Tap Tap Tap

 I managed to eke out some writing today. I had almost convinced myself that I was done with Better Than Mom's, that there was nothing new to write, then I just started typing and typed myself into a new character who comes into the diner. Hooray! You can see in this picture that the first two-thirds of the page are crossed out, that's where I was just rambling and trying to figure out what I was going to do with this new character. So I just had him show up and start talking and, voila!, five pages later I was at a stopping point. Man, that felt good.

Today's daily art page said to fill the glasses that were printed on the page. I pulled out my brush pens and got to work. It was kind of fun.

In Sketching I turned the page to find that he was still exploring fears. I didn't feel like exploring more of my fears (of which there are many) so I drew the airplane (which I am not afraid of) from the page and the group of what he called blob people. They look like fingers to me. Maybe if I gave them hair...

I knitted on the Get Off My Lawn! sock this evening and got to within half an inch of the toe decreases before I packed it in for the night. Guess I'll have to cast on something new for knitting on Thursday and Friday nights. I feel like there's another big yarn/big needles cap in my future.

This morning I went out with my garden snips and cut down all of the remaining weeds, potted plants, and perennials from the backyard and got them to the curb. The best part of doing that was having to step on the mint to cut down some weeds and it smelled great. The aroma stuck to my shoes so I smelled minty fresh for a little while today.

Tomorrow NaNoWriMo starts and with today's success I'm feeling much better about my prospects for having good luck getting the story started. Whew.

--Barbara

A Day of Birds

 I spent most of the day chasing leaves across the lawn to the curb so I don't have much of a variety of pictures for today. First thing this morning this Downy Woodpecker showed up and landed on the suet cake feeder in just the right spot to have his picture taken.

Then the next figure in Draw Like an Artist was a Loon. I don't think that mine looks like a loon. I'm not sure what I could have done different but this is my best loony effort.

Imagine my surprise when the next thing in 10-Steps: Nature was a Gull. This looks kind of like a gull I think.

The daily art page said to fill the page with lines so that's what I started to do. I used colored pencils to follow the few lines already on the page. When I was through the colors from the pencil jug there was a lot of page left so I decided to make angled lines and then fill in the spaces with more lines.

In the afternoon I went to Home Depot for some new plastic edging stuff to keep the bath water from dribbling down under the flooring. When the flooring was replaced a few years ago the installer didn't take off the old edging stuff so it started peeling away and I finally got tired of it and ripped it off. That meant that I had to do something to cover up the gap. Hence the new edging I installed today. I didn't do a professional job, I did an adequate job. It looks better than it did before.

Like I said I spent most of the day chasing leaves. I blew them off the front half of the lawn to the curb and then blew the ones that had fallen into the street back to the curb so that the leaf guys will pick those up too. I used up two full batteries worth of leaf blower. Man, that's noisy but it's better than raking. I detest raking.

And that's it. I didn't write, I didn't knit. I did watch 2 episodes of The Great British Baking Show. I don't think I'm caught up though so don't tell me who wins.

--Barbara

What Day Is It?

 I spent all day wondering what day it was. My pill keeper reminded me this morning that it was Saturday and every time I sat down here at the laptop the calendar told me that it was Saturday or Sunday so I kept being confused. I'm confident now, it's definitely Saturday for at least a few more hours.

I kept this last flower picture for today. It's that late-blooming Black-eyed Susan that got cut down yesterday when the landscapers did the fall cleanup.

This afternoon I blew, tarp-ed, and curbed the rest of the leaves from the side of the house. It took me five tarp-loads to get them all to the curb. I will confess that my yard is not leaf free, not by any stretch of the imagination, but the side yard is no longer paved with a thick carpet of leaves. I like that tree in the summer when the shade moves over the backyard when I go out to mow but I dislike that tree intensely when it drops its zillions of leaves on the grass in my yard. I am so tempted to just blow them back onto the neighbors' yard since it's their tree but that would be the ultimate of meanness, wouldn't it.

