Not Quite Fast Enough

Or maybe the Downy Woodpecker was too fast. Anyway, I got all ready to take its picture, pressed the shutter button, and it flew. When I looked at the picture you can see how fast the bird flew away by the black and white blur in the lower left. I kinda like it.

I had better luck with the Red-bellied Woodpecker. It stayed long enough to get its picture taken. You can tell how rainy it was overnight because the suet pellets in the feeder are no longer pellets, they've melted together. The birds don't seem to mind.

One of the times I woke up last night the wind was howling and the rain was beating on the window over my head. It was still raining a little when I got up. The rain filled up the birdbath and a few leaves got blown in too. It was a rainy, windy day, not the optimum for the trick-or-treaters but then I didn't get any again this year.

Today's drawing is Baby Octopuses. Octopi? Anyway, they're kind of cute and fun to draw. I wasn't going to put the bubble streams on but I'm glad I did.

And I didn't paint until after 8 o'clock. This is the first day of a 31 day Daily Practice. I don't remember the name of the flower. Craspedia maybe? Yeah, that's it. I just looked it up. It's those little yellow ball flowers with long stems and no leaves. It's okay.

 

For a minute there I couldn't remember what I did this morning but then I remembered that DS texted he was brewing and did I want to come visit. Yes! He was brewing Maple Brown Ale but it just smelled like cooking grain. He hadn't put any of the hops or maple syrup in yet because he was just starting. I hung around for an hour or so and then stopped to fill up with gas on the way home because the Shell station by the brewery has a nice canopy and it was raining. Again.

This evening I met a couple writing friends up at the local shopping center to set up our booth for the winter Farmers Market. Unfortunately none of us are able to make it on Saturday due to prior commitments but we'll be there the rest of the dates. One of the other vendors was there setting up and she said, "Oh my favorite author!" when she saw me. That made me feel pretty darned good.

--Barbara

Splish Splash

A Sparrow was taking a bath... Now I have that song from the 50s? 60s? in my head. Okay, I looked it up. Bobby Darin sang it in 1959. Maybe it'll go away if I sleep on it.

It was also a Woodpecker day. I have two good shots of a Downy Woodpecker. The one I like best is the one where it's clinging to a Slinky and looking around waiting for the Sparrows to get off the suet cakes.

And then a Red-bellied Woodpecker landed on the suet pellets but this time it was on my side of the feeder so I got to see it in all its glory and take a halfway decent picture of it. It stayed for quite a while, long enough for me to even take a phone photo and I'm painfully slow at that.

I decided I need to draw something cute today so I pulled out Drawing Cute and some colored pencils and drew popcorn and toast. I didn't use the right shade of brown for the toast but I didn't have a golden brown pencil. I have more than 100 colored pencils. Why don't I have every color under the sun? I like the happy little toast with its melting pat of butter.

The next herb from Wildflower Watercolor is Red Clover. It's not really red, more of a pink but I like the way it turned out. And is clover an herb? I don't know. I always thought it was more of a weed but maybe it has a higher purpose. Bees like it so it can't be all bad.

It was such a nice day, a little windy, but I decided to go out and move the big swaths of leaves off the driveway and front yard. I used the leaf blower until the battery ran down, then I used the rake to finish up. One of the neighbors came over with his snow shovel which he used to shovel the leaves out of the gutter and to push the leaf piles back from the curb. Seems he got a fine from the city for having his leaves in the street where they can flow down and clog up the drain. I've never heard of such a thing but I was grateful for the help. We raked and shoveled in front of the neighbor's too because we're just that nice. It's a good thing we did because it started raining a couple hours ago and hasn't stopped yet.

Today wasn't a writing day. I scrolled through the manuscript a bit but ended up only making a few word changes. Nothing to write home about. I spent more time working on one of the critiques for next Monday's critique group Zoom.

I'm trying to encourage the waviness and curls in my hair to stick around. When it's wet it's wavy and curly. When it's dry, not so much, but I'm trying to fluff it up. I'll let you know how that goes. Maybe if I got some mousse...

--Barbara

Not So Much

There weren't many birds at the feeders today that weren't Sparrows. Just when I opened the drapes this morning I saw a Flicker in the backyard. Naturally I took its picture. And as usual the picture didn't turn out because the bird was too far away and behind the feeders. So I searched my photo library and found a Flicker picture so you can see what one looks like when it isn't blurry.

