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Monday, June 13th: Good day, no cake

July 14, 2020 by Susanne Leave a Comment

I woke up earlier than expected but then made the mistake of picking up my phone first thing again. One of these days I’ll learn. So, no yoga, no noveling.

I did have breakfast ready in time for the boy to go to school but had forgotten to set the alarm that tells him to get ready and me to close the windows in his room. He still was on time but had to move a little faster.

My husband was up a little later than usual and we talked while he had a leisurely breakfast. He is starting to think about what to do during summer break and where I am thinking about taking courses and writing and sewing and getting projects done he is thinking about excursions and the fact that his Italy trip won’t happen. And that not traveling means we can go out to eat more often. When he first talked about it the boy and I were all, „What do you mean, summer travel won’t happen? We never travel during summer break.“ But my husband does. I think we should put the things we’d like to do on post-its and put them on the fridge. We have started doing that with cooking ideas and are liking it.

There was housework and there was running. Well, I say running but it was mostly walking with a bit of a shuffle in between. It is a little disheartening. The weather was great, though:

When getting ready for my run I found that my left earphone wasn’t working again. I had let it charge for hours all morning but that didn’t help at all. So I ordered new earphones. Of course. When coming back home from my run I asked my husband for some WD40. He brought something he claimed is even better, I used it on the misbehaving electronics and then – they worked again. I’m still ordering new ones.

My husband made lunch all on his own:

Chili. With the meat on the side so that the boy could have beans only. It was good but I would have preferred mine without kohlrabi. Seems there was one lonely one sitting there left over and so my husband just put it in.

I did the dishes right away, then watched the course on the Affinity suite for a bit, working along. It took me more than half an hour to get through a ten minute lesson. I hope I’ll remember what I learned at least.

Then there was teaching, afterwards I started answering a student’s email about something he didn’t get and then decided to just take a quick video to show him. I had great plans for the evening but turned out to be too tired to do much. So there was dinner and the start of this post and a little spinning. I let the dishes sit unwashed.

Today there will be the walk to the health food store, the baking of the cake that I didn’t bake the day before because I didn’t have time to buy eggs, lots and lots of teaching and I’m hoping to chip away at all the other projects as well.

Sunday, July 12: Somewhat productive

July 13, 2020 by Susanne Leave a Comment

I slept in until 6.30. Did yoga and meditated for five minutes and then made breakfast. My husband was a little early. We talked, I knitted. The boy showed up half an hour later than he should have.

Somehow I actually did a little work on the novel in progress. I’m still reading through what I got and it is slow going.

My husband pulled out all the stops for lunch:

Fried zucchini and fried zucchini blossoms filled with cream cheese. And then fried Romana salt with goat cheese and a side of bulgur with tomato sauce:

Had a long break, did the dishes, finished another book and started a new one and then recorded the next podcast episode. Pulled out the novel again for ten minutes or so and then we ate dinner with the whole family.

The boy and I watched Enterprise. That episode was pretty okay. I finished the first bobbin of merino and silk and started the second one:

Dishes, starting this post and off to bed.

This week is a school week for the boy again. So I have to get up early and make breakfast on time. Other than that there will be running today and maybe I’ll finally bake that cake I’ve been talking about for a whole week. And there will be more spinning. At least I hope so.

Saturday, July 11: Slump

July 12, 2020 by Susanne Leave a Comment

Or maybe just a well-earned day off, I can’t tell.

I had set my alarm for 6.30 and woke up at 5.30 unable to get back to sleep. Did lounge in bed for forty minutes, got up and did yoga and then it was already time to make breakfast for the boy. Because he had a test for his „Certificate of Advanced English“ that day. He had to go to school around nine and only came back home in the afternoon.

After that I had a rather slow morning. It was raining like mad and when I went running/walking I had to traverse enormous puddles. At least it wasn’t too hot:

Shortly before the halfway point I met my husband which made me happy. Then I ran out of steam and basically walked the whole way back.

Yes, I was rather wet. Rubber boots might have been a good idea but they don’t make running easy:

When I took my shoes off at home a stream of water gushed down from my jacket on the floor.

My husband made delicious lunch:

I decided to reschedule the podcast because of the rain and lack of light and then it turned out that I couldn’t bake the cake I had planned because we didn’t have enough eggs left. And I didn’t want to go grocery shopping again.

So I sat around happily reading a novel for a few hours. The boy told me all about his test when he came back and I didn’t do anything productive at all.

In the evening we had potato chips and licorice for dinner and watched our first episode of ‚Eternal Love‘. Gail Carriger recommended it in her newsletter and I thought we should give it a try. I have to say I don’t understand it at all. The costumes and scenery are way over the top right from the start, the story is a little confusing. And while we always watch films with sub-titles I’m definitely not used to watching something where I don’t understand a word. I kept not looking at the screen and missing whole phrases because that show is in Mandarin.

Then we watched another episode of ‚Star Trek: Enterprise‘ that was decent. I spent most of that episode trying to find the end of the thread on my bobbin. I gave up in the end, took some random thread and tore it in half so that I had a place to join. Not best practice, I know, and that will probably cause problems down the road.