My sole tree, the little Pacific Sunset maple tree in the front yard has a few leaves changing color but most of its leaves are still green. I don't know why but I am thrilled that when it does drop its leaves they'll fall right at the curb where they belong.

 

The next page in Sketching said to draw your fears so I drew a stairs without a handrail and big teeth on two of the steps to trip up unwary feet. Then I drew a happy tooth getting cleaned and brushed because I sort of dread going to the dentist to have my teeth cleaned. After that I drew my water bottle just because.

 

I pulled out Sea Creatures and found a starfish and humpback whale to draw. I think they turned out okay. Coloring the whale was fun but I was surprised at how blue the example was.

 

After supper I watched Maine Cabin Masters on TV and finished up the Ara Cashmere Cap 3. The orange and green yarn ran out just after I started the crown decreases so it looks a little odd but it can't be helped. The brown doesn't look too bad.

 

I sat here staring at a blank Word screen for the longest time this morning. I couldn't think of a thing to write that would fit in with Better Than Mom's so I just typed, rambled, blathered out a couple pages. This is the first time that I've been more nervous than excited about NaNoWriMo starting next Tuesday. Usually I can't wait to see what happens when I sit here and just write but this is the first time that I have something in mind to write so I worry that what I want to write won't come. And next Tuesday evening is the writing group meeting I'm going to to see if it's what I want. More nervous making. But Tuesday will come galloping up and I'll sit here and type something and go to the meeting and it'll all be fine. Or not.

--Barbara

The Last Lily of the Season

 I hurried out to take this picture of the last Stella d'Oro lily of the season this morning...

... because the landscapers were here around 8:45am to do the fall cleanup which means that they cut down and remove all of the leaves and plants on top of the retaining wall. Bye bye, lilies, sedum, and Black-eyed Susans!

I did some landscaping cleanup today too. I used the leaf blower to gather up some of the carpet of leaves on the side of the house and hauled them down to the curb. The battery of the leaf blower only lasts for about 30 minutes so I blow leaves until it runs down, then rake them onto the tarp, and haul them to the curb. Each blowing gathers about two tarp-loads of leaves. I should finish the task tomorrow. I've got the battery charging now. I detest leaf raking.

 

Then I filled the birdfeeders and the peanut wreath. The peanuts are getting kind of moldy but that doesn't seem to deter the squirrels one little bit.

The next bird in Draw Like an Artist was a Canada Goose. I don't think I made the body of the goose round enough. It needs a bigger belly but it's pretty good. I'm not very good with bird feet either.

But I did a better job with the next figure in 10-Steps: Everyday Things. It's a sundress and a hat. Not hard to draw but I like that I made the dress look like it's a print.

Tonight at Friday Night Knitting I finished the sock gusset and started down the foot. Three hours is a long time to knit at one sitting. My fingers get tired so I put the little sock down and picked up the big cap but that wasn't a whole lot easier. Good thing that time was up about then.

Today's toss was four little knitted owl puffs and their knitted nest. The grandkids have outgrown them.

I managed to eke out a few hundred words today. I'm kind of in a word slump. I'm trying to add more scenes to Better Than Mom's but I don't want to write too much stuff that isn't in the diner. I'm kind of out of ideas. Maybe somebody new can come in to interact with the denizens of the place.

--Barbara

Made It!

My goal this afternoon was to edit out those last 51 words from Ham and Honey, the chapter from Better Than Mom's that I've turned into a short story to submit it to a contest. I did it--and then some! I read it aloud after I finished and the story still hangs together, I think. I was hoping that I could read it at the writer's group meeting I'm going to on Tuesday but it's 10 minutes long and they've got a 5 minute limit. I think I'll ask a writing friend if I can email it to them and have them give me a little critique. The submission deadline is November 8 so I have a little time.