 

This morning I sat down determined to write something. Anything. And I had the ghost of an idea so I jumped on it. I managed to write 326 words in about an hour which isn't a very fast rate of word-smithing but it's a whole lot better than no words at all.

 

 

I'm not too thrilled with today's drawing. It's a Space Kitty. The cat is okay, I guess, but the whole space helmet and antennae are silly. But it's drawing practice so I did it. Lots of erasing happened during the drawing of this cat.

 

Today's watercolor is Mullein which is another herb I've never seen or heard of. Mine doesn't look like the picture in the book but it has some of the same elements, like flowers and leaves, and the colors are the same although I took liberties with the quinacridone gold that I used in the centers.

 

Oh, I got so frustrated with Microsoft today. When I was checking my email a window kept popping up saying that it was updating. I didn't pay too much attention to that until it wouldn't open websites or let me get on Zoom for a meeting. I had to reboot my computer to get on Zoom. Grr. Then after the meeting I tried to go to a website that I'd made a bookmark for only to discover that all of my bookmarks had disappeared. ALL of them. I spent hours trying to repopulate the list, laboring over passwords and sign-in names, cursing and swearing a blue streak. I finally got a few of the ones I use the most re-saved but I have no idea about all the rest of them. I just remembered that some of them were sites that I used to research things for my manuscript. I'll have to look them up again. I don't mind that they updated the site but I can't figure out why they had to disappear my bookmarks. Waaah!

My neighbor with the newborn had a youth volunteer from her church come this afternoon to rake her leaves. Evidently too many people came to rake their small yard so they raked part of my front yard too. Hooray! I'm waiting for the tree that holds its leaves longest to drop them before I call my leaf raking guy. Oh, and my little maple tree's leaves are still green. A few of the leaves on the tallest branches are just changing color but it's mostly green. Not blending in with the neighbors at all.

--Barbara

I Was Lucky

I happened to glance out this morning and there was the Red-bellied Woodpecker clinging to the side of the round feeder in plain sight pecking away at the seed. I hurried to get the camera up and ready every second thinking that it would fly away before I got a picture. But it didn't. It stayed for quite a while. Long enough for me to take five shots, all of them crap except the first one. Oh well, at least I got one good one.

This afternoon I paged to the next lesson in Half Hour of Pencil Power and found Humpty Dumpty head down in the mud. Silly, I know, but it was fun to draw and I really like his legs and feet. The shading really brought it to life, especially the tiny shading of the crack.

 

This evening I remembered to draw a gratitude journal page. In the afternoon I loaded up the big cardboard boxes that wouldn't fit in the recycling bin and the gigantic bag of bags and went down to the Recycling Center on Broadway. There's a window in the wall of the place with a yellow frame and you put your cardboard through the window. There was a big sign that said "No Plastic Bags" alongside. Rats. So I had to go to the grocery on the way home and take my big bag of bags in and plop it on top of the bin because it was waaaaay too big to fit into the bin. I also got to go next door to pick up the rent check and saw baby Eli for the first time. He was having a snack so I didn't get to hold him but I got to touch his cheek. So soft. I took over one of the bears that I knitted and a little newborn hat that I made so he can stay warm when winter comes. I suspect that his big sister who is 2 yrs. old will play with the bear first. And I ate the rest of the tiny loaf of homemade bread with butter and a little cheese for supper. So good.

I stared at the manuscript for a while this afternoon and I wrote the November writing progress email that needs to get sent out on Friday. I figure that counts as writing. I also had an idea that I plan to try out tomorrow once my Zoom with KM, the virtual assistant, is done.

I got a haircut today too. She cut my sides to be worn forward on my cheeks but I'm so used to having them tucked behind my ears that I couldn't stand it and tucked them back once I got home. I do like the rest of the haircut though. I think. We'll see how much I like it once I take a shower and have to do it myself. I don't have the hairdo gene. I can comb it and that's about all.

--Barbara

Bread!

I made bread today. Well, I should really say I baked bread today. I preheated the oven and the baking stone, then I cut the dough in the Tupperware in half, rolled it into a boule, topped it with sesame seeds, and set it to rise. I have enough dough left to make another little loaf next weekend.

I let it rise about 45 minutes but it didn't get too much bigger. (I think my yeast wasn't up to par.) But I baked it anyway and here's how it turned out. It's not very big, maybe as long as my hand, but it sure smelled great. I confess that I've eaten quite a bit of it, some while it was warm (yum), and some instead of supper. Who could resist fresh-baked bread and butter? Not me.

