Happy NEW YEAR!!!

Song of the day: “Big spender” by Shirley Bassey.

I had thought to do a rhyme of sorts, but it felt kind of pretentious and unlike me to do it in anything except a mocking fashion, so I decided to just go for normal. It’s not as if the 31st of December is any different from any other day of the year, it’s just a date.

I don’t do celebrations, or resolutions (seriously, the fact that I stopped smoking two years ago around this time had nothing to do with New Years, I just gave it a shot and stuck with it), which I think are really not all they’re cracked up to be. If ya wanna do something, you can decide to go for it any given day. 31st of December is not going to change that. Ah well, it is tradition, and all that, and for that reason I don’t suppose I can complain about it too much. Traditions are important, seeing as they got us where we are today, eh?

So yeah, no celebrations, just a nice evening by the stove and working on the book, of course. Just like any other night. Personally, I am looking forward to it, considering yesterday was a busy one.

Yep, grocery shopping day is over and done with for a full month again, thank you very much. I would write about it, share with you all the details, but this is a special night for some of your, so I’m not going to bore you to death. Hah. Let’s skip yesterday as if it never existed, eh?

So let’s do today. Woke up a little on the late side, what with me having decided to sleep in a little, yay. No workout either, so it was rather awesome to wake to the sound of music, staring sleepily at the sun rising over the slope, shining right into my face.

It was a tad of a restless night. Chaos woke me a couple of hours before dawn by flopping down right on top of me, demanding to go off. The dog has some serious issues, and is smart to boot, because that is the one way he knows he’ll get lifted off the bed posthaste. Hah. Knight II, on the other hand, decided multiple times that he had to lie against me, and Amri wasn’t feeling well, and vomited twice. Poor darling. He totally overate yesterday.

Regretfully there were no edits last night. Our brains were just too mushy from a day in the city, so instead, after going through the messages, chatting online a bit, and catching up on the news, we decided to watch one of little brother’s movies: Fright Night.

I gotta say I was a little disappointed. The premises was nice (Gawd, it’s about vampires, what can possibly be wrong with that?) but the execution left me wanting more. Personally I like the more serious vampire flicks. “Interview with a vampire”, “Queen of the damned” (even though I wish Tom Cruise had played Lestat again. Not that Stuart Townsend did a bad job, he did fine, but in my head Lestat is still a blond Cruise. Hah), “Underworld” and “Bram Stokers Dracula”. “Fright Night” didn’t even hit my top five, even though it was funny at times, and not even badly played. Heck, there were even a few scary moments, which was definitely a plus.

But back to today. After the usual stuff like morning chores and breakfast, I made dough for today’s mid-day treat of…well, I suppose most people would call them a kind of donut. Tenant was feeling a little homesick, so I decided to make the traditional treat of her youth that is usually served ‘round this time of year. She liked it, had three in fact, before dozing off again.

The dough made and brought to the greenhouse to rise, it was time to head on out into the yard and fully enjoy the sunny day doing something markedly necessary: planting young seedlings.

Yep. It was that time again. Grandpa spent the last week turning earth down there. He keeps insisting, clearly determined to have it done right (in his eyes) and liking the task that reminds him of working the farm way back when. Liking the turning earth part myself (nothing like using a shovel to get your mind to shut up) I can relate.

But anyway, he’d turned earth, so for the majority of the afternoon big brother watered the older plants and I planted up to sixty plants of cauliflower, broccoli, white cabbage and kale. They look nice too, since they’re on these narrow little terraces in the lowest part of the yard.

Harvested a full meal of broccoli while we were down there, along with about ten pounds of potatoes and a few tomatoes too. There were lotsa bugs again, but that’s all part of the deal. We grow stuff, bugs necessary to pollinate try to eat stuff, I kill bugs, and the plants grow a bit longer. It’s the circle of life…sorta.

Tenant spent the afternoon with us, trying to read but dozing in the sun most of the time instead. She did enjoy coming down to the big terrace, rather than the one by the basin, because she hadn’t seen that part of the yard in at least a year. She walked all the way down, and several hours later, up again…boy will she sleep well tonight. Hah.

But we had the extremely fresh “donuts” for a late lunch, and I was stuffed. Big brother did a nap (so should I have, but what the heck) at which time I finished the baking and then helped grandpa loading up the car with garbage because we were going to take Knight II out for a nice long walk, lest the idiot drive me bonkers again. Hah.

