creative.mother.thinking

I slept until six and still didn’t quite get enough sleep. Found that I hadn’t read the „Daily Stoic“ for four days in a row.

I waited with breakfast for my husband because I wanted to have a proper Easter breakfast together. We ended up not boiling eggs because there would be quite a few in our lunch. But I did have some more Osterzopf.

Then I started making the dough for our Genovese Easter pie. Making it took all morning and we had to resort to eating an appetizer beforehand:

While lunch was late but it was worth it:

This might not look like much but it’s homemade puff pastry (I hope that’s the right term, had to look up Blätterteig with a filling of spinach, ricotta, parmesan and eggs.

And here you see the inside and also that I should have left it in the oven a little longer:

And my husband’s grandmother’s cake plate.

After that we took a little break and then suited up again to paint the balcony white. Only when we went upstairs my husband’s brother and one of his nephews were there and so we talked and my husband got to tell his brother all about the balcony crisis with the water streaming down the sides since the new floor was installed.

So we only started painting at five. And then we tried to paint the new paint evenly and thickly and failed. And it took ages. Not quite as long as the sanding but longer than we thought.

We did find our rhythm later but it took a while and then it was time to meet the boy at the train station.

I had spent all afternoon peaking at my phone because I knew he’d have about four hours to kill in Tübingen before stepping on the train and then I was a little worried he’d miss his connection.

But he didn’t text. I heard nothing until he asked if it would be okay to take a different train back home from Munich than the one specified on his ticket. It was totally fine, especially since that train didn’t exist anyway.

I painted racing the clock and managed to sloppily stain the last beam that was accessible without a ladder just in time, threw on some clothes without paint stains and when I rushed to the train station he met me halfway. He had taken an earlier train than I thought.

Meanwhile my poor husband was still perching on the ladder, balancing the bowl of paint in one hand and the brush in the other.

We all had another piece of Easter pie, my mother-in-law included, and since my husband had put it back in the oven again the egg in the middle was cooked all through this time. And it was delicious. We will certainly make that again.

The boy actually told me things about his trip. The youth hostel in Tübingen is rather picturesque and sitting right next to the river there, he was learning things about China and drinking all the tea in the morning and they had the afternoons off.

He looked rather tired but it seems his trip was fun. He insisted on unpacking immediately. Which means I taught him well.

Eventually my husband finished painting too, we each had a beer and then I got ready for bed.

Today there will be – wait for it – more painting. While the paint I bought is white it only stains the wood lightly and we are both thinking that three coats will be better than one. And we should have enough paint for that left.

But. That means we need to paint the balcony two more times.

Ugh.

We are thinking we should start real early today and then paint again in the early evening. You’re supposed to wait twelve hours between the coats of paint but I’m thinking the paint won’t explode if we cut it short. Also, it’s really warm and sunny here right now.

So. Painting, eating lamb at my mother-in-law’s and more painting.

Everything is still hurting, only a little more so. I’m still pretty stoked that I am physically able to do all of this. I mean, after the work we did the day before I didn’t expect myself to be able to roll out twelve layers of dough for the pie. They needed to be as thin as strudel dough. That’s the one you’re supposed to be able to read a newspaper through.

Phew.

One more day and then we should be done. Wish us luck.

I slept for nine hours or so until after 6. No writing, no meditation, no morning pages. I was just too exhausted.

We had a leisurely breakfast with some talking and planning and I spent most of the morning making a packing list for my trip to Hamburg next week and made a pile of things I want to take with me. I even washed a bra by hand.

We did need that time off to lick our wounds. On top of my full-body soreness I also had painful wrists that felt like I shouldn’t do anything with my hands at all for at least a day. Since I can’t stand doing nothing I did try plying more yarn and managed to finish the first half of the sock yarn I’m making. Which is very good because I will need a travel knitting project. Plain socks from handspun would be perfect. But for that I will need to ply the second half as well. We’ll see how that goes.

Then we had shrimp risotto:

Afterwards we took a short break and then it was back into the dusty, paint-stained work clothes for a round of hand-sanding. Fortunately that didn’t make much noise and so we did that all afternoon. We accessed all the little crannies where the sanders don’t reach. My husband also excavated a patch of rotten woods right in the middle of the big weight-bearing beam that holds up the front of the balcony. We will have to shore that up eventually for safety.

The depth of the hole and the sanding that felt completely futile – I was sanding and sanding with hurting fingers and the moss still remained on the wood – I promptly broke out in tears right there sitting on the balcony floor. I knew that it was mostly exhaustion but still.

My husband took pity on me and sent me downstairs so I could bake Osterzopf after all. Baking that is basically the only Easter tradition I follow and it had looked as if that wouldn’t be possible this year. My mother-in-law had already gotten some store-bought Zopf and wanted to give us half anyway because she can’t eat a whole one by herself.

Still. I changed into cleaner clothes and washed my hands, made the dough and went back upstairs to do another round of sanding.

