“It’s a Beautiful day, the sun is shihininggg” (by Queen, yes, you guessed it) and sarcasm is going to be the tone of the day, ‘cause I’m in a crappy mood, and I Don’t Care! Grrrr.
There’s no reason for it, really, just the silly brain bringing as of yet non-existent problems to the fore. (Makes me wanna swear a blue streak, I tell ya.)
We had a wonderfully exciting day yesterday, (yes, this is where the sarcasm jumps in) started off with rain, then went on to sun…which should have made it all better, but didn’t. We were working outside, of course, when suddenly Prama decided to pounce on Indigo, which then led to, just when I was about to grab him, Knight II snapping at poor Clue and ripping a three inch hole in the side of his neck, darn it! Which meant an unexpected trip to the vet that cost us a solid sixty bucks and ten more stitches to remove in the near future.
Yep that definitely put a cap on my mood which was already going on a steady downhill slide. Then (yes, the fun isn’t over yet) when I came home from that rather time-consuming trip, we were told we could pick Clue up later that day, Knight II was bouncing around (as usual), rushed down the mountain, came across Fortuijn and gave him a “nice” gash in his side…which was luckily small enough not to need stitches. Ah yes, the joys of owning a 120-pound pup, they just never cease.
Be that as is it may, some work got done after all. I have the manuscript up to a 127 pages at the moment, which means that I’m “ejaculating” an average of four pages a day…not bad, all things considered. The story is shaping up nicely, the characters are likable and the plot is thickening, as they say.
Other than that, the new fence is set up about half the way now, the weather allowed us to proceed with it, after all. Now, of course, due to finances, we need to postpone the second half to next month…presuming that there will be no emergencies with the dogs that’ll drain more of the funds. First off, Hummel (small crossbreed) needs an operation on her glands, ‘cause she has a growth there…which means that she will have to have her uterus removed too. Bye bye spare savings, and poor little Hummel!
Next, we need to have two growing pups castrated. Having two males walking around with thirty fertile bitches, really isn’t a smart thing, to say it mildly.
Then there is the washing machine, which has totally given up the spirit and is now standing uselessly like a pile of metal in the courtyard. Aaargh. Stuff like this drives me bonkers.
Little sister and I added a few more drawers for Grandpa in the courtyard. I wasn’t in the mood for a big project so that was just something simple to keep busy.
I cooked the other day, which didn’t work out as well as I wished, but I was in the mood for it, so who gives a fig, I sure don’t. Hah.
And I better stop right here, ‘cause I’m starting to feel downright nasty. Who knows, I might actually start bashing politicians because they’re all bloody bonkers!
Wednesday, December 30, 2009
Monday, December 28, 2009
Nostalgia. *sigh*
Error: something...1...something. The device cannot connect to the remote server. Please check…yadayadayada. Please try again. If the problem persists, etc. etc. Yep that’s what’s been flashing on my screen off and on for the past couple of days whenever I try to go online. Bloody annoying, so just know that if I manage to post this today, it will be through sheer perseverance, and downright bullheadedness of trying over and over to sneak through. Hah.
Song of the day: “The morning of my life” by Sally Oldfield. I blame it on the evening before yesterday, when big brother and I had a bout of nostalgia and spent at least an hour on Youtube searching for songs we grew up with; ergo: Sally Oldfield and…well the rest is just embarrassing. They were these cute kid songs from when I was six or seven and I figured out how vinyl worked, and literally played an album to the bone.
Hah. It’s amazing how much useless information sticks in the brain, ‘cause I’d hear the beginning tune, three or four words, and yep, I could sing along just fine.
Like I said, useless information. I’m amazed that the ol’ noggin still works with all those kiddie songs still logged in there somewhere. Heck, I swear, the stupid exercise song from my three years of misspent time in private school kept blaring in my head throughout the day.
“Head, shoulders, knee and toe, knee and toe
Head, shoulders, knee and toe, knee and toe
Ears, eyes and point them at your nose
Head, shoulders, knee and toe, knee and toe.”
(In a different language, of course, but what the heck; lots of stuff gets lost in translation)
Would I totally lose face when I say that I almost ended up doing the actual exercise? Aaargh.
Over and over it went, and it drove me absolutely bonkers.
So anyway, over the past couple of days, another ten pages or so got added to the manuscript, which means that, even though I ended up being distracted a bit last night, progress is being made. Somehow, don’t ask me why, I ended up reading up about Anna Swan Bates, and her husband (both so-called giants) and as I’m often inclined to do, I was fascinated by old pictures and such and ended up going through historical ones of the late P.T. Barnum’s “freakshow”
Then of course there was the night before, when I got completely sucked into reading about Venice…yep, research for the books, it is a time-consuming effort…and lost a full hour by reading into it. (More useless information to remember, of course, but who cares. It’s fascinating, hah.)
Besides the writing, there was…give me a second here, I’ll remember, really I will…ehm…stuff. We worked some in the carport and tried to fix grandpa’s satellite. There were a few more rehab sessions with our tenant (she can actually move her left-hand fingers a bit now, yay) and…well, considering I was exhausted, it was a busy day.
Let’s get to yesterday, I might actually remember some of it. Ah, yesterday. The clouds were gone for a change, which was downright marvellous. Clear blue skies, a bright winter sun and not even a lot of wind. Suffice it to say that we grabbed the opportunity with both hands and headed out into the yard for some serious dig work; nothing like some serious physical activity after being hampered by bad weather for almost a week, in the full sun. Since we’re planning on that veggie garden, a new fence needs to be erected to keep the dogs out of the garden. You would think that the only problem we have to be weary of is that they dig out the plants, but nope. There are some in the pack that would actually lounge beside a tomato plant or cabbage and consider it a buffet. Without fencing they would think it their personal take-away joint, and that would kind of defeat the purpose, now wouldn’t it?
So I gathered tools: pickaxes, shovel and gloves, and headed out. What with the ground nicely soggy after weeks of rain it took a relatively short time to get eleven solid holes going, and with the poles hauled down by little brother and sister, we decided we might as well start setting them now the opportunity was there.
Got eleven of them set in concrete and rock, so if the weather holds (doesn’t look like it, but wishing is still free) we should get half the fencing up this week.
On a scary note, we were working in twilight, setting the last poles of the day when suddenly the dogs around us stir and a high screeching reaches our ears. We look around, and suddenly see Sitabah (Weimaraner) drag something around and then shaking it like mad: For some reason she considers little Adma (Pocket Beagle) a rodent, and has grabbed her by the neck.
Big brother pounces immediately, with me close behind and with a firm shove Sitabah lets go of the still screeching Adma who I quickly pick up in my arms to keep the rest of the dogs. Jeez, give me a heart attack why dontcha? Ffff…ehm Copulate!!!…and a lot more swearing! I don’t know what it is with hunting dogs, but sometimes they can be completely nuts. Luckily, Adma is a spry little thing, and besides being a little shocked and shaky, she appears to have suffered no ill effect of the event.
Grandpa, having heard the commotion, came rushing down the mountain, of course, and what with being in the arms of her favorite person in the world, Adma soon calmed down enough to stop shaking. Sitabah looked guilty most of the evening, knowing full well that such behavior is unacceptable, and Touri (Cocker Spaniel) who must have gotten in the midst of things somehow and has a cut on his forehead, is looking a little stunned.
What with the clouds gone, the temperatures are dropping drastically again, meaning that it was time to get out the small rugs that I always lay in my cabin during the winter, ‘cause the wooden floor is getting to be ridiculously cold when the chill creeps up.
Let’s see what else happened…oh yeah, I finally got to watch “Terminator: Salvation” and I gotta say I wasn’t disappointed as much as I’d expected. It was not a half bad action flick, and a nice sequel to the series. Though, admittedly, I liked the Marcus character better than Christian Bale’s John Connor, so the ending was a tad…meh…but still, it wasn’t as bad as the critics said.
And I’m drawing a blank again…no I’m not. Sitabah (yep, she’s going haywire these days) decided to find a way to get up on the roof, and then proceeded to crash through the see-through roof plates, plunging down a solid two stories, if the plating hadn’t landed on the banister of the stairs and made a slide of sorts.
Heck, we hadn’t even realized she went through until we heard her howling in the patio, jumping up and down in front of the door like mad. Much to my relief she’s an agile and muscular dog, who doesn’t weigh a thing, really, ‘cause otherwise she might have broken something during that fall. Phew. No ill effects for her either.
Big brother and I have been doing a lot of plotting for the book too, of course. Making lists of characters, locations and background information. It is a rather fascinating process “creating” the world. Already we have several pages worth of information.
It is one of the greatest things about writing, really. It keeps the brain flexible. Hah.
The washing machine is on the fritz again. We were just too late fixing the leak in the roof near it, and water must have somehow gotten in. So now, it won’t start at all. Until we decide what to do, buy a new one, or have it fixed (if that is possible) grandpa is picking up the slack, throwing piles into his machine every spare minute.
The advantage of yesterday’s splendid weather was that the overfull drying lines could finally be emptied. It did mean that the sisters and I had the table filled with clean laundry that had to be folded fast, lest the dogs considered it a nice spot to snooze on, hah.
Which brings us to today, where we have come upon big brother thirty-fourth Birthday! Yay. Oh my, how does time fly. Just a “short” time we were blithe young kids, scourging countryside, looking for trouble in “Red Dawn” scenarios, hah, and next we’re fully grown adults, trying to get on in life. It’s weird, I tell ya.
And to think that two weeks from now I’ll be thirty-one. I still can’t believe that so much time has passed. It seems like yesterday when I thought, I’m still just a kid, and yet here I’m rapidly approaching middle age. *sigh* Not a bad thing, though. I kinda like being a little more confident, stronger, and healthier and more adapt at handling life’s struggles.
Ah well, life continues, as they say…whether you want it to or not…hmmm. Is that nostalgia talking again? I guess it is.
Song of the day: “The morning of my life” by Sally Oldfield. I blame it on the evening before yesterday, when big brother and I had a bout of nostalgia and spent at least an hour on Youtube searching for songs we grew up with; ergo: Sally Oldfield and…well the rest is just embarrassing. They were these cute kid songs from when I was six or seven and I figured out how vinyl worked, and literally played an album to the bone.
Hah. It’s amazing how much useless information sticks in the brain, ‘cause I’d hear the beginning tune, three or four words, and yep, I could sing along just fine.
Like I said, useless information. I’m amazed that the ol’ noggin still works with all those kiddie songs still logged in there somewhere. Heck, I swear, the stupid exercise song from my three years of misspent time in private school kept blaring in my head throughout the day.
“Head, shoulders, knee and toe, knee and toe
Head, shoulders, knee and toe, knee and toe
Ears, eyes and point them at your nose
Head, shoulders, knee and toe, knee and toe.”
(In a different language, of course, but what the heck; lots of stuff gets lost in translation)
Would I totally lose face when I say that I almost ended up doing the actual exercise? Aaargh.
Over and over it went, and it drove me absolutely bonkers.
So anyway, over the past couple of days, another ten pages or so got added to the manuscript, which means that, even though I ended up being distracted a bit last night, progress is being made. Somehow, don’t ask me why, I ended up reading up about Anna Swan Bates, and her husband (both so-called giants) and as I’m often inclined to do, I was fascinated by old pictures and such and ended up going through historical ones of the late P.T. Barnum’s “freakshow”
Then of course there was the night before, when I got completely sucked into reading about Venice…yep, research for the books, it is a time-consuming effort…and lost a full hour by reading into it. (More useless information to remember, of course, but who cares. It’s fascinating, hah.)
Besides the writing, there was…give me a second here, I’ll remember, really I will…ehm…stuff. We worked some in the carport and tried to fix grandpa’s satellite. There were a few more rehab sessions with our tenant (she can actually move her left-hand fingers a bit now, yay) and…well, considering I was exhausted, it was a busy day.
Let’s get to yesterday, I might actually remember some of it. Ah, yesterday. The clouds were gone for a change, which was downright marvellous. Clear blue skies, a bright winter sun and not even a lot of wind. Suffice it to say that we grabbed the opportunity with both hands and headed out into the yard for some serious dig work; nothing like some serious physical activity after being hampered by bad weather for almost a week, in the full sun. Since we’re planning on that veggie garden, a new fence needs to be erected to keep the dogs out of the garden. You would think that the only problem we have to be weary of is that they dig out the plants, but nope. There are some in the pack that would actually lounge beside a tomato plant or cabbage and consider it a buffet. Without fencing they would think it their personal take-away joint, and that would kind of defeat the purpose, now wouldn’t it?
So I gathered tools: pickaxes, shovel and gloves, and headed out. What with the ground nicely soggy after weeks of rain it took a relatively short time to get eleven solid holes going, and with the poles hauled down by little brother and sister, we decided we might as well start setting them now the opportunity was there.
Got eleven of them set in concrete and rock, so if the weather holds (doesn’t look like it, but wishing is still free) we should get half the fencing up this week.
On a scary note, we were working in twilight, setting the last poles of the day when suddenly the dogs around us stir and a high screeching reaches our ears. We look around, and suddenly see Sitabah (Weimaraner) drag something around and then shaking it like mad: For some reason she considers little Adma (Pocket Beagle) a rodent, and has grabbed her by the neck.
Big brother pounces immediately, with me close behind and with a firm shove Sitabah lets go of the still screeching Adma who I quickly pick up in my arms to keep the rest of the dogs. Jeez, give me a heart attack why dontcha? Ffff…ehm Copulate!!!…and a lot more swearing! I don’t know what it is with hunting dogs, but sometimes they can be completely nuts. Luckily, Adma is a spry little thing, and besides being a little shocked and shaky, she appears to have suffered no ill effect of the event.
Grandpa, having heard the commotion, came rushing down the mountain, of course, and what with being in the arms of her favorite person in the world, Adma soon calmed down enough to stop shaking. Sitabah looked guilty most of the evening, knowing full well that such behavior is unacceptable, and Touri (Cocker Spaniel) who must have gotten in the midst of things somehow and has a cut on his forehead, is looking a little stunned.
What with the clouds gone, the temperatures are dropping drastically again, meaning that it was time to get out the small rugs that I always lay in my cabin during the winter, ‘cause the wooden floor is getting to be ridiculously cold when the chill creeps up.
Let’s see what else happened…oh yeah, I finally got to watch “Terminator: Salvation” and I gotta say I wasn’t disappointed as much as I’d expected. It was not a half bad action flick, and a nice sequel to the series. Though, admittedly, I liked the Marcus character better than Christian Bale’s John Connor, so the ending was a tad…meh…but still, it wasn’t as bad as the critics said.
And I’m drawing a blank again…no I’m not. Sitabah (yep, she’s going haywire these days) decided to find a way to get up on the roof, and then proceeded to crash through the see-through roof plates, plunging down a solid two stories, if the plating hadn’t landed on the banister of the stairs and made a slide of sorts.
Heck, we hadn’t even realized she went through until we heard her howling in the patio, jumping up and down in front of the door like mad. Much to my relief she’s an agile and muscular dog, who doesn’t weigh a thing, really, ‘cause otherwise she might have broken something during that fall. Phew. No ill effects for her either.
Big brother and I have been doing a lot of plotting for the book too, of course. Making lists of characters, locations and background information. It is a rather fascinating process “creating” the world. Already we have several pages worth of information.
It is one of the greatest things about writing, really. It keeps the brain flexible. Hah.
The washing machine is on the fritz again. We were just too late fixing the leak in the roof near it, and water must have somehow gotten in. So now, it won’t start at all. Until we decide what to do, buy a new one, or have it fixed (if that is possible) grandpa is picking up the slack, throwing piles into his machine every spare minute.
The advantage of yesterday’s splendid weather was that the overfull drying lines could finally be emptied. It did mean that the sisters and I had the table filled with clean laundry that had to be folded fast, lest the dogs considered it a nice spot to snooze on, hah.
Which brings us to today, where we have come upon big brother thirty-fourth Birthday! Yay. Oh my, how does time fly. Just a “short” time we were blithe young kids, scourging countryside, looking for trouble in “Red Dawn” scenarios, hah, and next we’re fully grown adults, trying to get on in life. It’s weird, I tell ya.
And to think that two weeks from now I’ll be thirty-one. I still can’t believe that so much time has passed. It seems like yesterday when I thought, I’m still just a kid, and yet here I’m rapidly approaching middle age. *sigh* Not a bad thing, though. I kinda like being a little more confident, stronger, and healthier and more adapt at handling life’s struggles.
Ah well, life continues, as they say…whether you want it to or not…hmmm. Is that nostalgia talking again? I guess it is.
Saturday, December 26, 2009
Raining still. *sigh*
Song of the day: “It’s raining men” by the Weather Sisters. I couldn’t get the friggin’ song out of my head all day, what with the rain coming down constantly. And I tried, believe me, I did. Grrr.
I tried, “I will survive” to out-sing it, but nope, it kept returning. Drove me absolutely bonkers.
And the rain is still coming down, isn’t it marvelous? Everything wet, and when we had a few hours break the day before yesterday I had the brilliant idea to use the fresh, sunny hours for something constructive by doing some organizing in the supply of rocks that have been an eyesore for months now.
They have been haphazardly piled along the main path below the gate, and seeing as we need to get the car past it on a daily basis, it always took some serious navigating. So there I was, divested at least two layers what with the sun shining warmly, got my working gloves and started hauling. Well, it was FUN…seriously, it was…or it would have been if the ground hadn’t been so darn slippery with mud.
I did finally manage to get the majority off the road, about five hundred kilos (1000 pounds?) of ‘m. It took some effort, and my muscles were screaming protest after not doing this particular “exercise” for at least three months, but I was most pleased with the end result.
The sun was still out by the time I finished, so taking that as a good sign, I took the opportunity to remove some weeds from the courtyard garden. By that time little sister joined me, and together we cleared away debris and mud from the front of middle sister’s window…boy, did that smell. Afterwards, we set the rolls of reed mats up straight, due to the storms they were blown down and were starting to rot in the mud…that smelled too, by the way. Hah.
Since we were outside anyway, we also put together two separate piles of rocks, ‘cause let’s face it, what with this weather going on we won’t be doing any building anytime soon, and made one big one in a place where the rocks won’t be in the way.
In the mean time middle sister has cleaned out the small pet cages, and the turtle basin, while little brother did…well, I don’t know what, but since I didn’t see him, I’m thinking that he’s working on his computer, which had to be reformatted…again. The stupid thing is constantly going on the fritz.
I would have liked to do some more writing come evening, but in all honesty, I could barely look straight, so after a shower (I was literally coated in mud all over) dinner, and a page or two I called it a night and spent the evening watching a movie “Death Race” with Jason Stratham. It was only so-so, which meant that I could divert my attention between that and starting on Grandpa’s saddle cover.
What with the dogs always jumping on top of the saddle, in search of dry spot, they had destroyed the last one, and were now damaging the rubber, so a new one was becoming a necessity. Got it about halfway done before the movie was done, and then hit the sheets for some blissful sleep.
