Look Who Woke Up

I was getting my coat on to go to the polling place this morning when I saw something small and fuzzy dart onto the edge of the patio. It was a chipmunk! They hibernate so they're not out in the snow and cold. This little guy or gal is the first one I've seen since last fall. I think it looks very well groomed for something that has been down for a long winter's nap. You can also see a bunch of rabbit raisins around it. We must have lots of rabbits because the raisins are all over.

 

And speaking of the polling place, I was voter number 119 this morning. It's so important to go vote. I can't say it enough. If you can't go, get an absentee ballot and make sure your voice is heard. One cool thing, when you go in you have to say your name for the clerk and I overheard the man next to me. I recognized his name because we went to high school together. I told him my maiden name and he smiled and said, "From school." That's all, just a glancing blow but it made me smile.

 

This Robin was scooting around the backyard looking for something to eat. It pecked at some seed on the grass but I was surprised that it didn't go over to the suet nuggets I dumped out yesterday. Although it looked like the night rabbits made inroads.

 

I snapped a photo of two House Finches on the square green feeder. Of course, the colorful male was behind the drab female so his raspberry head isn't quite as prominent as it might be. I was just happy to see them.

 

Today's creature is a Dolphin. I like the way this turned out and I like the way I colored it. I'm all around happy with it for a change.

 

In the afternoon after my haircut and filling up with gas, I sorted through short stories and scheduled a few on Substack ahead into May. It's getting to the point where I'm going to have to do more short story writing. That's okay. I have that carton of prompt writing to glean story starts from. Some of the ones from the last gleaning haven't turned into anything. I like them but when I try to make them into a story it doesn't work. One of the stories I scheduled today should have been published in March but I forgot so it's going in in May. Oh well. And I figured out how to link my website at the end of the stories so that people can no only see my book covers, they can click the link to go check them out.

 

I finished the last of the Easter leftovers today. Mm, I do like ham. I squirted some horseradish spread on it and folded it into a little flour tortilla. It was delicious.

--Barbara 

Filled

I went out this morning, dumped the suet nuggets, scraped the crud out of the bottom of the feeder, and refilled it. It wasn't exactly crud, it was soggy, powdered nuggets that got snowed and rained on and made mush. Now I've filled the feeder with nice fresh nuggets so that the birds and squirrels have something more appealing to eat. I tried to shake fresh seed into the ports on the square green feeder. One side cleared out but the other side must have gotten the bulk of the snow because it also is cruddy. So one of these days I'll dump out the seed, clean the feeder, and refill it.

 

I spent some time admiring the flowers I got from LC yesterday. I'm always attracted to the bouquets of brightly colored asters or daisies in the store so I'm really enjoying this little vase of them. She's stuck them in floral foam so I have to make sure they've got enough water so they last as long as possible.

 

Today's creature drawing is a Frog. I seem to have a problem making things round. As was yesterday's rabbit, the frog is longer and leaner than the one in the book. I like it, don't get me wrong, but I always hope my drawing will turn out more like the example than it ever does.

 

Every day I look to see if the daffodils are blooming. So far, they aren't but they're trying. It's supposed to be sunny and warmer for the next few days. Maybe that will encourage them. 

 

In the continuing saga of me, Zoom, and the internet, I had a Zoom this morning with cda and got kicked off again so I got on my phone and that worked better, a little. I still got kicked off but could get back on right away. I remembered that I have a service agreement with Cyberworks, a local computer store, so I called and got an appointment this afternoon for a remote appointment. The technician scrolled around in my laptop's innards and said he didn't think the problem was my laptop. He has high hopes that the new modem arriving tomorrow will fix the problem. I'm reserving judgement. He did give me a work-around. Since I can get back online on my phone, I'll use my phone HotSpot to get online with my laptop and that should solve the problem. I hope. This is making me crazy. I'm on Zoom so much, at least 10 hours a week, that I need it to work and work all the time. Isn't technology wonderful?

I was sitting here talking to cda when I heard what sounded like raindrops hitting the window. It wasn't rain, it was snow. It didn't last long and it didn't stick around, but a snow squall came screaming through this morning just to remind us that we live in a place that can have all four seasons in one day. 

--Barbara 

Happy Easter!

Now that it's the actual day I'm saying Happy Easter one more time. I had a lovely day. DIL1's parents invited me to their holiday lunch in Shawano which is about 35 miles northwest of Green Bay. And I did not get pulled over for speeding this trip. Whew. We had ham, carrots, green beans, scalloped potatoes, and their family's traditional green jello stuff. It's good. All of it was good. And there was lemon pie for dessert. No one left hungry.

