Never enough time

Song of the day: “Flashlight” by Jessie J…I know, a tad embarrassing to have this little ditty in my head, but it is incredibly sweet. Hah.

Well, life has changed dramatically, but oddly enough it is still incredibly busy, regardless of the sudden lack of a job. Guess I’m just not any good at not having anything to do except what I chose to do. When I chose to do something, it is simply just as time consuming as a job. Hah. Am still looking, so keep yer fingers crossed.

Anyways, the study is going steadily. Gotta admit that the book of law that is covered in the beginning is both frustrating and fascinating. The latter because knowledge in any shape or form always is, and the first because there are typos in the lesson material, and several of the test questions that I had to answer in my first test, were not covered adequately in the material. I checked. In fact, I had to go online to find explanations of the material, because it wasn’t there. Grrrrr. Contacted my course source, conferring with them about this particular problem, and they suggested that I keep checking online until they have looked into the matter. Hah. This made me laugh, not only because it was funny. But no matter, I’ll muddle my way through, I assure you.

Sent out manuscripts to 11 different publishers, so I’ve been pretty busy with that, and yes, we’re still editing A.I.L. which is a serious source of frustration to both of us. I remember this part of the editing process well, I tell ya. We had it with NERFS:SN, CH and ATOL, and now we have it with this one too. Some of the texts just don’t flow to both our satisfaction, meaning that we get into heated debates that have either of us walking away to cool off at the drop of a hat. It has no use to get so frustrated with it, really, since experience has taught us that after we struggle through this stage the improvement will be noticeable, but still it is difficult time for both of us. Nothing gets your spirits down as a few pages that you get stuck on for an average of 1-2 hour per page. Grrrrr.

Been to the gym a few times since the last blog. Yay. Didn’t have much time for it in-between study and editing time, cooking meals, normal daily chores, the inspection of our house yesterday (all is fine. We made the place look good, so we won’t be seeing much of our handler. Yay! No matter how friendly he is, it is a stressful idea that someone is checking up on you) and working the yard, as we’re semi-obligated to do every now and then. Considering we’re often short on time, we went for a walk into town the other day after we discovered that we were too late for the gym, and yesterday evening for a nice long bike-ride so we’d have at least some movement. The problem is, we have a cheap membership with the gym, which limits our arrival time to five in the afternoon, this doesn’t always work out when we are elbow-deep into an edit.

Had a cozy get-together at and with the neighbors. Six adults, two kids and a handful of cats. Was a nice afternoon-evening with beer, wine, finger food and soup where we all got to know each other a little better, because, let’s face it, there is not much time for that with everyone being incredibly busy. We got the busy parents, both working on our left, and the young couple, a professional drummer and a waitress-looking-for-work-in-the-neuropsychology-branch behind us. Add the brother and sister writers, looking for work too, and you’ve got an interesting bunch. Hah. Was a nice evening, though, which resulted in coffee later in the week with the mum and dad while we discussed the chores that had to be organized around the yard on the rather splendid autumn day.

Weather-wise things are looking bleak. We had a few sunny days, but on the overall things are starting to look gray, gray and…well, you guessed it, gray. Not that much rain yet, but I’m guessing that will come soon enough. Also, trees are starting to lose their leaves, and by now we need central heating because the temps are rapidly dropping, especially up north here, where the ground is flat and the wind comes rushing in off the sea. It’ll be interesting to see how winter will be, eh?

Lately I’ve had a serious case of the nibbles later in the day, so I’ve made a nice healthy batch of oatmeal cookies with raisins nuts and the likes, rather than risk buying cookies of undetermined origin. Works well, and it’s healthy at least. Also made lasagna the other day, loads of veggies, for visiting a friend. Otherwise I’ve been making lots of soups, which work rather well in this weather and a rather nice red cabbage risotto last week. Was surprised how well it worked, actually.

Went to visit tenant, who seems to be doing well at the senior home. She is starting to notice that her stubbornness is not doing her any good, because her memory is not as good as it used to be. Had several instances where she threw up a lot of fuss about certain subjects, only to realize later that she remembered wrong, which startled her. I found it a little sad to see, especially her confusion about it but it can’t be helped. Can’t protect anyone from reality, can you. Anyway, the place is good for her. She gets stimulated to be creative, as in drawing and painting and the likes, meaning that her motor skills in her good hand have improved, and because she always has to wait her turn if she wants to get around the building, and can’t stand that, she has started using her own feet as propulsion when she’s in her wheelchair, hah. In fact, she is basically going from one room to the next in the home, and that is really good for her.

She was very excited about her granddaughter’s 18^th birthday coming up this week, wanting to give the girl a present, but not knowing where to get it, so I found a rather nice bracelet for her, with a card that she can give as a present the next time she sees her.

Yard work has been rather wonderful, despite the scary amount of nettles all over the place. Yikes. Had one slither its way under my sweater and doing its worst on my belly. Hah.  But we did quite a bit. Cut away lots of dead stuff, revealing loads of little treasures underneath the piling masses. Found bushes, flowers and whatnot, which made it very satisfying. Will have to get our hands on some better garden tools soon…especially since we’re going to have to cut back the pollard Willows somewhat desperately. Poor things haven’t had a proper trim in years, so that’ll take some time.

Also filled the potholes in our drive sweep, for which our car is tremendously grateful, and had a repair done on the car, which, thankfully wasn’t so expensive that I had to sell my kidney, or something. Hah

Well, that about sums it up for today. Gotta bet busy.