Recharging!

Song of the day: “Relax” by Frankie goes to Hollywood, I think. Technically I had it in my head yesterday, but since it is still early, I can’t say which one is going to bug me today, so we’ll stick with that one.

Ah, another week gone (almost anyway) and very little to tell about. Still, I’ll make and effort trying to make it remotely interesting regardless…though my imagination might not stretch far enough for that. Hah. I could fake it, of course. Spin some might yarn just for the sake of it…Hmmm. Tempting…Nah. Some other day, maybe, when I’m really desperate, just for the heck of it.

So what’s been going on, you wonder?...or not, depending. Hah. Anyway, first bit of bad news is that The Knight has developed an infection on both back feet. I know, right? What is wrong with this poor creature’s immune system? He is driving me insane with all these little cuts that he gets from his incredibly boisterous behavior (remember my comparison to an elephant in a china cupboard?) that turn into a massive infection at the drop of a hat. I blame the antibiotics that have been pumped into this creature from early age, and bad breeding. It is the only explanation. This is why I went out to find dried Echinacea which I will start adding to his food from now on. This is just ridiculous. Poor dog is now walking around with two bad back paws, for crying out loud…worst of it is, I clean it four to five times a day, which has no use at all, since he keeps licking at them. I’ll have to think of something.

Big brother and I worked a bit on my future bed. It’s a classic (40s, 50s) wide single metal frame that’s originally from a hospital, we think. It’s nice and sturdy, and now that I’ve got less dogs it should be possible for me to sleep on it. Not easy, mind you, considering Knight has a tendency to stretch out and take more than his fair share of the bed, but perhaps it will help me feel a little less claustrophobic in there. Not much, mind you, considering the bed is only ten inches narrower, but still. Every inch helps, right?

What else…lots of trips to town with grandpa for his acupuncturist treatments. I’ve been using the time of waiting wisely. I slept through most of them while sitting the in the car…and in case you’re wondering; yes, I am still constantly tired. Can’t really explain it…well, I can: Three years ago was heavy already with running to the hospital on a weekly, and often daily basis for the sick ladies, then the whole town hall mess, the getting the two of them to safety, followed by a very demanding job while at the same time having to break down everything; we haven’t been able to take a breath and relax in years, so I suppose I’ll have to see that as all the explanation I need.

Regretfully we’ve been doing all this going back and forth to town in the Opel, because the car is at the garage for fixing. They’ve assured me that it’s time consuming due to the waiting for parts, rather than the amount of hours they need to spend on it. Not so expensive, they’ve said, so let’s hope that their idea of not so expensive is similar to mine, rather than heart attack worthy when I get the bill. *sigh*

Exercise wise I’ve been taking it easy. Lots of stretches, which feels wonderful, followed by some mild kick boxing and pumping iron. As soon as we’ve caught up on some necessary sleep, we’re going to try to pick up jogging again, which should improve my disposition vastly.

Been doing quite a bit of cooking. Most of it, yummy (naturally, who’d eat carpy food if they can help it?) but also high in nutritional value. Been missing way too many meals this last year, so I’m trying to catch up, which should also help with the tiredness. Have you ever noticed that when you don’t sleep enough you eat more, and vice versa? Well, the body’s got to get the energy somewhere, right? The way I figure, if I balance it nicely, it should be alright soon enough. I'm recharging!
Discovered that you can make wonderful patties of barley cooking in spices with garlic and onion. Definitely one worthy for the cook book…not to mention wonderfully different from the usual recipe.
Also made a wonderful mushroom quiche the other day. We still have a load of canned mushrooms, and we really should start using them, ergo the experiment. Hah.
Since it is high summer (temps are still wonderfully low, by the way) we’re eating loads of raw stuff. Mostly slices of all sorts of veggies on bread or patties, which goes down well and is high on the nutritional value scale.
Same goes for the veggie, lentil, egg mix I made the other day, which saw us through three different types of meals during the course of the week. Yay. Don’t you just love being frugal AND healthy at the same time?

