The Market

I got up early this morning because I needed to be there to set up for the Military Ave. Market at 8 o'clock. The doors opened at 9 o'clock and there was a nice steady stream of people for the two hours that I was there. I sold two copies of The Seaview while I was there and they sold one more The Seaview and one copy of Horizon after I left. My goal was to sell one book. Blew that out of the water. I've signed up and paid my share to attend the remaining seven markets this winter. I hope that my selling streak continues. Guess I'd better get cracking on signing up for a tax number so I can pay sales tax before someone catches on.

 

I left the market early because I had a date with LC for her birthday shop. I picked her up and we went to IHOP for lunch where she had a short stack of chocolate pancakes with chocolate chips in them, chocolate chips on top, and a chocolate sauce drizzle, with a squirt of whipped cream on top. Whew, that's a lot of chocolate. She managed to eat half of them. She had a pink lemonade too. Then we tackled the mall, spending time in Claire's for headbands and earrings, Bath & Body Works for lotion and hand sanitizer (there was a lot of fragrance sniffing), and Icing for more earrings. We cruised the rest of the mall but she wasn't interested in clothes or shoes so we called it a day.

The only drawing I did today was the Daily Art prompt which said to draw ears. Since I didn't have anyone else's ears to draw I managed to take a picture of my ear with my phone and drew it. I think I did okay. And I included the bee earring that I bought today. Actually I got a pair but I only drew my left ear, there's a bee earring in the right one too.

When I got home this afternoon I filled the birdfeeders and the peanut wreath and managed to catch the first squirrel stretching across to nab a peanut. I'm sure it'll take a day or two to lure back more birds and squirrels. You can see how dreary and overcast it was today. That picture was taken at around 3 o'clock. I want sun!

And that's it for me today. I went to Michaels for some yarn because I had two $5 vouchers that were threatening to expire so I had to spend them. Can't let those things go to waste.

--Barbara

Only A Dusting

That snow that was falling when I went to bed last night didn't make much of a showing. This morning the driveway was barely covered with snow and the upper part where there was the most salt wasn't snowy at all. I planned to go out and scrape the driveway clear but my tenant beat me to it. Aw.

Not one bird or squirrel has shown up at the feeders the last couple days. I'll admit that I haven't gone out to fill up the feeders like I should have so there's really nothing for them but open water. That usually brings a few birds and a squirrel or two but not this week. *shrug* I'll go out on Sunday and fill the feeders. See if I can't encourage a little wildlife action for next week.

On the next page of Dr. Seuss's Book of Animals was the cat following the overly-friendly dog and two fish, one thin and one fat. They were fun to draw and color.

Then I flipped open Sketching to find these wedding cakes. Meh. It was something to draw.

Tonight at Friday Night Knitting I finished the Toe Cap that I cast on last night and then dived back into knitting on the Limited Edition Wingspan shawl.

In the afternoon I went on Creativebug website and watched a couple episodes of watercolor classes. I'm thinking I should get out my paints again and work up to painting something. It seems a shame to have all that paper, paints, and brushes just sitting there on the shelves in the guest room. Maybe I'll get things out on Sunday and have a go.

I hauled up a card table and a folding side table to take to the Military Ave. Market tomorrow morning. I've got my box of books, my bag o'chair, and my book money wallet all set to go. I hope I sell at least one book.

--Barbara

Not So Much

We only got 3.5 inches of snow overnight, below the lowest total they predicted, and it stuck around 34 degrees all day so it was melting off of everything as the day went on. I could have waited until today to go to the library and the places that cancelled things could have gone ahead with plans but they were saying we were in for "snowmageddon" so we battened down the hatches and took cover. Someplace up north got 10.75 inches of snow. That's a lot.

I used the snowblower to clear the driveway because the stuff was the wet, heavy kind of snow that I wish we'd had before Christmas for IM to play in and make snowballs with. He wanted to have a snowball fight in the worst way and the dry, powdery snow didn't cooperate.

The next bird in Draw Like an Artist was a Downy Woodpecker. That's one bird that visits the feeders quite often so I had a little idea what it was supposed to look like. It turned out okay.

Then next in 10-Steps: Everyday Things was a bike. I can't tell you how many times I erased and redrew the wheels trying to get them round but I ended up with the lumpy ones you see here. It would be a very bumpy ride.

I decided to give the shawl a break and cast on a toe cap in worsted yarn on size 8 needles this evening. I promise that I won't let the shawl languish for long. Cross my heart. But I just needed something different, something smaller with bigger tools, something with the end in sight, to knit.

Today turned out to be a writing day. I managed to eke out 745 words in an hour or so and I even like some of them. Actually I like a lot of them, especially the last sentence of the scene.

And it's snowing again. Maybe we'll hit the 4" mark after all.

--Barbara

Blue Sky

 I was pleased to see pieces of blue sky when I opened the drapes this morning. It didn't last long but it was good while it lasted. Soon the thick overcast came back and the wind picked up. There's a Winter Storm Warning in effect for our county tonight and tomorrow. *sigh* 

So I went down to the library this afternoon to sort books instead of waiting to go tomorrow. There were boxes and boxes of books from what must have been a therapist or counselor. Nearly every book I laid my hands on went into the "Sociology" bin. That made the decision of where to put books simple but it meant that I filled the bin, emptied the books into a carton that got stacked against the wall, and nearly filled the bin again. Lots of single-subject books today.

