Sway

Song of the day: “Sway" by...well, some female voice. Not the one by Dean Martin, Michael Bubblé or Rosemary Clooney. Neither the one from the Pussycat Dolls, which would have been downright embarrassing. Hah. Nice song, though.

To start up where we left off the last time, the day after I wrote the last blog, was ridiculously hot. We had spent the majority of the day working on the book, doing small tasks and picking up a donation, and finally on our way to the sea for a much needed refreshing dip in the sea that appears to be downright freezing this summer. I don’t really know what is causing it, but it has to do with a particular current and something that is supposed to be very scientific. *sigh* Whatever it is, I like getting refreshed as well as the next person, but if the water is so cold that you can’t even submerge your head, I don’t like it. Doesn’t stop me from swimming, though…despite that on that particular day we didn’t get to go. Nope. Had a call from one of our work sites, with a semi emergency, and if we could come ASAP. So there went our dip, *sob* and in was a long evening doing chores until it was close to midnight. Luckily we did manage to join up on the actual work, meaning that we got in about an hour of edits while we waited for the boss to come home.

Yesterday’s swim worked out a lot better, though. Swam a mile or two, if for no other reason than that the water was a bearable temperature. In fact, it was downright lovely. Big brother and I had a bit of race going, and we just kept at it until we were completely out of breath. Crossed quite a bit of distance that way, which had both of us impressed with our prowess. Hah.

Had some disturbing dreams this week, which I won’t bore you with. They’re mostly about daily stuff that just keeps repeating over and over, without me being able to change it. I get frustrated from dreams like that. I suppose that it has something to do with our present situation, and how the lack of space is hampering basically everything. The days are hot, outside it is sometimes almost too warm, while inside is not any better, and too small. It adds to the dilemma, I guess, there used to be plenty of spaces to do stuff in. Makes you miss it, which once again makes it worse. I gotta get over this shaite. Mourning the losses is not going to help any. Besides, it’s been almost a year now, time to move on. The only thing to do with the status quo is to change it, so as long as I’m not willing to do that, I shouldn’t bitch about it so much.

A variety of meals this week. There was a Nasi with fried egg on it. Don’t you just love a good rice dish holding a variety of colorful veggies? Triple colored bell peppers, carrots, cauliflower, onion, leek, white cabbage, sweet corn, green beans all fried together with the rice. It looked purdy and tasted yummy. Can’t ask for more than that, can you?
Then there was the red beets with onion, potatoes and cheese, which was just too good to be true.
And of course today I am preparing buckwheat burgers for tomorrow’s hike. Those should go down well after some exertion, at least. I’m hoping for a small decrease in the temps, though, things are going to be might uncomfortable if the heat index gets as high as today. We’re hitting the hundreds, in case you’re wondering. Hah. Am hosing down a lot of our dogs these days, especially Knight II who gets downright panicky when he gets too warm. Can’t say I blame him.

As for work, there was quite a bit this time around. Washed a couple of cars (excluding our own, which I did yesterday, hah) both inside and out, which was a fascinating task in 100 degree temps. In particular when I was working the vacuum, man did I sweat like a pig. Luckily it didn’t smell.

Did a tree trimming session (work related, ya know. I would never do it this time of year, but if your employer tells you to trim back bushes and trees, you trim them back) which luckily could be done before noon when the temps were still bearable. Most interesting part were the palm tree that were a solid 25 feet high, and rather painful when the branches came tumbling down.

Had to go to our old job to unload a big delivery. Not that I’m jumping at the bit to go back there, but it pays the bills, ya know. Took a couple of hours, which isn’t bad at all. Another week of food on the table, eh?

Cleaning a pool…regretfully not our own (pump’s till busted)…which would have been fun if I could have “accidentally” fallen into it. Couldn’t because the water was so effing hot that the outside air was cooler. I kid you not. I stuck my arm in and had to pull it out because it felt like I’d stuck it in a hot bathtub. Apparently the pool is located on a terrace that catches so much sunshine during the day, that it heats the pool up that badly. Yikes. Talk about gross…and it totally defeating the purpose of having a pool. Aaaaarggh.

Worked on irrigation, which was another couple of hours, if you must know. Turns out that dogs (again, not ours, we have already sorted the yard in such a way that they can’t wreck out irrigation. Hah) really like chewing on tubing. Nice that this gives us a paid job, you know, but it does start to get tedious when you have to fix the same stretch of irrigation over and over again.

