Stuff

Song of the day: “Hit the road Jack” by Buster Pointdexter, fun song, and not bad to have in your head on a day like today.

Well, let’s start with yesterday, shall we. It started off a little late, considering I didn’t manage to get to bed until three in the morning. I hate it when that happens, but there you have it. No amount of “hating” is going to help one bit, now will it? So I overslept by half an hour, and then had to rush through the morning rituals to get ready in time to drive caregiver, tenant and Sally to the local infirmary for their appointment.

Loaded tenant into the car, along with her wheelchair, drove to the village, helped them all out and then went to look for a spot to park for a bit. I’d taken my computer along so I spent the majority of the morning reading in the book I’m trying to review. Got quite a way through too, well past half, by the time I got the call that the ladies were ready to be picked up again.

The sun was out, nice and warm, but the northern wind made it not at all pleasant. Very nippy. Did some mild cleaning in the carport and on the road up to the gate, since everything has become a massive mess during our sickness this past month.

Since mom’s birthday arrived (I gave her a nice scarf for her birthday) she had a couple of friends come over for supper, which was nice for her. I got to play with a visiting dog for a bit, bound a mattress onto the visitor’s car and then went for a much needed nap, prior to leaving to pick up a nice sizeable donation in town. Took us quite some time to load up, but what the heck, it was well worth it.

Didn’t get home until it turned dark outside, so while big brother went down to light the stove and start cooking the dog food, while I went to the kitchen to cook our own dinner. Had some leftovers from the day before, and added some fresh cauliflower to that, making a rather nice meal.

Editing didn’t go all that bad both yesterday and today. Managed a total of thirteen pages, I think, so that’s a good thing. This morning went best, in fact, so in that regard I’m pretty happy. We’ll get this book worked out yet, despite that we will have to do some research on WWII.

Nanook, one of our last huskies, is not doing well. Considering she’s almost fourteen years old, has cancer in several spots, that is not a strange thing, but still, it is sad to see a proud husky that way, so old, getting skinnier and grumpier every day. Time’s passing oh-so fast.

Knight II did it again yesterday. He’d wrecked his sock, and by the time I noticed he had licked open his skin again, until it bled, darn it. Had to clean it all out, bandage it up, and put a new sock on, just to keep his persistent tongue away from the newly created mess. Darn it, what is wrong with that dog. Sometimes I fear he’ll just keep licking until he’s eaten away his friggin’ paw.

Did laundry, which luckily dried again these past couple of days. Though the temps are low, the sun is out and the wind is blowing everything dry. The dogs had to be fed, of course, and they loved it. This variety of fresh veggies, spices, bread and an occasional batch of meat is really working for them.

As for today, we had planned to work some on the window for the future kitchen, but didn’t get to it since we first had to unload the car (took more than an hour) and put everything away in storage. Then, just as we were about to start, mom called if we could come to town with the Land Rover to pick up a donated fridge. So we locked up the dogs, drove down the mountain, picked up the machine, and got a nice big aloe vera plant as an added bonus.

Once at home I once again cooked supper, broccoli, peas, potatoes and a herbal sauce, that worked out even better than yesterday’s meal. So there was some more editing, which was of course interrupted by today’s blog that had to be done. *sigh* Nothing really fun to share, is there. Well, can’t have it all.

This is it, I’m ready to call it a night.

Bar fight!

Song of the day: “We are young” by Fun. I always see the clip in my head when this song starts tumbling inside my brain.

First off, for the past few days we’ve been trying wean Tadaika off big brother, so she can start sleeping in my cabin. Seeing as I’ve got a lot less dogs than him these days, we discussed which one would mind least. Poor Tadaika got elected. She likes my dogs, has spent an occasional hour in my cabin already and…has been miserable for three nights in a row now. Pitiful darling. She knows how to milk it, I tell ya. She’ll whine for about half an hour, walk back and forth through my cabin, try to climb out over the fence, go through the window, and then, after three times of me hauling her back on the bad, she finally goes to sleep. And the looks she gives me when I don’t let her go…sooooo sad. Poor girl. I just hope that she manages to adjust.

