Notice:

I can't predict when I have the time to post a new blog, but check occasionally. I'm going to try at least weekly.

Friday, June 8, 2012

Bat territory?

Song of the day: “Paradise” by Coldplay. I actually don’t like this song at all, but apparently that doesn’t make much of a difference to my freaky brain. Hah.

First things first. A bit of bad news concerning the new puppy little sister took in. Poor little darling is a bit sick and had to be quarantined at the vet’s just in case. The way things look now, it might be something dangerous, so now it is crossing our fingers and hoping that it isn’t. We really can’t have some contagious disease playing rampant in our pack. We’ve got some really old fellas walking around and they are terribly sensitive for this kind of thing…at least that’s what the vet says. Keep yer fingers crossed for me, please.

Also took Nata (12/13 year old golden retriever) to the vet, afraid that maybe he caught something of the puppy because he is not keeping his food in, and liquid is also coming out on the other side. Poor old fella. Not feeling well at all. Same goes for Tadaika, who hasn’t eaten properly in two days (luckily she’s fat as heck) and even my Chaos, who’s looking melancholy while all three of them appear to be moving through air as thick as molasses. Take this morning, for instance, Chaos stood, without exaggeration for a full five minutes in the pool, fully enjoying the cool water. Hah

But okay, big brother and I have been focusing mainly on computer work, meaning that after the morning chores and dog food we’ve been heading out to the basin terrace to work on the query letter and synopsis. Got most of it done too, meaning that come Monday (probably) we’ll put both in the mail and see how it works out. Yay.

Garden work is of course a continuing thing. We’re harvesting about eight zucchinis a day now, along with a nice batch of broccoli (new ones are blooming now) and cabbages aplenty.

Temperatures are pretty darn fierce the past couple of days (now it’s cooled off a little, thankfully) getting close to 100 degrees now, making your skin all sticky with the least bit of physical activity. Not that it really matters, of course. But the wind that started about an hour before dusk was absolutely wonderful.

Way too much distracted by finishing this latest book thing so that we can finally start on the new project. It is just lurking there, along with the challenge of working differently this time around. It’ll be such a challenge.

Another thing that is taking some of my attention these days, is the fact that we’re also trying to study just a bit of Spanish in the mornings. Not too long, and really just studying verbs and their use along with a translation of some random piece of text. It isn’t going bad, but I find it hard to remember most of it at the end of the day. Working on queries and synopsis do that to me. They turn my brain to mush. Hah.

I am going to need to make it an early night tonight, because I’m exhausted. I woke up at five this morning and couldn’t sleep for several hours. I don’t know what’s wrong with me for the past few days, but eating is incredibly hard, if not practically impossible at times, and my sleep…well, it is nothing to write home about, really. Jeez. I need some serious shut eye.

Oh gawd. The bat. I almost forgot the bat! I had just come out of the pool and walked through my bedroom to get the towel that I often have hanging on the tree in my little back yard. I grab the darn thing, dusk is just over with, and night has almost completely settled when I bring the towel to my face and suddenly feel something flutter against my cheek, then my shoulder and then scratching down my arm before it flies off with my swearing chasing after it. I mean seriously, I almost had a heart attack there! Not to mention a freak out. That is definitely the first for me. Never had an up close and personal with a bat before. Hah.

I stil have to finish preparing that interview. I’ve got most of the questions handled, but the rest is still waiting in the to do section of my lists. *sigh* I did find the old banners and such, so I should be able to handle it soon.

Big brother is printing one of my recipes. The vet’s very capable assistant really liked it when I gave that piece of vanilla rice tart that one time, and she’s been waiting for the recipe ever since. Doesn’t a shortage of time suck?

The pool is warming up quickly. In fact, at the end of the afternoon it is downright balmy. In the mornings, on the other hand, the water is downright wonderful and cool. Yay.

Well, my dogs are impatiently waiting for me to join them on the bed, so I’m going to finish my messages and then hit the sack.

Wednesday, June 6, 2012

MOT stuff, grrrrr

Song of the day: “Live and let die” by Paul McCartney. I can’t help it, I heard it last night on Radio Gibraltar where they were following the Jubilee of Queen Elizabeth in London. It was off key, the music overpowering the voices (I barely recognized his) and…well, it was a lot in quantity and very little in quality, I must admit, much to my regret.

It was nothing short of a miracle, but I actually got to bed before one in the morning, can you believe it? It’s a rare thing, I tell ya. I was very tired, though, so maybe it wasn’t all that surprising. Admittedly I was in a bad mood, most of yesterday, and the evening before, leaving me with troubled thought through the night while I had to get up early in order to be able to do the daily chores, and feed the dogs before we headed out to Malaga.

