The Tiniest Geranium

I don't remember the name of many of the wildflowers that grace The Clearing campus. I've heard them all, or most of them anyway, but this one sticks in my head for some reason. It's Herb Robert, and it's a tiny true geranium no bigger than a fingernail. And not a fancy, talon-like fingernail either.

 

In honor of seeing that deer on Saturday, that's what I picked to draw today, a Doe. It looks more like a fawn without the spots, and I think it needs orthopedic help, but it's the right shade of brown and has four legs so I'm calling it a deer. And now that song from The Sound of Music is stuck in my head again. 

 

The first year I took KA's watercolor class I packed a watercolor journal in my kit and made notes on each painting on the left page and painted a small version of the painting on the right. I've done it every time since and started a new journal last week. Doing that is the only way I have even a ghost of a chance to repaint anything. I'm getting better at taking notes so each journal's entries are easier to paint from.

 

This morning I got busy framing a few of last week's more successful paintings and hung them on my gallery wall. I don't buy fancy frames or spend money on mats, I just buy the inexpensive basic black plastic frames and go with them. They look okay and don't detract from the art. (You notice I didn't capitalize "art." My paintings aren't worth that.)

 

A contortionist squirrel spent some time on the suet nuggets feeder today. I was impressed that it had wrapped itself halfway around the feeder and still had the muscle to hold on and eat.

 

I zoomed with cda this afternoon getting a critique on a couple chapters of Sailing the Seas and giving her a few notes on an essay. Then I took a walk. I'm amazed that today's walk didn't give me the same hip and leg aches that yesterday's walk did. Was it because I wore different shoes? Because it was a different time of day? Who knows. I was just relieved that it didn't hurt as much. OJ has a soccer game tomorrow evening so I'll do my walking from the parking area to the field and back. None of the places he plays has parking very near the playing field. It must be some kind of rule. And there's a chance of rain. I'll take an umbrella. They only call the game for lightning.

--Barbara 

Better Water

It felt wrong not to paint today, so I did. I taped the edges of a piece of paper and tried my hand at the last painting KA asked us to paint on Friday. The one with reflections of buildings in water that I was terrible at. It turned out better than I thought. This water is way better than the water I tried to paint the week before my watercolor class at The Clearing.

 

I went over to Michaels to spend my expiring voucher on inexpensive frames for some of last week's paintings. I forgot to measure my best painting so I need to go back another day but for now I've got three to hang tomorrow. For some reason these skinny, leftover strips that I painted please the daylights outta me so they get framed and hung, along with one of the 5x7 ones of a cabin with poppies in front of it.

 

When I went out for a walk this afternoon I noticed that one of Dad's rosebuds is opening. It was pretty windy so I'm surprised that it's in focus. I convinced myself that I'd turned a corner and was better at walking after all of the walking I did last week. Nope. Still huffing and puffing with achy legs, but I'm determined to keep going so that I will be better when I go back to TC in October for the Women's Writing Retreat.

 

Coming back from Michaels, I saw that the poppies have bloomed. When I went over with the camera, two of the flowers were past their prime with shriveled petals but two were just opening.

 

And the Stella d'Oro lilies are starting to bloom. There are about eight open on one plant and a couple of other plants have one or two. Still no long row of yellow flowers but hopefully that'll happen soon.

 

The squirrel spent some time in the square green feeder at lunchtime today. It leaps from the suet cakes crook to the Oriole feeder, skips the jelly, and launches itself at the feeder. It catches a perch and scrambles up under the lid and in. 

 

Then at nearly sunset the baby bunny eased out from behind the birdbath pedestal for a nibble at the grass on the edge of the lawn. It kind of stretched out like it was trying to stay behind the pedestal and still reach something to eat. There's a lot of clover blooming right now so it should have plenty to eat. 

 

Oh, I didn't show you last night but when I looked across the painting classroom the other day I saw the copy of Horizon that LW bought from me. It's so much fun to see one of my books in the wild. She's going to read it and then, if she likes it, suggest to her book club that they invite me for an author visit. Wouldn't that be cool? She lives a couple hours from here so I'd have to find a place to stay overnight but I could do that easy.

