Look

I haven't seen a bird in days and am kind of bummed about it, but early this evening when I was fixing supper I looked out and saw a Robin in the yard. A Robin! The harbinger of spring! It was scurrying along not pecking at anything, just checking things out. Yay!

 

This morning I took a picture of the remains of Blizzard Elsa on the patio. Eight days ago there was 27.7 inches of snow on the ground when it stopped snowing so there's been a lot of melting between then and now. I especially like that the individual leaves are being heated by the sun and melting into the snow.

 

Also this morning I went to visit DS at Zambaldi Beer and he was cleaning the "small" kettle he uses for Brewer For a Day brews. Small being a relative term as you can see how big it is compared to him. It's a mere 75 gallons compared to the 650 gallons of his regular kettle.

 

I made some more small edits, small refinements of the manuscript this afternoon. And I integrated the small scene I wrote about someone being arrested for the murder of a guest after searching for the right place to put it so that I didn't have to rewrite a whole great whack of the thing. That's a relief.

 

Today's flower/plant is a Jade plant. I remember in the olden, uninformed days, Mom called it a rubber plant. That was wrong but it was a difficult transition to calling it by its proper name. It was fun to draw and the coloring is okay.

 

Right after I saw the Robin, a Sparrow landed on the square green feeder for a snack. At first it was standing with its back to the feeder and craning around to peck at the seed before figuring out how much easier it was to turn around and just have to bend down a little.

 

 

My cleaner came today so now my house smells nice and clean and my living room carpet has vacuum tracks in it. I'm not very dirty but it's nice to have MB come once a month to dust, vacuum, and clean the bathroom and kitchen. Plus knowing she's coming keeps me tidier than I'd normally be.

--Barbara 

So That's What That Was

For this last week I've been catching movement out of the corner of my eye when I'm sitting at the table but when I look out the patio door there's nothing there. Today I found out what it was. A bunny. Today it stopped on the patio step and posed for a moment so I could take a picture. 

 

I felt bad that I hadn't drawn for a couple days so today I drew. This is a Desert Rose. Never heard of it. Never saw it before. But it wasn't too hard to draw. I might have to look it up to find out about the weird trunk stem thing. It looks like some alien life form. And I have no idea what those toenail-looking things are at the base but they were on the directions so I put them on.

 

Then I thought I'd paint too. So I booted up the iPad to the next flower in the 31-day challenge and it was Carnations. When I was walking out of the grocery this morning I walked past the flower display and smelled carnations so it was appropriate that I paint some today. They were fun to paint although I didn't plan my space well since the red/orange one is kind of smooshed on the left edge. Oh well, I can try again. As BF used to say, this is not a graded course.

 

I turned the Christmas cactus pot around and was able to get almost all of the flowers and buds in one picture. It's never had this many on at once in its whole life with me. I'm glad I gave it a new pot, etc. It's happier now. 

 

I got the information today about the Novel Intensive I've signed up for. We're having a meet-and-greet on Wednesday afternoon on Zoom and then we'll send out our first submission. I had a brainstorm. I saved my manuscript version 2 in a new file and took out all of the chapter headings then moved the text up close to the previous text so there's only a few spaces between chapters. That way I'll be able to send more words on 20 pages and get feedback on more of the manuscript. Pretty smart, eh?

It was so luxurious to wake up naturally, not to the buzzing of my cell phone. I don't have to set an alarm for at least a week. If I get up between 7 and 8, I'm happy. That gives me time to eat, play Wordle, do yoga, and get dressed way before noon when it would be embarrassing to still be in my jammies.

--Barbara 

A Not Quite As Satisfying Day

I had another vendor fair today. It wasn't the success that yesterday was. My grand total of books sold today was.... (drum roll)... 2. That's right. We sat there for five hours and I sold 2 books and GBB sold 0. Not very satisfying. We had such high hopes for today's fair. It was at Pulaski Middle School so we thought there'd be middle schoolers in the crowd who would buy GBB's books. Nope. Traffic was light and none of the kids we managed to snag wanted her books. Disappointing. And the batteries in my fairy lights around the new release book are fading. The lights just aren't as bright anymore. Good thing they came in a 6-pack. Now if I could just remember where I put the other 5.

