My Beloved

I can't let the anniversary of Durwood's passing go without sharing my favorite picture of the two of us. Above water, that is. His retirement job was with the portrait studio in Walmart so we got to get our pictures taken once a year without the sitting fee. I don't know who suggested this pose but we obviously liked it and the photographer was a good friend so there was a lot of laughing and smiling going on. I really miss the old guy. There's so much I'd like to tell him and he'd love watching LC and OJ grow.

 

This afternoon I attended a webinar about making our 7 KDP (Kindle Direct Publishing) Keywords work the hardest for us. I didn't learn a whole lot that I hadn't heard before but it motivated me to examine my KDP keywords for The Seaview and change out the ones that weren't working as well as they should. Since that book's the first in the series I concentrate most of my ads on it hoping that once people read the first one they'll go on to read the rest of the series. The keywords tell Amazon's algorithm where to put my ads so that they have a better chance of attracting a reader. Then I made some more new ads for the algorithm to play with. He said in the webinar that keeping creating new ads helps Amazon keep learning where to place your ads. It's complicated but I like making ads and it doesn't cost anything but time.

 

I was surprised when I glanced out to see one lonely little Stella d'Oro lily blooming among the weeds and leaves. The weeds are taking over so I hope the Cutting Edge guys come soon to rescue the plants. I spent some time this morning on stick patrol. That little fierce storm we had the other night, which also knocked out our power, flung a lot of branches from the neighbor's tree into my yard so I went out to gather them up to put at the curb.

 

Just down from the lily is this sedum plant. There's no color in the flowers yet but they're kind of pretty in their shades of green.  

 

Today's drawing prompt was Something Hot so I made up this red candle with its orange and yellow flame. Candles are hot as are red, yellow, and orange on the color wheel.

 

And I even drew a gratitude journal page for today with my pitiful gratitudes on it. 

 

I think I'm most grateful for the chocolate yogurt I whipped up after supper. It's a snap to make. I found a recipe on Facebook that I've adjusted to my taste. I use 2 cups of Chobani Plain Nonfat Greek Yogurt (because it's thinner than other brands). Then I stir in one 4-serving-size package of sugar free Jello Instant Pudding mix. The original recipe called for two packages of pudding but that made it taste so artificial and metallic I tried it with one package and that's better. The original recipe also used lemon but I love chocolate no matter what flavor it is so that's what I make. The recipe makes four servings and they're zero points so I can have it as an evening snack without guilt.

 

One of the window wells on the rental side leaks in the rain so I spent some time with the husband trying to figure out a way to divert some of the rain water farther out into the lawn so it flows away from the window well instead of into their basement. We discussed a few ideas that he'll try before I consider having the gutters replaced because there's a downspout right by the window well which, I'm sure, contributes to the water problem. It's always something.

--Barbara