 

It was cooler and windy today which made walking fun. The wind seemed to come from all directions, in my face going and coming. The 18-month-old little guy next door has finally decided that I'm not a threat. He even took my finger when we walked to take pictures of the poppies. His big sister, 4 years old, wanted to know why I had my camera and I told her about the flowers on the side of the house. She wanted to come along so the little guy had to come too. Mama came along to make sure they didn't get in my way and to guide them back to their side of the yard when the time came to go in. They call me Miss Barbara. Kinda makes me feel old, but then I am old. *sigh*

--Barbara

Intense

My watercolor week was intense. It started out calm. I moved into Room #3 on Sunday afternoon, carried my paints, etc. down to the Schoolhouse where our classroom was, and then unpacked. While carrying my stuff down, I met MW who'd been in class with me last year. She wanted Spies Don't Retire because she'd bought and read The Seaview and Open for Business last year. I mentioned that Christmas at Seaview is set in the same place with the same characters, so she took that too. (Yay!) We all met for supper at 5:30, had an orientation slide show and introductions, and then met with our instructor to set up our painting stations. Supper was pork tenderloin with lingonberries, roasted carrots, artichoke salad, and cherry pie. Let the overeating begin!

 

We painted like crazy people. Three painting on Monday alone! She eased us in with a simple sky and foreground of grass, but soon we were painting water and trees and headlands. JS, the painter who sat behind me, ordered The Seaview on digital but wanted one to hold in her hands so she bought Better Than Mom's to read before bed.

On Tuesday, we painted the view from the Schoolhouse window over the bay and a farmstead behind a field. At Tuesday lunch, the manager of The Clearing bookstore hosted the meal and brought over things to entice us to come shop. She knew I was there so she brought a copy of Horizon and asked me to describe it for everyone. Very nice.

 

On Tuesday afternoon we started painting one of the cabins with poppies blooming in front of it, then finished it Wednesday morning. (sorry the picture's crooked) That was followed by trillium and tulips. But the best was that both MW and LW asked to buy copies of Horizon.

 

We only have class in the morning on Thursday but we painted the most challenging subject so far--a sunset sky. Eek! I was certain I'd mess it up but I managed to do okay. (the white spots in front are supposed to represent flowers in the field) In the afternoon I went to the bookstore to do a little shopping, stopped at the thrift store where I found a couple tops, and went to Piggly Wiggly for a sandwich, chips, and a drink because they don't serve supper on Thursday. I decided not to go to a restaurant with other students because we'd been eating so much I needed a break.

 

On Friday, our last day, we painted an iris, apple blossoms, and revisited the farm but added a pond in the foreground to learn how to paint reflections in the water. I did not do so well on the last two. She suggested that we paint a big one and a little one of each subject so this is what the wall next to my painting station looked like on Friday afternoon. Filled with paintings, because I went back to the classroom most evenings to paint more, finish paintings, or make up stuff. I had a quartet of skinny pieces of paper so I painted a single, long-stemmed flower on each of them. For some reason they really please me the most. They're on the right edge of the picture.

 

Friday after supper we all gathered in the Schoolhouse to show off what we'd done all week. The other classes were memoir writing, glass fusing, and woven rag purses. The glass pieces and the purses were awesome and fun, and the writers each read a short selection of what they'd written that week. We painters put our stools up on the tall tables we painted at and taped paintings to the stools for display. I laid my books on either side of the table and the fused glass teacher bought Better Than Mom's!

 

This morning we had to vacate our rooms by 9:00am so that Housekeeping could clean and set them up for the students arriving this afternoon or tomorrow. When I was loading my car I looked up to see a deer walking through the woods not too far away from the parking lot. Cool! (she's hard to see but she's there)

 

I will confess that as much fun as I had, as much as I enjoyed painting like a madwoman for five days, meeting old and new friends, I'm glad to be home to sleep in my own bed tonight. I kept waking up in the early early morning and not being able to go back to sleep. Not fun. Yesterday afternoon I hit the wall and completely ran out of energy. I barely finished the last painting and had a real trudge to carry my painting supplies to the car before supper and then my books and finished paintings there after Show & Tell. I was sure I'd sleep well. Nope. Woke up at 4:41 (I checked my phone) and lay there until my alarm went off at 6:45. Hopefully I'll sleep all night tonight or at least be able to fall back to sleep if I get up. Fingers crossed.

