Self-Awareness

I had a young companion today. OJ said he needed a Meemaw day so I picked him up. We went to lunch, dropped some donations off at Goodwill, and popped into Michaels for some stamp carving supplies. I had a box of pink pearl erasers and that's what he started with. His first one says "Certified Smart Aleck." I asked him who told him that and he said he did. I was very impressed that he knew to carve the letters backwards so they'd come out right, but he'd already carved a lino cut at Grandparent University in Madison with Doc and Nana this summer so this was not a new art for him. He said he made a monkey face at GPU.

 

My stamp carving wasn't quite as successful. I tried to carve a scallop shell, but didn't do a very good job at the curving tops. Since it was my first time, I don't feel bad. I'll practice. Then I gouged a crater in another eraser trying out a cutting tip and didn't know what to do with it so I carved some lines and turned it into a flower with stems--sorta.

 

We watched this squirrel nibbling on the suet nuggets. I thought it would leap over onto the new feeder and try to get at the seed but it didn't. The Red-bellied Woodpecker landed on the suet nuggets and on the side too, so I could see it all, but it flew away before I got the camera off the table, dang it.

 

Before picking up OJ, I drew yesterday's gratitude journal page. I had a lovely walk, but was most grateful for getting all of my audiobook files onto Gumroad with barely a hitch.

 

While OJ read a little and then played with the blocks, I drew today's art. It's listed as a Robin but it doesn't look like an American Robin. Obviously it's a British or European Robin and mine is not as rounded as the picture, but the coloring pretty much matches the one in the book.

 

When he and I got tired of reading, we played dominoes. He won both games, but it was close, not a runaway. After I dropped him off this afternoon, I listened to a cozy mystery hoping to pick up tips, but it's narrated by a synthesized voice. There's very little expression and "she" pauses in odd places. I'm distracted by the poor narration so I'm not getting much out of the construction of the story.

On my way home I ran out to GBB's house where I picked up a few more homegrown tomatoes. They're so much better than the ones I got at the farmstand last week. Although the peaches I got there are pretty darned tasty AND they're freestone so I don't have to wrestle the fruit from the pit. Every time I eat a ripe peach I think of the peach ice cream Mom and Dad made once when we still lived in Evansville. It was the best ice cream I've ever eaten. Do you remember that, Aunt B? It was so good.

I think I have the manuscript of Sailing the Seas all formatted, so as soon as I get the final cover design I can publish it and order copies. I don't think it'll happen by the dates of my shows in September but hopefully it'll be ready by the first week in October when I go to The Clearing and then come home for a show the very next day. Fingers crossed.

One ultra-cool thing, I posted on Facebook yesterday that I finally figured out how to upload my ebooks to Gumroad and there were a few comments on the post. One of them was from a woman I went to high school with who said she plans to pick one of my books for her book club next year because they're reading Wisconsin authors. I'm tickled pink! 

-- Barbara