A bit of maudling, maybe.

Song of the day: “I’m like a bird” by Nelly Furtado. Such a cheery song, a good one to have tumbling through your head, really, considering you can sing all kinds of varieties on it. Hah.
Yesterday’s song was Belinda Carlisle “Vision of you”, which, as always reminds me of being 13 and reading the Chronicles of Belgariad and Malorean by David Eddings (ten fat tomes together) in one week. Awesome! Sure, I didn’t sleep, but who needed sleep wandering through that particular world.

I’m not so sure why, but for some reason memories of my childhood have been going through my mind. Seriously, big brother and I were a bunch of savages, really. Together with our variety of friends and cousins we would set out into the wild (the woods behind the house, duh) and play Indians, or members of the resistance, or just to build tree houses, underground lairs and spaceships. Sometimes, when I think of the past, I will remember all the places we would go and the mischief we would get into.

At one particular point, I remember we were stalking the local scouting club. Gawd, the fun we had circling the camping ground like proper guerrilla warriors. The coolest thing of it was jumping up, calling something incredibly rude (there was a big echo there) and then dive into cover again…and then have half the club start a search party. They didn’t get us either, we were pretty darn good at stealth and would disappear into the woods that we knew as well as the backs of our hands, hehehe. For another hour we would linger close by, keeping track of our pursuit and then disappeared by taking a short cut through the corn fields. Boy, it was massive fun, and so “dangerously” exciting.

Oh, the stuff we pulled back then…makes me smile now.

But anyway, big brother is a bit annoyed with me at the moment, seeing as I should have done this blog earlier today, and promptly forgot about this stuff at all. I should already be writing, darn it. Only twenty more pages to go after all, and most of the first edit already done. Yay.

What’s been happening…blanking, blanking…oh yeah. Still working on that closet in the carport. Almost done now, though, even though I went wrong three times in total and had to correct the error. (Nothing is quite as annoying as working on someone else’s design. It never works out, hah.) Still, it’s up now; four big drawers and two doors for the big section. It’s looking…big, I guess. Solid too. And, well, I guess I’m going to have to take a picture, won’t I?

What else? Well, tenant has been walking a lot, and unaided so that is a definite Yay for her. I made a big pan of pumpkin soup, what with the season being right for it and all, and this rather wonderful orange pumpkin just waiting to be ate I could not help myself. There was only meat in it, and a few seeds, but otherwise no space inside, it was beautiful, not to mention absolutely delicious mixed with fresh Basil, oregano, chives, leek, onion and peppers. Then I added some milk, salt, sugar and pepper, and…well, I ate it twice already, hah.

Oh, right the moped debacle. Well, we took the thing apart, checked the wiring and everything else we could think of, cleaned it of dirt and whatnot and then, put it back together again. At which point big brother and grandpa packed it up and brought it to the village to see if the garage would fix it. Turns out our usual guy doesn’t work on Suzukis so that means that we’re going to have to go to town (by the end of the week due to another bank holiday on Monday, grrrr, and work) and see if we can find a different garage. I do hope they can fix it, because grandpa is feeling a tad handicapped without his “trusty steed” hah.

We gardened some more…well in this case that meant heading out into the yard by the end of the day to water the plants. But it was nice, even though the temperatures are rapidly dropping, especially in the evenings. There is a threat of rain, by the way, so we’ve also been busy putting stuff away in car rain actually falls. Better safe than sorry, in this case.

I’ve got a new (temporary) bamboo rug in my cabin, by the way. Did I tell of it already? I don’t recall. Anyways, it looks rather well, if I may say so, and it goes particularly well with my rattan seats and the metal chest/coffee table between them. Makes the cabin look a lot neater too, which really was necessary. Boy, I can’t wait to start on my floor, though. It will look gorgeous, I’m sure.

The swelling on Knight II’s paw finally burst (phew, I was afraid I would have to take him to the vet’s again. That dog has some serious issues healing, that’s a fact) oozing a nice bit of white sludge, which should bring the swelling down in a few days at least. He’s a bit feverish though, so that means keeping an eye on it, and cleaning it twice a day. He’s a strong dog, though, so all should be well.

I’ve got to admit that, so far, I am still enjoying the job, I am rather happy that we’re going to have another day at home. Heck the dogs will be ecstatic as well, seeing as they don’t like Monday and Tuesday at all. Poor darlings.

Last night I took the opportunity to do some exercise…I do love it so and try to do it at least once a week…and kicked and hit the heck out of my boxing bag. Seriously. Kick boxing. You’ve gotta try it. Nothing else gets your blood pumping quite that way. Besides, it makes ya sweat too. Ten minutes into the session I’ll be dripping. Hah.

Well, I’ve got to get to work. Though today was a constant of activity, from eleven to eight, at least, there’s still several hours of computer work ahead, so. Bye, bye.

