A nice job!

Song of the day: "I miss you" by Clean Bandit feat Julia Michaels. Love this song. Although it is not the nicest chorus to have stuck in your head like an earworm. Doesn't mean that it isn't a nice song, though.

So, what all has been going on then? Quite a bit, actually. My cleaning job ended, thankfully. Not on a bad note or anything, it just wasn't for me what with the new management. Did my notice month, said my goodbyes to the best colleagues, keeping in touch with some of them, and went through all the motions of getting a new job. And I did. Two in fact. Yep, you heard it right. I got two. One's a little less fun. Prepping buses. It is all about gassing them up, dragging a broom through them, putting them in a wash street and then parking them for use the next day. Not exactly challenging, brain wise, but different at least. Hah. This one will be late at night in the weekends. Gah. I know. And it's a cold job in winter, too, considering everything is outside, so if it rains, I'm pretty much scr**ed. The one plus is that I can wear my baseball caps again. I missed those babies.

The other job I got today. Yep. I applied for this catering job weeks and weeks ago and thought it wasn't going to be anything after not hearing from them for all this times, but then last week I suddenly got a call where they asked to meet me. Which was today. Went for a chat at one of their steady location. A company cafeteria, where I was talked through the procedures, what they did, what they were looking for and so on. We discussed terms etc, and considering they had four applicants the manager was going to call me around Tuesday with their decision. So, I went back to the car, thinking it had gone reasonably well, and wham, suddenly my phone went with the manager asking me another question or two before suddenly saying: "how would you like to start next week." To which I assured her that would be splendid, naturally, meaning that I have another job. One that I actually look forward to. And a non-cleaning job to boot. I was afraid that was never going to happen. But it did, so, YAY!

Will have to choose one or the other at some time, considering having two jobs like this will cost me a humongous amount in taxes (40% of one salary), which is not something I much look forward to. Grrr. Bloody taxes. I think I'm just going to use the next month or so to figure out which one I like best and then make a decision.

What else? Well, some stuff with the book. Again. Which got so bad due to contradicting messages that we just made a joint decision to postpone the publishing date by a month. At this point it's a relief, really. There was so much pressure building up that it became clear that it wasn't all going to get done in time.

Did get a peek at our future cover, which is gorgeous! I'm teasing, I know, but they did a wonderful job on it. As soon as everything is sorted out I'll post it here on the blog, of course. I'm curious what y'all will think.

What else. Got another inspection of the house, which was thankfully okay. Was really worried about that, especially because due to edits I'd been so busy that I didn't get a lot of time for cleaning. Got the basics done in time, and we managed to chop away the weeds outside before the inspector came, so all ended well in that regard.

Cooking. I tried a new dish I'd been thinking about for a while. Really nice. Involves white cabbage, carrots and leek, fried in a dry rice with spices, sambal ulek and scrambled eggs. It almost tasted like eggrolls, I tell ya. Added to that I baked tiny nuggets of my chickpea meat substitute and they went together splendidly. No baking recently, much to my regret. Except some bread, but that doesn't really count, does it? Also messed around with some other recipes, of which a couple are ending up in my collection of recipes. I really do need to start packing them all together in the recipe book soon. Got quite a collection going already.

Dratted car is going to have to go in for new brakes and disks, which costs a bloody effing fortune, naturally. And money is already tight this month. Doesn't help either that my phone fell and stopped working, so now I am messing about with Big Brother's old (also broken) one until I can find something affordable. Stupid weak phones. Can't even accidentally drop your phone on the concrete in a puddle so the glass cracks all over. Grrrr. Haha

Came down with a cold last week. Every congested and I had a light fever, but I thought I'd won the battle, having the darn bug under control, only to wake up this morning and feel that it had travelled down my thrown *insert a string of swearing here* I was doing so well. So now I am drinking hot toddies with turmeric. A lot. Hoping that it will help some. Grrrr. I better. I got a couple of cold evenings ahead of me at the bus job, and then off to my dad's place to do a few days of painting in his new house. Will be the last chance I've got, considering work for the catering is going to start next week. Just need to get this friggin' cold under control.

Went to a party of a former colleague a couple of weeks ago. Which was lovely. Got to see a lot of former colleagues and friends, enjoyed some of the food (meaty stuff didn't go down well…ehm, well, not at all actually. Had to carefully eat around the meat chunks in what was otherwise a lovely soup. Haha. Am afraid our host didn't know that we're mainly vegetarian) drank lemonade (I was driving so big brother could have some beer) and basically just chatted with folks and admired wedding pictures and the new house. A lovely evening.