Did a painting job a few days ago. A roof that needed a new layer of waterproof paint. Won’t work, of course, not the way the owner wants it to. This way he’ll have to do it again within a year, is my guess. But, of course, he won’t take our word for it, so we just slapped the first layer on, as asked. Boss is king, and all that, and if he wants to be stubborn about it, that’s his prerogative.

Did an afternoon of washing dogs, which went well, and allowed us to check on our former charges. They’re doing well enough, all things considered, so I’m keeping my fingers crossed in that regard.

Something horrid: We were dumping garbage the other night and found a crate with four tiny puppies in it, dumped by a set dumpsters right beside the road. I mean seriously, what is wrong with people. Through some contacts with local shelters, there is a scary overflow of dumped puppies in the area. They are getting an average of one to two puppy litters a day at the shelter, which is just ridiculous. Thankfully they were willing to take these puppies into their care, because otherwise we would have been so screwed. It’s so hard, such finds, but we could hardly have left them there by the side of the road, could we. Some folks should get shot for doing shit like that. Have your dog neutered, for crying out loud!

What else…well, not much. No groceries, except for one batch of veggies the other day. We’re trying to hold out two weeks at least, but three if we can manage it. Shopping I’ve found is way cheaper if you only do it once, maybe twice a month, and then only with a list. What’s not on the list doesn’t get bought. Nothing protects the wallet better than that technique…also foregoing anything precooked and “special” helps a lot with that as well. Hah.

Did some cleaning around the yard. Stuff just keeps stacking up, doesn’t it? Did laundry, naturally, and finally did get around to putting away stacks and stacks of clean laundry in my closet…still haven’t found the time to unpack my bags from the trip, by the way. Hadn’t even thought of that one yet. Hmmm. Maybe I’ll manage to squeeze it in later today.

Got some writing done this week, which is a good thing. The characters are developing nicely now, becoming actual people in my head, finally…they should, to be honest, considering that this will be the first book I ever did that is partly based on true life…sort of…with a very fictional twist to it. Hah.

Well, that’s about it, isn’t it? I’m sure I’m something, but what else is new, right. Time to get going, and see if I can get anything useful done today…shouldn’t be too hard, should it?

Work on the most part

Song of the day: “Wherever you will go” by Charlene Soraia. There were some other song too, but they didn’t stick.

So yeah, busy couple of days, and from the look of things it is not going to get any more quiet anytime soon. Tomorrow we have to head out for the last time, and afterward need to head for a market in Marbella. Added to that, the day after, the Land Rover needs to go to the shop, and then after a semi-quiet weekend, the Land Rover has to go to the ITV. *sigh* Yep. It’s going to be a splendid week. Hah.

Writing wise, I managed a whopping total of two paragraphs, and that's it.
But back to the present. Yesterday was a long day (so was today, for that matter) we managed to even out the ground, set up most of the pool, get in the tarp, and prepare practically everything for hanging the liner. We had hoped to finish it all, but regretfully didn’t manage it. It was decided we would come another day (today) meaning that we were up early once more, going through the motions of feeding the dogs, doing laundry and then heading out. Were later today than yesterday…which wasn’t bad considering we worked late yesterday.

Knight is coming along every day now, and not is, without a doubt, scared to death for the three puppies there. Hah. Seriously, you’d think he is five weeks old himself. Today it got so bad that every time I forgot to close the door to the car, he disappeared into it.
We were about ready to start the hanging of the pool liner when suddenly the manual (without any warning earlier on in the book) declared that beside the covering tarp we’d already put down, there also was the need for some sort of filt, or carpet…Stupid manual. They have a list of stuff you need in the beginning, except for the that carpet, a file, sanding paper and duck tape…all of which we discovered well into the building of the pool. Grrr. That’s bad instructing, if ya ask me.

Played with puppies again, who are smart little buggers, and who keep escaping the large dog pen we built there. Meaning we had more work to do today: adding more fence while we waited for Liane to get the filt from Malaga. Built with some natural rocks, used up a total of two cement bags and a 1400 pound load of sand. The latter which we had to sieve and load late last night, and the night before, but thankfully not now. Hah. But anyway, puppies are already learning to sit for a treat.

