Okay, I have a question for you, the reader. And I have my email fixed now so I'll be sure to get your answer promptly and not in a month when I get suspicious and check!A group of authors are setting up an author service similar to Patreon called Ream. It'll go live in May, and they're … Continue reading What are YOU looking for in an Author Subscription?
This is a photo dump of how my seed starts are doing. Grapes on the right, peppers on the left: Peppers on the right, asparagus, egg plant, and celery on the left. Mostly tomatoes. Basil and thyme. My vanilla orchid is getting out of control. Tomatoes are blooming! And onions. Lots of white mold in … Continue reading Friday Seedling Update!
I posted a while back that we got a Spärkel carbonator. It's like a Soda Stream, but instead of a million canisters of CO2 that you have to keep replacing, it uses baking soda and citric acid. Anyway, we bought a variety of soda syrups for it, some of which I had shipped from Canada … Continue reading ALL the Soda Syrups!
I bought a vacuum sealer for more effective freezer storage, so of course I had to try it today. The result? Looks like it works! *smile*
When we first moved into our house, one of our housewarming gifts was a cookbook from Better Homes and Gardens. Lately my husband has been experimenting and learning new recipes, and he picked out a Teriyaki steak recipe from the cookbook, and it was absolutely amazing on the grill. The official recipe was 'Steak Teriyaki … Continue reading Teriyaki Steak
I've started on cleaning the basement which is absolutely chock full of stuff. The majority of it is supplies for things I used to enjoy doing but haven't done in a decade. My husband has stuff in there too - he moved directly from his parents' house into the house we purchased. His mom was … Continue reading Purging Old Hobbies
I discovered the world of vacuum sealed laundry and am packaging up all of my big linens that have been taking up space so I can store them in the basement. The bags came with a pump, but I have a vacuum cleaner that worked much better and much faster. I tried to initially use … Continue reading Cleaning House
I found a writing book that blindsided me. And reading it, I'm thinking back over books I've read going, "Yes, THAT'S why it sold so well. THAT'S why I loved it." The author calls it' butter' because butter is what makes so much in cooking amazing. On top of this, it makes marketing blindingly obvious. … Continue reading Need to Add ‘Butter’ to My Writing
Just a photo dump of how things growing in my house are doing. The lettuce: A single grape start! Celery and eggplant. Peppers! Tomatoes. Onions and Leeks.
I love getting gifts for my husband, and he likes flowers and cards, so Valentine's Day is perfect for this. But I'm always afraid I'll forget, so I get a card for him, seal it, and tell him to open it on Valentine's. This year... I forgot that I'd gotten a card. Four times. My … Continue reading Valentine’s Day Whoops!
I have not been the best plant parent for my orchid. When I don't have seed starts in the closet, I forget to go in there and water it. I leave the grow lights on 16 or more hours a day. I don't fertilize it. And my vanilla orchid just keeps growing and sprawling out … Continue reading How Is My Orchid Even Alive?
I've been depressed. And when I'm depressed all I do is sleep and play World vs. World in Guild Wars so that I can alternately troll and murder other players. My normal kills in a week is between 30 and 50, usually done Friday night with the whole guild. This last week I made 263 … Continue reading I Might Have Played a Lot of Guild Wars This Week
Hydroponics kits are the best! Yes, I had a salad for dinner.
Since I pulled the trigger on chickens, I've been planning how to take care of them. I'd had chickens before, briefly, but only four and everything was cobbled together. I want to do better this time. Fortunately, after having worked with a coop, I have a fair idea of what I want out of one, … Continue reading Chicken Planning
It's that magical time of year when the earliest seed starts are due. 12 weeks out from last frost! There's a few different varieties I started, but the biggest one was the grapes. Last year, my neighbor gave me a huge bag of delicious grapes that I made jelly out of. The next day I … Continue reading Seed Starts – Grapes
So, I ordered a humidity controlled seed starting kit. It comes with built in grow lights, which was amazing because I'm going to be tight on room once my starts are all started. It arrived, and it was way bigger and taller than I expected. And it came with a booklet on How to Grow … Continue reading I’m NOT Growing Pot, Honest
I have already resketched this one, but I tried painting the old sketch as practice. The sketch. Painted.
Gouache work! Here's the original sketch: Painted over. Yes, the original photo IS that desaturated. I'm not real happy with it, but I'm learning. His eyes are crooked. 🙁
Hatching date, July 24th. Gotta start hustling! Also, I deleted the meal maker chick repeatedly, but the site kept adding it. It's a 'give back to your community' chick I guess, which I was intending to do anyway, but there's no telling what type of chicken it will be!
