Bagged

I've been thinking about Easter baskets and realized that what the Easter Bunny has for LC and OJ won't fit in the old baskets downstairs and I'll be delivering the Easter baskets on Sunday in a less than convenient place. What to do? I had a brainstorm. I'd sew up a pair of bento bags that the kids can use for all kinds of things that need carrying and I won't need to bring them back home. I was lucky enough to have some cotton fabric downstairs in bright pink and red so I didn't need to buy any more fabric. I even had an old pattern piece cut out and saved from the last time I made bento bags I-don't-know-how-many years ago so all I needed to print out were the directions. Easy peasy. I made one bag before my writing zoom and one afterwards.

Then I loaded them up, tied them closed, and I'm all ready for my Easter delivery duties.

I looked out at the backyard this morning and noticed that the grass on the hill below the retaining wall is turning green. Already. Another sure sign that this hasn't been a really cold winter was the ease with which I uprooted one of the crooks that was leaning over and pushed it back in a different place. The ground isn't frozen. That's not normal.

I tried my hand at another one of last spring's watercolors. This one didn't turn out any better than yesterday's attempt. I think tomorrow I'll go back to the Daily Practice paintings; I do better at them lately.

Pecking around in the fallen seed were two of these little striped Song Sparrows. I haven't seen them since last Spring so they must be returning from their winter range. They're tiny and cute. Too bad I didn't hear their song.

Tonight at Friday Night Knitting I finished the hand of the second Marl Mitten and got about halfway through the thumb. I'll finish it tomorrow. Then it'll be all Rainbow Brioche Beanie all the time for nine more inches of straight knitting around and around before the crown decreases. It'll be a long knit because I need to concentrate.

I spent a few hours this morning working to excise out the Rose segments of The Seaview 2 and put them into a separate document. I'm about 150 pages into it and have about 70 more to go. Today I had to skip over one of my favorite scenes because Rose doesn't see it. *sigh* Writing is hard.

--Barbara

Gale Warning

It was so windy today, all day, that there were gale warnings on the bay of Green Bay. I went down to the library to sort books and felt the push of the wind when I was up on the bridge over the river. Man, it was windy and cold. The temperature was supposed to be in the low 40s but I gotta tell you it sure didn't feel like that. At the library the tables had only a single layer of boxes but the wall of boxes waiting to be moved to the tables is still there. I managed to shift a few boxes of books and I think I might know the previous owner of that enormous library. I opened a book and saw a familiar name. Small world.

I noticed that the wind had blown out the seed from the platform feeder and I thought about going out to refill it but the wind was so strong that I figured it would blow it away again. I'll refill it tomorrow when it won't be so windy, I hope.

I spent most of the afternoon shifting segments of manuscript from one document to another and then changing the POV from 3rd to 1st. I'm about 135 pages into document 2 and there are 210 pages of document 1 so I figure I'm making pretty good progress and I feel good about the change in point of view. Once I get it all shifted I can start inserting conflict and basically throwing rocks at my characters. Eesh.

It was after 5 o'clock when I finally pulled out my paints and got started making a mess. I decided to try my hand at following the directions I wrote in last spring's watercolor class. I don't think I did a very good job. This is supposed to be the Washington Island lavender fields. It's a good thing I'm going back for a refresher in a month.

Tonight I watched Maine Cabin Masters and Barnwood Builders on TV and knitted on the Rainbow Brioche Beanie and only made two mistakes, both of which I managed to fix without having to rip out and start over. Whew.

Yesterday I made a new keyword Amazon ad for Better Than Mom's, it was moderated and went live today. I kept checking and I had way more impressions today than I've had any other day, still no clicks or sales, but I feel better about it. Oh, I also called the Aging and Disability Resource Center (aka the Senior Center) and left a message for the program director saying that I thought my books would appeal to their clients and I'm willing to come down and do a reading, and I called the Peninsula Bookman bookstore in Fish Creek and made arrangements to stop there next Thursday on my way to The Clearing to see about him stocking my books. Marketing! It's my new job/hobby!

--Barbara

Windy But Warm-ish

I didn't go anyplace today. It was dreary and windy, really windy, all day. The gusts got up to 40 mph every once in a while. That brought a whole dumpster full of trash blowing into the backyard (not really, but it seemed like it) and then by sundown it had all blown to the next yard. This is the patch of patio snow this morning and by the end of the day there was a sandwich-sized piece of it left. I think that there's more snow in the area of the patio but I can't see it from my chair and the plow drift and snowblower drift that line the bottom of the driveway are still going strong, smaller but still very much there. The next couple days are supposed to be cooler but then it's supposed to warm up into the 60s and maybe even the 70s. Woohoo!

