Izzy

Song of the day: “The boy does nothing” by Alesha Dixon. Yep. I made a play list while working on Chicago Hope, and that one just keeps popping up in my head.

Well, I’m late today, so I’ll have to rush through this. The past couple of days I’ve been incredibly busy working on the novella, adding to it steadily. Already I’ve written two more scenes that should do a good job of adding to atmosphere of the ‘20s. We’ve got moonshine, bootlegging, pinstripe suits and wingtip shoes. *sigh* I’ve been surfing Wikipedia way too much. It took me hours before I resurfaced from the prohibition page and all the mighty interesting mobster bits and pieces. Way more information than I can ever add to the story, but fascinating nonetheless.

On the down side we got a message from another publisher who declined A.T.O.L. (the PNR story), which is a tad disappointing, but not too bad since right now we have to focus on this project and see where it brings us. Still, it would have been fascinating.

But okay, that’s it on the writing side. Let’s quickly get to the rest so I can go to bed on time.
Was a little late yesterday morning, which was a good thing considering Cousin Ed was late too, and our dogs would have had a head-on collision if I’d been five minutes earlier. Hah.

First thing to do was fetching the visiting dogs and walking them in the lower yard with Hairy. That was of course followed by a session of hanging laundry, going up to feed the dogs, and then having my own breakfast. Had to help tenant to bed after she sat in her chair for a few hours, and then, thankfully, could get to work on the book.

The afternoon was spent driving the visiting dogs to the vet. Their inoculations were almost expired so it had to be done prior to the new dog that was going to arrive. Mom went along to, seeing as Empera had to be checked as well. The whole thing took about an hour, at which time we loaded the dogs into the second car, so mom could drive them home, while big brother and I headed to town for a donation.

We were just passing the cemetery when big brother saw something from the corner of his eye, and slammed his foot on the break in the middle of the road. “Puppy,” he said.
“What? Where?”
“Back there by the cemetery gates.”
I looked back. “Where. I can’t see it.”
“Just around the corner.”
“Maybe I should go fetch it?!”
“Yeah. Maybe you should.”
I bit my lip, weighing the horrors of a puppy alone on the street, and us ending up with another dog in a time where we really can’t afford to. “Okay. I’m going.”
Got out and headed back, only in time to see the puppy totter around the corner and cross the street as though it wasn’t risking its very life on a busy (blissfully deserted at that particular time) road like that. It was responding to my cooing noises, but overshot its aim by sliding down the incline beyond the sidewalk.
“No, no, no,” I chanted, going in pursuit, clicking my tongue, and cooing some more until it was slowly making its way up the incline once more, staring up at me with big brown eyes. Some of the ground, regardless of its fearful screech. And boy could this little girl screech. *sigh*
Took me a full minute to wind her down, at which time I’d wrapped her wet and cold little body (rather skinny to boot) in an old towel and we were back on our way. I dubbed the little one Izzy. She’s black, and either a waterdog mix, or a poodle mix. Either way, she’s a sweetheart, and after some calls, a friend offered to find her a home. Such a relief, that. I was already worrying what the heck to do with her.

Once in town we went past a vet, who was kind enough to check if she was chipped (she wasn’t) and then headed off to do what had to be done in town before heading back home. In the end Sally agreed to take the little one during the night. She seemed a little reluctant at first, but then later, when I suggested she could spend the night in tenant’s kitchen if she was too much of a bother, she said she actually rather liked the idea of company for the night. Phew. Glad that that worked. The little one spent the night, and it went just fine.

I was up at eight to take the puppy of her hands and get to work on the revision. Got some decent work done today. 1700 words, or thereabouts. I had some serious “stuck” moments, but the fact that I dreamt about “the world” for the majority of the night did help me to get the setting in my head.

There was of course cooking to be done. For ourselves and for tenant. She’s still being picky, but as long as we feed her it is going down. Drinking is still pretty exasperating, but at least it is more than it used to be.
Caregiver has managed to get a nurse to come over twice a week to check on tenant’s intubated urine bag, meaning that we won’t have to drag the poor woman to the village health center anymore.