And that, my friends, is all she wrote for today. I know, not a lot of interesting stuff, but life is just that, LIFE! We all have it, and I for one try to enjoy it while it lasts.
Gotta go. I have less then three hours to go before midnight, and I would like to have a teeny little nap before I start editing again. Hah.

And as a final bit: I wish you a wonderful, splendid, fruitful, adventurous, and HAPPY NEW YEAR!

See you in 2012

Catching up

Song of the day: “Big Spender” by Shirley Bassey and “Leaving on a jet plane” by John Denver. The first has been going through my head most of the afternoon, and the other started about an hour ago.

Sooooo…four days to catch up on, eh? Let me see if I can keep it a little short, rather than blabber on endlessly. Wouldn’t that be grand? Me, keeping it short? Yeah, I know, we just might have to contact the dailies afterwards. *sigh* Let’s not hold our breaths, okay?

No worries, there were four days of laundry, as usual. See, that was fast, eh? Four separate events dealt with in a single sentence. We might actually get through this within a decent time after all.

First of all, Monday (day after Christmas) big brother and I took tenant to the market with us. A nice outing for her, a surprise for mom and the younger sibs, and an opportunity for us to roam and look for power tools, generators, shoes and jeans. We found several, but nothing that suited our needs at that time. After helping mom and the sibs pack up, we took the scenic home, making the experience as adventurous as possible for tenant.

I gotta say that going into the yard afterwards, and the greenhouse, because we had transplant some of the new seedlings into pots, was wonderfully relaxing…despite the fact that there were bugs all over again. Hah. Definite plus was the big harvest of Broccoli which I used for our pasta with veggie dinner.

Since we had to go get rocks that night anyway, we took Thorgal to the vet, but apparently the clinic was closed for the holidays, so we took him along on the trip and let him run with Knight later on.

There was dinner, edits and then, because our focus was shot anyway, a nice hour or two watching Tears of the Sun with Bruce Willis and Monica Beluchi. Still a splendid movie.

The next day I had a solid workout, really punished the bag, thank you very much. I’m afraid I’m going to have to make a new cover soon, because the fabric is really wearing now, and the duct tape won’t hold indefinitely. Hah. The car had to be unloaded, and I made new chickpea patties for supper.

What followed was getting Njanna outside (Golden retriever with agoraphobia, really) and getting him up on the table (he’s also overweight) and cleaning his ear. He’s developed a new infection, so we’re going to have clean it frequently again. Since we were busy anyway, surgical gloves on and all, we got Carla (similar ear problem) up as well and cleared the cocker’s ears as well.

Spent most of the afternoon washing out my chairs. Gada’s becoming more incapable of controlling her bladder, so there you have the reason for this sudden cleaning spree. Luckily the sun was out, so I could just hose it all down, scrub it with soap and then let it dry most of the day.

I worked some on the new cupboard for my bathroom, three days ago, yesterday, and then again today. It’s going slow, but I’ll get there…someday. Also more work on the parking spot for the moped, which is slowly coming together now. The roof’s on, one wall panel is shut, and we only need to add a little more to the rock wall on the other side.

More yards work, followed by a quick trip to the igloo where I got out a couple of new pillows for my dogs, and some supplies for mom’s quilting.
There was another outing for building supplies, a walk with Knight II, and then the picture blog of the last time.

Which brings us to yesterday at last…see, I compacted two days in a single Word page, thankfully. We might get through this before midnight after all. Hah.
So yeah, yesterday:
First off, it was Big Brother’s birthday. We didn’t celebrate it. He hates pie and cake so I didn’t make any. We agreed he would get a full bag of paprika chips during tomorrow’s grocery shopping (yeah, the time is there again, yay).
One of the covers for my chairs didn’t get clean properly, so I had to rewash that after doing laundry this morning.

Next it was up to the terrace in front of my cabin setting Thorgal on the table and taking him in a chokehold with the help of grandpa so big brother could take out his stitches. We cleaned him up some as well, and then it was time for me to have breakfast and make some more of the special cleaning stuff we use for dog ears and open skin such as Thorgal’s .

