All Six

As of this afternoon all six of my audiobooks are on INaudio which will, over the next 2-4 weeks, make my books available on 30 new outlets. This picture is of most of them. They didn't all fit on my screen at once. Including Amazon and Audible that makes 32! I also noticed one is BAM! (Books-a-Million), which is how I sign my paintings and greeting cards. I'm excited about this new foray into broad marketing.

 

This squirrel is asserting its claim over the suet nuggets to a hapless and disinterested squirrel poking around on the snow under the feeders. The grunting sound it makes is loud enough to be heard through the patio door.

 

I looked up and saw this line-up of Mourning Doves on the fence. There were a half-dozen of them on the ground under the feeders too but they flew away just as I turned the camera toward them. Doves are so flighty and I love the sound their wings make when they fly away. I think they sound like little old ladies.

 

This morning I stopped at Zambaldi as my first stop of a morning's round of errands. DS was making Meatball Man Amber which is the favorite brew of my knitting friend, CS. In this picture he's making a notation about the run-off rate or something scientific. There's a lot of chemistry and science in brewing beer, also a lot of water splashes around the brew house so I always make sure I wear shoes that can survive getting wet.

 

After supper but before a brainstorming Zoom with some writing friends, I got out my paints and painted the second flower in my new book, Easy Watercolor Flowers. They're California poppies and I'm impressed with how they turned out. I barely gave the first layer of petals time to dry before slapping on the top, oranger layer but I think I got away with it this time. I'll paint them again allowing the first layer to dry longer and see if that makes a difference.

 

I had a cluster of three errands in Ashwaubenon, which is a village attached to Green Bay. First I dropped off old glasses at Eyemart Express and found out that they do make glasses with prism lenses so once I get my prescription dialed in, I can have more glasses with cooler frames made. Then I took the bag of old bill receipts to the shredder store, and finally I stopped at Cyber Works only to discover that they stopped taking recycling electronics. But the company that they used to work with is still accepting things so I got to drive into a sketchy, industrial part of the west side to drop off my old laptop. I was glad I spent an afternoon scrubbing its brain.

Then I went to the DMV to renew my license plates. You're supposed to be able to renew them online but I've been trying for the last 6 weeks and when it came to the paying part, it wouldn't accept my payment in any of the options. Not Paypal, not credit card, not electronic check. So I had to go to the office, wait in a very long line, get a number, and wait until they called me. It didn't take long once I was at the window to get the job done. I was probably there for less than an hour which I think is just fine. As a side note, I wore my Blundstone boots which put me right in step with the fashionable young women in the line. Made me feel cool for once.

Today is a very odd weather day. It got up to 42 degrees today, it's still 41 and it's raining. Not too hard right now but at suppertime it was pouring. It's rained enough and melted enough that they've issued a flood warning for Green Bay. It's supposed to get back around freezing on Saturday and snow. Good grief.

Instead of writing today, I spent the afternoon after my morning errands uploading the last two audiobooks to INaudio. I'll write again tomorrow. Cross my heart. When I pick OJ up after school he always asks if I've written yet that day. He's a good kid. DIL1 gave me copies of their school pix to put in my frames. They sure are good-looking kids.

--Barbara