Another trip to town today. I tried to connect it with another meeting with Pedro, but regretfully he didn’t have time today. Neither did we have time for homework for that matter, darn it. We shouldn’t forget that we still have to construct several sentences before Wednesday.

From the way things are looking right now, we are most likely going to go to the Funny Beach market on Sunday. It’ll be a nice change again, after all this time. With a little luck, I might actually manage to fit in some writing in the afternoon. What I’m looking forward to the most, is definitely the sunshine that has been forecast. Hah.

Went to the yard and gathered some harvest. Cauliflower, broccoli, lettuce and thinning out some of the broccoli plants in the big field. Everything is looking rather splendid at the moment, what with all the rain. Most of the fruit trees are in bloom, and despite the fact that there are still a million things to do in the yard, the weeding we did the other day did have some beneficial effects…we couldn’t actually walk over the terraces. Hah.

The owner of the visiting dogs came back today. She also took Hairy with her, and Izzy, whom she’s going to find a home for. I still wonder what kind of breed. I’ve got a better picture, somewhere, but this one will have to do for now.



Cute, huh?

Okay. I better go now. It’s already past midnight after all.

A bit of good news...well, close anyway

Song of the day: “Give me love” by Ed Sheeran. So sad, so pretty.

Well, let’s start with the (semi) good news, shall we. I heard back from a publisher yesterday where they declined to offer for Chicago Hope, but added that if I were willing to change/add five points to the story, they would like to see me resubmit the story for their review.
I was a little stunned, really, because mostly you’re lucky to get a “thanks but no thanks” kind of deal from the publishers, and yet here I got this full page of tips to improve on the story in such a way that they might be able to publish it. The biggest plusses that had me hooked, of course, was the fact that the editor said that the story was engaging and the characters well-crafted. Always nice to have that confirmed by a professional. Hah.
The thing they would like to see added is the world-building (story is set in the 1920s) and the “suffering” of the heroine, which was something I had to keep to a minimum due to the 15.000 word count limit, and the “conflict”, which they want to have more prominent throughout. Some sort of danger, you know. Fine with me, but of course I was still stuck with the 15K word count limit, darn it. I had no choice but to write back and explain that I would be happy to do a revision, but that it would be nigh on impossible to keep it at 15K. Within thirty minutes the editor wrote back that that would be fine, perhaps even better, because then I’d be able to try it for a different line which could have up to 40K words. Wow. Talk about a challenge! Have been playing with ideas in my head all day, meaning that my oral responses have dropped down to Neanderthal mode. *sigh*
Now we have agreed on me getting to work on the story, and the editor looking forward to the changes.
How fun is that, I ask you?

Now don’t get too excited (it’s still a we’ll see stage). Heck, I’m not even going to tell mom and the younger sibs because they’ll just get overly disappointed if this turns out to be nothing. Heck, the same goes for the whole Abna deal. Until there’s actually something awesome to share, it’s little more than a “wow, this is exciting” moment. Very personal, in fact…except for me yapping about it here on the blog of course. Sorry ‘bout that, but for most of you guys this is little more than entertainment. It won’t be like you’ll get your hopes up and end up devastated if it turns out to be nothing, right?

But like I said, this too is a “we’ll see” deal. For the moment big brother and I have suspended the TMSTS rewrite once more, while we go back to Chicago Hope and see what we can do to oblige the editor in her wishes for this revision. I have to say that it will be a challenge. In my head Chicago Hope is pretty well rounded, so to take out the telling (designed to compact the word count) and change it into showing, is going to be a pickle. Not impossible, mind you, but a pickle regardless. Added to that, it is always strange to work on other people’s ideas, rather than your own. But the way I figure it is a good learning experience. Now it will be a matter of seeing if we can get it all done in a reasonable amount of time.

Okay, next subject.
Bad news is that, due to some blood in tenant’s urine, she has been carted to hospital by an ambulance (doctor’s orders, rather than ours) so she can be checked out. She has, of course, another UTI, meaning that caregiver has spent the majority of the day at the hospital, waiting for tenant to go through a battery of tests. Since the other tests showed nothing of interest, she will be home tonight once more, so in that regard all is well after all, thank you very much.

Didn’t sleep well at all yesterday. Once again Spanish stuff kept tumbling through my head, keeping me from dropping off properly. Grrr. Was incredibly tired when it was time to get up, which doesn’t help the day much, does it. Hah.