KO...almost anyway. :-)

Song of the day: “Samson” by Regina Spector. It’s been coming and going for two days so it will do as song of the day.

Let me just start off by saying *sigh*. Seriously, I am glad that these first days of the week are over. If there are no disasters I just might be able to get some stuff done at home.

First of all, yesterday morning was spent heading for the doctor. Remember the Anemia? Well, apparently the doc thinks it smart to test it again, and thus draining me of more. Seriously, I don’t get the medical branches. How am I supposed to get my blood levels back up to level if he’s constantly getting more to test? Bonkers, I tell ya. But anyway, I was lucky enough to get a newbie drawing blood from me. Seriously, I was wondering why the seven people before me were taking a solid twenty minutes each (along the lines of, how much blood are they drawing, fer cryin’ out loud?). I realized what was up the moment the girl could not locate a vein and basically swabbed my entire arm before she settled on the back of my hand. She wasn’t delicate either, seriously, it felt like she hit bone or something, hah.

But anyway, big brother drove with me to Marbella where we went to pick up our friend for her weekly visit, and even though I drove back, I was gradually feeling worse and worse. I don’t know what the heck happened, but by the time I finished correcting that price list error at the insurance company, and the bed linen store (for my sales job, remember. They were good sports about it, in case you’re wondering) I had a splitting headache and was seriously contemplating passing out. Rather than risk going off the road, I kicked big brother from the passenger seat, and had him drive us home.

By then it was really bad so I went directly to bed and hauled the dogs on the mattress with me. Chaos was absolutely ecstatic and actually liked the fact that I flopped down on top of him. Knight II didn’t mind either, and started stretching out against me, almost pushing me off the bed before I drifted off to sleep and was gone for a solid hour.

By the time I resurfaced I was feeling decidedly better and headed to the carport to help big brother sawing MDF boarding for the closet grandpa wants built there. We first had lunch, of course, seeing as we’d skipped breakfast, but then got right to it. While I was asleep I apparently missed some of the excitement, seeing as mom and the younger sibs had decided to take our visitor and tenant out to town for a late lunch.

We were done with the sawing and other preparations by the time they returned, and headed out into the yard to check the veggies and water some of the spots that wouldn’t make it through to today. Such a wonderful way to end the day, heading out into the yard like that. *sigh*

The rest of the day was spent writing a bit, and editing several pages. Almost done with both, by the way. I’m 2000 words short of the minimum required for this type of book, so, knowing me, I will probably end up making it too friggin’ long again. Darn it.

So what I have I failed to say, besides the fact that even though I had fully planned to spent today at home, we had to head on over to town because the car dealer rang to tell me that the gestor, or traffico had lost my paperwork. Aaaargh. Knowing them, they probably lost it themselves, but what the heck; I had to go there so they could make copies once more. (Third time, round, in case you’re wondering, hehehe.)

This morning big brother and I worked on the Land Rover, where I fixed the handle above the left back seat, and we worked on the passenger front door which has been “wobbly” for several weeks now. Apparently one of the bolts got loose and there was a fraction in the metal covering. Managed to fix both, so, no biggie.

Oh gawd, I haven’t mentioned grandpa’s moped yet, have I. Well, that sent us out as well, seeing as the poor vehicle died this very morning and according to the garage it will take more than two-hundred bucks to fix it. Rather than just shell it out, we have decided to try to fix the Suzuki Katana first, rather than just shell it out. If we manage it, we’ll be able to save at least a bit of money.
Big brother and grandpa are working on it right now, in fact, so I’ve got to wrap this up and head on down to the yard.
Since they are busy, I’m going to have to do the watering on my own. Not that I mind, seeing as it is getting mighty chilly and I really should get some movement to warm up.

Job related mess.

Song of the day: “The Banana boat song” by Harry Belafonte, last night (yes, it was a working day for me) and this morning, “Hit the road Jack” by James Brown.

Okay, let’s just get straight to the issue of the day, because, let’s face it, as doozies go, my first official “thing” as a sales rep, it went wonderfully wrong. I mean it, if I was even remotely inclined to take this thing absolutely personal, I would quit right this instant and give up on Sales repping. Hah.

Let me explain what happened, because I am really not making a lot of sense, am I?
So, this week I lined up three potential clients, and when I finally got the list of prices, I naturally proceeded to send them out to those who had requested them. Oh dear, I bet you’re seeing this one coming…if not, well, no matter, I’m going to tell it anyway, hah.
The prices were the wrong ones, of course. Yes, wonderful first experience into the Sales bit, isn’t it? But the way I figure, having to set this right, and going back to those stores that have the wrong prices, will be good practice. I mean really, if the first possible client get either won or lost by this debacle, not much more disastrous can happen in the future, can it?