Which brings us to yesterday; it rained all day, and the power is iffy at best. Had a total of ten thunderstorms in the past two or three days, and new ones are constantly rolling in. Nanook (husky malamute) certainly doesn’t appreciate that. She is usually a loner, but when thunder roars she’ll sneak in amidst the pack and wait it out in company. Poor thing.
The rain was coming down steadily when I woke and kept going with less and more water during the course of the day. We spent most of daylight hours in the carport, with me finishing up grandpa’s saddle, while big brother rigged up a water-resistant cover. The dogs insisted on joining us, of course. You’d think that with such miserable weather they’d be smart enough to stay inside where it’s dry and warm, but nope, they’ll be dogging our heels (no pun intended) and trying to find warm dry spots in the muddy and wet carport.
Luckily, what with the tarps we put up against the openings to keep out the rain, it’s at least not raining inside, but they got rather creative. Knight II, for instance, would crawl up on one of the garden chairs, curl up and snooze while shivering continuously. Little Dax, wanted to, had to, and did lie on top of the new workbench…decided to put him on an old towel, what with his thin fur and tiny little body. Carla, one of the Cockers, crawled into a supply closer to lie on top of tools and the rest…well, let’s just say that we were traipsing around living carpet, hah.
Finishing outside work with priming a cabinet, which was meant for the bathroom, I got a little high on paint fumes, hah, it was (much to my relief) time to head back inside where the stoves were burning cheerily.
Little sister had made use of the miserable day and spent the majority of the afternoon cleaning out the kitchen. Together we hung the cabinet in the bathroom, and added a few more finishing slats on the paneled wall. It’s starting to look nice, I’ll admit. When we started there were some doubts about the seemingly brilliant solution to the peeling paint, but now we’re pretty sure that it was a good decision.
There was dinner mum cooked. Cauliflower baked with carrots, yum, with baked potatoes and paneer on the side…love it.
So yesterday was concluded with a rather successful session of writing: Added another five or six pages to the manuscript which brings the total up to a hundred and ten pages, yay. It is really satisfying to see that page count going up so steadily, hah.
As for today, it started off with an early morning visit from our neighbor. He was having battery problems with his car and asked if we could give him a jump-start. A strange little fellow…not unfriendly by any means, just strange. It didn’t work, the jump-start, don’t know why, it just didn’t so we mostly just stood there in the rain until he finally decided to call his family, rather than triple A, and thanked us for trying. We really should do some digging in the car’s workings, ‘cause it took us several minutes to figure out how it worked in the rather peculiar mechanics of the Land Rover. Apparently, it goes a little different than with other cars. Ah well, no harm done, I guess.
And with this blog that’s about all she wrote for the day. I’m going to try to get some writing done now. I really don’t feel like going out in the rain early today. Hah.
I tried, “I will survive” to out-sing it, but nope, it kept returning. Drove me absolutely bonkers.
And the rain is still coming down, isn’t it marvelous? Everything wet, and when we had a few hours break the day before yesterday I had the brilliant idea to use the fresh, sunny hours for something constructive by doing some organizing in the supply of rocks that have been an eyesore for months now.
They have been haphazardly piled along the main path below the gate, and seeing as we need to get the car past it on a daily basis, it always took some serious navigating. So there I was, divested at least two layers what with the sun shining warmly, got my working gloves and started hauling. Well, it was FUN…seriously, it was…or it would have been if the ground hadn’t been so darn slippery with mud.
I did finally manage to get the majority off the road, about five hundred kilos (1000 pounds?) of ‘m. It took some effort, and my muscles were screaming protest after not doing this particular “exercise” for at least three months, but I was most pleased with the end result.
The sun was still out by the time I finished, so taking that as a good sign, I took the opportunity to remove some weeds from the courtyard garden. By that time little sister joined me, and together we cleared away debris and mud from the front of middle sister’s window…boy, did that smell. Afterwards, we set the rolls of reed mats up straight, due to the storms they were blown down and were starting to rot in the mud…that smelled too, by the way. Hah.
Since we were outside anyway, we also put together two separate piles of rocks, ‘cause let’s face it, what with this weather going on we won’t be doing any building anytime soon, and made one big one in a place where the rocks won’t be in the way.
In the mean time middle sister has cleaned out the small pet cages, and the turtle basin, while little brother did…well, I don’t know what, but since I didn’t see him, I’m thinking that he’s working on his computer, which had to be reformatted…again. The stupid thing is constantly going on the fritz.
I would have liked to do some more writing come evening, but in all honesty, I could barely look straight, so after a shower (I was literally coated in mud all over) dinner, and a page or two I called it a night and spent the evening watching a movie “Death Race” with Jason Stratham. It was only so-so, which meant that I could divert my attention between that and starting on Grandpa’s saddle cover.
What with the dogs always jumping on top of the saddle, in search of dry spot, they had destroyed the last one, and were now damaging the rubber, so a new one was becoming a necessity. Got it about halfway done before the movie was done, and then hit the sheets for some blissful sleep.
Which brings us to yesterday; it rained all day, and the power is iffy at best. Had a total of ten thunderstorms in the past two or three days, and new ones are constantly rolling in. Nanook (husky malamute) certainly doesn’t appreciate that. She is usually a loner, but when thunder roars she’ll sneak in amidst the pack and wait it out in company. Poor thing.
The rain was coming down steadily when I woke and kept going with less and more water during the course of the day. We spent most of daylight hours in the carport, with me finishing up grandpa’s saddle, while big brother rigged up a water-resistant cover. The dogs insisted on joining us, of course. You’d think that with such miserable weather they’d be smart enough to stay inside where it’s dry and warm, but nope, they’ll be dogging our heels (no pun intended) and trying to find warm dry spots in the muddy and wet carport.
Luckily, what with the tarps we put up against the openings to keep out the rain, it’s at least not raining inside, but they got rather creative. Knight II, for instance, would crawl up on one of the garden chairs, curl up and snooze while shivering continuously. Little Dax, wanted to, had to, and did lie on top of the new workbench…decided to put him on an old towel, what with his thin fur and tiny little body. Carla, one of the Cockers, crawled into a supply closer to lie on top of tools and the rest…well, let’s just say that we were traipsing around living carpet, hah.
Finishing outside work with priming a cabinet, which was meant for the bathroom, I got a little high on paint fumes, hah, it was (much to my relief) time to head back inside where the stoves were burning cheerily.
Little sister had made use of the miserable day and spent the majority of the afternoon cleaning out the kitchen. Together we hung the cabinet in the bathroom, and added a few more finishing slats on the paneled wall. It’s starting to look nice, I’ll admit. When we started there were some doubts about the seemingly brilliant solution to the peeling paint, but now we’re pretty sure that it was a good decision.
There was dinner mum cooked. Cauliflower baked with carrots, yum, with baked potatoes and paneer on the side…love it.
So yesterday was concluded with a rather successful session of writing: Added another five or six pages to the manuscript which brings the total up to a hundred and ten pages, yay. It is really satisfying to see that page count going up so steadily, hah.
As for today, it started off with an early morning visit from our neighbor. He was having battery problems with his car and asked if we could give him a jump-start. A strange little fellow…not unfriendly by any means, just strange. It didn’t work, the jump-start, don’t know why, it just didn’t so we mostly just stood there in the rain until he finally decided to call his family, rather than triple A, and thanked us for trying. We really should do some digging in the car’s workings, ‘cause it took us several minutes to figure out how it worked in the rather peculiar mechanics of the Land Rover. Apparently, it goes a little different than with other cars. Ah well, no harm done, I guess.
And with this blog that’s about all she wrote for the day. I’m going to try to get some writing done now. I really don’t feel like going out in the rain early today. Hah.
Thursday, December 24, 2009
Merry Christmas!!!
Song of the day: "Singing' in the Rain" by...ehm, Gene Kelly. Very appropriate since yesterday it was pouring. During Grocery shopping, little brother and I actually got into the thing and started swinging around a light post...of course then we remembered our cousin who did the same thing when we traveled through India and got this massive electricity shock. Yikes!
But anyways, it is still pouring, and I don't have time, 'cause I'm still writing, so I don't have time to write, hah.
Not much to talk about anyway, since I've written about grocery shopping day often enough and yesterday was rather frustrating what with traffic jams all over. Aaargh! You know those movies, where a taxi driver hangs out the window and is shouting insults and swears a lot...well, that'd be me if I had to nerve. I was so friggin' tempted. Seriously, we had half a mile of cars leading up to the roundabout. Hah.
So, I'll leave it at this, Wish you all A Merry, merry Christmas!!!, (try not to overeat, hah) and I'll try to do better with the next blog. Hopefully I'll have more to write about the day after tomorrow, hah.
Oops, thunder is starting up again; wonder if we'll be without electricity again...like most of yesterday. Nanook so doesn't like thunder, and the others, well, I think they're getting enough of being wet all the time...so am I, for that matter. Heck, I even have a slight ear infection. *sigh*
But anyways, it is still pouring, and I don't have time, 'cause I'm still writing, so I don't have time to write, hah.
Not much to talk about anyway, since I've written about grocery shopping day often enough and yesterday was rather frustrating what with traffic jams all over. Aaargh! You know those movies, where a taxi driver hangs out the window and is shouting insults and swears a lot...well, that'd be me if I had to nerve. I was so friggin' tempted. Seriously, we had half a mile of cars leading up to the roundabout. Hah.
So, I'll leave it at this, Wish you all A Merry, merry Christmas!!!, (try not to overeat, hah) and I'll try to do better with the next blog. Hopefully I'll have more to write about the day after tomorrow, hah.
Oops, thunder is starting up again; wonder if we'll be without electricity again...like most of yesterday. Nanook so doesn't like thunder, and the others, well, I think they're getting enough of being wet all the time...so am I, for that matter. Heck, I even have a slight ear infection. *sigh*
Monday, December 21, 2009
It's raining, I'm melting! *sigh*
Song of the day: “No” by Shakira. Gorgeous song. Little more I can say about it.
Well, it is another miserable day…weather wise. We are literally covered in clouds once again, and the rain is pouring down with a southeastern wind that is slamming against the side of the house. The recent pouring of the gutter didn’t do as much as we had hoped, considering there’s some flooding in the toilet and pantry, but it is less, I think. Yep, this ‘ll mean doing some serious mopping up, just as soon as the rain lets down.
Let’s get to the past couple of days fast, ‘cause there is way too much to do, and I really shouldn’t be spending too much time behind the computer…darn it.
Writing is going pretty well, still. I’m five hundred words short of doubling the beginning of the story, bringing the manuscript up to a third of what it is supposed to be come completion. Yay. The words are flowing nicely, the story developing rapidly…though admittedly I remember little of what I’ve added so far. I get in a kind of fugue state once I get going, so it still remains to be seen if it is any good. I’m thinking it will, but you never know.
I was in the middle of a gloomy, date-like scene last night when I heard about the death of Brittany Murphy, so that distracted me for a bit. So strange; such a young woman, and so talented. I loved her in “Uptown Girls” and “Don’t say a word”. I knew her from Clueless and Girl Interrupted, of course, but the first two were really excellent. How terrible for her loved ones, for something like this to happen. It does seem like the celebs are dropping by the dozen these days. *sigh*
For the most part, we have been working on putting together a solid workbench for the carport. It’s going to be a massive construction, what with it having a lot of action to look forward to, and it is turning out rather nicely. It is mostly out of wood, with a smooth counter in-between that’ll allow for semi-easy cleaning.
The first seedling veggies have been planted the day before yesterday, so now it will be all about waiting and seeing how they’re going to do in the recently turned earth. There’re mostly winter veggies now: Iceberg slaw, cauliflower, onions (let’s face it, we’re all nuts about onions so they’ll get eat if they decide to grow) leek and red cabbage. Basically it now is a selection that’ll grow this time of year, and to see how it goes. We have done some home growing in the past, but it’s been a while for sure. We’ll see.
There was some cleaning done…my cabin to be precise. Things were turning bad again, so I decided to drag a broom through and give the bathroom a good scrubbing all over. It’s still not neat, but it’ll have to do for now.
The new mattresses arrived the day before yesterday, so most of that day I spent hauling them around. Middle sister got her new one, I did too, so did mom, little brother and grandpa; considering big brother and little sister got theirs a few months ago, we are now all set for the next ten years, or so. At least these are proper quality, while the ones that were bought ‘bout twenty years ago (and then a few really cheap ones in the past few years to tide us over) really got to be too bad for use.
I slept rather wonderfully on the new one, by the way. My hips don’t hurt when I wake up, so that’s a plus and when I do my morning stretch exercises, I don’t need to unclick my spinal cord, hah. Also, I have gained an extra seven inches in bed width, allowing me to actually stretch out without the dogs being in the way. Yay…it is a rather novel sensation.
The temperatures are pretty low for the time of year. The mercury has dropped down to 4 degrees (c) already, and that means lots of layers for me. Yesterday I finally got smart and donned two pairs of trousers, which is doing the trick so far. I could even work outside without loosing sensation in my legs, hah.
The plants are enjoying the rain, of course; everything is looking brilliantly green and fresh, which is a definite plus of wintertime. The long warm summers leave everything looking rather miserably dusty and bland, so on that part this type of weather is appreciated at least.
The dogs on the other hand, seriously dislike it, taking only the absolutely required amount of time to rush outside and do their business, before they come storm back inside, soaking wet. Aaargh.
Of course, when one of us goes out, they’ll be around us like a shot, not caring a fig whether they get wet, or not. Like I’ve said, many times before, they’re absolutely nuts. Hah.
Little Adma (female pocket Beagle) had developed a bit of a cold the other day. What with her tendency to follow grandpa practically everywhere, she’d developed a bit of hypothermia and felt poorly for a couple of days. Grandpa kept her warm, however, stuffed her under the blankets a lot and now she’s right as rain again. You’d think that she would learn of the experience and stick close to the fire barrel which we burn wood it while working on the variety of project, but nope. Every time he tried to put her somewhere it was warm, she’d jump right off, and go in his pursuit again. Silly girl.
Knight II has similar tendencies, which isn’t smart, considering his thin fur, but at least he’ll huddle up in my cabin, only coming out every thirty minutes or so, to check if I’m still around. Mosha is starting to do the same, so with a little luck I might actually be able to move around without at least half a dozen dogs around my feet. Hah, who knew that there were advantages to winter after all?
But anyways…while grandpa and big brother continued with the workbench, little sister and I started on the toilet room, which keeps developing a mould of sorts. After several years of trying just about everything to get rid of it, we decided to treat it properly, and just design a breathing layer for it. So with a little luck we’ll be putting that up today. There’s going to be a beautiful layer of ebony slats, going up vertically (creating height) and decorated edges to keep the lot in place. It requires some acrobatics, working in such a small space, two of us humans and an average of four dogs…or more, since they can’t be expected to just look for a place to snooze elsewhere, of course, grrr…but we’re getting there.
It’s going to look very nice, I think.
The courtyard room is finally cleared of the stuff that has been piled there during the course of the past months, so it is now relatively clean, with everything stored properly on pallets, off to the side where they’re the least obstructive. It took little sister and me the majority of the day (Friday, I think) but it was worth it.
Well, that about sums it up, meaning that I gotta run and get started on the day. Can’t spend the entire duration of it cozy and warm behind the keyboard, waiting for summer to return, no matter how tempting that might seem at times.
Well, it is another miserable day…weather wise. We are literally covered in clouds once again, and the rain is pouring down with a southeastern wind that is slamming against the side of the house. The recent pouring of the gutter didn’t do as much as we had hoped, considering there’s some flooding in the toilet and pantry, but it is less, I think. Yep, this ‘ll mean doing some serious mopping up, just as soon as the rain lets down.
Let’s get to the past couple of days fast, ‘cause there is way too much to do, and I really shouldn’t be spending too much time behind the computer…darn it.
Writing is going pretty well, still. I’m five hundred words short of doubling the beginning of the story, bringing the manuscript up to a third of what it is supposed to be come completion. Yay. The words are flowing nicely, the story developing rapidly…though admittedly I remember little of what I’ve added so far. I get in a kind of fugue state once I get going, so it still remains to be seen if it is any good. I’m thinking it will, but you never know.
I was in the middle of a gloomy, date-like scene last night when I heard about the death of Brittany Murphy, so that distracted me for a bit. So strange; such a young woman, and so talented. I loved her in “Uptown Girls” and “Don’t say a word”. I knew her from Clueless and Girl Interrupted, of course, but the first two were really excellent. How terrible for her loved ones, for something like this to happen. It does seem like the celebs are dropping by the dozen these days. *sigh*
For the most part, we have been working on putting together a solid workbench for the carport. It’s going to be a massive construction, what with it having a lot of action to look forward to, and it is turning out rather nicely. It is mostly out of wood, with a smooth counter in-between that’ll allow for semi-easy cleaning.
The first seedling veggies have been planted the day before yesterday, so now it will be all about waiting and seeing how they’re going to do in the recently turned earth. There’re mostly winter veggies now: Iceberg slaw, cauliflower, onions (let’s face it, we’re all nuts about onions so they’ll get eat if they decide to grow) leek and red cabbage. Basically it now is a selection that’ll grow this time of year, and to see how it goes. We have done some home growing in the past, but it’s been a while for sure. We’ll see.
There was some cleaning done…my cabin to be precise. Things were turning bad again, so I decided to drag a broom through and give the bathroom a good scrubbing all over. It’s still not neat, but it’ll have to do for now.
The new mattresses arrived the day before yesterday, so most of that day I spent hauling them around. Middle sister got her new one, I did too, so did mom, little brother and grandpa; considering big brother and little sister got theirs a few months ago, we are now all set for the next ten years, or so. At least these are proper quality, while the ones that were bought ‘bout twenty years ago (and then a few really cheap ones in the past few years to tide us over) really got to be too bad for use.
I slept rather wonderfully on the new one, by the way. My hips don’t hurt when I wake up, so that’s a plus and when I do my morning stretch exercises, I don’t need to unclick my spinal cord, hah. Also, I have gained an extra seven inches in bed width, allowing me to actually stretch out without the dogs being in the way. Yay…it is a rather novel sensation.
The temperatures are pretty low for the time of year. The mercury has dropped down to 4 degrees (c) already, and that means lots of layers for me. Yesterday I finally got smart and donned two pairs of trousers, which is doing the trick so far. I could even work outside without loosing sensation in my legs, hah.
The plants are enjoying the rain, of course; everything is looking brilliantly green and fresh, which is a definite plus of wintertime. The long warm summers leave everything looking rather miserably dusty and bland, so on that part this type of weather is appreciated at least.
The dogs on the other hand, seriously dislike it, taking only the absolutely required amount of time to rush outside and do their business, before they come storm back inside, soaking wet. Aaargh.
Of course, when one of us goes out, they’ll be around us like a shot, not caring a fig whether they get wet, or not. Like I’ve said, many times before, they’re absolutely nuts. Hah.