Oh, I told you about that, didnb’t I? Yesterday was MOT day for the Opel, meaning that we had a double, due to the installation of the pull bar that we had installed a couple of weeks ago. So we went out, an hour before our due date, arrived right on the spot, went to the register to announce our presence and then the waiting started. Luckily, due to the appointment we made we only had to wait for about fifteen minutes before it was our turn. Went well, I think. We passed, so that’s yay. For a while I didn’t think we would get our sticker for this year, in particular not when they started on the brakes, but we passed, so we can at least postpone that event for a bit. *phew* Much relief there.

But anyway, afterward we headed into Malaga to search for a store that sells mail boxes. In order to get one for our home address, we’re only allowed to have one kind. So we looked it up on maps, memorized the way we had to go, and arrived on site to find…nothing. The store seemed nowhere in sight, so I went into a local bar and asked…well, I asked if the tender spoke English (no!) and then very carefully, in my very bad Spanish if he knew where I could find the post box store. Thankfully he had no trouble interpreting my question and informed me that the store was gone, shut down, closed, disappeared without a trace. *sigh* Figures. The temps were up to a hundred, the engine getting too hot for us to use the AC and…well, we survived, so who cares, right? We just gave ourselves a pat on the back for finding the store at all, without taking a wrong turn. Hah.

We came home around three and I was solidly enough overheated to want to take a dip in the pool. Tenant and caregiver were just done with their own, so I met them down at the basin terrace where big brother and I settled in for a reread of the query letter and synopsis. Regretfully big brother hardly slept at all during the night, so he ended up napping while I worked a bit on an idea I’ve been playing in my head with for several. Yes, don’t laugh, darn it, there’s ANOTHER book in my head. I can’t help it, really. Several times per year one or two pop up and refuse to leave. *sigh* Only did about half a page, so it’s nothing disastrous, or anything, but I really should be careful with that kind of thing. Sure, I’ve written up to thirty books now, but I still have about one hundred and twenty to finish. *double sigh*

But okay, no prob. That done it was time to head down into the yard for watering, and some harvesting. The zucchinis are doing extremely well. Taking in about ten of ‘m per day, and the first two bags of chopped ones are already in the freezer. Yay. Cousin Ed also made a very nice zucchini soup, so we even managed to gobble some of that down at the end of the day. I was soooo not hungry, both yesterday and today.

After that, there was making dog food, of course, along with some other pesky little chores. What followed was another read-through of the soon-to-be package to the publisher, followed by some messages and chats, a message plus picture of tenant from tenant, sent to her family and then the day was over. Yay. I was psyched that I actually managed to get to bed before one in the morning. It is a rare thing, I tell ya. Slept straight through the night too, not waking up until eight twenty five in the morning, five minutes before my alarm went off.
I could have slept on, of course, but what the heck.

The plan was to get to work as soon as the morning chores were over and done with, but by the time we settled down to work, I got an important family message and was busy all day writing back and forth. *sigh* I know, I don’t have time for that sort of thing, but sometimes such things just take priority. Family stuff can do that to ya, I guess.

That done, and it being too late to do any more work before we had to go out, it was into the yard to water stuff and harvest a nice batch of dog food. Grandpa offered to cut that for us so we could take a short break for supper. Ratatouille over macaroni, which big brother prepared. I still wasn’t hungry so it was over and done with in no time whatsoever. That’s when we headed for town for a pickup of wood. Managed to shove it all into the Land Rover and then went to the supermarket for a few groceries.

Didn’t come home until after dark, at which time we got behind our computers to check messages, print the package and then…well this bog. I've gotta say that I'm proud of the dogs. They are behaving so well these days whenever we need to go out. They are giving grandpa and Ed a lot less trouble.

Now it’s late, well past midnight, so I’m calling this a day.

Monday, June 4, 2012

Past midnight

Song of the day: “Cooler than me” by Mike Posner. I know, how superficial am I, right? Hah. Still, it’s nicely catchy, and has been driving me effing bonkers for most of the day.

