Brrr

Alexa told me yesterday that there was a freeze warning for last night. I wasn't sure I believed that it would freeze but when I was making the bed I looked across the street and there was frost on the roofs. So I went out and checked the birdbath. Yep, frozen. It thawed out pretty quickly once the sun hit it but it was definitely frozen overnight. BTW, I was very glad that I'd put the heavier blanket on the bed.

 

Today was a Downy Woodpecker day. The Red-bellied Woodpecker showed up too but only stayed a nanosecond so there's no picture of it. The first Downy that I saw was hanging on the bottom of the suet cakes feeder just having a nice breakfast.

Next came this one (or maybe the same one) that hung out on the Slinky waiting its turn on the suet cakes. It had a little ride on the Slinky when it landed. A few Sparrows kept flying over and the Downy waited patiently until they were gone before flapping over to have a snack.

Then in the afternoon this Downy (not the same one) landed on the platform feeder and explored the seed in there. That surprised me because they don't usually have anything to do with birdseed but I guess this guy is a rebel.

Today's drawing was out of 20 Ways to Draw a Butterfly or Things With Wings. I like the way the eagle in the upper left turned out. The rest of them... meh.

This bunny was peeking in the patio door but as soon as I grabbed the camera it turned away as if I wouldn't notice it. I wonder what they see when they look in. Can they even see through the glass or are they looking at their reflection?

And I drew a gratitude journal page after supper. I wish I could draw the upper part of a body as easily as I can draw the legs and shoes but I can't so I don't.

As if the frozen birdbath wasn't enough of a sign there were about six Juncos in the backyard this afternoon poking around in the grass looking for birdseed. Juncos come down from the Arctic to winter here so they're another sign that Old Man Winter is on the way. I took a picture but it was blurry.

I had trouble getting down to writing today. I worked on a critique for Monday in the morning and tried my darnedest to get some manuscript work done in the afternoon but didn't have much luck. I did a little piddly editing but didn't add anything new. Just haven't been inspired lately.

There was the monthly Zoom meeting of the Book Marketing Support Group through Wisconsin Writers Assn. tonight. They talked about figuring out who your fans are and how to reach them. Very daunting. But I have the first real meeting with my virtual assistant tomorrow morning so I hope I learn ways that she can help me reach out.

--Barbara

Mo-o-o-o-m!

I got a phone call just after lunch today from DS. He was moving things around at the brewery and what he was moving caught a spigot on one of the Brewer For a Day tanks and knocked it off. He grabbed the spigot and shoved it back in place to hold in the gallons of beer but as he said, he was being the little Dutch boy and needed help. I hopped in the car and hurried over to do what I could. I retrieved some ratchet straps out of his car and he was able to strap the spigot into place while I held it. Whew. He planned to pump the beer into one of his big tanks so that it could continue becoming beer while he figured out how to fix what he broke. I was glad to be able to rescue him even a little. This tank he's leaning on is like the one that got de-spigoted today. It holds plenty of beer but he figures he only lost a couple gallons. I'm just glad he had his phone handy or he'd have had to wait until the taproom manager came in an hour later. Exciting!

This morning there were a bunch of Mourning Doves on the ground under the feeders and this pair on the platform feeder. I figure the one on the roof is saying, "Are you done yet?" There isn't room for two Mourning Doves in there at once so they take turns.

For today's drawing I drew the last few figures in 20 Ways to Draw a Tree, not the first time I've been to the end of that book. I like the turnip and the butterfly on the right. I decided to color them with colored pencils because the butterflies were all colored and I liked the way they looked.

And I made time to draw a gratitude journal page. I was grateful for being able to help at the brewery and I volunteered to pick the kids up after school so that DS had time to clean up after his little adventure.

 

But what I was, and am, most grateful for is I went in for a fasting blood draw this morning and got the results this afternoon. I don't know what most of the numbers mean but I do know that my hemoglobin is up to 13.2 from 12.9 three months ago. This is great news. I've got my annual physical on Monday so I'll find out what the rest of the numbers mean but I was most anxious to learn how my hemoglobin was doing.

In the middle of the night last night when I got up to pee I realized that I was cold. The flannel sheets and the summer blanket weren't cutting it anymore so I grabbed a small blanket from the back of the chair and tossed that over me. This morning I took off the summer blanket and exchanged it for the electric blanket. I haven't plugged it in yet but I never sleep with it turned on anyway. There's a freeze warning for tonight too. Eesh. I'm not ready for it. We've had such warm weather until the last few days it's a little hard to adjust. I was wearing a tee shirt and hoodie when I picked up the kids and it wasn't warm enough to stand in the wind waiting for them to come out of school. I was wishing for a warmer jacket.

I had the last CS tomato on a BLT for supper last night. Those tomatoes were so good I wanted to make them last but tomatoes are fleeting so I gobbled them up. Yum.

--Barbara

We Interrupt Yoga...

