Where to start?

Song of the day: “Forever” by Chris Brown. Boy, I have this song a lot, don’t I?

I’ve been doing a lot of “running behind” these past couple of days. The nightly ventures into proofreading keep us distracted to a point where we are at least two hours late for bed, twice in a row now…the plus is that we’re making proper headway, of course. Only a few more chapters to go and then we won’t need to worry about anything other than random read-throughs the way we did with the first few chapters.

Yesterday was a really fun read, good scenes that made us laugh and smirk at the same time, and today we came upon the (used-to-be) disaster chapter from the “edit week from hell” (remember the nineteen hours a day for a week, gawd thinking of it still gives me shivers). So it wasn’t bad at all today…thankfully. I read through it easily, didn’t stutter in the narrative once, and what in my memory was locked as a solid ten pages turned out to be only TWO.

Yeah, I don’t know how that could have happened either. But if asked, I would have sworn that there were at least more than eight…must have been too traumatic for my memory to function properly. Hah. But then, the sisters both have faulty memories about the scene too. Middle sister remembered eight, and little sister five at least. Totally weird, I know.

But anyway, tomorrow (or tonight) big brother will read the scene, so afterwards we should know whether we have to do a lot about it or can leave it as it is…I’m hoping the latter, because I kinda like the way it reads now.

So, that was the reading and editing bit for the past few days, on to the other projects.
Cleaning was par for the course yesterday, along with demolition (sorta). The younger sibs and I spent the majority of it cleaning out the corner that is going to be the office. And, oh boy, was it messy. It almost felt as if we were cleaning out an old attic, or something.

Grandpa and big brother worked on the rabbit cage…which was finished today, by the way.
By the end of the afternoon we had finally cleared enough of the mess for me to disassemble the old desk-we’re going to use the rather massive top to build the new one-and declare the area empty enough for the next step.

In the mean time little brother heads for the “igloo” (weird name for guest quarters, I know, but it’s the only name we could think of for the tiny building that stands on the corner of the property. I’ll have to post a picture sometime. It’s hilarious) so he could varnish the door before winter starts. Five minutes later he comes back, totally out of breath telling us that there is a big fat poisonous snake lying on top of the table that stands in front of the building.

Big brother headed there, armed with shovels and scythes immediately, knowing full well that such a serpent can be dangerous around our dogs, and fully intend to “handle” it. But when we get there the nasty green scaled one has disappeared from sight. Aaargh. Now I wasn’t particularly thrilled with the prospect of what needed to be done, but still…ya really don’t want to come across one if you’re walking around with curious dogs. Lost a precious one that way several years ago, and it is really not something we want to risk again.

It might be time to have another tire burning in the near future. For some reason the smell of burning rubber keeps the slithering creatures at bay.

What with all the cleaning going on, a rather large pile of debris had to be towed off to the landfill, so the remainder of the evening was spent hauling everything into the car and driving down the mountain to the official dump site.

Now the fun part was, when we left, grandpa said: “Remember, if you see doors or glass panes, take them home.” And you’ll never guess what we saw when we got there…yep, beautiful, arched French doors that, together, will make up the complete wall that we still need to built. How’s that for Kismet…and recycling, for that matter. They’ll be downright gorgeous for the entrance of the office, that’s a fact.

And the fund didn’t stop there either. By the glass disposal unit, piles and pile of glass had been randomly set down, giving us a nice supply for at least a year’s worth of projects. Now all this filled up the cab nicely, and we were about to finish up too, when a dude came driving to the fill and in exchange for helping him unload we could take about fifteen wooden beams with us that had been used for a remodelling project and had now become obsolete. With a little sanding and shaving, they’ll be a good as new. I LOVE wood for that. So very versatile and usable.

We were on the way home, the cab filled to about seventy percent when we drive past the local nursery. I know I don’t have to ask. I bet you figured out what we found there…did you?
In case you didn’t…plants. Piles of them just dumped beside the road, and from the feel of their moist earth only hours before. They looked a little worse for wear, but in the end we drove off with the car filled to full capacity with a fir tree (it looks a little like a bonsai, and is about three feet high) two boxes-yes, the cartons were right beside it on a different pile- full of small flower bushes and two more with vines with bright red angora fluffs instead of petals.

Definitely a successful run, that. Added to another fun reading session late that night (much too late, but what the hey) it was an all-round grand day.

So today was mostly spent gardening. Putting plants in the ground during a sunny day is definitely a fun task, and they look downright cute, even though they are likely to take a little while to get to full potential. Nothing that a little TLC and time won’t cure, that’s a fact.

The gardening was followed by making plaster cement to finally fill up the big holes in the steeple of the roof, and put in a new threshold under the main door of the house.
The younger sibs spent most of the day painting plasterwork, and since tomorrow they will have to put the second layer on, big brother and I did a quick run to the hardware store for a bucket of new paint. Since we’ve already painted the new glass and wooden wall a light yellow, the walls will get the same color, of course.

By the time we got home, we had a quick dinner…little brother made Chinese…and then I settled on the veranda to quickly go through today’s messages and write the Blog. Knight II was completely insane tonight, by the way. While I was trying to work, the Great Dane kept pushing his face into me, tried to climb in my lap, and even slapped at the table until I finally had the brilliant idea to get a blanket and put it on the floor. The little sissy obviously found the tiles too cold, ‘cause as soon a he saw the blanket on the floor he stretched down on top of it, calm as you please. Idiot!

Yep, that about sums it up for the past two days, I guess. I’ve gotta remember to take some pics tomorrow because even though it might not seem that way from my point of view, we are getting quite a bit done these past few days.