A big winter storm came through central Oklahoma this week. We got close to a foot of snow here. There seemed to be a bit of a panic before the storm as the grocery stores were cleaned out. The storm has passed but it is still very cold here. Unfortunately, the rats have returned to our apartment or perhaps they never left. So I need to stop feeding the birds and squirrels again for now because the bird and squirrel food is attractive to the rats as well. This is hard for me because I really enjoy watching the birds and squirrels in the mornings. We didn’t lose power and we had plenty of food to eat. We made a pizza at home and it was pretty good. The sauce was made by the brand Mezzetta and it was 10/10. I would definitely buy the sauce again. The crusts were from Mama Mary and I was not that impressed with them. They were thin crust but they were a little too thin for me. They were almost like thick tortillas. I made my first loaf of sourdough bread this week. It looked perfect on the outside but the inside was too dense. I think it was due to under proofing or not enough time kneading. I was in a bit of a rush and probably should have been more patient. I received my new Mungyo watercolor set in the mail and I am very pleased with it. The colors are vibrant and the metal case is very nice. I did notice two small negatives. The paints are individually wrapped in plastic and this seemed wasteful. The plastic wrappers were time consuming to remove. There were also two colors that were not lightfast. This would mean that they are not exactly professional quality as advertised. However, the packaging was very detailed with the pigment name, lightfast rating, and transparency. A few of the paints seemed a little less than full and they slide around a bit in the container. As an English teacher, of course I noticed that the set has a typo. Overall, I am super satisfied with the quality for the price and am looking forward to painting with them. I did do a swatch chart for the set and some of the colors did not match the label, such as the gold. The metallic colors did seem pretty iridescent. I continued to do some animal sketches for fun this week. I have had five pansies come up and one asparagus sprout. I also saw a nicotiana pop up with the ginger and zinnias. The aloe vera is getting bigger. The mandarin tree is growing slowly. I will be starting some seeds next week indoors since spring is only two months away. I bought a coral peony for the garden this week from Lowe’s and I think it will look nice near the tulips. I also tried to make my own yogurt this week for the first time. The results were pretty good although the yogurt turned out a bit runny. I got the recipe from a book called “Make the Bread, Buy the Butter” by Jennifer Reese. I saw forty three starlings on Wednesday.
Lisa Ledbetter 