Pie!

Meh. I totally don’t feel like blogging today. It’s past ten in the evening, I’m way behind, and already I can hear my bed call for me. “Sam! Saham! Sammi, Sammi, Sammi!!” *sigh*

But anyway, what’s gotta be done has to be done.

Song of the day: “Next 2 you” by Chris Brown and Justin Bieber (*gasp*). I know what you’re thinking. Justin Bieber? But I stumbled on the song yesterday and it is in fact pretty nifty. I like. It’s been going through my head most of the day.

I’m drawing blanks again so forgive me if this is going to be a bit of a rush job, missing leaps and downs from the past couple of days, because, let’s face it, lots of it is already missing. Hah.

Well, first off, Sally’s birthday is tomorrow, so I made a semi-pie today. She’s on a no Gluten diet, so I kept the gluten low. Apples, pears, walnuts, almonds, raisins, and a mix of peanut butter and apricot jelly. Glazed the whole lot with cinnamon, nutmeg, vanilla sugar, brown sugar and white sugar, with a dot of butter and walnut oil, and finished off with cream. Gawd, it worked out well, in particular with the crumble top of ground cornflakes glazed as well. The recipe is sooooo going into my cookbook. Yay.
So yeah, totally greasy, but what the hey, it’s a birthday, right?

Did some gardening, of course. Watering has to be done most every day, in particular with this shortage of rain this year. The alfa alfa fields are finally growing properly. For a while I feared that I would have to re-sow, but luckily the first sowing took root after all. Big brother sowed some cauliflower in the multipot tray, along with Chinese cabbage. Put onions in ground, of course, and harvested a couple of cauliflowers and another small batch of broccoli. The first we had for supper today…along with potato.

Started off the day by going to town: Big brother had spent the night awake at his computer because something went wrong while he was installing a new program he’d downloaded. It was completely screwed up, meaning that he tried for hours and hours to fix it, only to make it worse. So we had to go to the computer repair shop, where the receptionist recognized us from the last time and commiserated with the latest problem. We won’t hear if they can fix the problem until the middle of next week. Big brother was miserable, and nauseous due to the shortage of sleep, meaning he needed nap while I headed into the yard to do the necessary stuff.

I decided not to wake him, and together with tenant worked on that pie, standing in the sun, feeding the dogs apple peels, which they absolutely love. Seriously, you’d think I was feeding them meat for all the enthusiasm they were showing.

There was a workout, naturally. A good pounding of the bag again. Kicking, punching, you know, the usual. It was actually rather nice after more than a week of doing without. This morning I didn’t do one, since I passed out after last night’s trip to pick up another donation. Seriously, I was so tired I passed out and didn’t open my eyes until half an hour before my alarm went off. So nice when you can crawl back in for another 30 minutes, eh? I love that. Of course when the alarm did go off, I was lying there for a solid fifteen minutes before I finally managed to drag my lazy butt out of bed to turn the dratted thing off. Since this morning we didn’t do a workout, we opted for a jog, together with Cousin Ed and her dog, while Knight II went along as well.

Got sand, which, at this time we’re storing differently. Grandpa has industriously been working at the storage area, and finally things are looking less like a garbage place over there. It is actually starting to look neat. The sand stock is also being streamlined.

Most of yesterday afternoon was spent washing the Land Rover. The thing was starting to look like a muddy blob, so the way I figured a washing was long overdue. It took some time but now it’s all nice and shiny again. Heck, I even cleaned out the inside and that one was really bad. Hah.

Finished making that candle holder. It looks good, in case you’re wondering, and as soon as I can, I will make a picture.

Helped tenant out. She appears to be in a somewhat odd mood of late. I don’t know what’s up with her, but she’s snappy, grumpy, and absentminded…worse than usual. It doesn’t help that she has a headache at the moment. She’s been viciously attacked by a bug of some sort, to which she has been showing an allergic reaction.

Did an edit, of course, though not as much as we should. We’ve been making long days, and by the time we sit down at the end of the afternoon, we’re often running on fumes. Still, all things considered, it is not all that bad.

Well, that’s about it. Time to do another edit (already did one before starting the blog) and then: To bed!

True romance???

Song of the day: “If I die young” by The Band Perry. I am so happy I heard of this band. I love this song…which I should considering it gets stuck in my head so often. Hah. Also had Harry Belafonte’s “Shake Senora” which is basically a standard song that pops up in my head whenever I go into the greenhouse. It’s because we have to shake the tomato plants. Hah.