On my way to the library I went out of my way to go to Office Max to pick up the Author cards I ordered last week. I think they turned out okay, they aren't a graphic design triumph but they'll get the job done. (I decided that it wasn't smart to have my email address and phone number on the blog.)

I finished drawing the shoes on the hats & shoes page of How to Draw People. They aren't very exciting but were easy to draw.

In Seuss-isms I turned to the page I drew last time and decided to turn my sketchbook 90 degrees and draw the whole page instead of just part of it. So we have the cat standing on a chair thinking really hard and what it's thinking up is a Glunk. No, I don't know what a Glunk is but it looks kind of like a dinosaur wearing a wig.

I was so proud of myself this afternoon. The nice Dropbox lady couldn't help me link the two accounts after all but she helped me see that I could sign in with my old old old email address, access my account that I got through Google Play on my phone, and finally finally finally cancel the subscription that I've had for years and never used. I've been trying to cancel it for months and it took about two minutes to do it once I was signed in with the right email account. And I was able to cancel another account for a knitting app that I didn't even know that I had while I was there. Hooray!

I got a 1099 form from Amazon because of the royalties they paid me which made me realize that I should probably pay sales tax on the books that I've personally sold. I called my tax accountant today and she's doing some research and will call me back. This author thing is getting complicated. Imagine how hard it'd be if I was successful at it!

--Barbara

No Weather Whining

I'm getting tired of myself always whining about the weather so I'm not going to do it today. The only thing I'll say is that this was the snow patch in the backyard this morning and by sunset it was almost gone. I still have a big bunch of snow along the driveway, though, I think I have the most in the neighborhood.

The last couple times I've gone out to top up the water in the birdbath a rabbit has come racing out from under my feet and I think this is the one. It seems to be sheltering under the patio step where it's out of the wind. Startles me.

I have to show you today's Daily Art page because it was a real challenge. On the opposite page there's a picture of a red zinnia in a grid and the prompt says to draw the flower and then color it in. I went to Michaels and bought seven colored pencils in different shades of red, mostly because I didn't have many red colored pencils but also because I didn't have any that matched up to the picture. Now I have plenty. I'm proud of the way this turned out.

Instead of copying little sketches out of Sketching I just put pencil to paper and drew stuff, as OJ says. He always draws a story but I just draw stuff.

Then from Dr. Seuss's Book of Animals I turned the page to find the same two kids as the page before and this overly-friendly-looking dog. There was a cat behind the dog but I ran out of paper. Next time.

My big accomplishment of the day was running and emptying the dishwasher. This is not a big job. The cycle takes about 40 minutes and then it takes all of 5 minutes to put everything away.

I know I said I wasn't going to complain about the weather but they're predicting a snow storm starting tomorrow night and all day Thursday. I hope it misses us.

--Barbara

And Now Rain

Such a dreary day! Bleak even. Today was one of those days when you had to turn on a light to do anything so I spent a lot of the day in the basement doing laundry. I have enough clothes that I don't have to do laundry too often... but who loves laundry?

This morning's rain was more like a drizzle. It took me a few tries to get a photo of raindrops in the birdbath.

And this pair of Sparrows were about the only birds out and at the feeders today. I saw one fluffy fat squirrel but it didn't stay long. It wasn't a fit day out for man or beast. There's still a little snow out there but I'm guessing not for long.

While the laundry was working in the basement I drew. First I turned to near the end of How to Draw People to the page with shoes and hats. These are the last of the hats. I'll draw the shoes next time.

The next bird in Draw Like an Artist was a Peacock. Holy Moses, that was intimidating but again I took it one step at a time and got through it. It isn't great but it's at least recognizable.

 

Then, just because, I pulled out 10-Steps: Everyday Things and found a moped to draw. It looked scary to start but it was pretty easy to draw. I like the white-wall tires.

 

I got an email from Dropbox the other day saying that it's full. I pay for an upgrade so I should have loads of space but evidently the accounts aren't linked. Turns out the upgrade is linked to an old email address that only took me an hour and three phone calls to re-access. Happily there was an email from over three years ago on there thanking me for upgrading with a transaction number that I could pass on to the lady at Google who is trying to help me. I have high hopes that I'll hear good news from her tomorrow. Or the next day.

After that I sat here at the laptop and wrote a few pages of novel. Not even a thousand words but I'm always happy to get something on "paper."

I can hear the rain falling right now. It's January in Wisconsin, nearly 9:30 at night, and it's 39 degrees and raining. Crazy.

--Barbara

More Melting

It got up to 41 degrees today so the leftover snow from just before Christmas is almost gone. There's a good-size patch of it in the backyard, as you can see, and a little on the patio, oh, and the drifts along the driveway and the street where the snowblower and the snowplow pile it up, but mostly it's brown outside. And we had sunshine from about lunchtime on. We also had a sharp little wind which made it feel colder but I went to the grocery because I was out of bananas and grapes and it was excellent to be out in the sunshine even for a few minutes.

Despite the sunshine I didn't have much energy to do anything today. I pulled out 10-Steps:Nature and drew the next figure which was a Hermit Crab. I was quite intimidated by it when I saw what it was but I decided to try and managed it pretty well.

Next I tackled the next page of Seuss-isms and that wasn't as successful an attempt. I don't know what this creature is supposed to be but it's supposed to be thinking hard. Mm, maybe, maybe not.

And that's it. I spent the rest of the day listening to an audiobook. Not knitting, just listening. Some days are like that.

--Barbara