I was surprised and amazed to see a Stella d'Oro lily blooming up on the retaining wall this morning. We've had some really frosty nights lately, it was only 30 degrees at 8:30 this morning. Brr. So it was very special to see a flower still blooming. Good thing it had its day because in the morning the landscapers are coming to do fall clean-up and that means they'll cut everything back to the ground so bye bye flowers.

The next thing in Sketching was to draw an old TV with a caricature of a newscaster on it. Then I decided to try my hand at drawing OJ. It's not nearly as handsome as he is in real life but I tried.

I went down to the library this morning to sort books and was faced with tables full of boxes and bags of books. I did what I could in a hour but I barely made a dent. The boxes in the back along the walls are the already sorted books, the bags and boxes in the foreground are the ones that need sorting.

After supper I knitted on the Ara Cashmere Cap 3 and got about halfway to the crown decreases.

I spent a couple hours out blowing and raking leaves this afternoon. The battery of the leaf blower doesn't last long enough to get the job done so I do it in stages. I've got the batteries plugged into the charger and will do more tomorrow. I'll eventually get done, it'll just take me a few days. *shrug*

I didn't find anything to toss today, not at home anyway. I tossed a lot of musty books at the library and few not suitable for public consumption. Ish.

And I stared at a blank screen for an hour or so before I just jumped in and wrote something that's terrible and won't make it into Better Than Mom's but I'm determined to keep plugging away because next Tuesday is November 1 and that's the first day of NaNoWriMo so I need to be ready to write my little fingers to the bone. 1,667 words a day, a good 5 pages of writing and that's no mean feat, especially when you have no clue what you're going to write.

--Barbara

The Sun Came Out

I looked out the window after staring at a blank screen in Word this morning to see that the sun had come out of the clouds. Hallelujah! I didn't feel all better but I felt less blah with the sun shining. And I did manage to write a couple pages this afternoon. Nothing very impressive or earth shaking but at least I got some words down on "paper."

These are the third color of mums in front of the house. I can't decide what to call them. Brick? Bronze? They aren't as glow-y as the gold ones, nor as vibrant as the purple ones, but they're pretty just the same.

 

The next bird in Draw Like an Artist was a Wood Duck. Another bird with a lot of complicated feathers. I did my best.

 

I had better luck and more fun drawing the next page of animals in Drawing Cute. They're a red panda and a sloth. I especially like the way the sloth turned out. I didn't have the right colored pencil for the panda; that was frustrating, so I layered colors and think it turned out okay but it still should have been more red-orange.

 

Instead of tossing something today I took the tosses to Goodwill. I also went over to Zambaldi Beer to drop off the movie screen that DIL1 needs for an event tomorrow but DS was busy cleaning one of the big tanks so I didn't stay long and didn't take any pictures. Then I went to Michaels where I picked out more brush pens than I meant to--but I had a coupon! After that I went to Meijer for a few things and when I got home my Land's End order had arrived and, much to my surprise, everything fit. Hooray! I miss being able to try things on before I buy them. Meijer took out their changing rooms so I guess they won't be going back to the old way. It's such a pain to have to buy a couple sizes, take them home, try them on, and return the ones that don't fit. Stupid COVID.

--Barbara

The Blahs

It was gray and drizzly and chilly today and I just couldn't muster up any oomph for doing anything. I tried to write and managed to fill two pages but it's pretty pathetic.

I went out and took a picture of the last Black-eyed Susan before the rain started. It's standing up tall back there all by itself. Most of the plants are turning yellow and dying back but this flower isn't going along with the whole end-of-the-season program.

The daily art page said to fill this half-page with doodles so I got a new pen and doodled. I'm not a natural doodler but I tried.

The next page in Sketching was cocktail glasses. Whee! See how I offset the straws? It's called refraction and I'm impressed that I remembered it.