Little Adma (female pocket Beagle) had developed a bit of a cold the other day. What with her tendency to follow grandpa practically everywhere, she’d developed a bit of hypothermia and felt poorly for a couple of days. Grandpa kept her warm, however, stuffed her under the blankets a lot and now she’s right as rain again. You’d think that she would learn of the experience and stick close to the fire barrel which we burn wood it while working on the variety of project, but nope. Every time he tried to put her somewhere it was warm, she’d jump right off, and go in his pursuit again. Silly girl.
Knight II has similar tendencies, which isn’t smart, considering his thin fur, but at least he’ll huddle up in my cabin, only coming out every thirty minutes or so, to check if I’m still around. Mosha is starting to do the same, so with a little luck I might actually be able to move around without at least half a dozen dogs around my feet. Hah, who knew that there were advantages to winter after all?
But anyways…while grandpa and big brother continued with the workbench, little sister and I started on the toilet room, which keeps developing a mould of sorts. After several years of trying just about everything to get rid of it, we decided to treat it properly, and just design a breathing layer for it. So with a little luck we’ll be putting that up today. There’s going to be a beautiful layer of ebony slats, going up vertically (creating height) and decorated edges to keep the lot in place. It requires some acrobatics, working in such a small space, two of us humans and an average of four dogs…or more, since they can’t be expected to just look for a place to snooze elsewhere, of course, grrr…but we’re getting there.
It’s going to look very nice, I think.
The courtyard room is finally cleared of the stuff that has been piled there during the course of the past months, so it is now relatively clean, with everything stored properly on pallets, off to the side where they’re the least obstructive. It took little sister and me the majority of the day (Friday, I think) but it was worth it.
Well, that about sums it up, meaning that I gotta run and get started on the day. Can’t spend the entire duration of it cozy and warm behind the keyboard, waiting for summer to return, no matter how tempting that might seem at times.
Friday, December 18, 2009
Cooking and writing. :-)
Song of the day: “Relight my fire” by Take That feat. Lulu. Oldie, I know, but it’s there, it’s easy and not all that bad. Hah.
It is a rather miserable rainy day at the moment. We’ve had cloudy, misty, thunder and rain in all shapes and form, so suffice it to say that everything is either damp or soaked right through. Grrr.
But let’s start with yesterday, ‘cause compared to today, it was absolutely divine. No wind, no clouds; perfect. We did of course make the best possible use for it and went down into the yard to plough the “field” hah. Nothing like working up a sweat in the winter sun and ending up with a nice even terrace where we can put seedlings in at any time now.
While I was blissfully digging in the dirt, big brother and grandpa were working on fixing the fence in the south corner of the property. Due to our recent tree trimming down there, we discovered that the struggling tree had been leaning heavily on the poles, so some repairs were in order. They finished the task today, so it should be fine from now on.
Considering I’ve been having a hankering for a rich veggie, oven dish for more than a week now, I figured I might as well give into temptation and do some cooking as well. Eight veggies with and egg, milk and cheese base was a unanimous success, I’ll have you know. It came out perfectly and with today’s lunch combined, I’ve had three portions, hah.
Let’s do a recipe, shall we. It’s easy enough to make and the veggies can be substituted to personal taste. Here goes:
Potatoes. 8-12 chopped in cubes.
Carrots. 4-6 chopped in cubes.
Potatoes and carrots boiled together in water with a spoonful of sugar, salt and some mixed pepper grinds until they’re done: Stick a fork in a piece and if it slides off, you can drain the water and let it cool for a bit.
Cauliflower. Half a mid-size one. Sliced thin.
Bell peppers. 1 green, 1 red. Chopped in small cubes.
Sweet corn. 1 teacup.
Sweet peas. 1 teacup.
Onion. 1-2 chopped small.
Leek. 1 diced.
Green beans. ½-1 teacups.
Zucchini. ½-1 sliced thin.
Just mix it up raw with a bit of sugar, salt and pepper, and set it aside for a bit.
Herbs/spices:
Paprika. 1 teaspoon.
Pepper. 1-2 pinch.
Salt. 1-to taste.
Parsley. 2-4 table spoons.
Basil. 1 tablespoon.
Oregano. ½ teaspoon.
Thyme. 1 pinch.
Garlic. 1-4 smashed and then diced.
You can add a pizza herbal mix too, along with a provincial herbal mix…much easier that way.
Throw it all in half a teacup of olive oil, or sunflower seeds oil and let it stand for about half an hour.
Base:
Nutmeg. 1-3 pinches.
Salt. 1 pinch.
Pepper. 1 pinch.
Milk. 3-5 coffee cups.
Egg. 3-4
Cheese. (Gouda or Edam) 1-2 pounds grated.
Mix milk and eggs until it’s a light cream color. Add the salt, pepper and nutmeg and the grated cheese and put it aside.
Parmesan. 1-2 teacup grated.
Cottage cheese. 1-2 teacups.
Take an oven dish, or two, spread out the boiled potatoes and carrots. Add the raw veggies, mix them up and spread out the Parmesan with cottage cheese, through, or on top of it.
Now evenly disperse the base over the mix, put it in a preheated oven (approx. 260 degrees (c)) for about an hour…just keep track of it, once the cheese starts to form a nice golden crust, you’re set to go.
Just writing about it now makes me salivate all over again. Gotta have another lunch. Hah.
But enough of that. The remainder of yesterday was spent with small tasks throughout the house. While big brother and grandpa went out to get replacement gaskets, little sister and I did some cleaning in the kitchen and then hung a new lamp in the patio. The old one had lost its cover last year, so it was definitely time. The new one looks absolutely adorable.
Next little brother and I hung a shelf in his room, right beside his new closet, and it worked out without any trouble, so, yay!
There was loads of laundry again, of course. I still cannot say if we have more of that in the winter or summer, but it is a lot, always. Hah.
And the evening was spent doing some more writing. Yeah! It’s is going rather splendidly at the moment: I’m putting out an average of six pages a day now and it feels downright awesome…just as soon as I count them and realize that I’ve written more than my mind categorized. It still remains to be seen if the pages (added 20 pages in the past four days, hah) are any good, but that will come once the read/edit starts. It’s too raw to ponder such things at this point; for now I’m just focusing on the creative process, seeing as I need a completely different part of the brain for it. I’ve found that writing and editing absolutely do NOT go together. It’s like a complete gear shift that I seriously do not want to make while the story is still liquid inside my head. Once the time comes for editing, it’ll all come together and become solid, so to speak.
Which brings us back to today: The night wasn’t as cold as the ones of the past week, but still I was a tad chilled when I woke around sunrise and found myself balancing precariously on the edge of the mattress…Knight II had stretched out completely and was pushing us off, aaargh…feeling particularly sore for some “unfathomable” reason. Hah. I so did not want to get up to this miserable weather, but the new day had arrived and it was time to face it.
The morning was mostly used for minor chores inside the house (such as laundry, grrr) fixing up an old closet that we put in the pantry for storage, and then starting on the courtyard storage room, which is an absolute mess. It really needs a proper cleaning, and seeing as I should get to it, I better wrap this up and call it a day for blogging.
It is a rather miserable rainy day at the moment. We’ve had cloudy, misty, thunder and rain in all shapes and form, so suffice it to say that everything is either damp or soaked right through. Grrr.
But let’s start with yesterday, ‘cause compared to today, it was absolutely divine. No wind, no clouds; perfect. We did of course make the best possible use for it and went down into the yard to plough the “field” hah. Nothing like working up a sweat in the winter sun and ending up with a nice even terrace where we can put seedlings in at any time now.
While I was blissfully digging in the dirt, big brother and grandpa were working on fixing the fence in the south corner of the property. Due to our recent tree trimming down there, we discovered that the struggling tree had been leaning heavily on the poles, so some repairs were in order. They finished the task today, so it should be fine from now on.
Considering I’ve been having a hankering for a rich veggie, oven dish for more than a week now, I figured I might as well give into temptation and do some cooking as well. Eight veggies with and egg, milk and cheese base was a unanimous success, I’ll have you know. It came out perfectly and with today’s lunch combined, I’ve had three portions, hah.
Let’s do a recipe, shall we. It’s easy enough to make and the veggies can be substituted to personal taste. Here goes:
Potatoes. 8-12 chopped in cubes.
Carrots. 4-6 chopped in cubes.
Potatoes and carrots boiled together in water with a spoonful of sugar, salt and some mixed pepper grinds until they’re done: Stick a fork in a piece and if it slides off, you can drain the water and let it cool for a bit.
Cauliflower. Half a mid-size one. Sliced thin.
Bell peppers. 1 green, 1 red. Chopped in small cubes.
Sweet corn. 1 teacup.
Sweet peas. 1 teacup.
Onion. 1-2 chopped small.
Leek. 1 diced.
Green beans. ½-1 teacups.
Zucchini. ½-1 sliced thin.
Just mix it up raw with a bit of sugar, salt and pepper, and set it aside for a bit.
Herbs/spices:
Paprika. 1 teaspoon.
Pepper. 1-2 pinch.
Salt. 1-to taste.
Parsley. 2-4 table spoons.
Basil. 1 tablespoon.
Oregano. ½ teaspoon.
Thyme. 1 pinch.
Garlic. 1-4 smashed and then diced.
You can add a pizza herbal mix too, along with a provincial herbal mix…much easier that way.
Throw it all in half a teacup of olive oil, or sunflower seeds oil and let it stand for about half an hour.
Base:
Nutmeg. 1-3 pinches.
Salt. 1 pinch.
Pepper. 1 pinch.
Milk. 3-5 coffee cups.
Egg. 3-4
Cheese. (Gouda or Edam) 1-2 pounds grated.
Mix milk and eggs until it’s a light cream color. Add the salt, pepper and nutmeg and the grated cheese and put it aside.
Parmesan. 1-2 teacup grated.
Cottage cheese. 1-2 teacups.
Take an oven dish, or two, spread out the boiled potatoes and carrots. Add the raw veggies, mix them up and spread out the Parmesan with cottage cheese, through, or on top of it.
Now evenly disperse the base over the mix, put it in a preheated oven (approx. 260 degrees (c)) for about an hour…just keep track of it, once the cheese starts to form a nice golden crust, you’re set to go.
Just writing about it now makes me salivate all over again. Gotta have another lunch. Hah.
But enough of that. The remainder of yesterday was spent with small tasks throughout the house. While big brother and grandpa went out to get replacement gaskets, little sister and I did some cleaning in the kitchen and then hung a new lamp in the patio. The old one had lost its cover last year, so it was definitely time. The new one looks absolutely adorable.
Next little brother and I hung a shelf in his room, right beside his new closet, and it worked out without any trouble, so, yay!
There was loads of laundry again, of course. I still cannot say if we have more of that in the winter or summer, but it is a lot, always. Hah.
And the evening was spent doing some more writing. Yeah! It’s is going rather splendidly at the moment: I’m putting out an average of six pages a day now and it feels downright awesome…just as soon as I count them and realize that I’ve written more than my mind categorized. It still remains to be seen if the pages (added 20 pages in the past four days, hah) are any good, but that will come once the read/edit starts. It’s too raw to ponder such things at this point; for now I’m just focusing on the creative process, seeing as I need a completely different part of the brain for it. I’ve found that writing and editing absolutely do NOT go together. It’s like a complete gear shift that I seriously do not want to make while the story is still liquid inside my head. Once the time comes for editing, it’ll all come together and become solid, so to speak.
Which brings us back to today: The night wasn’t as cold as the ones of the past week, but still I was a tad chilled when I woke around sunrise and found myself balancing precariously on the edge of the mattress…Knight II had stretched out completely and was pushing us off, aaargh…feeling particularly sore for some “unfathomable” reason. Hah. I so did not want to get up to this miserable weather, but the new day had arrived and it was time to face it.
The morning was mostly used for minor chores inside the house (such as laundry, grrr) fixing up an old closet that we put in the pantry for storage, and then starting on the courtyard storage room, which is an absolute mess. It really needs a proper cleaning, and seeing as I should get to it, I better wrap this up and call it a day for blogging.
Wednesday, December 16, 2009
The fun of getting there.
Song of the day: “I’m like a bird” by Nelly Furtado, and yesterday morning: “Don’t worry, be happy” by…I don’t have a clue actually. I believe he’s a composer now, though. But anyway, both are quite accurate, ‘cause let’s face it, worries don’t get you anywhere and being a bird right now, would be, like, totally awesome! I’d be above the rainy clouds in a minute catching me some sun. Brrr. Cold and wet are not my favorite things to be. Ha.
So yeah, the last couple of days: There was writing, of course. Didn’t get much of it done the day before yesterday when we poured the concrete in the carport. It was a rather cold day, and though the pouring went well enough, it was sorta draining on the ol’ bod, if ya get my meaning. Hours of hauling, bending over to smoothen the stuff out took it’s toll, and by the end of the day it was all I could do to keep my eyes from falling shut.
It was kinda funny actually, I found myself sitting in front of the computer, the story tumbling through my head…images and everything, and my fingers still on the keys as I gazed blindly ahead. At one point big brother nudged me from beside, and asked me what was up, and I was like: “Huh. What, oh yeah, writing.” I wrote a paragraph and then ended up drifting along with the images again. Hah. Hysterical, I tell ya.
In total I did manage to add ten pages to the manuscript, which means that there are only a hundred and fifty or so more to go. Hah.
Luckily yesterday was a relatively quiet day. The wind was still cold, but since we went to the lower part of the yard to get a start on the future veggie garden. Considering we could hardly work in the carport, what with the concrete still drying, it seemed like an excellent opportunity to get warm with ploughing the first terrace over. And warm it was. Out of the wind, in the full sunlight, I could actually divest several layers until movement was no longer an impediment.
While big brother used the chainsaw on trees that regretfully didn’t make it through the past few hot summers, grandpa and I made nice headway. I went up front, using the heavy hoe to slash through the clay soil, and grandpa followed with the shovel to turn the whole mess over. Got a nice patch of three square yards ready for planting. Yay.
Little brother painted his new closet and it is looking grand, almost brand new even, and that’s marvellous. If you don’t know better you’d swear it was this way always. I love it when a project works out that way.
Yesterday, after the “ploughing” we made a slight change in plans and headed for town to get some building materials on sales, and then went the long way back, so we could have a nice stroll through a forestry area nearby. While walking there, we saw seedling of Eucalypti and Oleander…they never make it through the winter when the riverbeds flood over…and decided to take a few. Considering we’ve been looking for Eucalypti for months now, and the local nurseries are no longer selling them, we figured we might as well save these little ones. So, now grandpa has corralled off a section of his little yard (protected against the dogs, you understand) where we’ve put all the seedlings in pots. Now they’ll get several months to get a bit bigger and stronger and then we’ll put them throughout the property.
Oh boy is that gonna look good once they grow. Before you know it, we’ll be living in a forest again.
So there are some new plans in the making: First off, we’re finally forming some serious plans about a proper bathroom. Up until now we’ve been making due with a temporary shower stall in the corner of the patio (temporary being a whopping ten years, I kid you not). It’ll still be a shower, but this time a little more than just a stall. Yay.
Second: Considering we use so much water for hosing both courtyard and patio down every day, we’re going to build (at some point, naturally) an aqueduct that will run all the way down the property (zigzagging) and water our future veggie garden with all the left over water. It’ll be quite a project, but I think that the end result will be downright gorgeous. Can you imagine, terraces filled with plants and trees, flowers everywhere, with a low curling wall of natural rock where water runs through? I can hardly wait to see the end result. It’ll be a while yet, I know, but sometimes the anticipation is killing me. Then I always remind myself that the path of getting to a finish of something is a lot more fun than actually arriving there. *sigh*
Remember Lego? Having that castle, house, or whatever finished was just no fun at all. The searching through the massive pile of building blocks the design, that was the fun part. I would always built something, play with it for half an hour and then take it apart to start on something new. Building a real house, or in this case a garden, is much the same. The actual doing is what it is all about.
The same goes for writing, really. Developing a story, it’s characters, and discovering what makes them tick and what is going to happen next, that’s the most fun part about it any time. Sure, it is satisfying to have a story ready, and perfect for that occasional read, but in the end I’m always looking forward to the next one, where I can start all over again: Getting to know the protagonists and finding out how they will respond to the next hurdle my sometimes twisted mind throws at them. IT IS FUN!
But anyways…today started off with clouds all round. We are literally inside the clouds at the moment. Miserly rain is coming down occasionally and everything is sorta damp. I started off the day with the usual chores such as laundry…luckily I’ve been going through the piles like mad these past few days, so now there is only little…a little bit of cleaning, and then went up to our tenants for her exercises.
It went rather well, actually; we’ve finally reached that point where she does better leaning on her cane, rather than me, or her caretaker. I’m thinking that indecisiveness as to whether she needs to depend on our support, or depend more on her own body, is what is keeping her back. Her body wants to do it herself, so if we let her, it will. She barely needs support when she uses her cane, and that is a milestone to say the least. A definite bonus for me, when I go up there, is that in her bungalow it is always wonderfully warm, allowing me to “defrost” a little. Hah.
Like me, the dogs really do not like the cold, by the way. The lot of them, in particular the short haired ones, look rather miserable whenever we’re working outside, huddling close to the fire vat to keep warm, or else finding that one spot where there’s sunlight (not today, though, hah) and then shivering delicately when immobility brings the chill to unbearable levels. For all the heat Knight II produces, he’s always remarkably cold, the poor fellow. Same goes for little Dax and Mosha, who will literally run into my cabin whenever I take pity on them (meaning most days) and open the cabin door for them when I’m outside. They’ll huddle up on the couch and their baskets, only to come running outside every thirty minutes or so, to check if I’m still there.
Well, ‘tis time for me to get back to work now, so this is it for today, I guess. I still have power plug-ins to put up in the office, so I better get to it.
So yeah, the last couple of days: There was writing, of course. Didn’t get much of it done the day before yesterday when we poured the concrete in the carport. It was a rather cold day, and though the pouring went well enough, it was sorta draining on the ol’ bod, if ya get my meaning. Hours of hauling, bending over to smoothen the stuff out took it’s toll, and by the end of the day it was all I could do to keep my eyes from falling shut.
It was kinda funny actually, I found myself sitting in front of the computer, the story tumbling through my head…images and everything, and my fingers still on the keys as I gazed blindly ahead. At one point big brother nudged me from beside, and asked me what was up, and I was like: “Huh. What, oh yeah, writing.” I wrote a paragraph and then ended up drifting along with the images again. Hah. Hysterical, I tell ya.
In total I did manage to add ten pages to the manuscript, which means that there are only a hundred and fifty or so more to go. Hah.
Luckily yesterday was a relatively quiet day. The wind was still cold, but since we went to the lower part of the yard to get a start on the future veggie garden. Considering we could hardly work in the carport, what with the concrete still drying, it seemed like an excellent opportunity to get warm with ploughing the first terrace over. And warm it was. Out of the wind, in the full sunlight, I could actually divest several layers until movement was no longer an impediment.
While big brother used the chainsaw on trees that regretfully didn’t make it through the past few hot summers, grandpa and I made nice headway. I went up front, using the heavy hoe to slash through the clay soil, and grandpa followed with the shovel to turn the whole mess over. Got a nice patch of three square yards ready for planting. Yay.
