Done! Yay!!!

Song of the day: “Ain’t love a kick in the head” by Westlife...I know, I know, officially it’s from Sinatra but I like the snappier version. Hah.

Okay, I’m on a caffeine high, considering today was a long one, and I’ve still got some hours to go. Phew. I might need to have another coffee soon, ‘cause I feel like I’m running on fumes at the moment. Hah. No matter, though. It’s not as if I need to do any new writing.

Oh My Gawd, I totally forgot I haven’t said anything yet, but yeah, finished the book…or at least the writing. Yay. (Half-hearted yay, I admit.) Okay, let me do that right: “A Taste Of Life” (the extended version, or best described as a full length novel) is, as of Saturday night, officially FINISHED! Woohoo, yippee, yadayadayada, or as Amy Lane would say Squeeeee!…you get the idea. Hah.

It took me three months, almost to the dot (minus two days) to get down 80.000 words, crammed together in a full length, single title that can be described as a vampire-ish romance, of what is rapidly becoming my “life” series. The first one is done, five others are in the process of getting there. *sigh*

Just as soon as the dust has settled, so to speak, it’s time shift gears and start on the dreaded edit, which is something that I positively hate. So, I don’t know how long that is going to take, since I have no idea what all I wrote in the past three months, but it’ll be an adventure to find out…I think…how much needs to be altered, and how much is actually negligible. I’ve never before tried this particular technique, you know, writing stuff down as they come, and religiously refusing to read back of what has been put down the previous days. It’ll undoubtedly lead to lots of repetitions, but considering I always add new stuff in the edit, I’m going to need the word count of every repetition I remove.

I already had a sneak peek, considering big brother was leafing through the story, and sat there staring at the words with a sort of stunned “oh, right, I did write that down. When was it, oh yeah, three or four weeks…weird.” It is…weird, I mean. Nothing is weirder than reading back the words you wrote and having only a faint memory of writing them.

Ah well, yesterday was another “drowner”…literally. According to the news there were places where in just a few hours 90 the square meter dropped, which, I presume, is a lot. Hah. Seriously, though, I can honestly say that it was ridiculous wet again, and that meant it was another inside day for everyone involved.

Inside days count as domestic days, resulting in cleaning, but before I got to it, I decided to take the opportunity for a proper workout. It was rather wonderful, I’ll admit; going through all the old movement, punching, kneeing and kicking that boxing ball. I ended up exercising for a solid hour and a half (got to pay for it dearly today, mind you) and worked up a real sweat that earned me a really hot shower afterwards. *sigh*

Our tenant spent the last couple of days at our place, of course, seeing as she could use some company. While everyone was busy throughout the house, cleaning, vacuuming and dusting, she enjoyed being in the bustle of things, while she read her book.
There’s a lots of laundry, but it isn’t drying, of course. Annoying that. And, since I was inside anyway I took the chance to cook some dinner. Red beets/potato mash, seasoned with the wild onions from our yard. Yep, caught us by surprise too, but apparently they’re all over the place and they’re yummy. We’re definitely going to see about growing them deliberately this year, ‘cause they sure are a nice surprise. Taste like they’re a mix between good ol’ fashioned onion and leek.

But anyway, at the end of the day there was a semi-dry moment, which we used to head on out to get another load of rocks. It took a while, considering there was just the two of us, but we did manage a full car in the end. Afterwards we got behind the computers and sat down for a read through of W.I. Investigations/The White Doves, because we want to make sure that all the Is are dotted properly before we put it on there. Managed 18 pages, which we’re basically seeing as a way of “getting in the mood” for the big edit, before the end of the evening. By the time I got to my cabin I was seeing double again. Hah.

Be that as it may, today’s weather was a lot better. No real rain, so we used it brutally to do all the things we couldn’t do on the rainy ones: checking the progress of the plants (green beans are coming up) pouring concrete, yay! Seriously, while big brother and grandpa started on putting the fence on top of the new rock wall that surrounds grandpa’s place I started mixing concrete. Pouring it between the barrier that grandpa and big brother placed there, and then, by the time the younger siblings arrived, I passed the shovel over to little brother.

Knight II was making a nuisance of himself the whole day, snarling at the other dogs and everything, so when he refused to settle down I ended up putting him in the car, where he spent the majority of the afternoon snoozing on the front seat. It does amaze me how he manages to fold himself into such small places. Hah.

While he made the remainder of the cement I hauled a few big rocks and then tackled the tree trunks that needed to be stripped of their bark. It wasn’t as hard as I imagined it would be; grandpa showed me an old technique of a sharpened shovel, and with it I managed the task quite easily. Though, admittedly my sore arms (the workout! Gawd, there wasn’t a single muscle in my body that I didn’t “feel” today) weren’t in agreement with the easy part.

Once again, having finished with the concrete, little brother took over from me with the last three trunks, so I could join the younger sibs in working on a small section of wall, by the gate. What with windy days, we’re going to need a spot where the gate can be attached to something solid (to keep it from blowing shut, duh) ergo, a new short piece of wall…more thought of due to the wheelbarrow of concrete that was leftover after pouring. Hah.

The afternoon, when a soft drizzle started and we had just barely finished, big brother and I went for another rock-gathering trip (small rocks this time) just to finish up for the day. Got a wonderful stash going there, allowing for lots of work on the walls in the future…still so many to built, and so little time to do it in. Hah.

One of our lovebirds went and keeled over yesterday morning. I don’t what the heck is going on, but now the small pets appear to be dropping around us. First, Simmy, and now the yellow lovebird; so strange.

Well, time to get to work on the W.I. White Doves. I wonder how long I’ll manage to keep it up today.