We had a big rainstorm yesterday, which meant getting very wet while I went down to the house for the morning chores. By the time we had to feed the dogs, the weather cleared enough or us to do it outside, so there wasn’t a real problem with that. It did save us from having to go in the yard to water the plants.

There were of course two edits during the course of the past couple of days. We came across some hiccups, which made our progress rather slow. Seriously, there were some intense discussions again, some arguments, and some heated snarling, but we got through them again, thankfully. Have brought the page count of “done” up to 226, so we’re on schedule at least.

Worked on my kitchen, yay. Yesterday we put in the outer edge foundation, which was nice work to do with the sun coming out later in the day. Same goes for today, while the wind was fierce today, working on the kitchen, pouring concrete, was a nice and warm occupation, since it was in the lee of the wind and in the full sunshine. Got the first level poured, and it’s looking good. Now we’re getting somewhere, yeah!

Had to go out today to pick up a donation and picked up some groceries at the same time.
Took way too long, of course, in particular since afterward I still had to cook. No disaster, and not taking as long as I’d feared because I could work with yesterday’s leftovers of cauliflower and potatoes.

Yesterday we had a big fight between the dogs. Middle sister came outside rather unexpected, so there was a collision with her boxer Groovy. I was just a second too late to grab Knight II, who grabbed first Jelly, and then Fortuyn before big brother managed to jump in the fray and sent him up. As is usual for the big lug, (whoever says that Great Danes possess elegance, is nuts) he did more damage to himself than Jelly (Fortuyn ended up with a cut in his neck) by cutting up his paws and such. Gawd, he’s such a klutz, not to mention more enthusiastic than he should be when it involves fighting. Had to wedge him against the wall to keep him from going at it again, and then drag him to my cabin for punishment. Jeez. Spent the next half hour cleaning up cuts and scrapes with a variety of dogs. *sigh
Seriously, if you’d have seen the enthusiasm with which the dogs pounced on Groovy, and each other, you’d have thought that there was an old fashioned bar fight going on. Aaaargh. Insanity!

Tomorrow we might be able to get in some wood chopping with the axe, which will be a nice form of exercise for as far as I’m concerned. I need some, I tell ya, and jogging is not working at the moment, if for no other reason than the fact that it takes too much time. Have less than three weeks until the competition after all. *sigh* Still going to try to fit a run in one of these days, though.

Well, that’s it for me, for now. I’m just about ready to call it a day.

Carnivorous attempt #1

Song of the day: “Cooler than me” by Mike Posner (sp?) I’m too friggin’ lazy to look it up, in particular since it is already past midnight and I haven’t had a minute to spare all day. Ah well, almost over now. It doesn’t really matter this time of night, does it? Soon I’ll be heading for lala land, and happy about it. *sigh*

So yeah, after yesterday’s catch up blog there were four pages added to the book. What with today’s five, a nice portion of the book got done. There was the grandpa chat today, my heroine talking to him, reassuring him that everything was fine. I’d almost forgotten to add it, which wouldn’t do of course. Family gets worried…in particular when someone doesn’t get in touch.
Ah well, that problem is solved now, as well as this very intense conversation between hero and heroine today. Not near done, but I’ll get it right soon, I’m sure.

Right. What else has been up. Besides writing, there was the venture into working at the igloo yesterday. The water is connected now (isn’t it a biatch when you turn all that off and then have to redo the lot because years passed) all that still needs to be done there now, is connecting the power. Seriously, we’re going to have to dig a little to find the old lines, otherwise we’ll have to put new ones in.

What else. Not much gardening for me. Just no time, since when I’m done and can go down, it’s time to make supper. Made Samosas yesterday, which worked out splendidly, if I do say so myself, and today I made pasta with summer veggies.

