Chillin'

When the Sparrows empty the round bird feeder the ground feeders gather below it and graze. This afternoon I looked out and there were two rabbits under the feeder. One looked normal, sitting up on its four feet nibbling away at the fallen cracked corn. The other one was sprawled on its belly with its legs stuck out to the side nibbling away too. It was relaxed.

 

I managed to capture a halfway decent picture of a Cardinal as it perched on the edge of the platform feeder grazing in the safflower seeds. It took three shots to get one that didn't have its head hidden behind the feeder's post.

 

Dad's Rose opened up a couple new flowers leaning against the bricks on the front of the house. I'm not sure why the rose cane is leaning against the house but it isn't the only one. There are two, side by side, leaning away. Isn't it too hot there?

 

The first chrysanthemum is opening and so is another bud. I still haven't decided if I'm going to trim them back to stop the madness of blooming in July or leave them be. It won't be tomorrow because I have to mow the lawn tomorrow.

 

Today's drawing prompt was Spots & Dots. I taped a half-sheet of watercolor paper to a plexiglass board and drew dots with alcohol markers then I drew little things in the dots with a black pen. I didn't draw directly in my sketchbook because those markers bleed through the paper like it isn't there. I was surprised to see that they bled through the watercolor paper too, just not as much. They smell kind of funny and kind of good.

 

This afternoon I worked on the blurb for Christmas at Seaview and in doing that got an idea of something to add to the manuscript so I went back there and tucked that new idea in place. I also realized that I had way too many "Oh"s in there so I used the Find function to sort through them. I asked it to find all the instances of those two letters and took out 17 of them. Many of the remaining 60 are actually parts of other words but still that's a lot of "Oh"s. It's better now. I wonder how much I say that in real life. The more I read the story, the more I like it.

 

When I got done with that I transferred to the other, longer manuscript and read through a few more chapters making notes of things to fix or change. I'm getting a little tired of this one so once I'm done with this Kindle edit, maybe I'll put it aside for a while to let it rest. I moved a few ideas that came up into a file marked "The Seaview, book 4?" too. I'm gathering pieces of other stories that resonate with my idea for the next book so I don't lose them. I never thought I'd write a sequel and now it looks like I'll be writing a third one. (I'm calling the Christmas novella Book 3.5)

I've been neglecting to hose out the grass clippings from under the mower deck when I finish mowing and the last time I mowed I could tell. So I went outside this afternoon, tipped the mower on its side, and scraped out the dried grass. There was a lot of it. I promise to do better tomorrow no matter how tired I am when I finish mowing.

--Barbara