If You Fill It, They Will Come

I filled the suet nuggets feeder this afternoon and before I left the room, this guy showed up. More than once that I saw. I can't decide if this is one of this summer's Red-bellied Woodpeckers or if it's a genuine adult. I don't care. And I don't even care that it tends to land on the back side of the feeder, as long as I can see its head and shoulder.

 

Of course, one of the squirrels had to assert its dominance, chasing the first visiting Red-bellied Woodpecker away so it could coil around the feeder and nibble away.

 

When I went up to fill the cob corn feeder this afternoon, I noticed that some of the sedum has started to bloom. It's the pink kind. Unfortunately it wasn't sunny and warm this afternoon so there weren't any bees busily enjoying the flowers. Too bad. I always like to see them.

 

I almost forgot that I spied a different bird, a Downy Woodpecker, on the nuggets when I got home from the birdseed store. I crept to the table, gently lifted the camera, and eased to the side to hopefully get a clearer shot. It worked.

 

On yesterday's gratitude journal page this morning I tried a new sunshine design, then bragged about working on the timeline outline, Zooming with my women writer friends, and finishing Scrap Hat #8. Altogether a satisfying day.

 

Tonight I cast on another chemo hat, this one is called the Pale Orange Chemo Hat. (not very original, I know) I'm using the same pattern as the last two (which I didn't deliver to KW last Saturday like I meant to). I did go up a needle size to ease the ache in my fingers from the size US15s I used for the scrap hats. I need a break.

 

Today's drawing is Olives. I thought they were blueberries because the fruits looked blue but the book says they're olives, so they're olives.

 

I spent quite a bit of the day working on Three Cheers for Murder. I added a suspect, had my sleuth quiz a different suspect, and made some decisions to make the victims easier to, well, victimize. Tomorrow I need to read the next chapter in the how-to book because I'm either falling behind or am way out ahead. One fun thing I did today was research tarot card meanings so that my sleuth's wacky neighbor could come over having done a tarot reading trying to dissuade her from presenting a petition to the City Council for some changes around her shop. I have a deck of small tarot cards with a very handy booklet telling what each card symbolizes and the supposed meanings of them. I like the pictures and the stories they tell, but I believe them about as much as I believe newspaper horoscopes.

I am so frustrated with myself. If I'd have ordered the cover design for Sailing the Seas a month before I did, I'd have it in hand and could publish the book. As it is, I'm at the mercy of the designer's timeline. I don't want to hurry them up and end up with something I don't like. So I wait. 

--Barbara 

#8 Finis

At Friday Night Knitting tonight, I finished Scrap Hat #8. It's a big 'un. Somebody with a giant noggin is going to love it. When I put it on and pulled it down, it displaced my glasses. That's one big hat and it's really squishy and warm.

 

I was lucky enough to spy a Chickadee on the suet nuggets this morning and managed to get a slightly blurry picture of it. They're so fast and there's so much between me and that feeder for the camera to focus on that I'm just happy the bird's recognizable.

 

A quartet of Sparrows clustered on the round green feeder. There were about four or five more on the ground under them pecking up the seed that fell. It's like there are two crews--the thrower-downers, and the picker-uppers. It's a team.

 

This afternoon I realized that I'd forgotten to draw a gratitude journal page in the morning. I quickly got out the pens, journal, and markers and got busy. I like the yoga figure because I really enjoyed yoga yesterday.

 

Between Zooms today, I worked on updating my Timeline Outline on OneNote. I'm still not sure I like using the app but I'm willing to give it a try. I rearranged so much of the story since I made the outline in the first place that I had both the app and the manuscript open and bounced back and forth between them, jotting things down in the outline.

 

And I just realized that I forgot to do any Art today. I had a lot on my mind and didn't get to it. I'm counting the gratitude journal page as art for today. I can do that because I'm the boss of me.

--Barbara 

Not a North American Goldfinch

I don't know where the people who made the drawing book I'm using live. Maybe England. Because the birds have familiar names but they aren't the same birds I'm used to. Today's bird is a case in point. It says it's a Goldfinch but the Goldfinches that visit my feeders on occasion are mostly bright yellow with a black cap and black on their wings. This bird is not that. It's got red on its face, brownish on its back, very little yellow, and a white belly. It's an okay looking bird, just not the Goldfinch I'm used to.

 

I didn't spend much time at the kitchen table today so I didn't spend much time looking out to see what kind of birds visited. A flock of Sparrows were on the feeder and on the ground when I was doing yoga this morning but I didn't stop to take pictures. Late in the day I did see this squirrel contorting itself around the suet nuggets feeder. It was doing a lot of moving around, head up and head down.

