The edit thing

Song of the day: Too big a mix again, sorry. There were some oldies like Patsy Cline and Etta James, but nothing that stood out. *sigh*

Okay, got me one of those days again where, for the life of me I can’t remember the proper sequence of events, so I’m going to have to do this event by event and hope that my brain doesn’t freeze up on me.

First up, which is easy because I just finished, was fixing a chair big brother went through the other day. Since grandpa had already prepared the board for it, all I had to do was ask mom for a piece of fabric and then staple that with the pillow back onto the board. Once the board with fabric and pillow was in place, the friggin’ chair was as good as new…what am I saying? Since this fabric is better than the last one, it actually looks better. Hah.

We’re in August, and we’re feeling it, which means frequent dips in the pool. The occasional not-so-hot moments during the course of the day make it vastly doable, getting through the day and everything. Sure, I love summer, but we were hitting the high nineties today, and what with the activities going on, those dips are priceless.

Since big brother had to go down the mountain to check which watering drips should be on during the evening, grandpa and I inflated the tires of the Land Rover. Turns out that we might have a small problem with the plugs, because both tires on the right side had drained again.

I ended the afternoon in the lower yard heading down, to water both Eucalypti patches and lettuce field. I think it is safe to say that in the heat of summer trying to grow lettuce is a waste of effort. Already the tiny plants (less than 3 inches tall) are shooting through, meaning that they just won’t do. A well, it was the worth the shot.

Most of the afternoon was spent editing S.N. It’s not necessarily going bad, but I do notice that I wrote this story on my own and a long time ago. I am far more attached to the way the sentences are written than I am with my more recent books. Seriously, there are times when I find myself fighting tooth and nail just to keep a sentence the way it is. It’s like when big brother voices a valuable point, I want to growl like a rabid dog.

There was a cooking session, naturally. Baked mini potatoes, with garlic, onion and fresh garden herbs. Joined by a nice fresh veggie mix. Except for the can of mushrooms, which I added for tenant’s benefit, it was ALL from the yard abnd absolutely delicious.

The morning was spent canning. Since caregiver was at her other job, tenant and I were on our own down there (basin terrace). We had music on, sang along and chatted while we chopped our way through three baskets of tomatoes. We made a very basic recipe today. No herbs, just the absolute necessary…and what with Dani having washed pots yesterday already…we were able to make good time.
We started around eleven in the morning and finished the canning around three in the afternoon. Hah.

Poor Chaos has been limping, and is feeling poorly to boot due to the hot weather, so I took him to the outside kitchen with me and let him spend the afternoon being in the way and generally making a nuisance of himself. At the end of the day he had vastly improved, and since I also let him swim twice and hosed him down once, he wasn’t as hot either. Most of the dogs are not all that appreciative of the weather, if you must know the truth.

Since tenant was helping, we did have to walk all the way down the mountain, which is good exercise for her, and…well, for the most part we just chat or sing, and that makes the time pass faster. Her mobility, even though it isn’t noticeable because I’m so close to it these days, is improving steadily. I mean, seriously. Last year she would not have been able to walk all the way down and then spent four hours at the table cutting veggies for canning and cooking. Hah.

Breakfast was an uncreative affair for me, involving, mostly, just stuffing bread and toppings down my throat. I know, boring, but since it followed laundry, a dip in the pool and waking up (in that backwards order) way too hot, I thought I’d just mention it.

Which brings us to yesterday, which I am going to have to tell about in the same backwards fashion because, let’s face it, my brain is practically asleep by now. My foot is hurting, (stood most of the day) my back is tired and I would really like to get to bed early today. *sigh* Not happening, but a girl can hope, right?

But anyway, temps were in the nineties even last night, so I went to bed feeling as warm as I did when I woke up. Hah. There was editing before that of course, which we’ll be doing for the next two to four months I’m guessing. It is going to be so boring mentioning that in the blogs every time.

