Just Dandy

I looked out this morning and saw this Sparrow sitting on the top of a crook, all puffed up and basking in the weak January sun and I thought he looked just dandy. It was in the teens and a little windy so it made sense that it was fluffed up but I thought he looked like a little brown tennis ball sitting there.

A little later I saw the Sparrows attacking the suet cakes. They usually leave them alone, let the woodpeckers and squirrels eat them, but most of the seeds are gone so they moved on to the suet cakes. At one point there were four of them but by the time I was ready to take a picture only two were left.

LC and I had a fine time today lunching and shopping. We went to her favorite restaurant, Olive's, for a turkey and cheese sub with lettuce and onion on fresh homemade bread for her and a pesto and artichoke hearts flatbread for me. Then we walked two doors down to Zesty's for dessert of Dirt Dessert, which is chocolate ice cream, ground up chocolate cookies, a drizzle of caramel sauce, and one gummy worm. Yum! We then headed to The School House where she spent her birthday coupon on a squishy cube and a bracelet that lets her track the movements of a sea turtle (Meemaw volunteered to pay the difference.). After that we went to the mall where we were lucky to find a parking place in walking distance and visited two jewelry stores for more earrings and Bath & Body Works for lotions and soaps. Then we came here and I spent a couple hours teaching LC to crochet her Wooble Unicorn kit she got at Christmas. I forget how hard it is to learn a craft like that. It's been over 60 years since I learned to crochet but I managed to help her learn single crochet and how to read the pattern which I printed off instead of her having to watch online videos. Tonight LC, OJ, and I looked at free crochet patterns on Ravelry, a fiber lovers website, and now OJ wants to learn how too. I'm patient, I'll be happy to teach him too. I've got lots of hooks and yarn.

I didn't have a lot of time for art today but I managed to eke out a few minutes to draw another Seussian figure. This one is better proportioned. Sorry it's so pale but I didn't press too hard on the colored pencils.

LC tried on the Baby Alpacas Hat that I finished the other day and it
wasn't quite long enough to cover her ears so I decided to add a couple inches onto the Deep Sea Hat. I need to measure again but I think it's almost time to start the crown decreases.

I tried to download Windows 11 this morning. Didn't work. I don't have enough free memory. Even if the computer was brand new and had nothing on it, it still doesn't have enough RAM, so guess who's going to Office Max tomorrow for a new laptop? They've got one with twice as much RAM and it comes with Windows 11. And it's on sale. I'll get some big USB drives so I can download files and transfer them. Sounds like a lot of work but I'm stubborn enough to do it.

--Barbara