Happy Birthday to Me!

Today marks my 75th trip around the sun. I can't believe I'm this old. I don't feel this old... well, except when I've been sitting here writing for hours and then stand up. Then I feel old. But mostly I don't. This is another HuHot birthday picture, this time with me in the glasses.

 

Look at what DD sent me for my birthday! It's a molded plastic horse head squirrel feeder! The neck of the head is open so you hang it from a branch or a hook (I have a hook) about 10" off the ground, then you put seed or corn kernels (I have kernels) inside on the lower jaw and the squirrels stand up in the head to get the corn and look funny so you can make fun of them. I immediately got the string attached to hang it and went to the birdseed store for shelled corn. Now I'll get it hung up once it isn't 93 degrees out with 80% humidity.

 

Speaking of humidity, this is what my patio door looked like when I opened the drapes this morning. At first I was afraid that the seal between the panes had broken but as the day warmed up, the glass cleared. Whew. I do not want to have to replace the patio door since I think I need a new refrigerator. Mine has a plugged self-defrosting drain AGAIN. I used to have the problem about once a year but I had the service guy here a couple months ago for the same problem. The time between the service calls has gotten drastically shorter so it'll be less expensive to get a new fridge than to keep paying $135 every time the darned thing plugs up. It's 22 years old so I feel like I've gotten my money's worth out of it. 

 

Today's drawing is Teacups. I'm enjoying the plain line drawings rather than the complicated flowers and birds I was drawing before. It's like a vacation.

 

Here's the gratitude journal page for yesterday. The best thing was the fleeting glimpse of a Hummingbird. It came to the feeder but the feeder is leaking which draws bees which repel Hummingbirds. But I did see it fly back to the sedum to investigate those flowers.

 

I made more Character pages for my Series Bible today. This time I made pages for the secondary characters around the city with their reasons for wanting the victim dead and their alibis. 

 

I couldn't resist today's melted squirrel. It crept its front paws around until it was almost U-shaped before straightening out like you see here. You can almost hear it say, "Ah." 

 

Somebody signed up to review The Seaview on Booksprout! I'm so excited. She's a newsletter subscriber, read today's newsletter, and signed up. Just like that. Woohoo! Now I just hope she likes the book. Fingers crossed.

--Barbara 

How Hot Was It?

It was so hot today that this squirrel melted. It must have felt cool laying on its belly on the concrete because it laid there for quite a while. Seeing a squirrel like that makes me laugh.

 

While one squirrel was melting, another one was dangling from its hind feet nibbling corn kernels. It has taken them no time at all to strip all the kernels off one cob and get a great start on the other cob.

 

I was lucky enough to see a Downy Woodpecker on the suet nuggets. It was busily pecking away, turning its head this way and that, having a good snack.

 

It took some thought to figure out what to put on the gratitude journal page for yesterday. I spent time working on the outline and then I folded the basket of clean laundry and put it away. All on the same day! Imagine that.

 

I got a shipment of books this afternoon. All of them were in one HEAVY carton. Twenty novels and ten novellas weighs a lot. I could barely lift it off the porch and carry it in to put on the table to unpack it. But I got them all autographed, stickered, and bookmarked so they're ready to be sold when I need them. I have my first vendor show in about a month so I'm ready. Not that I was out of any titles but it takes a couple weeks to get author copies so I don't like to have low stock.

While I sat watching TV tonight I added a few rounds to the Pale Orange Chemo Hat. I don't have enough of this color to knit the whole hat so once I get the ribbing done I'll make a darker orange stripe. It'll look good, I promise.

 

 I read a Substack article about writing a novel series today so I took the author's advice and started a Series Bible. If I plan to write a few books with these characters and this setting (and I do), I need to get things like physical descriptions and character traits down in one place so I don't have a brown eyed sleuth in one book and have the same person's eyes change to green in another one. It was fun to gather all the info for my main characters, brainstorming what they like to wear, read, and do for fun and work. I need to do the same for minor characters that will continue from book to book too. Then I'll reread the article to see what to do next. All this learning is kinda fun.

 

I didn't feel like drawing a flower or a bird today so I opened my library in Creativebug to find a simple drawing class I could restart. The first lesson is Tree, as you can see. I think the one on the left looks like it's in a strong wind but I especially like the one on the right.

 

I'm staying indoors as much as possible. It got up to 90 today and is dreadfully humid. It's supposed to be that way tomorrow and maybe Wednesday. We'll see if I can stay home, although I have a Guild meeting tomorrow night and I'm down to one banana, so maybe not.

--Barbara 

Happy Birthday, Mom!

Today would have been Mom's 98th birthday. My birthday is on Tuesday. We used to go to HuHot Mongolian Grill on the day between our birthdays and pay for each others' meal. Then we'd each get free dessert after proving that it really was the day after hers and the day before mine. I miss that. And I still have the glasses.

 

There were four Sparrows on the feeder today when I was able to catch them. The juvenile delinquent squirrel leaped from the patio chair to knock into the feeder so that seed spilled and then it'd drop down and frantically eat up all the seed it could.