Now, I've had all of my seeds purchased for a looooooong time, so I've been restricting myself on those. I mean, I ordered a lemon tree and bareroot strawberries, but those aren't seeds. I did order some Micro Dwarf tomatoes for my hydroponics kits though. Anyway, I'd like to start my grape seeds soon, so … Continue reading Spring Fever!
More practice! I forgot to drop a post it to cover her chest in the photo though. The original sketch: And then the painted version: So, ignore the itty bitty amount of underboob there. The lighting on this one was hard, and the eye really fought me.
Still at it! The sketch: And then, the painting with flash on the camera: The painting without flash: Skin tones aren't perfect, but I'm happy with this one.
I am SO bad at this, but I keep trying. I enjoy learning to do things that are hard for me, so this definitely qualifies. And gouache has an 'ugly' stage like I've never seen that you have to just push through and trust it will fall together. So, here's the original sketch. Reference is … Continue reading Gouache Practice
This is an art dump. I've been practicing drawing more realistically, from reference, and it's going pretty well. This one I wasn't very happy with. So I redrew it. And I'm trying to draw guys too. My favorite from this batch. And the last one is just the start of a sketch, not even close … Continue reading More Sketching Practice
Just some update photos on my hydroponics kits. My oldest planting, where I tried peas and a bunch of things. Only the lettuce really took off, and that's ready for cutting! The other two were planted in romaine lettuce, one with the covers, and one without. And the one without covers. With the price lettuce … Continue reading Hydroponics Update
I've wanted a soda stream for a while, but I really hated the idea of having to buy and dispose of canisters all the time. Fortunately, there is now a competitor on the market that doesn't use canisters! Instead, they use a mix of baking soda and citric acid. Introducing Spärkel! You can find them … Continue reading We Bought a Spärkel Carbonator!
Roses were super on sale at ALDI this last Thursday, so I bought a bouquet for my husband. Yes, my husband, because he loves getting flowers, just like I do.
I got some new gouache for Christmas, and I had some older gouache that I had swatched, so here are some photos! The Arrtx jelly gouache and two SUI skintones. This is the cheapest gouache I got, and you can kind of tell. The Holbein gouache set I got for my birthday. This is my … Continue reading Swatching Out Gouache
I did some sketching over Christmas week, and I had one that turned out surprisingly well. Something about this one turned much better than my usual efforts. Something about the eyes maybe? Anyway, I'm proud of my efforts on this one, and I'll be painting it in gouache at some point along the way. *smile*
This post is entirely for your amusement. I found that I had taken photos of the worst bread fail - the craggy mountain bread. I didn't think to take photos of the dripping bread, but this one looks worse at least. And the bottom: We had to cut out the paddle. So not only did … Continue reading Bread Fail
This is my seventh year blogging we're going into, and I'm sitting at 860 and change posts thus far. I haven't gotten much traction, but I don't focus on any particular topic. Instead I just do life updates, which I'll admit are not that exciting. But I enjoy having this record of my life. It's … Continue reading Year End Thoughts
This bread machine does not like Gluten Free bread. I spent ALL DAY baking bread. 3 loaves. The first, the paddle wasn't nested right, so it didn't mix and just scorched the flour until I caught it. The second came out looking like Mt. Rushmore... craggy, rounded boulders in that type of terrain. The third … Continue reading Some Days Are a 3 Loaf Day
That prolonged squealing noise you hear is me. No need for alarm. I got 'Still Water' back from the editor! SO HAPPY! And, yes, I'm a weirdo who enjoys getting feedback so long as it's WRITTEN. In person is hard. On paper is fun.
I finally folded and bought myself a breadmaker, and I picked one that has a gluten free setting. KODAK Digital Still Camera Now, the reviews say the recipes are good but to bake it under white bread because the gluten free setting doesn't have enough time to rise set into it. I tested the breadmaker … Continue reading Gluten Free Breadmaker?