By 7 I had enough, just after my husband had declared that he would sand for as long as it would take, until it was dark, or even by lamplight. I almost burst into tears again but instead we just went downstairs for dinner.

Meanwhile the dough hadn’t properly risen. That had never happened before. My husband thought the kitchen was too cold. So we turned the heating on, placed the bowl with the dough in front of the heater and just an hour later it looked much better.

Dinner was had, then I made the Zopf and baked it and did all the dishes for the day.

I went to bed too late because of the baking and such but it was totally worth it.

Today there will be – wait for it – more sanding. This time with loud machines that make your arms vibrate. Yeah!

We are hoping to finish the sanding by lunchtime and maybe even to start painting with primer.

Best case scenario would be that we finish priming today and paint the first and second coat of the actual white paint on Sunday and Monday. It would be perfect if we could also make the special, planned Easter lunch and be done with painting before the boy comes home Sunday evening.

Right now the prospect of just using paint brushes feels like vacation but I’m sure we’ll think otherwise in a day or two.

If we could finish everything on Monday I could take Tuesday off (with only three students to teach – piece of cake) and go on my trip all rested and energetic on Wednesday.

Well, I did what I could but it definitely wasn’t enough.

Woke up around 5.30, meditated, wrote morning pages and worked on the novel for 25 minutes. Got up around 7.30 and my husband showed up at 8. There was a note from my mother-in-law in front of the door saying that we’re crazy to sand all the paint of the balcony and that everybody says a light sanding should be enough.

Unfortunately everybody is wrong and they didn’t see the state of the wood.

Also very unfortunately one of the sanders died the night before and so I had to bike to the hardware store yet again. I bought two sanders and found sandpaper specifically for removing paint. Which turned out to make the work somewhat easier.

Not easy, mind you.

When I got back from the hardware store I finally got to join in the sanding. I had two hours before we had to stop working for Mittagsruhe. In Germany you’re not allowed to make noise between 12 and 2 (or in some regions between 1 and 3). These days professionals seem to be exempt but I have to say I do like when it’s quiet around lunchtime.

Just before noon a friend of my husband’s showed up feeling the need to point out that we should just go with the flow and that everything will decay in the end, even the balcony. So if we don’t manage to finish it before my trip to Hamburg we just have to be content with it.

That was a bad moment for remarks like that. We are completely aware of the Buddha’s teachings and if we don’t manage to finish the balcony in time, so be it. But it would be much better if we could and if we could finish the whole project before the next rain, and that means we are not laid back about the work right now.

I was still much slower than my husband but not as awfully slow as the day before.

While my husband was talking to his friend I started making lunch. I managed to let the rice boil over, not put enough salt into the baked beans and I left cooking the eggs and bacon to my husband because I’m all out of practice with frying:

After lunch I immediately went grocery shopping. To a nearer store this time. We didn’t need much (I hope the list was accurate) but we did need some things for Easter.

That is the thing we didn’t think about when starting our little renovation project. We won’t be able to work on the balcony on Good Friday, Sunday or Monday. I think Saturday should be alright, at least.

Then I taught the first student of the day for thirty minutes, did about forty minutes of housework, taught the second student, changed back into work clothes, helped to send for about 1 1/2 hours, changed back into regular clothes and washed the dust off my face and taught the last student of the day.

My husband, on the other hand, started sanding (standing on the ladder) when I left for the hardware store, stopped for lunch and took a nap, then went buying soda and beer, went back to sanding non-stop with a short dinner break while I was teaching and when I was finished he was up there again.

I haven’t even finished a quarter of the inside while he has finished three quarters of the outside. But we’re not done yet, we need to do nooks and crannies and take more of the bad wood off.

Out big hope is that with unrelenting sanding all day we will be able to get the whole thing ready for painting tonight.

Wish us luck.

I’m not quite sure if I can wield the sander for hours and hours and hours. Yesterday I did about 3 1/2 hours and playing guitar afterwards was no fun.

So today there will be a lot of sanding. Nice and easy.

Didn’t get enough sleep yet again because I didn’t want to stop watching that „Alive and Kicking“-documentary. No writing in the morning and I don’t remember if I meditated or not. This is clearly not working at the moment so I’ll change my morning routine and get up right after the alarm goes off. At least that’s the plan.

I was happy to see that I’m not hopelessly behind on writing yet, if I manage to write 1,200 words five times a week until the end of June I will be able to finish until my new and improved deadline.

Mind you, all I wrote last week was 2,000 words so maybe I am already hopelessly behind. Who knows?

There was breakfast and my husband got up late. I spent the time he ate breakfast winding plying balls for the sock yarn that I’m currently spinning. I started the last step of plying and the yarn is looking really nice right now.

Then we went and measured the balcony and found that there will be about 24 square meters to paint. Since we had decided to use the better brand of paint and since there is a shop that sells it one town over I had decided to take the bike trailer and pick up a prescription for thyroid meds at my doctor’s office and go to the nicer health food store while I was there.