I have decided against taking it personally. This was human error after all, and stuff is bound to go wrong at some point anyway. Might as well have it on the first run. It’ll teach me getting a thick skin, won’t it. It was, in hindsight, funny to see John Doe flinch a bit when he saw the list. It’s bad of me, I know, but seriously, I know didly squat about advertising prices, so if they send me a list that is almost half the real price, I won’t question it. My only thought about the matter was that the pricing wasn’t as bad as I feared. Hah.

But anyway, I went over to the possibly lost client this morning to bring him the bad news. He wasn’t actually there, but his assistant was and she fully understood what had happened. Let’s hope she can explain it to him proper, because what I understood yesterday, he’s a mite particular, and doesn’t like to be foiled. Ah well, we’ll see how it goes, I guess. I for one am most curious to see where all this leads, in particular since I have an appointment with a rather large club along the coast. Yes, I am focussing on the positive, rather than the negative, such as needing to go past the stores that have the wrong lists, aaaargh.

I am totally throwing this recount out of sync, which is bad because that means I’ll blank even more. Okay, let me start over.

Saturday evening, the day that came after the last blog, yeah. Well, there was yard stuff, of course, seeing as we’re turning earth for winter veggies. Wonderful occupation, by the way, turning earth. It lubricates the joints and muscles and when I set out for my exercises in the evening (kick boxing, yay!) it went splendidly. Did a solid forty minutes of pounding the bag, and felt great afterwards. I did find out that I could not take my doctor’s advise and work out with the insoles, ‘cause I had to throw the shoes off after the fourth kick, because it was killing me. Once I was on my bare feet again the problem was solved…

Sorry, I had to pet Tadaika for a bit, the darling was curling in front of me like a pretzel and needed a good rubbing, hah. Where was I…

Oh yeah, work out. Wonderful. Slept like a baby, and woke up like an old woman. Seriously, I was sore all over, but it was okay. I kind of like that after a work out, since that means I used those muscles well. Hah.

Sunday was spent doing more in the yard, turning more earth, taking out young eucalypti that sprung forth from the ground this summer: I put eight of them in pots, as well as three mimosas.
Stuff we sowed was winter spinach, carrots and onions. I am definitely in the mood to head out again, so let’s hurry this up.

Prior to the route yesterday I headed out into the village to speak with the potential client (this was before I knew about the wrong pricing, mind you), and had an hour-long conversation with him. Though particular and a little, hmmm, I don’t know, boisterous? he was nice enough to basically give me a nice basis of drop points further land inward. Considering that would be my next route at some time in the future, having a basis to work from would be wonderful.

Let’s see if the guy will agree to the correction John Doe offered for the mistake made. If not, well, I guess I’ll have to start over and find another client. I could wallow in it for a bit, maybe even regret it, but then, that is not going to help me or, John Doe, so I’m letting it go and will double check in the future. Hah.

The route itself went well. Got it all done within the usual time limit, dropping everything off, talking with the Punjabi restaurant. He tentatively asked me about the stand, and whether I had one for him, and we laughed together while I went back to the car. Seriously, I always feared that some of the characters I create for my book are unrealistic in their behavior, but can rest assured that this is not the case. Even Paddy, and old jolly musician in one of my books, does not compare with reality.

Oh, John Doe did remember to bring the stands for the two big stores, by the way…did I mention the hassle with the big store that suddenly changed its mind about taking the papers and then me spending the past three weeks trying to get it all back in the store. Managed it last week, so we put a stand in there yesterday. It looked rather nice right there in the entrance of the store, if I do say so.
The other one ended up in the big supermarket, so I will see next week if I made the right choice with that one. Considering foreigners mostly frequent it, I would think that it will do well, but you just never know.

There were the chats, the smiles…oh, lots of cute guys this week, for some peculiar reason, by the way…I don’t know whether I first noticed it this week, or if the cute ones decided to come out of the woodworks, but I can assure you my eyes feasted this week. Hah. I saw a Sawyer (Lost) look alike…well, from his early Lost days anyway. Hah.
Along with smiles there was the talk, the networking and leaving my card at several more locations throughout the route. You do realize that soon I’ll be known as the paper girl who dabbles in sales, don’t you. Hah.

What else? Well, I was daring and told John Doe that if ever looks for a columnist or some such, I would gladly try it out. To which he promptly answered that if I have something interesting I am free to send it to the editorial department. Who knows, I just might…just as soon as this idea in my head takes shape. Hehehe.

The dogs were petulant for a change, not liking our absence at all, but also slowly starting to resign in the matter, poor darlings. Mosha and Chaos insisted on lying on top of me during the night.

Well, the last of the route was done this morning (together with the correction) and it was noon when we finally got home. There was a slight detour on the way home, by the way, seeing as grandpa has been hearing a rather ferocious growling during his walks these past few weeks. So big brother and I went to check it out and ascertained that on the spot in question, some sort of animal has been rutting around. There might be wild boar looking for roots and such over there, so we’re gonna wait until it rains and see if we can find tracks, or something.

Time for me to wrap this up. I am going to do m some gardening, yay.