Of course the there was the dip in the pool before sitting down for the evening, and after harvesting green beans, tomatoes and melons, I was so itchy that the dip was a matter of life and death for me, hah.

The basin got cleaned properly…at least, of dirt and water. Doesn’t mean that we’re done yet, though. There’s still the acid we have to use on the walls before we can start painting the walls and floor for winter. It’ll be quite a task yet, but it’s gotta be done.

More editing before that, and cooking supper for the day. While eating, mom and the younger sibs got home from a good day at the market, so everything was good all round.

The first part of the day, after that dip, laundry and breakfast, was spent in my cabin, putting in the final nails of the floor and the plinths which make the whole look absolutely bloody gorgeous. It’s so fancy, I should be giving a dance party, or something. Hah.

And yay, another blog done, describing life as usual, with hardly any aberration, which is a pity. Makes ya want something exciting to happen, doesn’t it? Ah well…*sigh*

More excesses to can

Song of the day: “Que sera sera (what will be will be) by Doris Day. What can I say, the oldies just sometimes come to haunt me.

Yesterday was totally awesome canning thirty pots of tomatoes, pumpkins, green beans, peppers and zucchinis...ehm, yeah...not thirty of each! But all together thirty, duh...for the winter. Sure it took ages, started around noon and didn’t finish until after eight in the evening, but what the hey. It got done, and several of the concoctions are once again experiments. I kinda liked them all, seeing as I made concentrated soups of them. I am definitely keeping several as recipes for the book later on. The way I figure, this winter I’ll pick a pot or two (whichever I’m in the mood for) toss it in a pan and add water until we have a full meal. Easy as pie, as they say. Hah.

Was thoroughly exhausted afterwards, however, and it took me a dip in the pool, supper and some staring-blindly-ahead for several minutes per hour before I recovered enough to start on the day’s writing session. Of course by that time was also thoroughly distracted by the whole debacle going on in Norway. Seriously, that is some far-out shaite, especially in this so called realistic world. *sigh* And here they say that movies are unrealistic when some villain starts on a killing spree. I can’t help but wonder what this fella thought to achieve with his actions. I mean, really, no one’s going to think much of his “message” now that he’s killed dozens of teenagers. I mean, I somehow get his his frustration (read a draft of his manifesto), in a weird way anyway, but this...

Totally book material...though if I had written it, I would have made him smarter. Personally I think, his message, if he had one, would have been far more credible if he had walked into parliament and started mowing down the politicians he blamed for modern day society’s problems. But a youth camp? Not smart! Not smart at all. They’ll dismiss him as a lunatic, and then what? He spends life in prison, foaming at the mouth about stuff he can’t ever possibly change anymore? Ah well, let’s just call the whole thing scary and leave it at that.

Okay, what else. I wrote about two pages last night, despite my distraction and my tiredness. The story is really rapidly developing now, and I really, really have to wrap it up now. I can add another eight thousand words, but that’s it. I need the remaining five for the edit, so that I can at least add extra necessities throughout the story, rather than first having to remove a few thousand words to make room.

So yeah, another trip to the garage is going to be necessary. The cooling liquid is still disappearing, so something is wrong. Aaaargh! So frustrating. Why can’t the friggin’ car just work fine for another year, or so?

Tick season (the tiny black ones) is in full swing, apparently. The little buggers are everywhere, sucking the poor dogs dry, and driving me bonkers because I can’t work on my computer without wasting at least a full hour picking ticks off of them, darn it. There are a few that are really considered a delicacy by the buggers.

This morning, seeing as caregiver was once again at her other job (for six hours this time) I spent a lot of time with tenant. First I helped her change, after which she waited in the kitchen for a bit while I prepared lentils/chickpeas patties for lunch. Then we walked down to my terrace where she sat reading in the shade while grandpa and I worked on sanding the boards of my future living room floor. They’re going to be beautiful, thank you very much, and it was a nice occupation early in the day.

