Tulips The Bunnies Won't Eat

I've planted tulips and some years one manages to grow and flower. Things aren't looking good for this year. The tulips sprouted early and survived a snowfall that covered them up but as soon as they were uncovered again they were bitten right down to the ground. Today I found tulips that the bunnies can't eat. I painted them. They don't look exactly like tulips but they suggest tulips. I like the leaves especially but I like the flowers too.

The Downy Woodpecker showed up on the suet cakes today. I don't know how the little birds manage to land on things in the wind like we had today. It roared through the trees and all of the branches and the birdfeeders were swaying. The wind finally died down around sunset so maybe it'll be nice enough for me to go out and chase some weeds tomorrow. My Grandma Angermeier was always going out to the garden to chase weeds. I don't know why she said it that way but I like it. Always have.

Up on the retaining wall the sedum is making an appearance. I like the bluish green of the leaves and the compact clump of them. It'll be late in the summer before they flower but they're looking nice and green right now. Green is good.

I drew the Gratitude Journal this evening when I got home from supper with DS and family. I'm proud of the boxing gloves I drew to represent the conflicts in my manuscript, not that anyone punches someone out, but I thought it was a good way to depict conflict.

I'm about two-thirds through the seventh little ball of yarn on the Cashmere Sophie Scarf. One more to go! It takes a lot longer to knit through 45 yards when you only knit for a few hours on Friday nights but I'm just not really into knitting much these days but I don't want to quit because I like the people I knit with. I've rolled and pinned it up because having it hang down four feet is really awkward when I have to turn it around and go back. The orange marker is to tell me which side is the right side. I need that because the only row with something special to do on it is the eighth row so I need to keep track.

I've spent the last few days listening to the audiobook of Horizon. It's not too bad and it sounds like a real book. Amazing. Now I need to find another narrator to voice The Seaview and Island Dreams. I found out today how to relist the projects on ACX to attract another narrator. It'll take a few days to get the old contracts terminated and then I can go back on the hunt. I'm disappointed that my original choice can't get the Caribbean accents down to her satisfaction so I'm having to look elsewhere. Oh well. I'll get it figured out.

--Barbara

More Sprouts!

I went out this morning to fill the birdfeeders and saw that the bleeding hearts have sprouted tall enough to be seen between the stubs from last year's stalks. Bleeding hearts grow fast and tall, and they're one of the early bloomers.

Right next to the bleeding hearts the peonies are sprouting too. They're in a protected corner in the back yard right next to the privacy fence between the two patios so they don't get much sun. To be honest I'm not sure they get any sun at all during the year so it's a miracle that they're still growing and throwing out a flower or two every year.

Today's watercolor is a single stemmed rose. I made the stem too long so the flower is kind of crammed up at the top of the paper but despite that I like the way it turned out. The leaves turned out okay too. I find I have to use a smaller brush than the one the teacher calls for. I just can't control a gigantic round brush. It drips and makes too big a smear for me. That probably means I'm doing something wrong but using a bit smaller brush helps me make a picture that looks kind of like hers.

I saw two of my favorite springtime birds this morning. A pair of Goldfinches landed on the round feeder on opposite sides so I had to wait until the feeder turned so I could picture them both. I couldn't get both of their heads out at the same time but I did my best before they flew away.

Then a Nuthatch, another favorite, flew over to the platform feeder but by the time I got the camera up it had flown over to the suet pellets. Naturally it's on the side so I've got a side view of the bird but it's better than nothing.

I spent most of the afternoon finishing my conflict outline of the manuscript. I unplugged my laptop and set up shop on the kitchen table so I had a space to lay the legal pad alongside to make note taking easier. I haven't gone over the five pages of notes yet (or is it six?) but I know that there are holes, some big, some small, and one gigantic one that I have to deal with. Should be interesting.

I drew a few figures out of 20 Ways to Draw a Jellyfish before supper. I'm pretty pleased with all of them but I think I like the clownfish in the upper right the best. Is it because it's colored in? I don't know but maybe.

And there were a few things I was grateful for today so we have a Gratitude Journal page. Once again I luxuriated in a hot shower but didn't draw myself in the tub. You're welcome.