... to bring you a Red-bellied Woodpecker on the suet pellets. Just as I was changing yoga positions this morning I saw a flash of red and this Woodpecker landed on the feeder. I delayed moving to the next pose to get this shot of it. It's still kind of hanging off the bottom of the feeder, isn't it? Maybe it likes it like that.

Then when I was getting a snack this afternoon I glanced out the window over the kitchen sink and saw a little Downy Woodpecker on the suet cakes. It was on the back side but it moved just enough that I could snap a picture of its head.

Early this morning, before yoga, the flock of Sparrows descended and were on every feeder. There were three of them on the suet pellets so that's the shot I chose to show you but they were on the suet cakes and the finch feeder and the round feeder too.

I spent most of the day working on finding better keywords for The
Seaview. That's the book I'm focusing on going through the videos in Ad School. I've got a program called Publisher Rocket that does keyword searches when you type in a phrase or a word and tells you a rating for it. One thing they tell is how many people search using that phrase and then you see a green, yellow, or red button that tells you the chance that it's a good keyword and indicates the competition if you use it. I had a list of about 25 keywords that I'd researched in August so I looked at them again and crossed off ones that I didn't think were a good match. I found about 15 more that I thought might be good and added them to my list. I changed two of the keywords I used in August because someone told me if I put "romance" in the Amazon Keywords list Amazon will show my book in romance searches and it's not really a romance, it doesn't fit the strict "Romance" expectations and will get passed over by readers. It's a lot to think about and learn but I'm glad that I have the time and energy to work on it. The ones highlighted in yellow are the ones I'm using.

For today's drawing I used Drawing Nature and once again went waaaay over the promised 15 minutes to draw the sloth. It turned out okay, I think. It wasn't too difficult to draw and it looks kind of like a sloth.

I decided to give my foot one more day of rest so I didn't take a walk. It's feeling better and I don't want to push it. This whole getting older thing is a real pain.

--Barbara

Rainy with Afternoon Sunshine

It was overcast and rainy this morning and into the afternoon, dampening the fans at the Packers game. But during the game and after the game the sun shone for a little while so that was good. I put the sunshine and clouds and rain on the gratitude page I drew after supper. Along with my major accomplishment of shifting my summer shoes into the guest room closet and shifting my winter shoes into my main closet.

Once I returned the small people after lunch at the Home Town Cafe, I sat down at the laptop and finished the homework for Video 5 of the Ads Challenge. I made a couple FB group posts and then I made a couple keyword ads and posted about them. I learned about this utility/tool that gathers "also boughts" from book listings that are similar to my books so I can use the titles and author names as keywords. That way if someone types in one of those keywords when they're searching for a book, there's a good chance that my "ad" (aka cover) will show up on the page as a possible suggestion.

When I was walking around the block the other day I saw these two trees had changed color so I took their picture. I noticed that once again there's a light pole in the middle of the picture. I'm doomed to have streetlight poles in my pictures. *sigh* The colors are looking okay but they're not the vivid colors the leaves are in a season that isn't as dry as this one has been.

I pulled out the set of markers that LC bought me for my birthday and drew a couple flowers out of Draw 500 Fabulous Flowers. I chose the wrong yellow marker for the edge of the flowers. The one I chose was too close to the orange one. Oh well. I'll do better next time.

And it's raining again. I wish it would just RAIN instead of the piddly sprinkles that are annoying and don't water anything. I don't mind the grass not growing because it's been so dry but everything's so crispy. That's why the leaves are just brown and dropping for the most part instead of changing color and floating down.

OJ got out a tiny tea set that I bought ages ago at the dollar store and made a tea party for the three of us. He very carefully filled the tiny teapot and then dribbled a little water into each tiny cup. He said that we needed sugar so I tipped about a half-teaspoonful into an extra cup. He and LC used their mini spoons to scoop a few grains into their "tea" and exclaimed that it was pretty good. Yeah, they both really needed to drink sugar water. But it was fun to see them sipping away with their pinkies in the air.

--Barbara

Two In One Day!

Every morning when I boot up my laptop one of the things I check is the report of sales on the Kindle Direct Publishing website. This morning it said I'd sold 2 books so far this month, both Kindle ebooks. Just now I checked again and sometime today I sold 2 more books, paperbacks this time. Hooray! I spent a lot of the afternoon watching Ad Challenge and Genre Guild videos to try to learn how to figure out how my ads are doing. I had to figure out ad spend vs. royalties and over the lifetime of my ads I'm doing very well, slow but well. In the Genre Guild video I learned that I needed to remove "romance" from my keywords on all of my books because they're not Romance novels, they just have a little romance in them. Big difference.

This morning I waited patiently with the camera up and ready for a Chickadee to visit the platform feeder. There were two of them taking turns but they're so quick to fly in and out that if I hadn't had the camera ready I'd never have gotten this shot. It's not a portrait but at least you can see the bird.

