They Figured It Out

When I got home from the post office and grocery today, I went out and filled the birdfeeders. I also took out the creamy peanut butter (bought specially) so I could smear a little on the inside of the horse head squirrel feeder and see if it needed more corn kernels. Well, evidently at least one squirrel has figured out that corn is in that feeder because it was empty. The neighbor kids and I filled it up on Monday and today there was nothing left in there or on the ground under it. Later in the afternoon I looked up there and saw corn kernels on the top of the retaining wall so I went up to look and, yes, at least one squirrel had visited and spilled kernels out. So I might not see them but they've figured it out.

 

The purple mums that started blooming in July are still going strong. I wondered if they'd poop out by September because they budded and bloomed early but they're still at it. A few of the more mature blossoms are browning but there are plenty of fresh ones to fill in.

 

This squirrel climbed up on top of the patio umbrella and sat staring at me. I don't know what it had against me, maybe it was trying to tell me that the corn kernels were gone.

 

Look at the me I drew on the gratitude journal page for yesterday. I'm walking and carrying an umbrella just like in real life. Suddenly I'm brave enough to try drawing a whole person instead of just my legs.

 

Today's drawing prompt was Fork, and let me tell you, that's not an easy thing to draw. You'd think because you're so familiar with a fork that you can just dash one off. Not so fast. It takes concentration to draw the tines and I never did manage to draw five tines like she did. Four was my limit.

One of my Friday Night Knitting friends discovered the joy of knitting with a certain brand of wooden Double Pointed Needles and was raving about them. I happened to have a bunch of sets of them that I no longer use, so I boxed them up and shipped them off to her today. Then I decided to sort through my other DPNs and fixed circular needles and weed out the ones I won't be using again. They got put in the tosses box and dropped off at St. Vinnie de P's this afternoon. Don't worry. I have plenty of needles left to play with. Plenty.

 

After consulting with OJ, I also tossed the play kitchen and all of the plastic, wooden, and crocheted food and the dishes, etc. The only picture I have of it is this one where it won Best of Show at the county fair a few years ago. It's time for some other child to have the fun of imaginative play. LC and OJ sure loved it for a long time.

 

Once I'd dropped off the tosses at St. VdeP, I drove a couple blocks to Office Max to pick up my new poster of The Seaview Series books. I can't wait to have Sailing the Seas to show off and sell. Oh, I hope the copies come next week, before Friday, which is when I have a craft show booth at New Perspective senior apartment complex and then Saturday and Sunday I'll have a booth at Untitled Town's Book Fair. Please, please, please, Amazon, send me the books in time. 

 

I only worked on writing a little today. The suggestions on the second Manuscript Analysis aren't ones I can just dash through. I have to read and think and ponder. But I know the changes will make the story better.

--Barbara 

Not Sharing

While it looks like some birds share a feeder, squirrels do not. This morning I happened to see one squirrel on the suet nuggets and another one leap up onto the suet cakes feeder roof and stick its nose toward the nuggets squirrel. The interaction was quick, so I didn't get them facing each other and the flash went off, but I knew I wouldn't have another chance.  So I cropped the flash out of the picture and you can see the nuggets squirrel has told the cakes squirrel to buzz off in no uncertain terms.

The gratitude journal page for yesterday wasn't easy. Part of it was, the part where I got to see LC and OJ, but the rest of it was iffy. I wrote a lot when I was home and not in the pickup line so I put that on, but otherwise I was stumped. There was no yoga yesterday because the pest nerd guy showed up just as I was about to start and when he was gone I'd lost the motivation so I just got dressed.

 

I pushed away from the laptop this afternoon meaning to take a walk and saw that there were raindrops plopping into the birdbath. I grabbed an umbrella and went anyway. I won't melt. It was only needed for the return when it started raining a little harder. 

 

On my walk I found fallen leaves. Not the pretty colored fall leaves, but brown crunchy leaves. I think they come from the big tree on the curve of the court or maybe the tree next to it. The tree across the street seems to have yellow crunchy leaves instead of the pretty ones. Is this going to be a dull-leaf year? 

 

I came back from my walk to find all of the Dad's roses drooping in the light rain. This blossom was the only one not bent so far that I couldn't get a good shot. 

