"Trimming" Hah

Song of the day: “Demons” not by the original band, but rather by Jasmine Thompson who did a gorgeous cover of it.

Oh gawd, time goes so fast, doesn’t it? Once again it has been way too long since I’ve written here, but this time round I have a good excuse: I am back to writing!!! Yay. Right after my trip to the Netherlands visiting friends (hi, Friends!) big brother and I spent several days hacking out a serious plot-line for “Gun” (still don’t have a better title than that, but it is starting to grow on me), which took time and effort, but stuff is turning in my head now, slowly slipping into place. The world is “becoming” and that is always the most exciting part when writing a book.

Did end up lost on Wikipedia several times these past weeks. Research gets to me in that way, I'll admit. Like a list of all the big bank heists in the past century that got me surfing through soooooo many pages for many hours. History is just fascinating, isn't it? I mean, seriously, at some point I stumbled on seppuku (opening a whole new can of worms) which then dragged me into several pages of Japanese culture, which was fascinating. Definitely a country I will be visiting at some point in the future.

 

The fact that big brother and I finally got around to hanging a desk in my corner of the porch. The bed is now set in a way that there is actually room for big brother and me to sit at the desk whenever we need to work together…added to that we now actually are able to eat at a table, which is a novel experience after all this time. Hah. It’s tiny, but it is cozy enough, I suppose.

So what all has been going on lately…at least since the last blog. Honestly I can’t really remember what I did and didn’t write. Which is a bit of a pickle, but we’ll muddle through, I guess.

Part of the past couple of weeks’ activities have been taking down several tops of our eucalyptus trees. It wasn’t easy either. First because every day the wind was blowing, and we really had to pick them carefully so they wouldn’t end up on the power lines…which one did...no damage day, phew.

On two occasions we had to use the car to pull, meaning that at one point I basically ripped one of the tops out, because the car was on an incline, and started slipping, so I had to gas it, ergo, that almost went wrong. Anyway, we got them all now.

The reason is the power company that's trying to act preemptively, I think. So much damage because of the trees during storms that they're just going all out by clearing them away before they are a problem. Since we rather didn't have strangers on the property, big brother and I decided we rather did it ourselves...considering I've been pushing to do this for more than two years now, but we never had time, I didn't mind regardless of the hazards.

This morning the wind finally stopped, so we got the last one down, meaning that I had to climb down part of the mountain with a rope that big brother attached to the upper branches. Then big brother started sawing, while I hung on that rope for dear life, wondering if I was far enough away for when the thing came down. Seemed like it could be a problem, so I backed up one step, by then it started to give, squeezing the chain saw blade. Put my weight into it by then, and had to do it well because there was a slight inclination of the darn tree to go in the opposite direction…straight into the power line. I pulled and next thing you know it came tumbling down, with me backing up three more steps to get out of the way. Yep, you guessed it, the top landed right where I was standing before I started worrying about it. Hah. No worries, though. It all worked out.

For the next half hour or so we were stripping smaller branches of the big trunks which we’re going to save for firewood.

Another activity, due to the drastic “trimming” was dragging branches down to the compost heap. That took a lot longer than planned, but was good exercise at least…it was a lot, so it took us a bit of time, in particular since grandpa isn’t feeling well lately.

Another new thing is that big brother and I have been trying out a couple of gyms, and think that we have come to a decision of trying it out for at least a month. I liked it, both gyms actually. Tried all the machines on both occasions and paid for it dearly for the first couple of days. There was some soreness the first day, at which point I thought to do some stretches and to try out a part of this tae bo cardio that I found. Wasn’t going all that bad, in fact at a certain point nothing hurt at all…but then I could down and it got worse than it had been before. *sigh* Anyway, the soreness was good, it told me I’d done well. Second session at a different gym was a bit more mellow and didn’t leave me all that sore, thankfully. All those muscle groups that you can tackle in there. Gotta love it.

There were a couple of dinners with a friend, which was nicely relaxing. She also invited us to tennis, which should be fun. Haven’t played tennis in ages, and when we did it was far from serious, but the change will be nice.

Tomorrow I’ll be going with her to an animal shelter in Málaga. She likes to help out there, so I’ll go along, see if I can give a hand. Afterward we’ll be heading for the market…that is, if we can make it in time. We’ll see. Otherwise we’ll go to the market next week.