Here's Mr. Cardinal after he cleared out the House Finches from the platform feeder. The Mrs. was sitting on a crook behind him but she must have been embarrassed by his behavior because she flew away without stopping for any seeds.

Today's Daily Practice was mushrooms. She gave us two pages of examples and then just painted mushrooms from her imagination. I have a hard time making them oddball colors so I just went my own way once I got started. That sole pink one with red dots in the middle is my only attempt at her aesthetic.

And for drawing practice I drew these three potted flowers from Draw 500 Fabulous Flowers. I really like drawing in ink and the kind of stylized shapes of them.

For some reason I decided to task myself with a complicated and frustrating knitting project. This is the beginning of a Rainbow Brioche Beanie. I'm very impressed with myself because I only had to start it twice this time. Last time I probably started and ripped out a half dozen times but I promise not to get too cocky. That way is sure disaster. I'll just go on slowly chanting "brioche knit, yarn forward, slip stitch yarn over" or "slip stitch yarn over, yarn forward, brioche purl" as I work my way around. It might be a little easier if I had a shorter, 16" circular needle in size 5 but I'm not such a fan of those shorter tips, they kind of make my hands ache, so I'll keep wrestling with the long cable and big loops of the Magic Loop method. This is the cast on, set up round, and 6 rounds of brioche. It took me a couple hours to accomplish. I'm happy with it.

I spent a lot of time this afternoon futzing around with my Amazon ads trying to figure out why I could only see the day's impressions. Turns out I had the Date Range set for "today." Once I changed it to show the last month, I could see all 70 of my impressions. Still no clicks so I still haven't had to pay anything but I hope that's coming. Clicks don't always mean sales either. I saw one example where the author had like 300k impressions, 150k clicks, and about 10k sales. It's a demoralizing metric but there are a lot of books out there, thousands more every day, so I'm trying my best. Fingers crossed.

--Barbara

Not Today

No more 50 degrees and sunshine, oh no, today we had overcast and 37 degrees as a high. And right now we're having a little thunderstorm with lightning and rain. Ah, springtime in Wisconsin!

I finally managed to catch a Robin at the birdbath this morning and snapped a picture before it flew off in search of worms.

The Daily Practice today was painting fruit from our imaginations in acrylic gouache. I confess that I copied what she painted. Well, not exactly but I painted the same fruits that she did in my own inimitable fashion. For instance, I did not give the clementine one blue and one pink leaf. Nope, green leaves for me.

But first I went over to the polling place and cast my ballot. The race for the seat on the state Supreme Court was the big one, followed by the Green Bay mayor. Plus there were School Board members to be voted on and a trio of referenda to consider. I was there at 11am and I was number 227. Not too bad and there was a steady stream of people coming in while I was there. Not a line but encouraging. Maybe people are finally realizing how important it is to vote. I'm going to end this rant before it really gets started. 'Nuff said.

The next figure in 10 Steps: Animals was a Lemur. I don't think that I got it's head and muzzle right but I like the tail. And, of course, the feet are a disappointment. I can draw human feet but not bird or animal feet.

My cleaning lady, MB, came today. She's one of my biggest fans. She was so excited to buy a copy of Better Than Mom's and she has lots of opinions about my struggle with The Seaview 2. I told her that I have trouble being mean to my characters by giving them conflict and she said that she didn't think I had to put in much because conflict means different things to different people. Nice to hear but I know that I have to double down on the stumbling blocks that I throw at Rose. Being too nice just doesn't attract readers.

--Barbara

57 and Sunny

That was today! I had the patio door open all afternoon letting in real fresh air. It was amazing. Most of the patio snow melted and a lot of the front yard, piled up snow melted too. It's supposed to be stormy tomorrow and it's voting day and there's a Writer's Guild meeting, which means I have to go out. Thanks, Mother Nature.

I looked out at the retaining wall and saw peeks of green so I took the camera out and found a whole row of day lily sprouts. I'm so happy to see them.

Mr. & Mrs. Cardinal stopped at the feeder together this morning. He spent a lot of time chasing away other birds. She spent the time eating seeds. He's good looking but kind of a jerk.

 

We did two paintings today. First was a butterfly done in acrylic gouache which is a thick kind of watercolor that isn't transparent. I like that she doesn't do a copy of the inspiration photo but kind of paints the intention or feeling of the thing. I'd be in a world of hurt if I had to make the painting look like the photo. I have enough trouble just making it look something like whatever it is.