Afterwards tenant and I both took a dip in the pool, and then headed on down to the basin terrace where we started on supper. The patties worked out just fine, and the vegetable mix to go with them...yummy. Seriously, is there anything healthier than fresh veggies in a cream-tomato sauce?

Well, I would like to do a bit of writing still, before the day is through, and after that...well, I just might hit the sack early today. Seriously, I’ve been getting way too little sleep again this week. *sigh*

Change of plans...literally

Music of the day: “Everything for free” by K’s Choice. It’s been a while since I heard it, but I downloaded it yesterday and it was great to hear again. Of course it has been in my head since then, so...well, whatever.

My voice is still acting funny. Seriously, if you didn’t know better, you’d think I’m a chain smoker, or something. If you know the band I mentioned up here...well, my voice sounds just like that at the moment. Hah.

Yep. It’s happened again: There’s a new project. I know, all the old ones ain’t done yet, but it just had to be done. We were about to start on the day when, out of the blue tenant’s new terrace doors were there. Seriously, we thought to just postpone most of those plans until a later time, but there they were, and since we couldn’t stand the idea of tenant spending another dark winter inside her room with windows that were too high to look through from her chair, we decided to just start on it. The place was still a mess from the new floor project anyway.

There we went, breaking open the old wall (I did an almost bounce after kicking at the second beam that refused to budge, but we managed. Yay. It was a mess for sure, but I’ve gotta admit that I could imagine the end result and it’ll be grand. Sure, we’ll need to chop away some rock surfaces, but there’s no rush for that.

So the plan was to take out the old windows, the panels and put in three huge terrace doors with small panes. Now that everything is out, there is so much light in her room that it’s almost like a veranda...which would be awesome. The next best thing is the French doors. It’ll look grand, and I’ll have pictures to prove it. Hah.

There were some mishaps, of course. For instance there was the moment when we discovered that we’d put one of the posts at 87, rather than 78 centimeters. Seriously, we were putting the last post in and discovered that the distance wasn’t right. So we went back to the first one and removed the fill-section we put in there, only to discover that we had made an error with the second post. There was some swearing (big brother) and insane laughter (me) and then we had to change everything back before resetting post number two and three. *sigh*

The concrete grandpa had made, had turned into...well, concrete within the wheelbarrow. Hah. So we decided to just leave it at that and head on down to the basin terrace for some very late cooking (had to skip lunch due to several really embarrassing little miscalculations). Supper was nice, though. Made potato with tomato, onion garlic and a wee bit of cheese. Gawd, I was so stuffed afterwards. I did manage to write a page or two, before it was time to head down into the yard and harvest four pounds of green beans, several peppers and zucchini and watering what needed to be watered...which is a lot since summer is finally here. Yay!

I’m serious, the temperatures are finally in the high nineties and it’s like we’re on vacation, or something. The sun bright, the sky clear and the wind warm. It can be uncomfortable, but I’ve decided to fully enjoy it considering we’re already back to month seven. Before you know it, winter will be here again and I am determined to get as much from summer as I can. It’s days like these that I remember the full attraction of Spain, it is marvelous.

Bit of bad news is that the pool pump gave the spirit yesterday and decided to die on us. It was literally burned through, and we still don’t really know what happened. It might be that somehow it ran dry for a long time, but since that has happened before, I don’t think it’s likely. Ah well, either it gets fixed (we didn’t manage it ourselves) or we need to buy a new one.

Wrote three pages during the course of two writing sessions last night. Not a lot, but progress at least. I discovered that I’m about five weeks into the writing and have already past the half-way-through mark. Yay. Considering that the story is going rather well, I’m going to have to be careful not to overshoot the word count.

Which brings us to today. For some reason I overslept this morning (not smart since it doesn’t improve my mood) and was running behind on everything while I rushed through the morning ritual, took a very necessary dip in the pool...Chaos, Labhana, Gada and Knight II all insisted on a dip too. Poor darlings were really hot after the sweltering night. Hah.

