Tonight It's Pouring Rain

A relief from last night's sleet but rumor has it that it's supposed to turn to snow by tomorrow morning's wee hours. Am I going to need my boots to get to the Market tomorrow? Will the weather keep people away? Time will tell.

It was a good day for sighting wildlife in the backyard. First and most exciting (but a terrible picture) a Bluejay showed up on the cob corn to liberate a few kernels. This, sadly, is the best shot I got but I was excited to see a Bluejay for the first time in months.

Just as I pressed the shutter button this Robin turned around so that all I got was her back. That's okay. You can see that the birdbath was thawed today too.

The afternoon was drizzly but that didn't stop this squirrel from coming back again and again for a peanut. There was another, white footed squirrel nosing around too but it got chased away by this one. I was hoping that it would stick around or jump up on the birdbath so I could get a picture but no luck.

Today's Daily Practice was birds. I probably should have used a different brush to paint the little pink-breasted bird but I will next time. I think that the orange-headed thrush turned out pretty okay though.

I got into the thumb gusset on the Marl Mitten number two this evening. I was at DS's but forgot which was their internet portal, I remembered the password but not the account, so I was using my phone to Zoom and ran the battery down to zero. Which meant that I just suddenly disappeared from Friday Night Knitting. Ah well, such is life in the digital age.

--Barbara

Sleet

Ack! I just drove across town in sleet. Thankfully the streets are warm enough (so far) that they were only wet, not slick, even crossing the bridge, but I don't think that will last overnight. We're supposed to have crap weather all day tomorrow and into Saturday morning too. Goodie.

It was sunny this morning so I took my cousin's advice and went out and filled all of the bird feeders. By afternoon the squirrels had found the peanuts that I tossed on the grass and the filled peanut wreath but I didn't see any birds. Also by afternoon the clouds had rolled in but it warmed up to 41 degrees so the birdbath thawed out for a little while. Oh, and see all that greenish, brownish grass? It's covered with white sleet now. Icy slushy crap.

I wasn't in the mood to paint this morning when I had the time but I did open up my sketchbook for a few minutes to draw some more cacti. For some reason it amuses me to draw them. I don't know why.

When I went out to get the mail (all political circulars that went right into the bin) I saw that the hyacinth is sending up flowers. You have to look carefully in the leaves but there are peeks of purple in all of that green. Hopefully the sleet won't freeze them.

And there is one defiant crocus that popped up where all of the crocuses were last week. Take that, rabbits!

I got almost all of the cuff rounds knitted on the Marl Mitten this evening, only about 7 more to go (okay, 6 1/2 rounds) until time to change to the bigger needles and start the hand and thumb gusset. Mittens go fast.

I had my last Roundtable this afternoon. I got good feedback from the other writers which I hope will help me wrap my mind around the story or at least help me figure out what the story ought to be. I can't remember if I had this much trouble with the original story. Maybe I'll take a break from it, clear my mind.

--Barbara

One Mitten

I finished the first Marl Mitten this evening. There's a fine line between just enough thumb and too much thumb. I tried it on a few times, measured a lot, but I think I got it just right. One down, one to go.

And here's the beginning of mitten number two. Just a few rounds of knit 1, purl 1 ribbing but it's a start.

The Cardinal was back at the feeder this morning. The sun shone but it was cold and windy today so I didn't make myself go out and fill the feeders.

At the same time a female Downy Woodpecker spent some time prospecting for seeds or nuts in the seemingly empty feeder. I sure do like the way those birds look.

As promised, in the Daily Practice there were butterflies. Not exact replicas of real butterflies like I was afraid of but imaginative butterflies. Whew. They were fun to invent and paint. The only thing I should have done different was to start at the bottom of the paper and paint my way up so that the bottom butterflies were drier when it was time to add bodies, decorations, and antennae. Or maybe I should have started at the top of the paper. I'll figure it out. Next time. Tomorrow it's birds. I let the next lesson start playing while clearing away the paint and brushes. Seems like she's painting birds the way they look in real life. I think I'm in trouble.

