Archives for September 2017

Yesterday was another day of not getting much done. By now it’s getting old.

We went voting in the morning, when it was still pretty empty, we had spaghetti with homemade pesto for lunch, I played some more Subnautica (and got frustrated), made a little music, did 15 minutes of strength training, and that was basically it.

The highlight was that I managed to make hand and lip balm. I had run out of both back in June so I had to buy some at the store, and yesterday I finally got around to pulling out the ingredients, melting them in a pot and pouring them into jars. Making both took all of thirty minutes, I have no idea why I didn’t do it earlier. But then this was only my second time ever. Things that you don’t do often always feel more overwhelming.

The election results were decidedly meh. It will be interesting to see where German politics go after this.

So. New week, new attempt to get a grip on my life – business as usual.

Today I will be doing a ton of teaching, will go for a run (no skipping today), and do everything on my to do list. The list isn’t that long, so that should be doable.

As expected I was pretty lazy yesterday which was good. I spent half an hour typing corrections into my novel, skipped my run because I was feeling queasy and sleep-deprived, helped making shrimp risotto, and then did something I haven’t done in ages, I sat down at the computer to play an actual video game.

The boy is all into video games, in fact that is all he does in his spare time. Well, that and watch youtube videos. When he isn’t allowed screen time he reads. There is way more screen time than anything else in his life, something I’m not too happy with it but he’ll turn 15 soon, and since he is doing his homework and chores with minimal nagging I let him.

I had been wanting to play some video games again for ages now because I did use to enjoy it. I also used to get so obsessed with certain games that I’d do nothing but play for weeks on end, not getting enough sleep and spending all my free time in front of the computer but I don’t think that will happen again soon, my life is just too packed for that. Also I have become a little better at not doing things that make me feel rotten.

The boy recommended Subnautica to me, and I have to say so far I really like it. Since I’m so out of practice I stumble around, fumble with the controls, and gave up playing in survival mode after two tries.

I’m not sure if I’m patient enough to spend hours and hours on this but so far I’m enjoying it.

I only have to make sure that I don’t start out my day playing it. Better to do the things I want to move forward on first and use the game as a reward later.

Yesterday was also the day my husband decided to cut the first part of the hedge, and so I spent the late afternoon sweeping hedge clippings into piles. It was one of those rare days where the whole family was helping to get that task done, and it was somewhat nice. Unfortunately he is having tennis elbow, and so the rest of the hedge will have to wait. I might have to learn how to cut the hedge. Which will be an excellent upper body workout.

Today is the day we go and vote. Which is super important this year.

I always go because this is one of the few things I can do to influence where my country is going, but this time we’re hoping to not have too many racist idiots elected so it is even more important than usual.

We used to spend the night of election day in front of TV waiting for results to come in but I doubt I’ll do that today. I’ll probably just check the web tomorrow morning.

So yesterday was as much a whirlwind of a day as expected. I did get everything done, though, which was very good.

That meeting of selfpublishers was pretty interesting, and I managed to avoid the Oktoberfest crowds when heading back home by going after midnight which was not the smartest move on my part. This weekend will be sluggish and unproductive as a result.

At that meeting there were only five of us, each one doing pretty different kinds of books. I was the only one who hadn’t anything published yet (also my business card was the most unprofessional by far). Still I found that the others’ goals were slightly different from mine. It seems that for most German authors the big goal is to get their books into physical book shops. And two of the non-fiction authors in the group are indeed selling stacks of books to distributors out of their basements.

Of course they were all talking about services and distributors that I had never heard of because I’m thinking about the English-speaking market and online sales, and when I mentioned smashwords, createspace and draft2digital they looked at me funny in turn.

They also told me to translate my books into German, and I am thinking about it but I’ll see how they are doing in English first, before putting more time into them. They also suggested crowdfunding to raise the funds I need for proper covers and editing. Unfortunately I don’t think that will work.

But then what do I know.

We talked for ages, and there is a lot I will have to think about. As usual when I’m meeting people.

I was really hoping to make a lot of progress on the novel today but with the lack of sleep I don’t know if that will happen. It is also the annual hedge-cutting time, always a slight crisis, and something that needs the whole family to pull together.

I want to go for a run, and then I’ll guess I’ll spend most of the day slothing in front of the computer.

I never know if the benefits of going out and meeting people really outweigh the lost day or two afterwards. I guess I’ll have to decided that on a case to case basis.

It always feels a little cold and calculating, this „Do I get enough out of this to make it worth my time?“ kind of thinking but then time is the one thing you can’t really get more of. Not that I am striving for a life where not a single moment is wasted but spending a whole evening in town is a rather big investment of time, especially when you count the impact that has on the hours before where I need to get everything done before heading out which includes things I’d usually do at night, and a day or two afterwards where I will be pretty unproductive with less-than-usual impulse control.

Still, that meeting was interesting enough to be worth it this time.

And after two weeks full with beginning of the school year panic, traveling over the weekend, re-scheduling lots of students, and then going out meeting new people in a place I’ve never been I am really looking forward to a slow and semi-lazy weekend.

Yesterday was a rather busy day again. I tried to work on the novel in the morning after breakfast but my husband was up extra early. Then I ran all the errands, and got all the food.