 

The only other thing I did today was read through the critique pages for tomorrow and then keep reading version 2 of my current manuscript because that's what I'll submit to the Novel Intensive Group I've signed up for that begins April 1. I want to have things as tidy as possible. The big thing I did today was slot in this half-page of a scene where Rose finds out that the police have a suspect in the murder of one of her guests. It was a challenge to figure out where to put it. I didn't want it too early or after the original suspect left the island since, just like on TV, she was told not to leave the island.

 

Because I didn't paint or draw or knit today, I'm posting another one of the ChatGPT images that KM sent me last week. Like I said, I'm not sure what to do with them but I like them. Even though they were made by AI, which I'm very suspicious of.

 

I am thrilled that I don't have to set an alarm to get up before it's light in the morning. That was the hardest part of the past two mornings, that annoying musical phrase that passes for an alarm on my phone. Also getting up in the dark. Ugh. I'm so spoiled by not having to get up early anymore.

--Barbara 

A Satisfying Day

I had a vendor fair event today and it went well. It was my first sale using my lighted palm tree and flamingo head sunglasses rest. I like the way it looked. I sold seven books which is a good amount and the profit covers my booth fee. That's my measure of success, whether it pays for me to be there. Today it did. We'll see about tomorrow.

 

I started drawing this Blue Thistle last night but didn't get it finished in time to blog about it then. So I finished up today. I like it. Those aren't leaves around it but the book called them sepals. That doesn't seem right but who am I to argue?

 

A House Finch landed on the crook and then swooped down onto the square green feeder for just long enough to have his picture taken before flying away. I was just glad to see a bird on the feeder.

 

My virtual assistant was playing around on ChatGPT the other day and sent me a slew of graphics she made for me. I think this one is my favorite. Now I have to figure out what to use them for and where.

 

 

LJ came down to show me how to run my new Ariens Deluxe Snow King snowblower. (Pretty fancy name, huh?) He turned it on and ran it around but I'm still not sure I'd be comfortable with it. One day that I don't have an author event, I'll go out there and play with it, operator's manual in hand. 

Tomorrow I have to get up at 6 A.M. so I can eat breakfast, dress, and be out the door by 7:35 to get to Pulaski in time to set up at 8, before the fair starts at 9. I can guarantee I'll be tired when I get home. It's work to be "on" for five hours.

--Barbara 

They're Back

When I went out to put a birthday card for my brother-in-law into the mailbox, I looked down to see the happy sight of green daffodil sprouts uncovered by melting snow. They're nestled up to the edge of one of the mouse bait boxes and I hope that there aren't any sprouts under it.

 

More Christmas cactus flowers have bloomed. This is the one that grew sideways from the end of the leaf stem thingy.

 

Then I noticed the stamens of another flower hanging out from the center. You can see the dark, reddish purple of the pistil and the white stamens. At least I think that's what they're called. I like the delicacy of them.

 

For the first time in 2 weeks, I drew a gratitude journal page. I've been diligent about doing yoga every morning and can really feel the difference in my balance. And the sunshine and melting snow are welcome.

 

I almost wasn't able to blog tonight. I was at Friday Night Knitting and my internet went out. Nothing I did would make it come back so I had to call Spectrum to send a signal to restart it. It took about 5 minutes, five loooong minutes, but it's back. I confess I had a moment of panic when it wasn't coming back. Silly really, to be so dependent on it but I confess I am.

It got up to 55 degrees today and it's supposed to hit 60 tomorrow but only 38 on Sunday. I can't figure out the weather. Gotta finish this up. I have to be up really early to be in DePere for 8 o'clock to set up for the craft fair. Wish me luck.

--Barbara

Melting

It got up to 42 degrees today with sunshine so there was a lot of melting. The drips from the snow valance across the front of the house were almost like a rain curtain and soon enough the valances fell. I went out to shovel the snow off the driveway and got dripped on quite thoroughly. Of course I wasn't wearing a coat because it was so warm and sunny so my sweater got damp and I spent an hour smelling like wet wool. Better than smelling like wet dog, I guess.