Did some experimenting with cooking, naturally. Not as much as I’d have liked, but enough to have maintained a somewhat healthy diet. Did a very nice experiment with cupcakes, by the way. Chocolate, hazelnuts, and coconut shavings. Was a rather nice combination if I do say so myself. Other than that, I worked with so many different tastes and herbs these past couple of weeks, that this afternoon I was suddenly in the mood for something completely different. Ended up boiling cauliflower and broccoli in some salt sugar and pepper, and then served it with a triangle of butter on top. It was absolutely yummy, especially with a bit of parsley sprinkled over it.

Dogs are doing fine, thankfully. Sitabah and Dax are not liking the cold, though...I can relate. As for the others, they are happy with the changes in my sleeping arrangements. It means that they can just join us by lying between our feet and in the kitchen when we're working on the computers. Am a little worried about Jelly, however. He's getting way to skinny, even though he is eating relatively well. Makes me wonder if there's something wrong inside there. I hope not.

 

Had to go to the garage, to make an appointment for the Land Rover. A simple thing, really, but a hassle of course because we’ll have to go there in the morning on Monday, drop it off. Feels like such a waste of time, but what can you do, right.

Added to that we also had to go to the insurance agent, to arrange for the insurance of the Isuzu Trooper, and grandpa needs to have his driver’s license renewed, which is going to be a bitch because of his medication. For some asinine reason trafico needs to know about that with a doctor’s note.

Which brings us to the end of today’s blog. I’m missing loads of stuff, I’m sure, but it is late and I’ve just about had it with today…doesn’t help that it has been cold as heck, lately, with snow on the near mountains that bring is this chilling wind most every day. Can’t wait for winter to be over.

Life continues

Song of the day: “Scarborough Fair” by Celia Pavey. She was an Australian participant of Idols, or one of its many incarnations, and she did it beautifully, I’ll admit. Youtube it, and you shall see it yourself. J

Right. It’s been strange since Knight’s gone, really. I’ve been slowly getting used to him not being there anymore. I mean, seriously, I’m trying to look at it on the positive side, you know; trying to enjoy that I have more space in bed. Trying to enjoy that I can now just walk out of the house without the hassle of guiding him around the courtyard, lest there was trouble with the sibs their dogs. Trying to enjoy the fact that I no longer need to worry about him…but of course that is extremely hard. Instead I get that pang when I enter my corner on the porch and see that he isn’t there, staring up at me with those big brown eyes. That he isn’t bouncing up and down on the bed for his petting. That he doesn’t try to break my ribs during his usual greeting, and most of all, not seeing him come running up the mountain when I come through the gate at any given time. That one is the hardest.

It is a good thing that experience has taught me that it does get easier with the passing of time, because otherwise this would be pretty darn awful.

Considering I am now down to two dogs, I’m slowly acclimating Huckabee to Sitabah and Dax, giving big brother some more room with his dogs. Perhaps, I’ll end up taking Tadaika as well, but that remains to be seen, really. At the moment even taking Huckabee, who’s a sweetheart, just begging for some extra attention, is depressing me, so…

But enough about that.

Some tidbits that missed the blog due to Knight’s untimely passing.

The day after my birthday (the one I was extremely sore from since and friend and I went for a 3.5 hour hike down the mountains…was nice, by the way. I’d prepared my chickpea burgers and we had apple pie high in the air, sitting in a nice warm sun, yay!) was spent with grandpa waking me up before dawn, asking me to take him to hospital, because he really wasn’t feeling well.

So first we went to urgencias in town, which referred us to the big hospital in the city (just to be sure) where we spent the remainder of the day (10 hours with the two combined) waiting to hear the doctor tell him that it wasn’t anything too serious, just some dizziness and what appeared to be a panic attack of sorts. *sigh* Thankfully that all ended with a sizzle.

Have been drowning my sorrows in the kitchen, really, experimenting with new recipes for dinner, a variety of soups, and of course baking. Had some wonderful 5 nut cup cakes, along with chocolate cupcakes, that apple pie I mentioned, and some rather wonderful cheese pastries that went down well as a snack. Some will definitely end up on the recipe blog.

Also managed to end up with a deep slice in my finger last week, a cut in my thumb just days ago, and a massive slice in my left palm when this very afternoon I was stupid enough to try and use a blunt knife to gut through some packaging, grrr. It was deep, but didn’t bleed, partly due to the fact that I kept the skin squeezed together and high up in the air afraid to look at the damage. Ended up bandaging the whole lot up, which means I will look mighty interesting next Saturday…

Which reminds me, I’ll be traveling to the Netherlands this weekend. Tenant and cousin Ed invited me, so considering I don’t actually have anything important to do over here, other than…well, I don’t know what, I figured, what the heck. Will be nice to see them both again, and have a bit of a change of scenery. The crammed spaces are getting to me.