Little brother painted his new closet and it is looking grand, almost brand new even, and that’s marvellous. If you don’t know better you’d swear it was this way always. I love it when a project works out that way.
Yesterday, after the “ploughing” we made a slight change in plans and headed for town to get some building materials on sales, and then went the long way back, so we could have a nice stroll through a forestry area nearby. While walking there, we saw seedling of Eucalypti and Oleander…they never make it through the winter when the riverbeds flood over…and decided to take a few. Considering we’ve been looking for Eucalypti for months now, and the local nurseries are no longer selling them, we figured we might as well save these little ones. So, now grandpa has corralled off a section of his little yard (protected against the dogs, you understand) where we’ve put all the seedlings in pots. Now they’ll get several months to get a bit bigger and stronger and then we’ll put them throughout the property.
Oh boy is that gonna look good once they grow. Before you know it, we’ll be living in a forest again.
So there are some new plans in the making: First off, we’re finally forming some serious plans about a proper bathroom. Up until now we’ve been making due with a temporary shower stall in the corner of the patio (temporary being a whopping ten years, I kid you not). It’ll still be a shower, but this time a little more than just a stall. Yay.
Second: Considering we use so much water for hosing both courtyard and patio down every day, we’re going to build (at some point, naturally) an aqueduct that will run all the way down the property (zigzagging) and water our future veggie garden with all the left over water. It’ll be quite a project, but I think that the end result will be downright gorgeous. Can you imagine, terraces filled with plants and trees, flowers everywhere, with a low curling wall of natural rock where water runs through? I can hardly wait to see the end result. It’ll be a while yet, I know, but sometimes the anticipation is killing me. Then I always remind myself that the path of getting to a finish of something is a lot more fun than actually arriving there. *sigh*
Remember Lego? Having that castle, house, or whatever finished was just no fun at all. The searching through the massive pile of building blocks the design, that was the fun part. I would always built something, play with it for half an hour and then take it apart to start on something new. Building a real house, or in this case a garden, is much the same. The actual doing is what it is all about.
The same goes for writing, really. Developing a story, it’s characters, and discovering what makes them tick and what is going to happen next, that’s the most fun part about it any time. Sure, it is satisfying to have a story ready, and perfect for that occasional read, but in the end I’m always looking forward to the next one, where I can start all over again: Getting to know the protagonists and finding out how they will respond to the next hurdle my sometimes twisted mind throws at them. IT IS FUN!
But anyways…today started off with clouds all round. We are literally inside the clouds at the moment. Miserly rain is coming down occasionally and everything is sorta damp. I started off the day with the usual chores such as laundry…luckily I’ve been going through the piles like mad these past few days, so now there is only little…a little bit of cleaning, and then went up to our tenants for her exercises.
It went rather well, actually; we’ve finally reached that point where she does better leaning on her cane, rather than me, or her caretaker. I’m thinking that indecisiveness as to whether she needs to depend on our support, or depend more on her own body, is what is keeping her back. Her body wants to do it herself, so if we let her, it will. She barely needs support when she uses her cane, and that is a milestone to say the least. A definite bonus for me, when I go up there, is that in her bungalow it is always wonderfully warm, allowing me to “defrost” a little. Hah.
Like me, the dogs really do not like the cold, by the way. The lot of them, in particular the short haired ones, look rather miserable whenever we’re working outside, huddling close to the fire vat to keep warm, or else finding that one spot where there’s sunlight (not today, though, hah) and then shivering delicately when immobility brings the chill to unbearable levels. For all the heat Knight II produces, he’s always remarkably cold, the poor fellow. Same goes for little Dax and Mosha, who will literally run into my cabin whenever I take pity on them (meaning most days) and open the cabin door for them when I’m outside. They’ll huddle up on the couch and their baskets, only to come running outside every thirty minutes or so, to check if I’m still there.
Well, ‘tis time for me to get back to work now, so this is it for today, I guess. I still have power plug-ins to put up in the office, so I better get to it.
Monday, December 14, 2009
WRITING!!!
I know, I know, I’m late, late, late. Couldn’t be helped ‘cause I was writing…as in Writing with a double capital W, or better yet, in all capitals: WRITING! Yay.
I mean, seriously, if there’s a choice between writing about the daily chores and just tapping away in a world of fiction, with handsome heroes, pixie heroines…I mean really, do you see the scales tipping heavily down to the latter? I sure can. Hah.
Can’t wait to get back to it, so let’s do this fast. I still need to get out there in the “freezing” cold of the morning, to prepare for concrete pouring, ‘cause we’re doing the carport floor. Yikes. I still haven’t warmed up from a rather chilly night, actually. But hauling wheelbarrows, bags of cement and shoveling sand should take care of that in no time.
Seriously, editing, proofreading and such is all nice and fine, but it is a must rather than a pleasure. After doing it for more than a year, I have to say I am more than ready to leave the proper punctuation and such be, and just go with the flow of the story for a bit. Which means that I’ll probably have even less time for this blog thing in the near future.
Even now, the story’s images are ghosting through my head, just bursting to get out. I guess I’ve closed off the door of inspiration too long already.
But, being a conscientious gall, I do a quick rundown anyway. *eye roll*
So, where did I leave off? Gawd, this memory of mine sucks. Middle sister’s desk is all done…for my part of it anyways. She only needs to paint it now and then it’s all done. She and little brother already carried it down to her room, so if I’ll ever see the end result is somewhat iffy. I’ll have to remember peeking into her room some day and see how it all turned out.
Same goes for little brother’s closet. Taking three inches from it’s depth worked out properly and yesterday afternoon we spent several hours setting it up…worrying all the while if I forgot anything, or did something wrong. There were a few minor adjustments to be made, and the back still has to go in, but otherwise it worked out fine. The doors fit, so do his clothes, and in the next few days little brother can take his time painting the freshly sanded wood to his liking.
The carport section that is going to get a new floor was emptied yesterday too, so it is all ready for today. It actually looks rather spacious at the moment, hah.
Little brother and sister both repaired the patio door beautifully. Now glass is in, the wood painted and neat sections of thick plastic coverings protect the wood against eager dog paws at the bottom. Looks much better this way, I’ll admit.
Though I figured that basically the majority of furniture projects are done, there are some plans in the making for a big closet wall in big brother’s attic room. The old one simply won’t do, and some closet space certainly wouldn’t go amiss for him. We’ve got eight of these really neat square wooden doors that are just begging to be used, and with a little bit of effort they would make for a nice wall of cubby-holes, rather than the dusty, dirty shelves that now take up one end of his room. We’ll have to see if there’s time for such a project in the near future.
Also, there is the trundle bed that I’m pondering on for little brother; I have the basic ingredients for it, and he does appear to like the idea, well enough. It should look good, once I figure out how to make it.
The dogs are really enjoying the fire barrel, which we are burning most of the time now. What with the cold, it is rather essential to have some source of warmth. They’ll all be lying around it the moment the fire gets lid, and loathe to get up whenever they deem it necessary to follow us from one location to the next.
Their preference of heat, however understandable, is somewhat of a pickle for me, considering that they’ll all want to cuddle up on the bed, leaving not much room for me. Heck, when they curl up on my blankets, I will actually have to get up and throw them off, just to be able to crawl back under. Selfish idiots. Hah.
Ah, yes, the washing machine likes me again…I don’t know what changed, but now it responds again when I press the button. Strange how machines can be temperamental at times, huh.
Grandpa is keeping busy too; for the past few weeks he’s working like a whirlwind on his own bungalow, and has already covered one of his walls with beautiful, light yellow paneling, and is now finishing it off with a half ebony, half yellow wall. Not really my style, but it does look very fancy. I never realized how much he like smooth surfaces, hah.
As for me…well, I just want to write, so I’m going to leave it at this and get to work on the carport. With a little luck I’ll be done in time to star working on the book by nightfall.
I mean, seriously, if there’s a choice between writing about the daily chores and just tapping away in a world of fiction, with handsome heroes, pixie heroines…I mean really, do you see the scales tipping heavily down to the latter? I sure can. Hah.
Can’t wait to get back to it, so let’s do this fast. I still need to get out there in the “freezing” cold of the morning, to prepare for concrete pouring, ‘cause we’re doing the carport floor. Yikes. I still haven’t warmed up from a rather chilly night, actually. But hauling wheelbarrows, bags of cement and shoveling sand should take care of that in no time.
Seriously, editing, proofreading and such is all nice and fine, but it is a must rather than a pleasure. After doing it for more than a year, I have to say I am more than ready to leave the proper punctuation and such be, and just go with the flow of the story for a bit. Which means that I’ll probably have even less time for this blog thing in the near future.
Even now, the story’s images are ghosting through my head, just bursting to get out. I guess I’ve closed off the door of inspiration too long already.
But, being a conscientious gall, I do a quick rundown anyway. *eye roll*
So, where did I leave off? Gawd, this memory of mine sucks. Middle sister’s desk is all done…for my part of it anyways. She only needs to paint it now and then it’s all done. She and little brother already carried it down to her room, so if I’ll ever see the end result is somewhat iffy. I’ll have to remember peeking into her room some day and see how it all turned out.
Same goes for little brother’s closet. Taking three inches from it’s depth worked out properly and yesterday afternoon we spent several hours setting it up…worrying all the while if I forgot anything, or did something wrong. There were a few minor adjustments to be made, and the back still has to go in, but otherwise it worked out fine. The doors fit, so do his clothes, and in the next few days little brother can take his time painting the freshly sanded wood to his liking.
The carport section that is going to get a new floor was emptied yesterday too, so it is all ready for today. It actually looks rather spacious at the moment, hah.
Little brother and sister both repaired the patio door beautifully. Now glass is in, the wood painted and neat sections of thick plastic coverings protect the wood against eager dog paws at the bottom. Looks much better this way, I’ll admit.
Though I figured that basically the majority of furniture projects are done, there are some plans in the making for a big closet wall in big brother’s attic room. The old one simply won’t do, and some closet space certainly wouldn’t go amiss for him. We’ve got eight of these really neat square wooden doors that are just begging to be used, and with a little bit of effort they would make for a nice wall of cubby-holes, rather than the dusty, dirty shelves that now take up one end of his room. We’ll have to see if there’s time for such a project in the near future.
Also, there is the trundle bed that I’m pondering on for little brother; I have the basic ingredients for it, and he does appear to like the idea, well enough. It should look good, once I figure out how to make it.
The dogs are really enjoying the fire barrel, which we are burning most of the time now. What with the cold, it is rather essential to have some source of warmth. They’ll all be lying around it the moment the fire gets lid, and loathe to get up whenever they deem it necessary to follow us from one location to the next.
Their preference of heat, however understandable, is somewhat of a pickle for me, considering that they’ll all want to cuddle up on the bed, leaving not much room for me. Heck, when they curl up on my blankets, I will actually have to get up and throw them off, just to be able to crawl back under. Selfish idiots. Hah.
Ah, yes, the washing machine likes me again…I don’t know what changed, but now it responds again when I press the button. Strange how machines can be temperamental at times, huh.
Grandpa is keeping busy too; for the past few weeks he’s working like a whirlwind on his own bungalow, and has already covered one of his walls with beautiful, light yellow paneling, and is now finishing it off with a half ebony, half yellow wall. Not really my style, but it does look very fancy. I never realized how much he like smooth surfaces, hah.
As for me…well, I just want to write, so I’m going to leave it at this and get to work on the carport. With a little luck I’ll be done in time to star working on the book by nightfall.
Friday, December 11, 2009
Groceries and other stuff.
Song of the day: “Closing Time” by Leonard Cohen. I know, depressing, right? It’s a miracle I didn’t hang myself with his voice in my head. But honestly, it is a rather fun song in it’s own very depressive way. Hah
Like explained the other day, yesterday was grocery shopping day, but first there were the appointments at the bank, and the electricity company. I feel so very boring sharing this crap, but considering there is really nothing more interesting to tell about what is going on over here, so I might as well.
So first there was the slight mishap, of us having forgotten that we were supposed to put the new tire up…had to do that fast, before we departed, took us fifteen minutes…while big brother hurried back down to the house, because he had no idea that it was “that time” already and still had to change into something…ehm clean and whole (i.e. work clothes). So grandpa and I managed the chore in that time. It would have been a lot faster if I hadn’t parked the car’s spare tire on a slight elevation (which meant that we had to bring the car higher than usual, darn it!) and didn’t notice until it was already off, aaargh. But we managed to get on the way in time.
Once at the bank, we waited for a full forty minutes before the manager came out and suggested we come back later, because he’d be busy for a bit yet. And seeing that we had to go to the electricity company anyway and we were running a little behind anyway, we decided to head for Marbella. Once there, parking a long way from the actual office, since the city is always packed, we got to walk to the location instead. It was like a mile going up and downhill, (very funny, grrrr) only to find out that the office closed at twelve, rather than the usual two in the afternoon. Gawd, it really bugs me when all those offices have different times; how’s a body supposed to set a clerical error straight when they seesaw all over the place, huh? Oh wait, that’s bureaucracy for ya. Darn idiots. Wouldn’t want to be open for more than three friggin’ hours to listen to complaints of paying customers.
But anyway, we made it back to the bank in time before closing, only to find out that the bank account change still hadn’t been put through in the Madrid office, so it meant a postponement of what we had the day’s appointment for in the first place. The manager is going to call me as soon as he’s arranged everything, and then I’ll only need to come in to get my information package and sign some papers. Phew. Such a relief.
We got home really late, which meant that we had about an hour to have a quick lunch, do some very necessary chores, and type a quick letter for my pen soldier to put with the care package that should have been in the mail Monday, but couldn’t, due to the holidays over here. *sigh*
Feeling a tad frazzled, we did manage to head out in time for the planned grocery shopping, and got a fun-filled five hours of rushing through department stores, bazaars, supermarkets and anything else that needed to be fetched. I gotta tell ya, I was just about ready to drop when we got home…and then we still had to unload and put everything away.
Suffice it to say that when I did finally sit down, a portion of freshly baked fries, a salad and a drink, I was about ready to hit the sack at light speed. Hah. Of course then I still had to pack the Christmas gifts for the aforementioned care package, but luckily the sisters offered to help with that, so we got it all done in record time and stacked the whole lot inside, taped it shut and shoved it in a bag for grandpa to put in the mail tomorrow (well, today actually). While going over my messages and such of the day, we watched a rented DVD “Fast and Furious”, which wasn’t as bad as I’d expected, but neither was it grand, and then the day blissfully came to an end. Phew.
Which brings us to today: Well, I am not in the best of moods today, I’ll admit. The dogs are irritable too, which could be blamed on the herd of cows at the bottom of our property that are constantly dangling their bells…this in effect irritates me some more, and made today’s outside work a little less pleasant than it could have been.
The weather wasn’t helping much either: an overcast sky, morose lighting, but thankfully not too cold. Considering that, what with the threat of rain predicted by the weather station, we could hardly start pouring concrete in the carport, I decided to start on little brother’s new closet.
The components which I picked for this, are part of an old closet that we found during a scavenge hunt at some point, but, since the old one is almost three inches too deep, I needed to take that amount out from sides, top and bottom. Luckily, both grandpa and big brother pitched in with the sawing, and little sister helped me put it all back together again.
It is strange how my emotional side would title this day as being bad, when technically there was nothing wrong with it. ‘Cause, let’s face it, all in all it was a constructive day, but do the emotions agree with it? Nope. Stupid and annoying, that’s all that sticks. Grrr.
Well, I better stop before I start ranting. Better luck next time.
Like explained the other day, yesterday was grocery shopping day, but first there were the appointments at the bank, and the electricity company. I feel so very boring sharing this crap, but considering there is really nothing more interesting to tell about what is going on over here, so I might as well.
So first there was the slight mishap, of us having forgotten that we were supposed to put the new tire up…had to do that fast, before we departed, took us fifteen minutes…while big brother hurried back down to the house, because he had no idea that it was “that time” already and still had to change into something…ehm clean and whole (i.e. work clothes). So grandpa and I managed the chore in that time. It would have been a lot faster if I hadn’t parked the car’s spare tire on a slight elevation (which meant that we had to bring the car higher than usual, darn it!) and didn’t notice until it was already off, aaargh. But we managed to get on the way in time.
Once at the bank, we waited for a full forty minutes before the manager came out and suggested we come back later, because he’d be busy for a bit yet. And seeing that we had to go to the electricity company anyway and we were running a little behind anyway, we decided to head for Marbella. Once there, parking a long way from the actual office, since the city is always packed, we got to walk to the location instead. It was like a mile going up and downhill, (very funny, grrrr) only to find out that the office closed at twelve, rather than the usual two in the afternoon. Gawd, it really bugs me when all those offices have different times; how’s a body supposed to set a clerical error straight when they seesaw all over the place, huh? Oh wait, that’s bureaucracy for ya. Darn idiots. Wouldn’t want to be open for more than three friggin’ hours to listen to complaints of paying customers.
But anyway, we made it back to the bank in time before closing, only to find out that the bank account change still hadn’t been put through in the Madrid office, so it meant a postponement of what we had the day’s appointment for in the first place. The manager is going to call me as soon as he’s arranged everything, and then I’ll only need to come in to get my information package and sign some papers. Phew. Such a relief.
We got home really late, which meant that we had about an hour to have a quick lunch, do some very necessary chores, and type a quick letter for my pen soldier to put with the care package that should have been in the mail Monday, but couldn’t, due to the holidays over here. *sigh*
Feeling a tad frazzled, we did manage to head out in time for the planned grocery shopping, and got a fun-filled five hours of rushing through department stores, bazaars, supermarkets and anything else that needed to be fetched. I gotta tell ya, I was just about ready to drop when we got home…and then we still had to unload and put everything away.
Suffice it to say that when I did finally sit down, a portion of freshly baked fries, a salad and a drink, I was about ready to hit the sack at light speed. Hah. Of course then I still had to pack the Christmas gifts for the aforementioned care package, but luckily the sisters offered to help with that, so we got it all done in record time and stacked the whole lot inside, taped it shut and shoved it in a bag for grandpa to put in the mail tomorrow (well, today actually). While going over my messages and such of the day, we watched a rented DVD “Fast and Furious”, which wasn’t as bad as I’d expected, but neither was it grand, and then the day blissfully came to an end. Phew.
Which brings us to today: Well, I am not in the best of moods today, I’ll admit. The dogs are irritable too, which could be blamed on the herd of cows at the bottom of our property that are constantly dangling their bells…this in effect irritates me some more, and made today’s outside work a little less pleasant than it could have been.
The weather wasn’t helping much either: an overcast sky, morose lighting, but thankfully not too cold. Considering that, what with the threat of rain predicted by the weather station, we could hardly start pouring concrete in the carport, I decided to start on little brother’s new closet.
The components which I picked for this, are part of an old closet that we found during a scavenge hunt at some point, but, since the old one is almost three inches too deep, I needed to take that amount out from sides, top and bottom. Luckily, both grandpa and big brother pitched in with the sawing, and little sister helped me put it all back together again.