The normal chores, such as splendid laundry, had to be done in record time while big brother go the visiting dogs and already got started on feeding the pack. Right after we had to hurry on up to tenant’s place, because she was giving Olive and Jane fits by screaming for big brother. Finally managed to calm her down, and have her finish her breakfast with the promise that we would put her back in big brother carry her to her bed…this of course made me late to meet with Pedro.

Pedro is someone the receptionist at the garage set me up with. (No, not that kind of setting up. Hah) He’s a very nice fella, daddy of a teenage girl (yowsa) and easy to talk with. The deal is that he gets to practice his English on my, while I get to practice my budding Spanish on him. Luckily his English is way better than mine, because otherwise we would have had very little to talk about. He works in Norway, apparently, and according to him, Norwegian basically are all able to speak English. Frustratingly for him, they all want to practice their English while he would like to practice his Norwegian. Rather than be annoyed, he decided to learn English. Smart guy. I’ll tell you this. If I ever learn the amount of Spanish, the way he learned English, I’ll be a happy camper.

Was so tired later in the day I went for a nap. Had just about dropped off when mom phoned me. *sigh* Always on the days I decide for a nap, I’ll get a phone call. I don’t know what that is, but it just happens. I had wanted to turn it off, but I was waiting for a call from the garage, so it just wasn’t possible. *double sigh*

Were able to pick up the car yesterday. Set us back a whopping 220, but at least it got done and our baby is back. I do hope that the garage owners will find a new spot soon, because I for one am looking forward to when they’ll give car maintenance lessons. I’ll be the first to sign up, I tell you.

Today was time for our Spanish lesson. Didn’t go bad, despite the fact that I was a tad distracted. Teach is getting to be more relaxed, meaning that we too are getting to be more relaxed, which is a pleasant state of being. Regretfully it rained today, so we had to do the lessons inside. I like the sunshine way more, but it didn’t go bad, thankfully.

Afterward we headed to town for some groceries and an agreed upon donation of “over due” food for the doggies. Good veggies are always a plus for our little darlings. The dogs were absolutely bonkers when I got home. We’ve been out so much lately that they’re spending a lot of time alone.

Got seriously started on revising “Chicago Hope” tonight, after we got home and unloaded the car in the pouring rain. My foot was absolutely killing me today…what am I saying, it was that way yesterday too. Guess I did something wrong with it again. Got so bad I had to grab my insoles again, which gave some relief at least today. I’m going to have to figure something out soon, maybe try out some of my own designs for insoles, or something.
Seriously, in the mornings I can hardly walk at the moment, unless I’m walking on my toes that is. Yikes. Try it yourself some day with a painful spot that feels like it’s the size of a golf ball when you stand on it. *sigh*
Have been rubbing in Arnica gel the past few days and that is doing something at least.

What else…hmmm. I’m not sure. I did some cooking yesterday. A ratatouille that was quite tasteful, followed by a handful of strawberries in yogurt that worked well as a desert. Hah.

Well, that will do for today. I would like to go to bed early so I can do some work on the story tomorrow. Keep your fingers crossed, folks. I’m going to need all the help I can get. *wink*

Close call

Song of the day: “Gold Forever” by the Wanted. Vastly annoying to have it stuck in your head, because of course the chorus is the things that keeps repeating, over and over again.

On Saturday I slept waaaaay too little. Seriously, didn’t get back to bed until almost three in the morning, and then the alarm went off at eight thirty. It was a busy day, with plenty to do. Chores such as laundry preceded feeding the dogs, and then some editing.

Preparing separate meals for tenant is taking quite a bit of time. She really refuses to eat anything that has salt in it, and since we want her eating healthily anyway, that means lots of experimenting with veggie mixes, salmon and chicken, chickpeas, lentils and barley. So far it’s working. She’s eating a regular three meals a day, and it’s the fruit mashes that work best. Such a relief. Sure, we can’t manage to get her to drink her full quota, but at least we’re getting in more liquids than she realizes. Regretfully, she has let herself become so weak, that she is now hardly able to get out of bed anymore. Most of the time caregiver, Big brother or I will have to fully support her and help her to her chair.