The next drawing lesson was Fabulous Fish. I like it. I even like the tiny circles that represent scales and the bubbles coming out of its mouth even though fish don't blow bubbles.

And the next herb was Purple Coneflower, aka Echinacea. Which is actually pink. I've always wondered if the person that named the flower was color blind since I've only ever seen pink ones, never purple.

This afternoon I went out to fill the birdbath and decided to fill the feeders since they were all empty, even the suet cakes. I wasn't expecting to see any birds so quickly but this one Sparrow showed up to sample the seed in the round feeder. The Red-bellied Woodpecker showed up this morning but only stayed a second because the suet pellets feeder was completely empty, not even crumbs in the bottom.

I tried to work on the manuscript today more than once. I just can't wrap my head around it right now. I have to figure out what Rose's stakes are and nothing is coming to me. Is she in danger of losing the B&B? How could the warring women affect her business? I do not know but that's something I need to figure out before going forward. I'm so frustrated by it and I think that's part of the problem. Help!

--Barbara

I'm Ready

I'm all ready for the cold winds to blow. I made a batch of WW hot chocolate mix this afternoon. I think I put too much cocoa in--but can you really have too much cocoa? I think not. I might have to mix up a mug of it to double check.

The Red-bellied Woodpecker visited the almost empty suet pellets feeder a couple times today. I managed to catch one semi-decent picture of it this morning. In the afternoon it didn't stay very long because the Sparrows had essentially emptied the feeder in between its visits.

Today's drawing isn't as charming as yesterday's mouse. He called it a Window of Wonder. I call those little guys peepers. I put them in the corners of the Zoom screen when I draw it on the gratitude pages. It was pretty fun to draw.

The next herb in the watercolor book was Comfrey. I don't think I've ever seen it or tasted it but I enjoyed painting it. I liked using my little #2 round brush to add the stamens and spots.

This morning I drew yesterday's gratitude journal page and this evening I drew the one for today. I spent a lot of the afternoon listening to an audiobook that gripped my attention yesterday and was hard to turn off to do other things.

I spent a little time on the manuscript today looking for places to add emotion and body language. It's harder than it seems it should be but I'll keep plugging away at it. What I should do tomorrow while my bread is rising is go over the next part of the manuscript that I want to submit to my critique group on Monday to see if I can add some emotion to it. Yeah, that's what I'll do.

--Barbara

1-2-3 Woodpeckers

I can't decide if these are all the same Downy Woodpecker or if there were three of them today. First one hung on the bottom of the suet cakes feeder and finally turned to the side so I could see its head and not just the tail.

The second time I saw a Downy Woodpecker it was clinging to the Slinky waiting for the Sparrows to finish at the suet cakes.

And the third bird landed on the suet cakes and pecked at the remnant of suet in the feeder. I was only going to post one picture but I liked seeing them all so you get to see them all too.

At Women's Spirit Zoom today, SND played a video of a woman philosophizing about life while making bread. It made me want to make bread too so I was thrilled when I found a packet of yeast in the fridge that wasn't too out of date. I had semolina flour in the freezer and plenty of all-purpose flour to make half a batch of semolina bread. I used the recipe out of Artisan Bread in 5 Minutes a Day which is my favorite bread recipe. I'll let it sit and age in the fridge until Sunday when I'll form it into boules, top the loaves with sesame seeds, let it rise, and bake it. Or maybe I'll only do half and then bake the other half in a couple weeks. The dough stays good in the refrigerator for 14 days so that's doable.

I was looking for something different to draw today and found a drawing book on the shelf that I hadn't used so I turned to the first project and gave it a go. I like it. The book's by Mark Kistler who teaches kids to draw but I like his cartoon-y style so I enjoy his books.

Then before supper I decided to paint the next herb in the new watercolor book. It's St. John's Wort. This doesn't look too much like the picture in the book but I'm pretty happy with the way it turned out. I'm not throwing it away.

I added a lot of rounds to the Wool Ease 2 Hour Hat tonight at Friday Night Knitting. Three more inches of hat and then it'll be time for the crown decreases. Using this super bulky yarn and size US13 needles makes my hands ache but maybe if I knitted more my hands would get  used to it. And even with huge yarn and even huge-er needles it'll still take me many hours more than 2 to knit this hat. I'm adding about an inch an hour.

I had a bone density test this afternoon and have already got the results but I've read and reread the report and I can't make heads or tails out of it. I'm hoping that the doc calls to tell me how I'm doing and if I should be doing anything like taking calcium or extra vitamin D.