So okay, I’m incredibly late. And when I say late, I mean LATE. Right now, while I’m starting today’s blog it is twenty to twelve in the night, so I better do this fast so I can get to bed. Because, seriously, tomorrow is going to be a long day. First off we have to go to the MOT with the Opel, and then we need to go into Málaga in search of a place where they sell a particular post office box that we need in order to get mail delivered to our address instead of a PO box in the village. *sigh* Of course we are not allowed to place just any post box, noooo, it’s gotta be the same, and this particular design can only be bought at one address in the big city. *double sigh*

First off, we have a new member in the pack. Little sister was missing her Manni too much, so she folded and went to look for a poor little bugger that needed rescuing. She found a three month old cocker spaniel, black and while like Manni was, and a sweetheart. I have pictures, but I won’t place them today, there just isn’t any time. The little tyke does have a few deficiencies, probably the reason he was left to fend for itself on the street, (he was found wandering about five days ago), like a blind eye since birth, and a hernia, which the vet said he’d grow out of. At least he’s got a loving home now, eh?

But anyway. Yesterday was a nice quiet day working at home. First off the usual chores…yes, you can guess those easily enough. Same old same old. Hah. First off, big brother and I worked primarily on the trailer (that was of course after dog food) putting both fenders in place, they worked out really well, and yes, I have pictures of that too, and will place them as soon as I’ve got a moment to spare. If I may say so myself, they worked out really well. In fact they look like they belong with the wagon, hah. I love it when a plan works out. Makes me feel very McGuyverish. *snort*

Though the task wasn’t entirely done, we did go down to the basin terrace where we worked on the query letter for BTD, along with its synopsis. It didn’t go as well as planned, since on the most part we were both battling droopy eyes. Decided then and there that today we would do it different somehow.
The work on the computer done, big brother headed up to the carport to get building supplies (he had to make a threshold in the small storage down by the basin terrace) cousin Ed and I divided our attention between watering the vegetable plants and harvesting dog food.

Tenant, who opted to remain up by my cabin terrace, did offer to prepare veggies such as kale and potatoes, and sat with the puppy for a bit, fully enjoying its sweetness. We ate that in the afternoon, in between writing part of the synopsis, because it really didn’t take all that much work to blender the lot and put in some butter.

The watering did take a while, despite us only needing to do the small stuff, but then I had to rush on up to help Cousin Ed load up the Opel for today’s market. Grandpa steadily chopped his way through the piles of dog food, while big brother worked some more on the trailer until both fender were sturdily in place.

The end of the evening was spent cleaning up whatever messes we had made in the carport (so grandpa wouldn’t have to do it) and then spent a short while online, and reading through the query letter again before heading for bed.

Which brings us to today. What we different was that after the morning chores, breakfast and feeding the dogs, we went down to the basin terrace and started computer work immediately. It allowed our brains to work with fresh energy, so to speak, and yes, we did manage to write the whole synopsis and the query letter at last. *phew* I was worried there for a moment. Sure, we still have to edit it, cut it, rearrange it and what not, but the basics are there. Yay.

Three and a half hours later we were up in the carport working on the trailer. The plan is to make the edges higher so Cousin Ed can carry more stuff to the market without having to stuff the Opel to full capacity. Got the corners done in metal, and will have to do the rest with wood, which will make it look cute, I think. Hah.

A bit of good news, by the way, remember that classic car model I restored and showed the other day? Well, they sold it today for the amount that we’d set beforehand. There was the geezer at the market that stood staring at it from all sides for a good twenty minutes, and then finally, after hearing that he’d get the box too, and that another market fellow assured him that it was a good price, bought it. Imagine that. First day at the market, and within the first few hours it’s gone. Makes ya wonder if maybe I should have asked more, eh? Not bad for 4-6 hours of work.

But anyway, at a certain point we had to start rushing a little. Time was going way too fast, and I had to leave big brother to finishing the corners of the trailer while I got started on the dog food until Cousin Ed arrived. Then, when she was there, I headed on down (with the veggies tenant cut) to cook supper and to start watering the plants. Big brother finished the latter while I focused on our meal and brought Cousin Ed and tenant their fair share. It worked out well. Made ratatouille with bean patties on the side. Filled me right up.

Then the reason for us rushing arrived. We had to go to town for a pickup, which meant that we were out for a solid two hours, which we really could have used better, if I’m honest. I mean, really, I want to start on the new book, and would like to see this latest project in the mail before the end of spring. *sigh*

Which reminds me, I swam in the pool, for the first time this year, on the first of June. Yay! I was psyched, I assure you, and cold afterward, since I am not at all used to that anymore. Hah. Also took tenant for a dip today, and she wanted out again in less than three minutes. Hah. Ah well, the refreshing dip was nice regardless.

Well, that’s it. I’m sure I’m missing something, but what the heck. I need some horizontal time.