 

Yesterday's gratitude journal was easy to draw and color. I was most grateful for the ease of writing short stories, but taking a walk was good too.

 

Writing wasn't as easy today. I spent some time reading in the how-to book, then trying to figure out how to implement what I'd read. I also spent time playing with OneNote, a note-taking app (duh) that's part of Microsoft 365. It took some figuring out and some missteps, mostly until I asked it how to turn off Copilot the annoying AI component that kept suggesting words. I'd type a letter and it would assume the word I meant to write and that word would pop onto the screen. Gah! It was distracting when I was trying to complete a thought. It's turned off now. 

 

I waited until Jeopardy! was over to take a walk. It was cooler and there was a breeze. Also I felt very smart because I got the Final Jeopardy! The category was coins of the world so I figured I didn't stand a chance but as soon as Ken read the answer I knew the question. What is Gibraltar? That slightly makes up for the fact that the New York Times Connections puzzle usually kicks my butt every night. Once I got 11 in a row on Connections. Now I can't seem to string 2 solves together. But I keep trying.

Last night I read an article on Modern Daily Knitting about listing your video classes in your Bullet Journal to keep track of them and see if there are any you've missed. I went on Creativebug which is the site where I've got a few (I thought) classes piled up. Well. I opened up My Classes and started listing them. I have 20. Twenty! Mostly watercolor and drawing, but a few sewing ones too. I've at least started most of them, have finished a few, and had no idea that I owned some of them. It's a good thing I have a lot of credits so I don't have to purchase new ones I find. Can there be more? One of these days I'll search around to see if I can find more watercolor ones. Or I'll just repeat the ones I've already done. I'm good with that. I have a few classes on Domestika too but those I have to pay for individually and there aren't as many that appeal to me.

 

My doc told me last fall at my physical that I should keep writing because that would keep me from getting dementia. I'm not sure he's right about that, but I keep doing Wordle, Connections, Strands, Wordling, and writing stories and novels just in case. And I got a text from the pharmacy that flu vaccines are available so I guess I'll toddle on over in the next week or so to get jabbed.

--Barbara 

Stop and Smell the Rose

I was surprised and pleased to look out my bedroom window this morning to find one of Dad's roses had bloomed so I hurried right out to take its picture. There are a couple more buds out there so I'll be keeping an eye on it.

 

In the morning I drew yesterday's gratitude journal page. I was mostly grateful for spending the day with OJ but getting more tomatoes from GBB was pretty awesome too. 

 

Around the base of Dad's rose the purple mums are blooming up a storm. Will they still be blooming in September and October when chrysanthemums are supposed to bloom? I have no idea but we'll see.

 

The yellow mum plant had one tiny flower on it. Lots of buds but only one flower. So far.

 

I looked out and spied a squirrel trying its darnedest to get into the new round green feeder. It pushed up the lid but the seed was too low for it to access. It tries to get at the seed it can see through the clear plastic tube but the metal cage around the tube protects it. Take that, tree rat.

 

The Red-bellied Woodpecker came by a couple times that I saw today. I managed to snap this picture of it posed between the suet nuggets feeder and the Oriole feeder. At least you can see the darned thing today and not just the top of its head.

 

I spent most of the afternoon and early evening making story starts into stories. I went back into a couple of them, thought they felt done in their shortest form, and plunked them into the Flash folder. Then I turned three of them into regular short stories. I was on a roll today, in the flow, whatever you call it when things are going right. Last week I read an essay about authors needing to prove that they've actually written their work instead of having it written by some form of AI. One thing that was recommended was to save all your work on something like OneDrive which autosaves so you can prove you've done the work and sends it to the cloud for safety. I've even read that writers are leaving typos and awkward sentences in their work now to "prove" it isn't AI-generated. I find it all mind-boggling. All of my writing is my own--mistakes, awkwardness, and all. 

 

Today's drawing is Clover. All those little florets were a pain to draw and ink but I like the way they look now that they're colored. 

 

This morning I spent time scheduling Substack stories into early October. That made me realize that I needed to write more short stories because I was quickly running out again. Luckily I have a whole folder of Story Starts to play with. 

My left foot is sore for no good reason. I put on socks and shoes today and my left instep started to ache. These are not new shoes or new socks, so there's no logical reason for my foot to hurt. It let me take a walk this evening so it didn't impair me, but sitting still like I am now it's just aching away. Sometimes getting old sucks, doesn't it?