After laundry I headed up to chat with tenant (she had a doctor’s appointment this morning and all was well) and then continue with her room where we proceeded to hang the last post and prepare what we could for pouring the concrete. While big brother did the latter, grandpa (he’d made the concrete) and I sanded, shaved and made the doors the right size (there’s always some of that when you’re putting something new in, mind you) and on the overall were melting right there in the pitiful shade while the sun slid up to its zenith. Gawd, summer. Ya gotta love it!

That done, it was time to clean up and head on down to the basin terrace (it works best this time of year due to the constant breeze there) where we made dinner of green beans with coconut shavings, and baby potatoes with the peel baked in real butter. Yummy.

So, rather than sit, I really didn’t feel like sitting today, I getting a wooden behind from it, you know, I decided to blog standing up straight, and gotta admit that it’s going well. It give the illusion that you’re doing something a little more active than just writing, you know, and since I read that piece where research showed that sitting down for more than three hours a day is bad for your health, I don’t mind this standing bit at all. Hah.

Well, time for me to see if I can fit in a bit of writing yet. There’s the book to finish after all, and...yeah, need to get to that.

Goobye to a friend.

Song of the day: “Mr. Sandman” by...I’m not entirely sure. The one that goes through my mind is the one sung by that girl in “Cry Baby” with Johnny Depp.

As usual, I’m running way behind, but who’s counting...well, I am, but what the heck. Can’t change that now.

Edit-wise things are going well. The in-between project is halfway done, making it a bit of rush job since this burst of inspiration is bound to be over soon. Almost done, though, so I take comfort in that. The fun part is that I've been able to ad a whole scene...which ended up being too long for the required word count. It means that I'm going to have to scratch over five hundred words, darn it. But I might be able to hold it up until it’s completely done. The research on itself has been tremendous fun, in particular because I don’t often visit the nineteen twenties in my head.
And yes, this was a story based on a dream, so if you’re ever interested in it, you’ll have to read it some time. Hmmm. Maybe I’ll post the original version some time.

So what’s been going on these days past. On the most part yard stuff, which is great since, even though there has been a bit of rain in the mornings, the weather has been really good for it. Over the course of three days we’ve been working on the lowest section of the yard, digging through years of biological debris to find wonderfully usable humus. With the use of multiple Eucalypti tree trunks we have created a total eight small terraces that will soon be holding this year’s produce. It amazes me that with every addiction the yard appears to be getting bigger and yes, I will soon post more pictures of it.

Which reminds me, due to too much growth over the past few years, we also had to cut of several eucalypti (and alter dig out the roots. Yikes!) which we thankfully used in the project. What with the new terraces going, we’ve been gradually planting melons, pumpkins and some more peppers and tomatoes. Yesterday and the today was also used to take out our first harvest of potatoes, which had been bothered considerable by a well-known potato disease that ate their leaves. Still, despite that, the harvest was good, I think that the total (once we have it all out. Now we’re halfway through) we’ll have about three crates full.

The nicest part about it all is the teeny baby potatoes that came from the plants. Cutting them in half and baking them raw in herbs, onion and butter is absolutely delicious. We’ve already had two meals from it and another one coming. Same goes for the cabbages, which are huge. One cabbage will take us through two meals, for crying out loud.

There were some trips to town, including Grocery shopping day which was particularly harrowing because we had to visit three more stores than usual. Tenant needed some things, so there we went. *sigh* Other than that nothing really interesting happened during the most dreaded day of the month, so let’s leave it at this, eh.

Bad news of the week is that Bakti, little brother’s oldest and (I think) dearest dog died today. He was old, we got him at four months old some odd thirteen years ago, and he was the replacement of Bakti one who’d been with little brother since he was a little boy. A sad day, to say the least. Such an old and familiar companion gone. He was good dog, calm, patient and never had a single sick day in his life until just a few months ago when age caught up with him. Always hard to say goodbye to a good friend, but such is life. Right?

