out to clean up the spilled seed. The cool thing was a squirrel arrived shortly after and they had a tussle over who got to eat. For a few second the two rodents were a ball of fur and tails until the chipmunk raced off. It tried coming back but the squirrel lunged at it and drove it away. Nature.

 

I went up to look at a brown speck on the sedum and found a little brown moth and a bunch of bees. The bees were having a field day flying from flower to flower searching for nectar. I assume the moth was looking for nectar too. I don't know what moths eat.

 

The gratitude journal page for today was simple. I liked drawing a tiny veggie for each layer of my baked supper casserole.

 

And I added a few rounds to the Iron Pyrite Sock last night and tonight. I've got a ways to go before time to do the toe decreases but since I finished the warshrag last night I have to find something else to knit before next Friday.

 

I have a confession to make. I turned on the furnace this morning. It got down into the 40s overnight and was 66 in the house when I got up this morning. Too cold to ignore. I know I'm probably a wimp but I hate being cold, especially my hands, so I just turned it on. I had to pile on an extra little blanket last night too. It feels too early for this.

--Barbara 

Win Some, Lose Some

When I got on email this morning I expected to have a reply from the Commonplace Book Club answering my question about why I was paying some Arab-sounding guy instead of the Angela I'd spent the day emailing back and forth to. There was no reply. So I went back on the Commonplace BC's website and right there at the top was a warning that they did not solicit authors to feature their books. That any offers to that effect were fraudulent. Whew. Guess I didn't do enough due diligence on that one. I did on the London one, though, so I think that's okay. I think. God, I hate the way things are today with scammers and hackers under every rock and behind every tree. Can't I just get a break?

 

A Sparrow landed on the suet nuggets this morning. You can see how empty the feeder is. I decided not to fill the feeders today. Partly because I don't want to put fresh nuggets in the feeder until it's empty and partly because it was so windy that the safflower seed would be blown or shaken out of the swinging platform feeder.

 

The drawing prompt today was Work. I decided to draw the only place I work these days--my desk. I didn't come back here to copy it, I drew it from memory. It's less messy than it is in real life. I like the way it turned out. 

 

In the afternoon, I braved the gale and went outside to cut rhubarb to make a batch of sauce to put on my yogurt tomorrow. No, I won't be putting it all on, just a bit of it, but I'm looking forward to it. It's so much better than tart cherries or blueberries thawed in the microwave and put on there.

 

I decided to try painting the purple mums in my birthday bouquet. This is not my best effort. 

 

After supper I drew a gratitude journal page. I got to do the afternoon school run today. I love doing it. Getting to spend even those few minutes with them really brightens my day.

 

Tonight at Friday Night Knitting I finished the Sunset Doublethick Cloth. I didn't make it 8" long because that just seems too long and the pattern says that the cloth is a square. Well, the way I make it it's only 6" wide so I make it 7" long which fits over a hand perfectly. This is not a dish cloth really, it's more of a washcloth, or a warshrag like my grandmother used to say.

 

Tomorrow is Saturday (I said that to prove I know what day it is.) and it's supposed to be almost as chilly as it was today--62 degrees to today's 56 degrees--but maybe not as windy. Today's wind was sharp and blew like it really meant it. I got up in the middle of the night to grab a little flannel blanket to put over me in bed. My cotton sheet and cotton blanket just weren't cutting it. It's a little chilly in the house but I refuse to turn on the furnace just yet. Heck, the air conditioner was running a few days ago. Crazy.

--Barbara 

Noooooo!

Look at what I saw on my way home from my walk--an autumn leaf. I wasn't ready to see a fallen leaf that's red and yellow just yet. Fortunately it was alone.

 

I was going to fill the bird feeders this morning but this squirrel was working so hard on emptying the suet nuggets that I didn't want to disturb it. I'll fill the feeders tomorrow. Or maybe Saturday.

 

This morning I was looking at my birthday flowers and noticed that some of them have an interesting center that's a lovely shade of green so I decided to try my hand at painting them. It turned out okay. I'm not thrilled with the background color I chose. It's too close to the color of the flowers. Live and learn.

 

I spent at least an hour on Fiverr which is a website where you can get a cover design. It also has artists who will illustrate a children's book. I've always wanted to publish Dodger & Betsey, this week's Substack post, as a children's book and never found an illustrator. I have to do more research, it can be very expensive, but it's a possibility. Worth looking into.

Then I was looking in my Junk email folder for something and noticed that last week I got emails from a couple book clubs through my website email. I shot them back to my Inbox and read them. One is from London, England and wants to feature The Seaview in their newsletter to members. Yes, please! I looked them up online and watched an interview with the woman who sent the email so I know it's not from a scammer. We've been emailing back and forth all afternoon and I have secured a place in their September 15th publication.

The other book club seems to be in Baltimore, if what I found on the web is right, and they want to offer Christmas at Seaview to their members in November. Okay then! I emailed back and forth with her and that one too offers a lot of exposure to readers I'd never reach otherwise.

There was another email from a woman asking about Christmas at Seaview and it sounded like she was an interested reader wanting to know if it was in Kindle Unlimited. I emailed her back but it turns out she wants to sell herself as an advertising advisor. No thanks. 

I was on school pickup duty this afternoon and then I went to the farmers market to get more Roma tomatoes, eggplant, bell peppers and potatoes. (I might have gotten some cookies too. They're hard to resist.) I want to make a layered veggie bake I invented years ago and needed ingredients. I got a Vidalia onion at the store yesterday and have a zucchini I got from a friend that needs cooking. It's the end of the summer, everybody's got too much zucchini. I'll make the veggie bake over the weekend. I'm looking forward to it.

Do you realize that tomorrow's Friday already? Wasn't yesterday Monday? No wait, that's three days ago. These holiday weeks really goof me up. 

--Barbara