Yeah, so, a day... Got up early(ish), with my alarm, which is a win. Fished out my lady epilator torture device and attempted to deforest my legs; one leg and a stripe later, it ran out of power, so the rest of the deforesting will have to wait for tomorrow morning. Showered, dressed, sorted out the pups with breakfast, medicine and munchies, and their daily unspeakables (eggs - great for their coats and energy levels, but unspeakable because they make Jerry want to vomit).

Anyway, so, it's been a day of doing chores; laundry (folding and putting away and washing and hanging up to dry), yard pickup (yech), shopping (Lidl and Asda, and putting away, which involved cleaning the fridge that's in the barn), cooking (for us and for the dogs), dishes (well, stacking, running and unstacking the dishwasher twice - can't really call it doing the dishes if I only handwashed the cast iron skillet and gave a casserole dish a scrub over to get the last trace of bits out that the dishwasher missed). I boiled up the bones from a chicken we had over the weekend, and the last of the meat, the bones and the stock went into the dogs' dinners. I peeled and chopped and fished out my food processor and the end result was a pan of roast veg (I forgot to put in garlic! And I got more garlic specially! Bummer!) and a large bowl of coleslaw. Jerry cooked up the steak I picked up reduced at Asda. Much to the pups' disgust, we ate it all! Well, the meat, anyway. They had bread and dripping. Nom nom!

So, yeah, a day of doing stuff. I'm still keeping up with my language practise, but the Italian is onto possessives and I found it really hard - bit of brain fade, I think. On to bed and much sleeping and an easy day tomorrow, in which I'm hoping I'll get chance to play around with Paper and do some more illustrations for Where's My Tractor. Sleep well, y'all!

( A Man, A Plan, A Canal... )

The state of my inbox: 68 emails.

Today's reading:

• Perception is Everything Ch36, by Kendra James
• The Quiet Man Ch 47, by ivyblossom
• The Fabric of Life Ch19, by holyfant
• Come At Me Ch3, by Closer
• The Altruist and the Anachronism Ch55, by AssistedRealityInterface

For I am a: ( Lawful Good Human Wizard (4th Level) )

In other news, I am wearing my new socks. I took a photo. I even remembered to take my camera into work. But the cable is still at home. Doh! I'll edit the post later this evening.

Operation 'Get the Spare Room Sorted Out so ravenlas Can Put All His Miniatures Up There Before paulmarks Arrives This Weekend' is in full swing. The Desk (it's so large it deserves capitalization) is now in place, with the fourth leg now securely fixed to it. I have begun to move boxes and go through boxes. My beloved husband's armour is safely put away in the wardrobe¹, along with some of his reenactment kit. Tonight, I intend to finish going through the boxes, move the campaign bed pieces², move up the bookcases from the kitchen³, and build the last chest of drawers. And that'll be it largely finished. Hurrah!

If you don't hear from me tomorrow, you may assume I am buried under a Pile of Stuff. Send in the St. Bernard.

1. Where else would you keep your armour? What do you mean you don't have any?
2. A campaign bed. Designed to be taken to pieces. So you can take it on campaign with you and sleep in comfort in your campaign tent. What do you mean you don't go on campaign?
3. You *don't* have bookcases in your kitchen? How bizarre! I don't get you people at all. *shakes head sadly*

So, the Wall O'Books is up. Finished. And neither ravenlas nor I ended up in A&E. The books which were piled up the stairs (previously piled behind the sofa) are now stacked on shelves in the beginnings of a semblance of some kind of order. There is stonking amounts of shelf space free, which I intend to start filling tomorrow. I am extremely happy about all of this, as you might expect.

Photos tomorrow. Sleep now.

The November G.E.D. Month to do list! And if anyone wants to come round and give me a hand, shout out encouragement, etc, you're very welcome to do so. I'll be adding to the list, I dare say...

House

Kitchen - put a heavier curtain over the back door / take the catflap out of the back door and board up the hole and repaint the board / get a top shelvey bit for the sideboard or put up some shelves (shelves bought and put up 8/11/08) / repaint the kitchen / replace the cupboard doors / measure up and replace the drawer runners if possible
Living room - polyfiller the hole in the ceiling / put film over the windows to keep the draft out / do a whole pile of tidying up - started (8/11/08) / rearrange the furniture so I can get to the wall heater and/or get ravenlas to move the tv that's in front of the fire / move some more of the books out to the shed / clear space to use the wii / fix the door of the display cabinet / read the gas and electric meters and phone the power company / catch up on paper shredding - started (8/11/08)
Hallway - go through the bag of stuff at the bottom of the stairs and file or bin it / polyfiller the holes in the wall and drill new ones, put the bannister back up (3/11/08) / get rid of the bag of clothes to ebay or give away - (started 10/11/08) / find some place to put away my box of clothes / put up a curtain rail & curtain over the front door - bought rail (8/11/08), put up 9/11/08 / put a letter cage over the letter box / put a draught excluder over the letter box - bought (6/11/08), put up (8/11/08) / put up a high shelf for hats - bought (8/11/08), put up (9/11/08)
Bathroom - put up the skirting board, put down beading / check the bath sealant / put up a shaving mirror (not for me!) (3/11/08)
Spare room - go through the clothes and shoes in the wardrobe and get rid of or trunk anything that doesn't fit or I don't wear any more - started (6/11/08), finished (10/11/08) (and get ravenlas to do the same) / go through the boxes and get rid of piles of stuff - started (6/11/08) / get legs for the table and put it up (8/11/08) / get ravenlas to put the spare telly on the wall in here / replace the chests of drawers - new chests of drawers bought (8/11/08), put up 1 (10/11/08) / put up some shelves
Attic stairs - repaint / stick down the paper around the velux / clean the velux / put away the decorating stuff at the bottom of the stairs / go through the boxes at the bottom of the stairs
General - get house rewired / replastered / central heating / new windows (or at least new hinges) / remodel downstairs / get conservatory built

