Pretty Soup

I made pretty soup today. It's called Pulled Chicken Ancho Chili Black Bean Soup. A very long name for an easy soup to make. The hardest part was chopping 2 poblano peppers (flavorful, not spicy), a red bell pepper, and a nice big onion. Once they were sauteed and softened, it was just a matter of opening cans and dumping stuff in. Not only is it pretty to look at, it tastes great too. And a cup of it is zero WW points.

 

Birds came today! It was sunny but still pretty chilly but there were two Sparrows and a House Finch checking out the square green feeder. The House Finch isn't a closed feeder bird. They like platform feeders, which I don't have anymore since I'm trying to cut back on the rodent population.

 

Then a Downy Woodpecker landed on the suet nuggets, but by the time I got the camera up and ready, it flew over to the square green feeder's backside. Dang. So I took pictures until I captured one of its head peeking out. Just to prove it was actually here.

 

I did something smart the other day. I got a Mystery Discount email from Land's End so I clicked on it and my discount was 40% off. So I scrolled the website and looked at the swim dresses because my swimsuit is ancient and pretty ugly. I found a cute one and ordered it instead of waiting for when it's warm because then they won't have my size. It came today. I like it. It's got red on it.

 

The flower today is Passionflower. It wasn't difficult to draw but those filaments or whatever they're called were tedious. I was sure I wouldn't be able to outline them in ink and make them look right but I did. The coloring's good too. But like I said yesterday, drawing and outlining and coloring take way longer than painting a flower.

 

I had a Michaels $5 voucher expiring on Saturday so I stopped to shop. I bought a sketchbook because I can always use another one and a green watercolor marker because I didn't have that shade of green. And I managed to overspend my voucher by only $3.49. Pretty good shopping, if I do say so myself.

Last night I was so proud of myself because I got the Final Jeopardy! when none of the contestants did. (It was Boo Radley.) Not so tonight. Didn't have a clue. Can't win 'em all. 

I spent all afternoon reformatting Open For Business. I'd forgotten that I had to type in all of the recipes I put in the back matter. Copy and paste didn't work, so I had to print them off and type them in. And I didn't make too many typos. The most frustrating part was I'd get a rhythm going and Kindle Create would stop and flash "Do you want to save your work?" halting the cursor and forcing me to stop and Save. I agree I need to save often but not when my fingers are working and I'm getting things done. Sheesh. 

I mailed the pointy red hat I knitted off to a friend in Chicagoland today. She really wanted one and I've got another one on the needles so she gets the first one.

--Barbara