 

The drawing prompt today was Bikini but I decided I didn't want to draw that, so I flipped to the next video to find Fish. Much better. I like them. I even like the one with the leaf shapes down its center. It's fun drawing fish.

 

At Friday Night Knitting, I got into the colored yarn on the sock. Hooray! It didn't occur to me that knitting the sock leg in ribbing (ribbed legs stay up better) wouldn't let the self-patterning yarn self-pattern the way it's supposed to. Maybe when I finish this sock, I'll knit another one with the same yarn (gasp!) in stockinette so the self-patterning works. I'll knit this one's foot in stockinette because ribbing would be uncomfortable on the bottom of my foot so that part will be patterned. Unfortunately it'll be in my shoe and therefore invisible.

 

Writing went okay today. I had an idea in the shower so I did some writing not completely dressed. Fortunately I'm the only one here so no one had to poke their eyes out seeing me undressed. I came across another recommendation from the Manuscript Analysis that will be more difficult to implement so I stuck on another flag and moved on. Pretty soon I'll let this manuscript rest and start brainstorming the next cozy mystery novel. I have all the characters outlined already and have a backdrop worked out so I just need to manipulate them like little puppets into action. Yeah, just that. Like it's so easy to juggle them around and make them perform so they keep readers interested. I figure once I get three cozies written, I'll order three covers, and publish them a few months apart. I've read that cozy readers like to scoop up a few books in a series at once so it's a good idea to pile them up before publication. I wonder how many I can write in a year?

--Barbara 

Root Vegetables

That was the drawing prompt today--Root Vegetables. They were easy to draw but the artist wasn't clear on which vegetables we were drawing. She started out okay with a radish, easy to draw with cool-looking leaves. Then things got sketchy. The next one she said was a turnip or parsnip. Well, I know what a parsnip looks like. It looks like a white carrot and the next veg we drew was obviously a turnip, not a parsnip. The third one could have been a parsnip. (All this talk of parsnips is making me want to eat some.) And finally we drew a cluster of some things that might be radishes, I think. Anyway, they were all fun to draw but I'm not sure about all the little dotty lines we put in them.

Here's one of the squirrels having a nibble on the suet nuggets. I am constantly amused by the ways squirrels twist themselves around the feeder. This one looked like it was doing pushups. Another squirrel was eyeing the horse head feeder which was slowly turning in the wind. I don't think the squirrel liked that. It looked like it was on high alert, then turned, and ran the other way.

 

I got brave when I was drawing yesterday's gratitude journal page and drew the whole me when I drew my walk. It's not bad. I don't have a face, but it isn't too misshapen. I'm quite happy with it.

 

In the afternoon I gave in to temptation and started working my way through the second Manuscript Analysis of Three Cheers for Murder. This time it's much more picky about things, drilling down to the nitty gritty, I guess. One of the recommendations confused me enough that I put a flag on it and moved on. I'll come back to it and hope I can figure out what to do. Part of me wants to leap ahead and start outlining the next book in the series but I'm maintaining control. I'm thinking about it, though. I'm protecting one character in this book because he'll have a bigger role in the next one.

 

I checked on Chirp to see how many copies of Horizon's audiobook I've sold since the 7th when it was on their Featured Deal email page. 78! Not bad. It's nowhere near the 9k+ that got picked up for free but it's pretty good. I lowered the prices of two other audiobooks and have sold 11 of each of those. I'm satisfied with their performance. I'm running ads for all three of them at the same time so I'm sure the ads are spending the profits from the sales but I had to try.

I emailed the sponsor of a BookFunnel sales promo I signed up for today to make sure I was accepted and I am so Better Than Mom's eBook will be advertised on a promo in October and Christmas at Seaview eBook will be on on a sales promo from the middle of October until about Thanksgiving. Fingers crossed I make some sales. It doesn't cost anything to be on those promos so there's less risk. I'm happy with that. 

Yesterday I finally heard that I'm accepted in the UntitledTown Book Fair on the weekend of the 26th and 27th. I got a little crazy and bought booth space for both days. Let's hope I'm not in some corner where nobody shops. Should be interesting. 