Garden

Put the tomato plants on the compost heap - likewise, the courgettes / cut the grass / clean the patio / weed / take out the bamboo / weed the front garden / put edging stones along the front bed / plant a few more plants between the primulas / clip the long grass around the 'grassy knoll' / turn the pond into a bog garden? / replace the pond liner? / relay the stones around the edge of the pond? / spraypaint all the woodwork / get the house repointed / get the guttering cleaned and resealed / get the dormer woodwork treated and the flat roof checked / replace security light at the back / add a security light at the front / rotivate lawn & add more topsoil and sand for drainage / edge all flower beds / add more bark chippings & cardboard to the bottom of the garden / replace front drainpipe

Writing

1 6k short story (asap) - started! (800 words, 3/11/08) / Squirrels - finish editing - submit to agents / Thunder Moon - finish writing / Tie Me To The Mast (But Do Not Stop My Ears) - to finish writing / Desperate Measures - write a sequel (4/11/08) / Shed World - edit story

Crafts

Shawl for Mum - to finish knitting - done more on (4/11/08) / Stripey Socks - to finish knitting / Purple cardigan - to finish knitting / medieval kit - to design - to cut out - to sew / viking kit - to design - to cut out - to sew / '50s housecoat - to make / Frock coat - to make / mittens for Sue - to naalbind / make curtains for the whole house

Online

Get my website up and running (finally) / clear out Hub's slushpile / clear out Pseudopod's slushpile - started! (3/11/08) / clear out my email inbox - started! (down to 67 3/11/08) / list things for sale on Amazon and Ebay /

People

Phone round the family (started 3/11/08 - Anne, Kate, Mum & Dad) / email Emma, Audrey, Cat, Paul / Phone Sue, Sarah

Other

Give blood / change bike brake pads / wash the car / take India and Emilio climbing / make a gastroenterology appointment 27/11/08 / phone 3 and ask for pac code 27/11/08

When gothgrr came round on Wednesday, she happened to mention the Boxercise class at St. John's.

So this evening (after a fab day with rhube watching Short Circuit, Batteries Not Included, Flight of the Navigator and Tongan Ninja), I dragged my saggy behind off the sofa and went to Boxercise, along with alasdair1076 and Kate. It's rather hard work, but I very much enjoyed the boxing stuff. Hugely. Mwa ha haaa!

Alas, I appear to have left a lung out in the car park somewhere. I'm sure I'll stop coughing before I go to bed... Mind you, cycling in to the station tomorrow is not going to be so much fun, I very strongly suspect. Ho hum, never mind! I'll be going back next week, I reckon, and maybe I'll be a teensy bit fitter (and have stopped coughing).

G.E.D. month... Not so much. I started knitting that bath mat (from strips of t-shirts). And that story I'm putting up over on the_proofreader has hit 13.5k. So another 500 words and that'll be an average of 2,000 words a day for the last week. Hurrah! And it Doesn't Suck! Even better! :)

Anything else? Well, the living room is pretty tidy. Well, for my living room. So that counts, I think. And tomorrow the car goes in for its MOT, and... um... that's about it, I think.

Have a great week, y'all.

I'm still coughing a bit, and appear to have become somewhat of a goo factory, but G.E.D. continues apace. A slower pace, admittedly, but never mind, eh? Today I have assembled a 6-drawer chest of drawers, emptied the two 3-drawer chests of drawers and carted them downstairs, from thence to go to rhube and alasdair1076 (I hope). I've also taken 3 bags of clothes to a charity shop and dropped off a bag of clothes at Woody's house to begin its journey on to hungry_pixel (I also hope).

So the house is starting to look better. Which makes me happy. And gives me something to think about beyond the coughing and the sneezing. Just two more chests of drawers to build, some boxes to go through, and maybe, just maybe, the spare room will cease to be a tip. Hurrah!

Friday was a bit of a bust. I got some more knitting done, but I woke up with ulcers where my tonsils used to be. Which was rather sore. So I left work early, went home and tidied up more of the spare room and saw Sue, Dave and India (wanolj), failed to have a D&D game, sat on the sofa and watched telly. With takeout. And wine. Hurrah!

Saturday, though, kicked ass (for G.E.D. month, that is). Not quite such a sore throat, so I got up early(ish) and went to Ikea. Where I spent a chunk of my dividend (in lieu of pay), had to get a nice man to help me put boxes on the trolley and another nice man to help me put them in the car. Which was rather full. *heh*

So Saturday's list looks like:
Fitted draught excluder to the back of the letter box.
Put legs on the huge table.
Tidied more of the spare room.
Bought and put up shelves in the kitchen.
Tidied kitchen.
Bought more shelves for the kitchen and for the hallway.
Bought curtain rail for the hallway.
Bought 3 chests of drawers for the spare room to replace the current ones.
Emptied the paper shredder

Also (but not on the list) did several loads of washing and took them to the launderette to dry, went to VJs and saw friends (yay!) and met up with paul_marks who is visiting while Tuesday.

Go me! *happy dance*

At some point today I intend to take and put up photos of the clothes which are going free to a good home (there are more). Would anyone like a wide 3-drawer Malmo chest of drawers (Ikea) in birch veneer? Also there's a little white 3-drawer MFI-style cheapass chest of drawers going free! I'll even drop it round to your house! As long as, yanno, that's York. Leeds, maybe. Bread machine, anyone?

( Kitchen shelves! )

Right, back to drilling holes in the walls...