It is strange how my emotional side would title this day as being bad, when technically there was nothing wrong with it. ‘Cause, let’s face it, all in all it was a constructive day, but do the emotions agree with it? Nope. Stupid and annoying, that’s all that sticks. Grrr.
Well, I better stop before I start ranting. Better luck next time.
Wednesday, December 9, 2009
Care packages!!!
Song of the day: “A song for whoever” by the Beautiful South. Such a fun song, and I really should listen to it some time, ‘cause now only the chorus keeps spinning through my head.
It was a rather busy day, following a similarly busy day, so I’m (once again, yes I know) in a rush. I would hate to have to start doing the blog every three days, but…well, let’s not think about that yet. I’m here now anyway.
So what all happened…project wise we’re basically wrapping things up at the moment, finishing ongoing ones before we start on a new one. Some stuff just has to be finished and be over with. What got finished was my part of the work on middle sister’s desk. It is looking rather grand, I’ll admit, and the pretty flowery slats that we put on them work beautifully. I am going to have to put up a picture to do it justice, and I will, just as soon as I find a spare minute…somewhere. Hah.
After finishing the desk, I spent about an hour cleaning up tools, wood and whatnot, figuring it was the least I could do, after using so much of it. Then, I decided I might as well try to fix the blasted handles of the furnace. What with the dogs jumping against the big machine (they are under the impression that we actually leave food on it, hah) they tend break the controls, and having two missing, was bugging the heck out of me. So, the other day, during a scavenge hunt, I found two handles from a discarded furnace, and figuring they had the same shape I took them home. They were the same shape, yes, but I did have to scrape the plastic a size bigger until they fit. Then I had to saw them, use glue to put them on the knobs I’d saved and wait to see if I did them right. As it turns out, one fits perfectly, the other will need some fine-tuning yet. Drat.
Lots of chores going on, along with more planning for the future veggie garden, and then a totally failed attempts at an early night because we had to get up early this morning. The flat tire had to be brought to the repair shop. Luckily the problem was found fast, and the guy could fix the perforation (it was a darn nail, of all things) within fifteen minutes, so rather than waiting we headed towards Coin, where we had to pick up a delivery.
Now, this is going to need some explaining, I’m guessing. You see there is this old friend of my mom’s who has been sending us care packages for years, but this time, she apparently went a little overboard. She is a darling, mind you, but there were seventeen friggin boxes waiting for us at the mover company, and we could barely fit it all in the car. We have a big car, Land Rover Defender (as I have spouted a million times, I’m sure. I love that car) but it really took quite some effort to pile it all inside and still fit in ourselves. And they were heavy, Oh my Gawd! Getting them in the car and the out again to haul them into the house (it was like we were moving house, hah) was heavier than working a full day with rocks, I swear.
It is awfully sweet of mom’s friend though, who has always been sort of like an honorary aunt to us all. There were sweaters (wonderfully warm ones, yay), shirts, vests (also warm, double yay) Ts, tops, bed sheets…Gawd, bed sheets, they might give me nightmares now, hah.
Seriously, we could fill a store with them…but admittedly it was getting rather necessary since all the old bed sheets were worn down, torn in many places and more then ready for replacements. It took us a full day to unload all the boxes, arrange the contents between the family and even our tenant and her caretaker, and then spent several hours digging through the linen closet to get all the old worn ones out, and the new, clean, beautiful fabrics in.
And then I’m not even mentioning the towels yes. There were at least forty of them, in practically any color available, and in all honesty, I have no idea where to put them all. Right now we’ve stored anything that we can’t fit in anywhere in the guest rooms by the old pool, and I am going to have to tackle them, sometime in the near future.
The plus side, I’m thinking, is that we won’t need to buy any of that stuff for the next ten years at the very least. Phew.
Like I said, incredibly sweet, and really handy…especially with the economy the way it is right now. Hah…but also rather overwhelming. There was stuff here that she has been gathering for us for the past five years or so, and each time I took out another item, I really wanted to sit down and burry my hands in my hear. Considering that it is really the thought that counts, I can only say that this loving form of charity (albeit a tad much) definitely lives up to the old adage.
There was a slight hiccup during the course of the afternoon, when Amos (mini Boxer) and Prama (crossbreed) got into a fight. Big brother was right in the thick of things, and just when I was about to reach Knight II, so I could drag him away, the idiot bit big brother in the side. A massive bruise, but only a slight puncture, thankfully, but definitely not fun.
But anyway, this explains why today’s activities were limited to lots of hauling, and cleaning out the pigsties hah. Projects just have to wait for a bit, considering that tomorrow will be similarly busy for all parties involved. Yep, grocery shopping day is once again approaching and we need to go to the bank and the electricity company right before it. *sigh*
The only thing that is keeping me from screaming right now is that afterwards we should be all set for at least two more weeks, which means, that with a little luck we can stay at home and just work on peacefully for at least a week. I’m certainly keeping my fingers crossed.
Other than that, big brother and I decided to do a slight editing detour into last year’s “A Taste of Life”, just to check how things are going there, and to plan a little on additional scenes that will make the story suitable for sending to other publishers. What with vampire stories still being so very popular, we figure we gotta be able to get it out somewhere too. Besides, it is a fun read, and a totally different style from what we’ve been doing for the past year or so. Addie is still adorable, and Rash…well, he’s a dark, handsome vampire: what more can you ask for.
It was a rather busy day, following a similarly busy day, so I’m (once again, yes I know) in a rush. I would hate to have to start doing the blog every three days, but…well, let’s not think about that yet. I’m here now anyway.
So what all happened…project wise we’re basically wrapping things up at the moment, finishing ongoing ones before we start on a new one. Some stuff just has to be finished and be over with. What got finished was my part of the work on middle sister’s desk. It is looking rather grand, I’ll admit, and the pretty flowery slats that we put on them work beautifully. I am going to have to put up a picture to do it justice, and I will, just as soon as I find a spare minute…somewhere. Hah.
After finishing the desk, I spent about an hour cleaning up tools, wood and whatnot, figuring it was the least I could do, after using so much of it. Then, I decided I might as well try to fix the blasted handles of the furnace. What with the dogs jumping against the big machine (they are under the impression that we actually leave food on it, hah) they tend break the controls, and having two missing, was bugging the heck out of me. So, the other day, during a scavenge hunt, I found two handles from a discarded furnace, and figuring they had the same shape I took them home. They were the same shape, yes, but I did have to scrape the plastic a size bigger until they fit. Then I had to saw them, use glue to put them on the knobs I’d saved and wait to see if I did them right. As it turns out, one fits perfectly, the other will need some fine-tuning yet. Drat.
Lots of chores going on, along with more planning for the future veggie garden, and then a totally failed attempts at an early night because we had to get up early this morning. The flat tire had to be brought to the repair shop. Luckily the problem was found fast, and the guy could fix the perforation (it was a darn nail, of all things) within fifteen minutes, so rather than waiting we headed towards Coin, where we had to pick up a delivery.
Now, this is going to need some explaining, I’m guessing. You see there is this old friend of my mom’s who has been sending us care packages for years, but this time, she apparently went a little overboard. She is a darling, mind you, but there were seventeen friggin boxes waiting for us at the mover company, and we could barely fit it all in the car. We have a big car, Land Rover Defender (as I have spouted a million times, I’m sure. I love that car) but it really took quite some effort to pile it all inside and still fit in ourselves. And they were heavy, Oh my Gawd! Getting them in the car and the out again to haul them into the house (it was like we were moving house, hah) was heavier than working a full day with rocks, I swear.
It is awfully sweet of mom’s friend though, who has always been sort of like an honorary aunt to us all. There were sweaters (wonderfully warm ones, yay), shirts, vests (also warm, double yay) Ts, tops, bed sheets…Gawd, bed sheets, they might give me nightmares now, hah.
Seriously, we could fill a store with them…but admittedly it was getting rather necessary since all the old bed sheets were worn down, torn in many places and more then ready for replacements. It took us a full day to unload all the boxes, arrange the contents between the family and even our tenant and her caretaker, and then spent several hours digging through the linen closet to get all the old worn ones out, and the new, clean, beautiful fabrics in.
And then I’m not even mentioning the towels yes. There were at least forty of them, in practically any color available, and in all honesty, I have no idea where to put them all. Right now we’ve stored anything that we can’t fit in anywhere in the guest rooms by the old pool, and I am going to have to tackle them, sometime in the near future.
The plus side, I’m thinking, is that we won’t need to buy any of that stuff for the next ten years at the very least. Phew.
Like I said, incredibly sweet, and really handy…especially with the economy the way it is right now. Hah…but also rather overwhelming. There was stuff here that she has been gathering for us for the past five years or so, and each time I took out another item, I really wanted to sit down and burry my hands in my hear. Considering that it is really the thought that counts, I can only say that this loving form of charity (albeit a tad much) definitely lives up to the old adage.
There was a slight hiccup during the course of the afternoon, when Amos (mini Boxer) and Prama (crossbreed) got into a fight. Big brother was right in the thick of things, and just when I was about to reach Knight II, so I could drag him away, the idiot bit big brother in the side. A massive bruise, but only a slight puncture, thankfully, but definitely not fun.
But anyway, this explains why today’s activities were limited to lots of hauling, and cleaning out the pigsties hah. Projects just have to wait for a bit, considering that tomorrow will be similarly busy for all parties involved. Yep, grocery shopping day is once again approaching and we need to go to the bank and the electricity company right before it. *sigh*
The only thing that is keeping me from screaming right now is that afterwards we should be all set for at least two more weeks, which means, that with a little luck we can stay at home and just work on peacefully for at least a week. I’m certainly keeping my fingers crossed.
Other than that, big brother and I decided to do a slight editing detour into last year’s “A Taste of Life”, just to check how things are going there, and to plan a little on additional scenes that will make the story suitable for sending to other publishers. What with vampire stories still being so very popular, we figure we gotta be able to get it out somewhere too. Besides, it is a fun read, and a totally different style from what we’ve been doing for the past year or so. Addie is still adorable, and Rash…well, he’s a dark, handsome vampire: what more can you ask for.
Monday, December 7, 2009
A little vague.
Song of the day: “Haven’t met you yet,” Michael Buble. I know, I never would have thought I’d like his songs but this one stuck around for some reason. Hah.
Regretfully I don’t remember yesterday’s song, darn it. Ah well, never mind.
Let’s see if my memory works better for the activities…I doubt it. Hah.
Yesterday the weather was downright marvellous, I do remember that. Our tenant had a lovely (warm) time on my porch, and her ascend onto the stairs went rather well. She rather enjoys the buzz going on around her.
Middle sister and I worked on her desk, both yesterday and today (today was miserably cold the moment I stepped out of the sunshine, by the way. Gawd I hate that northern wind) and minus a few little cosmetic touches that still need to be done, she should be able to start painting by tomorrow. The new drawers are sturdy, finished and in, yay. The delicately worked finishing slats are up, and minus one little construction error that we corrected today (in a rather cute fashion, I’ll admit) it all worked out splendidly.
It still needs the back cover, and a lick of paint, but what with the new bottom I put in and the sturdy legs, it should hold for at least another decade, or so. It’ll be fun to find out. Hah.
At the same time big brother has put in the drain under the carport, which should be ready in time because the weather forecasts are predicting heavy rains later this week. Oh my Gawd. Please no…though, admittedly it would be great for nature around here. It was a rather dry summer, so it really is necessary, darn it. That doesn’t mean I gotta like it, though.
Little sister reached a milestone today, she put in her first shelve on her own. It looks great, and what with the new doors in front of the cabinet in the kitchen, for which she made it, the kitchen is finally completed. Yay.
Little brother has been tackling the patio inside door, which was looking wretched from intense use for ten years, and lots of dogs trying to get through on a daily basis. Considering that we’re going to put in thick glass this time, it should hold for a bit this time.
The laundry machine is still giving me a lot of grieve. It just doesn’t want to turn on for me, so I’m resorting to calling big brother at ever occasion, who then somehow manages to get the machine on. It’s just freaky. It’s like the bloody machine just doesn’t like me, or something. Hah,
Oh my, how could I have forgotten, we had a flat tire on the Land Rover, so we had our first experience in changing it the other day. It wasn’t all that hard, really, and now we’ve got the spare on, because we need to take the tire to the shop, to see if they can repair it. We would have done it already if the shops weren’t closed again due to a local Holiday, involving Saint Nicholas.
My shiner is…oh wait, I forgot to write about that the other day, didn’t I. Well, I was experiencing a freaky day of clumsiness, that’s a fact. First I got in the car and bumped my head on the ceiling, like, hard. Yikes. Then several hours later, I bent over while we were hanging this humongous board on the ceiling of the carport, and at the same time big brother lifted a chair…which then slammed me right in the noggin’ (forehead, this time) with the stick end of the back. Crap!
And then, last but not least, I was just about recovering from the long day, stretching out on my bed, when Sitabah (Weimaraner) decided she wanted on the bed too and tried to jump over the others to get there. I was only in time to see a flurry of gray coming towards me, and wham: Her friggin’ bony knee slams into my right cheekbone, sending me backwards, wondering whether to throttle her, or just keep quiet until pounding sensation subsided a little. I decided on the latter.
But anyway, the shiner is almost gone again, so it was minor to say the least, and though the other spots are a little tender, all things considered it wasn’t all that bad.
As for today, the fire barrel was burning cheerily most of the day, of course. That wind was a genuine pain in the butt, I tell ya.
I made dinner this afternoon, because let’s face it, when working in the cold a warm meal is detrimental for all concerned.
The dogs would have loved a bite too, but I persevered, and kept them at bay until I had finished my share. They too like the burning barrel, by the way. I swear, if we don’t watch them closely, some of the dogs will actually try to lie against it while the metal is literally scorching their fut.
…And considering I can’t think of another thing to write about, other than that we’re making good progress with the proofreading. Managed to do a total of forty pages in the past couple of days, yay. Which reminds me, I need to get to it, like, right now…
Regretfully I don’t remember yesterday’s song, darn it. Ah well, never mind.
Let’s see if my memory works better for the activities…I doubt it. Hah.
Yesterday the weather was downright marvellous, I do remember that. Our tenant had a lovely (warm) time on my porch, and her ascend onto the stairs went rather well. She rather enjoys the buzz going on around her.
Middle sister and I worked on her desk, both yesterday and today (today was miserably cold the moment I stepped out of the sunshine, by the way. Gawd I hate that northern wind) and minus a few little cosmetic touches that still need to be done, she should be able to start painting by tomorrow. The new drawers are sturdy, finished and in, yay. The delicately worked finishing slats are up, and minus one little construction error that we corrected today (in a rather cute fashion, I’ll admit) it all worked out splendidly.
It still needs the back cover, and a lick of paint, but what with the new bottom I put in and the sturdy legs, it should hold for at least another decade, or so. It’ll be fun to find out. Hah.
At the same time big brother has put in the drain under the carport, which should be ready in time because the weather forecasts are predicting heavy rains later this week. Oh my Gawd. Please no…though, admittedly it would be great for nature around here. It was a rather dry summer, so it really is necessary, darn it. That doesn’t mean I gotta like it, though.
Little sister reached a milestone today, she put in her first shelve on her own. It looks great, and what with the new doors in front of the cabinet in the kitchen, for which she made it, the kitchen is finally completed. Yay.
Little brother has been tackling the patio inside door, which was looking wretched from intense use for ten years, and lots of dogs trying to get through on a daily basis. Considering that we’re going to put in thick glass this time, it should hold for a bit this time.
The laundry machine is still giving me a lot of grieve. It just doesn’t want to turn on for me, so I’m resorting to calling big brother at ever occasion, who then somehow manages to get the machine on. It’s just freaky. It’s like the bloody machine just doesn’t like me, or something. Hah,
Oh my, how could I have forgotten, we had a flat tire on the Land Rover, so we had our first experience in changing it the other day. It wasn’t all that hard, really, and now we’ve got the spare on, because we need to take the tire to the shop, to see if they can repair it. We would have done it already if the shops weren’t closed again due to a local Holiday, involving Saint Nicholas.
My shiner is…oh wait, I forgot to write about that the other day, didn’t I. Well, I was experiencing a freaky day of clumsiness, that’s a fact. First I got in the car and bumped my head on the ceiling, like, hard. Yikes. Then several hours later, I bent over while we were hanging this humongous board on the ceiling of the carport, and at the same time big brother lifted a chair…which then slammed me right in the noggin’ (forehead, this time) with the stick end of the back. Crap!
And then, last but not least, I was just about recovering from the long day, stretching out on my bed, when Sitabah (Weimaraner) decided she wanted on the bed too and tried to jump over the others to get there. I was only in time to see a flurry of gray coming towards me, and wham: Her friggin’ bony knee slams into my right cheekbone, sending me backwards, wondering whether to throttle her, or just keep quiet until pounding sensation subsided a little. I decided on the latter.
But anyway, the shiner is almost gone again, so it was minor to say the least, and though the other spots are a little tender, all things considered it wasn’t all that bad.
As for today, the fire barrel was burning cheerily most of the day, of course. That wind was a genuine pain in the butt, I tell ya.
I made dinner this afternoon, because let’s face it, when working in the cold a warm meal is detrimental for all concerned.
The dogs would have loved a bite too, but I persevered, and kept them at bay until I had finished my share. They too like the burning barrel, by the way. I swear, if we don’t watch them closely, some of the dogs will actually try to lie against it while the metal is literally scorching their fut.
…And considering I can’t think of another thing to write about, other than that we’re making good progress with the proofreading. Managed to do a total of forty pages in the past couple of days, yay. Which reminds me, I need to get to it, like, right now…
Saturday, December 5, 2009
Another quicky post, I fear.
It’s gonna have to be, ‘cause I’m running way behind. I should have written the blog this afternoon, but since we worked straight through, there just wasn’t any time. (I’m making this excuse a lot these past few weeks, don’t. Darn it, I hate repetition.
But, be that as it may, let’s do this so I can get to work on the book, hah.
Well, yesterday there wasn’t much done project wise. Considering I had to drive our tenant to the doctor’s…her blood sugar and pressure were perfect, so now she only needs to go there once every two months or so, yay…then, I had to go to the bank to talk with the manager, who is going to solve at least one of my present problems. Phew.
Then I had to hurry our tenant home, make a quick pit stop (if ya get my meaning) only to depart again to bring Nanook to the vet’s for her operation. As it turns out she had a small tumor between her toes, but we caught it in time. The operation went well, and the doc could save her toe, yay, but still, the operation meant that we had to go out again three hours later to pick up the still sleepy husky, who was more than a little grumpy once she started to come to.
But anyway, in the meantime, and afterwards, we made a tour of the property, talking about options of where to start the biological veggie garden. Lots of ideas going on, for when springtime arrives, lots of preparations to start on too. There’s the future greenhouse to think of, the new septic tank that still has to be built, watering system, and all the others things that will be necessary to make the garden work out properly.
There is also the drain that we still have to make at the top of the carport, so, lots of plans… and so little time.
The day in the bitterly cold wind ended with a wonderfully cozy evening behind the computer where we went through twenty pages of the ongoing book-proofread project. Marvelous, isn’t it?