 --Barbara

Maybe They're Friends

The Sparrow and the Downy Woodpecker showed up at the round feeder at the same time again today. Still on opposite sides but not shooing each other away. Maybe they're friends?

 

On the gratitude journal page for yesterday I drew my most dreaded yoga pose--the Plank. I hold each pose for a minute and that is the longest minute of the day.

 

I did a whole lot better drawing today. The prompt was Apple and she figured out five different ways to draw an apple. I think I like the cross-section ones the best.

 

I went out to check the sedum just to see if there were bees, and there were. So here's another sedum with a bee picture. 

 

And the lawn mower came today. This is a different guy than the one I started with. He's wearing the same kind of clothes but this guy has earbuds and mows even faster. He also didn't have a younger kid along to do the trimming and blowing but he still was here and gone well within half an hour. And he's now mowing the tenant's backyard too. I suspect he missed a patch in my backyard. It looks unmowed. Not that I'm in a lawn competition or anything.

 

I bestirred myself and took a walk this afternoon. It's too easy for me not to go out there and walk, and I don't walk far, but I need to keep doing it. Soon I'll be at The Clearing and walking from my room to the Lodge and to the classroom a few times a day.

 

Then when I got home I went out to cut all the rest of the rhubarb and barely got 4 cups to make a batch of sauce. There is literally none left. There are a few droopy leaves lying on the ground and a couple of bruised and broken stalks but otherwise, nope, none left, so this is the last batch of sauce for the season.

 

I finally knitted enough of the sock to get to the colors. Just barely. I knitted two rounds of intermittent blue but there's more colors to come.

 

Oh, I want to tell you about a license plate I saw yesterday. It read: I H8 PPL. What a thing to have on your car! "I hate people" is not a motto I'd want to be driving around advertising although I suppose it keeps people away. I was laughing too hard to notice who was driving.

And I got all excited that someone bought 2 copies of Sailing the Seas a few days ago. It took me two days to figure out that that someone is me. I always buy the first paperback and eBook of a book which shows up on purchase reports. D'oh. But someone bought another copy so I'm not my only customer. Sometimes I'm a trial to myself. And I'll get half my money back in royalties, so that's a good thing.

--Barbara 

I Borrowed This From Mitch

My knitting friend MW likes to take photos of the sky when it's showing off. Tonight it was really showing off. He texted me a few photos and I'm sharing this one with you. I knew there was a vivid sunset tonight but didn't get out to view it in time. But he did.

 

Yesterday was a good day for the gratitude journal page. I like drawing my walking legs (I can't draw the rest of me yet) and picking out a yoga pose to try to draw. There was lots of weather to include too.

 

I wasn't at my best drawing this afternoon. The prompt was Watch and my watches are misshapen and cockeyed. I tried. I really did, but they're off kilter and probably don't keep good time.

 

Today I got to pick up LC and OJ after piano. I got there too early so this was my view--a busy, crosstown street and a hospital parking lot. I did have the new Richard Osman mystery audiobook to listen to so I wasn't bored.

 

I took this Sparrow-on-the-feeder picture because no other birds showed up while I was looking today. Probably when I left the room all sorts of exotic and interesting birds showed up but all I saw was this drab little Sparrow.

 

You know, I didn't mean to make the tangelo colored stripe on this hat as wide as it is, but I just kept knitting the yarn until it ran out. Now I've reattached the pale orange and I'll finish it with that. It'll look okay, I think.

 

I finished going through all 23 pages of the Manuscript Analysis this afternoon and gave into temptation to run another one so it'd tell me that the manuscript was just fine. Well, it didn't. In fact, it printed out 25 pages of helpful suggestions. I haven't had the guts to look at them yet but I bet there will be some that I'll disagree with and ignore. Pushy program. Who's writing this novel anyway?

--Barbara

Cooperation

Often birds don't like to share. Today a Sparrow and a Downy Woodpecker managed it, only because they were on opposite sides of the feeder (I think). I was surprised that the Downy didn't move over to the suet nuggets or the suet cakes, but stayed on the round feeder until it found a peanut and flew away.

 

Mourning Doves have started coming back to the yard. They hang around under the round feeder picking up fallen seed. The squirrels even tolerate them being nearby. Evidently they're not a threat.

