Another blog bites the dust. ;-)

Song of the day: “Clearly” by Grace Vanderwaal. Gorgeous song. Absolutely lovely, so I don’t mind at all.

It’s been both quiet and busy at the same time since the last blog. Had some days off, but filled them up with at the computer, naturally. It was very deliberate, and successful, considering I managed to add the necessary 6500 words throughout the story, and even managed to overshoot by 3500 words, meaning I’ll have to ruthlessly edit, too. I hate it when that happens, but it can’t be helped, some of this stuff had to be added to have the right effect, so I’ll have to see what I can remove later on. Hope it doesn’t take too long. Really want to start sending this one out, putting the eggs in different baskets, you know.

The negotiations for book two to Girl in the Mist are going well. Might have some good news in regard to that, soon. Am looking forward to digging in there. It’s been a long time, and while negotiating, we got to mess around with the first 4 chapters already, which was awesome. Can’t wait to get started on all the planned changes and will in fact start working on the outline today.

The local temps have been uncomfortably high recently. There were times that it felt like I was back in friggin’ Spain. Even the grass in the paddock around the house has turned yellow because of it. On the variety of work locations, I had temps going up to the high nineties, which was not something folks around these parts enjoyed. Thankfully they dropped again since yesterday, staying mid-eighties, which is just lovely. Especially with the fierce winds and even some rain that was vastly appreciated by nature.

Latest problem at the house is a clogged kitchen sink. Darn it. We battled the problem with a variety of techniques. Tried a de-clogging spring, garden hose down the tubes, de-clogging liquid but all to no avail. We’ll have to try again because this is just ticking me off.

Visited with friends, of course. Not often, but a few times, which was nice, especially since I might do a joint effort for a fashion photo shoot in the near future. Will be fun. Especially since the clothes will be worn by kids. Will keep you posted on that.

Also helped friends out moving this massive new couch into their apartment. Not an easy thing, although I didn’t get to do all that much, except re-attaching the paws and carrying up a small box, because the fellas insisted on doing the heavy lifting. Hah

Had a couple of sleepovers from a close friend with her three dogs, which was nice. She likes the peace and quiet here, especially since her apartment is in the middle of town with noisy neighbors. Considering she doesn’t require entertainment it didn’t really impede any computer work for me, while still having cosy dinners together. And the dogs were lovely to have around…even if they do make me miss min. * sigh *

Been doing some experimenting in the kitchen. Tried out quite a few omelets, and quiches, which are working really well.  Had one with onion cheese, a broccoli quiche, a cauliflower quiche, one with a variety of Italian veggies and herbs and so on. What can I say, I am liking the quiches and omelets. Also experimented with a green bean vermicelli, which is apparently from China. It went really well with wok veggies and satay. Made a lovely homemade pizza the other day, and that was yummy. Then there was the lentil soup with fresh cottage cheese to top it off, definitely worth a remake in the near future. And lastly there was the red beet and basmati rice dish on a bed of raw arugula that I absolutely loved.

Did run into a spot of car trouble recently. Was on my way to work when my car started sputtering and complaining on a deserted back road. Had to have triple a come pick me up. The guy checked everything over, added oil, just to be sure (wasn’t necessary, mind you, but that was something he could do) and then followed me to the garage, which was only six miles back the way I’d come. Left the car there, while the Tripple A guy was nice enough to drop me off at work. Was only an hour and 10 mins late for work, thankfully.

There finally was a good deal at the fitness club for a member ship, meaning that I can drop in at any time before closing, every day, without restriction, for under 20 bucks a month. Definitely a bargain I couldn’t say no to. Already went four time in the 10 days since signing up, which were wonderful. Loving it.

Did catch some bug the other day, which resulted in a nasty little cough again. And that with this heat. I hate that. When I have to work in particular. Seriously, can you imagine anything worse than coughing like a lunatic while you’re trying to serve folks food? Yeah, me neither. So I dove into the dishes instead. Grrr.

And that sums up this rather short update. Like mentioned before, the plans for the big vacation are in full swing. Slowly gathering more supplies and settling firmer goals as to what we’re planning on seeing and what we are willing to skip in case anything doesn’t work out and we need to gain time. Getting very excited about that prospect.