--Barbara 

Determined

Or should that be stubborn? I took a third stab at painting the beach today. It's my last try since I think I've got an inability to paint the water the way I want to. I really like today's sky and the beach and grass isn't bad, but the water? Meh. Maybe next week I'll learn a better way to paint water from KA. I'll work on it.

 

Here's the end of the bleeding hearts. When I went out to take pictures this branch of flowers waved at me so I took its picture. If you look closely you can see that the flowers farther from the end of the branch have faded to a pale lavender color instead of the original pink.

 

I was lucky enough to be at the table when a Sparrow landed on the bottom of the suet cakes feeder for a snack. It didn't stay long but long enough for me to snap this. I'm not going to fill the suet nuggets until I return from The Clearing next Saturday so the birds are forced to eat the suet cakes. And for some reason no Hummingbirds are coming to my feeder anymore. I refilled it almost a week ago and the level of nectar hasn't dropped. *sigh* The same thing happened last summer too. I don't know what the problem is.

 

The yellow irises are nearly done blooming. The purple ones are finished but the yellow ones started later so they're still opening and I see a few buds yet to open.

 

The purple salvia is blooming too. It's not very showy but if you get close to it, it's a pretty color.

 

I finished the latest read-through and line edit of Sailing the Seas today. I didn't find many places to insert additional information to link previous scenes to what happens later. I'll leave it at home next week and come back with fresh eyes.

I started reading How to Write a Cozy Mystery today in preparation for my next book. I got through the first chapter and have a lot of homework to do before diving into the next chapter. That will happen after I get home for sure and maybe not until I get the latest book published. I have a partial manuscript that I wrote over 20 years ago that I'm thinking of working to turn into a full manuscript and maybe a series. Like I said, homework first.

This afternoon I loaded my watercolor things into the car and I put in the rolling backpack of books too, just in case KA says I can bring them down to the classroom to see if anyone wants to buy one. Tomorrow I'll finish organizing my toiletries case, pack that, and be ready to roll around 11-ish. Or maybe 12. Depends on how my morning goes. 

I'll be back next Saturday night! 

--Barbara

Floating White Stuff

It's cottonwood season. That means that little puffs of white fluff are floating around getting into everything. The best way to show you is to see the birdbath. This morning the water was serene and clear. This afternoon there's fluff floating around in it. I'm sure the air conditioner sucked a bunch into the vanes and I saw that the grass looked like it had netting over it. It doesn't last long but it sure is annoying.

 

I filled the cob corn the other day and the squirrels have decimated it in record time. This squirrel spent a bit of time hanging by its hind feet gleaning kernels, dropping some, and eating others.

 

That made for happy hunting by this Bluejay. It wasn't visible when it was on the ground pecking up kernels, but I managed to catch a photo of it on top of the fence.

 

The Sparrows are determined to get every morsel of suet nuggets out of the feeder. They also deigned to peck at the suet cakes but didn't stay there long enough to have photographic proof. The coolest is the Robin that flies up to nab a beak full of suet cake before landing under the feeder and gobbling up what it could get.

 

The first Stella d'Oro lily has bloomed. This is the bud I showed you the other day that has burst into bloom. Pretty soon there'll be eleven plants just like this one blooming away.

 

I made another stab at a watercolor beach today. I like the sky and the beach with grass. I tried to fix the water and ended up screwing it up. It was a lot darker and bluer before I "fixed" it. I'll try again tomorrow. Maybe then I'll get all the parts right. Or at least better.

 

I added just one more round of ribbed brim to the Antipasto Chemo hat at Friday Night Knitting and then started on the hat body. Knit 6, purl 2 for the next seven inches before the crown decreases. I'll be here awhile.

 

Checking next week's weather, I made the executive decision not to take the red shoes with mesh tops because it's supposed to be rainy and I don't want wet feet. I'll wear one pair of white sneakers and take another pair of white sneakers so if one gets wet I can wear the other pair while the wet one dries. I've got a windbreaker packed that's good in a light rain and I've got umbrellas in the car. I'll take one into the room when I move in so I'll be ready, just in case.

The Amazon ads I was so excited to make yesterday are getting Impressions and each have a Click or two. No Sales yet, but at least people are seeing and reacting to the cover of my book.

--Barbara 

Goal!