I turned to the next flower in 10-Steps: Flowers to find a Delphinium. It looked too hard but once again I took my time and erased a lot and got the job done.

I got an early delivery of 10 copies of Horizon today. They were supposed to come next Tuesday. I can't figure out how the printing and shipping of author copies works. Sometime it takes the full two weeks and other times, like this time, it's barely a week. I noticed that some of the back covers of the books have a narrow yellow edge, not all of them, just some of them. So I went back into Cover Create and made the cover photo a tiny big bigger so that won't happen again. Now I have a good supply of all three of my titles so that if I sell lots at the Market I won't be caught short.

I got a call from the local used bookstore where my books are the other day saying that she sold one and owed me a check. I hurried right over yesterday, bought a couple kids books, and picked up my check which was not even a dollar more than I'd spent but I didn't care. She sold one!

I also got a paintbrush today that I ordered three weeks ago that has been inching it's way here from Indiana. I should have checked what class it was shipped under so that I can avoid it like the plague. I'm so spoiled getting things in a couple days with Prime shipping that it was painful and puzzling for the paintbrush to take so long.

--Barbara

Mm, Cheesecake

I was supposed to meet three friends for an evening of knitting but mostly eating and talking. One of the friends, the hostess, didn't feel well so we had to postpone our get-together. I had been thinking about all of the good things that we would have--cheese and crackers, cheese and salami, some kind of soup, and something sweet. (We're nothing if not predictable.) Well, I decided to whip up a WW Plain Jane Cheesecake to assuage my disappointment. Cooling the chocolate brownie base took the longest but I managed to pry out a serving of it and it turned out just fine. It really needs an overnight in the fridge to totally firm up but I thought I needed to taste it, to make sure it was edible, you understand. I can put the other seven servings in Tupperware and store them in the freezer so I'll have cheesecake for a while. At least a week. Feel better soon, KE!

This little Chickadee made lightning visits to the feeder this morning and I was lucky enough to snap a photo of it. One of these days I need to pull on my big boots and go out to refill the feeders. Maybe tomorrow. If it doesn't rain. Or snow.

The next "flowers" in Draw 500 Flowers were cactus, um, cacti. The one on the right was supposed to be black with white spines and flowers but I couldn't figure out how to do that so I just went with black ink on white paper. It looks okay.

When I pulled out my painting things and booted up the Daily Practice, I decided to go back to the first day of painting bugs and add them to the page. So we have the yellow grasshopper and the green leaf bug along with the scarab beetle and the made up bug with the turquoise wings. Today's bugs were the three small ones with lots of ink details. I'm surprised at how much I enjoyed painting these bugs. Tomorrow there will be butterflies.

Since I didn't have friends to knit with tonight I had to knit to TV. I finished the hand of the Marl Mitten. Next comes the thumb and then it's on to mitten number 2. I think that this mitten looks too long for my hand but it's just right. Must be an optical illusion.

Man, I could have taken a nap today. I don't know why I was so sleepy all day. It was sunny and that usually perks me up. I took a catnap in the chair, I think, but no official naps were taken. Durwood was the napping professional in the family. I miss that guy.

--Barbara

Chomp

I went out this morning to put a postcard out for the mailman to pick up and saw that the rabbit had found the crocuses that I showed you yesterday and gobbled them up. The few on the other side of the planter are still there but I expect them to disappear too. Dang it.

I spent a lot of the day fooling around with pieces of The Seaview 2 (or whatever it ends up being called) and found a piece that I could polish up a bit so I'll have something halfway decent to submit to the Roundtable this week.

The next figure in 10-Steps: Animals was a Bald Eagle. I wasn't really in the mood to draw a bird but gave in and did it anyway. Once again, bird feet were my nemesis. I guess it turned out okay. It doesn't have the piercing gaze of a Bald Eagle but at least it looks like it's kind of frowning. So it looks less majestic and more crabby. Actually, now that I look at it again, it kind of looks like a seagull in an eagle costume.

