Song of the
day: “Burn” by Ellie Goulding. Fun song, except when it starts repeating on the
chorus, over and over and over again.
So, let’s
get the bad news out of the day. Grandpa had his operation; it was tough for
him, and he’s still at the hospital, battling the depression of a failed
procedure. The clips that were placed on his valves are not functioning the way
they had hoped, and once heart medication has stabilized, he can go home,
leaving the doctors with little else to do for him. Grrrr. Poor guy. He’d put
his hopes on the operation being successful, and now, according to the doctors,
he’s going to have to continue muddling through.
He has
finally agreed to start trying nutritional supplements, at least, so we’re
going to see what effect that will have.
We have been
visiting regularly, naturally, but it has been tough combining it with many
hours at work…something we’ve been doing a lot, especially big brother, who has
slowly been applying himself to assist our team leader in the more technical
aspects of the job. This means that he is home very little, and does even less
in chores than usual. I understand, naturally, but with my own hours, groceries
and cleaning at our place, I’m pretty much bushed at the end of the day; this is
not entirely beneficial to my writing, I’ll tell ya. Managed maybe a handful of
pages since the last blog. But no matter. I’m going to keep trying…and added to
that, I have an editor interested in reading it in the near future, which
should get us some handy pointers, if nothing more.
I have
decided to quit work at the thrift store, for the time being. First off, I don’t
have the time for it. Secondly, store policy is changing, meaning that cozy is
out, businesslike is in. Strange, considering at how well folks were responding
to the cozy bit, but alas…not that it matters. In fact it is rather handy that
this change has been announced, considering that it made quitting a lot easier.
They don’t need me to do businesslike. My forte is definitely cozy. Hah.
Anyway, my time there was fun, and I’ve got a nice friend from it, so…we’ll see
what’s next.
In
accordance to the agreement made with landlady, I accompanied her to a couple
of markets. The latest having been a two day stint at a covered complex behind
Utrecht. The first day was friggin’ boring, I tell ya, but at least our sales
were relatively high. The second day, during which we took Gloria (crossbreed 7
month old dog that she’s looking to place in a new home) along as company and
advertising. Made the day a lot more pleasurable, I’ll admit, considering she
drew loads of customers and dog lovers who came in for a chat. All together we
made the same amount this weekend, as we did the last time in one day, but
still, it paid for gas, the stand and some extra, allowing land lady to pay her
bills as well.
Spent my
last free day, a couple of weeks ago, baking bread, cooking dinner, having a good
workout session a the local gym (finally signed up) and snoozing on the couch
(kept dropping off, I tell ya) until the day slipped by quick as you please. Annoying
how that works, right? What can I say, I’m tired at a lot these days. Probably
still getting used to it all.
Fall has
really started here. Loads of yellow and red trees all around, but thankfully
the trees are still full. It’s going to be a depressing state once the leaves
are all gone. I gotta say that one of things I like in this country is that the
ground is basically flat everywhere, allowing for easy biking and walking
whenever the heck you please and weather allows. Another thing that is nice, at
our present location pretty anything necessary is really close. We’ve got supermarkets,
pharmacies, and most importantly public transportation basically at the door.
That is really handy, in particular since recently we’re using it to get home
from work. Takes about twenty minutes, which beats biking in the rain…like this
morning. Our ride got stuck in traffic 40 minutes out, so we had to grab the
bikes and rush to arrive four minutes before starting time, Yay!
A strange
experience, working for a big company this way, but luckily it is accepted that
I really don’t like doing cleaning more than four hours a day. Instead I’m put
on all sort of projects like hanging mirrors, flat screens and clothes hooks throughout
the facility, also soap and towel dispensers, designing and building wooden electrical
boxes, installing outside lighting, and so on and on. The diversity keeps it
interesting, I’ll admit.
Am slowly
starting to get to know more of our colleagues, but I still think that it will
take time until we know them all. There are more than seventy of them after
all.
What else…well,
very little. I am working on putting together some furniture. Found a gorgeous
classic chair at the local landfill which I’m going to restore for my future
room. It’s from sort of nutty wood, but some idiot painted it black…which is
something I’m going to correct asap…might take a while with the schedule these
days, but I can hope, right?
Further…the
attic is a friggin’ mess. I really need to do something about that. It’s
driving me bonkers to trip over shoes and clothes all the time. But like so
many things, that will have to come some day soon. At the moment I just don’t
have the time nor the energy…maybe that will change once we’ve got the routine
settled, and managed to go to the gym more than a measly once a week. Grrr.
Well, that’s
all she wrote…for now anyway. I didn’t keep to my promise of writing more
often, did I. All I can say as an explanation (I don’t mean it as an excuse
mind you, just fact) life, at the moment, is an emotional roller coaster, and
so many things that I took for granted are changing, or falling away that I
find it difficult to find the peace within myself to write everything down on
the blog, the way I’m supposed to. There are things that I miss, and things
that I don’t miss at all over there in Spain. Over here there are things that I
like and that I don’t like, but that is life, I suppose. However good a place
this is for now as we lick our wounds and try to figure out what to do with our
future, I know more certain than ever that this here isn’t enough either. Someday
I want to end up in the States, and that is just plain fact. How I’m going to
manage it…I don’t know yet. It doesn’t matter, it is going to be a question someday
somehow, is all.
As before, I
will try to do better in the future, but if I don’t I hope you’ll forgive me.