After supper I knitted on the Get Off My Lawn! sock gusset. I've got about six more rounds of decreases before it's time to knit even down the foot. Man, that thin yarn/skinny needles knitting goes slowly. I probably should have picked up the big yarn/big needles cap that I started last night to have a more satisfying yarn experience but I didn't.

Today's toss was a bottle of hand lotion that I'll never use because it has a very strong fragrance. It's labeled Poinsettia and I didn't think they had much fragrance but evidently somebody does because the stuff reeks.

I spent some time searching through the car looking for my little lost purse and even went to the birdseed store where they very kindly checked their security video for last Saturday to see if the purse fell out in their store. It didn't. I can't stop thinking about it, it's driving me crazy. I even dreamed about it. Gah!

--Barbara

I Got Brave

This morning I called the Book Stop which is the neighborhood book store a few blocks from home and I made arrangements to stop in after lunch to talk to the owner about putting my books on consignment there. So I did it. I took four copies of each title and gave her the price and my contact information and we're all set. I stopped in 10 days ago and she gave me her new Author Consignment Policy sheet, I studied it and agreed to her conditions, and it turns out that I'm the first author under the new policy. Now I just need people to go in and buy them. Simple.

 

All of the mums are blooming like crazy. Today we've got the gold ones that just glow even when the sun isn't shining.

 

The next bird in Draw Like an Artist was a Pheasant. I had a hard time making the head of the bird not look messy and I don't think I succeeded but the body isn't bad. Also the head is too small.

 

Next in 10-Steps: Everyday Things was a Laptop. I am confident that I didn't make the right number of keys on the keyboard but no one's going to count them, right?

After supper tonight I watched Antiques Roadshow and cast on and knit the ribbing of Ara Cashmere Cap 3. I like the bright green and orange of this yarn with the black cashmere, not as much as I liked the black and white, but they can't all be favorites.

I went on the website of the Wisconsin Writers Association and found that there's a writing guild in Green Bay so I called the number on the listing, talked to a nice man, and I'm planning to go to the meeting on November 1 at the Bay Family Restaurant which is just a couple blocks from my house. It'd be great to find a writing group again.

I was strong and didn't pick up Ham and Honey 7 to try to cut those last 51 words. I'm staying to my intention of letting it sit for a couple days before I go in again. Maybe that'll help. Instead I reread parts of Better Than Mom's to see if I've got a little piece of it that I can maybe read at the writer's guild meeting next week. I thought I'd take some writing along just in case. I'll take copies of my books too.

Oh, the bad news of the day is that I seem to have lost the little purse where I kept the book money. I have an envelope of profits but the bills that I had for giving change are gone. I don't know if someone took it out of my purse on Saturday or I pulled it out of my purse by accident or what happened but it's gone. I'm just heartsick. I went to all the places I was today and called the only store I was in on Saturday but no one turned in anything. There was no ID in it so I'm sure someone just considered it a windfall. *sigh* Bugger.

Here's one more picture of autumn leaves. Pretty soon all the colored leaves will be just a memory.

--Barbara

I Couldn't Stay Away

I made it until after lunch before I picked up Ham and Honey 5 to see if I could edit out those 358 words that need to go so I can enter that short story contest. I whittled it down to 118 words left to cut, then to 51 words left to cut. It's getting so that I'm not sure how I'm going to find 51 more words that can go and still maintain the story but I'm willing to try. I really will try hard not to pick it up for a day or so, maybe then I'll find the excess words. Wish me luck.

I went out in the warm afternoon to clean out the dead coleus in the pots in front of the house and found that Dad's Rose is still blooming. One brave flower way high up on a cane so high that I had to reach over my head to pull it down to smell it. Those roses smell so good, like real roses are supposed to smell.

The rose has also made rose hips which are pretty in their own way. I like the polished green and orange look of them.

The purple mums which have been blooming since August are still showing off their flowers. I didn't get out there to trim them when they started sending up buds in July like I usually do and I thought that they would bloom in the summer and be done before autumn but they're still going strong.