Then we painted an abstract using the same paints just so that they didn't go to waste. I meant to just paint colored blobs but it turned into a kind of abstract landscape. I like it.

Most of the afternoon I spent going through the next 50-ish pages of manuscript shifting the POV. I spent enough time squinting at the computer screen that my neck aches. But 100 pages into this rewrite I have hopes that the story isn't quite as craptastic as I feared.

After my neck gave out I pulled out my sketchbook and Draw 500 Flowers where I found a couple more cacti to draw. Like I said before, I really like drawing them.

Tonight I put the thumb stitches on a holder and started work on the mitten hand. I'm about halfway but just realized that if I don't slow down I won't have any mitten to knit on at Friday Night Knitting. I want to make my mitten last.

The coolest thing happened at the end of today's St. Agnes Class of '65 lunch. As we were leaving ES asked if I had copies of my books with me. Of course I said yes, she followed me to my car, and bought one of each! I was thrilled. Thanks, ES!

--Barbara

I Stayed In Today

It started out sunny but then it turned gray and windy. Yuk. Most of the time I wasn't at all sure what day it was but that didn't really matter. Most of my days are the same anyway but I checked the calendar, found that it's Sunday, and decided to tackle that darned manuscript that's giving me fits. I decided today that I should change the Point Of View from 3rd person to 1st person. That is a tedious and nit-picky chore that involves reading every single line of a manuscript and changing all of the pronouns. Big job. In 3rd person my POVs bounced all over from character to character. In 1st person I need to keep Rose as the eyes of the story. That's cutting out a lot of what I've written so far, everything that Rose isn't witness to, so I'll have a lot more story to make up. *sigh* It already feels better though.

This Cardinal does not share well. He spent most of his visit repelling House Finches that tried to join him in the feeder. Once he had the area cleared he settled down to pecking and picking through the seeds. As soon as he left a trio of House Finches flew up and happily coexisted with the female Cardinal. She shares.

It was not a great painting day. I turned to the next flower in Watercolor Flowers Made Easy. It's Bluebells and these are some of the saddest bluebells I've ever seen. Maybe I should have drawn the flowers in pencil first or something but I don't think they're even up to my usual mediocre standard.

Drawing was a little better. These little marchers are from Seuss-isms and they embody the exhortation to Be Proud of Who You Are! I'm trying.

I don't know why but I could eat anything and everything today. Maybe it's the weather, maybe it's the season, I wish I could figure out what makes me have the munchies like this. Bah. Maybe I'll go get an apple. Or a clementine.

--Barbara

And This Morning

We had crazy wind. When I opened the shade this morning it was snowing sideways. Not big flakes, little pellet-y flakes but blown sideways by the strong wind. Naturally the wind was
coming from the north so that whenever anyone came into the Market this morning the wind came in too. It was like having a farmers market in a cold storage facility. I was sorry that I didn't wear my longies and glad that I had a pair of fingerless mitts. The cold and wind kept most of the customers away. Even them having an Easter egg hunt for the kids didn't ramp up the attendance. I sold 2 books which I am happy with considering the low turnout today.

When I was making my lunch after the Market I looked out the window and sat that a Red-bellied Woodpecker was on the suet pellets. I crept over to the table, picked up the camera not making any sudden moves, and snapped a picture. As soon as I did, it flew away. I could see it in a tree in the neighbor's backyard but it didn't come back.

Then a Downy Woodpecker landed on the round feeder. It rode on the perch as the feeder rotated in the wind but I managed to get a picture when the thing turned my way. I was afraid that the Sparrow would scare it away but fortunately it didn't.

I was nervous about painting today's Daily Practice. It's a Hummingbird sipping nectar from some tubular flowers. I'm pretty happy with the way it turned out.

For drawing practice I turned to the next page in Draw 500 Flowers for another cactus adventure. This time I drew them in ink and then colored them with colored pencils. I especially like the lower, barrel cactus.

Tonight I knitted on the Marl Mitten while watching TV and got through the thumb gusset. Next I put the thumb stitches on a holder, cast on a few stitches over the gap, and knit the hand for 4" before decreasing the top. Then comes the thumb and I'll have a pair of mittens to wear in this never-ending winter. I like the mittens, hate the weather.

I fell off the WW wagon at the Market today. I bought 2 peanut butter cookies and I ate them. I'm a fool for peanut butter cookies. I climbed right back on track, though, and will do better tomorrow. I'm so glad that I made that WW cheesecake the other day. Having that rich-tasting dessert to pig out on for only 1 point a serving is helping me stay the course. I might have to keep making it for a while.

--Barbara