My Mind Used To Be Velcro...

... but now it's Teflon.  Stuff that used to stick just slides on through.  How do I know?

Well, this morning I called to cancel my two agent pitch appointments and tried to sign up for a Pitch Clinic but was told that it conflicted with my one-on-one 10 page critique with one of the writing coaches at the Writers' Institute at UW-Madison.  Guess who forgot that she'd paid $105 for that?  Me.  So I spent this morning doing a little tidying up of the first 10 pages of The Seaview using the notes I made on my last read-through, then I emailed it in, six days too late for the early-bird fee I already paid but since I cancelled the pitches I've got the money on account.  Whew.  Then I went on the site and read through the schedule, picking out speakers and seminars I think might be interesting.  I'll get a pdf schedule with more detailed info in an email closer to the date of the conference but I'm glad I read through it today.



That took all morning and part of the afternoon.  While I waited for my lunch soup to heat I saw a few Juncos bouncing around under the feeders.  Their presence belies the idea that Spring is just around the corner.  They're the birds that fly down here from the arctic for the winter because it's so much warmer and nicer here than there.  I was sure that I missed the bird but look, it's flying away and is just behind the pole.  Pretty cool, huh?

The rest of the afternoon I sat on the couch knitting on my brioche cowl and watching episodes of The Great British Baking Show.  (A very small part of me wants to curse Aunt B and P for getting me hooked on it but most of me is riveted and can't wait to see who wins Season 4 (two more episodes) and then watch Seasons 5 & 6.  I have no idea if it's still on but I want to catch up if it is.)  On one round of the cowl I got to the marker and the stitches weren't right.  I glared at it and knitted past the place but got about a quarter around and realized that I needed to tink back that quarter of a round and the previous whole round to see if I couldn't fix the booboo (it was too glaring to be a "design element") so I did.  I'm very pleased that I am familiar enough with the technique now that I could back up, stitch by stitch, and even figure out where I went wrong and correct it.  See how nice it looks now?

11 March--Tropical Obsession. 

Nola stood looking through the pickets of the back gate. The pickets themselves were in good repair, excellent shape for wood in the tropics actually, but the flimsy gate represented much more. On her side was cool clay tile, laid with precision and well scrubbed every day. Outside the gate was another story. Weeds and flowering vines grew rampant in the vacant lot, trash blew and heaped against the rusting wire fence, fronds and tiny brown cones, detritus from the palms and pines that grew there, piled up to be sorted through and rearranged by the wild donkeys that roamed the island. Nola looked at her manicured nails, her perfect makeup, her styled and sprayed hair, and her rigidly chosen outfit and thought she looked like she was on the correct side of the gate. But her eyes were drawn to the flamboyant mess outside the gate and she couldn’t help wishing she belonged there.

Today's toss was an easy one.  There was a raggedy old styrofoam cooler on the next shelf and right next to it was the boot and air cast from when I broke my ankle April 1, 2016.  I am not sentimental about that stuff and I'm not keeping it.  In fact, I don't know why I kept it in the first place.  Out it all went.  Whoosh.
--Barbara