I didn't do any writing work today. I was so frustrated yesterday I decided to give myself a break.

--Barbara

What's Wrong?

Man, did I screw up. I got the rest of the books that I ordered from Amazon today and I stacked them up to take their picture to show you and to autograph them all and noticed something wrong. Look at the shorter stack on the left. It has The Seaview on the spine when it's supposed to say Open For Business! And I can't blame anyone but myself. I was so focused on making sure that the front cover was right and my name was spelled right I didn't notice that THE WRONG TITLE IS ON THE SPINE! Good lord. I emailed GetCovers as soon as I saw it (and got over the initial shock) so I'm hoping they make short work of the correction and I can change the cover ASAP. Fortunately there are only 6 books with the mistake. I'll just eat the cost and recycle them. Sheesh. And hope no one buys a copy before I get it fixed.

When I put up the shade this morning I saw that the roofs of the houses across the street were all frosty. (Both houses have brown roofs.) I didn't realize that it was supposed to be that cold overnight but I guess it was because the birdbath was frozen solid too. It was sunny today and got up to 63. The sun was warm but the air was a little cool. I guess autumn is really here. At least for the next few days. According to my phone it's supposed to be in the mid-70s by Tuesday.

I was surprised to see that I got back the critique of the first five pages of my manuscript this morning. I was so excited that I skipped doing yoga so I could download it and read what she had to say. She liked a lot of things about the writing and had a lot of things to say about it. Those are her comments on the right side. You can see that there's lots of red in the text which is kind of off-putting but I read through it a few times today and even put all of her corrections and suggestions on the pages in another document. I'll read through the corrected pages tomorrow and see how it's different. And hopefully better. She did give me one thing to think about. I need to show how Rose and Iggy feel about things, not just report them but describe their feelings and body language which I don't really do. Gosh, this whole writing thing sure is hard work.

A Downy Woodpecker landed on the round feeder this morning and I took its picture. It was a total blur. I don't know what happened. How it focused where it did. Anyway I deleted it. Then this other Downy landed on the Slinky and as soon as I picked up the camera it flew over to the suet cakes and nearly out of sight. Arrgh. This is the best picture I could manage.

I got a text this afternoon that I have a new tiny tenant. Eli John Joachim was born this morning just before 7 o'clock and will be moving in on Saturday. Welcome to the neighborhood, Eli!

Instead of going to get a haircut I went to visit DS at Zambaldi. We had a nice chat about this and that while he was between steps of brewing a blond ale for a local college to serve at graduation, etc.

I am so bummed with my stupidity over the book cover that I really can't stand myself right now. I am such a danger to myself.

--Barbara

Done

I went down to City Hall this morning, waited in a not-too-long line, and voted. I'm so glad I did that, now I can relax but of course the mail and commercials won't stop because I voted today. At least the political texts have stopped.

The tree up the street from my house has finally decided to show colors other than brown. All of the trees have gotten with the program and changed colors. Even the tree that holds onto its leaves the longest has changed from green to yellow. Now if it will only drop said leaves so I can get the guy to come and rake I'd be happy.

 

The most frustrating thing happened today. Let me start at the beginning. I ordered 10 copies of The Seaview and 6 copies of Open For Business on October 9 so they'd be here for the event I'll be at on Nov. 2. Last week one copy of OFB arrived. One. I got an email the other day saying that the rest would arrive today. Instead one of each came in a package and when I checked my Orders page on Amazon it said that all of the books had been delivered today. NOT. So I quickly called Customer Service, patiently made my way through the recorded questions, and finally got a representative. She said that the remaining books hadn't shipped yet. I said that I'm worried that Amazon thinks I have them and they won't come. She said she'd "released" the shipment so I should have them by the 29th. This evening I got a notice that they've shipped and should arrive tomorrow. Fingers crossed.

This afternoon I decided to be brave and draw the next creature in Drawing Nature. It's a jaguar. I'm not unhappy with the way it turned out but it doesn't look like the one in the book. I kind of gave up when it came to the finer finishing touches. Nothing was pleasing me today so I decided to quit before I wrecked it.

A Cardinal came to the platform feeder this afternoon. It's the first red Cardinal I've seen at the feeders in a long time. He may have been coming and I didn't see him but maybe not. I don't know.

I thought I might have a new tenant by tonight because next door's husband stayed home from work today and I saw him and he said labor had begun. I saw them drive away a few hours later and thought it was the real thing. But they both came back in about an hour so maybe it was those pesky Braxton-Hicks contractions which are practice contractions. Very annoying.