Okay, let’s not dwell on the bad stuff. If we did, we’d be “dwelling” every single day and not get anything done, darn it. There was (of course) laundry to do, weeds to pull and meals to be made...all in a day’s work, naturally. Along with watering the newly sowed seeds and transplanted seedlings.

This morning, seeing as we had to head out into the yard for watering anyway, we worked on the wall again. Got a good section going, in fact, and big brother has got the new stairs between them up to three steps now. Things are starting to look pretty darn good, if you must know. Tomorrow, or soon anyway, I’m going to have to start digging the foundation for what, in the near future, will be the septic tank. This means that before I can start with the digging, grandpa and I are also going to need to start hauling down concrete slabs for that particular wall, which is going to be...hmmm...interesting I hope. Hah. Whatever it is going to be, it will be good exercise, eh? Hah.
I do have to admit to feeling a bit daunted by the prospect of lifting a hundred or so of those 60 pound slabs again, but what the hey. It’ll be good for my biceps.

Am reading a particularly frustrating book at the moment. I am not liking the characters at all, and there are seriously moments that I want to rip the book apart, or throttle the lead with my bare hands. I would review it, but it would be way too mean to share that with anyone, seeing as it is just personal taste anyway.

Well, that’s about all my brain can come up with, so I’m going to leave it at this, if you don’t mind.

Harvesting still going strong

Song of the day: “Sin sin sin” by Robbie Williams. The guy does have good movies, and somehow always manages to make me laugh with his escapades. Quite an entertainer, that’s a fact.

Yesterday was quite a busy day, darn it, barely had time for anything that was remotely important and substantial, while still being elemental. First of all, we had to go to the consulate to get tenant’s passport, which is a trip of a solid hour, basically to pick up a tiny booklet. Grrr. Afterwards, considering we came through town anyway, we went to the water company, because last week we got a bill that is half of the usual one. At first we were thrilled of course, but then we started thinking of all the hassles with the electricity company when a mess up like this was made and, aaargh.

So there was a trip to the water company, where it turns out that they changed the rules on us again, without us noticing it. The bill counts for January to April, which means that the summer bill won’t be here until three months from now. Yikes. It feels sorta like a stay in execution.

Our friend Dani had to go to what could very well be her new job (tourist shop in the village) so we dropped her off there, before big brother and I went on to the bank because ever since we had to change our account we haven’t been receiving our monthly drafts. Luckily they already knew what we came for, because the director waved us straight into his office and launched into an explanation about the address saying “apartment” instead of PO box. *sigh*

Also, he suggested that it might be cheaper to do insurance through the bank, because they made deals with companies that grants bank members to get discounts. It’s worth some thought, since saving money definitely is a good thing.

But anyway, that done we headed for the car. For a moment I lingered at one of the tourist shops where the owner tried to pawn off this really cute purse/backpack…I’m in the market for a new one, after all…for first 18 bucks, and when I pulled a face at the price (I wasn’t carrying anything except small change, hah) he offered to hand it over for fifteen. I was tempted, but finally decided against it because, lets face it; the one I have might not look good anymore, it does still serve it’s purpose…admittedly, if he’d said ten, I would have scrounged up the change, hah.

Once at home I had to help tenant head on down to the green house, where we would be working during the afternoon. Considering the bad economy, she won’t be able to afford her full time caregiver, so that means we’re going to have to pitch in a little. The necessities taken care of, we slowly, but steadily make our way down, where she spent the rest of the afternoon reading, nibbling and drinking with us. It was a comfortable afternoon, even though we had too few hours to get a lot done.

The query letter is shaping up, I admit. It’s almost as well rounded and cohesive as the one we did for Saving Nina, and considering the responses for that one, I have high hopes, hah.
We are now a chapter or two into the paper edit, which means that we should cowboy up and jump into it feet first. It would help if I weren’t so bloody tired at the end of the day (a day like yesterday, anyway) ‘cause last night I was lucky I could find my pillow before I passed out.