Most worrisome news at the moment is Sally, who really isn’t doing well, she’s constantly forgetting things, falling, and by now it is starting to become a habit to walk her down to her apartment at the end of the day from fear that she’ll fall underway and break something. I had a talk with her the other day, and discovered that the doctor prescribed her something which after a quick search on the net, accounts for all her problems. Darn doctors, even before I went to Wikipedia to check it out that was pretty clear. No one goes in a downward slope that fast without something nudging her along. Jeez. And here the woman’s been fearing that she is suffering from dementia.
Heck, even tonight she fell on her face, and cut her hand, meaning that tomorrow morning she will have to go and have it stitched.

As for today…after feeding the dogs, as usual, writing, cooking and chatting with tenant, big brother had to go out for a food donation for the dogs. Got a nice batch of veggies, bread and even some meat. Seriously, you should have seen the dogs when we got home and started cutting everything. There was like four pounds of liver, and while big brother cut it, all the dogs were quiet as you please all around him, noses in the air, and for the first time in, like, forever, didn’t try to steal a single raw vegetable from the pan.

Dax and Sitabah ate sausages. They discovered them on the hood of the Land Rover before I managed to stop them, and there was a chasing moment when Dax got a hold on a chicken paw. Seriously, he a fast little macho, and it wasn’t until I cornered him that he dropped the darn paw. Both he and Sitabah are swollen from their late-night snack. Hah.
Chaos has been walking around with his nose in the air ever since we came home, snarling at the other dogs, and constantly getting in mischief. “I’m a fierce predator. I can kill and rip like the best of ‘m.” At least that’s the attitude he is projecting. Hah.
Knight II…gawd, he was sniffing and staring as if hypnotized at that raw liver, and looking up at me occasionally as if saying: “Boss, I don’t know what it is, but something, I think my instinct is saying that, for the first time in my entire life, I am smelling real food. Can I have some? Can I? Can I?” While all the while his nose was drifting closer to the tantalizing red meat. Hah. Poor Knight. He’ll just have to wait, like the rest of ‘m.

There were veggies and meat to sort through. All of it had to be cleaned of plastic and rotting pieces, and then hauled down to the storage. All the while we had the dogs following us back and forth, sniffing the air due to the smoked cheeses that were overtime. Hah.

But anyway, everything got stored away, Sally is safe in her room. Food has been cut, and this blog is almost done now. Yay.

Let me see if there was anything else to mention. Well, I am trying to learn how to eat meat, because let’s face it, with my deficiencies it might be the only solution if I don’t want to resort to heavy pills that have only temporary relief. Tried preparing a sausage this morning by adding a load of herbs, garlic, onion some chili sauce, and still, when I put it on a whole wheat sandwich with lettuce, tomato, mayo, mustard, ketchup and cheese, I could taste way too much of it. Jeez. How much taste are they giving meat, darn it. How am I ever going to eat that stuff if it tastes like that. Seriously, I managed a total of seven tiny slices on four sandwiches before my gagging reflex got to be too much. If I didn’t stop at that one, it was all going to come out again, which would kinda defeat the point, wouldn’t it? Hah. I’m such a whiner. I mean really, folks eat that stuff all the time, and I bet they don’t have a gagging reflex. Darn stomach’s a whiner too, seeing as I kept “tasting” the vile stuff all day (ridiculous, I know) and my stomach kept knotting up. Who’d have thunk that becoming a carnivore would be so darn hard? Ah well, better luck next time. Grandpa swears that normal red meat, unprocessed doesn’t taste as bad as pork sausages, so I’m keeping my fingers crossed on that one.

So that was it. I’m sure I forgot something vital, like the fact that big brother and I helped cousin Ed unload yesterday morning, putting all the Tika Art in the sunshine because the market is at the beach, and when the night falls condense makes everything moist.

I’m outta here. I need sleep.