So, I am not entirely sure what to tell, my brain, you know, it is at the moment completely blank as to what the past couple of days involved.

Town. Right. I went to town the other day. Totally forgot about that. There was a trip to town involving dropping metal off at the junk yard. Seriously, the path down to the car port looks absolutely divine at the moment. There’s SPACE there. And apparently there’s like a highway rather than just a narrow path. Hah. We came home afterward and grandpa had completely cleaned it all…and it was gorgeous, gorgeous I tell ya.

Did some groceries, I think. Yes that was yesterday as well, and went into the yard hunting for enough harvest to make supper. Ended up adding a package of bought carrots to make up for the lack.
Spent an hour or three in the yard to boot, which was downright wonderful what with the sun shining brightly. We’ve been getting rain predictions but the sun is persisting. Hah.

Finished making mom’s desk lamp. Turned out nicely if I do say so myself. It took some effort to drill a hole in the glass cover I decided to put up to hide the energy saving monstrosities. Gold-ish foot, wooden standard and a gold disk from which the light comes. It works really well, I’ve heard.

The boarding dogs had to be walked, of course, but this morning big brother did the honors since I was doing my kickbox workout. Yay. Yep, finally managed to drag myself outta bed on time and pounded the bag for a bit. Of course, when big brother locked the dogs in the carport with me so he could walk the boarders, kicking was a lot harier than before. Gada and Dax just kept insisting on playing with Sitabah right underneath the bag, darn them. It made me almost go flat on my face when I had to stop a kick in mid-air. Grrr.

Took the Knight for a couple of walks. He really is not getting enough exercise so we’re taking an hour every now and then to make sure he trots at least…which reminds me, we were walking by a small river today, and the big lug didn’t realize that the pool he stepped into was deeper than his legs were long. Splash. He was so startled, he splashed all over the place in his attempt to reach me on the other side of the river. Took him by surprise for sure, because for the remainder of the walk he stuck to my side like glue…even when I almost lost my footing and grabbed his collar to keep from taking a dip as well. Hah.

Found another Jack Vance book in big brother’s closet, so I’m psyched. After finishing Lyonesse, I was a bit at loose ends, and compared to Vance’s innocent and totally sweet taste in romance, Christene Feehan read a lot like porn. *sigh* What is this world coming to that a dude can write better sweet romance than a dudette?

Seriously, what is wrong with this picture?
Vance: boy and girl meet each other and feel something. There’s some hand holding, some sweet looks, a kiss or two, and a reasonable consensus that she’s a year or two too young yet. Still, she feels happy around him, and he is enchanted by her before there’s an all’swell that ends well.
Feehan: she was raped multiple times, beaten, lied to while and before meeting a dude who’s so scarred (all over) that he needs to imitate a jackhammer to reach sexual completion. He WANTS to give her tenderness, but his brutish tendencies are just too strong…and she really does like it, apparently. They have loads of sex, shoot some people (that was the fun part if you ask me) and then decide that they just might love each other.
I don’t get it. What changed? It’s a conundrum, isn’t it?

But where was I?
Painting! Right, I did some painting. Okay. Now I remember. This morning, after the usual chores, (you know, laundry and such) I painted most of the banisters over by my terrace. Also several beams of the carport (with stuff in it against termites and such) the back of my cabin and the doors to the dog food shed. The posts of the courtyard gate got treated as well, and the entire balustrade around the basin and garden pit. Since I was working down there anyway, I also painted the balustrade toward the small gate and the lower beam underneath the raised seedbed. Most of the wood was so dry it sucked the paint like a dehydrated camel, or something. Hah.

Did some woodwork today, making a small candle holder just for the heck of it. It actually worked out nicely…at least I think it did. I still have to paint it.

The edit went rather well, yesterday. Managed five pages at least, despite me being terribly distracted on the Amazon discussion forums because one discussion thread was killed, meaning that I had to catch up with more than three hundred posts, and then figure out where everyone had gone afterward. Hah.

Ah well, that should do it for today. I’ve got other stuff to do yet and then I’m thinking of calling it an early night.

Demolition

Song of the day: “Come on” by Will Young. Still a gorgeous song and I don’t mind at all to have it tumbling around in my head.