I started writing this post, got ready for bed and read some more.

Today, of course, I will do all the things. The main difference being that I actually made a list yesterday. Not having a list is dangerous.

Friday, July 10: Great progress on reading, also, pizza

July 11, 2020 by Susanne Leave a Comment

I woke up early but dozed off again. Maybe I need to revamp my morning routine again. I did manage yoga and was reminded of all the reasons I need to do it more regularly. I keep forgetting that after a few days of not exercising everything starts hurting again.

I spent most of the morning reading with just a bit of housework thrown in. Since I didn’t feel like doing much I wisely decided to start cleaning with everything I had skipped the week before. It will all even out eventually.

I had made breakfast rather early because the boy went to the climbing gym again and wanted to leave at 7.30. He didn’t look well-rested at all. He did have fun, though.

When my husband showed up for breakfast he told me that the friend that had invited him to his vacation home in Italy for the beginning of August had had a stroke. The friend had to dictate his email because he still has trouble with motor functions. He is recovering but those weren’t happy news. Also, the August trip is off the table but that’s not the issue.

And then the three of us went out for lunch to have pizza. We rode our bikes to the other side of town where we sat outside and had the best pizza in town:

When we came back home the mailman had already delivered my new keyboard. I had just enough time to unpack it and do a little testing and it works beautifully, the feel of the keys is so much better than the old one and it seems solid and well built. I was all giddy to have the full range of 88 keys for the one lonely piano lesson I taught that day.Wait, no, that’s wrong, I taught another piano student but since I taught her online I used the real piano for that one.

In the evening the boy and I watched an episode of ‚Star Trek: Enterprise‘. Not bad, as such, but not really good either. We’ll try a new series tonight, we’ll see how that goes. At least I did spin a bit.

Today there will be running and sugar peas with duck for lunch and the baking of a cake. Maybe podcast prep, I’m not sure.

Writing? What writing?

Thursday, July 9: Well, I did read half a novel or so

July 10, 2020 by Susanne Leave a Comment

Woke up early and read a novel instead of doing anything productive. I finished that one, started the next in the series right away and poured every free minute I had into that. I am happy that I’m back to reading but I’m not so happy that I’m not getting stuff done.

There were all the usual things, including walking to the supermarket. Somewhere along the way my smartwatch asked me if I was exercising.

My husband cooked all morning and we had Salate Niçoise:

More reading and an afternoon of teaching that was fun. Dinner with the boy and then my husband, a little spinning while watching a video, a pile of dishes and then bed. My energy is still pretty low.

Today there will be all the cleaning, lunch will be either frozen pizza with the boy or going out to eat with the whole family. Then even more teaching and in the evening the boy and I will watch some Enterprise.

I have a list of things I should be doing that is way too long. But. Recharge first, then do stuff.

Wednesday, July 8: Sleep, finally!

July 9, 2020 by Susanne Leave a Comment

Wouldn’t it be great if one good night of sleep would make everything better?

I woke up with the alarm, well rested, and my mind immediately latched on to the fact that I had spent a significant amount of time being angry about the crappy, cheap keyboard I’m using while teaching. I set it up so that I can keep enough distance to my piano students and they get to play on the piano. Now, that keyboard was never meant to be used for anything serious, back when I had sold my stage piano after not using it for ten years I had kept the crappy keyboard to help with notation software.

On Tuesday I tried playing a Dvorak piece for a student and found that not only where there not enough keys to play it, also the F sharp that is always three times as loud as all the other notes was driving me up the wall so I started researching keyboards at 6.30 in the morning. And ordered one right away. I would have liked something more piano-like but all the stage pianos and digital pianos that are affordable are sold out at the moment. So I opted for another MIDI-keyboard, this time with 88 keys. It definitely will not feel like a piano and it comes with no sound of its own but I can connect it to my computer like I’m doing now and use GarageBand for the sounds.

So that will probably bring a major improvement but it also meant that my whole morning routine didn’t happen. My husband was a little irked that I hadn’t talked with him before ordering something. Not because of the money or anything, just because he feels a little left out when I make all my decisions lightning fast without talking to anybody. I can certainly understand that. But that’s no how decision-making works for me. I see a problem, I let it percolate in the back of my mind, then the solution comes to me – often first thing in the morning – I act on it and I’m done. Well, if things go right. If they don’t I stop myself before acting and then I freeze and never do anything about it.

Eventually, I did go for my run:

The weather was gorgeous but a little too warm for my taste (husband said it was ideal).

At the halfway point I lost all grit and stamina and walked back rather slowly:

Back home my husband was almost done with lunch:

The boy was eating with my mother-in-law. I had a short break and then it was all teaching all afternoon. Some dinner, some lounging about, some making neat piles of the dirty dishes because I wanted to go to bed at a reasonable time and a lot of reading. I forgot all about spinning again. Not the best Tour de Fleete year I’ve had.

Today there will be the grocery shopping, lots of dirty dishes, lots and lots of teaching again. I put the spinning on my to-do list this time. And I’m actually looking forward to the novel-in-progress again but there never seems to be time. We’ll see.