Which brings us to today: This morning the wind was still howling; I do admit to a moment’s worry during the night where I wondered if the roof of my cabin was going to hold, hah. But it did, and during breakfast, there was the most disconcerting awareness of the absence of sound: All of a sudden, the wind stopped abruptly, almost as if a switch was turned. Downright freaky.
The sun was wonderfully warm then, and our tenant sat on my porch enjoying a book, while we worked around her, on the drain, and the desk cabinet that I still need to fix for middle sister. Got the new fronts of her drawers sawed, and the new top that we’re putting in, and after a quick lunch, she joined in to get more progress. It’ll take another day or two, but then it’ll look great again.
Big brother got most of the drain done, little sister finished painting the new kitchen cabinet doors and we hung one of the two together. With the second one, I made a slight miscalculation, so I’ll have to fix it before we manage to put it in.
The dogs loved today’s weather too, of course. They were more in the way than ever because, like us, they too were trying to find all the sunny spots to catch some nice warm zzzzs.
Well, I gotta go…again. Better luck next time.
But, be that as it may, let’s do this so I can get to work on the book, hah.
Well, yesterday there wasn’t much done project wise. Considering I had to drive our tenant to the doctor’s…her blood sugar and pressure were perfect, so now she only needs to go there once every two months or so, yay…then, I had to go to the bank to talk with the manager, who is going to solve at least one of my present problems. Phew.
Then I had to hurry our tenant home, make a quick pit stop (if ya get my meaning) only to depart again to bring Nanook to the vet’s for her operation. As it turns out she had a small tumor between her toes, but we caught it in time. The operation went well, and the doc could save her toe, yay, but still, the operation meant that we had to go out again three hours later to pick up the still sleepy husky, who was more than a little grumpy once she started to come to.
But anyway, in the meantime, and afterwards, we made a tour of the property, talking about options of where to start the biological veggie garden. Lots of ideas going on, for when springtime arrives, lots of preparations to start on too. There’s the future greenhouse to think of, the new septic tank that still has to be built, watering system, and all the others things that will be necessary to make the garden work out properly.
There is also the drain that we still have to make at the top of the carport, so, lots of plans… and so little time.
The day in the bitterly cold wind ended with a wonderfully cozy evening behind the computer where we went through twenty pages of the ongoing book-proofread project. Marvelous, isn’t it?
Which brings us to today: This morning the wind was still howling; I do admit to a moment’s worry during the night where I wondered if the roof of my cabin was going to hold, hah. But it did, and during breakfast, there was the most disconcerting awareness of the absence of sound: All of a sudden, the wind stopped abruptly, almost as if a switch was turned. Downright freaky.
The sun was wonderfully warm then, and our tenant sat on my porch enjoying a book, while we worked around her, on the drain, and the desk cabinet that I still need to fix for middle sister. Got the new fronts of her drawers sawed, and the new top that we’re putting in, and after a quick lunch, she joined in to get more progress. It’ll take another day or two, but then it’ll look great again.
Big brother got most of the drain done, little sister finished painting the new kitchen cabinet doors and we hung one of the two together. With the second one, I made a slight miscalculation, so I’ll have to fix it before we manage to put it in.
The dogs loved today’s weather too, of course. They were more in the way than ever because, like us, they too were trying to find all the sunny spots to catch some nice warm zzzzs.
Well, I gotta go…again. Better luck next time.
Thursday, December 3, 2009
Busy, busy, busy. :-)
Let’s do this really quick, ‘cause I’m “on the run”, hah.
Songs of the day: (I’m alternating between two) “One way or the other” by Sophie Ellis-Bextor and “Another one bites the dust” by Queen. I find them rather appropriate considering I’m attacking rusty bolts, hah.
Yesterday was basically filled with all sorts of activity and just good ol’fashioned fun, since we had visitors. Not much work got done because of it, so there really isn’t much to tell. The weather, however, was downright beautiful…especially compared to today. *sigh*
There was a the rather adventurous trip towards Marbella where we got lost because…well the person leading towards the address we had to go, kept getting lost. We did arrive at the location, though, and carried the donations of furniture down five long flights of stairs (without breaking a sweat, either up or down, by the way, yay) before we headed home again.
I finally got around to finishing the last two kitchen cabinets for the kitchen, phew. They should go in by tomorrow…because today we have to go to the vet with Nanook (malamute husky) who has a growth between her toes.
Today started with mechanics, we’re finally getting around tearing down the engine of the old wreck standing uselessly on the outskirts of our property. We’re going to have to take the whole thing apart if we want to lug it away at some point…and it is kind of fun, sorta anyway. I keep wrecking my knuckles on the darn thing.
Well that was it. Gotta go.
Songs of the day: (I’m alternating between two) “One way or the other” by Sophie Ellis-Bextor and “Another one bites the dust” by Queen. I find them rather appropriate considering I’m attacking rusty bolts, hah.
Yesterday was basically filled with all sorts of activity and just good ol’fashioned fun, since we had visitors. Not much work got done because of it, so there really isn’t much to tell. The weather, however, was downright beautiful…especially compared to today. *sigh*
There was a the rather adventurous trip towards Marbella where we got lost because…well the person leading towards the address we had to go, kept getting lost. We did arrive at the location, though, and carried the donations of furniture down five long flights of stairs (without breaking a sweat, either up or down, by the way, yay) before we headed home again.
I finally got around to finishing the last two kitchen cabinets for the kitchen, phew. They should go in by tomorrow…because today we have to go to the vet with Nanook (malamute husky) who has a growth between her toes.
Today started with mechanics, we’re finally getting around tearing down the engine of the old wreck standing uselessly on the outskirts of our property. We’re going to have to take the whole thing apart if we want to lug it away at some point…and it is kind of fun, sorta anyway. I keep wrecking my knuckles on the darn thing.
Well that was it. Gotta go.
Tuesday, December 1, 2009
Miserable excuse, I know.
Song of the day: “The road to Mandalay” by Robbie Williams. Not my favorite, but apparently my brain doesn’t give a fig about that. Hah.
So, I’m running way behind, which is why I’m gonna have to keep this short.
Yesterday mostly involved pouring concrete. We were up at the crack of dawn…sorta, and headed up into a whopping ten degrees (50 farenheit) with a northwest wind that felt as if it was below freezing. I was packed up in four layers, had gloves on, a hat on and a scarf wrapped around the lower part of my face (I know, I’m a total whiner. You’d think I was on the north pole, huh.) But anyway, four wheelbarrows of sand, hauling three bags of cement up the mountain, I was starting to feel nicely toasty and started to remove layers one at a time.
It was rather wonderful, once I warmed up. The sun was shining and while I was mixing the cement for two hours outside the gate time flew past rather pleasantly. I actually ended up with only two layers, no hat and no gloves. Now, if that isn’t progress, I don’t know what is.
So we got the first half of the path done (about seven yards) done in the first part of the day, and the second part we did in the afternoon with the younger sibs’ help. Little sister mixed the cement; middle sister hauled the next batch of sand and cement, while I alternated between digging and jackhammering the rock surface in and around what will be the new path. It should be just wide enough to let the wheelchair down with as little effort as possible.
There were some more chores of course…the washing machine is being temperamental again, by the way…and the dogs didn’t like the cold at all. Imagine this, I’m sitting on the bed with Chaos and Sitabah curled up by my side, and before you know it, Knight II jumps up and literally tries to settle on top of them, or me. Chaos would of course be making a lot of racket, but Knight doesn’t give a fig about it. He must and shall be warm. In the end I just dragged him under my legs, which was beneficial for the both of us. Hah.
Today I got started a little slow. Rather than start on the morning chores immediately, I headed up to our tenant’s place and helped her through some new exercises. The walking is starting to improve, and when I arrived and checked out her hand, there was tension in her hand, rather than it being just an inanimate appendage. It is rather wonderful to see it happen.
Well, I’ve got a lot more to do today, and so I’m going to have to leave it with this miserable excuse of a blog for now. Hopefully I’ll have a wee bit more time later on.
So, I’m running way behind, which is why I’m gonna have to keep this short.
Yesterday mostly involved pouring concrete. We were up at the crack of dawn…sorta, and headed up into a whopping ten degrees (50 farenheit) with a northwest wind that felt as if it was below freezing. I was packed up in four layers, had gloves on, a hat on and a scarf wrapped around the lower part of my face (I know, I’m a total whiner. You’d think I was on the north pole, huh.) But anyway, four wheelbarrows of sand, hauling three bags of cement up the mountain, I was starting to feel nicely toasty and started to remove layers one at a time.
It was rather wonderful, once I warmed up. The sun was shining and while I was mixing the cement for two hours outside the gate time flew past rather pleasantly. I actually ended up with only two layers, no hat and no gloves. Now, if that isn’t progress, I don’t know what is.
So we got the first half of the path done (about seven yards) done in the first part of the day, and the second part we did in the afternoon with the younger sibs’ help. Little sister mixed the cement; middle sister hauled the next batch of sand and cement, while I alternated between digging and jackhammering the rock surface in and around what will be the new path. It should be just wide enough to let the wheelchair down with as little effort as possible.
There were some more chores of course…the washing machine is being temperamental again, by the way…and the dogs didn’t like the cold at all. Imagine this, I’m sitting on the bed with Chaos and Sitabah curled up by my side, and before you know it, Knight II jumps up and literally tries to settle on top of them, or me. Chaos would of course be making a lot of racket, but Knight doesn’t give a fig about it. He must and shall be warm. In the end I just dragged him under my legs, which was beneficial for the both of us. Hah.
Today I got started a little slow. Rather than start on the morning chores immediately, I headed up to our tenant’s place and helped her through some new exercises. The walking is starting to improve, and when I arrived and checked out her hand, there was tension in her hand, rather than it being just an inanimate appendage. It is rather wonderful to see it happen.
Well, I’ve got a lot more to do today, and so I’m going to have to leave it with this miserable excuse of a blog for now. Hopefully I’ll have a wee bit more time later on.
Sunday, November 29, 2009
An update.
Song of the day: “Lucky for you” by Espen Lindt. Great song, and not at all bad to have haunting through my head. Hah.
It’s a “wonderfully” rainy day right now (yep the quotation marks are sarcasm, hah). Oh boy, did it come down in buckets this morning, and that after a clear starlight sky that was more than a little chilly. Gawd, my butt felt like a clump of ice…still does, actually.
Let’s think what all happened in the past couple of days, it’s all a little blurry for some reason, which could be caused by the fact I overslept by a whopping twenty minutes. Grrr. I hate it when that happens, throws the day out of whack.
Yesterday: ah yes, we finished the extension of the carport, yay! It looks bloody great, adding a whopping 27 square feet of roof for an area that promises to see a lot of action during the winter.
Good thing too, considering today’s weather, it was a good thing too, ‘cause else we would have been a lot wetter.
Also, during the day (yesterday that is) we also used the jackhammer to cut the rock path deeper, which was another good thing today, since it allowed the rain to follow the gutter better. Soon, well, just as soon as weather turns again (the beautiful thing of Spain; the sun is bound to come back out again within days) we’re going to pour the concrete path down to the carport. It will make the trip down for our tenant a lot more pleasant.
At the moment she is enjoying participation, and is using her time to sort out screws (those silly little boxes keep falling down and mixing up, darn it) for us. It is a good task, seeing as her left hand still only works when she is seeking balance, and she enjoys being useful. The bonus for us is that we’ll save time on needing to rummage through a massive pile of screws every time we’re building something.
So yeah, yesterday involved carpentry, such as finishing the carport roof, and chopping, shovelling and hauling rock down the mountain. It was chilly, sure, but a pleasant day nonetheless. Added to that, we went on a scavenge hunt and got home with a big pile of bricks, several poles of metal, and thirty boards that will be absolutely wonderful for making another closet, or shelving in the near future.
This morning, during a break in the rain, we quickly unloaded the car and found out that there almost isn’t any room left in the old horse stable for storage. We’re going to have to expand that roof too, hah.
Book corrections are still going on, it is an ongoing process, and I am really not in the mood to spend a lot of time writing about it right now.
Oh my gawd, some moron in town threw away several bags of screws and the likes, so we’ve got new stocks there too. Long ones, narrow ones, short, thick everything. Yep, they’ll see us through several more constructions.
The dogs aren’t liking the cold much either, seriously, during the rain they had their tails between their legs, wet and muddy, trying to find dry spots to curl up into. The idiots. Of course it wouldn’t occur to them to just stay inside. No. They gotta be out there with us, roaming between our feet, getting in the way and then looking all hurt and bothered when you just barely catch yourself before falling flat on your face.
And this is about all for today. Gotta get back to work and freeze my cold butt again. Yay.
It’s a “wonderfully” rainy day right now (yep the quotation marks are sarcasm, hah). Oh boy, did it come down in buckets this morning, and that after a clear starlight sky that was more than a little chilly. Gawd, my butt felt like a clump of ice…still does, actually.
Let’s think what all happened in the past couple of days, it’s all a little blurry for some reason, which could be caused by the fact I overslept by a whopping twenty minutes. Grrr. I hate it when that happens, throws the day out of whack.
Yesterday: ah yes, we finished the extension of the carport, yay! It looks bloody great, adding a whopping 27 square feet of roof for an area that promises to see a lot of action during the winter.
Good thing too, considering today’s weather, it was a good thing too, ‘cause else we would have been a lot wetter.
Also, during the day (yesterday that is) we also used the jackhammer to cut the rock path deeper, which was another good thing today, since it allowed the rain to follow the gutter better. Soon, well, just as soon as weather turns again (the beautiful thing of Spain; the sun is bound to come back out again within days) we’re going to pour the concrete path down to the carport. It will make the trip down for our tenant a lot more pleasant.
At the moment she is enjoying participation, and is using her time to sort out screws (those silly little boxes keep falling down and mixing up, darn it) for us. It is a good task, seeing as her left hand still only works when she is seeking balance, and she enjoys being useful. The bonus for us is that we’ll save time on needing to rummage through a massive pile of screws every time we’re building something.
So yeah, yesterday involved carpentry, such as finishing the carport roof, and chopping, shovelling and hauling rock down the mountain. It was chilly, sure, but a pleasant day nonetheless. Added to that, we went on a scavenge hunt and got home with a big pile of bricks, several poles of metal, and thirty boards that will be absolutely wonderful for making another closet, or shelving in the near future.
This morning, during a break in the rain, we quickly unloaded the car and found out that there almost isn’t any room left in the old horse stable for storage. We’re going to have to expand that roof too, hah.
Book corrections are still going on, it is an ongoing process, and I am really not in the mood to spend a lot of time writing about it right now.
Oh my gawd, some moron in town threw away several bags of screws and the likes, so we’ve got new stocks there too. Long ones, narrow ones, short, thick everything. Yep, they’ll see us through several more constructions.
The dogs aren’t liking the cold much either, seriously, during the rain they had their tails between their legs, wet and muddy, trying to find dry spots to curl up into. The idiots. Of course it wouldn’t occur to them to just stay inside. No. They gotta be out there with us, roaming between our feet, getting in the way and then looking all hurt and bothered when you just barely catch yourself before falling flat on your face.
And this is about all for today. Gotta get back to work and freeze my cold butt again. Yay.
Friday, November 27, 2009
Scouring the news. Grrr
Song of the day: “Black Pearl” by Bryan Adams, preceded by “Something Stupid” from Robbie Williams and Nicole Kidman. Now this is what I call diversity, hah.
So let me drop the bomb without hesitation, Spanish political parties are as insane as any other government in the world. Let me explain why: The social party has come with a proposal to pay restitution to the descendants of the Moors, which got the choice “convert, or go in exile” and chose the latter. Now here’s the kicker, they are proposing to offer restitution for what happened…yes, hold onto your hat…what happened in 1492. Oh my gawd! That would be equal to the French paying restitution to Germany for finally throwing out the riffraff after the war, or the Indonesian people paying the Dutch for kicking their buts in the 1900s and taking back their country. Seriously, this kind of crap boggles the mind.
Next cute little bit; According to astronomers there is the disturbing news that for a while now there are less and less explosions occurring on the sun. Said scientists are afraid that the Sun might very well be dying, or DEAD…which, according to them, isn’t all bad because it would make our global warming a rather good thing (I don’t know how they can say this considering the heat isn’t our only problem, hah.) since it would mean that we are heading towards what could very well be an ice age. Aaargh.
Another nice tidbit, there’s going to be an increase in energy prices…so technically with the so called energy and money saving machines and light bulbs we’re going to pay less for more. Marvelous, how very Feng Shui. It almost makes me think that the governments discovered that if people were going to pay less they would decrease the government’s taxes, or something. Now that simply won’t do of course.
I also read a study where they say that newborns of mothers with stressful jobs often have the same shortage in their weight as newborns from smoking mothers. Huh? So does that mean they can just trank future moms during pregnancy, because otherwise her “way of life” is harmful for the baby. I mean, they are basically forcing everything else already, right?
But anyway, this revelation logically would lead me to the conclusion that maybe they made a slight error in judgment amount all those studies of smoking being harmful for babies, ´cause let’s face it, smokers are often people who have a tendency to be stressful. (which is the reason they smoke, right?) And, often smokers are of the working class so maybe the smoking theory was slightly biased. But no, this connection isn’t made. Hah.
In the UK the government can now take away ones’ kids if that kid is obese…Seriously, why not take kids away at birth while they’re born and put them in little children factories where they are prepared be useful little drones for society. *Sigh* (yes that was sarcasm for ya)
The European Union is planning to give a raise to all civil servants of 3.4 percent, and that while we’re in an economic crisis. Who, I wonder, is going to pay for that. Duh. I prefer to laugh about this sort of thing, ‘cause if you don’t, you have to cry. Hah.
The bird-flue is now and endemic in China, the Mexican flue is supposedly a pandemic and if the two mix, first one incredibly deadly, and the second contagious…why, you can say by bye. Then there is also the massive virus that is wreaking havoc in the Ukraine (it already killed over two hundred people, while at least a million are infected and yet I only saw one official notification of it) which apparently turns the lungs into charcoal. Why they would force anyone to vaccinate for the flue is a mystery to me if I think about it. Sort of defeats the purpose if there’s a risk of my lungs turning into charcoal, huh?
Yep, lots of wonderful things going on the world.
Now doesn’t news like that just cheer a body up? I mean seriously, who has time to worry about the economy with stuff like that going on. I sure don’t.
But enough about all that, let’s get on to stuff that is a little less depressing, shall we. What has been going on for the past couple of days? Edits, chores and laundry, of course, while at the same time we are preparing the expansion of the carport roof. What with the temperatures constantly dropping and the first rainy day behind us already, we figure we’re going to need it soon.
First, though, we replaced a couple of corrugated plates on the patio with transparent ones. Considering we need the metal ones for the carport’s expansion, we thought to take the opportunity to create some more light in the patio with the transparent plating. Worked out fine, allowing us to continue on with carport today. Last night I already put together the steeple, so today we should be able to put up the pillars and screw it all together.