A March Update

Song of the day: “Shut up and dance with me” by Walk the Moon. Awesome song. Always thought it was a cover from some song from the 80s, only to discover last night that it’s from 2014. Hah. Anyway, not that it matters. Still a great 80s song. * wink *

So, yeah. Life’s been busy as usual. Not particularly exciting, or anything, but busy regardless.  I’ve been working too much, naturally. There were some seriously unexpected expenses last month, so when the extra hours popped up it wasn’t in me to say now, despite everything that needed doing outside work hours…you can imagine what the house looked like after a couple of weeks of that. * sigh*

But anyway, it wasn’t bad, or anything. Learned a lot more about the business, about general catering, all the stuff you have to keep track of, banqueting and general customer service, so it was all good…especially for my bank-account, which was rapidly depleting.

My temporary doggie is gone again * sob *. It was so cozy to have a four-legged one around constantly again, but his owners found him a new home with a couple that lives near the beach, loves to go for hikes and jogs, so it would seem that he is all set for the future. I have said that if it doesn’t work out, he can come right back here, sweet baby, but I doubt I’ll see him again.

Luckily in May we’ll be dog sitting Puk (the Labradoodle) again, so the quiet won’t be for too long.

Cooking has been going on as usual, duh. Can’t really do without that, can ya? Anyways. Had some successful experiments that included a Bundt cake quiche, Italian style, a nice veggie and chicken satay, a sweet potato, arugula mix, and a variety of oven dishes…which reminds me, going to do the latter tonight, I think. Hmmm

The book. Yeah. Been doing the promo thing a lot lately. Which isn’t necessarily hard, just time consuming, meaning that I’d come home from work, do the absolute necessary, maybe a 30-minute powernap, and then dive behind the computer for the remainder of the evening until way too late in the evening. I am aware that you can schedule posts and such, saving on the “I have to get on there every day” thing when we’re talking Social Media and such, at this point in my life that still sorta feels like cheating, ya know? I mean, the way I figure, social media presence is all about actually being present, so… I’m sure that I’ll think about that differently in the future, but for now it just takes up a lot of time.

Also got my paperback stack from the publisher in, so I now have physical copies of the books. Yay!

Future book. Been putting together a book proposal pitch for the publisher (around all the “real life” stuff that just keeps popping up. Like, I still gotta do my taxes, Aaaaaargh! I don’t want to alienate ALL my friends for disappearing for long stretches of time. You know what I mean, right? So hard to balance everything.) and the package is coming together nicely, I think. Been going through the first few chapters, doing some editing and tweaking because that is something that would need doing if we want to get the prequel for “Girl in the Mist” out there. But I’m liking what I’m reading so far. The pacing is different from GitM. Heavier, I think, than the action-packed bit in the debut. Leaning more toward psychological drama, rather than the high paced thrill of GitM. That doesn’t mean there’s no action in it, mind you. There is. Loads, it’s just that the characters are more enduring, rather that explosive, if that makes any sense. Like the heroine, Morgan, is a strategist, someone who will got through the most awful of horrors if that serves the purpose of her plan. It’ll be a marvelous challenge to make that work fully, you know…but it will also make it necessary to explore something lighter, more positive in the next project, because my mind-set can become rather moody when I work on dark drama a lot. We’ll see how it goes, and I’ll keep you posted.

Been a bit under the weather for the past four days or so. On Friday my whole mid-section started hurting really bad. Think I caught some sort of bug, or infection, which has been slow in recovering. By now, thankfully, I am having moments where the pain is gone, but it got pretty bad at times. Almost like constipation (I know, TMI, sorry) and yet not that. Hah. I still have occasional twinges, which made work yesterday more than a little uncomfortable (which was why I asked to do dishwash duty in the back, rather than having to face customers) and had me deflating with relief when it was finally time to go home where I collapsed on the couch and slept for an hour or two, feeling much better afterward. Had I been in Spain, I would have been popping buscapina, but this is the Netherlands, and getting medication without an actual prescription here is practically impossible.

As for the aforementioned unexpected expenses: The care needed a big check-up. It was just that time, but jeez that hurt the wallet. First off the check-up which cost more than 300 bucks, the back breaks which did need replacing this time, the handbrake and some bits and pieces which depleted a lot of my savings. * sobs * I am so hoping that some money will be coming in from the book. Need my savings back!!! Hah

The weather. Well, it’s been interesting. We had some lovely spring weather for about a week…you know, after the icy Siberian wind that raged across the entirety of Europe for about a week. Eeeewww that was cold. The change was sudden, and absolutely lovely with bright sunshine and wonderful temperatures. I was thinking that finally winter was over, but then the cold returned, and with it my stomach ache for a solid four days, right up until now when the air is still crisp, but the sky wonderfully blue and the sun warm! So gonna go outside in a bit and work on repotting some of my houseplants.