Well, not many, but they played hard. I can't imagine being able to run up and down the soccer field for 15 minutes without stopping four times in an hour. OJ's team played this evening and were beaten by the fuchsia team. One of OJ's classmates was on the fuchsia team so they had fun defending each other. At this level of play, they don't really keep score, but it's pretty obvious who wins. Tonight was not a squeaker, not by a long shot. But they were good sports and had snacks.

 

The morning Turkey was here when I opened the drapes. She spent a lot of time preening herself and ruffling her feathers, which gave me a lot of time to enjoy the different patterns on them. For a bird whose head isn't all that attractive, her feathers are beautiful. 

 

I caught sight of a Goldfinch at lunchtime. He landed on the crook and stayed just long enough to have his picture taken before flying off on some important mission.

 

I searched YouTube for a watercolor video I could watch and paint along with. I found one that looked easy enough for me to follow. It's sky and water and a little bit of beach and grass. I'll take another stab at this but spending yesterday talking painting and packing to go to a week-long watercolor class has me itching to paint. Since my first string paints, paper, and brushes are packed, I had to bring out the second string but I think it went alright.

 

While waiting for my paint to dry I worked on the first thirteen chapters of Sailing the Seas, which is the working title of the next Seaview Series book. I'm working to weave in bits of Rose's thoughts and feelings that will foreshadow the big things coming later. I don't know how successful I'm being but at least I'm aware that the story needs things like that. That's a change. Part of me thinks I should email the manuscript to my Kindle and then spend my off times next week going over it and making notes. Another part thinks I should leave it where it is and have a week off from it to gain a little perspective. The second part is winning.

I also got really excited this morning when I was looking at the Chirp featured audiobooks for the day. One of them sounded almost exactly like The Seaview so I hurried up, got on Chrome, scraped keywords from it, and made two ads, one for Kindle and one for paperback for The Seaview using those similar titles and author names. Hopefully it'll pay off with more Impressions, Clicks, and even a Sale or two. I've been getting tens of thousands of Impressions and a few Clicks since I redid my ads but haven't gotten any Sales yet. It'll happen. I have faith. But then I also believe in Bigfoot.

--Barbara 

And She Came Back

I had a visitor when I opened the drapes this morning. The hen Turkey was back pecking around under the feeders. She was in a shaft of sunlight and I could admire her feathers. They aren't just brown like I supposed. There's gold and iridescent black and stripes. Very understated but very pretty.

 

I was picked up by my former neighbor, MK, around 10, then we drove to get another neighbor, DT, and were off to Kimberly where there's a gallery and art supplies store last summer's watercolor instructor told us about. It wasn't the gold mine we were led to believe. Everything was very expensive, brushes were limited, watercolor was even more limited. In short, we didn't find anything to buy. There was a lot of art to admire but prices were high and we weren't in the market for finished works anyway. From there we googled someplace to eat and ended up at Cinders in Appleton which was a very nice place for lunch. I had a Caribbean Jerk Chicken wrap with sweet potato fries that was very delicious and a little drippy. But I only got one drop on my shirt which I count as a victory. I shared this selfie with my kids and DS said we look the same as we did in the 80s. He's a nice man. Deluded, but nice.

 

Today's drawing is a Tulip. A poorly colored tulip. According to the cap on the pink marker it was supposed to be a light pink but that's not what came out of the tip. By then I was committed, so we have a very dark pink tulip. 

 

My tenant texted this morning that their toilet water line was leaking so I called Jerry's Household Plumbing and asked him to stop over. It evidently took two trips and more work than he expected but by late afternoon all was fixed. Whew.

 

The Stella d'Oro lily buds are getting bigger and one of these days will burst into bloom.

 

The more I thought about it, the less I liked the new Luhxe bag I packed yesterday. It was hard to zip together and the zippers themselves seemed flimsy. If I'd bought anything up at The Clearing there was no room to pack it, so I hauled up an old suitcase and repacked. Everything from the Luhxe bag is in there with room for toiletries, an extra pair of shoes, and a little extemporaneous shopping. It's not as much of an origami trick but I feel better about the durability of the bag and the wheels. The Luhxe bag seems more like a weekend bag than a week bag, especially since I'm not packing light dresses like the YouTube videos show.

It was great fun to spend the day with old friends. We talked about kids and husbands and houses and watercolor. We ate good food and laughed. A very nice day.

--Barbara