 

And the Red-bellied Woodpecker was back, this time on the other edge of the suet nuggets feeder. It can't land on the side so I can see the whole bird. Oh no, that would be too easy for the crazy lady with the camera.

 

I drew yesterday's gratitude journal page and thought how lucky I am to live with caring, friendly neighbors. Someone suffered a loss on Friday that drew us together for a few hours. It's a good neighborhood.

 

Last week's bud on Dad's rose is opening. It's not the biggest flower on the bush but it's still gorgeous, red, and smells like a rose is supposed to smell.

 

Today's drawing is a Barn Owl. It wasn't too difficult to draw but was a bit of a pain to color.

 

Writing went pretty well today. I added the rest of the old pieces to the manuscript and then went back in and added a suspect. I gave a character a reason to be suspected anyway. Then I remembered that I have to have an email newsletter written for KM to schedule for Tuesday morning. Oops. I almost forgot but I cranked it out, slapped on a book cover graphic, and sent it to her. Now the ball's in her court.

It was humid, hot, and still today so I mostly stayed indoors except when I went out to grab the Hummingbird feeder to refill and then put it back out, and when I filled the birdbath. Muggy out there. Ugh. And tomorrow's the first day of the school year so the classrooms will be like saunas. Double ugh.

--Barbara 

If You Fill It, They Will Come

I filled the suet nuggets feeder this afternoon and before I left the room, this guy showed up. More than once that I saw. I can't decide if this is one of this summer's Red-bellied Woodpeckers or if it's a genuine adult. I don't care. And I don't even care that it tends to land on the back side of the feeder, as long as I can see its head and shoulder.

 

Of course, one of the squirrels had to assert its dominance, chasing the first visiting Red-bellied Woodpecker away so it could coil around the feeder and nibble away.

 

When I went up to fill the cob corn feeder this afternoon, I noticed that some of the sedum has started to bloom. It's the pink kind. Unfortunately it wasn't sunny and warm this afternoon so there weren't any bees busily enjoying the flowers. Too bad. I always like to see them.

 

I almost forgot that I spied a different bird, a Downy Woodpecker, on the nuggets when I got home from the birdseed store. I crept to the table, gently lifted the camera, and eased to the side to hopefully get a clearer shot. It worked.

 

On yesterday's gratitude journal page this morning I tried a new sunshine design, then bragged about working on the timeline outline, Zooming with my women writer friends, and finishing Scrap Hat #8. Altogether a satisfying day.

 

Tonight I cast on another chemo hat, this one is called the Pale Orange Chemo Hat. (not very original, I know) I'm using the same pattern as the last two (which I didn't deliver to KW last Saturday like I meant to). I did go up a needle size to ease the ache in my fingers from the size US15s I used for the scrap hats. I need a break.

 

Today's drawing is Olives. I thought they were blueberries because the fruits looked blue but the book says they're olives, so they're olives.

 

I spent quite a bit of the day working on Three Cheers for Murder. I added a suspect, had my sleuth quiz a different suspect, and made some decisions to make the victims easier to, well, victimize. Tomorrow I need to read the next chapter in the how-to book because I'm either falling behind or am way out ahead. One fun thing I did today was research tarot card meanings so that my sleuth's wacky neighbor could come over having done a tarot reading trying to dissuade her from presenting a petition to the City Council for some changes around her shop. I have a deck of small tarot cards with a very handy booklet telling what each card symbolizes and the supposed meanings of them. I like the pictures and the stories they tell, but I believe them about as much as I believe newspaper horoscopes.

I am so frustrated with myself. If I'd have ordered the cover design for Sailing the Seas a month before I did, I'd have it in hand and could publish the book. As it is, I'm at the mercy of the designer's timeline. I don't want to hurry them up and end up with something I don't like. So I wait. 

--Barbara 

#8 Finis

At Friday Night Knitting tonight, I finished Scrap Hat #8. It's a big 'un. Somebody with a giant noggin is going to love it. When I put it on and pulled it down, it displaced my glasses. That's one big hat and it's really squishy and warm.

 

I was lucky enough to spy a Chickadee on the suet nuggets this morning and managed to get a slightly blurry picture of it. They're so fast and there's so much between me and that feeder for the camera to focus on that I'm just happy the bird's recognizable.

 

A quartet of Sparrows clustered on the round green feeder. There were about four or five more on the ground under them pecking up the seed that fell. It's like there are two crews--the thrower-downers, and the picker-uppers. It's a team.

 

This afternoon I realized that I'd forgotten to draw a gratitude journal page in the morning. I quickly got out the pens, journal, and markers and got busy. I like the yoga figure because I really enjoyed yoga yesterday.

 

Between Zooms today, I worked on updating my Timeline Outline on OneNote. I'm still not sure I like using the app but I'm willing to give it a try. I rearranged so much of the story since I made the outline in the first place that I had both the app and the manuscript open and bounced back and forth between them, jotting things down in the outline.

 

And I just realized that I forgot to do any Art today. I had a lot on my mind and didn't get to it. I'm counting the gratitude journal page as art for today. I can do that because I'm the boss of me.