Have made some tentative attempts at starting on a new book project, but considering the process of the one that is getting published constantly interrupts, demanding more time, doesn't help much. Maybe some day I'll fully explain how the whole process went, it's a doozy, but for now I want to stay positive and keep looking toward the future, so it will have to wait. Hah

What else…I'm not sure. Starting to draw a blank here. Very frustrating. Finally caved in on finding decent pants at thrift stores and ordered some jeans online. Such a relief to have some pants that are in one piece available at will. Was down to one favorite pants (you know what I mean, right. For some reason you end up with that one pair that you just keep wearing and wearing until it is ragged and you can't anymore *sob*) but now things are much easier. Yay. Good thing too, since I needed something neat for my job interview yesterday. Had on black jeans with an eggplant purple sweater. Some creole earrings and hair up and, surprise surprise, I looked halfway decent. *wink*

There were groceries to be done, of course. When is that ever not the case. Wouldn't it be grand if you only had to do groceries once a month…I know, I know. If that were the case I'd probably complain about having to do it once a month. Why not twice a year?! Hah. I'm whiny when it comes to groceries, aren't I. Let's just say that I like it that less is spent when you go to a store less. Somehow, no matter what you do to prepare, you always end up doing spur of the moment buys, and they are evil, I tell ya.

As for what more…blanking! Blanking! Have been giving my plants some extra attention. The poor darlings had been neglected a bit during all the rush edits, work, job applications and whatnot. They're all looking a lot better now. Added to that, I've been working on making new ones, which is going well. I always like having some extra little plants that I can use as gifts. Some of them are just so easy to "clone" and so cute once they get started…can you hear how I am basically treating my plants as pets. I do. I also talk to them FYI. What can I say. I love my plantsies.

Also doing some proofreading for other people on the side, and content writing for blogs, so I keep busy, as usual.

Religiously doing my qigong. Not giving that up now that I have finally conquered the evil Plantars Fasciitis and can actually be on my feet all day without wanting to burst into tears at the end of the day. Which reminds me. I have to do my session for today still. Yikes!

So that's it for today. Not going to blab any more useless stuff here. As soon as I've got something nice to share, I'll go on and on and on about it. I promise.

Gotta go!

We have a moving date...sorta.

Song of the day: “Issues” by Julia Michaels, is often tumbling through my mind these days. Very accurate for most folks, I’m guessing, so I don’t feel too weird having this as an earworm.

Well, lots has happened since the last blog, so I might as well get to it right away, right?

So it’s a done deal, big brother and I are moving house again. Yes, I know, we’ve been at the cute little farm for only nine months or so, but that doesn’t change the fact that when an opportunity arises, we shouldn’t jump on it like ticks on a hound…okay, gross analogy, I know, but you know what I mean.

As to the opportunity…well, there was one at our old place of employment. If we were to live in the same area as before once more, big brother could get a full time position at the technical department of the Spa & Wellness, and I could get back to the cleaning, if I want to (not a hundred percent sure yet about that, but we’ll see) on a part time basis at the very least. Since I can’t do more than part time anyway, this is certainly an option.  Gotta have time left to write and edit, so sacrifices have to be made in the job department, naturally. Can’t have two careers, and since writing is definitely the dream, I’ll scrub friggin’ floors if I have to.

Anyways, big brother is rather happy with the opportunity. He always liked working there (duh, doing technical shaite is way more fun than mere cleaning) so it is a great chance for him to also have a “normal career” while I try to get this whole writing thing up and running.

Writing. Well, we’re still in the editing stages. Some details that need to be ironed out, and since the book is so long, it is taking the editor longer than planned to get the bit on her side done. Well, duh. That was my problem, too when I had to do the last changes. Seriously, the 8-10 hours slaving behind  the computer to try to get it all done in time, weren’t easy by any means. Let’s hope that the editor at least has to admit that that was pretty amazing in the few weeks that I had to do the, what turned out to be massive changes. Grrrr. I cried, for crying out loud, especially when the darn thing finally went out and I could breathe a little easier once more.

But anyway, I was pretty happy with how the changes brought it back to the former quality once more, but apparently it wasn’t enough yet. What lies in the future is changing more chapters in regards to their POV, because for some reason the book has to be more from the female perspective.  A pity, that, considering that I wrote the book primarily from the hero’s point of view. Grrr. But what has to be done, has to be done. We’ll get it sorted out…somehow.