For my drawing today I pulled out Dr. Seuss's Book of Animals, was flipping the pages, and saw these bees. I like bees. I like drawing bees. My initial is B. So I drew them.

I got a delivery this afternoon. The new book stands I ordered from Amazon came. I pulled out five from the 24 in the package and I think they'll work just fine. Does that mean I have to write 19 more books to use them all? Nah. I also got a 10-pack of WW chewy bars but I didn't take their picture.

I didn't take a walk today. My foot still hurts. I don't know what I did to it but I sure wish it would feel better soon. It makes me feel old. I went to the grocery and tried to stride around there instead of strolling. Maybe that counts.

--Barbara

Writerly Stuff

A few weeks ago I went to a local print shop and asked for a quote to make a banner to display at the Farmer's Market if we got a booth for the winter. I didn't get the quote so I called on Monday and they had sent it but I didn't get it so they resent it. I got it, changed the banner dimensions, got another quote, and ordered it. Today I got the email that it was done and ready for pickup. So I did. It isn't perfect. The blue letters are spotty but I think it'll be okay.

For most of the day I messed around with scenes in the manuscript. When I was at The Clearing last week I put back in all of the 3rd person scenes I took out earlier so they weren't printed off and in the binder so I did that. Tomorrow I have to write something new. I have to. I'll think of something.

The only birds that were at the feeders today were Sparrows and a few Mourning Doves. I did see a Robin chase a Dove off the top of the fence but that's all the exciting wildlife I've got, so I'll show you another one of Dad's roses. Pretty soon it'll be too cold for roses so I'm showing them while I've got them.

After supper I took a few minutes and drew a gratitude journal page for today. The big gratitude was that it got up to 79 degrees today. Seventy-nine! In October! I took a walk but I've hurt my left foot somehow. It doesn't bother me when I'm walking but when I sit for a while it really hurts when I get up and start to walk. What's up with that?

Tonight at Friday Night Knitting I worked along on the Denim Washcloth. I've got the pattern memorized and was very careful to keep my right side and wrong side rows correct. Don't want any "design elements" (unfixed booboos) in this washcloth.

That's all I've got tonight. I finished listening to an audiobook and started an audio collection of short stories. Stupid foot. Every time I wriggle my toes it hurts. I hope I didn't break something. I've been having a BLT for supper since I have CS's homegrown tomatoes. Three left. Gotta get more chicken bacon tomorrow so I have enough bacon for the tomatoes. Can't just have an LT sandwich. Well, I suppose I could but why?

--Barbara

Visiting Birds

I had a small variety of birds visiting the feeders and the birdbath today. First thing when I opened the drapes I saw a House Finch come to the platform feeder. It didn't stay long and it was kind of tucked in the feeder but you can see his soft rose pink chest and head.

Another Red-bellied Woodpecker showed up on the suet pellets. I never saw its head so I couldn't tell if it was the same bird or a different one. Despite the feeder being full it hung from the bottom with its tail aimed at the house so this is all I saw of it.

A couple Mourning Doves were getting a drink and this one decided to take a little bath. It didn't flap around like the Sparrows and Robins do but it dunked itself a couple times and did a little flutter. Nothing too dramatic but it must have felt clean because it flew away.

Just so you know, I saw the first Junco of the season yesterday. I didn't get a picture of it because it landed on a patio chair and only stayed for a few seconds but it was definitely one of those "only comes in the winter" birds. *sigh*

Today's drawing went okay. These are out of 20 Ways to Draw a Jellyfish and I think I like the shark in the upper right the best. Although the cormorant head with the fish in its beak at the bottom was pretty fun to draw too.

I took a walk after supper and snapped a picture of some autumn leaves against the blue sky.
Pretty.

I wasn't very motivated today but managed to pad out the scene I started yesterday using the names of a couple guys I went to grade school with and their wives as new guests at Rose's bed & breakfast. I use so many names because people come and go so quickly. Then I printed off a few scenes that I hadn't put in my binder and did a little rearranging on the computer. I'm up to 68k words, only 12k to go! Once I get there I'll let the manuscript marinate for a couple weeks and then dive back into it for the next edit.

Today's Gratitude Journal page was a pretty easy one. My knitting friend, CS, brought fresh tomatoes from her garden to give us on Monday night so I made a BLT for supper. So good! I've got four more tomatoes. Guess what I'm having for supper tomorrow night. And the next night. And the next night. Until they're gone.

I looked on Amazon for book stands that fold up instead of the rigid plastic ones I have. The plastic stands take up a lot of space in the rolling backpack I use to take books to events and I want to take more books and less volume of stands so I bit the bullet and ordered some. I was hoping to be able to order 10 or 12 but I think the smallest quantity was 24. Oh well, they weren't too expensive and I'll have enough for all occasions.

I just got a text from DS. They can see the Northern Lights from their place. I went out to look but there's too much light pollution in my neighborhood for them to be visible. Too bad. However he sent pictures. Here's the best one. So cool! I'm more than a little envious.

--Barbara