Another job was sorting through a humongous stack of rugs and pillows that had to be hauled from a big stack to a basement apartment. They had to be “beaten” clean, then rolled up, and the brought into storage, as slowly the sun crept up toward its zenith. Yikes.

Did have a couple of good workouts this week, so that’s a plus. Didn’t eat meat, except for some chicken. Was extremely tired the other day. Got all grumpy from it, and then the fact that it was so hot and I couldn’t go to bed because I would just melt away, didn’t help any. Grrr. Slept in the next day instead, which helped.

Knight II. He’s not doing poorly…although he doesn’t like the heat at all. The fever seems to be under control, and as long as I keep his socks on he can’t open up his feet…which he did regardless, just the day before yesterday, jeez! But other than that, he’s well enough. Same goes for the other lot. The majority is liking the daily sprayings, some in fact come looking for it. Hah.

And that wraps it all up…except if you want to know about grandpa’s visits to the acupuncturist, or that we had to bring his moped to the garage, or that I did laundry, or did some cleaning in the yard, or spent some time tossing out stuff from the kitchen cupboards. Or editing, which's description I could cut from last week's post, because that's still same old same old. Yes, I know, very glamorous, all. *sigh*

Enough, then? Okay.

Back and forth, over and over

Song of the day: “Never no more” by Patsy Cline, again. *sigh*

Right. The past couple of days.

I did manage to get a bit of writing done. Not a lot mind you, but I’ve got a fun total of twenty-five pages. Yay. Got another dialogue going. This one a little more relaxed, mostly about cars, seeing as the majority of the story plays out in a garage. Hah. Who’d have thought I’d end up writing about a mechanic some day. Let’s hope I don’t mess it up, eh?

Yesterday was a busy day. We had to rush through the morning rituals because we had an appointment in town to have the Daewoo’s AC fixed. Mom and the sibs really can’t handle the heat at the moment, so driving around without it just wasn’t possible. Regretfully we need to do the same for the Land Rover, whose AC ain’t working either. I’ve got to admit I don’t miss it at all, but then, having a non-functional one is silly too, so what the heck. It’s gotta be done one of these days.

Since it was going to take at least a day for the garage to put in the new compressor for the AC, check it and then fill it up with gas, we headed home immediately and headed out into the yard. Well, I did anyway. Big brother had to work on the metal ladder he’s making for the back of the Land Rover. Though I would love to help with that, welding is not my strong suit.

So anyway, while he did that, I headed into the yard to water the plants. Since we have full fields at the moment that would take about four hours, and since there was a decent harvest of zucchinis I took the opportunity to put on a big pan of zucchini soup in the outside kitchen. Hah. I kinda like the giving water bit, since it gives me several hours to write the old fashioned way. By hand! It does my good to do that, in particular because characters shape better in my head that way.

It was wonderfully hot yesterday...still is, in fact. Summer is finally here (knock on wood) and it’s showing itself with low to mid nineties temperatures. It takes some getting used to, but I like it anyway. The watering of the plants was hot, not to mention the going back and forth, and then up to the bungalow to help out tenant, who was (according to her) feeling lazy and stayed up in the horse paddock until mom came home with the puppy, (it had to go to the vet for its second round of shots) and helped her down to my terrace.

Once the yard was done, watering it all, binding up the rapidly growing tomato plants, harvesting some of them, taking out an onion or two and basically gathering what will be tomorrow’s meal. Hah. Getting a steady harvest of strawberries and tayberries now, along with a nice batch of peaches. We had supper of the soup with bread changed into something remotely clean and headed back to town to pick up the little car. Since we were in town anyway, we headed for the beach and the took the opportunity to do some swimming exercises. Didn’t go at all bad, even though the water was close to frigid. Hah.

But anyway, by the time we got home I was running on fumes, and more than happy to sit down with the computer for some writing.

Which brings us today, of course, which was once again a nicely summery day with a full glaring sun that made working outside extremely...interesting. Hah. But anyway, I started out with a dip in the pool, and laundry, naturally. Then it was out into the yard to check on the young transplants, my drying herbsies, and of course sneaking a taste or two of the tayberries, hah.

After that it was up the mountain again to help out tenant. Her caregiver is back to working elsewhere a few days a week, so I’m getting to spend a lot of time with her this week. It’s good, though. We get to practice her walk, and overall mobility.

The majority of today was spent cutting down the smaller branches of the dead mimosa on the square. It took some doing, but now only a man-sized stump is left, allowing us to work on the new plan for the terrace in front of my cabin.