As for the fun parts. My bestest friend T (Tiina) came over for a wedding, so I got to spend an afternoon, evening and morning with her, which was lovely. Though her last visit wasn’t all that long ago, it was so nice to chat the evening away, have dinner together. But then had to drop her off at the airport, of course, and say our goodbyes again. Darn it! Gotta do the whole real visiting again soon. That was way too short.

Once she was on her way, big brother and I drove on to visit our dad, down south. Had planned it before, but since we were both having a cold two weeks ago, we had to cancel again. Last week, big brother was working in the weekend, so we finally decided on last Sunday. Had a very nice afternoon with our dad and stepmom, admiring the new house, talking about the book, life in general, and then going out to eat, along with littlest brother, as a really, really late celebration of my birthday at a rather nice German restaurant. They served some GOOD food. Definitely combinations there that I’ll be playing around with in the kitchen in the near future.

Had a friend coming over for coffee a few weeks back. Partly to celebrate the book being out, and of course to catch up on everything, which meant one coffee turned into three and it was already dark when she finally went home. Hah. Am fully up to date on the previous job-site where things went from bad to worse since I quit. Not surprised.

And that about sums up the update for the today. I would promise to be back soon, but I hate promising and then not being able to, so I will just promise to post another blog when I can and hope that y’all will bear with me until then…

If you want to keep up to date via different sources, here are my links:

The new website, which is awesome!!! Please share and like if you can.

http://www.samayatyoung.com/

Social media for the useless bits of info, and chatting if you feel like it.

https://www.facebook.com/authorstyoung/

https://www.facebook.com/samaya.t.young

https://www.twitter.com/samayayoung

https://www.instagram.com/samayatyoung/

https://nl.pinterest.com/samayatyoung/

Goodreads, if ya wanna check out the awesome reviews (give the reviewers some love while you’re there, please).

https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/38226722-girl-in-the-mist

And, very importantly, the buy links, hah. (How is that for shameless self-promo, huh?)

https://entangledpublishing.com/girl-in-the-mist.html

https://www.amazon.com/dp/B079LDL521?tag=entangpublis-20&name=Girl%20in%20the%20Mist

https://www.kobo.com/us/en/ebook/girl-in-the-mist-4V

https://www.amazon.com.au/dp/B079LDL521?tag=entangpublis-20&name=Girl%20in%20the%20Mist

https://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B079LDL521?tag=entangpublis-20&name=Girl%20in%20the%20Mist

https://www.amazon.ca/dp/B079LDL521?tag=entangpublis-20&name=Girl%20in%20the%20Mist

https://itunes.apple.com/us/book/girl-in-the-mist/id1344886681?mt=11

https://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/girl-in-the-mist-st-young/1127921825;jsessionid=4952E6264EC4BB514AE5299D48F9559C.prodny_store02-atgap02?ean=9781640634671

Sick...but on the mend

Song of the day: “Nervous” by Gavin James. Gorgeous song, and definitely not bad to have in your head.

So…whazzup? I hear you wonder. And if not…? well, I’m going to tell you anyway. Hah. Not a whole lot has been happening since the last post, in particular since both big brother and I were hit by some sort of awful flu virus last week that basically wiped both of us out. For a whopping eight days. Seriously, there was vomiting (for me, anyway) fever, hurting all over, the shakes, in the end we slept several days away if for no other reason than  being unable to do much of anything else. Gawd, that was pretty darn bad! Even now I’m not back to normal, despite having been able to do my qi gong again for the past two days, (just barely) things are still going difficult. But better, thankfully. Slowly, but steadily, we’re getting there.

Went grocery shopping the day before yesterday because it had been three weeks, and anything remotely fresh was gone, including every last bit of what we had in the fridge…except for half a white cabbage that has been in there for, what, three weeks? Yeah, there abouts. Jeez! The groceries were very necessary, but we seriously postponed them for as long as possible due to being sick.