 

There were gifts! LC made the older ladies little vases with bright asters in them. OJ made everyone a clay sculpture. Mine is a tentacle which unfortunately broke at the end when I was bringing it home. *sniff* And they brought the grandmothers each a bar of soap from Colonial Williamsburg. They had lots of tales of their adventures in Virginia. It was fun to hear. Oh, and HZ gave me a nice kitchen towel that I immediately put out so it didn't get in the picture.

 

Before I left for lunch I got out my drawing things and found a Rabbit to draw. This isn't the round, plump bunny in the book but it's not bad for a quick sketch.

 

I was lucky enough to catch a squirrel on the suet nuggets. There must be something wrong with them because they all take one nibble and then drop off and run away. I should go out, dump them, and refill the feeder with fresh nuggets.

 

I had a momentary panic this evening when I was watching television. The picture stopped, the screen went black, and it said "reconnecting." I looked at the router and the blue "everything's okay" light had turned red. I immediately called Spectrum but was told that there was a problem in my neighborhood, not just at my house, and they were working to fix it. It was back on in a couple minutes. That was a relief.

--Barbara

Tiny Flowers Coming

I went out to the flower bed in front of the house during the few minutes this afternoon when it wasn't drizzling to check out what's sprouting and what might be ready to bloom. I was most excited to see the tiny squills just about ready to open. They're tiny, only about 1 1/2 inches tall and the flowers will be about the size of a pinky nail. But they're so cute. Little white bells with pale blue stripes. Can't wait.

 

And the daffodil buds are taller and just about ready to open. When I was a kid in Evansville, IN, the daffodils bloomed for Easter. Not so in Wisconsin. The grocery store daffodils are blooming but the garden ones aren't ready quite yet. That's okay. I can be patient.

 

While I was out there I took a picture of the remnants of last month's Blizzard Elsa. There's not enough snow left to make a respectable snowman, although I can see a mound of snow down at the other end of the block and, of course, the parking lot mountain behind the neighbor's house isn't all melted yet. 

 

I splurged on some reduced fat Cheezits (they were on sale) and spent some time portioning them out into little snack bags. Fourteen crackers per bag counts 2 WW points. I confess I ate the broken ones.

 

Most of the day I spent critiquing, first cda's submission for Monday, and then two of the ones for Wednesday. I've figured out how to make comments on them without writing in the lines of the work. If you highlight what you want to comment on, a little box pops up on the right margin, and if you click on it, you can write what you want to say and the little box stays there so the author can read what you said. Very tidy.

 

In bird news, a Robin scampered over to the ground under the square green feeder and evidently found something to eat. Fallen seed would be my guess. Anyway, it stayed there for enough time to have a picture taken. Two or three pictures even.

 

The Spectrum maintenance tech showed up today and spent some time up in his bucket (in the drizzle) checking the wires outside. They're all just fine, he said. Which means my laptop is probably the culprit of my Zoom problems. He gave me one tip to try to fix it by lowering the bitrate (I have no idea what that means or does), so I googled it and followed the steps and lowered something. I hope it's the right something. Monday morning's Zoom with cda will be the test. But I will be visiting a computer store to see about a system that will be able to handle hours of Zooming at a time. The tech also suggested getting a new modem from Spectrum. Maybe it's the modem. They gave me a new router last week but I've got the same modem. I'll call them and get them to send me a new one. Couldn't hurt. I love technology.

 I spent so much time critiquing today that I didn't make time to draw so no pictures of creatures or food.

Happy Easter! Tomorrow's Easter and I get to go to Shawano to spend the afternoon with DIL1's parents and DS and family. I just hope it's warm enough that the roads aren't icy. HJZ said they had ice again today. Ugh. But it's supposed to be close to 50 tomorrow so it should be alright.

--Barbara

Arrgh!

My internet stayed stable during my 2-hour Zoom this afternoon but it kicked me out almost at the beginning of my 3-hour Zoom tonight. So I Zoomed on my phone, tried rebooting the system by unplugging the router which didn't work, and ended up calling to have them send the magic signal. So frustrating. Next time I'll try Zooming on my iPad. If that works, maybe the problem is in my laptop. This has to be fixed. I Zoom a lot.

 

There was a Robin in the backyard today running around, stopping, and then looking at the ground as if there was something interesting there. I didn't see it pull up a worm.

 

Then a Chickadee landed on the birdbath long enough for a picture. It flew over to the square green feeder and I took another picture but I'll save that one for tomorrow.

 

This afternoon I went out into the backyard to pick up all of the trash that blew in over the last couple of windy days. As I stepped out the patio door I saw that the day lilies have sprouted in the bed under the kitchen window. More green! That's a good sign.

 

Today's drawing is Peppers. A bell pepper and chili peppers. They were easy to draw and fun to color.