I'm tons happier with today's Daily Practice bugs, especially the scarab beetle. I'm thrilled with the way it looks. Not so much the other made-up bug since I managed to drag my sleeve across its not quite dry legs and smeared them. I watched tomorrow's lesson and it's more bugs so I'll paint them around these two to save paper.

Last night and this evening I added rounds to the hand of the Marl Mitten. I've got about an inch and a half to knit before starting the decreases on the top. I'm knitting with friends tomorrow evening so I quit early tonight so I'd have mitten to knit on then. Of course, there's a whole other mitten that will need to be knitted...

--Barbara

Back Out in the Sunshine

It was sunny all day today and the snow at the edge of the roof decided to melt in a curtain of icicles all across the front of the house. I was lucky enough to see them before they plunged down and disappeared.

The crocuses that I was so excited about the other day and then worried about in yesterday's snow weathered the weather just fine. The snow melted back from the front of the house and there were the crocuses all pert and yellow, looking like they'd never heard of snow.

The Cardinal visited the platform feeder this morning too and managed to shoo away all comers except the female when she fluttered in for a snack.

I drew some flowers today. They were easy to draw and turned out the way I wanted them to.

I'm more impressed with my Daily Practice paintings. She painted the two bugs on a big sheet of paper but I decided to paint them each on a postcard. I really like the way they turned out. She said that this yellow one is a type of grasshopper...

... and the green one is a leaf insect. That's obvious because it looks like a leaf. Even it's legs look like leaves.

I had to run to the grocery today for lunch food. I seem to be running out of lunches faster these days. I don't know why, I'm buying the same size lunchmeat and chopped salad packages. Oh well. Then I spent the rest of the afternoon reading through my latest manuscript trying to find a segment that would be good to submit for the last Roundtable which is this week. Man, that is a boring story. Nothing much happens for a very long time. I've forgotten how hard I worked getting my other novels whipped into shape. I think I've found something suitable. Maybe.

--Barbara

They Said 3-6" of Snow

We got 14.5" today. No, really, it started snowing around 6:30am-ish and when I opened the shades at about 8:00am it was a whiteout. I could barely see the office building behind the house. Then there was about 3 or 4 inches of snow already and it snowed straight through until 3:15pm when it just stopped.

I went out and cleared the driveways and then waited for the snowplow to come through. Man, did he plow up a drift across the bottom of the driveways. It was more than knee deep and wet and heavy. My across the street neighbor has a broken snowblower so he was out hand shoveling so when I finished my driveways I went across and blew out the bottom of his driveway.

I looked out once it stopped snowing and saw three Robins lined up on top of the fence. I wish that the Wells Fargo sign wasn't there but what can you do?

Today's Daily Practice was to paint an abstract using the colors of gouache we used in the daisy bouquet the other day. I don't know if I like this or not.

I drew a mug of hot chocolate and a snow shovel today. Can you tell that I was cold and dreading going out to clear away all that snow?

This evening I finished knitting the thumb gusset of the Marl Mitten and started knitting on the hand. I didn't get too far into the hand but you can see where I'm going with it. I love this yarn. It's a blend of Merino and Alpaca and is very soft and nice to knit with.

My two big chores today (aside from all the snow clearing) were to fold the basket of clean laundry and to refill the pill keepers. I did those things and didn't take a picture of either of them. I was so relieved that today wasn't a Market day. It would have been a terrible day with all of the snow and the very slick roads. Someone in a minivan somehow got stuck at the bottom of my driveway this morning. They must have slid into my driveway because there was a bunch of snow pushed up like someone's car plowed into it and then it was so slippery that they couldn't back up enough to make the turn to go down the street. I watched and they finally rocked back and forth and turned the wheels the right way so they managed to escape. There was no way I was going out to help them. I'm just not that nice. It was terrible out there. Oh, and tomorrow it's supposed to be 44 degrees so all that snow is going to start melting just as quickly as it fell.

--Barbara

Yeah, It Fits

I tried on the Trekking sock this morning. It fits just fine, although the foot is about a half inch too long but that's not a big deal. I'll go make a note in my project file right now... Done.

