creative.mother.thinking

Woke up before the alarm, tried getting my act together, only managed one 25-minute pomodoro of writing before breakfast. I guess I’ll have to be content with that because I don’t really manage doing more.

Then we had one of those mornings where everybody gets on everybody else’s nerves, we ran out of coffee, turned out I had promised to thaw buns for breakfast and forgot (there was bread but it’s not the same) and the boy was cramming for a social studies test at the breakfast table which doesn’t make for the nicest of atmospheres.

The day basically continued in the same vein.

Since we had run out of coffee I decided to move the weekly grocery run from Thursday to yesterday. That wasn’t too bad because on Tuesdays the supermarket seems to be way less crowded. Also, this time I did not walk all the way there and back with my bags because I still wanted to get my short Tuesday run in:

The frozen patches are still frozen which meant there was a lot of walking.

Then I came home where my husband was making pancakes. I folded two loads of laundry and put some of it away. (I leave my husband’s and the boy’s clothes out so they can put them away themselves.)

Lunch tasted good as always, even though some of the pancakes were a little, um, darker than necessary. I told you it was one of those days:

Then I talked with the boy, did a spot of prep for teaching, practiced a little, taught my students, did strength training with the boy, got ready for bed, wanted to write a bit but found that time vanishing into thin air because I foolishly updated my writing software, started attending the monthly webinar by Orna Ross, found that I was too drained to listen to anything and turned the lights out early.

Today there will be running and teaching and writing and nothing spectacular as far as I can see right now.

It feels like we’re all hanging in here until carnival break. 1 1/2 more weeks. Not that I’m counting or anything.

I woke up at 5.15 (yeah, I know) fully determined to get more done than the day before.

I did my usual morning stuff and had just written for five minutes when my husband showed up unexpectedly at 6.45 for building a fire. I told him I was in the middle of writing and would need a few more minutes.

For once we did have breakfast together. That’s such a rare occurrence it actually felt weird. We talked a bit and I worked on the socks I don’t like knitting because I’d like to finish them some day.

The boy didn’t show up for ages which made me pretty cranky. I wrote some more while waiting, did the dishes, did a load of laundry or two, wrote some more, helped very little with lunch and wrote some more. And planned out the next week. There’s a lot I want to get done in the next few days, wish me luck.

Lunch was very tasty:

Not quite the right food for a day that was summer-warm in the afternoon.

After lunch I did the dishes with the boy’s help, realized that I had all forgotten to do yoga, squeezed a quick yoga session in and had a virtual knitting meeting with Eliandhra that was very pleasant.

Then the boy and I watched some TV while I knitted on a different, much more agreeable pair of socks and I went to bed early.

Today there will be running and all the usual stuff, maybe I’ll go to the health food store and there will be teaching.

My great hope for this week is that I’ll a) manage to get enough sleep most nights, b) manage to do all the exercise I have planned and c) will manage to finish the novel-in-progress. Wouldn’t that be great?

I managed to wast about an hour after waking up with no great effort. I’m really hoping to get back into my groove soon.

There was all the usual and then my husband had a great need to talk about some friend stuff.

Two hours later he went running and I started cleaning.

I did go walking for half an hour, so at least I’m on track with the exercise for the week.

I came back and helped to make pizza. Which was rather good:

I took a picture of the crochet blanket. I really wanted to get some writing in but no luck. After lunch I did the dishes and then – instead of making music or working on the podcast – I talked with the boy about learning strategies and teenage stuff. Also linear algebra. As one does. (No, I don’t really know what that is, either. I guess I learned about it in school? Not quite sure, though.)

Then there was teaching. And then I worked on the podcast some more and started uploading the video. Then more teaching. Since I decided to put more energy into teaching I have started to not only have more fun but also I have stopped looking on the clock all the time. I like it. My last student of the day has a combined ukulele/piano lesson and I spent so much time pulling out ukulele songs that would be fun to play that we had to scramble to squeeze the piano in. We had started ten minutes early and went until the regular time.

Then the boy and I watched “Star Trek: Generations“ while eating leftover pizza. I finished knitting the Dalek hat for him and now it is a little too long. Which means he can fold the brim over which will make the hat a little warmer. So that’s good.

Then I had to wait ages until he was done with taking a shower which made me slightly late for bed yet again.

Today I want to run and write and sew and maybe practice. And publish the podcast. And go to bed early.

Woke up super-early, decided to get an hour of writing in right away and ended up barely finishing one pomodoro of it before my husband showed up. I did listen to the classical music from „World of Wonder“ that I missed the day before, though, and meditated.

I also deleted the „paining by numbers“-app that I spent all my time on for two days. The whole time I was totally aware that tipping around on my iPad with my finger to fill in pictures with pre-determined colors had nothing to do with actual drawing or coloring. And that it was not meditative at all with all the advertisements popping up constantly.

And that if I wanted meditative coloring I could take my colored pencils and the coloring book I still have somewhere and use that. It would be much better for me and would help me practice using pencils.

And I realized that if I can spend up to thirty minutes playing with that stupid app there is no excuse for not pulling out my drawing utensils to actually practice drawing for real.

