Archives for December 2017

The day started out okay but got derailed around 8.30 when it took forever for my husband to make his coffee. He used the coffee maker with the new rubber ring and sieve and that meant the poor thing had to wait for his coffee for an hour. (He had to build a fire first which usually takes about half an hour but the coffee maker was not working quite right.)

So I was late doing my errands which meant I couldn’t help him make lunch which made lunch really late, and then the whole day flew off the rails. I started the afternoon with a break which meant I didn’t clean when I wanted to, and then I cleaned instead of writing, and then after teaching I waited for the boy to come down to practice piano and do strength training with me, and then we had dinner, and then I waited for my husband to come over and have dinner too, and then I had to do a ton of dishes but I didn’t want to so I spent an hour on twitter, and then I spun and then I watched some more „Firefly“ and opened a beer, and then I went to bed way too late without having written a single word. Well, apart from my blog post and twitter DMs and emails, that is.

Apparently this system is not working.

Plus I ate all the chocolates, cookies and more chocolate yesterday. Harumph.

Today there will be running and quite a bit of teaching, and practice, and spinning, and doing the dishes on time this time, and I really hope for some novel-writing. There definitely is enough time in the day, because when I can be on twitter for hours on end there should be thirty minutes somewhere in there where I can write my own story. Of course looking at twitter is much more passive than writing. Still.

I’d say it’s time for Christmas break but we all know that that will be a long string of days where I don’t do anything, eat and drink too much, and feel bad because of it as well.

I’m pretty sure that my craving for sugar will lessen if I write.

Now I just have to find a way to force myself to do it.

Pretty good day yesterday. My hair is almost tamed again, and no longer hanging in my eyes, my hairdresser was pretty astonished that it had grown so long but that’s what happens when your last visit to her was in July. My hair is now the longest it’s been ever since I turned twenty. And I still want to grow it a bit longer. If I don’t like it I can always chop it off again.

I also managed to get a rubber ring for the coffee maker. We’re using those Italian ones that you put on the stove top. The boy started drinking coffee again last week, and now we need two on some weekdays.

The rest of the day I taught students and did all kinds of things in between. I practiced, and I answered emails, and wrapped Christmas presents, and forced the boy to practice piano (which he liked so much that he didn’t want to stop – go figure), and in the evening I spun and watched ‚Firefly‘. Then I ate too much chocolate (it is the season of gifted chocolate that doesn’t agree with me but that I stuff my face with nonetheless, again), and went to bed too late. I still need to find out how to deal with those boxes of chocolate. I always plan to give them to my husband for safekeeping right away but then I never do and end up eating the whole box in one sitting after dinner until my stomach hurts and I’m feeling nauseous. Bad tactic.

On Sunday I looked at my – reasonably empty – calendar, and then I started putting all the things I want to do in addition to teaching in there. Exercise, practice, writing and such. Also the piano tuner appointment on Friday, and us going out for lunch on Friday which means there won’t be time to clean on Friday yet again. So I put some cleaning in as well.

And now my schedule is full. It does even look rather overwhelming. I look at it often and there is just a plethora of colorful boxes with things to do.

So now I know why I feel that I never have time – I never have time.

The teaching alone is completely doable. Work every day from around two or three in the afternoon until somewhere around six. Then I put the four times of running in there. Still doable, it just takes a bit of each morning. Then the grocery shopping and running errands (that would be today), still doable. Then I put half an hour of music making in there every day – well, that means I need to juggle a bit. Still doable. Then the strength training, and it’s starting to get a little tight.

Then I start finding times for writing and for cleaning, and bam! – Full.

On three days this week I had to schedule the writing in the evenings after dinner and spinning. Which means it’s most likely not going to happen. Maybe I can turn the writing and the spinning around, we’ll see. And this is just half an hour per day.

The time is there, I can see it. And my mornings are mostly free still. But it is a lot.

So the time-blocking is making this look maybe bigger than it would otherwise. On the other hand if I hadn’t scheduled everything I would go into today with the illusion that I have oodles of time, and can do everything I want and hang around reading and knitting for a few hours as well. Because today I only have two students.

When in fact there is so much other stuff I’d like to get done today between teaching that the day completely packed.

As with every productivity tool there are two sides to this but I have found that when I think about all the things I want to do, and how I spend my time it really helps me a lot to block out parts of my day for certain things. Even on weekends. Because when I start into a Saturday thinking that that will be the day I publish the podcast, sew a dress, play the piano for an hour, work on my website, and bake a cake I feel all happy and hopeful. And since the day is completely empty, stretching out before me I might only start after lunch, and sit there and knit for an hour, and then read ravelry for another hour. Which means there are only two hours left in the day before dinner. And two hours can’t hold four hours worth of things I want to do.

So every time I’m going, „I really want to do this!“ I have started thinking, „Okay, when will I do this? Where does it fit in my day?“ and that is helping a lot.

It is also making my days feel a little crowded but I’m always in favor of looking reality in the eye instead of living an illusion.