--Barbara 

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

Hitting The End

During this afternoon's zoom call with cda, I hit The End of Sailing the Seas. That means now I can upload the final, edited manuscript to Atticus, then make sure it's formatted correctly. Upload that to Kindle Create, and once the cover design is finalized, publish it. I should have started contacting Getcovers a few weeks ago so the cover would be ready when the manuscript was ready, but evidently I'm not that smart.

 

I used quite a bit of the day to upload all of my audiobook files to Gumroad so that when I find an audiobook sales promo on BookFunnel I'll be ready on a site where I can lower the price to make my titles more attractive. One thing that Past Me did that made Present Me happy was I put all of the audiobook mp3 files into a folder on the hard drive so I didn't have to download them from ACX all over again, I just had to point and click. So much less work even though I had to upload each file/chapter separately. I'm in an eBook sales promo right now, so I lowered the price of the two books in the promo this morning. Probably too late to have much effect because the promo only runs for another week, but even if I sell a book or two it'll be worth it. Anything is better than nothing.

 

A House Finch visited the orange half today and I was lucky enough to see it and take its picture. I took two pictures, one blurry and one in focus. You get to see the in focus one.

 

Once again the Hummingbird was too swift for me to get a picture so I went back into the archives for a picture of one that looked similar. 

 

Here's yesterday's gratitude journal page. I guess the thing I was most grateful for was having a dishwasher to run and empty. I'm not an enthusiastic hand washer of dishes.

 

It was so nice today--sunny, less humid, and cooler--that I took a walk in my red shoes. I need to encourage myself to take a walk more often. I don't want to be huffing and puffing walking to class at The Clearing in October.

 

One thing I wasn't so good at today was art. I turned to the next page in the Watercolor The Easy Way coloring book and found a Bird of Paradise flower to paint. I was all excited. So excited that I wasn't patient enough to let the petals dry before painting the next one, so they all bled together. The orange, yellow, and red were supposed to bleed together, just not as much as they did. And I painted the narrow center one red when it was supposed to be blue. I tried lifting the red paint but didn't have much luck. Oh well. It won't go on my permanent record. 

 

I spent a little time, maybe an hour, writing a new scene in Three Cheers for Murder. (Sorry, Aunt B, the cheerleader coach isn't the bad guy.) It's an interrogation of the prime suspect and was surprisingly easy to write. Guess I watched too many cop shows in the past. 

--Barbara 

The Wisconsin Squirrel Report

That's what DS used to call Durwood's calls when DS and DIL1 were living in Montana because Durwood invariably complained about the squirrels' antics. I have two versions of the Wisconsin Squirrel Report to share tonight. First, this squirrel jumped up onto the trash can on the patio and proceeded to start ripping apart a Black Walnut. It doesn't look like it tastes good and it stains whatever it touches.

 

Another squirrel climbed up on the cob corn after I filled it this afternoon and hung there by its hind feet. It would curl up to take off a kernel and then stretch out again to nibble it. They're very good at eating upside down.

 

There was barely a single layer of suet nuggets when the Red-bellied Woodpecker landed there this morning. I took three shots and none of them were in focus. The autofocus must have chosen something closer or farther away to make sharp. Once the bird was gone, I filled up the feeder. Maybe it'll come back tomorrow, although it tends to land on the back side so it's very hard to see clearly and the camera is no help.

 

I decided in the morning to take one more stab at learning how to upload my eBooks onto Gumroad. I googled tutorials and got a string of YouTube videos that I'd looked at yesterday. All of the people spoke too fast and clicked around like I already knew what to do so they were no help. Then I went on Gumroad and asked them for a tutorial. They had one. It was three minutes long and was evidently magic because I understood it and was able to get all of my eBooks loaded up. The two spaces in the line of cover images are there because either the square image was a little too big or I don't have a square image to put on there. I contacted Getcovers to ask them to reduce one and create the other. But I did it! I'm pumped. And now I can take the time and upload my audiobooks to the site so I can sell them through BookFunnel promos too.

 

But before doing that I drew the gratitude journal page for yesterday. I realized that I always start out with a weather report, then segue into what I actually did for the day. My favorite thing was picking up the people I dropped at the airport on Monday and hearing about the fun they had in Maine.

 

Today's drawing is Herbs. In particular, Bay Leaf, Sage, and Thyme, from left to right. They all turned out okay, but I like the thyme the best, don't know why.

 

I got so caught up in uploading those eBooks to Gumroad that the clock struck noon and I realized that I was still in my PJs and hadn't taken a shower. After I took my shower and got dressed, I had lunch, then went to the grocery because I was out of milk, bananas, and grapes. Naturally I bought a bunch of other things, most of it was on my list. When I got home and had put everything away, I came back here and worked on the pesky interview section of Three Cheers for Murder. The way I initially wrote it the interviewee (the murderer) gives everything away. Can't have that. So I scaled back her answers to the questions and lowered the temperature of her remarks. Once I get what I have written gone through and edited a bit, then I have to go back and start adding red herrings and casting suspicion on other people in the neighborhood. I need to jazz up the sidekick's role too. Lots to do. I'm having fun.