Also there was this question: looking back on my life would I rather waste time with that app or use the time to write or make music or draw?

I’m not against playing video games for pleasure, not at all. But like many good things it is really important to stop doing it when it is no longer pleasurable. Too much of a good thing can be rather bad.

I am using the game „Luigi’s Mansion 2“ as a reward at the moment. If I write enough in the morning I am allowed to play half an hour of that after lunch. I don’t like playing that kind of game in the evening because the light of the screen and the action part makes me more awake instead of ready for sleep.

So far I haven’t been allowed to play the game all week but I am really looking forward to it.

Breakfast went as usual. My husband is still not quite sure if he should continue to start the fire early or not. I’d say it is definitely not worth it if he doesn’t get enough sleep because of it. So we’ll see.

He still had a lot on his mind and we talked for two hours. I did manage to restart the boy’s hat twice and after the second time I actually got the cast on right and am off to a good start.

Then we both went running.

There was a quick lunch because my husband’s teaching day starts early on Wednesdays:

I finally got the birthday package for my husband’s aunt and uncle all packed up, ready and sent out. It turned out that the other day when the boy came to me and said, „Could you please put toilet paper on the grocery list?“ what he actually said was printer paper and we were all out. Which meant I couldn’t print the label for the package.

So I went over to the post office, got the label printed there (I got to show them the QR-code on my phone. Fancy.) and took two packages of printer paper back home. And the boy got a lecture about enunciating properly.

The boy seems to become better in overcoming procrastination as well, by the way. He had been rather angry at himself for not doing his homework earlier. He usually ended up doing the most homework on days where he had the longest schooldays. And he never did anything that wasn’t absolutely necessary, and like many of us, he found that procrastination sucks the joy out of the whole day. You do things that are supposed to be fun but you can’t enjoy them because you know you should be doing something else.

So for the past week or maybe two he hasn’t been going upstairs into his room after he comes home from school but instead he has been sitting down at the kitchen table, away from his computer, and has done his homework. And a little extra studying.

His grades in all the subjects where you need to learn by rote a lot have been, um, not stellar. You can’t expect that stuff to stick in your brain without even looking at it, or really paying attention in class. So right now he is experimenting with looking at what they did the last time before packing his bag for the next day. I’m pretty sure that will make a difference.

But back to my day. After going to the post office I did the dishes and folded a bit of laundry, taught two students, waited for the third one who didn’t show, did a bit of preparation for the podcast episode I want to record today, refilled all my fountain pens, made dentist appointments for the boy and myself, and practiced a little.

That still left more writing for the evening. I have moved my deadline yet again because there was no way I’d finish on Friday with about 14,000 words still to go. Not with getting enough sleep, exercising and living my normal life.

Unfortunately I was so tired that I fell asleep around 8.30 while my husband was still playing guitar downstairs. At least I did get enough sleep.

Today there will be grocery shopping and the recording of the podcast and a bit of teaching. And strength training if I manage to make myself do it after that full a day.

I’d say I’ve proven that over and over.

I woke up around four in the morning, tense because of all the things that didn’t get done. In hindsight I really should have at least done the dinner dishes.

I did manage to write before breakfast, just barely. My husband showed up in time to get breakfast going and so we more or less had breakfast together. Well, it was more like me eating muesli with my tea not yet ready, after I finished that the boy showed up and right when the boy had to get ready for school my husband got to sit down but at least we were all in the same room while breakfast was happening.

I restarted the boy’s hat twice after that and then my husband and I went running. He left the house a little later than me but that only meant I met him a little later and then I was able to determine the best path for running by following his footsteps in the snow.

I started the half-marathon training all over again which meant I only had a leisurely 4.8 k. Since I was listening to David Goggins’ memories of running the Badwater Ultramarathon while out and about I even managed to run most of the way.

It was gray and a little windy but still beautiful and happy-making.

I came back home while my husband was still out and decided to do the weekly health food store run a day early because there was still enough time left before lunch. And since I really want to follow the training plan this time I will have to do either a short run or half an hour of hiking or something similar tomorrow morning in addition to the usual Tuesday stuff.

Lunch was rather early and tasted wonderful:

My husband says that the thought that all the lunches get photographed put a little pressure on him…

And then I fell into a Monday slump. I still had to take a shower and do the dishes and I wanted to prepare my lessons for the week and make music and write some more and all before four.

Well. I did take a shower and I did the dishes. And I sang a little.

Then it was teaching without a break, I made the boy practice piano, started writing this post, and then it was perfectly clear that if I didn’t get ready for bed ASAP I would have another evening of eating too much and not getting anything done.

I’m cross with not getting anything done, it’s not good for me. So, for once I managed to not sit around for a few hours feeling bad about not doing anything before turning the lights out too late. I mean, on those evenings I don’t even read or watch a TV show. I just sit there swiping from one social media thing to the other and feel grumpy.

Best way to spend an evening.

Not.

Today there will be running, maybe, and writing and all the usual and quite a bit of teaching and then strength training. I’d also like to re-ink my fountain pens.