My Hobbit Day

second breakfast!

My dog Jackie woke me up at 5:00 by peeing on my pillow — accidentally of course, because she has a bad bladder, but it was nonetheless a rude awakening. I can't hold it against her mostly because she's my dearest friend and most devoted companion, but also because it means ... I get to have SECOND BREAKFAST.
You see, when I'm really really tired, especially if I wake up early and am really really tired, I tend to eat a lot. After feeding Louie and Jackie and letting them out and feeding and fly-spraying the donkeys and Monti the horse and letting the sheep into their daytime pasture, I had breakfast. Then I stripped my bed and started the laundry and opened all the windows and solved the house's lack of water and got dressed, and then I was hungry again. I got so ridiculously excited about this — maybe it's because breakfast is my favorite meal and I could eat it for every meal — maybe it's because the hobbit way of life appeals to me.
Anyhow, here I am on the couch having a whopping second bowl of yogurt, peaches, strawberries, and granola. It promises to be a sleepy and very nice day spent knitting and listening to VPR.

Food 

weird, crumbly, and extremely
tasty cookie dough

finished peanut butter cookies - they
came out surprisingly normal

The other day I made peanut butter cookies for my dad! The dough was extremely strange, maybe because I didn't have enough peanut butter, or maybe because the brown sugar fermented. Are pb cookies supposed to start out so crumbly? I had to squish the dough together with a might force to make it cookie-shaped, then sample a good deal to make sure it tasted okay.
After doing time in the hot place they emerged pretty normal, so I'm calling this venture a mild success.

Art

I brought all my oil paints up with me, and one of today's tasks is to assemble some sort of easel so I can actually begin painting.
In the meantime I've been experimenting with using pens. For several years I've been sketching solely with erasable materials, so using something permanent is a good challenge for me. I have to commit to what I put down and figure out how to make it work. I've been doodling faces (while watching The Office) and am mostly irked with the results. I hate that shading is so difficult and that I feel limited to one or two skin tones — I hate that I can't sketch rough shapes and then go through more carefully, filling in the details. I hate pens. I'm going to keep using them. This is happening. I hate it.

pen doodles