I moved my plants indoors for the winter, and I didn't notice soon enough that the sequoia was too tall for the grow lights and not getting enough light. I switched things around, but it was too late. So, I moved the dead tree to the deck where the cold will kill the fungus gnats. … Continue reading RIP Sequoia Tree
Now that I've completed HB90 again, and I've laid out my goals, I updated my Kanban Board. I moved all the old post its down since the quarter isn't done. And I put the new goals in on sticky tabs since I didn't like stacking the post its so much. And a close up of … Continue reading Updated Kanban Board
So, I've decided that after the Girlie series, I want to write something with a card master as the main character. To do this, I've ordered some books on tarot, and a set of tarot cards. (Actually two sets.) BUT, I also bought the Card Captor cards. I used to have one of these sets, … Continue reading Card Captor Sakura Decks
In September, I took Sarra Cannon's HB90 course for managing time and realistic expectations, and I feel like it was a huge success for me. So, yes, this post is focused on her HB90 system, but there is no affiliate for me, and her course JUST closed today. That said, it's an amazing course and … Continue reading Time for the Quarterly Reset!
So, a while back I did this sketch: And now I've tried painting over it in gouache! What do you think?
At this time, Still Water is at an editor, after which it will be expanded by at least 20% and rebranded. Flat out, I ADORE my cover for this book, but the cover and title missed genre. So I have commissioned new covers from the AMAZING Natasha at DAZED Designs. The first, 'Still Water' will … Continue reading There’s a Gnome Hidden in Each if You Look Closely
It was my husband's birthday on Friday, so I baked him a cake and something went horribly, horribly wrong. Going back over my steps, I THINK I got distracted and didn't put enough water in. And then I didn't know how to set the stove alarm correctly, so I THOUGHT I set it. It never … Continue reading In Which I Bake a Cake Badly and the Actual Star Is Tundra
Since this came up in another post, I thought I'd make a list for you. Kaler Born - written when I was 14, this is my biggest dumpster fire of a book! 75,000 words. Shields of Magic - mostly written in notes passed back and forth with a friend, age 15. 30,000 words. Familiar - … Continue reading How Many Books Have I Drafted?
I'm practicing painting gouache over existing drawings, but to do that I have to first have existing drawings! So, here are a few sketches I've done while working on how I want to sketch with these tools. Hamrib Art on YouTube gave me the inspiration. She does amazing gouache work over her pen sketches, and … Continue reading Sketch Dump
First of all, I tried to make a cute picture in Midjourney AI, and the wolf/couch mix you see above is the hilarious result that I just HAD to share. Tundra tends to have tantrums and destroy our couch. This time he made his best cute face after. And then to show more of the … Continue reading Cute Tundra After a Couch Tantrum – Photos Within
If you're interested in reading my novel, Still Water, I have a review campaign going on at Booksprout. FOR READERS: this is FREE to join website and only requires that you leave a review in return for reading whatever books you choose from the website. This is great for folks who don't have a lot … Continue reading Free Copy of My Book for Reviewers on Booksprout!
A few of the preparedness types that I follow have been aggravated by a study done through Cornell University and FEMA. A study on preppers. First of all, here is the study in full. And here is a break down of interesting data from a prepper site. They point out some differences between the standard … Continue reading FEMA Does What Now?
I haven't always been financially stable. At my sickest, I was living off of the kindness of friends and the food pantry, and I remember vividly how hard that was. I also remember the ridiculous number of can of green beans I got every week. (Green beans have very few calories, and I can't eat … Continue reading What Should I Bring to the Food Pantry? 9 Essential Items You Wouldn’t Expect
I am taking a RIDICULOUS number of online classes right now related to publishing and advertising, and they're going well. A bit further down I'll break down which ones I'm taking. I mean, they're a huge time sink, but I'm liking them so far. Which is kind of funny because I hated college. I love … Continue reading Take ALL the Classes!
My garden was featured on Provident Prepper on YouTube! I saw that they covered several handicap accessible gardens that solved things differently than I did, so I messaged them with photos of my garden and an explanation of how I work around my disabilities to keep gardening. They asked for film. I sent them film. … Continue reading Featured on a YouTube Channel!
Pitted a pound and a quarter of cherries. I put them to freeze until I have enough to make a sauce. Then I wiped down everything that had been splattered with cherry juice. ... or at least I thought I did. My husband took this photo to show I missed a few spots. *smile* And … Continue reading In the Cherry Pitting Trenches
My kindle was out of juice, so I didn't have my reference photos and ended up snagging a photo off the shelves to paint. I turned out all right, but something went horribly wrong with mom's face, as evidenced by my husband saying 'is that supposed to be your mom?'. *facepalm* Plus the gouache is … Continue reading First Attempt at Gouache
Sorry folks. I'm having a week.
