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 

Not Another Art!

I saw a blog post a few months ago about cutting rubber stamps. It looked like fun so I put the needed supplies on my wishlist to see if Santa would bring any of it. Well, he brought the Speedball cutting tools so I bought the box of Pink Pearl erasers and the fancy ink pad after the holidays. The stuff sat there on the art shelves for a couple months and today turned out to be the day to play with it. In true Barbara Sue (daughter of Hank) fashion, I played with the stuff and then I watched a couple YouTube videos about it. Don't want to have too much instruction before just diving in! I drew a seashell and a fish on two of the erasers and got busy digging out all the parts I didn't want. It wasn't as messy as I thought it'd be and I didn't get black ink all over myself. I count that as a win.

 

There were a few Sparrows around this morning and this one flew over to get a drink so I snapped a picture. Makes a change from a bird sitting on the square green feeder picture. I keep hoping to see some kind of Woodpecker but so far, no luck.

 

A squirrel leaped up onto the roof of the suet cakes feeder and then up onto the suet nuggets crook. It had a nice time nibbling there for a quite a while.

 

Look at what I bought today. It's a spring bulb planter. Isn't it pretty? And you wouldn't believe the fragrance of the hyacinths. I want it to last a long time so I put it out in the garage where it's cool after supper. I'll bring it in during the day and then let it spend the night in the garage. I figured that florists keep flowers in a cooler to help them last so my cool garage might do the same thing. Maybe. As long as we don't get prolonged freezing temps.

 

When I flipped through the drawing book today, I found this page of Bugs & Such with six lovely bugs to draw. I like drawing bugs so I dived right in. The slender gray insect did not have the firefly glow around its back portion in the example but I thought it looked like a lightning bug and added it.

 

I saw the sun setting out my bedroom window and took a picture. It's not a very clear picture because it's taken through the plastic, a not very clean window, and the screen. But it was pretty so you get to see it. I thought about going outside to take the picture but I'd just gotten out of the shower and didn't want to terrorize the neighbors.

 

When I came back from errands it was just starting to rain like it meant it and when I got into the house I saw hail on the patio. I took a picture of the birdbath and you can see the little white balls of hail around that too.

 

Tomorrow's the first session of the Novel Intensive Critique group I signed up for with Wisconsin Writers Association. I got an email from the leader today asking if I'd be willing to go first because two of the other three aren't experienced with group critiques. I said okay.

Then I sat down and made some notes about publishing and marketing for a workshop that some writers are organizing. They invited me to be on a couple panels so I thought it'd be a good idea to plan a bit beforehand. It helped to organize my thoughts on the subjects. Made me less nervous about the whole thing.

--Barbara 

One Sign of Not Spring Yet

It was a sunny day today, a little breezy, but it got up to 55 degrees so it felt like spring. However. I looked out the patio door and spied this little black and gray bird there and knew that while the calendar says spring but birds don't. Not yet. This is a Junco, a bird that migrates from the arctic down here where it's warmer in the winter. Warmer, yeah, no. Although I suppose it is warmer here than up near the Arctic Circle. As long as the Juncos are here I figure winter's not really over.

 

Robins showed up today. A pair of them were tussling around but I couldn't take their picture. I managed to take this one's picture near the crooks but not behind them.

 

Here's the last Christmas cactus flower blooming. The other tiny nubbins aren't growing so I guess the splash of flowers is pretty much done. It was a lovely surprise to have that many blossoms on this old plant.

 

The mail carrier delivered a box of new bookmarks today. All eight book covers are on the front. I can't imagine being able to cram another cover on there. Because there will be another book. I'm working on it right now.

 

I drew a Dragonfly today. It turned out okay.

 

The pest nerds visited today while I was Zooming with cda. They refilled the bait boxes that are around the foundation to make sure that the mousies don't try to move into my house again. I don't want mice or rats or voles around. No thank you.

They're predicting thunderstorms after 11 tonight. That should really melt more of the snow that's hanging around after the blizzard a couple weeks ago. I don't mind if it rains as long as it isn't cold enough to freeze afterward. I do not want to have to deal with ice.

