Song of the day: “All comes down” by Alan Walker and Noah Cyrus. Cute song for sure.
Well, another blog has arrived.Not as long since the last one, but still, I should have been by sooner. Had planned to, but then on several occasions when I had planned to post one, something happened. The editor got back to me with the book. I was sick. Had to work. Always something isn’t there. Anyway, am here now, so let’s see what’s been going on.
First off…if all goes according to plan, we finished the final EDIT of the book yesterday. This was copy edits, so cross your fingers, toes, legs, and anything else that you can think of that this is it, finally. The Copy edits weren’t nearly as traumatic as before. Really basics, like missing words, grammar rules and formatting stuff, so it was done in just a few days. Yay. Got everything ready to send it before the last deadline and happy about it. Time to actually get to the end product, right? Actually had fun during this last one, considering we got to linger (if only a moment) on particular scenes we enjoyed writing.
Here a teaser of the cover...
Had my dinner party the other day. Had planned on a buffet party, but since so many folks turned out to be unavailable on the date, I decided to shift that to a later date (maybe a book party, some time next year, right?) and make it a dinner party for those that had already agreed to come.
We were with a total of eight + a 1 year old, so it was a nice full evening involving plenty of food (spent about 5 hours on cooking spread over 2 days, so it wasn’t too much work) talk and laughter. Had a nice time, and everyone enjoyed themselves, I think. Had invited littlest brother as well, but he had an unplanned overtime session at work, so the only way he could have made it was to go straight to the station and travel our direction, and still be after eight…an hour after I had planned for dinner to start. The snacks would have tided us over for sure, but still, what with the baby there, stretching it out that long seemed unproductive, so we agreed he’d come the next day for a dinner of left overs. Hah.
Had prepared an elaborate dinner (was afraid I had cooked too much, of course) with hors d’euvres of toasted vegetable bread with herbal butter, small zucchini pastries and a rather sturdy butternut pumpkin soup. We followed that up with a colorful salad, involving grilled mushroom and pumpkin seeds and a dressing of choice. Next was the main course of a leek quiche with sweet potato mash garnished with grilled peppers and onions on a bed of raw arugula. Only to end it all with a freshly baked apple pie with whipped cream. Needless to say, everyone was thoroughly stuffed, and I wasn’t left with an excessive amount of left overs. In fact, I had exactly enough left to feed three people the next day for when littlest brother came to visit. Yay!
So all in all, it was a lovely evening, that lasted way longer than planned with everyone not leaving until eleven in the evening, and one guest even spending the night. Considering I had managed to spread the actual cooking out over a couple of days, I didn’t even have a massive clean-up afterward. In fact, two dishwasher loads, carrying chairs and tables back to their original sports and voila, things were all back to normal. I would call that a success!
My new job is official. Finally got and signed my contract the day before yesterday. Will be working for a big catering company, on several locations in company cafeterias, so that will be a nice change from the Wellness branch. I get to mess with food, maybe even express myself creatively in the future, since the manager promised that they try to stimulate creativity in their employees. We shall see how that goes. The company policy does look promising, since they aim for vegetarian since that is on the overall better for the environment, they do not make excessive amounts so there won’t be a lot of waste, and they try to focus on the veggies of the season, which all sounds good to me. They will be serving mostly lunches, which will include sandwiches, soups, salads and other finger food, so that should be fun at the very least. I will be starting in the first week of January, so who knows, the next time I write, we’ll know more. Haha
Spent a couple of days at my dad’s to help out painting his new place. There was a bit of a rush going on there, considering the new floor was going to go in the following Monday and they would have preferred to have the paint on by then. They didn’t make that, but at least the primer had been put on in 90 percent of the house. I had counted on being cold for a couple of days, but it wasn’t. The house needed to dry asap, so the heating was on high, meaning that within an hour everyone was sweating like a racehorse. Hah. Such a long drive, to and from, but it was basically the last time I could actually help, so I didn’t want to cancel.
Luckily by that time I was no longer sick. A week earlier would have been a lot less handy. Was sick as a dog, I tell ya. It all started as the sniffles, with a terrible runny nose, that didn’t seem to get worse than that, only to suddenly sink a day or two after I thought, “Hey, it is getting less bad,”. So there it went, a nasty little cough that stayed high up in my lungs rather than deep down below where I feared it would go, due to experience. Kept up my qigong during the whole thing, which includes several exercises for the lymphatic system and the immune system, which think helped keeping the cold’s damage to a minimum. I do know that normally, in the past, even as short ago as last winter, a could that sunk in my lungs would have been a disaster for a full two weeks, instead it took me 3 days to get over the worst of it. Yay.
There were quite a few cleaning sessions due to the dinner party, of course. Can’t have the house a mess if you get visitors, duh. So walls got emptied of spiderwebs again, floors vacuumed (had done the windows just a couple of weeks ago, thankfully) kitchen and bathrooms scrubbed, and everything tidied. And it looked good. Made relaxing on the night in question a lot easier.
Had to have the car fitted with new brakes…which costs a friggin’ fortune! Added to that, we had to have the yearly check, so the day before the appointment I spent cleaning the inside of the car. Got a cute mechanic so having a pigsty for a car really isn’t an option. Didn’t get to the outside, but considering it is winter and all cars are dirty anyway, I didn’t mind all that much. Instead I washed the thing today and it looks splendid for Christmas dinner with the family down south. Yay.
Regardless, the car got through the yearly inspection without much trouble, so we’re all set for a year, thankfully.
Helped out at the store again a couple of weeks back, which was fun. Sorted out the majority of the top floor, which had been such a mess lately that they weren’t able to let customers up there to roam about. Not good for business that. Anyway, got most of that done, so I hope that this is now less of a problem…I should probably ask. Totally forgot. Hah
Did find a rather good 2nd hand office chair. My old one was starting to give in to the demands of time and use, so it was a lovely find at the gift shore. Really a rather fancy one, and considering a lot of my work involves sitting at my desk, a good chair is rather vital.
Am all set for this year’s Christmas presents. Found one for everyone that I needed one for, except littlest brother, who I find difficult to find something for, so in the end I decided to make a quilt. Much like I used to back in the day. Used mostly recycled materials, Jeans in this case, so the quilt is in only blue hues. Worked out rather well, despite it being a pain in the behind to make because most fabrics were stretchy, but to different degrees, it made making it all straight rather difficult. Did finally manage so I hope he likes it.
If he doesn’t I’m going to take it back and give it to someone else, or maybe even try to sell it. I’ll let you know how that works out.
Also made myself a quilt. Nothing near as fancy as the quilt, but at least one big stretch of fabric (makes the bedroom look way more dressed I always think) that I’d had lying around for more than two years already, exactly for this purpose. Love my sewing machine for sure. Was nice doing some other activity than working behind the computer. It had been so long.
Lastly I went visiting friends the day before yesterday (a couple that weren’t able to come to the dinner party) and spend the evening there playing with the dog and two babies. Was different, and fun in its own way, even though by then the edit wasn’t done yet, so I didn’t make it too late, and went home in time to finish another 40 percent of the manuscript. Hah
And that makes for today’s blog. There are sure to be things I forgot to mention, but that’s no surprise anymore, is it? Anyways… Wishing y’all HAPPY HOLIDAYS!!! And that the past year gave you everything you’d hoped for the last time ‘round!
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