Saved a kidney...hehehe

Song of the day: “I like it” by Enrique Iglesias. I blame it on the CD in the Opel, which has only a few nice songs on it, so I end up going there every time I drive it. Since I drove it twice today, a total of one hour and a half, I heard it a lot. Hah.

A strange couple of days, partly due to summer time starting, I’m guessing. First off, I totally overslept yesterday morning. Apparently I forgot to set my alarm, and when I woke up at eight thirty, I thought, oh wow, thirty more minutes before the alarm goes, and turned over to wake up again at 10:30, swearing a blue streak. Boy, those were some long 30 minutes, eh? Hah. I severely dislike oversleeping, and would do well to look at it like big brother. When I said I overslept, he said: “Really? I slept in instead.”
*snort* Smartypants!

So I am trying to remember what I did yesterday. It is hard.
There was the unloading of the car, of course, seeing as we almost have had a pick-up per night almost this past week. Things are probably going to slow down a little now, though. I have been occupied with the construction of what, at some point in the future, will be my outside kitchen. I have a location (on the basin terrace) and the stuff I need for it is gradually coming together. I can see it in my head, and it’s beautiful, I tell ya. I can hardly wait.

But the unloading was followed by a trip into the yard where stuff had to be watered, and where a big harvest could be gathered. Got double. Our own meal, along with a nice batch for the vet and her assistant, which is our repayment for being allowed to use the clinic as a postal address for our biological seeds. Our own address is too out of the way for deliveries, so an address in the village is vital. I brought them a batch of kale, fresh herbs, bushes of chickweed, alfa alfa, and handful of tomatoes and a pumpkin each.
Since I had two of the experimental pies anyway, I took them both a piece as well.

After the yard stuff, and supper we headed over to the vet to pay our bills…we couldn’t though, seeing as the computer was down, so we handed over the veggies and pie, and headed the other way for another pick up and to go past the fabric store for mom.

There were edits of course, and a fierce argument about a certain page that wasn’t to big brother’s liking. On the one hand it is great to have help with the writing, and in particular the editing, but there are days when I miss the good old days when I did it all my own way. Hah. Don’t get me wrong, two pairs of eyes, and two opinions work better when it comes to writing stories suited for commercial fiction, but just writing with the flow, so to speak, did hold a certain charm for me.

Which brings us to today…and me functioning on less than six hours of sleep. *sigh…yawn* It’s not pretty, I assure you.
We had to get up early this morning for the Opel appointment at the garage. It was at nine thirty, so that meant that I had to get up at eight and rush through the morning rituals, which I absolutely hate, thank you very much.

But anyway, since big brother was dawdling again. Sure, it has no use to get harried, but there is a difference between careful planning and quickly going through the motions, and just taking so much bloody time that you’re late. Aaaargh. Seriously, he takes more time than Marilyn Monroe to get ready to go out. Fifteen minutes after we were supposed to leave, I gave up on him, and left with the Opel so he could follow later with the Land Rover.

Breaking a few speed limits (only once or twice, mind you) I arrived at the garage seven minutes late. Chatted a little with the receptionist…at least that’s what I think you call her, and then left the car there for possible fixing.

Picked up a few groceries on our way out of town, and then arrived at home only an hour later than we usually start on breakfast. Which we followed up by heading down into the yard where weeds got yanked, plants watered, planted, and the last two fruit trees were placed at last. The apple tree underneath the new terraces, and cousin Ed placed the last orange tree on the top terrace. A big relief there. I was afraid for a bit there, that we wouldn’t be able to get around to that. Oh, the onions are coming up, by the way, and the second beet field is looking downright awesome. Yay.

The dogs had a bread session rather than kibble (donation involved fifteen loafs of bread) and they loved it! In particular the older dogs who remember the days when homemade food and bread were the norm. Seriously, you should have seen Tallis, Rammi, Nata and Tridatuh. They’re of the old garde and they loved it most.

The trees planted, another meal harvest gathered, it was time to go up and cook supper. Made cauliflower mixed with broccoli, fried rice and a fresh salad based on chickweed. Yummy. Then of course we were running a bit late to drop Sally off at her job, and then go to town to pick up the Opel.
Apparently it didn’t need new brakes yet. And the tiny hole in the exhaust can be fixed in a few months when we need to prepare for the MOT. Vastly reassuring that, since the funds are particularly low at the moment. So no kidney selling this month. Yay.

Got home to pie…yep, finished the last pieces standing at the counter informing grandpa and cousin Ed of what the mechanic explained. At which time we went down to fire up the stove and get ready for the day’s edit…not that I think it’s going to work well, seeing as I took hours to write the blog. My focus is clearly taking a vacation. Grrr.

Well, almost midnight. I’m going to leave it at this.

Wind and almost-disaster. Aaaargh.

