The Last Class

Tonight was the final beginning watercolor class at the tech school artisan center. MK, DT, and I met in the parking lot at 4 and walked across the street to a restaurant for a bite to eat. I had a chicken fajita burrito which was excellent and an original churro which was divine. I'm so glad we have people from other cultures opening restaurants so we can try new things. The third time painting that sunset sky with the leaves over it was not the charm. I like the practice one I painted at home better. This time I didn't get the sky and water colors vivid enough.

 

Then I used the back side of the painting I did in last week's class to start another painting. It's stone steps with trees around them. It isn't finished and I'm not sure what to do with it to make it so. Maybe if I stare at it a while.

 

It was a woodpecker day today. First a Downy Woodpecker landed on the tube feeder and had a lovely time tossing seed onto the ground where the chipmunk couldn't fill its cheek pouches fast enough.

 

Later on a Red-bellied Woodpecker female visited the square green feeder a bunch of times. The first time I noticed her she was on the back side of the feeder so I had to wait to get a halfway decent picture. Then she came back and landed on the side so I could see her better. Good girl. And if you look real hard you can see the red smudge that gives her the name.

 

At lunchtime the pest nerd came for the last interior inspection of my program. From now on I'm in charge of removing any deceased mice that I find. Ugh. He'll come back quarterly to check the outside bait boxes but he says he thinks that they've filled all of the access holes so no more should be coming in. I hope he's right. Soon after the pest nerd left, the lawn mowers arrived. I love watching him speed around the lawn, turning on a dime, and cha-cha-ing to corral the leaves which he then picked up with the other mower with the bins on the back. 

 

Today's drawing prompt was Under the Sink. Can you imagine? What a crazy thing to have to draw but I did it. It's not bad.

 

 

My friend MW heard about a writers residence opportunity at William Faulkner's home and stopped over last night to tell me about it. I looked it up online today and it sounds like they're looking for southern writers and Mississippi writers in particular. I'm neither of those things. Oh well, guess I don't get to go to Mississippi.

Last night I got a call from DD saying that her dog had gotten sprayed by a skunk and since she was in her workshop which has ventilation to the outside she thought she got some on her too. Yuk. I wonder how many showers you need to take to get that smell off?

I spent a little time reading Anneke's Legacy on the Kindle this afternoon and found a couple places that could benefit from a little enhancement. Just the sort of thing I hope for when I email the manuscript to the Kindle. And I emailed the first draft of the blurb to cda for critique on Monday afternoon.

I watched part of a video about Anguilla's Sailing Regatta's history. I hope that there's also info about how the regatta is run and stuff like that because I want to have a character in the next Seaview book take part in the races. There was a book published about the Regatta in the late 1990's but I can't find a copy anywhere online. When I tried to call the number on the website, a recording told me that I didn't have enough money in my phone to make an overseas call. And I don't have time to fly down there to pick up a copy before November 1. Drat. Because on November 1 I'll start writing the next manuscript. Since NaNoWriMo disbanded or went out of business, ProWritingAid, the AI app I use for punctuation and grammar advice is hosting Novel November which is the same idea with a slightly different slant.

--Barbara