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
18th 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.
