Weeds

Song of the day: …hmmm. I actually don’t know the title. It’s from Andy McDowell, the song she sings in the movie Michael. It goes like: “I’m sitting by the side of the road, in the middle of nowhere…” Incredibly cute song, and it does pop up in my head every now and then. Today I had “the Lion Sleeps Tonight”, which is awesome.

Yesterday.
I overslept…oh wait, let me do “a big brother” and phrase that properly: I slept in yesterday, so I got my full seven hours during the night for a change. Hah.

So we have another visiting dog. Mom went to fetch him from the local pound (there’s some serious trouble going on at the pounds due to the economic crisis. Seriously, there’s rumors that would horrify you) for a friend of ours, who wishes to give him a new home in the Netherlands. It’s cute little fella of the Brittany breed. He has about one speed, which is full throttle, and just looking at him moseying around, is exhausting. Seriously, an energizer bunny doesn’t have anything on this little fella. Since he doesn’t have a name yet, I’ve decided to call him Hairy for the duration of his stay. Hah. Luckily he and the other visiting dogs get along just fine, and he is affectionate to other dogs as much as humans.

I had a rather nightmarish dream where I was trying to shape Spanish sentences, only to end up with “que pena” (what a pity) time and time again. Very frustrating. So when big brother called me on the phone I was more than a little grateful and got up fast to rush through the morning rituals.
There was laundry and such to be done, of course, but considering that it is incredibly boring to relate to you my OCD tendencies when it comes to wet laundry and clothes pinchers, I figure I’ll skip that again. *snort*

Instead big brother and I grabbed Carla, put him on the table and finally tackled his infected ears. It wasn’t fun, for none of us, but after shaving, mopping up, and soaking his ears we were haggardly satisfied with the end result, and watched Carla mosey off much happier.

Editing wise yesterday was a good day. Managed to get a total of seven pages done of the latest project. A good thing too, considering we managed less than four today. *sigh*
Time is so fleeting these days.

Tenant has been…well, things are still the same in that regard. There’s this big struggle going on with her claming she’s not thirsty or hungry, and us trying to convince her of the opposite. Today didn’t go all that bad, however. By feeding I managed to get her to eat two cups of mashed fruit, and one cup of mashed veggies with chickpeas, and some mashed apples as desert. Added to that she’s drank some fruit juice, and some water, so all in all, despite her not making her quota, it didn’t go bad. Let’s keep our fingers crossed.
Her daughter did write a rather splendid bit of news today that she’d found this whole batch of old photos, going back as far as 80 years, all of them involving tenant’s past. She’s going to send them to see if that might wake tenant up a little. It better, because right now we’re battling bed sores. We’re going to have to put a sheepskin under her.
Yesterday big brother had to go with caregiver to the village infirmary so they could check on the tubing attached to tenant’s kidney. Since big brother is the only one who can carry her, he became the automatic volunteer for the task. Sally, who had walked into a chair with her barely healed shin (bled like mad again), had to go along as well so the doc could check out the damage. Luckily everything went well.

Did plenty of cooking the past few days. Saltless stuff for tenant, but some decent dishes for us too. Made Broccoli soup, chickpea patties, Chilli, and ratatouille with pasta, and of course pasta with a creamed mushroom sauce. Each dish worked out well. Tasteful and nourishing, which is all that really matters, for as far as I’m concerned.

Went out for some groceries, and a load of firewood. Took some time to load up, but the trip was well worth it.

This afternoon was spent (rather wonderfully) in the sunshine, chopping my way through weeds. Seriously, what with the rain these past weeks, weeds have been growing like mad, coming up to chest height. It was good therapy going through it with a hand scythe, hacking, chopping, creating a decent path through which we could move unhindered. Will be plenty of compost in the near future.

Well, this will have to be it for now. I’m missing stuff, but what the hey, you won’t miss what you don’t know about, right? *wink*

Acceptance

Song of the day: “Hey Na Na Na” by Vaya Con Dios. It’s an oldie, I know, but sometimes those just work best…talking about old, I had Vivaldis “Spring” in my head for a bit, late this afternoon.

Wednesday. Boy, does a week go fast. Last week we had our first Spanish lesson, and right now the second one is over and done with. Wonky thought. It didn’t go bad, despite the fact that these days my brain feels like some sort of sieve. One moment I’m repeating some word that would e infinitely useful in the future only to forget it again within ten minutes. *sigh* But no matter, I will darn well (re)learn some of the basics, even if it kills me.

It has been a busy couple of days, in particular since there was lots of going to the village/town. Feels like we’ve hardly been at home at all these past couple of days. First there was just me driving to town to drop the Land Rover off at the garage, only to be distracted with everything going on and ending up with a speeding ticket *gasp*!
Yep. Popped my cherry there. My first ticket ever. Grrr. Was going down and incline, thinking way too deeply, only to have something flash, and me think “ what the…” only to be flagged to the side of the road the next second by a couple of Guardia Civil.
They weren’t unfriendly about it, so I can’t say it was particularly traumatic. I was just momentarily chagrinned about the entire ordeal while I considered the funds I’d have to dig out my savings. Grrrrrr.

Soon I was back on my way, (one of the fellas apologized for being tardy with the ticket. Technology stinking, and all that) heading straight for town where I needed to refill the butane bottles at the distribution center. Next I popped into the supermarket for bread and cheese (due to the arrival of Olive and Jane, I had to explain some things for tenant’s care to them, rather than have breakfast) and then brought the car in. The moment I drove in and set it on the bridge the mechanic did an “oopsie, you might have an oil leak” which made me swear and then roll my eyes as I headed down to shoot the breeze with the receptionist for the next half hour or so…or maybe I should say I did some serious bitching about this month. Jeez!