The Robin came back and posed again. Hooray! It was a warm-ish sunny day today and the Robin spent some time poking around in the back yard. I don't know if there are any bugs or worms out and about yet but it was really looking for them.

I decided that waiting until the weekend wouldn't make the next Daily Practice painting any easier so I taped a piece of paper to a board, got my paints and brushes organized, and cued up the video. I had to stop her a few times to let me catch up and mine is in no way close to the way hers turned out but it isn't bad.

Drawing was another story. I turned to the next page in Draw 500 Flowers and this is what came of that little effort. Not my best day at the sketchbook, not by a long shot.

Oh, when I went out to get the mail I looked down and saw crocus buds! I scurried back to grab the camera before the local bunnies munched them all away. I wish there was something I could do to keep the rabbits from eating them but aside from making little cages for them I don't stand a chance.

This morning I sat down and cast on the first Marl Mitten cuff. I got through the cuff and into the thumb gusset tonight at Friday Night Knitting. I've got a few more rounds of thumb gusset increases, then it'll be time to put those stitches on a holder and knit the rest of the hand before going back and knitting the thumb. Then I'll have to do it all over again. It seems silly to be knitting mittens in the latter part of March but it's still mitten weather, especially when my steering wheel is cold, and mittens are what I want to knit right now. So I'm doing it.

Both of my Amazon Ads were approved so hopefully my books are showing up on searches for similar books. I'm not sure how to tell if people are seeing them but I'm sure it'll become clear once something starts happening. There's a page where the information is supposed to be listed and I can keep checking that until info shows up. Right now all that shows is that I have two ads, no impressions or clicks or sales. Not yet anyway but it's early days.

--Barbara

One Big Tangle

I finished the Trekking sock tonight and I'll show it to you in a minute but I decided that I'd knit myself another pair of mittens, this time working to make a tighter fabric that the wind doesn't blow through quite as easily. I have this dark gray wool and alpaca yarn that I used to make a hat years and years ago and I also used it on my sole colorwork sweater. There's enough left to make a pair of mittens so I dug it out of its bin and brought it upstairs. I weighed it to make sure that there's enough and there is. The only problem is that over half of it was wound up double stranded which meant that I had to separate it in order to knit it into mittens. Ugh. I thought to myself that it wouldn't be much trouble. Oh yeah? The yarn twisted around and around and around until it was almost impossible to separate and difficult to keep it from coiling back on itself but I managed. And I only had to cut one strand once. Here's the separated yarn all nicely wound back into balls or cakes if you want to be exact. I'll start the first mitten tomorrow.

This morning I went down to the library to sort books. We got an email from the organizer that someone was coming with a U-Haul filled with books on Monday and they could really use the help. Boxes were stacked two deep and three high on all the tables and there were three other people there sorting when I got there. I managed to empty about five boxes in a hour and packed up a couple boxes out of filled bins. This is an immense job and will take weeks to sort. Who has that many books?

Finally I managed to snap a picture of a Robin! Two of them in fact but I'll only put on one here tonight. I'll save the other one for later. It was sunny today and got up to around 43 degrees. Balmy! Naturally they're talking about snow on Saturday.

I drew these Seuss-ian creatures this afternoon. Not bad, if I do say so myself. And no, the big yellow one isn't stepping on the little green one. It's alongside. That's the way they were on the page.

The next flower in Watercolor Flowers Made Easy was Black-eyed Susans. They turned out okay. I watched the next Daily Practice and am totally intimidated by it. Maybe I'll brave it this weekend.

And here's the sock. The foot seems long but I went by my notes on past socks so I hope that it fits. I was too lazy to take off my shoe and sock to try it on tonight.

Well, I did it. I mustered up my guts, filled in an ad campaign page on Amazon Marketing and launched it. Actually I did ads for both Horizon and The Seaview. I've gotten an email that the one for Horizon is enabled (that means approved) so hopefully someone will see it, click on it, and buy it. I also signed up for a 5-Day Amazon Ad class next month to fill in the gaps in my knowledge. Fingers crossed.

--Barbara