Once done with the day’s computer work, it was time to do some serious harvesting, because what with grocery shopping on Monday, we hadn’t gotten to it at all. Heck Monday night we barely managed to water all the plants that needed watering. Luckily, last night we did manage, and got two full crates of tomatoes, a crate full of zucchini (yes, they’re still going strong) several sweet corn, and a crate full of red beets.

Of course, by the end of the day by foot was hurting like fff…hmmm, you know what…but since there was a crate of kiwis to take care of, along with the majority of tomatoes, big brother and I spent the majority of the evening, cooking tomato soup (it worked out well, yay) and a huge kiwi pie. This one didn’t work out so well, except for the taste, which is bloody splendid. Yep, we’ll be eating pie this afternoon.

Tomatoes that were damaged, blemished, or whatever, were dog food and the darlings loved it, I assure you. Some prefer zucchini however, but since we had more than enough of those too, all had however their little hearts desired.

Well, that’s it for me. I’m going to have myself some breakfast/lunch and then get to work on the book.

Onward.

Song of the day:...I’m not entirely sure. I’m constantly humming something that sounds familiar, and yet I can’t place it. Very annoying, and if it turns out I’m humming some sort of classic again I’m going to be really POed.

But anyways, let’s get to it, shall we? Who knows, I might be able to keep it under one page today, which would be monumental, I think and…if I keep pondering the possibility like this, I am definitely not going to make it. Darn!

I jogged again…hmmm, I better explain my jubilance, I hadn’t for more than a week because I have this persistent heel problem that really hurts like a son of a bitch most days, so I thought it might be smart to try and see if not running would make it better. Since it still hurt most days, I figured I might as well go running again…big mistake, seeing as I could actually get up during the night again without staggering, and after the run couldn’t, again. F….well, it is a bad four letter word, but I was tempted.

Fun bit, yesterday, working in the yard, I walked past the basin and the wind blew off my hat for the fifth time that day, right into the eight feet deep container. Okay, that might not sound so funny, but I actually found it rather easy to get into it, just hopped down really (I would have been elegant about it too, if I hadn’t used my wrong heel, blast!) got my hat and went to the corner where a chair waited. Now, history taught me that it was too high for me to lift myself out, and grandpa was already getting the ladder for me when I thought, what the heck, I’m just going to try. I did it, heck, I used way too much push, actually, and had to be careful not to topple over to the other side. But I’ve gotta say that those missing eighty-something pounds make it vastly entertaining to climb out of something. Easy as pie, as they say. Hah.

Okay, next item…more gardening, of course. More broccoli, lotsa chard, leek, two handfuls of green beans so far, a couple of onions and lettuce of course. We have WAY too much lettuce, but it’s all good. I might not be a lettuce fan, we’ve got several folks around the house that like it just fine…besides, I’ll eat it. Food is food, after all.

What else…ah yes, we put up the first constructions for tomatoes and such, allowing them the support they need to grow big. Did the same for the peppers and even some cucumbers, which are finally starting to show some enthusiasm about growing up. Hah.

There were two more hauling trips, which reminds me, I still have to unload the latest batch, darn it, and considering grandpa wants storage behind the camper I’m scheduled an intimate date for two with Jack Hammer (chortle) to chop away the rocky peaks there. I’ll have to take some pictures to give you an idea of the place.

Ambah is doing okay, I guess. At least he is not getting worse and still enjoys food. Bad thing is, Alexxander, mom’s cocker spaniel had a bad day yesterday. Apparently he is feeling poorly so we’re keeping a close eye on him.

Edits! Ah yes, let’s not forget those. The new scene is written and both big brother and I are satisfied with it. It does mean that we didn’t get much farther in the edit because of the rewrite, but now we’re back on track, so it doesn’t matter. We need to do little more than eighty pages yet, so the finish line is slowly coming in sight.

And nope, I didn’t make it in a single page, darn it, I just overshot it with the last bit. Ah well, next time I’ll make it…I hope.

On to chopping rocks. I’ll be back…I hope. Hah