Did manage to finish the edit, despite losing those sick days, or at least we managed to finish the cutting out of scenes (it wasn’t easy either) and checking if that was still working. It was, for as far as we could see  while being that frigging close to the story once more that we could barely see straight anymore. In the end we just had to tie the knot and send it as is, hoping that we didn’t mess up somewhere along the way. We’ll know soon enough, I guess. Our editor has the book now, and soon we’ll have to go through the whole thing again, changing whatever stuff she found. I hope that by then my head will be clear again and that I have some distance to the story once again.

Managed to do some cooking of late…it’s inevitable. A dish or two of it will end up on the cooking blog, I’m sure because I’m really enjoying them. A very good pasta, and a nice stir fry bulgur mix that you simply have to try some day.

Put a b-day gift in the mail for mom just a couple of days ago. Should have done that at least a week ago, but let’s face it, last week I couldn’t get out of bed if my life depended on it. Hah. So the present will probably be a little late, darn it.

Finally gathered enough energy to vacuum the house yesterday, which was really necessary after the past couple of weeks. Things were a mess I tell ya…and poor big brother (he was two days ahead of me health wise) had to get back to work yesterday, too, so you can imagine what state he was in when he got home after 9 hours. He was actually pale in the face, poor fella, and slept half the evening away on the couch.

Had a flat tired today, so we were lucky to have bought one of those tire pumps that can run on the battery.  Made our afternoon outing to the supermarket (forgot some stuff on grocery shopping day) a little easier. Had to get some lettuce, endive because it was on sale, and some nice cutting shears for the garden. Yay.

The weather is nothing to write home about. On the most part it’s gray, although we did have a few sunny days in-between, the sunshine tempting enough for both of us to decide to just try for a vegetable patch this year, despite it not being sure that we can even stay here through the summer. If nothing else, I get to relax a little by getting my hands dirty in the earth. Looking forward to that bit of it. Outside stuff will be a welcome change to working at the computer a lot, and it’ll save a buck or two with the veggies we get from it…if we stay here long enough to actually manage a harvest. Hah.

What next…well, for the next few weeks, while waiting to hear from the edit, I’ll be working on one of Saving Nina’s sequels, and maybe some on the already finished manuscripts that still need some work. If we do that, we might be able to get more stuff published quicker, meaning that we won’t have to find as much “normal” work to get by. That would be incredibly nice.

Okay, gotta go.

Thoughts, dreams and reality. :-)

Song of the day: “Hallelujah” originally by Leonard Cohen, but I’ve been having covers in my head ever since I got curious and found a whole batch of them on Youtube. Seriously, there have been oodles of people who did the song…and in many beautiful ways, I might add. Worth a spin, if you like the song!

So, yeah. Had a bit of relapse with my cold. It was gone, which had me getting back to my workout routine all excitedly for over a week of daily workouts of over 45 mins a pop, only to end up with my cough coming back full force and a fierce pain in my throat that took me three days to get rid of again. Grrrr. No worries, though. At the moment, considering I don’t have a job or anything (well, I am doing some serious writing at the moment, so that is debatable) I’m not doing my workout in one allotted time (seeing as it is a known fact that for a little while after your workout your immune system has a serious drop) but am stretching it out through the course of the day with five to ten minute exercising sessions. Annoying, for sure, but doable for the moment. Hah.

I have broadened my job search from night reception work at hotels, courier and facility management to--sit down, don’t get caught unawares—work as a jack of all trades in greenhouses. Saw an application for that recently, and thought, what the heck. I’d get to work with plants, be inside a relatively warm place most of the down, and get, according to statistics, decent pay. Now, I’m pretty sure that my resume (and lack of official qualifications) isn’t going to look very impressive to these people, but still, it’s worth a shot.

Been doing a lot of reading online lately, including on American politics. I have friends on either side of the fence, so it can’t really be helped, and considering that this is not a political blog, I am definitely not picking sides, but it is a big event in history, so it’s gotta be mentioned. Admittedly it is a fascinating thing to watch, really, hearing both sides hammering away at each other, guessing what is going to happen based on he said-she said kind of stuff. I can only think back of this blog back when the last president was picked. Basically everyone thought that finally all their troubles were going to be over and he was basically going to achieve world peace. Back then, I said it was going to be pretty tough for the guy to live up to that, and it was. With this future president, I can only say, he’s probably going to surprise people. Right now, there is such a low opinion of him that even if he manages to do one thing right, he’ll astound people, let alone if he does a couple of things moderately well.  Puts the last president at a bit of a disadvantage, but from what I understand of him, he rather likes martyrdom, so basically he got what he wanted.

