Warmer Today

This afternoon the temperature got up to 22 degrees! It felt colder than that when I was out and about but it was a little breezy and that always changes things. When I got up this morning I was happy to see that the birdbath had thawed about halfway overnight. I still went out and topped it up but didn't have near as hard a time opening the patio door as I did the last few days.

The acrobatic squirrel was back on the suet cakes this afternoon. I was sitting at the table painting and saw movement out of the corner of my eye and there it was hanging on the feeder by its back feet nibbling on a chunk of suet that it had bitten off. I'm impressed with its abs because it just effortlessly curls back up to grab another bite.

Here's what I painted today. It's called Muscari or Grape Hyacinth. It wasn't as difficult to paint as I thought it'd be. I like the way it turned out. I was relieved when she switched from the size 12 brush she uses for stems and leaves to a size 6 for the little flowers. Much easier to be a bit more precise with the smaller brush. And this picture is about 10 times bigger than the flowers in real life.

 

In the afternoon I paged through my three Chinese Astrology books to see if I can't make some little cards about people's horoscopes for the Chinese New Year supper that DS is planning. I'm not sure I put a lot of stock in those things but I think they're fun to read.

While I sat and watched TV tonight (didn't get the Final Jeopardy!) I knitted on the Baby Alpacas Hat. Got the body up to 5 1/2 inches so I started the crown decreases and knitted four of the eight rounds before quitting for the night.

I even managed to make myself sit down and draw the gratitude journal page for today. I had an appointment with the dentist to pick up my sleep appliance. It's very tight on my teeth and is supposed to prevent my tongue from falling back and closing my throat off so I snore and my air is lessened. I'm anxious to find out if I can sleep with it clamping my teeth but then I think that people with braces have clamps on their teeth and they manage to sleep. He said it'd take about five days to get used to it. Let's hope he's right.

I meant to get in touch with Kindle Direct Publishing on Amazon today to see if they couldn't help me with getting Kindle Create up and running. I suspect they can't but I want to try. I wonder if it's because I'm using Windows 10 and not Windows 11. Lordy, I hope I don't have to upload a new OS but I will if it's what I have to do to get my next book published.

--Barbara