What with the mimosa gone, it is in the full blare of sunlight there on the terrace, so the new plan involves installing three pillars of wood with wires criss-crossing towards my cabin and the carport. Then, in the next few months, and years, the vine that grows up from the courtyard garden will be able to cover the entire terrace, providing us with shade in the summer, and sunshine in the winter, because, thankfully, this one is a vine that loses all leafs in winter. Yay.
I think it will look rather well once we’re done. Of course I damaged another body part during the procedure. I was sawing through a bolt and then didn’t pay attention for a full second, meaning I was through the metal to fast, lost counterweight and went right past the vise, missing it by a hair. Regretfully my nail didn’t miss it, because it folded double and I was dancing around trying (and failing) not to swear, and keeping lunch in. *sigh* Stupid.

Lastly there’s this nice little story about Knight II and Chaos, who are going through their competitive phase.
So Knight II isn’t eating well, while Chaos loves to eat, in particular Knight’s soaked kibble when it stands around too long. So anyway, Knight had left it standing, and though I had taken Chaos up on the bed, he wasn’t happy about it. In particular not when Knight joined us. Chaos started to whine, so finally I helped him off the bed, laying down again myself, figuring he was just going to have to sleep on the ground then. It was dark, it was humid and I wanted to sleep.
Big mistake. Five seconds after Chaos got down, *boff*, so was Knight. Instantly the cabin was filled with vicious growls. They both stood over the bowl, at the verge of going at it for sure.
I took Chaos back to bed, ordered Knight to eat and he did, for about three minutes before he came back to the bed. Ergo Chaos wanted to get off, and *boff* Knight went back too, snarling and threatening.
I honestly didn’t have patience for it, so I opened the door, put the bowl outside and headed back to bed.
Knight was right there with me, but Chaos, whose nose is too good and whose memory work way too well, had different ideas. He started howling, scratching at the door, and not listening worth a damn when I growled for him to stop messing around and go to sleep. Nope. So I got back up, snatched the bowl and put it on the floor inside. *boff* Knight was back, and I would have none of it. I grabbed him by the collar, dragged him onto the bed and wrapped myself around him until we both drifted off to sleep. Chaos and Sitabah quietly ate the contents of the bowl. *sigh*

Okay, gotta go.

Two days in one. *sigh*

Song of the day: “One way or another” by Sophie Ellis-Bextor. I think I already had this one before. Considering I was unable to get yesterday’s Blog down, yesterday’s song of the day was: “Barrowland Ballroom” by Amy MacDonald.

So let me put together yesterday in a few words…or better yet one: Busy! Hah.
But of course I can’t leave it at that. I’m a yapper, and I have a serious case of TMI, so I’m just going to do a recount.

There was the edit, naturally, followed by building with rocks, plastering the upper part of an old window that has been waiting for completion since the house was built. The sand and cement we ordered from the construction company had arrived in the morning, so we had to start preparations for the pouring of concrete on top of the new terrace too.

Afterwards we went out to get reed canes. An old spot again, and though it wasn’t a marvellous spot like the later one we found, it was closer and access was a lot easier. Rather than drive back the usual way, we decided to head the opposite direction, just to figure out where near town it led. On the way there a large truck was unloading old doors at the local landfill (probably from a hospital or motel, or something) which we just had to have.

Grandpa would like to have the rock wall in his kitchen covered up against dust and such, so for that the perfectly white doors would be the perfect solution. With just a little work we could put them together, slap on some paint and turn them into a beautiful wall. But, of course the car was already filled to full capacity so first we had to head home to deposit the load; not an easy task with the road construction going on.

We did, in the end, manage to get the doors (just barely, since the seven almost didn’t fit in the car) but by the time we were finally back for the second time, it was already midnight. We were pretty darn bushed, so after another hour of editing I really couldn’t muster the energy for the Blog…thus explaining why there wasn’t a new one yesterday.

So, let’s move on to today - yes, it was busy too, and I almost decided against doing today’s Blog as well, but my blogging addiction prevailed and here I am. Hah.

Okay, today: I was about half an hour early today, as was planned when we went to bed last night.

Concrete pouring day has arrived, so if we want to get any editing done we’re going to have to get cracking fast. We actually manage a solid six pages before two hours earlier than usual.
The temperatures are still remarkably pleasant these past few days. Staying well under 30 degrees on the most part, and that is downright marvelous considering we’re doing so much outside work.