Had to haul a massive rock that wrecked part of the wheelbarrow. Big brother did manage to lift it, though, so we took it off Lian’s water main and hauled it to a different spot. There was also a stint with the freaky geyser that’s always playing up…and of course meeting her boyfriend, who tripped over something on the terrace and send Knight scrambling with his tail between his legs (squealing a little) and scared half out of his mind.

Today’s hanging of the liner was interrupted by a massive thunderstorm and rain soaking my top straight through (luckily I was wearing a bikini top underneath) not to mention the bottoms of my trousers. We were happy that the rain started when it it did and not an hour or two earlier when it could have been near to disastrous. As it was, the line was in place, so, whatever. The water couldn’t harm anything.

The last thing we have to do now, is install the pump an skimmer, which is what we’ll do tomorrow. A little later, this time, seeing as my day will be a long one tomorrow. Gawd, I need some sleep…you know what, I will get some because I’m going to cut this blog short without further ado.

On the job

Song of the day: “The Flood” by Katie Melua…gawd, I hope not, seeing as I’m at the job at the moment, digging holes, and we’ve just been forced to take a break due to the rain coming down. It has been doing that for a few hours now, and we already had to take a thirty minute break earlier because there was an increase in the water flow then too. Hah. I also had the song “I thought I’d lost you” by Miley Cyrus and John Travolta. It’s on the cd in the Opel, so it got stuck for a bit. Hah.

But I’m getting ahead of myself again, aren’t I? Let’s start this properly, and get back to yesterday. I was up just a bit too late for a proper workout, so I had to do without because I had to head on down for the usual morning chores. That done, followed by breakfast, and settling tenant on my terrace, we headed on down into the yard for the usual rounds. It was at this time that mom informed me that the lady who possibly had a job for us had gotten into a bit of an accident over in Malaga, and that she would be coming over to see if big brother could fix the back door enough for her to travel with it next week.

We were about halfway into hosing everything down when she arrived and we headed up to see what could be done. While the lady visited with mom and tenant (leaving tenant with a 7 week old puppy, which psyched tenant, of course) big brother managed to fix the locking mechanism at least, while I discussed the specifics of the job of putting up her fence.

In the end we decided on starting the next day (ergo, today) despite us being without the Land Rover (market day tomorrow, remember?) and thus needing to drive the Opel up the mountain into the country. It was quite a ways, but we managed just fine.

But anyway, since there was a down payment, we headed out to the construction and get most of the supplies. Was an experience, in particular since the guy at the building company was in such good mood that he didn’t even make a problem. Loaded everything up, checked out gates, and then headed home with all sorts of calculations in our heads.

Then there were edits (not a lot, but a few) catching up with messages, and chats before it was time to go to bed early. What can I say, we had to get up at seven in order to get to the job in time. There were a few chores to do beforehand (such as they ever existent laundry, ya know) and then gathering up food for the day before heading out in the friggin’ Opel. Seriously, whoever designed that car should be shot and then hung at a castle wall somewhere. You have to break your back climbing out, and to get in, you basically have to fall inside. Grrr. And then I’m not even talking about how it scrapes over anything that sticks out three inches up from the ground. Grrrrrrrrrr!

Arrived on time, phew, and after a short talk with the “boss lady” we went to work, measured everything out (three times, hah) and then got to digging. Boy, did we dig. I had figured we’d manage ten at most, seeing as there were stones, rock surfaces and just plain hard packed clay, but in the eight hours we were there (it started to rain by the way, twice we had to take a thirty minute break during the worst of it) we managed to dig a total of 23 holes. Yay. Most of it, in fact. Now we only need to dig three more pole holes, and ten supports and then we can start on pouring the first concrete. The corner poles are first for that, by the way. Most tension will be on those, so they’ll need the longest to dry.

While we were there boss lady got home with a bunch of puppies which she’s going to find homes for in the near future. Lemme see if I can get a pic on here…

Nope. Not today. I'll get to it later. For a flash of a second I regretted that we have so many dogs, because in that second I regretted having so many dogs already. Then of course I remembered all our own little darlings and could just enjoy the puppies for a bit before they were put in the back where they could recover from the trip.

But anyway, on the overall it was a productive day, and we got home at around eight in the evening with the dogs being absolute insane. Can’t say I blame them, poor sweeties. It was a long day without us (10 hours at least, since the trip to, and irrevocably the one back, takes about an hour) but according to cousin Ed and grandpa, they behaved relatively well.