Sally is not doing badly, in particular since she is back on double steroids again. Less trouble with her balance, no more nausea, and for the most part she is keeping herself in good spirits.

There was a yard session, involving lots of weeding. Seriously, man, there are so many weeds growing down there, we could start a jungle. Hah. But anyway. Harvested a massive cauliflower, which went straight into the freezer, some more broccoli and some lettuce.
In the greenhouse we’ve got some nice tomato plants going, which we transplanted into the big containers just the other day, leaving only a few for outside, just as soon as the weather permits.
The first pumpkins are starting to grow, so are the zucchinis and peppers. With a little bit of luck we’ll be able to put them out into the yard soon…well, if this weather persists it will be a while yet. Hah.

Got a nice big donation the other day. Including lots of food for the dogs from that store which had a lot of excess this month. The dogs have been really enjoying the treats.

Empera, the Shepherd, is not showing much improvement, not even with the new prescription of diazepam and prednisone. Poor darling. Now she is basically passed out most of the day.

The car is at the garage at the moment. On Saturday we had a near miss while heading back home through the country. Suddenly big brother noticed that the engine was overheating and when we checked, it turned out that all the water was gone. Luckily we had one liter of water with us, which allowed us to head for the river where we got the remaining three liters to get us home. Nothing much we could do about it until Monday, so this morning we took it to town, and were sent off again ‘till tomorrow because he couldn’t find it at first glass. He’d need to have the car there for a bit to find the problem. About an hour later, when we wanted to refill the cooling liquid tank, we saw a small spray of water. So we were back at the garage, at which point the mechanic told us to turn off the engine and that, basically we were screwed for transportation for the day (had to call little brother to pick us up) because there was a major problem in the engine. Not so much the part (that will cost 2 bucks) but the work hours. Jeez. They’re basically going to have to take the engine out, which will take several hours. *sigh* At least we caught it on time, because this could have been disastrous.

Did get an interesting offer from the receptionist. She has a friend who wants to learn English, and since I am working on my Spanish, she thought we might be able to help each other. Got an appointment tomorrow morning, so we’ll just have to see how that works out.

Our fitness this weekend was hauling down eight hundred pounds of dogfood. Been sore for two days now, seeing as carrying eighty pound per trip, and then jogging back up didn’t go as easy as it did before we got the flu. *sigh* Seriously, by trip number two…or more accurately, dragging my butt back up the mountain, I was puffing like a freight train. By trip number four I was seeing black spots and had a to take a five minute breather before taking the last two bags down. Hah. But I survived, did my (not so) fair share. Big brother carried four more bags than I did, darn it. Goes against my feminist grain, I tell ya.

What else? I’m not entirely sure. I am once again drawing blanks. Well, there were the visiting dogs to walk, of course. Hairy is adapting fast, and really, really enjoys our walks in the morning and afternoon. A sweet little dog, but he also makes me want to take out his batteries. I mean it, that energizer bunny has nothing on him. Hah.

Made a large batch of zucchini soup, but I think something was wrong with one of the zucchini’s because it came out way bitter.

Cousin Ed has been busy trying to find a new job. She would love to do something like reception work at a hotel, so the majority of this morning, while we were tackling the garage and finding a Santander bank (had to pay for my ticket, remember) she had her bike and dropped of her resume at several locations. Which reminds me. The other day I trimmed her hair and dyed it. Looks rather nice. A little shorter, a little loser, so it should work well for her when she looks for a job.

We took way longer today than planned, and silly me, forgot to ask grandpa to let my dogs out during the course of the day. So guess what all happened in my cabin for the duration of some odd five hours. Gawd, it was a mess! Not to mention smelly. The whole place had to be mopped twice with chloride and soap before the smell disappeared. Grrr. Poor darlings were all upset when I got home, I tell ya.

Luckily we did an eight page edit yesterday, because today we didn’t manage more than two, darn it. There was just too much going on. By the time we got home from the car debacle, and picking up another donation with the Opel this time round, I was more than ready to call it a day. *sigh* Of course that was before I even wrote this blog. Now it is already one in the morning, so I better hurry and get ready for bed. I got that appointment in the morning after all.
Gotta go.