While yesterday was miserable weather with thick, misty clouds and rain, at least there was no wind. Today, on the other hand, you can almost take flight in the wind. Yikes. It feels like ice on my skin, and that while I’m wearing a long sleeved T a thick woolen military sweater and a fleece body warmer. Aargh. Luckily, I got me some gloves during shopping, hah. I am using my electric stove for three days now, darn it, ‘cause my cabin is really cold in the evening. Even the poor doggies are clustering together for warmth during the night now.
Our tenant is slowly improving, which is grand to see. Walking (with help yet) is getting easier and more sure, and with a variety of exercises, she is slowly getting mobility in her arm back as well. Stupid physical therapists.
Projects in waiting are, another glass and wood wall for the living room this time, new stairs in the patio, along with a rock wall to cover the natural wall that is already there, and the new furniture for little brother’s room. Yep, still plenty to do…and I should get to it. Hah
So let me drop the bomb without hesitation, Spanish political parties are as insane as any other government in the world. Let me explain why: The social party has come with a proposal to pay restitution to the descendants of the Moors, which got the choice “convert, or go in exile” and chose the latter. Now here’s the kicker, they are proposing to offer restitution for what happened…yes, hold onto your hat…what happened in 1492. Oh my gawd! That would be equal to the French paying restitution to Germany for finally throwing out the riffraff after the war, or the Indonesian people paying the Dutch for kicking their buts in the 1900s and taking back their country. Seriously, this kind of crap boggles the mind.
Next cute little bit; According to astronomers there is the disturbing news that for a while now there are less and less explosions occurring on the sun. Said scientists are afraid that the Sun might very well be dying, or DEAD…which, according to them, isn’t all bad because it would make our global warming a rather good thing (I don’t know how they can say this considering the heat isn’t our only problem, hah.) since it would mean that we are heading towards what could very well be an ice age. Aaargh.
Another nice tidbit, there’s going to be an increase in energy prices…so technically with the so called energy and money saving machines and light bulbs we’re going to pay less for more. Marvelous, how very Feng Shui. It almost makes me think that the governments discovered that if people were going to pay less they would decrease the government’s taxes, or something. Now that simply won’t do of course.
I also read a study where they say that newborns of mothers with stressful jobs often have the same shortage in their weight as newborns from smoking mothers. Huh? So does that mean they can just trank future moms during pregnancy, because otherwise her “way of life” is harmful for the baby. I mean, they are basically forcing everything else already, right?
But anyway, this revelation logically would lead me to the conclusion that maybe they made a slight error in judgment amount all those studies of smoking being harmful for babies, ´cause let’s face it, smokers are often people who have a tendency to be stressful. (which is the reason they smoke, right?) And, often smokers are of the working class so maybe the smoking theory was slightly biased. But no, this connection isn’t made. Hah.
In the UK the government can now take away ones’ kids if that kid is obese…Seriously, why not take kids away at birth while they’re born and put them in little children factories where they are prepared be useful little drones for society. *Sigh* (yes that was sarcasm for ya)
The European Union is planning to give a raise to all civil servants of 3.4 percent, and that while we’re in an economic crisis. Who, I wonder, is going to pay for that. Duh. I prefer to laugh about this sort of thing, ‘cause if you don’t, you have to cry. Hah.
The bird-flue is now and endemic in China, the Mexican flue is supposedly a pandemic and if the two mix, first one incredibly deadly, and the second contagious…why, you can say by bye. Then there is also the massive virus that is wreaking havoc in the Ukraine (it already killed over two hundred people, while at least a million are infected and yet I only saw one official notification of it) which apparently turns the lungs into charcoal. Why they would force anyone to vaccinate for the flue is a mystery to me if I think about it. Sort of defeats the purpose if there’s a risk of my lungs turning into charcoal, huh?
Yep, lots of wonderful things going on the world.
Now doesn’t news like that just cheer a body up? I mean seriously, who has time to worry about the economy with stuff like that going on. I sure don’t.
But enough about all that, let’s get on to stuff that is a little less depressing, shall we. What has been going on for the past couple of days? Edits, chores and laundry, of course, while at the same time we are preparing the expansion of the carport roof. What with the temperatures constantly dropping and the first rainy day behind us already, we figure we’re going to need it soon.
First, though, we replaced a couple of corrugated plates on the patio with transparent ones. Considering we need the metal ones for the carport’s expansion, we thought to take the opportunity to create some more light in the patio with the transparent plating. Worked out fine, allowing us to continue on with carport today. Last night I already put together the steeple, so today we should be able to put up the pillars and screw it all together.
While yesterday was miserable weather with thick, misty clouds and rain, at least there was no wind. Today, on the other hand, you can almost take flight in the wind. Yikes. It feels like ice on my skin, and that while I’m wearing a long sleeved T a thick woolen military sweater and a fleece body warmer. Aargh. Luckily, I got me some gloves during shopping, hah. I am using my electric stove for three days now, darn it, ‘cause my cabin is really cold in the evening. Even the poor doggies are clustering together for warmth during the night now.
Our tenant is slowly improving, which is grand to see. Walking (with help yet) is getting easier and more sure, and with a variety of exercises, she is slowly getting mobility in her arm back as well. Stupid physical therapists.
Projects in waiting are, another glass and wood wall for the living room this time, new stairs in the patio, along with a rock wall to cover the natural wall that is already there, and the new furniture for little brother’s room. Yep, still plenty to do…and I should get to it. Hah
Wednesday, November 25, 2009
Weird.
Song of the day: “Bop Bop Baby” by Westlife. That’s a first, I think. Didn’t have this one before.
It was a busy couple of days, and since I still don’t really have time, I’m going to keep it really short…I hope.
Yesterday involved some masonry, seeing as we needed another rock plant container down by the old bus/apartment, where the last of to remaining plants had to be placed. A nice big container built in one day, so it was a job well done.
Twenty-five, forty pounds bags of dog food were delivered so they had to be hauled down; excellent exercise for me. There was also some organizing and the like, which meant hauling building debris that was still lying about, up outside the gate.
Again, there was cleaning…it just never stops, does it…finally managed to clean all the kitchen drawers and decided to sweep the shelving to boot. Still doing proofreading, writing and…well then there was a slight family emergency that took up most of the night, (seriously, you don’t want to know) and the following morning.
Considering that we had already planned to do the groceries today, we were in a bit of a rush heading out, but luckily the actual groceries got done fast and everything worked out, leaving me only slightly worn down by the end of the evening.
All in all these were a strange couple of days and I need to hit the sack before I fall flat on my face. I know, a really boring blog, but it’s the best I can do at the moment.
It was a busy couple of days, and since I still don’t really have time, I’m going to keep it really short…I hope.
Yesterday involved some masonry, seeing as we needed another rock plant container down by the old bus/apartment, where the last of to remaining plants had to be placed. A nice big container built in one day, so it was a job well done.
Twenty-five, forty pounds bags of dog food were delivered so they had to be hauled down; excellent exercise for me. There was also some organizing and the like, which meant hauling building debris that was still lying about, up outside the gate.
Again, there was cleaning…it just never stops, does it…finally managed to clean all the kitchen drawers and decided to sweep the shelving to boot. Still doing proofreading, writing and…well then there was a slight family emergency that took up most of the night, (seriously, you don’t want to know) and the following morning.
Considering that we had already planned to do the groceries today, we were in a bit of a rush heading out, but luckily the actual groceries got done fast and everything worked out, leaving me only slightly worn down by the end of the evening.
All in all these were a strange couple of days and I need to hit the sack before I fall flat on my face. I know, a really boring blog, but it’s the best I can do at the moment.
Monday, November 23, 2009
Wind and almost-disaster. Aaaargh.
Song of the day: “You’re beautiful” by James Blunt. I positively dislike the song, but what can I say, it’s on the Itunes, and it’ll come by in the shuffle every once in a while, and then it’ll be stuck in my head for the day. Grrrr.
So, yesterday nothing short of a disaster occurred. The sawing table up and died on us. No, no, no. Not now. Not the sawing table; I still gotta make… Aaaaaaaaaaaaah!!! (that would be my response, in case you’re wondering, hah) Gawd, to be without the saw, would be like losing an arm what with all the projects going on.
Immediately big brother and grandpa set to taking the machine apart, in search of the problem, only to come to the conclusion that it wouldn’t be something they could fix themselves. (Insert another aaag, please) That was depressing to say the least; it meant that the next day they would have to start going past local mechanics in hopes that they could fix a twenty year old German machine that isn’t even built anymore.
Yesterday was a windy day, by the way. And when I say windy, I mean really windy: Winds that’ll rip your clothes of your body and make you freezing cold. By the end of outside work (that would be in the afternoon. Yesterday morning was pretty bearable with the warm sunshine) I couldn’t feel my extremities, I had a headache from clenching my teeth together (they wanted to chatter, you see), and I decided to waste money by turning on my little electric heater by the end of the evening.
Considering our tenant is feeling a little lonely of late, what with no longer going to rehab, we have also decided to wheel her down to the work terrace, where she has company and can sit in a windless spot with lots of sunlight. Rather than hauling her down and just plunking her somewhere (sorta like picking up and dropping off) we decided to make it a challenge. She rose to it beautifully yesterday, managing to mount the four steps up my porch and then walking towards the comfortable chair I’d set up in the corner.
With only a minimal amount of help she got settled and was proud as a fiddle about it.
Little sister and I worked on making a drawer section in the carport that grandpa would like to have for storing capacity. I think he was under the misconception that I was being fresh with him, or something. When I asked him if I could use a particular slat of wood of a rather hideous bluish green color (I didn’t know if he had any plans of painting the thing afterwards) I thought I was teasing or something. Apparently, he doesn’t entirely get the fact that if I offer to help someone out with building, I consider it their project, and try to keep my own (sometimes rather prominent) opinion on how it should be done, under wraps. I don’t start using my own judgment because that would only lead to frustration when the other person wants to have something done in a particular way.
But anyway, after that slight misunderstanding, little sister and I finished the first section of the box-drawer structure, both of us packed into thick clothes, hats, scarf and gloves. And more than willing to head inside after nightfall.
Computer work: Basically we’re just reading stuff at the moment, going over old material, making minor adjustments, etc. etc.
On to today: Yep, the wind went to sleep, thankfully. When I woke this morning it was blissfully quiet and sunny outside…which was somewhat of a relief after a rather violent apocalyptic dream. I’m gonna have to see if I can organize the description well enough for me to write it down one of these days, ‘cause it would be fascinating to see it on the proverbial paper. Hah.
So yeah, I had the rather brilliant idea to suggest to big brother that maybe he should check the electrical wire, which we had been using for the sawing machine…I know, why didn’t I do that yesterday? Well, it didn’t occur to me until late last night when I remembered that the dogs had chewed their way through it and that we had to repair the wire before using it.
I had already fully prepared for the departure of grandpa and big brother to bring the saw motor away, intending to do a good kitchen cleaning and then maybe my blog, when it became clear that the saw wasn’t the problem. But the power outlet (not the before mentioned wire, but still, I thought it rather brilliant of myself, hah) it took big brother a few hours to fix the problem, and then a few more to put the machine back together, but now it is working again. Yay. And best yet, it cost us time and not a penny. Hah.
Though I would have liked to head out into the sunshine, I was already up to my elbows into cleaning the kitchen drawers, so I stuck with it. Man, were they dirty, I think I’ve actually annihilated living organisms from the corners, hah. Within the hours that followed, I got seven of them cleaned out, organised and shut, which is somewhat of a relief since they’ve been bugging me for weeks.
Afterwards, I did manage to get out into the sunshine for a bit, and then hung a few clothes hooks in my cabin, to replace the nails I’d been using until now. So much better, really. Maybe now I won’t kill clothes by pulling them off too hard. Hah.
The sawing machine is back in one piece, so we’re all set for continuing with the ongoing projects. (I was seriously worried there, for a bit.) We are going to do some different stuff soon, though. What with our tenant coming down more often, we’ve decided not to postpone pouring a concrete path down the mountain, so that’s up soon. It’ll also be handy for pouring the concrete floor in the carport, but once the rains start (if they do this year, that is) we’re going to need a good floor there with a drainage system.
And now I gotta quite writing for today. There’re still a few corrections to the manuscript that need to be made, and I promised I wouldn’t take “ages” today. Hah.
So, yesterday nothing short of a disaster occurred. The sawing table up and died on us. No, no, no. Not now. Not the sawing table; I still gotta make… Aaaaaaaaaaaaah!!! (that would be my response, in case you’re wondering, hah) Gawd, to be without the saw, would be like losing an arm what with all the projects going on.
Immediately big brother and grandpa set to taking the machine apart, in search of the problem, only to come to the conclusion that it wouldn’t be something they could fix themselves. (Insert another aaag, please) That was depressing to say the least; it meant that the next day they would have to start going past local mechanics in hopes that they could fix a twenty year old German machine that isn’t even built anymore.
Yesterday was a windy day, by the way. And when I say windy, I mean really windy: Winds that’ll rip your clothes of your body and make you freezing cold. By the end of outside work (that would be in the afternoon. Yesterday morning was pretty bearable with the warm sunshine) I couldn’t feel my extremities, I had a headache from clenching my teeth together (they wanted to chatter, you see), and I decided to waste money by turning on my little electric heater by the end of the evening.
Considering our tenant is feeling a little lonely of late, what with no longer going to rehab, we have also decided to wheel her down to the work terrace, where she has company and can sit in a windless spot with lots of sunlight. Rather than hauling her down and just plunking her somewhere (sorta like picking up and dropping off) we decided to make it a challenge. She rose to it beautifully yesterday, managing to mount the four steps up my porch and then walking towards the comfortable chair I’d set up in the corner.
With only a minimal amount of help she got settled and was proud as a fiddle about it.
Little sister and I worked on making a drawer section in the carport that grandpa would like to have for storing capacity. I think he was under the misconception that I was being fresh with him, or something. When I asked him if I could use a particular slat of wood of a rather hideous bluish green color (I didn’t know if he had any plans of painting the thing afterwards) I thought I was teasing or something. Apparently, he doesn’t entirely get the fact that if I offer to help someone out with building, I consider it their project, and try to keep my own (sometimes rather prominent) opinion on how it should be done, under wraps. I don’t start using my own judgment because that would only lead to frustration when the other person wants to have something done in a particular way.
But anyway, after that slight misunderstanding, little sister and I finished the first section of the box-drawer structure, both of us packed into thick clothes, hats, scarf and gloves. And more than willing to head inside after nightfall.
Computer work: Basically we’re just reading stuff at the moment, going over old material, making minor adjustments, etc. etc.
On to today: Yep, the wind went to sleep, thankfully. When I woke this morning it was blissfully quiet and sunny outside…which was somewhat of a relief after a rather violent apocalyptic dream. I’m gonna have to see if I can organize the description well enough for me to write it down one of these days, ‘cause it would be fascinating to see it on the proverbial paper. Hah.
So yeah, I had the rather brilliant idea to suggest to big brother that maybe he should check the electrical wire, which we had been using for the sawing machine…I know, why didn’t I do that yesterday? Well, it didn’t occur to me until late last night when I remembered that the dogs had chewed their way through it and that we had to repair the wire before using it.
I had already fully prepared for the departure of grandpa and big brother to bring the saw motor away, intending to do a good kitchen cleaning and then maybe my blog, when it became clear that the saw wasn’t the problem. But the power outlet (not the before mentioned wire, but still, I thought it rather brilliant of myself, hah) it took big brother a few hours to fix the problem, and then a few more to put the machine back together, but now it is working again. Yay. And best yet, it cost us time and not a penny. Hah.
Though I would have liked to head out into the sunshine, I was already up to my elbows into cleaning the kitchen drawers, so I stuck with it. Man, were they dirty, I think I’ve actually annihilated living organisms from the corners, hah. Within the hours that followed, I got seven of them cleaned out, organised and shut, which is somewhat of a relief since they’ve been bugging me for weeks.
Afterwards, I did manage to get out into the sunshine for a bit, and then hung a few clothes hooks in my cabin, to replace the nails I’d been using until now. So much better, really. Maybe now I won’t kill clothes by pulling them off too hard. Hah.
The sawing machine is back in one piece, so we’re all set for continuing with the ongoing projects. (I was seriously worried there, for a bit.) We are going to do some different stuff soon, though. What with our tenant coming down more often, we’ve decided not to postpone pouring a concrete path down the mountain, so that’s up soon. It’ll also be handy for pouring the concrete floor in the carport, but once the rains start (if they do this year, that is) we’re going to need a good floor there with a drainage system.
And now I gotta quite writing for today. There’re still a few corrections to the manuscript that need to be made, and I promised I wouldn’t take “ages” today. Hah.
Saturday, November 21, 2009
Pix and an update. :-)
Song of the day: “Tired of being sorry” by Enrique Iglesias. Had it before, but I probably will again. Great one.
Well, it has been a busy couple of days. I am once more at a loss as to where I left off the last time, so I’m going to past in a couple more pictures for the heck of it.
Here’s the bed/closet for little sister. There’s another separate section with two big drawers, sort of like a bench (the same materials) but I forgot to take a picture of it, darn it.
As usual I started on the design before I actually took measurements, but it worked out, thankfully. The separate sections are exactly the length of a mattress and putting the lot in…after breaking the old bed apart, which involved quite a bit of work. Luckily putting everything in place went so well that we had the new bed was set up and ready in just a few hours.
Here’s also a shot of what soon will be a nice light yellow desk in my room. Isn’t it cute? As a little girl I would have killed for something like this. Hah.
This is restoring, by the way, not building. Had to replace some broken elements, but the design is not my own. *sigh*
Here’s my old trunk, which mom painted during the course of the past week, very Arabian nights, isn’t it.
But anyway, other than these fun little projects going on, big brother and I have been working on the new front gate off and on, which means that we have now finished one side of the gate, about nine by nine feet of metal and wood that is starting to become rather pretty and solid.
There was also a nice little half hour involving changing Tika’s cage (parrot), which she doesn’t like at all. She’ll be glaring at us every time like she’s saying; “Hey, those are my food reserves, get out of my cage!” while banging her beak against her food bowl. Such a character, our Tika.
The weather, much to my regret, is slowly turning colder again. We’ve actually had a wee bit of rain, aaargh.
Also had another nice run, where I worked on endurance rather than speed. I hate the endurance part, I wanna RUN, darn it…but the other bit is necessary too, I guess.
We had a good scavenge again. Lots of wood that’ll do the trick with future projects. Also metal, which won’t go amiss what with working on the gate at the moment.
I did two more workout sessions with our tenant, who is slowly gaining more balance and strength in her legs. She really enjoys being able to walk again, even though she has to be helped. Can’t blame her, really; there’s nothing worse than being bed, or chairbound.
In between it all I have been trying to discipline Knight II, who’s gotten to be so big that I decided he’s going to need to learn to stay on the couch, rather than get in bed with us at night. There just isn’t any room for him.
Of course, it took me over an hour to get him to understand that he couldn’t snuggle up, but on the overall, it wasn’t as disastrous as I’d feared.
