Done at last

Song of the day: “You gotta be” by Des’Ree. Awesome song. Have known it for years, and it is still good.

I’m done, I’m done…well, technically anyway. Yay!!!
Oh right, you don’t have a clue what I’m talking about. I finished the book. Another one. At last. 96,901 words (only slightly over the maximum) amounting to 309 pages. Sure. I’ll need to add stuff, change stuff, remove stuff, edit, proofread and all that jazz, but the story, as is, is basically done! Double Yay!

I cried buckets last night during the end scene, smiled my relief today with the conclusion of it, and on the overall spent some odd ten hours (spread over three days) in an emotional roller coaster. My characters were milked for all they were worth, their lives put at risk, their love toyed with, and their happiness set on that precipice of “will, or won’t they?”. It is mean, I know. I am infinitely mean to my characters as I take them on this road of discovery into the lives they live inside my head. At the start we are as oblivious about what will happen, creating a journey of discovery for every party involved. I do admit to moments of insanity when they start arguing with me about some horror or other that I put them through, but such is life. Can’t change it, and wouldn’t if my life depended on it. Hah.

Let’s just keep it on, “I’m done, I’m done!” Yippeeeeee!

But anyway, we’ve been living in a world of clouds and rain lately. Winter is coming, and you can feel it in the air. For that very reason we started on the carport wall yesterday so we’ll be able to work there regardless of the weather. First off, since big brother was still pretty much worthless in regards of heavy lifting and such, grandpa and I spent considerable time sorting through the storage in search of the wood we’d need for the project. Door posts, terrace doors, beams, slats and boards got hauled down and in a matter of hours the first semblance of a door with post began to take shape. I dislike the planning stages, in particular when I can’t hold onto a thought…which is often the case when we start on a new project. Once I’m in it, it’s not a problem, but beforehand…*shakes hand*…not pretty.

We were in the midst of the endeavor when mom and little brother returned from a trip to town with the new (second hand) industrial sewing machine mom managed to find. Apparently, after carrying the dratted thing (five people, apparently) to the car and putting it there, they forgot to tie it up, meaning, that during their trip home it tipped over and smashed the back window. *sigh* There’s another trip to carglass for a replacement. Thankfully broken windows are part of our insurance package, because otherwise, yikes. Got an appointment on Monday.

Since big brother was not allowed to do any heavy lifting, grandpa and I got the machine’s table from the car, while cousin Ed carried the relatively small machine down to the house. Though no featherweight, by any means, I don’t entirely get why they had to carry it with five people. Grandpa and I managed just fine. The fun part was removing all that machine oil from the back of the car, which little brother saw to, along with the glass while I taped up the window.

What was next involved supper. Chili sin carne (could have added meat, of course, but I totally didn’t feel like it) which, despite my best effort became so spicy that I was almost incapable of tasting anything except the spiciness, darn it. Sure, I added some sweet chili to the mix, and some dried pepper, but what was really the cincher was the hot pepper that somehow ended up between our sweet peppers this year and really added some zest to the meal. A whole pack of cream, two cottage cheese and tortilla wraps didn’t significantly change matters. Luckily neither big brother, Sally, nor Cousin Ed minded, and since tenant didn’t mention anything either, I figured it wasn’t too bad. Hah.

That done, big brother and I headed for town, first to check if carglass was still open, but it wasn’t. Seeing as we had to go out to get rid of the piles of garbage that have somehow ended up mounted in the old paddock, it was not a complete loss.

The rain yesterday was miserly…at least until the night fell and I spent it restlessly waking about every hour. First there was the wind, which made my door open and close at an annoying rate, so I wedged it open with a small wooden stool. Second there was the thunderstorm that was right overhead. One second I’m sleeping and the next light blasts straight through my lids, followed instantly by a clap of thunder that made our mountain shake impressively. Now I don’t mind thunder all that much, so I fell right back to sleep, but within an hour the wind changed, and before I knew it, I was slammed in the face by ice rain that somehow made it all the way to my bed. Aaaargh. Next wake-up call was from Knight II, who thought it a good idea to slam his spine into my ribs and disrupted a rather nice dream, by then I had so much adrenaline in my system that it was all I could do to doze the remainder of the night, until my early alarm went off, because the bad weather required me to drive grandpa to the village for dog food.

First I took a dip in the pool, however. I know, insane right? It was barely seventy degrees, it was raining, but I was in desperate need to taking a cold dip to get rid of the cobwebs in my head. I’m thinking that very soon the pool will cease to be useful, because boy was it cold. Hah.

Dog food picked up in the village, grandpa and I made a quick stop at the supermarket, and then went back home, where I called big brother out of bed, and walked the visiting dogs prior to doing laundry. Not much drying happening at the moment, and the lines are getting to be pretty full so far. It better not be this weather too long, because there’s plenty of laundry now that I did some serious cleaning in my cabin.

That done, and the dog food prepared and distributed to the hungry pack, it was time for my own breakfast and a continuation of the most recent project. What with the doors hung yesterday, and with big brother working on installing a handle, grandpa and I continued with the side panels. A new support beam had to be set in place, slats sawed, and more parts looked for up in the storage. In the end, grandpa finished up the last bits while I tried to catch a few winks in my cabin. Knight II, Sitabah, Dax (he crawled under the blankets with me) and Chaos loved it. We all snuggled together. Ended up with about fifteen minutes of rest, at which time big brother and I headed out to the construction company to get the supplies for the fence we’re going to put up next week.

Got a small discount, which is always nice, and which will allow us to stay under the price we agreed on. Nothing annoys me quite as much as wrong calculations. We’ll soon see if we missed anything.

But anyway, once we were back, and dined on French fries, and pumpkin fries, it was back to writing the ending of the book, and this blog, of course. Luckily both are now done, because I am in serious need of some horizontal time. *sigh*