--Barbara 

One Bird at a Time

Birds visited today. One at a time. First this Sparrow landed on the square green feeder and spent a little time pecking away at the seed, first facing the feeder and then with its back turned so it had to turn to the side every time.

 

Then this Robin scurried across the lawn looking like it was listening for worms or something. When it wasn't behind the crooks its back was to me so I waited and got this partially obscured photo of it. Right after I snapped the picture the Robin pounced on a peanut half in the grass and ran off with it.

 

When I was having supper a Chickadee landed on the square green feeder and stayed long enough so I could take its picture too. It also spent part of the time facing the feeder and part of the time facing away pounding a seed on the perch.

 

I went out to refill the birdbath and checked the rhubarb. It's sprouting! Even though it's on the north side of the house and never gets sunshine this early in the year, little pink rhubarb sprouts are peeking out. Hooray! That means in a month or so I'll be able to make rhubarb sauce to put on my breakfast yogurt. It's my favorite.

 

Today was an artsy day. First off, I drew a Sea Turtle out of the new drawing book. I can't remember the name of the book but it says it has over 1200 pictures to draw. Maybe she's counting all of the steps to draw each one? I'm not counting but there aren't 600 pages in the book so that's my guess.

 

Then I decided to paint the next flower in the 31-day course on Creativebug. It's a Pincushion Protea. I'm surprised at how well it turned out. The leaves along the left side of the paper are messy looking but I like the flower.

 

And after supper I sketched another Sea Turtle from a watercolor painting that the watercolor teacher gifted me last spring. I keep wanting to try to copy it in a painting but then I lose my nerve. Maybe someday I'll get brave.

 

Once again the end of the month has sneaked up on me so I spent most of the afternoon writing my monthly writing progress newsletter email, finding a picture to put on it, and sending it off by email to KM to upload to MailerLite to be sent on the 1st. Then I spent some time posting event advertisements on both my Facebook page and my author Facebook page. Marketing is never ending.

--Barbara 

This Is The Day We Wash Our Clothes

I gave in and did the laundry today. My excuse for waiting the last two weeks was that I wanted to wait until any snow built up in the window well where the dryer vent is melted. I am absolutely certain that it had melted at least a week ago, if there was much snow in there at all. But I didn't want to rush into anything. There are no pictures of a basket full of clean clothes or shirts on hangers or hand-knit socks clothespinned to the wash lines in the basement.

 

Last week I ran out of Jello so I made more. This time I went off my usual flavors and made black cherry. It's okay. I think regular cherry is better and I still like lime or orange the best. 

 

Here are more daffodils showing up to enliven my March. I smile when I see them. I'll smile even more when the flowers bloom. There will be lots of pictures, I can assure you.

 

Today's drawing is a penguin. This is not the best penguin ever but it was simple to draw and color so I kind of like it. I wanted to draw a bird but the other birds looked too complicated so I'm starting with simple. There's nowhere to go but up.

 

The last two Christmas cactus flowers are in full bloom. This one is open the most with its parts dangling out to be admired. Stamen and pistils? Maybe. I know the words but I'm not sure what's what.

 

I copied and pasted the next chunk of my manuscript ready to send it for critique once we're through Wednesday's session. Tomorrow I'll reread cda's manuscript piece for our session on Monday morning just to make sure I didn't miss anything. And I have to remember to send the Zoom link for Monday too.

I just got an email from one of the people I contacted about helping me get my last book off Extended Distribution. I'll reply tomorrow and maybe we can meet online to solve the problem. That would be good.

And I just heard the dryer buzz telling me that the last load is dry. I don't have to hurry down to hang anything up because it's towels and undies. They can sit in the dryer overnight.

I drove out to Howard (a nearby village/suburb) to deliver a copy of Anneke's Legacy to a knitting friend. She's going to be out of town next week and wanted something new to read. Another knitting friend needs that title and Island Dreams. She was going to order them from Amazon but asked if I make more if she gets it from me. The answer is yes! I'll double check with her before I mail them but I'd rather she bought them from me than Amazon because I get almost twice the payback with direct purchases. Amazon has a confusing system of expenses vs. royalties which works out with them getting more. *shrug*

--Barbara