Spring is a-comin'

I could hardly believe it, but today it was knock your eyes out bright and sunny for the first time since I don't know when. What's more, this is the weather we're being promised for the entire week!


I celebrated by attempting to follow a Prismacolor tutorial on goldfinches by Kaaren Poole, but I definitely need more practice. Her book, DRAWING BIRDS WITH COLORED PENCILS, is great. I want to spend a lot more time with it because each "lesson" is clearly explained and I know I could learn a lot -- both about birds and about how to draw them. You can click on the image and end up at amazon.com if you want to purchase your own copy.

In the meantime, I painted all the white cabinetry, door and trim in a bathroom at home today, so at least one room is fresh with no paw prints. The work went fairly quickly, 2-1/2 hours from sandpapering the wood to saying, "I'm done." I have hundreds of those little 2-1/2 hour tasks throughout the house and it always feels so good to actually cross one off the list.

Steve and I took three of the dogs for a 1.3 mile walk, which we all enjoyed. Steve gave Brix a bath and I trimmed his nails and Parisse's too. Cassidy had her bath yesterday. Right now we have four dogs in the household - Cassidy is probably temporary - and there's always someone in need of our little beauty shop. Demi is the most public of the dogs so she gets the most attention - and a weekly bath - but the rest are pretty clean too, I'm funny about that. Maybe I should have become a groomer.

All this wildlife

It's raining today and will be for another day or two more. And it's Saturday, so who cares? We're all snug, nobody has much of a schedule to keep and it's the weekend. So I focused on the wildlife within my domain. The American goldfinches were feeding in a backyard tree.

Belle the cat was dozing in the most uncomfortable chair in the house until I disturbed her with my camera flash.



I gave beautiful Beulie a Saturday morning bath so she can go with me to church tomorrow morning and to chemotherapy on Tuesday. There's nothing like a spotless dog (no offense to dalmatians, I mean, as in dirt spots).

Today is the 3rd day of my Julia Cameron diet program. I've walked the treadmill three days in a row for 30 minutes so my body is in shock. I made yesterday's Chinese lunch entree last for today's lunch too instead of scarfing it all in one sitting. I've been faithfully maintaining my food journal and rereading parts of THE WRITING DIET and I'm eating more fruit whenever I have the munchies (which is often). I've lost the first two pounds, YES!, and am truly motivated. That's my biggest problem, maintaining the motivation, which is why I'm gladly doing all this in worldwide public so that my addictions to sugar, fat, carbs and everything else that's edible will be fully documented and I'll be nudged into action. You don't have to read it, it's just that I have to write it!