But anyway, first thing that needs to be done is remove the large rocks that are still lying on the terrace that we’re going to work on today.
Next is removing and cleaning everything else on it, before fences are set up to keep the dogs from getting in the way later on. The dogs are not happy, I tell you. They literally cluster around the new fencing the moment they’re erected, looking as if we’re giving them corporal punishment rather than keep them at a two-yard distance from where we work. Gawd, they are so darn dependent. Hah.

But it works; they are safely behind the fence when middle sister and I start making cement.
The two youngest sibs have taken control over the sand supply, with little sister up on the mountain outside the fence where the sand is stored, little brother brings down the sand so we can supply big brother with cement.
Middle sister is soon preparing the cement and I disperse it wherever big brother needs it and so we start making the concrete floor.

Hours pass but the progress is excellent. After two hours of shoveling cement over the terrace, grandpa takes over from me, so I can help big brother create a smooth surface. Things really start to speed up by then, and before dusk arrives we have finally finished the floor. It’s looking gorgeous…I’ll add pictures at the bottom so you can see. Hah.

Big brother and I are both sore all over from the lifting, bending and squatting, so while the younger sibs head inside (They’re off to different ventures. Today the venture is a Soccer game on the TV…I don’t know where they’ve got it from, but for some reason they love it) big brother and I decide to head for the sea for a quick dip. After bending over most of the afternoon, doing a total different exercise is just what the doctor ordered, so to speak.

It takes us ages to find a parking spot in town. For some reason today the tourists were all out on the Boulevard, but we do manage to park the car in the end, and dive in to crawl a little and then float in the waves for a bit. The sea was rather pleasant today, nice and warm, and the waves gentle but reasonably high.

Once we’re back home, I’m running a little late on the Blog, so it’s a relatively short one, so who cares.

Here’re the pics of today’s project:



One side of the before.



The other side before.



After. Nice and smooth, isn't it?



After too. Yeah, it stunned me too that we actually managed it, but working together you really can get a lot done.

Well, that's it for today. I'm gonna be out like a light in no time tonight, I'm thinking.

Sticky and hot...Hmmmm.

Song of the day: “Poison Prince” by Amy McDonald. Strange how the chorus keeps going through my brain…due to the fact that I don’t actually know the rest of it, hah.

Well, today was a scorcher that’s a fact, even now the temperature is 30 degrees and it’s…oppressive to say the least. There’s not a single breeze outside, the fan’s air is maybe one degree cooler and I really should take a dip in the pool, but I’m feeling to lazy to make the effort.

Let’s see what happened today. There was a disastrous edit - only three pages - partly due to the heat, which was messing up my “cool” (pardon the pun, but it suited) and allowed only three pages during two sessions, both in the morning and evening.

Though, admittedly the morning session was mostly blamed on the fact that we spend a couple of hours on Google Earth to find the location in which the scene starts. Seeing as this part of the story is set in Miami, we want to get a general area down at the very least…and ended up finding the exact scene I described in Bal Harbour. Now what are the chances of that, I ask you? It stunned me, really. There I was staring at a 360 picture of a place I had, until that moment, only seen in my head. Hah.

Once the morning session came to an end we headed out in the blistering sun, so we could take supplies and tools down to the small apartment of our tenant’s caretaker. She’s been having some trouble getting to her place during the night, what with the path being so steep and uneven, that we decided to head over there and build a proper stairs for her.

Even the dogs are hot when we start. While we were working in the full sun, they were all crowding together in the shade of the large mimosa and some eucalypti, desperately keeping every single part of them in the relative cool, while keeping a wary eye on our progress. I think this is the first time ever that we weren’t working with at least a dozen dogs milling around our feet. But they were smart! Very smart, ‘cause it was pretty darn HOT. Heck, Knight II didn’t even look at my balefully when I led him into the pool. I think he was actually relieved.

Oh My God. The first thirty minutes weren’t all that bad since I kept the pace low, but then as the sun started to go down pounding on us at an angle; it became more than a little uncomfortable. The heat was so severe that the pouring perspiration dried up as soon as it sheened. Yikes. Talk about tight skin afterwards…but anyway, the ten steps or so got chopped out, laid and set in clay and cement, so now passage should be very easy.

Sundown was still two hours away when we were done, and gratefully headed for the pool to have a good soaking. Seriously, the tepid water felt cold on my head. Hah. No sunstroke, though, so that’s a good thing.

Dinner mom made got consumed record time, laundry hung and folded, and by the time we decided to attempt the last disastrous edit session the atmosphere didn’t give a single indication of cooling down any time soon.

It’s a good thing I’ve been looking forward to summer all winter, ‘cause otherwise I’d seriously be freaking out right now. Hah.