Today I got the first sample of the new cover for Better Than Mom's. This is the audiobook cover. Right now the paperback and eBook covers don't match the audiobook cover because they couldn't use the free graphic I used for the books. Over the months I've come to realize that I like the audiobook one better, it's brighter and more attractive, so I've ordered one made for the paperback and the eBook. That means that the stack of books in the living room will be out of date pretty soon. I missed being at the winter farmer's market this year. I sold a lot of books last year but the market was in a new venue and didn't have room for us. Dang it. Maybe next year. I need to find a map of all the Little Free Libraries in town so I can drive around dropping off a copy of the books with old covers so I'm ready with the new ones when the next book signing (May 11) comes around.

It was another overcast day today and it even drizzled a bit this afternoon. Enough to dampen the patio and make a few raindrop rings in the birdbath. There are some weeds in the backyard that are growing very tall so I'm hoping that it'll be nice on Saturday (I'm busy tomorrow) so I can go out with my digger and gardening gloves and get them yanked out.

Sorry about all the pictures today. Guess I got carried away.

--Barbara

At Least It Stopped Raining

We had one long rainy day. It didn't rain all the time but often enough that the birdbath is full and all of the pavement is wet. I had to go back to the grocery this afternoon because I forgot three very important items when I went yesterday. It wasn't raining when I went in but it was pouring when I came out. Fortunately I wore a windbreaker that's pretty waterproof and has a hood so I wasn't too soaked by the time I got to the car. I think it might be done raining for the day. I leaned out during one non-rainy period and took a picture of the lily sprouts on top of the retaining wall. It's so nice to see green up there.

I had Novel critique Zoom this morning and got lots of valuable comments. One thing that the facilitator recommended I do is outline the story now that it's finished-ish. I decided instead of a traditional outline I'll just list the problems and conflicts in each chapter so that I will know where I have to go back and beef things up. Just when I think that I'm getting close to being finished I realize that I'm not.

I didn't have much motivation to do lots of things today. I spent a lot of the afternoon listening to one of my own audiobooks. Horizon isn't half bad. It could use some editing and beefing up in the conflict area but it's not bad. After supper I decided that I should at least do a little watercolor painting with round brushes since I'm going to be taking a class in a month and I won't be using the dagger brushes in that class. I booted up a Creativebug watercolor class I took last year and skipped the first half of it to get to the painting recognizable stuff part. We started with leaves. Of course we did. But I think I'm happy with the way most of them turned out.

Then she moved on to branches with berries and little flower buds, also other branches and leaves. These turned out pretty well too.

 

There was a squirrel hanging from its hind legs up on the crook with the cob corn feeders and I actually managed to get a picture of it. I'm just amazed that they can hang there nibbling away and not fall off.

I couldn't think of things to be grateful for today. I sure wasn't grateful to be caught in the rain. I'm not grateful to have a touchy tooth (I think it's the weather change). So there's no Gratitude Journal page for today.

All I have to do tomorrow is take a shower and unload the dishwasher, not necessarily in that order. Maybe I'll get more of the novel outline accomplished. We'll see.

--Barbara

Trepidation

I did something this afternoon that I haven't done in years. I tidied up a short story and submitted it for publication in Creative Wisconsin Magazine. I read the story at the last Guild meeting and got some feedback so I did a little (very little) rewriting, linked it to an email, and hit Send. I got a very quick response that I'd made the editor laugh. I think that's a good sign.

When I was futzing with watercolors in the guest bedroom I happened to look out the window and noticed that the forsythia is starting to bloom. They're one of my favorite spring flowers. I remember Mom pointing them out when I was a little girl. So I went out to take a picture.

Then I saw that the lilac bush is leafing out and there are buds. Aren't they pretty? I can't wait until they bloom because they smell so great. This is an ancient lilac bush. It was in the backyard of the Liberty Street house when we first moved to Green Bay in 1962. Dad dug it out in the late 70s and was going to chuck it but I saved it and planted it in the backyard of the duplex. It likes it here. It was never very happy over on Liberty.