Finished the edit tonight, at long last. Yay! Am happy that we decided to give it another read through after all this time. Managed to streamline the story some more, regardless of the fact that we have now read it so often that it is hard to really enjoy it anymore, but we found some typos, changed some sentence structure, caught two real errors, and on the overall schlogged our way through the story once more. All ready to participate in ABNA…that is, if they are holding the competition this year. I can’t seem to find any information about it…I’ll let you know either way.

Had a few dinner dates with my friend, which were a wonderful distraction from the daily toils. Both big brother and are at the moment considering joining a fitness club. What with the economic crisis it is ridiculously cheap, and considering we don’t have any room to do it here at house we don’t have much of a choice regardless. Haven’t made our choice yet, location wise, but there are some good options.

Until we have made that very choice, we’ve been doing what we can here. Stretches, light cardios, short jogs, but with the weather as atrocious as it has been these past couple of weeks (I’ve been freezing my behind off, thank you very much) there is very little you can do. Our usual spot for workouts (meaning flat ground on the mountain top) is in full wind, which appears to be coming from some freaky-ass-cold place. There are times when even movement doesn’t help, so definitely we need to some place to do our workouts. Health is important after all.

As it is, we did some cross training today, which left us both with such sore muscles that we can barely move, for crying out loud. It is true what they say. Habit makes things a lot easier.

Made a small bit of roof up where grandpa’s cabin used to be. Had no choice really, we’re losing (and have already lost) a lot of our tools to the elements and we need to have a spot to put them. Nothing fancy, but a roof at least.

I for one, am looking forward to summer when we’ll be able to be outside. Being inside during the storms and the rain so much, is driving me up the walls.

Was out in the yard a bit, cutting back weeds. Also plucked a lot of tangerines from our tangerine tree. They are absolutely delicious this year. Also have some oranges, but I haven’t gotten around to plucking them yet.

There were the boring stuff, laundry, grocery shopping, tossing garbage, and of course spending another afternoon gathering stuff still littering the yard…there’s more uninteresting stuff, I am sure, but I won’t bore your with that today. It is late, well past midnight, and I really should get some sleep. I’ll be back (yes, that was an intended joke) at some point, anyway…bet you’re waiting with bated breath *sarcasm*.

Hah.

R.I.P. Knight II

Well, as you might have guessed from the title, this morning Knight II was no more.
His health took a drastic turn yesterday evening, and the night was sheer torture for both of us, meaning that this morning I was forced to say my final goodbye to the big lug. So I did, together with the vet and her assistant...all three of us crying buckets. For so long we worked together to keep him alive and healthy, only to come to this painful moment.
It was bound to come, but still...
He will be missed.
I figure, we might as well use this day's blog as a small trip down memory lane with pics of the Knight as I will always remember him.

 Like up here, at the market some years back. He was the main attraction, of course, and loved the attention.

 Back in the day when we still had the greenhouse. Always stealing chairs. The Knight did NOT sit on the ground, thank you very much.

 Keeping track, of course, with Sitabah behind him. See his paw? This was before he wrecked it. He had lost his tail already, though.

 On a work site. Sleeping of course, opening his eyes every five minutes to check if I was still there.

 Stealing the chair, again...and the puppy eyes, naturally.

The Bed. His, make no mistake. He would share it with us, though.

 My welcome home...every time.

 The lug at nine months, when I only had him a short time, fresh from the pound.

 The same day. He didn't have his proportions yet, his paws not having reached their mature height. And right below here, him looking his intelligent self at a job site. He was sick again, as usual, but still, beautiful, right.

 

So gorgeous, but a tough life for the big lug. He is better off, I know that...doesn't make it any better for me, though.

And this is how I will remember him most, I think. Yeah. This one shows him best.

Knighty-boy.
He was my best friend and for the past seven years he added to my life. I'll miss him somewhat fierce...heck, I already do.
Every time he got sick, he bruised my heart a little, big bastard, but today, I have to admit, he finally managed to break it.

36

Song of the day: “Blame it on me” by George Ezra. Cute little song, even though I like “Budapest” better.

Approaching onto my birthday, yep, less than a day and I’ll be (brace yourselves) thirty six. Oh. My. Gawd!!! My, my. Does time fly. To celebrate the occasion a friend and I are going for a hike up on the mountain, and I have a tentative plan to take Knight II along, but it remains to be see whether I can take him or not. He has not been well lately, his feet troubling him to the point that I’ve had to start him on antibiotics once again. I hate putting him on antibiotics, in particular since I know that they are only a temporary solution, but then I remind myself that he is old already, and that any week, or month that the nasty things can give him is a good thing. For a while there, I feared he’d die, these past couple of weeks. Now he’s doing well enough under the circumstances.