At Friday Night Knitting I started working on the left front of the Vienne cardi. I got this far before it got so annoying that I put it away and went back to knitting some hat ribbing. The cardi back kept slipping off my lap and pulling on my needles so I felt like my knitting was getting too tight. Maybe when I knit on the couch I can figure out a way to control it better.

 

 And that was my day. I worked on a critique of one of the submissions for next Wednesday and made lemon-lime Jello. Now I'm ready to put on my jammies and hit the hay.

--Barbara 

Freezing Rain

I knew it was raining before I even looked outside this morning. I could hear the little drops pecking on the window over my head and when I opened the shade, I could see the ice coating on the branches out the window. My first view of the freezing rain effects was this view of the Slinkys wearing their icy layer.

 

But my favorite view was seeing the icicles dangling from the wind chimes. I think it looks like a fancy chandelier. I didn't have to go anywhere today so I wasn't worried about driving on icy streets. This week is Spring Break for the city's school kids so there weren't kids walking in the freezing rain or riding buses sliding on the streets or parents giving slow motion rides to school. 

 

I spent most of the day working to integrate the comments from yesterday's critiques into the first 25 pages of my manuscript. I added a lot of explanatory information that will give people new to the series a little background about the main characters. It worked pretty well to have my original copy on the right side of the screen and the critiqued copy on the left so I could work back and forth between them. 

 

Today's drawing is a Sloth. It was very easy to draw and color. I like the calm look on its face and the two-color leaves on the branch.

 

The Spectrum tech came right around noon today and the tech was a woman. She was very thorough and discovered that whatever is happening to the internet isn't only happening to me but to other customers down the line from me. But she said she thought I was getting it worse. Now I have to wait for a maintenance crew to come to look at the wires and stuff outside. The odd thing is that although the laptop gets kicked off I can get back on on my phone immediately. Gosh, I hope I don't need to buy a new laptop but if I have to I have to. I can't keep getting kicked off in the middle of meetings. I love technology.

DS and family are on the way home. It sounds like they had a lovely time out in Virginia. I'm eager to hear tales of their adventures. One thing I know they did was go to a big amusement park where DS and LC rode all the roller coasters, including the one with six inversions that goes nearly 70 mph. Yikes! I'd be the one holding glasses and wallets and keeping my feet firmly on the ground. I'm a real pantywaist when it comes to that kind of ride. 

I folded the basket of clean laundry this evening. Man, I have a lot of socks and undies. It's a good thing so I don't have to do wash too often. I'm in favor of less frequent laundry doing. 

The birds and squirrels stayed home today. I did see one rabbit race across the backyard but it was moving so quickly it was just a fuzzy brown streak.

--Barbara 

So Frustrating

This morning I was on Zoom with my Novel Intensive critique group and my internet went out--again. Kicked me right off. I was smart enough to get on using my phone so I only lost a couple minutes of the meeting but, really, I thought the tech visit last week had fixed the problem. Evidently not. So I called Spectrum once the meeting was over, kept insisting I wanted to talk to a REPRESENTATIVE (I capitalized it because I had to repeatedly yell it to be connected), and finally got a callback from a tech person who rebooted my system but couldn't figure out what was wrong. I've got another service appointment tomorrow afternoon that will hopefully do the trick. 

 

In the afternoon I sat at the table performing the mindless task of portioning out a big bag of M&Ms. I need to get my snacking back into better control so I thought I'd start with dark chocolate tiny candies. Ten of them counts as 2 points so that's how many are in each bag. I've kind of gone off the deep end lately and need to rein myself in.

 

For today's drawing I chose to stop at the Bison page since I loved seeing those great beasts all three times I was in Yellowstone. It was pretty simple to draw and color. I like how dainty the hooves are compared to the beefy body of the creature.

 

Yesterday at the grocery I walked past the beer aisle and noticed that Zambaldi Yard Games IPA was down to one 6-pack and that was at the back of the shelf, so I stopped and slid it to the front of the shelf just in case someone wanted to buy it. I'm nice like that. And it's on sale!

 

I got comments from the members of the critique group back so I spent most of the afternoon going over what they had to say and making some additions and edits to my copy of what I sent them. One thing I hadn't done was give some clues about relationships between Rose and Iggy and Rose and Geneva so that people who pick up this book without reading the previous ones won't be too confused. So I did that. I don't want to give too much backstory and bore the people who've read the previous books but I don't want people frustrated either.

DS and family are in Virginia on spring break and DS texted me this afternoon that it was 80 degrees so they went to the Atlantic Ocean. He'd heard that we're supposed to get freezing rain overnight and was sorry to miss it. Yeah, I bet. We're in the "maybe" area of the state so we could get it or not. I'm hoping not but I don't have to go anywhere tomorrow so I don't care. I just hope the tech guy can get here to fix my internet.

--Barbara