Song of the day: “You’re beautiful” by James Blunt. I positively dislike the song, but what can I say, it’s on the Itunes, and it’ll come by in the shuffle every once in a while, and then it’ll be stuck in my head for the day. Grrrr.

So, yesterday nothing short of a disaster occurred. The sawing table up and died on us. No, no, no. Not now. Not the sawing table; I still gotta make… Aaaaaaaaaaaaah!!! (that would be my response, in case you’re wondering, hah) Gawd, to be without the saw, would be like losing an arm what with all the projects going on.

Immediately big brother and grandpa set to taking the machine apart, in search of the problem, only to come to the conclusion that it wouldn’t be something they could fix themselves. (Insert another aaag, please) That was depressing to say the least; it meant that the next day they would have to start going past local mechanics in hopes that they could fix a twenty year old German machine that isn’t even built anymore.

Yesterday was a windy day, by the way. And when I say windy, I mean really windy: Winds that’ll rip your clothes of your body and make you freezing cold. By the end of outside work (that would be in the afternoon. Yesterday morning was pretty bearable with the warm sunshine) I couldn’t feel my extremities, I had a headache from clenching my teeth together (they wanted to chatter, you see), and I decided to waste money by turning on my little electric heater by the end of the evening.

Considering our tenant is feeling a little lonely of late, what with no longer going to rehab, we have also decided to wheel her down to the work terrace, where she has company and can sit in a windless spot with lots of sunlight. Rather than hauling her down and just plunking her somewhere (sorta like picking up and dropping off) we decided to make it a challenge. She rose to it beautifully yesterday, managing to mount the four steps up my porch and then walking towards the comfortable chair I’d set up in the corner.
With only a minimal amount of help she got settled and was proud as a fiddle about it.

Little sister and I worked on making a drawer section in the carport that grandpa would like to have for storing capacity. I think he was under the misconception that I was being fresh with him, or something. When I asked him if I could use a particular slat of wood of a rather hideous bluish green color (I didn’t know if he had any plans of painting the thing afterwards) I thought I was teasing or something. Apparently, he doesn’t entirely get the fact that if I offer to help someone out with building, I consider it their project, and try to keep my own (sometimes rather prominent) opinion on how it should be done, under wraps. I don’t start using my own judgment because that would only lead to frustration when the other person wants to have something done in a particular way.

But anyway, after that slight misunderstanding, little sister and I finished the first section of the box-drawer structure, both of us packed into thick clothes, hats, scarf and gloves. And more than willing to head inside after nightfall.

Computer work: Basically we’re just reading stuff at the moment, going over old material, making minor adjustments, etc. etc.
On to today: Yep, the wind went to sleep, thankfully. When I woke this morning it was blissfully quiet and sunny outside…which was somewhat of a relief after a rather violent apocalyptic dream. I’m gonna have to see if I can organize the description well enough for me to write it down one of these days, ‘cause it would be fascinating to see it on the proverbial paper. Hah.

So yeah, I had the rather brilliant idea to suggest to big brother that maybe he should check the electrical wire, which we had been using for the sawing machine…I know, why didn’t I do that yesterday? Well, it didn’t occur to me until late last night when I remembered that the dogs had chewed their way through it and that we had to repair the wire before using it.

I had already fully prepared for the departure of grandpa and big brother to bring the saw motor away, intending to do a good kitchen cleaning and then maybe my blog, when it became clear that the saw wasn’t the problem. But the power outlet (not the before mentioned wire, but still, I thought it rather brilliant of myself, hah) it took big brother a few hours to fix the problem, and then a few more to put the machine back together, but now it is working again. Yay. And best yet, it cost us time and not a penny. Hah.

Though I would have liked to head out into the sunshine, I was already up to my elbows into cleaning the kitchen drawers, so I stuck with it. Man, were they dirty, I think I’ve actually annihilated living organisms from the corners, hah. Within the hours that followed, I got seven of them cleaned out, organised and shut, which is somewhat of a relief since they’ve been bugging me for weeks.

Afterwards, I did manage to get out into the sunshine for a bit, and then hung a few clothes hooks in my cabin, to replace the nails I’d been using until now. So much better, really. Maybe now I won’t kill clothes by pulling them off too hard. Hah.

The sawing machine is back in one piece, so we’re all set for continuing with the ongoing projects. (I was seriously worried there, for a bit.) We are going to do some different stuff soon, though. What with our tenant coming down more often, we’ve decided not to postpone pouring a concrete path down the mountain, so that’s up soon. It’ll also be handy for pouring the concrete floor in the carport, but once the rains start (if they do this year, that is) we’re going to need a good floor there with a drainage system.

And now I gotta quite writing for today. There’re still a few corrections to the manuscript that need to be made, and I promised I wouldn’t take “ages” today. Hah.