What followed was cleaning up the leftover food, filling bags with sand, getting a couple of bags of cement, and counting out the poles that we’re going to need tomorrow.

Once we had pasta and sauce Cousin Ed made for us, it was down to our computers and editing the two pages that we hadn’t managed yesterday. Then there was this blog and now I still have to go over my messages and such. *sigh* Gotta go.

A picture update, of course

(If you scroll to the bottom anyway)

Song of the day: “Crazy” by Patsy Cline. Back to that one, eh? Strange. Had lots of new pop of late and now I’m back to the oldies. Ah well, it’s a good song, so who cares.

Let’s start with a bad news…well, semi bad news, anyway. Tenant, who often has trouble swallowing had a rather bad episode the other day, and due to that she’s been feeling under the weather a bit. Her voice is extremely weak, so we’ve been keeping a hawk’s eye on her.

One of the dogs died. Purna, little sister’s black cocker spaniel who had a liver infection and going through antibiotic therapy just dropped dead the other day. Very sad. Was such a sweet little dog. We got her when she was little more than a puppy, and she was always so cheerful. Little sister is really broken up about it.

Yesterday was an emergency trip to the vet. Rammi (Rottweiler mix) had somehow managed to knock her tooth askew (it was standing horizontally in her mouth) which meant that it had to be removed with an anesthetic. It took the vet less than twenty minutes, but still, poor Rammi was out of it for several hours and none too pleased.

Got pulled over by national police. They were doing some sort of massive traffic check. The roundabout had been cordoned off from all five directions, and basically they were checking every car that came past. They wanted to see big brother’s driver’s license and examined both cousin Ed and me with a flashlight in our faces. Was a bit intimidating, I’ll admit. I hate it when they do it like that. It always makes me wonder if there is some terrorist thread going one, because they keep pulling over small shabby looking cars, searching trucks and people alike. Reminds me of a police state, for some reason, especially with the fully armed back up that always stands about five-hundred yards down the road.

Found a litter of deserted puppies at the local landfill. They’d been dumped in a garbage bin, in a bag, and they were closer to death than alive, and waaaay too young to survive. Most unpleasant. I hate it when people do that. I’m sorry, but at moment’s like those I can’t say I like people at all. I mean, for Gawd’s sake. There were nine of them, and if properly nourished they would have been gorgeous. I’m thinking Pitbull mix, at the very least.
But seriously, if the economy is so bad that one can’t afford to have one’s dog get puppies, have said dog spaded, or at least (please) have the guts to have the puppies put down in a humane (or at least quick) fashion, rather than dumping them to starve in some garbage bin. It is not the right solution, not even if one has the unrealistic belief that some good Samaritan will undoubtedly save them. It is very unpleasant, not to mention painful for those who come afterwards.

But enough depressing stuff. I’ve done my utter most best to distract myself from all this shaite, and will endeavor to keep on doing so. Nothing to be gained from a solid depression.

There were a couple of kick box workouts, which didn’t go disastrous, thankfully, and a good run that had Knight II get his exercise as well. I had planned to do either a workout or a run today as well, but regretfully that didn’t work out at all.

Lots of work in the yard again. I love this time of year for that. Sowed more herbs, because this year I would like to have enough of everything to not have to buy teas. Our own is way nicer anyway. Hah. But I harvested some more broccoli. It won’t be long now, in particular not because we’re letting them shoot through to blooms and they are now like yellow torches in the yard. Next year we want our own seeds…just like the new chard that’s coming up. They’re looking splendid.
Also had a nice harvest of some of our own tomatoes, meaning we went for a salad for one supper, kale with the other, and veggie burgers with our own cauliflower in it. I can’t really decide which I like best.

Had to go to the village to finally pick up my old insoles. I think the docs took pity on me and stuck a new layer on the poor things that were getting to be threadbare from all the wear. Glad to have them back, in particular because they cost me a solid 60 bucks. Hah.

Good edits…at least, I remember two good sessions at the very least. Made progress and on paper we’re now at page sixty. Yay. Lots of distracted, I’m afraid, partially because the days were so friggin’ busy.