What else? Well, spent a long weekend at my father’s place last week. Not just a pleasure trip, I assure you. Big brother and I promised to move the shed from the back yard to the front, which turned out to be a bit more difficult than anticipated. Partly because there were parts of the wood infested with woodworm, *sigh*, and because the poor structure was old and had endured a large amount of patchwork jobs over the years to prevent leakage and what not. Anyways, there was quite a bit of improvising involved in terms of getting the right wood to replace the old…especially since our tools are not as extensive as they used to be…replacing the roof, moving the foundation from the old spot to the new before actually getting the shed there, etc.

The way we went about it was removing the damaged wood and the roof entirely, and then literally lifted the shed from its concrete foundation so we could remove it and place it in the new spot that we still had to dig out on the spot. The darn thing was friggin heavy, I tell you. Big brother and I could barely lift it with the both of us, prior to the removal of the damaged wood, but once that was done, and attachment points were put in place for easy lifting, we carried the thing together with stepmother and littlest brother, who came over during his lunch break for this very purpose.

What we had planned to be two days, turned out to be four in the end, partly because putting the whole thing back together was a tad more complicated by past-time patch jobs, and because hauling everything to the other side of the yard was a friggin heavy job what with near tropical temperatures for the duration of our stay (seriously, it was like being back in Spain! High 90s temps, for crying out loud!)  meaning that I sweated like a race horse as I hauled wheelbarrow after wheelbarrow with roof tiles, shells (they were for underneath the floor because they keep mice from tunneling under there) and of course all the wood and whatnot.

It didn’t help at all that at the beginning of the third day I stepped onto a patch of cut-off bamboo shoots and ended up with a serious hole in the bottom of my foot. Yep. That’s me. Why do things easy and without pain when you can do it with it? Grrrr. Anyway, when I inspected the damage, I first didn’t realize the extent of it and thought that something sticky got stuck under my foot. Grabbed it, and yanked it off. Turned out to be a couple of inches of skin. Aaaaargh. Rather than risk complete immobility if I stopped to really treat it, I decided to go the natural way, and used the soil as a bandage. Yep. The dusty ground worked really well as a bandage. Got a nice patch of mud on the damaged area, and it made for easier walking than on shoes, so that’s what I did for the remainder of the work days—walk around barefoot, because at least it would allow me to balance on my foot in such a way that I wasn’t constantly standing on the hole.

It did mean that I needed to clean it properly that evening prior to going out for dinner, as was the folks’ solution to feeding everyone in the evening. Hah. Nice food, mind you, but after hauling shaite for 9 or 10 hours I would have been just as happy with takeout pizza before passing out for the night. Gawd, it had been too long since I did this kind of work. Seriously, the first night I could barely sleep from all the twinges and aches all over, and the second night I woke every two hours for the same reason, before I finally just passed out on the third night. Hah.

But, as I was saying, the cleaning of the hole in my foot involved soaking my feet in baking soda water, and then spraying it with teatree oil, antiseptic spray. Stung like mad, but it did do the job.

This was the procedure for the next day, too, since barefoot was less painful than shoes, and we did in the end get the whole thing done.

Of course, the moment we left…sometime around 9 PM…the weather turned, and we came home to a nice low eighties summer evening. Yay. A little late, but I am not going to complain about cooler temps after four days of sweltering. It was a good four days, though. I missed the kind of satisfying work, building something is. Nothing quite beats the sensation of standing in front of a structure that you put there with your own blood, sweat and tears. Hah

We were late getting home, meaning I had to rush the cleaning of my foot a little so I’d get to bed on time. Work the next day, after all, despite being friggin’ bone tired. Work went well enough for a couple of hours, but then the foot started hurting like heck (the heat of friction, you know. Can’t stop that when you’re walking around in shoes, despite cloudy weather) so I finished the day by clenching my jaw and just putting one foot in front of the other until it was done.

Did manage to do my qi gong the next day, albeit later in the afternoon. Was really necessary too, considering the four days away where I simply didn’t have the energy for it. Was so nice to go through the familiar motions that I barely even noticed the discomfort in my foot through most of it. Do need to keep that up, even if I do start working more regularly. Especially the shoulder exercises that keep the muscles there supple, because a lot of tension gathers there really fast.

Moving. Yes, it is definitely happening now. Last week we got a tip, and since then we have seen the outside, got a tour of the inside the day after getting home from our father’s place, and everyone is in agreement that we will move in there the moment it is free sometime in the middle of the month.  Same deal as our present residence, and only twenty minutes away from work.