As with all things, we’re going to have to wait and see what happens in the future.

The other thing I’ve been reading up on is 1^st, 2^nd and 3^rd wave feminism (I know, how controversial am I today, right? I swear, I’ll keep it mild, and won’t do this a lot) and have come to the  conclusion that I am more of a 2^nd wave feminist. Serious, the 3^rd wavers are completely bonkers! The hate that is coming from them, the convoluted logic and full blown hatred toward men in general, it’s astounding…especially since these women, well, girls really are either my age, or younger than me, and have not faced the problems that 1^st and 2^nd wave feminists faced. In fact, the majority of these girls seem to have been coddled, helped at every turn, and now think that it is time to get back at the “oppressors” for the evil deeds perpetrated towards the generations preceding them.

Now, if these girls were living in Middle Eastern countries, Asia, Afrika or whatnot, I would understand, seriously, there is some evil shaite going on around the globe, but they’re not. These are girls and women in Western countries where they are protected, supported and helped by not only the law, but by the general public too. They have healthcare, the opportunity to educate themselves, work whichever job they wish to pursue, and basically live their lives the way they want, and yet they figure they have to fight the opposite sex and the establishment for rights that they already have. And all this while there are women in this world who are really bad of. I have to say that the stuff that I have seen online about these so-called feminists is nothing short of embarrassing (for me anyway), if not downright insulting toward women with real problems. Feminism has definitely gotten a bad name because of these entitled girls trying recapture the “magic” of brah-burning for a plain and simple game of “getting back at” and what can only be called an underhanded attempt at gaining power in the world over the back of men, but most especially other women.

Okay, enough silly things that thankfully don’t much affect my world at this juncture in my life, it might, at some point, but not yet. I’ve been having some seriously weird dreams lately. Several have been downright icky, in fact. Like the other day I was dreaming of this evil serial killer who used a metal garrote to literally saw the hands of a woman. He was starting on the second hand, lots of gore, lots of screaming going on, when I finally managed to wake up. I was seriously freaked out from that one, but will admit that this particular dream is going to do really well in a book at some point.

Luckily I had some nice dreams, too. One of them included grandpa still being around, which was rather nice.

So, there was a rather big storm in Spain, which had us worried about family, friends and pets for a while. Seriously, there was a red alert and everything. There were floods that caused two deaths, lots of properties destroyed, animals in distress, a tornado over sea, even, and gawd knows what else. Reassurances were a long time coming, but in the end everyone I knew reported back with an “okay” so that was a big relief. Jeez. The only plus that comes from this that the water reservoirs that have been close to empty for the past decade or so, have filled up to almost 40 percent for the first time in 20 years!

Writing wise I’ve been doing relatively well at the moment. I am doing an average of 2K-3K words a day, at least, so the book is steadily progressing. Yay! At the very least I am completely back IN the story, which certainly helps. Yay

On the cooking front I’ve been doing some experimenting lately. Made a rather interesting pumpkin pie the other day, also a lentil/beet salad that went well with the folks I made it for, but didn’t resonate well with yours truly. Hah.

Littlest brother’s visit has been rescheduled to this weekend. Something came up the last time, so that was a no-go. Considering big brother and I were still battling our colds back then, neither of us minded all that much.

So that about sums up this blog. I’m sure I’m forgetting important stuff, but that can’t be helped. I’ll be back.

Nothing of much interest, I assure you

Song of the day: “Human”, by Christina Perri, gorgeous song, admittedly, but it has been in my head a bit too long now. It’s been going on and on and on for about three days now, so I wouldn’t mind if it went elsewhere…you want to take it as an earworm? You’re welcome to it. Hah.

Right. Time for an update, isn’t it? Should have done it earlier, but I’ve recently had a bad cold and am only now well on the way of recovery. It was bad there, for a bit, with me coughing like and idiot for almost a week, but now all I’m left with is an occasional tickle, so I’ll apparently survive. *sigh* Big brother is still in the midst of his cold, I’ll have you know, and he’s struggling with it. It doesn’t help that he refuses to wear scarfs, and sometimes even sweaters, and that he doesn’t like to use stuff like vaporub and whatnot, but that’s choice, I suppose. He’s spending a lot of time in bed, sleeping it off, so lucky for him he didn’t need to work much this past week or two.