Which reminds me: the main project these past couple of days has been putting in my new terrace doors. First day, big brother and I worked on preparing the four doors so they’d be ready for putting them in place. It took some planning, and there were some errors, but after day one we were pretty confident that we figured we should be able to put them in place the next day.
The next day we started early, taking out the old windows and door, cutting open the wall (that scared me a little. What if we calculated something wrong? What if the new slats didn’t hold? What if? What if?) and then starting the strenuous task of putting in the panel windows. Once we had those in, the difficult part started: Hinges. Yep. We had to put in eight of them and that is where the first miscalculation made itself known. The new pieces of wood we put in place to serve as posts were too thin for the hinges we selected. Ended up making the ends into bolts, putting them in place and making thin slats to cover up the bolts. Worked out fine. It was late in the afternoon, and we still had loads to do, but the doors were in place, the locking mechanism in place and working perfectly. Yay.

Regretfully I could not enjoy my first sunset the next morning. The sky was overcast with clouds, and the sun was nowhere in sight, darn it. Still, there is loads of light in my bedroom now, and it is really beautiful to lie there staring out over the valley at night, seeing the lights of town shimmer in the distance.

Since I had to clean up afterward anyway, I took the opportunity to thoroughly scrub my floors and even clean up some shelves. For the moment stuff inside my cabin look neat…sorta.

The last couple of days were spent finishing it all up (in-between yard work and other chores), putting in the threshold, plinths, fortifications because the old solidity of the cabin disappeared and had to be replaced properly. Washing the windows…followed by Lieve (Sitabah’s sister) walking right into the glass, because she thought the door was open. *sigh* Not the smartest of the litter, Lieve.

And by now I’m starting to draw blanks as to what else was done these past couple of days. I’m sure I’m missing lots, but who cares. There will be more days in the future, so I will end this one with some pics of the remodel project of my cabin. Yay.





So I discovered that I didn't have a before shot of the cabin in question (I have two identical ones, which are attached) but the design is the same, so this is how it used to look. A bit on the dark side, if you get my meaning.



Here it's stripped of windows and door. Chaos was looking at me as if I was amputating his leg, or something, and ended up barking at the hole until I lifted him onto the bed where he snuggled into the pillows until further notice.



Stripped too. Such a sad sight...but worth it.



The stationary panels are in, getting closer.



And voila. Beautiful. I love it...even though the dogs don't. They really do hate change. Hah.

Okay, gotta go.

Haul number two.

Song of the day: “I really don’t think so” by K-Otic. It’s a definite one-hit wonder, but it was cute. Strange that’s in my head…well, maybe not: it was one of the songs little brother put on Itunes the other day. Hah.

A busy day, yesterday. Middle sister and I hung the shelves in her room, which was a pain in the butt, considering the wall in there isn’t all that straight to begin with, but we managed. I still need to put a support under it, but by then the closet should be done too, so there’s no hurry.

Also hung the new mirrors in the corridor, and they look kind of grand, since they’re huge and have a rather wide border with intricate woodwork and everything. I like it. The old mirror had to be hung in the bathroom (it is going to need some repairs) and it looks nice there too.

All this needed to be done within a couple of hours, since we fully intended to go out into the country to get a new batch of rocks (the flat kind that we can only get on one location) before nightfall. It’s a long drive, however, and due to rush hour it was already getting dark when we finally got there.

So we ended up skulking through the riverbed, searching for the dratted things with bad flashlights. Got a nice batch, however, making up for at least half of the patio stairs. You see, we decided that we’re really going to have to redo the patio stairs, which are literally eroding because of all the action they’re seeing. It’s going to be a hell of a job, but it’s gotta be done.

It was kinda nice to do the rock hauling again, really, excellent exercise walking back and forth with heavy rocks that make your joints protest and your muscles scream, hah. I was pretty much done for by the end of it, and just the thought of doing any proofreading made me look cross-eyed…luckily we decided against the task, and went out (in the middle of the night, mind you, hah) for a drive to clear our heads instead.