In Sketching today it said to draw glasses, so that's what I did. The top pair is imaginary but the bottom pair is my "kitchen table" pair of cheaters. I think I replicated their shape and color pretty well, if I do say so myself.

Then as a Sunday treat I got out 10-Steps: Nature to find a Starfish. It was easier to draw than I thought it'd be and was great fun to color. I'll be sorry when this book ends but I have two more 10-Steps books--Flowers and Animals--that I'm looking forward to diving into. One at a time, of course, don't want them to run out too quickly.

I was pleased to see a Nuthatch at the feeders multiple times today. I don't know if it was the same bird over and over or a few of them but I managed to catch it on the platform feeder and on the suet pellets. Now I just have to decide which picture I like best.

Instead of finding anything to toss today, I folded a bottomless basket of laundry. I confess that I might have neglected to fold the wash the time before the last time I did laundry so there were a LOT of socks and undies to be folded and put away. Of course I don't pair up socks, I just make piles of them willy-nilly since none of them have mates. I love mismatched socks. It's such a chore to pair up my winter store-bought socks, I don't have pairs of handmade socks or if I do I don't wear them together.

I guess after tomorrow our Indian Summer weather will be just a memory. It's supposed to be 73 tomorrow and then drop into the 50s for the rest of the week. Ah well, it can't last forever.

After supper I knitted on the Get Off My Lawn! Sock gusset for at least an hour and you can't really tell that I worked on it. *sigh* That's the trouble with skinny yarn and needles, I knit and knit and hardly get anywhere. Maybe tomorrow I'll cast on another big yarn, big needles cap.

--Barbara

A Day Spent Cutting Words

A friend, AR, told me about a short story contest yesterday at the writers' picnic and suggested that I enter a scene from Better Than Mom's that I'd submitted for critique last year at The Clearing. I thought that was an excellent idea. There's just one thing--the word count limit is 2000 words and my scene is almost twice that long. That means editing. A lot. I started this morning with a 13-page manuscript of 3991 words, worked through four more passes with my red pen, and am at a 9-page manuscript of 2358 words. I'm going to let it simmer for a day or so and then dive back in to see if I can't excise those last 358 words before the deadline which is November 8. I've got time. Yikes!

I saw a streak of black and white stop at the tube feeder and glanced up to see this Downy Woodpecker trying to find seeds to peck. It was too late to go fill the feeder, I'd have just scared her away. She was persistent though.

 

When I did go out to fill the feeders later I scattered some peanuts on the grass and a couple Bluejays stopped by to nab some nuts. The squirrels got into the game too but I didn't take their pictures.

Today's daily art page had a bunch of stems printed on it and said to add flowers. So I did.

Then I pulled out Draw Like an Artist to find a Turkey. That was not an easy thing to draw. Turkeys are complicated birds. Lots of feathers.

After supper and my second-to-the-last editing of the day I finished up the Ara Cashmere Cap 2. I tried it on and realized that it's really a kid's size hat. I'll have to find someplace to donate it because I think it'd be too small for a seaman. I put the US 13 needle tips back on my cable so that the next cap will be more adult size. And there will be a next cap. I have yarn like this left, enough for probably 2 caps, but different colors.

I got yarn in the mail! My last spasm of sock yarn buying showed up today. The names of the colorways are Iron Pyrite, Kestrel, and Sockeye Salmon. Aren't they pretty?

When I went out to get the mail I couldn't help but admire the colors of the trees across the street. The bright reds of the leaves have faded and the yellows are shining out. We had a warm, 75 degree, sunny day. It was lovely and probably one of the last of the year.

I heard a thump on the front porch and went out to find an Amazon box filled with 20 copies of Horizon, copies that have chapters 20 and 21 in the correct order and also have a bit bigger type than the ones with the mistake. Now I can get busy getting my books in the local bookstores. Gives me butterflies just thinking about it.

--Barbara