I booted up a brush exercises YouTube video this afternoon and this is what I painted. There's a little "painting" of flowers and leaves in the lower right corner of the blue and orange sheet but otherwise it's just brush strokes using only one brush--the 1/4" dagger brush. It was fun.

This male Goldfinch was flitting from crook to feeder and back today but I managed to catch him when he held still for a minute. I do love the bright yellow color and his rakish black beret.

I got a text this morning from DS that he was brewing today and did I want to stop by. Of course I did so I got dressed and went on over. Here he's finishing up grinding the grain to brew Yard Games IPA. That red machine is the grinder and it's connected to the mash tun by a long pipe that goes up to the ceiling and then down into the big vat where the magic begins.

I worked on the computer all day with writing stuff. I went through the whole manuscript looking to eliminate "so." There are a lot of words with "so" in them but there also were a lot of stand alone "so"s that I tried to get rid of. I think I took out a hundred, maybe more. And I added a page in the middle where I wasn't sure the last time I went through if I needed to check people out or just move on. I decided to check them out before moving on. That brought the page count up to 299! Holy cats, that's a lot of words! What I meant to write this paragraph about was the fact that I didn't go to the store for bananas (I was out of bananas and I forgot on the way home from Zambaldi) until about 6pm. The store wasn't crowded but the sky was threatening and it started to rain as I went into the store. Naturally I didn't go to the store during the day when it wasn't raining. I'm skilled like that. Here's the birdbath with raindrop rings in it. I'm enchanted by them.

I got two emails from prospective narrators today. I reread the audition scripts I wrote the last time and did a little adjusting and sent them off. Hopefully I'll hear from them soon as I'd like to get back on track.

--Barbara

It's Great Being Retired

Wanna know why? Because I can spend all day doing one thing, ignoring everything else on my "to-do" list, and enjoying it. Last week when I told the facilitator of my Novel critique group that I'd discovered an age discrepancy in a character from The Seaview who has a much bigger role in The Seaview: Open For Business she recommended that I make a document with names, ages, hair & eye color, and a few other facts. So that's what I've been doing the last few days. Today I also finished going through the sequel taking out a lot of dialogue tags and then I realized that I should have a character list for The Seaview because that might help the audiobook producer. So I took this list, eliminated the characters not in the first book and then skimmed the old manuscript for characters not in the sequel and added them in. Whew.

I saw that some of the tiny bulbs have bloomed out front. This grape hyacinth was standing there looking perfect and I managed to get down to its level and take its picture. It's barely 4" high.

The big hyacinths are blooming too. They're spread out across the front of the house. I could smell their fragrance when I went out to take their picture. Mm, heavenly. No wonder they were one of Dad's favorite flowers.

This regular old daffodil that's yellow with a yellow trumpet is one of the bulbs that I planted nearly 46 years ago the first autumn we lived here when I was enormously pregnant with DS. I'm astounded that a few of those original daffodils are still blooming.

A Mourning Dove took a bath this afternoon. Naturally it had its back turned so all I got was a picture of its back end but I was glad to see a bird taking advantage of the newly clean birdbath even if it was just a goofball of a Mourning Dove. They're so awkward and silly looking.

I did a little drawing once my eyes got tired from staring at a computer screen all day. They're out of Things With Wings. I like the beetle the best, I think.

Today's Gratitude Journal was a pretty easy one. Granted, I spent most of the day sitting in one place so my choices were limited but I managed.

I've been in communication with my audiobook narrator and she can't get the Caribbean accent to her satisfaction so I'm going to have to look for another narrator for The Seaview and Island Dreams. One good thing, she posted about it in her social media and just emailed me that four of her narrator friends are interested in auditioning. I'm disappointed that she can't do it because I've been so happy working with her and loved the way the first two turned out but I appreciate her being honest about it. I hope the other narrators are as easy to work with as she is.

--Barbara

Wow!

What a day we had! It was mostly sunny and got up to 75 degrees. SEVENTY FIVE! You'd better bet I had the patio door and a bunch of windows open to air out the house. I went out to fill the birdfeeders and also removed the heater from and cleaned out the birdbath. Now it looks like someplace that a self-respecting bird can get a drink or take a bath instead of a swamp.