And with that I’ve gotta quit today’s blog. I’m running way behind…I heard from my soldier with Operation Desert Swap for the first time, so I got a little sidetracked writing this really long email to him (poor fellow; far away from home and then he gets stuck with me yapping his proverbial ear off).
On to the next day!
Well, it has been a busy couple of days. I am once more at a loss as to where I left off the last time, so I’m going to past in a couple more pictures for the heck of it.
Here’s the bed/closet for little sister. There’s another separate section with two big drawers, sort of like a bench (the same materials) but I forgot to take a picture of it, darn it.
As usual I started on the design before I actually took measurements, but it worked out, thankfully. The separate sections are exactly the length of a mattress and putting the lot in…after breaking the old bed apart, which involved quite a bit of work. Luckily putting everything in place went so well that we had the new bed was set up and ready in just a few hours.
Here’s also a shot of what soon will be a nice light yellow desk in my room. Isn’t it cute? As a little girl I would have killed for something like this. Hah.
This is restoring, by the way, not building. Had to replace some broken elements, but the design is not my own. *sigh*
Here’s my old trunk, which mom painted during the course of the past week, very Arabian nights, isn’t it.
But anyway, other than these fun little projects going on, big brother and I have been working on the new front gate off and on, which means that we have now finished one side of the gate, about nine by nine feet of metal and wood that is starting to become rather pretty and solid.
There was also a nice little half hour involving changing Tika’s cage (parrot), which she doesn’t like at all. She’ll be glaring at us every time like she’s saying; “Hey, those are my food reserves, get out of my cage!” while banging her beak against her food bowl. Such a character, our Tika.
The weather, much to my regret, is slowly turning colder again. We’ve actually had a wee bit of rain, aaargh.
Also had another nice run, where I worked on endurance rather than speed. I hate the endurance part, I wanna RUN, darn it…but the other bit is necessary too, I guess.
We had a good scavenge again. Lots of wood that’ll do the trick with future projects. Also metal, which won’t go amiss what with working on the gate at the moment.
I did two more workout sessions with our tenant, who is slowly gaining more balance and strength in her legs. She really enjoys being able to walk again, even though she has to be helped. Can’t blame her, really; there’s nothing worse than being bed, or chairbound.
In between it all I have been trying to discipline Knight II, who’s gotten to be so big that I decided he’s going to need to learn to stay on the couch, rather than get in bed with us at night. There just isn’t any room for him.
Of course, it took me over an hour to get him to understand that he couldn’t snuggle up, but on the overall, it wasn’t as disastrous as I’d feared.
And with that I’ve gotta quit today’s blog. I’m running way behind…I heard from my soldier with Operation Desert Swap for the first time, so I got a little sidetracked writing this really long email to him (poor fellow; far away from home and then he gets stuck with me yapping his proverbial ear off).
On to the next day!
Thursday, November 19, 2009
A quicky.
Song of the day: “The four Season: Spring” from Vivaldi. Don’t ask me why, but the stupid tune keeps spinning through my head.
Where was I with the last blog? Gawd it is so hard to keep track of. I guess I’ll just have to guess, ‘cause I’m too darn lazy to check. Hah.
A bit of sad news first: Grandpa’s old husky, Picard passed away from old age. Poor fella. He hadn’t been doing too well for the past few months. His hearing was almost non-existent, his eyes didn’t function, and during the past couple of weeks his hips could no longer support him. So sad to see a once so proud and happy dog being reduced to that. But at least he didn’t suffer through a long and painful disease, and just past away in his sleep. He will be missed.
Let’s start with the edit/rewrite of “Calamity’s Luck”. It’s going slow, considering we’re still getting used to the new schedule, but we’re steadily making progress. Technicalities are straightened out, logistics dealt with, and the characters are shaping up nicely. We’ve decided to keep with the humor angle, ‘cause let’s face it, it is just too much fun not to. Think “Hudson Hawk”, “Moonlighting” without actually going into the slapstick. I don’t like slapstick, just a fun punch-line every now and then, and an occasional quirk in the character.
Okay, considering I have to fill space anyway, let me introduce you to the two main protagonists:
Calamity Stewart. She’s quirky to say the least. A former war correspondent who had a full career as a non-fiction author under the name C.S. Pennyworth. Considering she hated the character (you know, the person she was when she wrote about serious stuff), Calamity decided to let Pennyworth die and threw herself on her real passion: Fiction/romance writing…I mean really, given the choice, who wouldn’t want to do fiction when given the chance.
Now, the twist to Callie is that she literally is a walking disaster. And when I say disaster, I mean that literally. She goes on vacation, there’ll be some sort of natural catastrophe; she takes a plane and it will crash, or close to it. Elevators, or any modern day technology…forget it. Something will happen that’ll blow it up, make it malfunction, or whatever.
It leaves her all a tad aggravated to say the least.
Now, meet the hero, Alexander Jessup: Alex is an engineer/inventor, and he…well he’s fascinated by Callie, of course. Considering that he is basically a scientist, Alex doesn’t believe in bad luck. Regretfully, as he gets to know her, he is starting to see a distinct pattern of way too many coincidences that he simply cannot explain.
So the two characters meet, they fall in love and then…well I’m working on it. Hah.
Enough of writing stuff, let’s move on to the projects at hand.
Little sister and I spent the majority of the time working on her bed/closet, and as of this morning I declare them ready to put in. Yay. Just as soon as I finish today’s blog, had something to eat and basically caught my breath, we’ll start on the process of taking out the old bed and putting in the new. Gawd, I can’t wait to see what it looks like.
While we were doing the cabinets (hinges and handles needed to be put in) big brother started on the new front gate. He’s got one of the two frames welded now (it went really well, after not having handled the welding machine for such a long time) and by tomorrow we should start putting in the wood. It’ll be a nice task that’ll need each and every one of us to pull together for an afternoon to get it done.
We might have to hurry a bit, what with the clouds gathering over the area. We already had a bit of rain this morning and afternoon…which was rather annoying since I was in the midst of putting the last hinges in. Got it don, however, and the clouds broke apart again, allowing for the sun to shine again.
New plans are once again in the making…what with little sister’s project almost done, the mind starts to wander. Maybe a big ol’ closet for little brother, who has been complaining some about his old wardrobe closet, so what with the right supplies being available, a design is starting to take shape in my head. It should work out properly if he agrees to it. If not, I might just make it anyway and put it in the pantry for storage. A good solid big closet won’t be bad at all in there.
Middle sister’s new door is looking grand by the way. For the first time she actually has a hinge that functions. Hah. It still needs a lick of paint, but other than that it looks great.
And I’m going to stop here, ‘cause I still have to go through my messages before I need to get started on the remodel of little sister’s room.
Where was I with the last blog? Gawd it is so hard to keep track of. I guess I’ll just have to guess, ‘cause I’m too darn lazy to check. Hah.
A bit of sad news first: Grandpa’s old husky, Picard passed away from old age. Poor fella. He hadn’t been doing too well for the past few months. His hearing was almost non-existent, his eyes didn’t function, and during the past couple of weeks his hips could no longer support him. So sad to see a once so proud and happy dog being reduced to that. But at least he didn’t suffer through a long and painful disease, and just past away in his sleep. He will be missed.
Let’s start with the edit/rewrite of “Calamity’s Luck”. It’s going slow, considering we’re still getting used to the new schedule, but we’re steadily making progress. Technicalities are straightened out, logistics dealt with, and the characters are shaping up nicely. We’ve decided to keep with the humor angle, ‘cause let’s face it, it is just too much fun not to. Think “Hudson Hawk”, “Moonlighting” without actually going into the slapstick. I don’t like slapstick, just a fun punch-line every now and then, and an occasional quirk in the character.
Okay, considering I have to fill space anyway, let me introduce you to the two main protagonists:
Calamity Stewart. She’s quirky to say the least. A former war correspondent who had a full career as a non-fiction author under the name C.S. Pennyworth. Considering she hated the character (you know, the person she was when she wrote about serious stuff), Calamity decided to let Pennyworth die and threw herself on her real passion: Fiction/romance writing…I mean really, given the choice, who wouldn’t want to do fiction when given the chance.
Now, the twist to Callie is that she literally is a walking disaster. And when I say disaster, I mean that literally. She goes on vacation, there’ll be some sort of natural catastrophe; she takes a plane and it will crash, or close to it. Elevators, or any modern day technology…forget it. Something will happen that’ll blow it up, make it malfunction, or whatever.
It leaves her all a tad aggravated to say the least.
Now, meet the hero, Alexander Jessup: Alex is an engineer/inventor, and he…well he’s fascinated by Callie, of course. Considering that he is basically a scientist, Alex doesn’t believe in bad luck. Regretfully, as he gets to know her, he is starting to see a distinct pattern of way too many coincidences that he simply cannot explain.
So the two characters meet, they fall in love and then…well I’m working on it. Hah.
Enough of writing stuff, let’s move on to the projects at hand.
Little sister and I spent the majority of the time working on her bed/closet, and as of this morning I declare them ready to put in. Yay. Just as soon as I finish today’s blog, had something to eat and basically caught my breath, we’ll start on the process of taking out the old bed and putting in the new. Gawd, I can’t wait to see what it looks like.
While we were doing the cabinets (hinges and handles needed to be put in) big brother started on the new front gate. He’s got one of the two frames welded now (it went really well, after not having handled the welding machine for such a long time) and by tomorrow we should start putting in the wood. It’ll be a nice task that’ll need each and every one of us to pull together for an afternoon to get it done.
We might have to hurry a bit, what with the clouds gathering over the area. We already had a bit of rain this morning and afternoon…which was rather annoying since I was in the midst of putting the last hinges in. Got it don, however, and the clouds broke apart again, allowing for the sun to shine again.
New plans are once again in the making…what with little sister’s project almost done, the mind starts to wander. Maybe a big ol’ closet for little brother, who has been complaining some about his old wardrobe closet, so what with the right supplies being available, a design is starting to take shape in my head. It should work out properly if he agrees to it. If not, I might just make it anyway and put it in the pantry for storage. A good solid big closet won’t be bad at all in there.
Middle sister’s new door is looking grand by the way. For the first time she actually has a hinge that functions. Hah. It still needs a lick of paint, but other than that it looks great.
And I’m going to stop here, ‘cause I still have to go through my messages before I need to get started on the remodel of little sister’s room.
Tuesday, November 17, 2009
The usual.
Song of the day: “Lucy in the sky” by Katie Melua. It just kept going and going, and even though I tried to change the tune by starting another, I would just find myself switching back to this one as soon as I wasn’t paying attention.
I basically started the morning (yesterday) with a big load of laundry…so what else is new, right? Hah. Next, it was up to our tenant’s place so we could start her rehabilitation exercises. It went rather well, actually, and she enjoyed it, which is the most important thing, I think. She walked a total of thirty yards (the biggest part with us offering a little balance on both sides) and a third of that with only minimal support and her cane…the cane was the first time, so she was thrilled.
We also did arm exercises: the doctors said she would never again be able to move her arm, and yet here she is, moving it from side to side and even clasping her fingers around our hand when she tries to keep her balance. We’ve found that when she doesn’t think about it, but does stuff on instinct the appendage wants to work just fine. I think that with the right exercises and practice she can get at least eighty percent of her mobility back…given time, of course. We will see, however, and as long as she has fun with the process, success is already halfway there.
Right, what else…Yeah, little sister’s new bed/closet is working out nicely. Tight, straight and strong, while cute anyway. Last night, at the end of our outside workday, I decided to go to her room to do my first measurements (yeah, I know, I’m supposed to do measurements up front, but I…ehm, sorta forgot, hah) and found that the design will fit, like, perfectly. Phew.
The drawers slide, the doors don’t stick and aren’t too small either, so, yeah. Good job! I’m most curious what it’s going to look like once we’re done. It’ll certainly create more room, while allowing for more storage. Yep. I can hardly wait to see the end result.
My storage trunk is being repaired and painted too, and looks rather fancy with it’s golden metal sections. I’m going to have to remove a small cabinet to place it in my bedroom, but then I’ll have room for the desk that is going to be in my sitting room, so…who cares.
I also spent some time working in the courtyard. I needed to put heavy metal hooks into the rock wall, where the laundry baskets can be hung. There was a broken closure in the window that needed to be replaced, and my old laundry table was really getting to be too rotten for use, so I put in a new one. Once I got out the old shelving there too, it looked rather neat and usable.
While the sibs and I were working by the carport terrace, big brother and grandpa put in the new door for middle sister. It fit perfectly and is of a solid white wood that will finally work properly. The old one was really falling apart, so now that looks good again.
There was another short scavenge hunt last night, considering we had to go to town to return the DVDs we rented Tuesday; they were late, of course, so there was a fine. And then we went past the department store where we found the shoes for big brother. Since they are so comfortable, and getting shoes for him is such a chore in most cases, he wanted to buy an extra pair, but they were out of that particular size, so that was a bust.
On the scavenge hunt we found quite a bit of wood, which had grandpa thrilled again, naturally. Had the cab nicely full, so that was a successful conclusion of the day. We’re starting to get a good stash of slats to cover the outside of little sister’s room…it has been an eyesore ever since we built it.
Seeing as we were late getting back from the “hunt”, we did a short editing/rewriting session by the end of the day. Slowly, but steadily we’re making our way through the already-written part, and new ideas for the rest of the story are starting to develop, allowing for a plotline setup. As matter of fact, big brother is putting it down right now, while I’m racing through the blog. Hah.
This morning the pocket watch, we got for grandpa came in, and he seemed nicely surprised with the out of the blue present. Seeing as he doesn’t like wearing a wristwatch, we thought a pocket watch would do the trick nicely.
There was a lot of sawing this morning, the backs of little sister’s bed/closet, the top of the bench drawers that’ll be at the foot end of the bed, and of course slats to finish it all off. The chair that matches my new desk got a new seat put in, this morning…very hard making a rounded board, but still, it was a successful endeavor. We also unloaded the car, increasing the supplies considerably. Our tenant really enjoys this part of it, since we’ll be working outside where she’s seated in the sun most mornings, reading, and chatting a little.
With the car empty once more, it was back down to the car port, where big brother proceeded to take mom’s AC apart for a proper cleaning.
But anyway, this afternoon when big brother and grandpa are going over to the store to get the metal for the new front gate of the property (finally), as well as cement and butane gas for the stoves, little sister and I should be able to finish the bed/closet. At least, as completely as possible, before we can put the construction in her room.
We might need to make trip to the vet soon. Nanook (a malamute husky) appears to have growth of sorts on her paw, and if it is remotely like the one Njanna (golden retriever) had, it’ll need to be removed. Angie (middle sister’s Basset Hound) was feeling poorly, but now that she’s on an antibiotic she appears to be feeling better, so that is one less dog that needs a medical consult. Phew.
And that concludes the Blog for now. I really need to get back to work, so…
I basically started the morning (yesterday) with a big load of laundry…so what else is new, right? Hah. Next, it was up to our tenant’s place so we could start her rehabilitation exercises. It went rather well, actually, and she enjoyed it, which is the most important thing, I think. She walked a total of thirty yards (the biggest part with us offering a little balance on both sides) and a third of that with only minimal support and her cane…the cane was the first time, so she was thrilled.
We also did arm exercises: the doctors said she would never again be able to move her arm, and yet here she is, moving it from side to side and even clasping her fingers around our hand when she tries to keep her balance. We’ve found that when she doesn’t think about it, but does stuff on instinct the appendage wants to work just fine. I think that with the right exercises and practice she can get at least eighty percent of her mobility back…given time, of course. We will see, however, and as long as she has fun with the process, success is already halfway there.
Right, what else…Yeah, little sister’s new bed/closet is working out nicely. Tight, straight and strong, while cute anyway. Last night, at the end of our outside workday, I decided to go to her room to do my first measurements (yeah, I know, I’m supposed to do measurements up front, but I…ehm, sorta forgot, hah) and found that the design will fit, like, perfectly. Phew.
The drawers slide, the doors don’t stick and aren’t too small either, so, yeah. Good job! I’m most curious what it’s going to look like once we’re done. It’ll certainly create more room, while allowing for more storage. Yep. I can hardly wait to see the end result.
My storage trunk is being repaired and painted too, and looks rather fancy with it’s golden metal sections. I’m going to have to remove a small cabinet to place it in my bedroom, but then I’ll have room for the desk that is going to be in my sitting room, so…who cares.
I also spent some time working in the courtyard. I needed to put heavy metal hooks into the rock wall, where the laundry baskets can be hung. There was a broken closure in the window that needed to be replaced, and my old laundry table was really getting to be too rotten for use, so I put in a new one. Once I got out the old shelving there too, it looked rather neat and usable.
While the sibs and I were working by the carport terrace, big brother and grandpa put in the new door for middle sister. It fit perfectly and is of a solid white wood that will finally work properly. The old one was really falling apart, so now that looks good again.
There was another short scavenge hunt last night, considering we had to go to town to return the DVDs we rented Tuesday; they were late, of course, so there was a fine. And then we went past the department store where we found the shoes for big brother. Since they are so comfortable, and getting shoes for him is such a chore in most cases, he wanted to buy an extra pair, but they were out of that particular size, so that was a bust.
On the scavenge hunt we found quite a bit of wood, which had grandpa thrilled again, naturally. Had the cab nicely full, so that was a successful conclusion of the day. We’re starting to get a good stash of slats to cover the outside of little sister’s room…it has been an eyesore ever since we built it.
Seeing as we were late getting back from the “hunt”, we did a short editing/rewriting session by the end of the day. Slowly, but steadily we’re making our way through the already-written part, and new ideas for the rest of the story are starting to develop, allowing for a plotline setup. As matter of fact, big brother is putting it down right now, while I’m racing through the blog. Hah.
This morning the pocket watch, we got for grandpa came in, and he seemed nicely surprised with the out of the blue present. Seeing as he doesn’t like wearing a wristwatch, we thought a pocket watch would do the trick nicely.
There was a lot of sawing this morning, the backs of little sister’s bed/closet, the top of the bench drawers that’ll be at the foot end of the bed, and of course slats to finish it all off. The chair that matches my new desk got a new seat put in, this morning…very hard making a rounded board, but still, it was a successful endeavor. We also unloaded the car, increasing the supplies considerably. Our tenant really enjoys this part of it, since we’ll be working outside where she’s seated in the sun most mornings, reading, and chatting a little.
With the car empty once more, it was back down to the car port, where big brother proceeded to take mom’s AC apart for a proper cleaning.
But anyway, this afternoon when big brother and grandpa are going over to the store to get the metal for the new front gate of the property (finally), as well as cement and butane gas for the stoves, little sister and I should be able to finish the bed/closet. At least, as completely as possible, before we can put the construction in her room.
We might need to make trip to the vet soon. Nanook (a malamute husky) appears to have growth of sorts on her paw, and if it is remotely like the one Njanna (golden retriever) had, it’ll need to be removed. Angie (middle sister’s Basset Hound) was feeling poorly, but now that she’s on an antibiotic she appears to be feeling better, so that is one less dog that needs a medical consult. Phew.
And that concludes the Blog for now. I really need to get back to work, so…
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