Practically done!

Song of the day: “Coconut” by Harry Wilson. Awesome song. Makes me want to shake some booty, if you must know. Hah.

So let’s get this blog thing going. It’s rapidly getting late, and though today was a quiet day, all things considered, I’m close to calling it a day.

Yesterday: It was an early morning, really, seeing as there were plenty of preparations to be made before big brother, grandpa and I could depart for the balcony job. There were tools to load, cement bags to be hauled, wooden molds to be carried, and all those other little things that you need on a work day.

We left later than I had planned, but that mainly because binding stuff took more time than anticipated. One of which was the ladder we almost forgot until the last possible moment. Hah. No matter though, we arrived at eleven and immediately got started unloading everything we needed and setting up the molds. Regretfully they always took longer than anticipated and though I did a lot of preparations beforehand the actual concrete pouring wasn’t possible until 14:30.

First we tried it with me mixing cement and grandpa lifting the buckets up the ladder so big brother would be able to smoothen the floor. But that turned out to be impossible since the buckets were too heavy for grandpa to carry up. Since I am not a big fan of heights, and since that floor was well over 8 feet in the air, I couldn’t do much of the lifting because my limbs start to shake some when I stand on a high edge and I get out of breath, that was off too. So we ended up with grandpa mixing the cement and big brother hauling everything back and forth.

I’ll have you know that I conquered some of my height issues and did haul up an odd hundred or two up there, while I spent the majority of the afternoon on my heels and bending over smoothening the new floor surface. Gawd, that was a lot of bending over (have been suffering from severe muscle aches all day today) and of course we didn’t manage to finish the pouring at sunset. Worse, turns out we miscalculated the amount of sand we needed, meaning that Liane and I headed out at dusk to the nearest construction company and had to somehow manage to get a batch of sand to finish up our task. Luckily the place was nearby and still open, so we got a good load for ten bucks and headed back up the mountain so we could finish up.

Didn’t actually manage until nine in the evening. I did the whole floor minus the last two square feet that big brother did. Of course my foot decided to cramp up the moment I started down the ladder after many hours of squatting, which made for an interesting moment of teetering high in the air. Jeez. Stupid effin’ foot. Had to sit down for a bit afterward just to catch my breath. Scared the bejeezus out of me, I’ll tell ya.

As for the balcony...except for the finishing touching, it is practically done, so, yay! Right?

What followed was an hour of cleaning up and hauling stuff to the car. Grandpa, who’s usually in bed around nine in the evening, was pretty beat, so he retreated to the car after having done his fair share, leaving us to the last bits and pieces.

The ride home, feeling rather satisfied that we had managed it all in one day regardless of the hour, I drove home on a basically deserted road. That was rather nice, basically having the road to myself. It certainly shortened our traveling time by more than five minutes. Yay.

Once at home, and after eating the potatoes Cousin Ed had baked for us, we didn’t linger long (only some networking online, and some chats, of course) and managed to be in our respective beds before one in the morning.

Labhana was upset with me yesterday. She’s sit at a slight distance from me, looking at me balefully and turning her head away whenever I’d call her. Poor darling. She doesn’t like me being away most of the day. Chaos on the other hand broke through the door to come and greet me, which his did by jumping up against me, and almost making (shaky) me fall flat on my face. *sigh*

Having learned from the last thirteen hour work-day, I remembered to take a painkiller before going to bed, and slept a solid 6 hours without interruption and managed to catch a total of 7 and a half hours. I was remotely human this morning.

There was a big load of laundry waiting for me this morning, followed by feeding the dogs and then unloading the car from tools and rubbish. Since we were so late yesterday I missed my vet’s appointment with Knight and had to take him this morning instead. He is now only wearing a small piece of bandage and a sock, so let’s hope that he continues to heal so he’ll be without any trouble within the next few days. The vet was hopeful about it.

That done big brother and I headed for town so we could get some small items from the stores and make an appointment at the garage this Monday. The mechanic wasn’t there, but I did end up chatting a little with the receptionist who, as usual, was bored out of her mind sitting inside the office staring at the computer.

The appointment made we went home…with a slight detour because I talked big brother into taking a turnoff that I’d been curious about for months. Ended up back in town, and arrived home just a little late.

There I took some time covering up the sibs their market stuff with plastic because we’re going to need the trailer again on Friday when we go over there for the last time to pack up and clean up from the job. Cooked supper of cauliflower and chard, which took longer than expected because there was quite a bit of dirt clinging to the chard leaves.

Did manage to eat another piece of beef this afternoon (decided to do it for lunch with a fresh Satay) and though my stomach felt heavy most hours afterward, I didn’t get nauseous of it this time. Yay.

Worked a little on my second wood sculpture this afternoon too following the delicate shapes of the wood with relaxing pleasure.

As for anything else…nope, that’s about it...well, except for actually managing a bit of writing this evening. Not whole lot, mind you, but some at least.