--Barbara 

Not a North American Goldfinch

I don't know where the people who made the drawing book I'm using live. Maybe England. Because the birds have familiar names but they aren't the same birds I'm used to. Today's bird is a case in point. It says it's a Goldfinch but the Goldfinches that visit my feeders on occasion are mostly bright yellow with a black cap and black on their wings. This bird is not that. It's got red on its face, brownish on its back, very little yellow, and a white belly. It's an okay looking bird, just not the Goldfinch I'm used to.

 

I didn't spend much time at the kitchen table today so I didn't spend much time looking out to see what kind of birds visited. A flock of Sparrows were on the feeder and on the ground when I was doing yoga this morning but I didn't stop to take pictures. Late in the day I did see this squirrel contorting itself around the suet nuggets feeder. It was doing a lot of moving around, head up and head down.

 

Yesterday's gratitude journal was easy to draw and color. I was most grateful for the ease of writing short stories, but taking a walk was good too.

 

Writing wasn't as easy today. I spent some time reading in the how-to book, then trying to figure out how to implement what I'd read. I also spent time playing with OneNote, a note-taking app (duh) that's part of Microsoft 365. It took some figuring out and some missteps, mostly until I asked it how to turn off Copilot the annoying AI component that kept suggesting words. I'd type a letter and it would assume the word I meant to write and that word would pop onto the screen. Gah! It was distracting when I was trying to complete a thought. It's turned off now. 

 

I waited until Jeopardy! was over to take a walk. It was cooler and there was a breeze. Also I felt very smart because I got the Final Jeopardy! The category was coins of the world so I figured I didn't stand a chance but as soon as Ken read the answer I knew the question. What is Gibraltar? That slightly makes up for the fact that the New York Times Connections puzzle usually kicks my butt every night. Once I got 11 in a row on Connections. Now I can't seem to string 2 solves together. But I keep trying.

Last night I read an article on Modern Daily Knitting about listing your video classes in your Bullet Journal to keep track of them and see if there are any you've missed. I went on Creativebug which is the site where I've got a few (I thought) classes piled up. Well. I opened up My Classes and started listing them. I have 20. Twenty! Mostly watercolor and drawing, but a few sewing ones too. I've at least started most of them, have finished a few, and had no idea that I owned some of them. It's a good thing I have a lot of credits so I don't have to purchase new ones I find. Can there be more? One of these days I'll search around to see if I can find more watercolor ones. Or I'll just repeat the ones I've already done. I'm good with that. I have a few classes on Domestika too but those I have to pay for individually and there aren't as many that appeal to me.

 

My doc told me last fall at my physical that I should keep writing because that would keep me from getting dementia. I'm not sure he's right about that, but I keep doing Wordle, Connections, Strands, Wordling, and writing stories and novels just in case. And I got a text from the pharmacy that flu vaccines are available so I guess I'll toddle on over in the next week or so to get jabbed.

--Barbara 

Stop and Smell the Rose

I was surprised and pleased to look out my bedroom window this morning to find one of Dad's roses had bloomed so I hurried right out to take its picture. There are a couple more buds out there so I'll be keeping an eye on it.

 

In the morning I drew yesterday's gratitude journal page. I was mostly grateful for spending the day with OJ but getting more tomatoes from GBB was pretty awesome too. 

 

Around the base of Dad's rose the purple mums are blooming up a storm. Will they still be blooming in September and October when chrysanthemums are supposed to bloom? I have no idea but we'll see.

 

The yellow mum plant had one tiny flower on it. Lots of buds but only one flower. So far.

 

I looked out and spied a squirrel trying its darnedest to get into the new round green feeder. It pushed up the lid but the seed was too low for it to access. It tries to get at the seed it can see through the clear plastic tube but the metal cage around the tube protects it. Take that, tree rat.

 

The Red-bellied Woodpecker came by a couple times that I saw today. I managed to snap this picture of it posed between the suet nuggets feeder and the Oriole feeder. At least you can see the darned thing today and not just the top of its head.

 

I spent most of the afternoon and early evening making story starts into stories. I went back into a couple of them, thought they felt done in their shortest form, and plunked them into the Flash folder. Then I turned three of them into regular short stories. I was on a roll today, in the flow, whatever you call it when things are going right. Last week I read an essay about authors needing to prove that they've actually written their work instead of having it written by some form of AI. One thing that was recommended was to save all your work on something like OneDrive which autosaves so you can prove you've done the work and sends it to the cloud for safety. I've even read that writers are leaving typos and awkward sentences in their work now to "prove" it isn't AI-generated. I find it all mind-boggling. All of my writing is my own--mistakes, awkwardness, and all. 

 

Today's drawing is Clover. All those little florets were a pain to draw and ink but I like the way they look now that they're colored. 

 

This morning I spent time scheduling Substack stories into early October. That made me realize that I needed to write more short stories because I was quickly running out again. Luckily I have a whole folder of Story Starts to play with. 

My left foot is sore for no good reason. I put on socks and shoes today and my left instep started to ache. These are not new shoes or new socks, so there's no logical reason for my foot to hurt. It let me take a walk this evening so it didn't impair me, but sitting still like I am now it's just aching away. Sometimes getting old sucks, doesn't it?

--Barbara