Came across another dumpsite, filled with piles and piles of wood that we really couldn’t leave there for the garbage disposal trucks to take away. It was just too beautiful, downright beautiful and perfect for the glass and wood walls we still have to build this winter. I have to say that it was a rather interesting end of the evening.

This morning, was of course, back to normal, beginning with a four hour work session behind the computers, putting in the corrections (it feels like we’re really finagling the details by now, I feel downright nitpicky because of it) and going through the materials.

Since, I’m a little ahead of big brother, after one chapter I can quickly get to my messages, go through the chat forums (they’re just too much of a temptation) and then it’s back to the second chapter of the day. Once they’re done it’s back outside for the third layer of paint on the closet and me working on the three drawers that need to go in it…again in just a few hours because we intend to do another rock haul trip.

We get there about half an hour before nightfall this time, and because the rocks are scattered around in one particular area it is more than enough time to fill up this huge crate we made for the back of the car. We head on back with a full load that should make the supply enough to (hopefully) get the full stairs done.

Saw a lot of the puppies these past few days. They are acclimating to the pack rather well, and just love to go roundabout, driving our tenant’s caretaker bonkers with chasing after them. For us it is rather fun to watch, what with the little ones not being our responsibility for a change, hah. We just get to cuddle the little ones…they’re getting to be so big…without any of the hassle.

The puppy stage is really an amazing time, but such a dratted fuss that I am rather happy that all my dogs are fully grown and independent. For the first eight weeks or so it is practically impossible to get anything done properly (when you’ve got puppies around, that is) and having had puppies for a time of four years in the past thirteen, I’ve had all the puppy time I ever needed.

It is one of the reasons why I have switched to adopting dogs that are at least over six months old for several years now. They’ll still be young enough to form a tight connection, but they won’t need the 24/7 attention, the way puppies do. Between three and eighteen months is the ideal age to get a dog…for me anyway.

Pups are still incredibly cute, though, no amount of exposure to them will ever change that…and I still end up using baby talk with them. Hah.

But enough of puppy-talk, the day has come to another end, and I head towards midnight at the new desk in the new office. It still needs some work, but the atmosphere in the area is rather pleasant, to say the least. I think it is going to be a splendid place for some serious writing in the near future.

Forgetful me.

Song of the day (well, the day before yesterday): “I love you but I don’t like you” by Right said Fred. A funny song, but it drove me bonkers all through Thursday.

I know, I’m a day late with the Blog, but because of some inexplicable reason I completely forgot last night. Very bad of me. I’m shocked that I forgot, really. Very unlike me…in particular because I’m usually making mental notes throughout the day, so I’ll have a general idea what to write about. Well, let’s just try to compound it all.

Lots of carpentry these past three days. Middle sister’s closet is almost done, it was primed just last night, and today the light yellow paint will be slapped on. It’s starting to look pretty good, allowing for lots of space once we get it into her room.

Little brother is hard at work with those lamps I mentioned the other day. They all need fittings, and power lines, but he’s steadily slugging his way through the lot. Two are already standing on the veranda as of last night, and they look pretty darn cozy.

Big brother and grandpa are working on the outside fencing and have got four poles in the rock ground, and have fixed the side gate so we can use it, whenever the dogs are crowding the big one. Yay. Big brother figures he’s going to need some practice with the welding machine before we start on the new main gate, so this was an excellent start.

Little sister’s birthday went by without a hitch on Friday, and the cheesecake was a bloody success. An excellent desert for the pasta and fresh tomato (from our own yard, by the way) sauce she prepared herself.

Her birthday resulted in a trip to town yesterday, because she really wanted to have zipper sweater for the winter, so we did some relaxed shopping by roaming through a department store. Since there was a late sale, I bought a body warmer for myself, ‘cause, let’s face it, I’m a total whiner when it comes to the cold. Hah.

The puppies are getting along famously with the other dogs; the pack took about fifteen minutes to sniff them up and down, nudged them a little out of sheer curiosity, and before you know it, lost interest in favor of snoozing around us while we worked on the ongoing projects.

The weather is downright gorgeous this past week. Sunshine, fresh breeze and temperatures in the high twenties (C)…which has the sibs in a snit, while grandpa and I are downright thrilled. Hah.