If he can’t go along on the walk tomorrow, I’m thinking of Tadaika instead. Our fat girl needs the exercise for sure.

So what’s been going over here. Plenty, yet completely insignificant things with which’s highlights I’ll bore you.

First off, I made a rather wonderful strawberry/physalis/kiwi yogurt cake yesterday, but something was wrong with the gelatin I used, meaning that it didn’t set during the night in the fridge, much to my regret, in particular since the taste worked out so well. So rather than eating that cake, we were forced to make due with semi-smoothies. A bothersome task that, but we suffer through it. Hah.

So to make up for that little error, I made a couple of delicious apple pies today. Yay. They worked out awesome. Because I was short on apples, I added dried apricot pieces, raisins, coconut shavings and some almonds, which made for a sumptuous combination. Spent about four hours in the kitchen today. Not only for the pies, but also for patties (want to take some on the hike tomorrow) and a rather wonderful mix of red beets with sweet potatoes. I’m thinking of adding the latter to the food blog.

Which reminds me, the food blog isn’t doing bad, all things considered. Am rapidly approaching the triple digits for readers over there. Makes me curious if any of the recipes have been tried, and what they thought of it. Ah well, until someone posts there, we can only guess, right?

Spent a nice afternoon writing down some recipes, by the way, including a rather nice stir fry I experimented with during yesterday’s lunch. An explosion of taste, I tell you. Ah well. It was fun to try something different for a change, and since big brother had gorged himself on the left over macaroni from yesterday, I didn’t have much of a choice.

Oh, oh, we had this rather splendid idea of a pasta restaurant the other day. Can you imagine. I had this buffet image of a whole array of pastas with in front of it a massive selection of veggie sauces. My mouth watered at the idea, I tell ya. The marvelous thing about it is that you can probably have folks come in for 5 bucks per person and still make a nice little profit. Ah well. Thoughts like that are fleeting. Hah.

Spent a couple of afternoons working on both cars. First the Trooper, since it’s got carpet inside and therefore needed to be vacuumed. Then the Land Rover out of which we’ve started taking out the first excess bits and pieces in preparation of the pimping we’re planning. Quite a bit will have to be done, but it should be nice challenge.

Set up a new bed for grandpa. Like for me, his corner of the porch is small too, so he decided for a single rather than a queen. Luckily we had the supplies we needed to set one up with four drawers underneath, which should be handy for him. He’s a bit wary of there being too little space with his dogs, but like mine, they’ll get used to it.

Had some good moments working on cutting dog food. Figured that I might as well give Grandpa some free time, so there was bread to cut, veggies…everything the dogs need, except for the meat, because I really dislike the smell and feel of meat early in the morning.

Had some splendid workouts these past couple of weeks. Have been sore maybe seventy percent of the time, which tells me that I’ve been doing something right. Did the kicks, the punches, the stretches and even some jogging, so I’ve been a good Sammie. Even had meat a couple times. Yay.

Had a short term job last week, where we painted and furnished a shop in town. A friend recommended us, and I think we did a good job. Took a full day, mind you. First emptying it, filling up holes in the walls, then spending about three hours painting everything while big brother worked in the old store putting together shelving units with mirrors. The rest of the day was spent setting up the units, counter and cleanup, all of it in a single stretch (skipped lunch) because we had to be at the garage before 6 PM.

Added to that we helped a friend move house. Went from all over in Calahonda to a spot right at the bottom of our mountain, so going over every now and then will be way easier…first she needs to get settled, though, and will need a hand every now and then getting everything in the new apartment in order.

Had a bad cold once I got back from the UK, meaning I was a bit under the weather, but in the days that passed I had some naps…heck I even had a couple of three hour naps, which were wonderful…my dogs fully agreed with them too, crawling under the blankets with me because the temps outside have a tad nippy. Did have a lot of sunshine, too, though, which is grand.

As to the rest…there is of course the normal stuff. Laundry, as always. Cleaning up, cooking dinner, changing Knight II’s bandages every day, going to town and getting groceries, picking up some donations…for some reason the days are extremely full.

Which brings us to the end of today…well, it’s tomorrow already, so technically that makes it my B-Day, doesn’t it? Gotta go. Got an early morning planned tomorrow.