Luckily she can relate, considering she had a near miss with death at the hospital at some point in the past month, because they gave her a wrong antibiotic that made her bone marrow stop making red blood cells…which had me going, like, “okay, you win. You’re month was worse.” Hah.

But anyway, the supposed leak turned out to be nothing. Thank you very much! And the problem we’d come there for wasn’t a problem at all. Yay! That was settled with twenty bucks for there time, so I was seriously happy at the end.

Once home (took a slight detour through the country and almost got stuck in a river, hehehe) big brother and I did some edits prior to heading out for a donation that will work well as dog food in the near future. Seriously, we got a big, bit load of veggies so that’s going to help.

Tenant is not doing well…at least, it is not improving. At the moment she just wants to sleep, can barely sit up anymore, and is just drifting away from us. Rather sad, if you think about it, but wherever we turn in an attempt to help her, to find out what is amiss, we are being sent elsewhere, or are told that it is just age playing parts on her. So frustrating, but since our talk with the GP there is not much choice than to accept it as reality. Such a strange thought that someone who has been part of our lives for some odd thirty years, might soon not be here anymore. Accepting is difficult, but…no choice really.

There were more edits both yesterday and today. And did I mention laundry? Feeding the dogs? Swearing at the Knight for touching his sock again? And cooking?
No?
Well, I won’t bother you with it, I promise. Just the usual messes, partly interrupted by big brother and I stopping at the vet’s with Empera (German Shepherd) who appeared to be getting worse during the night. The vet has now prescribed her Cortison and valium so she’ll keep nice and quiet. Glad she’ll be in less pain, because last night she was really uncomfortable. Even crying a little at times.
We have set off a corner for her where we work, so she won’t be locked away from us.
Lastly we had to pick up another donation, which, prior to cooking supper (ratatouille and spaggetthi) and a nice little mash for tenant with some chicken in it.

I managed to choke down some meat this afternoon, but just barely

Which brings us to the end of today’s blog. I need sleep!

Not easy

Song of the day: “Dancing on the ceiling” by Lionel Richie. Gawd, I feel old when I think of that one. I remember being a wee little girl when it was a hit. Hah.

Saturday morning started at the normal time with more rain, darn it. I am so ready for spring. First thing that had to be done was exchange Knight’s sock. He’d wrecked the last one again, so…ah well. What can I say, he’s an idiot.

Empera, one of our German Shepherds is suddenly sagging through her hind legs, we watched the progress until this morning, and took her to the vet this morning. After an X-Ray the vet decided that it might be a swelling and cramping of muscles along her spine, meaning she needs complete rest, anti inflamatories and a strong B complex to improve her healing rate. Let’s hope it works, because the hernia in which it could result, would be disastrous…I know, I once had a Labrador retriever suffering from a whole set of hernias that finally forced me to have him put down.

The mornings are once again consistent of walking the visiting dogs. They really really like that, even when it rains. They’re really used to it these days. Pera, one of the mixed breeds, really start jumping up at me when I let her out first thing in the morning.

Saturday we met two ladies who are willing to help out with tenant’s care, and Sunday they came over to try out how it would work with tenant. They’re a nice lot, this Olive and Jane, hardworking, friendly (though Jane is really shy) and eager to please. After taking care of tenant, and doing some basic cleaning, they were fully planning on walking all the way home to the village, so of course Cousin Ed drove them home instead. Since on Sunday they don’t have a car available to them, this looks like what will become the routine, because we can hardly expect them to just walk that distance, come rain or shine. Luckily by car it only takes a few minutes, and it’s not as if we haven’t done that trip before for the same reason for when Sally still had her job.

Managed to eat meat again, twice no less. Good Sammi. Tried a different meat, more tender, and it went way better. That’s a relief, since the last few times were nigh on disastrous. Could barely keep myself from hurling. This stuff is better, and easier to swallow to say the least. Yay.

There was cooking involved. For ourselves and the saltless stuff that tenant now insists on. So strange how that works, in particular since most of the time she refuses to eat at all. Today was no walk in the park, in that regard. Drinking went so bad that I felt obligated to call the doctor to come and check her out. Luckily he says she’s dry but not dehydrated. Which is a relief because we were already dreading another ER visit. Like hospital doctor’s the GP is pretty sure that age is playing parts on tenant, and I have no choice but to accept that at this point. He even doesn’t see much use to a visit to the hospital to a MRI scan, because he’s pretty sure that she might have suffered some microscopic strokes. So we’ll just let that depend on the social services doctor and no longer insist.

Took a trip into the yard and harvested a nice batch of lettuce, broccoli and some chickweed. It was a nice hour to unwind. I should be doing more of that. The yard needs the attention, and I need the relaxation.

Edits have been slow but steady. Are almost at page sixty, so that’s not bad at all. I recently realized that this is a very exciting time. I’ve got several stories being considered by publisher and added to that I am still in the running at ABNA. In fact, if I make it to the next round I will be traveling to the States (imagine how exciting that will be for the blod) to join the venue of the award. Very exciting all.

There were dogs to feed, of course, laundry to wash, laundry to hang and laundry to fold. There were chores, there was bit stuff and there was small stuff. The days past fast, so I guess they were pretty full.

We did manage to start on the second window for the outside kitchen, yay. It is only the basic that still needs a frame, but what the hey, you’ve gotta start somewhere, right? Might as well be the movable part of the window.

Had our appointment at the garage today, but luckily I phoned first. Turns out they couldn’t guarantee that they’d get to the Land Rover today, so we agreed I’d come tomorrow instead…wish I’d known that before we rushed through the morning and the dog feeding, but at least there was no wasted trip

Well, that’s it time for bed, it’s late.