Trepidation

I did something this afternoon that I haven't done in years. I tidied up a short story and submitted it for publication in Creative Wisconsin Magazine. I read the story at the last Guild meeting and got some feedback so I did a little (very little) rewriting, linked it to an email, and hit Send. I got a very quick response that I'd made the editor laugh. I think that's a good sign.

When I was futzing with watercolors in the guest bedroom I happened to look out the window and noticed that the forsythia is starting to bloom. They're one of my favorite spring flowers. I remember Mom pointing them out when I was a little girl. So I went out to take a picture.

Then I saw that the lilac bush is leafing out and there are buds. Aren't they pretty? I can't wait until they bloom because they smell so great. This is an ancient lilac bush. It was in the backyard of the Liberty Street house when we first moved to Green Bay in 1962. Dad dug it out in the late 70s and was going to chuck it but I saved it and planted it in the backyard of the duplex. It likes it here. It was never very happy over on Liberty.

I booted up a brush exercises YouTube video this afternoon and this is what I painted. There's a little "painting" of flowers and leaves in the lower right corner of the blue and orange sheet but otherwise it's just brush strokes using only one brush--the 1/4" dagger brush. It was fun.

This male Goldfinch was flitting from crook to feeder and back today but I managed to catch him when he held still for a minute. I do love the bright yellow color and his rakish black beret.

I got a text this morning from DS that he was brewing today and did I want to stop by. Of course I did so I got dressed and went on over. Here he's finishing up grinding the grain to brew Yard Games IPA. That red machine is the grinder and it's connected to the mash tun by a long pipe that goes up to the ceiling and then down into the big vat where the magic begins.

I worked on the computer all day with writing stuff. I went through the whole manuscript looking to eliminate "so." There are a lot of words with "so" in them but there also were a lot of stand alone "so"s that I tried to get rid of. I think I took out a hundred, maybe more. And I added a page in the middle where I wasn't sure the last time I went through if I needed to check people out or just move on. I decided to check them out before moving on. That brought the page count up to 299! Holy cats, that's a lot of words! What I meant to write this paragraph about was the fact that I didn't go to the store for bananas (I was out of bananas and I forgot on the way home from Zambaldi) until about 6pm. The store wasn't crowded but the sky was threatening and it started to rain as I went into the store. Naturally I didn't go to the store during the day when it wasn't raining. I'm skilled like that. Here's the birdbath with raindrop rings in it. I'm enchanted by them.

I got two emails from prospective narrators today. I reread the audition scripts I wrote the last time and did a little adjusting and sent them off. Hopefully I'll hear from them soon as I'd like to get back on track.

--Barbara