I haven't been paying attention so I missed the "little pink fists" stage of the growth of the rhubarb. I was bowled over when I glanced at it today and saw all these green leaves. Not too long before I can make a batch of rhubarb sauce to put over my Greek yogurt. Yum.

First thing this morning before I did anything else (even before I got dressed) I made a batch of Egg Drop Soup. I was happy to find baby bok choy in the grocery on Friday so that went in along with a can of chopped portobello mushrooms and a can of white meat chicken. I know it's a lazy way to do it but it's so easy to chop up the bok choy and then drain the two cans and just chuck them into the pot. I can make a cauldron of soup in less than 30 minutes and that's with having to go downstairs to get cornstarch when the upstairs can runs out. I had some for supper. It's delish. The batch makes two big containers like this so I'm set for supper for about 10 days. Yay!

I took another stab at the watercolor pattern painting. This one's better, I think, except for that one motif on the right edge that was too wet when I painted other parts and it all smooshed together.

I heard a raucous bird call and looked out to see a couple courting pairs of Brown-headed Cowbirds. The males were calling trying to impress the females. They didn't seem all that interested. Cowbirds are the ones that lay their eggs in other birds' nests and then let them raise the Cowbird babies. Terrible.

And I finally caught a Chickadee standing still. I had to take the picture through two layers of double-pane glass so it's not the clearest photo but it's a Chickadee and it was holding still.

Today's Gratitude Journal was an easy one. Sunny and warm and a clean birdbath. What's not to love?

Instead of chasing after "so" in the manuscript this afternoon, I started at the beginning and eliminated a whole raft of dialogue tags. It amazes me how many of them I can get rid of because it's obvious who's talking. Now if it's obvious to readers is another story. I get to send 200 pages to the Novel group facilitator so I'm sure she'll let me know if I've cut out too much.

--Barbara

It Was Sunny All Day

Sunny and warm, but the best part of the day was LC's piano recital. She played her song beautifully for someone in her first year of piano. I'm sure her knees were knocking but she went up there and played like a champ. I'm so proud of her. In fact, she's the first item on my Gratitude Journal page today. Everything else pales in comparison.

The watercolor today was patterns. I'm sure that I did this wrong if you can make paint strokes wrong. My arrangement isn't the best, crowded on the left and spread out on the right, and I didn't use the whole sheet of paper so I could have put this all in the middle. Instead I crammed it all in on the left. Maybe I'll take another stab at it tomorrow. I don't hate it and it was kind of fun just making paint marks.

There are hardly any suet pellets left in the feeder as you can see, but this Downy Woodpecker managed to cling to the feeder so that he could peck away at what was left.

And the male Cardinal hopped around on the ground for a while looking for things to eat. I need to fill all the feeders tomorrow so that there's food for all.

I had an online writing workshop this morning that gave me a lot to think about. She mostly focused on mystery and crime writing but a lot of what she said pertains to my kind of writing too, like putting trouble and worry on every page. ON EVERY PAGE. I'm having trouble putting trouble in every scene or chapter, how am I ever going to put it on every page. I think I could do worry on pages too. Rose worries about how she's going to pay for everything if she doesn't get more paying guests. She worries about Calvin getting in and fiddling with the plumbing thinking that she'd have to call him to fix it. (She doesn't.) She has to worry about the rumors that Mrs. Whiting spreads about her looking down on the people of Anguilla and how she's only there to make money. Oh, and she's only interested in Iggy for the sex. Sorry to bore you with this but sometimes it helps to talk it out.

Another thing she said was to cut down or eliminate most of the instances of "but," "so," "some," and "that." I spent two hours after the recital going through the manuscript with the Find function to make decisions on the over 350 instances of the word "but." Some of them were butter or button but the large majority of them were just plain old "but." I cut out about 100 of them. Tomorrow I'll tackle "so."

And she said to eliminate most dialogue tags, the "he said" and "she said" in the story. I don't know how I feel about that. I'll eliminate some of them but if I feel like it's hard to tell who's talking I'll leave them in.

So that was my day. I hope you had a good Saturday. We went for custard after the recital. I had chocolate with hot fudge. It was yummy.

--Barbara