5:26am

That's what time the smoke alarm woke me this morning. Not with a fire alarm, but with a low battery chirp. It couldn't have waited 2 more hours? By the time I shoved a chair down the hall, climbed up to get the %$#@& thing, took out the battery, found a fresh battery (thank god), and installed it, I couldn't go back to sleep. I lay there for another hour trying my hardest to go back to sleep to no avail. So I got up.

 

I mixed up some eco-friendly weed killer (is that an oxymoron?), poured it into the sprayer I had never used, and sprayed the weeds on the patio and driveway. It was an unhappy surprise that I had to assemble the sprayer, but after a frustrating few minutes, I reread the directions more thoroughly and got it put together and spraying. You can see the weeds on the edge of the patio blocks. They all got sprayed.

 

The recipe is 1 gallon white vinegar, 1 cup salt, and 1 tablespoon of dish soap. You dissolve the salt in the vinegar then gently stir in the soap, pour it into the sprayer, pump up the sprayer, and go spray stuff. I was not confident at all but I read that it works best on a sunny day and it did. See? This stuff was bright green at 10 o'clock this morning and this is 4 o'clock in the afternoon. I dissolved the salt in 1/2 gallon and then forgot to dilute it with the other half so it was extra salty. Maybe that's why it worked so well. It didn't seem to bother any of the wildlife that eats the fallen seed where I sprayed. Maybe they like things pickled and salty.

 

The lilies are still blooming. Today you get more of the dark pink lilies.

 

And the red & yellow ones. Those two are my faves. Although I can't believe I like the pink ones as much as I do.

 

In the afternoon I sat down here, pulled up one of the unfinished short stories, read it a few times, and finished it. I added four pages and am happy with what I did. Yay me! Now if I can just do that about a dozen more times I'll be really happy.

 

Today's drawing prompt was Bottles. I have a glass bottle on my desk filled with tiny rocks with feathers and sagebrush sticking out of the top. It was the only bottle I found so that's what I drew. I'm very pleased with my feathers this time. They don't look like leaves.

 

And here's today's gratitude journal. I'm grateful that I finished that story and also grateful for the dishwasher. I purely love filling it with soap, plugging it in, hooking up the hose, and turning it on. It's a portable one, in case you're confused, because I have so little cupboard space.

 

I almost forgot. A Downy Woodpecker landed on the suet nuggets this morning and on the side where I could see it and take its picture. I was happy to see it, it's been a while.

 

That's all I've got. I'm fading fast. I'm going to finish my Jell-o and my pretzel rod, play a little Spider Solitaire, and hit the sack. I've got a Zoom in the morning with cda to critique another piece of Christmas at Seaview and the epilogue of her historical fiction novel. She's been writing it for over 20 years and is finally within sight of the finish line. That's gotta feel good.

--Barbara