 

One of the squirrels spent a few minutes on the suet nuggets this morning. It dismounted very awkwardly and clambered back over the crooks to the suet cakes feeder and then to the ground. It held onto two of the crooks between the coils of the Slinkys trying to look graceful and failing miserably.

 

The gratitude journal page for yesterday was fun to draw. I can't decide if I was more grateful for the bees on the sedum or writing a letter. Maybe it was a tie.

 

Today's drawing prompt was Fern. I was leery when I heard what she expected me to draw. Ferns are complex but she made them simple. Whew.

 

Here's another Dad's rose. Because I can. 

 

The four-year-old and the toddler next door first noticed the horse head squirrel feeder today. When I came back from my walk this afternoon they came tumbling out of their house to ask me about it. The older one wanted to know what the camel head was for and the little one kept saying "horse" or something close to that. Their mama wanted them to eat something and I told them when they were finished to go outside and I'd be watching. I went out, got some corn kernels, and we went up to refill the feeder. "Corn" was the word of the hour then with the little guy. Mama noticed the conch shells on the privacy fence, so I took a couple down so they could hold them. The four-year-old heard the ocean in one and I blew the conch horn which sounded like a deranged elephant but they liked it. So they had to blow that one too. Evidently I'm the interesting neighbor. 

I had a critique zoom this morning with cda and got plenty good comments from her. Then she emailed me the right file of her manuscript so we could go over some questions she had. I was proud of her because she's not very tech savvy but managed to send me the correct file on the second try.

Then I spent most of the afternoon scrolling through the manuscript to find places to insert the lecherous landlord because he's so easy to dislike. That kind of characters are fun to write.

And it's raining. 

--Barbara 

A Yellow Surprise

I looked out the patio door this morning when I opened the drapes and was surprised to see a yellow flower up on the retaining wall. What was it? I grabbed the camera and went to investigate (once I was dressed, that is). It was a Stella d'Oro lily! One of those hasn't bloomed in at least a month and most of the leaves of the plants are yellowing and dying back. But today there was one brave lily blooming out. Hooray!

 

Next to the lily was the pink sedum and bees! It wasn't very sunny but there were bees swarming all over the flowers. I took a few pictures and a couple of them turned out. When I was back inside, I glanced back up at the sedum and there was a Monarch Butterfly on it. I tried to sneak out there to take its picture, but almost as soon as I opened the patio door, it fluttered off over the fence and away. Darn. 

 

Last week there was a piece in the NY Times "The Good List" about the Sunday Letter Writing Project that intrigued me so I went over to Substack and signed up. I signed up for the free posts, not sure I want to pledge before knowing if I'll stick with it. According to what I read, you can sign up in a cafe and get a pen pal, but I don't know if there are any cafes around Green Bay taking part, so I just found some stationery (of course I have fish stationery) and a pen and started. There's a weekly prompt. This week's was: Write about your favorite tree. Oh geez, that was a tough one. I don't really have a relationship with a particular tree, then I thought about my family tree and I do have a relationship with that tree. So I wrote to someone on that tree. I may choose another branch next Sunday, depending on what that prompt is. I enjoyed it. You know I love writing and I love writing to people (like I'm writing to you every night, Aunt B) so don't be surprised if one of these weeks you get a letter.

 

The gratitude journal page for yesterday was easy to draw because I had LC with me and I was grateful for the whole day.

 

Today's drawing prompt was Owl. She drew four different owls, so I did too. I think each of them looks perfectly owly, don't you?

 

While LC read yesterday, I sat on the other end of the loveseat and knitted on the Regia Summer Sock cuff. I got discouraged because I keep hoping that the color will show up. I guess I have to keep knitting. It'll show up eventually.

 

I'm still working my way through the comments in the Manuscript Analysis of Three Cheers for Murder. I think I made a lot of progress today. One of the suggestions made so much sense, I was embarrassed not to have thought of it myself, but I hurried to rectify the lack and hope the story is better for the additions. Every time I add a scene, I add it to the timeline (shown here) and sometimes I even have to shift the chapter numbers because I've added a chapter's worth of stuff. I'm really enjoying this.

 

Dad's rose is flinging blossoms out every which way. They're so beautiful and they smell so good. I can't resist showing you one every chance I get.

 

 --Barbara