It’s a big place, which was my first requirement. These days I have a lot of problems with small spaces, in particular if I have to spend a lot of time there (like during edits and such) so I don’t much care for primitive stuff, as long as it is big. Thankfully this place is not at all primitive, in fact it looks a little like the place I grew up in prior to Spain. Same sort of design, same sturdy materials, albeit a little less elegant. The nicest part is the big kitchen. It’s huge, with a nice kitchen island which will make cooking there a pleasure.

Also the living room is massive, with nice big windows, so basically I have already decorated the whole place in my mind. Hah. Going to have a little fun with that when I get  to it. I will be allowed to paint walls white, which is probably something that needs doing, because everything is very beige, and thus dark now, something I have a little bit of difficulty with. I don’t like dark at all. There are a total of five bedrooms upstairs in the place, and two extra rooms downstairs, so I’ll also have to think about what to do with those.

But no matter, the nicest part of the place is the double garage, meaning that the cars will be protected and won’t need as much cleaning. Yay!  And there is a massive shed, which has some potential for a fitness area, for as far as I’m concerned.

Now the nicest part would be that we’re allowed to have a dog there, which is sorely tempting for as far as I’m concerned. There were thoughts of maybe getting my Sitabah here when I move, but I don’t want to be selfish in that regard. Poor baby is in the only place she knows as home, with all the dogs she’s known her entire life, and me she hasn’t seen in two years, and has probably forgotten completely, so for her it would be horrible if I did that.

But it is tempting. I mean imagine, having her here, and maybe Tadaika, or Fortune. *sigh* A girl can dream, right?

What else?

Well, packing is in progress, naturally. All the knick knacks are packed already, the books, dvds and basically anything that makes the place look cosy is gone already. It’s getting more spacious by the minute. Hah. Do have to be careful during the whole thing. I notice that familiar sadness. The kind I had in Spain while getting rid of everything, which is ridiculous, considering that this move is entirely voluntary and I won’t have to throw anything, since we’re just planning on renting another van and getting it all there, too…except maybe the couch. Am finding myself thinking of exchanging it for another one at some point, so I am not sure whether I’m going to do it before the move or after. We’ll see.

Have planned a small, casual dinner party sometime next week. A goodbye sort of thing for the neighbors, who have been wonderful for the past nine months. They were very pleasant people to live between, that’s a fact. Am going to do an Italian meal that we can all share around a big table. Two, maybe three courses, involving stuff that I then won’t have to haul along in the move. Yay.

And that about sums up the past few weeks, I guess. Actually some change for a change, pardon the repetition. Hah.  Am writing this while waiting for my job interview at the spa & wellness. Drove in together with big brother, meaning I had to get up at four, since at the moment we still live a good fifty minutes away from work. Would be wasteful for me to drive separately, so now I’m killing time doing some catching up like this one, and maybe some edit planning later on.

Since I will have to fill the remainder of the day as well, I will also do some shopping later, visit with some friends and then hopefully pick up big brother on time…not very likely, since yesterday was his first day here and he didn’t get home until six or so in the evening. Grrr. Lucky for him I had already cooked dinner (even had my meat for a change, good Sammie!) and he could dig right in.

Which is it for now…well, at least it was a decent size blog today, amounting to a whopping three pages, compared to the average 1 I manage these days. I know, bad Sammie, bad Sammie.  I am trying to do better and be here more frequently, but you know how it goes. So much to do and so little time to do it in. 

Seriously...blowjob?! Eeewwww!!!

Song of the day: “Man down” Rihanna. Who’d have thunk it, but apparently I can like this particular artist anyway. Go figure.