Not a lot of stuff happening these past couple of days, seeing as we continued on the same project, in this case the demolition of the wreck on the property. We have sawed, we have cut, drilled, turned, bent, hammered and all in all had a very, very good time at diminishing the blasted thing to manageable parts. Yay. Who cares that my hands are in tatters, and that big brother ripped one of his favorite pants to pieces. The eyesore is gone for once and for all…well, it will be as soon as we get rid of the old metal pieces. Hah.

I wasn’t in the best of moods yesterday. Not so much grumpy as I was a bit listless. My night had been way too short (less than six hours of sleep) and for most of the day I had trouble focusing.
Did walk the boarding dogs twice, which they appear to enjoy a lot. Did need to make some shortcuts since the other dogs were out and about, but the boarders like the challenge of having to climb the side of the wall to get back to the house.

For some reason, I don’t know when, I busted my knee, meaning it is swollen somewhat fierce. In particular in the evenings. *sigh* Most unpleasant. It made going down into the yard very uncomfortable in the morning. Later, when my muscles woke up it became less bad, thankfully. Checked the greenhouse, both yesterday and today…and even went as far as transplanting some lettuce plants from the seedbed into pots. They’re looking rather good, so I was actually not at all eager to dig ‘m out. No helping it, though; the ones already in pots took a big hit during the hail storm.
We re-sowed beets (the experiment of sowing early failed), and some rows of carrots. And also, big brother had to take out the young onions which we’ll have to replant up in grandpa’s little yard.

Though yesterday the weather was absolutely splendid, today things have been changing for the worse. From the north west clouds have gradually been sliding in, filling the air with moisture and covering the sky…pity. I would have liked a few more days of good weather. I’m keeping my fingers crossed that tomorrow the sun will be back.

We parked the car, belonging to the owner of our boarding dogs within the fence. There’s a lot of traffic going on at night, and since our neighbor once had his radio stolen, we don’t want to risk finding something gone, or wrecked for that matter.

I finished the Jack Vance trilogy of Lyonesse. I gotta admit that I had a load fun reading them. Only one more of Vance’s books to go, though. Last one of big brother’s beloved collection, and I should probably cherish it, since stuff like that doesn’t get written anymore. Not much character based, nor even plot, just undiluted adventure, which makes it special in a very different way.

Doggie news: we have a sick dog. Purna (black cocker spaniel) has liver problem, so mom and little sister are scrambling to take care of the little darling. Liver problems, kidney problems; they’re the worst kind. It is so strange he’s ill, in particular since his mood is so cheery still.

Chaos has fully recovered from his visit to the vet. If I didn’t know better I’d think it never happened. He’s barking again, sniffing around the yard, trying to make Knight II behave by going all Alpha on him, and snoozing on the bed several hours a day. I swear, sometimes he’ll be standing in the doorway of my cabin, barking his head off. Then, I will go inside and say, “Okay, go to bed than” and he will dart into the bedroom and jump up against the bed, looking up at me reproachfully. Tail high, he lets me lift him up on the bed, where he will trot to the pillows and flop down on his side. After two or three rubs of his cheek into the pillow he will promptly drop off to sleep. Such a peculiar dog, a Basset Hound.
Grandpa is upset at the moment. He lost the pocket watch I made for him, and no matter where he looks, he can’t find it. *sigh* I’m afraid I’m going to have to help search for it, otherwise he’ll feel really bad. Hah.

There was cooking, of course, but yesterday involved leftovers from the day before, and today I baked potatoes with a veggie mix on the side. I like baked potatoes, thank you very much. Big brother and I really are potato people.

Big brother has been distracted and absent a lot the past few days again. He’s working on the computers, installing new programs, fixing old problems, and regretfully that sort of thing really takes a lot of time. He’s learning a lot, though, which is a good thing. Would be weird if he didn’t learn after reinstalling that darn OS a gazillion times.

We went for a jog. A new path this time. I didn’t do all that well (not surprisingly after that short night, but what the heck) in particular not since half was uphill. Hah. It was good for Knight II, though. He got to run proper for a bit.

Got another big batch of sand, which we will have to unload tomorrow morning because we have to go to town before midday. Grandpa has already offered to do the honors, so, yay.

Had a good edit last night, despite me running on fumes again. Managed several pages, at which time I ended up in bed on time for a change. Double yay. Hopefully the same will happen tonight…referring to turning in, of course. Hah.

And by now I am drawing blanks as to what else to write about, so I’ll stop right here…