I had to unload the car, and help tenant down to my terrace so she could spend the day reading and enjoying the sunshine, but then I went back to work on my cupboard. It is starting to look pretty good. Fake marble of lapis and gray color, over real and fake oak wood. All that remains now is attaching the door and then installing it. Yay.

Got another load of rocks, took Knight II for another walk (I try to do that as often as possible because he eats better if he had some exercise) and then spent another evening on the edit…which went rather well despite our time crunch. We still had to go out for a donation and didn’t come home until two in the morning. I was miserably cold, considering we spent more than half an hour loading in the full wind, but no matter, it was a good donation. Lots of stuff mom can use for the market.

And we have reached today. Still in page two…let’s do this fast.
Today’s activities were blissfully simple, really. First of all (after the usual chores such as laundry and breakfast, hah) there was the unloading of the car, followed by heading down to the greenhouse for watering and such.

That done, it was back up to the carport where big brother started to work on the moped corner again, while visiting Dani and I unloaded several hundred of pounds of dog food (in bags) from the storage behind me cabin. Apparently mice are still getting in there, but no matter that we emptied it completely, all we found were mouse droppings. Luckily Sitabah and Dax really enjoyed the endeavor. Seriously, you should have seen their tails wags a mile a minute.
Considering a new batch of food was brought today as well, filling the storage up again took some time.

Afterward I helped big brother with sawing a bit for the moped corner, followed by a bit more work on my bathroom cupboard, adding the finishing touches to the top while grandpa painted the oak doors up by the old horse paddock.

What followed was another trip to get sand, and having Knight II run some more. He’s getting better at the going out bit, I only had to get his butt out of the car once today. Seriously, before I had Knight II, I never knew a dog would rather stay in a car than go out and run around in the wild. *sigh*

Well, I still have an edit to do today and then, if I can manage I’m going to go for an early night, what with grocery shopping coming up tomorrow. Well, okay, going now.
Guess I will be back on Old Year’s Eve. Let’s see if I can make it a little interesting…I doubt it, but we’ll see. Hah.

Pix for a change.

So we're doing it slightly different today. No talk, just pictures and a short description. I'll bring you up to date in the next blog.

A good starter right here. The mutilated Acacia. *sigh* Luckily the view is still good. Hah.


The greenhouse from way up...where we recently trimmed the big-leafed mimosa.


The new floor for grandpa's moped, cordoned off for the dogs, of course.


The wall halfway done for the moped.


The back wall done.


A piece of wall of the road up to the gate, with Chaos and Labhana.


Did I do this one yet? The stove in the house. So cozy.


An average cloudy day. Makes me depressed, but it does look impressive.


Recently pruned olive tree in the courtyard. Quaint, eh?


A bunch of dogs (Dax in the middle behind the rope) enjoying the evening bothering us by sleeping around our feet in the carport. See all the old rugs there. They love those.


Our mountain from the west while we were walking the Knight. Hah


Our mountain top as seen through our eucalypti.


Grandpa's new porch roof.


Grandpa's little square, recently poured. Nice and smooth. See Sitabah back there.


New storage thingy I mentioned. You know, for car stuff.
This is the before shot, obviously.


Car stuff storage as good as done.


Digging in progress behind my cabin. We got a couple of tons of rock and dirt away here.


Wood storage by the old bus. Got triple this down there now, though.


The chimney I made on the house. Works like a charm.


Just because the view was so nice. Just look at that light. I love it when the light does that.


Knight II sleeping by the stove, half on top of Sitabah.


From the top to bottom. Indigo with Huckabee to the left, Tridatu under her head, and Kolossus at the bottom.


On the left, Sitabah, Chaos, Labhana and Chamea. On the right Knight II, of course.


Knight II. How's that for elegance? Jeez. Such a mighty beast, and then acting like a pup. *sigh*


Chamea, curling up less than a yard from Big Brother. Must. Stay. Close!


Sitabah on top of Chaos, something she often does. Hah


Here she's on top of Labhana, which also happens a lot.


Thorgal after his operation. Gawd, in the picture he looks dead! He isn't. It's healing nicely now.


Knight II, of course. I sometimes worry he breaks his legs when he lies like this.


Sitabah over Gada. Gada doesn't like it when she joins her in the chair, but Sitabah doesn't care. Hah.


That's it for today. I'm more than happy to call it a day.