 

When I drove down Fisk St. toward Mason St. to go to the east side on an afternoon errand, I had to follow a pair of snowplows that were knocking down the snowdrifts that extended out from the curbs. I'm going to hope they don't come down our street for a few days because the snow extends about 5 feet out from the curb at the end of the driveway and I don't know how to run the snowblower yet. I suppose there's always the owner's manual. If the snowblower can even move the slushy stuff.

 

I saw one wildlife today. This squirrel must have thought it smelled something under the snow on top of this can because it was enthusiastically digging under the snow but coming up empty. A Sparrow landed on top of the patio chair but flew away before I could take a picture. Two days ago the birdbath wore an impressive mound of snow. Today it's all water. Melting.

 

Here's the other blooming Christmas cactus flower. Now a third one is opening and the other two that were tiny nubbins are swelling up and looking promising.

 

Today's flower is Orange Blossom. It was easy to draw although I don't think I got the centers of the flowers right. It amuses me that coloring the flowers faintly blue makes them look whiter than leaving the petals uncolored on the white paper. 

 

I got a gift this afternoon from OJ. He said he'd made this little dog sculpture in class and didn't know what to do with it so he gave it to me. It's a very cute little dachshund looking thing. It kept me company when I had supper tonight.

 

Today was not a writing day. I'm frustrated by the whole ISBN/Amazon Extended Distribution snafu and it turned out that the first four PDF covers that I ordered are not in the format accepted by IngramSpark so I had to ask them to redo them--at an additional cost. Good thing I overpaid last week and had them put it on account, isn't it? I read through cda's pages for Monday's critique session and ordered new bookmarks with all 8 of my book covers on them. So that's my writer-y stuff for today.

--Barbara 

My New Toy

I had to set my alarm this morning so my neighbor could come over early to claim the old snowblower. Then not even an hour later a truck pulled up and I heard another snowblower and it was my new one being delivered. It looks very fancy and it's going to take me a lesson or two to learn how to run it. But I told the guy that the main reason I bought it was to keep it from snowing big again this winter. He laughed and agreed that was a good plan. My only disappointment is that it isn't red. It's orange but that's the color of this company. My neighbor, LJ, called me within five minutes to say he'd seen "your new baby" delivered. LJ will come over on Saturday afternoon to help me learn the ins and outs of the new machine.

 

Two more Christmas cactus buds flowered today. Naturally they're on opposite sides of the plant so they can't be in the same photo. I'll show one tonight and the other one tomorrow.

 

I spent a very frustrating time trying to upload The Seaview to IngramSpark only to discover that Amazon Extended Distribution made it available to them already. Which means I can't use the ISBN I've assigned to it again. Luckily I bought a 100-pack of them because it was cheaper than more than two 10-packs and with 8 books already published, another one in the hopper, and one in waiting I'm going to need plenty of them. So then I pulled up the next Seaview Series manuscript and went through it with ProWritingAid to see all of the suggestions for punctuation and grammar, and decide which ones I'll take and which I'll ignore. That's the manuscript I'll submit 25 pages at a time to the Novel Intensive group I've signed up for in April so I wanted to tidy it up before then.

 

This afternoon I painted. I fired up the iPad to the next flower in the 31 days course and it was a Chrysanthemum. I added the background. I like they way they turned out. Maybe I'll cut it up and make two cards.

 

After supper I watched a little TV and knitted a couple rows on the Vienne cardigan. Slowly but surely I'm adding a couple rows a night because a sweater is a big thing to knit and I don't want to be working on it for a year. But it's possible I might be. It just depends on my endurance and dedication.

 

Haven't seen any birds or squirrels since the big snowstorm which, by the way, is the heaviest in Green Bay since 1888 at 26.6 inches, 17.7 inches fell on Sunday alone. It beat the previous record by at least a couple of inches. The last record snowfall was in April of 2018 which was just under 24 inches. I talked to DS this morning and he said that he had to shovel out the furnace on the roof of the brewery yesterday. It was snow covered and wasn't running because it was being suffocated. Luckily once he had it cleared the furnace started working. He said it took him hours and he got so hot that he was down to his t-shirt.

 --Barbara