First I’ve got a rant that just has to get out.
For a moment here, I wanna talk about inappropriate behavior, because, seriously, I am no prude but…well, let me explain what happened. Big brother and I were out the other day, driving through the city late at night, when, on the pavement, up ahead a man (in his late forties I’m guessing) was standing by a park bench, and in front of him was a woman (mid-twenties, not a day over twenty five, if she was a day) who appeared to be in distress. I was like, awww, how sweet, the guy’s daughter is crying, and he’s comforting her, and yes, as we passed, I saw it clearly, he was standing in front of her, his hand gently stroking the back of her head as she rested her forehead against his belt buckle.
I glanced at big brother, and then out the window once more to look back at the…blowjob?! Yep. From this particular angle there was no mistaking it. To me it was a definite moment of “Aaawww, how swee…what the…” I snap back forward and blink at the fully lit street ahead. “Right. Blowjob.” Thank you for that imagery, bunch of weirdoes.
Seriously, it was almost midnight, but here in Spain that means that kids are still roaming the streets, riding around on their bikes and whatnot. I should have had hung out the window and shouted, “Get a effing room you perverts.”
I mean it; I have nothing against people orally doing…well, stuff. To each his own and all that. But do they have to friggin’ do it in the middle of the street for all the world to see? Do they have to emotionally scar me for life just because they like the risk of being caught? I mean, really. I don’t like to have my naïve awww moment wrecked by the harsh reality of two people doing THAT right where I can see it. Jeezzz!

Okay, rant over. Let’s get to it.

After not hearing my alarm at all yesterday morning, I was rushing through every single morning ritual in an attempt to catch up. I hate nothing more than being behind with stuff. Puts me in a nasty mood that’s a fact. But anyway, there were the morning things, chores and laundry before I headed up to tenant and helped her get ready to walk down to the basin terrace with me. Caregiver had to be elsewhere, so we were on our own. Hah.

While doing that, my phone went. Turned out that the newspaper where I applied for a job recently wanted to see me around five, so yeah, that’s when the nervousness started. Nothing to serious, but strangely enough my mind always starts to think of worst case scenarios, which is not a good thing at all. I finally decided to just head down into the yard.

There were plants to water, and since I was down there needing distraction anyway, I spent a couple of hours trimming tomato plants, and re-hanging their branches. Very calming to do that, nothing like hot sun, green bushes and dirty hands to get you grounded, eh?

By the time I was done I headed up to the outside kitchen for supper. A veggie mix with chickpea/lentil burgers that went down excellently. Such an easy way of eating nice.

But anyway, after that I had to head on up (caregiver was home by then) to get ready to go to my surprise job interview. Ended up being half an hour late, because I got lost in the mazes of streets and the office didn’t have a big plaque out, or anything. Finally had to call (hate that) and say that I was in the street but couldn’t find them. Got there, had to fill in some forms, and then was brought to the back to talk with the woman who did the hiring.
I don’t know. I guess I’ll be surprised if this job goes through, because our talk wasn’t the most auspicious one, but I’ll just have to see. She said she would talk with her bosses, and would get back to me if I got hired, but other than that I was outta there in less than fifteen minutes. Talk about a waste of time. *sigh*

On the way home we did a few groceries, mostly hoping for the sale of thermos cans, but they were there yet, so we were back on the road again within no time.

Once home there was, of course, and edit. I mean, seriously, we’re in the middle of a full length novel edit, of course it’s isn’t done yet. And afterwards I got curious about the fight technique called Krav Maga, and ended up watching some demos of it on youtube. I’m so going to use it for a book some day, and if I can manage it, maybe even learn it myself.

I, more than anything, was pleased to be in bed on time, though. I was totally wasted. Hah. Then I almost overslept this morning because of the clock grandpa lend me, which stopped, for some peculiar reason at the 2:30 in the morning, leaving me completely reliant on my phone. Luckily, I woke to the tune of my phone alarm, making me only five minutes late for a change. Hah.
There was laundry, breakfast, yada yada yada, and then I was chatting with tenant for a bit before I got tools and headed down into the yard to start turning earth for the new potato patch.

The weather was fine, a cool south eastern wind, and the sun was shining (no more than 92 degrees) and just the right spot in the shade where the actual digging would be done. It took some time what with the root system there, and the compost pile that I had to get to the big one with three full wheelbarrows, and the rocks hiding underground, but I got it done.

By then my foot was complaining by the way. Standing at a constant slant is not the smartest thing for plantars faciitis. *sigh* I for one was happy to gather the tools and head on up and start on supper. Made pumpkin, herbal, pepper, onion and garlic mix which worked out so well that I might consider making it again some day soon.

After eating and relaxing for little over half an hour, (put up some glass pots for tomorrow’s canning) and then headed down again to water a few patches in the lower yard, along with the young eucalypti that still need that extra bit of water. That done there was some more harvesting to do (got a total of twenty tomatoes, I think) and taking the new dried herbs from the drying cupboard.

Now all that’s left is the upcoming edit, meaning that the end of the evening is rapidly coming towards me, thankfully. Heck, right now, I could do with a nap, and yet I know that there isn’t time.
Gotta go.