--Barbara 

Upside Down

It can't be comfortable for a squirrel to hang by its hind feet and then try to eat suet nuggets through small holes in a metal cylinder. They must get enough out of it to keep coming back, though.

 

A Downy Woodpecker took a chance on the new seed feeder.  There wasn't a lot left in there but the bird gave it a try. I didn't think woodpeckers ate birdseed but evidently they like a little variety in their diet.

 

Once again I thought of five things to be grateful for yesterday. Two of them were Zoom calls, the first one with a bunch of women writer friends and the second one with women knitter friends. But the thing I'm most grateful for was that little email from Chirp telling me I was chosen for an audiobook Featured Deal in September. Woohoo!

 

Today's art is a watercolor of a flower I've never heard of--Banksia. Never heard of it, never seen it. It must be tropical or something because there's sure not a flower like it in Wisconsin. Therefore, I couldn't tell if I did a good job of painting it or not.

 

I've just spent an hour trying to figure out another website where I can offer my eBooks for sale aside from Amazon. They won't let me lower the price below $2.99 and that might not be low enough for a BookFunnel sales promo. It turns out I have an account on a site called Gumroad but for the life of me I can't figure out how to upload more products on there. I've got The Seaview eBook and audiobook on there, haven't ever sold any, but they're on there. And Open for Business is on there but listed as unpublished. Couldn't figure out what else needs to be done for that to be published. *sigh* So I emailed my assistant KM asking for help. Hopefully she can figure it out. 

And I spent a couple of hours working on Three Cheers for Murder. I'm trying to stretch out what I have already written and fix it so that it works for the genre. Then there's that scene where the murderer basically spills the beans. That has to change big time. So I started on that, saving what I could and ducking out when things got dicey. I'll tackle that another day. After all, tomorrow is another day. (You can call me Scarlet.) Sorry, I couldn't resist.

--Barbara 

 

Rainy Morning

I woke up to rain pecking at the window over my head. It rained for an hour or so before it tapered off and spent the rest of the day overcast but dry. I was just glad that the rain stopped before I had to go to my haircut across town because I drive south on Hwy. 41 and then east on Hwy. 172, both of which tend to be racecourses with crazy drivers going like bats out of hell. Better that I drive them on drier pavement than on slick rainy pavement. If it had been raining hard, I'd have taken the long way through town. (I sound like an old lady. Hmm.)

 

One squirrel has been trying to get to the seed in the new feeder. It leaps from the back of the nearest patio chair over to the feeder, setting it swinging like mad, and doing its best to get to the seed ports which close with the squirrel's weight. Sorry, you furry tree rat.

 

It amused me to see this Downy Woodpecker taking a Slinky ride this morning. It seemed to have fun on there and then flew over to the new feeder to check it out.

 

And the camera-shy Red-bellied Woodpecker visited the suet nuggets again today. I took this picture just before a Sparrow tried to share the feeder and got jabbed with the Woodpecker's beak for the effort. Feathers flew. 

 

Here's yesterday's gratitude journal page. Writing three scenes for the new manuscript wins the day. But getting a phone call inviting me to be in a craft show with my books came in a close second.

Friday Night Knitting was cut short when the California knitters left to go to bingo at Ikea, and the other Green Bay knitter was tired and conked out. But I was able to knit the crown decreases of the Dark Teal Chemo Hat so I can deliver it and the first one I knitted to KW to take along to Mayo on Sunday.

 

Just at dusk this bigger rabbit was snuffling around in the grass under the feeders checking things out. I'm surprised you can see it as well as you can because I had to turn off the flash to get the picture in the low light.

 

I didn't think I'd have time to draw today but I dashed this drawing off just before I came back here. It's a Carolina Wren and it turned out pretty darned well for as quickly as I drew it. The coloring's not bad either. Good job, me.

 

I got an email this afternoon that Horizon was accepted for a Chirp audiobook featured deal! Woohoo! I applied for it a few weeks ago and was just wondering if I'd been passed over but the email came today and I'm in. It'll be $1.99 from September 3 to October 5. Fingers crossed a lot of people want to read about Gail and her adventures with watercolor and Abel. I need to learn how to lower the ebook price when I do a BookBub sales promo so I get some traction there. I'll figure it out.

 --Barbara