It was rather cold and windy and there is a hill between this town and the next that is quite bad for motivation because you have to go up and down both ways but since I had skipped my run for this I was okay.

So I got my meds and then looked for the paint shop. Which was closed. Their website had said they would be open in the morning but the sign on the shop itself said they’d open in the afternoon. Also, that the shop will be closing for good in two weeks time.

I briefly thought about waiting for two hours and then I briefly debated coming back in the afternoon but I wasn’t all that keen on it. Going there takes about half an hour by bike, and it was windy and then there’s that hill.

So I went to the health food store, bought all the meat and all the sweets and bananas and lip balm and potato chips and went back home again.

My Fitbit, by the way, thinks that I was totally not doing anything. Of that hour of bike riding I did today it counted twelve minutes and when I was working on the balcony I took it off.

I came home – without paint – and diced a carrot for lunch:

That tasted really great.

Then I ate some chocolate bars and some licorice that I had bought. It is a little hard to get licorice here (thought I have found out that my regular grocery store does sell my favorite kind, so there’s that) and I really wanted some. It did look a little squished but the taste was alright. Unfortunately I later noticed that the ‚best before‘-date had been at the end of last November. Oops.

It didn’t have any ill effects, though.

I had done the dishes right after lunch (I’m trying to reestablish that habit.) and then folded some laundry and hung up some more and then we finally got started with the balcony.

The first step, of course, is the sanding. This is how I was kitted out:

I still had dust in my eyes but not a lot, and after a while I also remembered to use earplugs.

Both of us sanded for a little more than two hours and this is how it looked afterwards:

Looks good doesn’t it? Now here is the balcony in all its glory:

You can see on the left how my husband used the stepladder and how I didn’t. Also, in my defense I ended up with the inferior sander again. We have two and one is working quite a bit better than the other one. Maybe we’ll change tomorrow. Or maybe not, if my husband has to work on the ladder all day and I get to just stand on the balcony for work.

Now, two hours is not all that long but after that my arms were a little limp and my hands were tingling and numb. That will be fun over the next few days, I’m sure.

Tomorrow I will take the bike trailer to the hardware store and get paint for real this time. Not the good one but we have used that brand before and it will have to be enough.

We had to stop sanding at six because my husband had a student coming but I’m glad for it.

Today there will be the buying of the paint and the sanding and more sanding and then the teaching of two students.

I had turned the alarm off but woke up at 5.13 anyways. I did feel good, strangely enough. I didn’t want to start the weekend just checking off to-dos so I ended up not doing much of anything. I did enjoy myself, though.

I had a late breakfast after a lot of reading in bed and the rest of the family was a little late as well.

I didn’t quite know what to knit and so I started the second running sock without having finished the first one. The next step would be knitting the toes which needs a bit more headspace and quiet. Since the sock yarn came in two small balls instead of one big one I decided to just start the next sock.

I found that the only note I had ever made on the how I made the first one was, „Running sock, cast on 72 stitches on 1 mm needles.“ That was all and it wasn’t even in the index of my bullet journal. Seems I will have to count the rows on the first one. Later I found that I was pretty sure I had knitted the ribbing for 20 rounds and 55 rounds of the rest of the leg but I can’t be sure until I have compared that to the existing sock.

They boy showed up irritatingly late and immediately said that he needed more supplies for his trip. I really don’t like when he tells me he needs stuff just after I went shopping but that’s what always happens. So I have him some money and told him to get it himself.

While he was having breakfast we were talking about all kinds of things related to his trip, what to pack, how to get the ticket on his phone, when to do what and then I tried upping the balance on his phone to no avail. Tried it five times with two different modes of payment. Weird.

All of that meant that I was late doing the dishes and then way late for running. I had planned to do almost 10k but in then end resigned myself to a walk around the neighborhood.

When I came home my husband was busy cooking and then the boy showed up saying that he didn’t get anything he went out to buy. He couldn’t find his hand creme and lotion in the store. So I put my shoes back on after talking to my husband, told the boy that he had to come with me even though he really didn’t want to and we went to the health food store.

And the two things he had wanted to get were right there. In his defense, the layout of the health food store is rather illogical and weird. Good thing I’m used to it.

Then we had chili for lunch which was really good:

I indulged in a brief slump but then cut the boy’s hair, helped him think through his packing list, did the dishes, finally took a shower and – also finally – got up my kanban board for the second quarter of the year:

The smaller stickies are much better. I felt more motivated right away but didn’t actually do anything.

I did help the boy with his packing again but he didn’t finish it (of course). I think he spent all afternoon on getting half his packing list done. While trying to program some math equation into python.

Then we sat down together, all three of us and watched „The Big Lebowski“. My husband and I both had seen the film before but it was the boy’s first time. He did like it.

And then I went to bed a little late.

Today there will be the getting the boy ready for his trip and seeing him off on time, some yoga (I hope) and something productive. It is supposed to be real cold with snow.