Not a lot of interesting things happened since the last blog, at least nothing that will titillate you into reading more of this, I could of course make stuff up, but that just wouldn’t be fair.

First off, I did manage to do some writing, so the past few weeks weren’t a complete loss. (pats self on the head) Nothing earth shattering, but added several pages, which is definitely a plus. Gotta get that book written and the way to write a book is one page at a time, naturally. Characters are still developing nicely, so all in all it is not going all that bad.

The chauffeur job for the hotel didn’t work out. They could only guarantee four hours a week, which just wouldn’t do. Drat. Would have liked that kind of work, I’ll admit. Regretfully that one is out of the picture now.

Been steadily applying for jobs, of course, just like I’m supposed to.  At the moment I am aiming for facility management, night reception clerk for hotels and courier. There’s quite a few jobs out there for that, now all I’ve gotta do is snatch one…of course I am not really in a hurry at the moment. I would like to continue writing a bit longer if at all possible. That of course hangs in the balance of not liking being unemployed and not having sufficient funds coming in, but you can’t have everything, I guess.

Cooking has been somewhat uneventful lately. Basically survival food. Lots of salads with pasta, etc, small snacks in-between recovery naps. Did have a gorgeous cauliflower soup that worked out really well last week. And this week I did a nice tomato soup, which was a bit on the spicy side, and therefore extremely good. I love spicy tomato soup.

Once I was on the road to recovery I also finally managed to do some serious cleaning around the house. Vacuumed, removed spider webs and cleaned  horizontal surfaces. Was pretty necessary after I was pretty much out of it for a week. Much relieved by the improvement, can’t stand messes much these days.

Heard that our former teamleader’s baby was born, so we’re going to have to go for a visit one of these days and see junior. Very happy for them.

Went to visit tenant the other day. Brought her a present. A really nice paint and drawing set that she was really happy to get. Was good to see her pleased, especially since she said she was at the moment avoiding eating in the dining room because all the “old folk” were not doing any conversation during dinner. It just wasn’t cosy there, she  claimed and that made me a little sad.

Also visited with our father and stepmother down south, which is a trip that takes more than two hours in total. Very unhandy, but it was a nice afternoon at their new place. They made quite a bit of headway with their garden, which is starting to look nicely spacious. Later in the day they took us out for dinner at a cute little Italian restaurant in Germany. I would love to have something like that place. It’s tiny and runs more on take away than anything because their place is so tiny, but they are stacked most nights. Was nice, despite having to travel a long way afterward. I was so tired at one point that big brother had to take over driving. He did, for fifteen minutes, when he had the same problem (he was still very sick that day). At this time I had gotten a five minute nap, and managed to drive the rest of the way without trouble. Phew. Was afraid there for a moment that we would have to sleep by the side of the road somewhere. Hah.

The weather has turned to genuine winter. We’ve had wind storms, rain storms, fog, and as of yesterday the temps dropped below the freezing point. Yikes. It gets cold here with a capital C. What with winds coming from the north, it’ll hit you in the face like an icy four by four. Clothes don’t seem to help all that much, and most of the time I am now struggling with keeping my core temperature high enough not to end up with chattering teeth most days.

Well, I’m going to leave it at this. I can hardly start telling y’all about even more boring little titbits than I already have. Jeez. Let’s hope I have some nicer stuff to talk about next time, right? I’ll even try to spruce things up a little. Gotta go.

Under the weather for a bit.

Song of the day: “Express yourself” by Madonna.

Got several Madonna’s on my music list at work, so after months of playing the same list over and over, this one does manage to get a little under my skin. Gotta take it off the list, ‘cause it is starting to tick me off. Hah.

Yeah, I know, I’ve been remiss again, but I admit to having an excuse for not writing. I haven’t been my best this past month. After Finland I’ve been pretty sick, needing to visit a doctor, of all things, which got me a prescription--that did help, but what with all the hard work, busy days, short nights, I had a bit of relapse this past week, meaning that now I’m home sick (had to call in this morning at work, which is a total pain) and have until Sunday to get well again. Nothing like a couple of free days to recuperate, right?