Voyourism? Gawd, I hope not

Song of the day: …I don’t know the title, or the singer even, I just know that it is friggin’ annoying and every time I hear it I want to throw an axe at the radio. I do know that the singer is whining about “give me a higher love” and seriously, I want to give it to him, badly, just so he’ll shut up. *sigh* Yes, I might be in a bit of a combatant mood today. Hah.

By the way. Did you notice my new pic on the right? Whatcha think? Doesn’t that look like a proper snapshot of a hobby farmer in Spain? Hah.

I blame part of that on the fact that last night, working late on the computer I wrote the first sex scene of the new book and though I know it’s good, and it will fit with the genre, I am not happy with it. I kinda liked writing the last one without such explicit detail, at the moment I almost feel as if I were some sort of voyeur of my characters doing something extremely private (or at least it should be), and it is not a pleasant feeling. I’m going to have to see what I’m going to do about that in the near future, seeing as I like the story so far too much to let this stop me.

I’m liking the characters a lot, which means that I need to show them some respect, while still laying out their lives and their troubles. Up ‘till now I have managed to get “the big problem” into the plot, “the want to, but can’t have it” torment, the fear of loss, the “enemy” the “friend” and the fatherly figure who wants to see the happily ever after. All in all, except for the individual details of the future scenes, the story is there, which is definitely the most important thing.

But enough writing stuff. I made good progress and the story is now up to 76 pages, well into the 25K words. Yay. Halfway point, here I come.

Right, let’s get to the normal stuff such as…well the boring stuff. Laundry dog feeding, dog food making and all that stuff. Seeing as I’m late again (I know, the story of my life, right?) I might as well skip those.

Yesterday was definitely a cooking day. Started out early by baking pancakes for breakfast (even tenant came down for that) and doing our Spanish while I was at it. Then, I made dough, because I wanted to make apple pie too, and while we finished up the Spanish reading, we peeled apples which tenant cut into small pieces.
While the pies baked I started writing, only stopping occasionally to chat with tenant, and then to help her by setting out the veggies she could cut for our supper. Luckily she likes being useful, otherwise I fear that that particular task would bore her out of her mind.
Only stopped writing when my battery ran out, and a small pause in-between somewhere, where I spent some time on the rowing machine. What with all the inactivity (physically) during the writing doing some rowing definitely helps.

Managed to also cut tenant’s hair in between, which was something she’d been asking me to do for more than a week now, so I really couldn’t postpone it any longer. Such a pity that she constantly wants her beautifully white hair cut off. I like it way better when she’s got some length in it, but she finds it bothersome and prefers it cut close to her head. *sigh*

Later, after doing the yard, harvested some veggies, and going up to cut a bunch of veggies for the dog food, I did some weight lifting, since that is what works best. Endurance with weights, it’s the best. We almost went for a jog as well, but the time simply wasn’t there. Besides, I had to finish writing the scene, so it was best that we didn’t go anyway.

The dreaded decision is drawing close again, by the way. Nata (Golden retriever) is walking badly now, barely managing to keep up, and devastated when we forget him, of have to leave him somewhere where he can’t get hurt, so, despite the fact that we’re now giving him pain killers against his painful arthritis, making stuff a little easier for him, we are now looking at the quality of his life on a day to day basis. I don’t think it will be much longer…*sigh*

A bit of good news. I heard from “my” soldier on the front, and he is incredibly busy, but well. A relief that, seeing as I hadn’t heard from him in a while and I was starting to get worried. So all’s well on that front. Yay.

As for today: there was more writing, of course, some gardening, cooking and then we had to rush on up to head on out with grandpa who had to pick up his improved teeth (or at least that’s what we’re hoping for) in town. Also went past that friend with the store again, and yes, we got another big load of bread for the doggies.

Which brings us to now, doesn’t it. It’s almost midnight, I will try to do some more writing, and then, finally, blissfully, I will seek up my bed and go horizontal for a few hours. Jeez, it’s been a long day. *sigh*