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