So, what’s been happening...I’m not sure. Lots of work, duh (am I boring, or what?) which means that five days a week, for an average of seven hours a day I’m not worth much of anything, once I get the necessary stuff at home done, cleaning, cooking, groceries) the day is pretty much over, isn’t it? Am planning to use the next couple of days, though, and darn the consequence. I can cough at the computer as easily as I can in bed, can’t I? Let’s see if I can get some writing, or at least some editing done, eh?

Well, I have been cooking, which is naturally a vital part of life. Nothing superbly interesting, but good nutritional values regardless. Had an awesome broccoli soup last week, a couple of really good spinach quiches, oats, nuts and cranberry cookies, a really super pasta funghi and a rather nice salad with gomasio (japanese sesame salt) rather than a dressing...was really lovely. You should try it some time. Mix some veggies of choice (a few hard ones, like carrot and cauliflower) add a dash of olive oil, some parsely, chives and then sprinkle a nice full teaspoon of gomasio over it. Delicious.

Have had the semi-official news that the remodel of my apartment building is starting in october, which means that until that time I’m set. It is after that that I’m going to have to start worrying about a place to live again. It could take a few more months before I would actually have to move after that, but still, not a nice thought looming over my head, is it. That’s how the anti-squatting works, however, and it is something I need to get used to. A pity that I’m a nester, isn’t it? Might need to work on that a bit. Won’t do any good to be a nester in this particular time of my life. Ah well...no sense in wallowing in that. It’ll sort itself out.

Finally got myself a sewing machine. Nothing fancy, mind you, but good enough for repairing clothes and the likes. Actually already used it to repair two of my work jeans, so, yay!!!

Which reminds me...you are not going to believe what happened to me at work. Seriously. There I was, doing my long days instead of big brother (he had his off, b*st*rd!!!) working on the sauna’s water testing, when our team leader came in to ask me if I could “give him a hand” with one of the clogged toilets...you’re sensing something, aren´t you, well, wait for it...so, I finished part of the test, and went on up, to find him in one of the bathrooms on a stepladder, and a variety of empty buckets around him. Took me all of five seconds to figure out what he wanted to do, so I suggested I get some cover plastics and the likes to protect the downstairs bathroom.

I sure know that I was in doubt about the plan even before I was asked to stand under one of the buckets and hold it up, and yes, it was a big disaster. You do not want to know what I was covered with, I don’t want to know what I was covered with, but I assure you that it took me three showers to feel clean again, and I had to dig stuff from behind m ears that I refused to look at.

Was so lucky that I had a spare pants at work, and that big brother had left his sweater there at some point, meaning that I could change clothes instead of walking around in a bathrobe like our team leader. Got the bathroom cleaned in about an hour. Washed down the walls and floor with bleech three times...gawd what a mess. I was not happy afterward, I tell ya. Also, everyone who heard about the incident was laughing, and so was big brother who was really happy not to have worked that day. Grrr.

Luckily I was in a much better mood the day after, because by the time I got home I was seriously grumpy.

Had a nice afternoon having beer at our colleague’s place. The weather was nice that day, so we sat on the balcony, talked and played with the neighbor’s kids who often visit at our friend’s place. Was a nice relaxing afternoon. I rarely have the time and energy, let alone the inclination, to spend the remainder of a workday that way.

Discovered that I have some sort of fine in Spain in my name, and not a clue as to what it is. Am trying to find out what it might be, how to resolve it, but it’s going to be a pickle. Spanish government is not known to be the most helpful toward those who do not speak the language adequately. I’ll have to keep you posted, I guess, it is just such a pain in the behind, not to mention expensive. Grrr.

And now something completely insignificant and totally “girly”: I found my favorite workout pants (again) at a sports store and they were on sale. They were so cheap I could get four for the normal price of one. Yay! I got four yoga pants! Which I’m wearing, like, all the time when I get home. Hah.

Okay, enough girly. Haven’t been doing a lot of workout sessions, partly because of my problem last month. Just didn’t have the energy, and just work was already draining me, so the workout kinda fell away...not surprisingly. Am planning on fully getting back to that asap...at the very least some serious stretches and the likes. Need the endorphins for sure.

Weather wise it has been somewhat horrid over here this summer. In fact it has been so very abysmal with rain that big supermarkets have been warning that there will be a shortage of fresh veggies if things don’t dry out fast. Imagine that; that much water! It’s a novel idea.

Well, that’s it for now. Not very glamorous, but at least you’re sorta up to date again. I’ll be back.