So, what else was there these past three days? I’m trying to think of something here, give me a sec…oh yeah, managed to get a new second-hand wheelchair for our tenant. It was damaged some, (which explains why we got it practically for free) but after a short examination of the old and new one, I quickly managed to make one perfectly fine wheelchair of the two. Tenant and her caretaker are thrilled, of course, since the new chair is far more comfortable than the old, and you can almost imagine that this one isn’t second-hand.

Yesterday’s song of the day was: “You’re my mate” also by Right said Fred. I don’t know what’s up with that. I mean, the songs are fun and all, but having them inside my head for several hours on head is, like, wahay too much.

We did another garbage run, of course, got this huge load of new, strangely cut MDF (Medium Density Fibreboard) boards that are going to be a pleasure to work with in the near future. That stuff is so darn expensive, and yet, there it was, piled so high in a garbage bin that we could hardly fit it into the car. Insanity of a shop-aholic society is the wet dream of the do-it-yourself home-improvers. Hah.

There were a couple of days involving lousy proofreading, and then yesterday, we suddenly (much to our surprise) managed two full chapters again. I don’t know why one day it will work, and the other it feels like mounting the Himalayas, but there it is.

Lots of ticks again: The ugly little parasites seem to be breeding by the dozen. Why, just yesterday I petted Njanna (Golden Retriever) and removed fifteen big ones that were sitting on him like big warts. The same goes for old Ambah (Cocker Spaniel) who had about the same amount small and big all over his face and shoulders. Gawd, I hate those things…and the stupid chemicals are obviously not working. We might start using the natural way again, one of these days. We found this rather interesting recipe for a spray that we really have to try.

Today’s song of the day is: “Blame it on me” by Maria Mena…or at least, I think it will be because I woke up with it.
With a little luck we’ll finish the new closet today, get another session on the book done, and then…well, we’ll see how it goes.

Busy stuff.

Song of the day: “The lion sleeps tonight” by Robert John, apparently. Could have fooled me, I’ve known the song for ages and never even bothered to figure out who sang it. Hah. No matter, though: it’s a great song.

Well, it’s been a busy couple of days, really. Yesterday two puppies died. We had intended to take them to the vet this morning, but it was already too late. The other two are fine, so that’s a relief.

The younger sibs and I put a small wall section behind my cabin, where mud tends to pile up during the rain. It was a very basic task, not hard at all, so we were basically just chatting while we went back and forth between painting the small metal ladder we intend to use for easy access to the wall.

We also did some repairing of the fences, because when grandpa and big brother were busy burying the poor little dogs, some of the pack members decided to tear the fence (with their teeth and a lot of persistence) and then scaled it by the dozen. We put a section of another fence on it as a temporary solution…or at least until we have time to put something permanent in its place.

Then we finished the basis of the glass and wood window, and put it in place. Quite amazingly, it fit in with only a few millimeters to spare, and even without the glass, it looked downright beautiful. Fit like a glove, and during the course of the afternoon (today) middle sister and I puzzled the freshly cut glass into place. Not easy, since every square was a slightly different size, but in the end we had them all in, and mom cleaned the glass panes.

Luckily, we did all the painting yesterday because it made the job so much easier today. After the glass was put in place, middle sister moved the rabbits from the old cage into that of the chinchillas. Since we’re building a new one under there and need to take the old one apart (so we’ll have room for our office) they’ll be fine there for the time being.

Once the rabbits are out of the way, we start on the tedious task of getting the fencing off the old cage, and slowly take the majority off.
Soon the afternoon turns into the evening and after a late dinner it is time to head up to my cabin.

So now comes the fun part. We have actually finished the read through of the first chapters that need to be sent to the publisher before tomorrow. It turned out grand…grand I tell ya! I’m so curious what the editor is going to think of it, ‘cause, well, I love it. The synopsis is checked. So are the chapters, or course…page numbering, paper size, etc. etc. Now, unless I missed something atrocious, it can’t get any better. I’m keeping my fingers, toes, hands, feet and…heck I’ll even keep my eyes crossed if I have ta. Hah.

And there you have it; the end of this appallingly short summation. There just aren’t enough hours in the day, are there? *sigh*