Writing is not going well these days. I'm completely out of ideas for what else to write in the current novel. I sit here and stare at the blank screen and nothing comes so I scroll through the manuscript hoping that something will spark an idea and so far nothing's happening. The only thing this is doing is making me want to eat ALL the chocolate which I am not buying. I'll eat my 10 M&Ms a night and be happy with that. Ten isn't many but it's better than none. But at least I got the Final Jeopardy! tonight. That's some comfort.

And I just got a text that my stylist is sick and has to cancel my haircut tomorrow. What else?

--Barbara

A Nice Clean Bird

I like watching birds bathe. I especially like watching Sparrows bathe because they're such enthusiastic bathers. In years past a flock of Sparrows would all hop into the birdbath together and flap out nearly all of the water. Lately, though, it's been one bird at a time. I wonder if the bird on the rim got splashed enough that it felt like it had had a bath too.

I spent a lot of the morning listening to an Ad School video about Data Collecting. Actually I listened to two videos about the subject and I confess that I know very little more now than I knew when I started. I get discouraged because I collect clicks so slowly that I'm convinced that all of my categories, keywords, and other parts of my books are pitifully, woefully inadequate and wrong. No, don't try to talk me out of it. Hopefully customers at the farmers market through the winter fall prey to my winning smile and sales pitch.

I took a break in the middle of watching the videos to do a watercolor right before lunch. These are Bachelor's Buttons. They always remind me of my Grandma Angermeier who grew them in her garden and let us pick them for our moms.

After lunch and before I went back to video watching I drew the last four figures in 20 Ways to Draw a Butterfly. None of these winged creatures is especially pleasing to me. Especially the pheasant in the upper right. I probably was in the wrong frame of mind.

The sun peeked out for a minute this afternoon and the trees down the street blazed. Naturally by the time I went out with the camera the sun had gone behind the clouds again but I still like the pretty leaves.

After supper I sat down to watch Jeopardy! and then Finding Your Roots. Once those were over I picked up the hat I was knitting and realized that it was too big and the circular needle was too short. So I pulled the stitches off the needle, pulled out the stitches, put a longer cable on the needles, and wound the yarn back onto the skeins. Then I cast on again using only one yarn instead of two and I'm much happier with the result. I am no longer knitting a hat that will fit Sasquatch.

DS stopped over this afternoon to pull the patio umbrella out of the holder and carry it into the garage for me. I'm too short and not strong enough to do it myself anymore. Thank you, DS, I really appreciate it!

I think tomorrow I'm going to swing by City Hall and vote early. I don't think I want to stand in line with a bunch of people on Nov. 5 so I'm going to take advantage of the opportunity while I'm downtown doing the school run.

--Barbara

King of the Step

I was sitting at the kitchen table reading a Kindle book and looked out to see this chipmunk surveying its domain. It sat there for a long time just looking right and left, secure in the fact that it was the boss of the patio.

The Red-bellied Woodpecker showed up too. You can see that the suet pellets feeder is full but still the bird clung to the bottom of the feeder so that I had a heck of a time getting a shot with more than its tail and belly.

After this morning's novel critique Zoom (where I got good comments from cda and LL) but before my annual physical this afternoon I tackled the next wildflower in the new book. It's called Lady's Bedstraw. Never heard of it so I don't know what it looks like in real life but this looks kind of like the picture in the book except that I added the grass at the bottom because I thought it looked lonely just standing there.

Once again I drew yesterday's gratitude journal page this morning and I don't feel bad about it. I'm celebrating my new red purse and new shades of brown wallet from Burlington. I'm not sure I like the wallet. The dollar bill pocket is a little too exactly the same size as the bills so they're hard to shove in there. I'll have to see if I can find a better wallet at TJ Maxx.

I survived my physical. I didn't have to get any shots and I answered a zillion questions about how I feel and how my meds are working and she examined all the pages of numbers generated by the blood work I had done last week. Everything but my cholesterol is in the normal range. The cholesterol is a bit high but I don't have to take another pill--yet. Whew. I was complaining about my left ear feeling like it had water in it and I wasn't able to equalize it. She recommended a nasal spray. How could I not have thought of that? I came home, sprayed, and in a short time my ear cleared.  Yay!

After supper I watched Jeopardy! (and got the Final Jeopardy question), then watched a couple episodes of Somebody Feed Phil on Netflix. He went to Buenos Aires and Venice, both very interesting and beautiful.

--Barbara