I also found that my bank does not change British pounds into Euros. I’m not quite sure what to do about the 15 pounds I still have lying around. Maybe put them in a drawer and wait until the next time I’ll need them. Since the last time I visited the UK before this summer was 1989 that might mean I’ll be 78 until then but then one can’t really extrapolate a trend from only two data points.

Before all of that I found that there was something weird going on with my daily posts from the last few days. Day 6 had the wrong date, and day 9 wasn’t showing up. I tried fixing it but every time I fixed one of the two posts the other one would go wonky. In the end I refreshed everything in the blogging software I’m using on my laptop, and then the post for day 6 was gone.

I’m not quite sure what happened but it must have something to do with the fact that I’m using two different pieces of software for blogging, one on my iPad, and the other one on my laptop. And maybe I took one of the posts as a template for the other, and then the blog thought those two were one post only, and so I lost a post. Of course that one was the one with all the nifty links and everything about the German Raveler Meeting in it.

I will write it again as well as I can but not today because today I’m swamped.

I also found that I didn’t get a message when there was a comment on the blog so I didn’t see a couple of comments, and therefore didn’t reply to them. Sorry.

I will clean everything, teach loads of students, and then I’ll rush into the city for my very first meeting of the „Selfpublisher-Verband“. I will mend my purple dress so I can wear it, and apply makeup, and I’m feeling all professional now because I managed to print business cards even.

And yes, I am fully aware that real, printed business cards would be much more professional, and a website that’s not a free wordpress blog, and a book funnel-link to the actual books I published. But one step at a time.

I am pretty excited about the meeting, and a little scared. I’m also not happy about the fact that I will have to go to Munich during Okotberfest. That’s something we usually avoid. It means being on trains that are packed with loud, drunk people who might lose it at any time, or get in your face for not being drunk and loud.

I’m planning to walk for twenty minutes from Marienplatz to the venue so that I won’t have to change trains at the main station which is really close to the Oktoberfest location but there is no avoiding the whole thing completely. Unless I bike but that would be a little too far for the time I have.

And the whole family is elated that my husband finally found what is wrong with the guitar amp he was trying to repair for a student. He’s been working on it in mounting frustration for weeks now, and had promised the student to have it ready today but couldn’t find what was making that horrible noise. Until last night. If I weren’t going out tonight we’d probably have champagne to celebrate that achievement.

And now I’ll start my day of go, go, go.

The good thing is that the laptop straightened itself out eventually, no story, though. But those computer problems meant that I didn’t manage to work on the novel yesterday morning, and there really was no time in the afternoon because I did quite a bit of teaching, and so the novel did not happen. Again. I’m hoping to make up for it today – stay tuned.

Turned out that running with sore muscles from unfamiliar bodyweight exercises is no fun. I stumbled through my run and walked much more than I wanted. Part of me feels like a failure for it but the rational part of me knows that I can’t expect myself to power through everything. I’ll see how running goes on Saturday.

Today is my big errand day, I’ll zoom all around town getting groceries. The weather is gorgeous and supposed to be rather warm so I should maybe bike to the next town over to go to the really nice health food store where I can get all kinds of things that aren’t available here in town. But then that depends on how much time I’ll have.

I also want to go to the post office. Very exciting, this life of mine.

One thing that is out of the ordinary is the meeting of the „Selfpublisher Verband“ tomorrow. I am already a little nervous. I don’t really know what to expect. I’m thinking about printing some business cards for author-me but I’m not sure. I only have this website that I haven’t updated in ages (and it does look like I slapped it together in an afternoon because that’s exactly what I did), and a funny email address. On the other hand you never know.

I will have to head out immediately after finishing a long teaching day tomorrow, that will be fun.

I’ll keep you posted.

So yesterday was the day that all that traveling around and not sleeping enough caught up with me. For once I had gotten enough sleep, and as a result I was all tired all day.

 

I still got quite a few things done but after four pm or so I was just a yawning mess.

 

I was still pretty pleased with how much I got done on the novel, and we had a spectacular Greek lunch. The best was our homemade babaganoush from the eggplants my husband grows in our yard.

 

The most fun thing was that the boy and I tried some new bodyweight exercises. Because of the boy's new school schedule we have had to move our exercise days around, and so we ended up with strength training on Tuesdays when I'm teaching extra late in the evening. None of us wanted to do forty minutes of strength training at a time that would usually be after dinner so I decided to just try a quick workout from the bodyweight app that we use.

 

We ended up doing tabatas which are apparently sets of four different exercises, each done for twenty seconds followed by ten seconds of rest. At first we misunderstood the instructions so we ended up doing squats for several minutes in a row.

 

It was pretty hard to do but it was also fun to shake things up a bit. And we only did twenty minutes so it was really doable. Today I'm having sore legs and abs which will be fun for my run later.

 

Despite the late dinnertime I did manage to go to bed on time, and so I'm hoping for a little more energy today. And there will be more of the usual.

 

I love having a routine but it doesn't make for a good story.

 

But then I'm typing this on my iPad because my laptop is acting up. I really hope it's nothing but maybe that will become a story to tell.