So the boy’s birthday was rather nice if a little scattered. We all had cake for breakfast, which was very good, and then after a lunch of spaghetti bolognese we dressed up because we were expecting my husband’s uncle and aunt. We sat there nice and easy eating more cake, and listened to them tell stories. The two of them were a little stressed out and tense, they had been going from event to event for three days already with several doctor’s appointments somewhere in between.

They were keen on driving back home before darkness, and so they didn’t stay long.

Then the boy and I sat down to work on his internship application. As usual his idea of ‚almost done‘ took about three more hours of work to get to ‚done‘ but I had expected that, and so I wasn’t all that angry.

We also needed to take a picture for that thing. I forced him to wear his only shirt (black), and put some makeup on him to hide a few spots which was a rather novel sensation for him. He looked at himself in the mirror and said, „Now I get why people wear makeup!“ Yep. Unfortunately in our culture men are not supposed to wear makeup which is a bit silly. Not that I want everybody to be expected to wear full makeup at all times, I just feel that everybody should be able to do as they please.

So in the end we did not open the bottle of champagne, and the boy and I did not watch anything, instead we finished the application, got it printed out after wrangling the printer for a while (who would have thought that everything would come out looking completely orange just because I set the print quality to high?), then I spun, ate a ton of cookies and went to bed way late.

I didn’t sleep well (might have something to do with all the sugar and the going to bed too late), and am now a little late with everything.

Today I’m having a hairdresser’s appointment in Munich, and I also run an errand or two, then come back home for lunch, teach quite a few students, force the boy to play the piano, try and play the piano myself somewhere in there, and go to bed on time, maybe.

There was no writing the whole weekend, so I really want to get back to that today.

One more week until Christmas break…

And maybe I should stop calling him a boy.

I was just looking at pictures from him rock climbing last weekend and was marveling at how tall he has grown and how long his legs are, and how athletic he was looking in those pictures hanging from the rock climbing wall. He’ll be shaving soon for sure.

Fifteen years is quite some time. Of course he is mainly looking forward to his 18th birthday which I can totally understand. He said, „Then I’ll be grown up and finished with school.“ Well, not quite. On both counts.

Yesterday was a good day even though I did not write and did not make music. But I published the podcast, and I did something I haven’t done in ages, I baked Christmas cookies. They don’t look like much but they taste pretty good. I made Zimtsterne, then looked at the three egg yolks that were left over, and looked for a reciped that used them. Then I proceeded to make a ton of Vanillekipferl. As I said, not looking like much but delicious.

I started the day rather early, with reading, and then I had a piece of the boy’s birthday cake for breakfast before he was even awake. He won’t mind.

He has requested money for presents because he is saving up for a big, expensive gaming computer. He has calculated that he will have enough money to buy it by next year. That’s a rather long time to save up for something. He has been on this for more than a year now. I’m hoping for everyone to be extra generous so that he’ll get there a little earlier – we’ll see.

Today I won’t get anything done for sure. There’s birthday celebrations (mostly cake), and then it will be just a normal Sunday until my husbnd’s uncle and aunt will descend upon us. We’ll spend the afternoon sitting around listening to their stories while being bored out of our minds. That will be fun. I have already told my husband to put a bottle of champagen in the fridge so we can celebrate properly tonight onve they are on their way again. Also we have decided to go out for Chinese next Friday for compensation. (I am just now realizing that that is one way the boy is like my husband and me, he really likes good food, and going out to eat.)

The package from my sister with actual presents that he will be able to unwrap got delayed in the mail, and is supposed to arrive tomorrow.

And then we’ll launch into another extra busy week before Christmas when we will collapse and eat all the cookies.

Let’s just say I’m rather happy that today will be a little less busy than yesterday.

I didn’t sleep very well – as I already told you – because of all the cables and such, woke up early, had breakfast, started meditating just when my husband came over for breakfast, rushed off to bring the sleep monitor back to the doctor, made an appointment for January 15th where I will finally find out that I don’t have sleep apnea, tried to do some cleaning and failed, ate three chocolate bars before lunch (really bad move), recorded the podcast, had some, um, animated discussions with my husband, threw the pizzas and the salad together when my husband collapsed because of lack of sleep in the middle of making lunch, taught a lot of students but not nearly as many as I thought I would because every other one canceled (or in one case didn’t show up without an explanation), had another long conversation with my husband, had dinner, spun for 40 minutes while watching „Firefly“ again, started writing a bit on the novel-in-progress, was interrupted by the boy wanting to talk to me, opened a second beer, and went to bed way too late.

I really like talking to my son but I’d rather not do it late at night when I just want quiet and sleep.

The boy’s first piano lesson in four years was a lot of fun, apparently for both of us. I told him to set an alarm for practicing the very same day, and he promptly forgot to show up. He had thought the alarm was to remind him about dinner with his grandmother.

I did sleep well, though, and woke up at 6.40 which is unreasonably late for me at the moment. Now I’ve had breakfast, have heated some frozen buns for the rest of the family to eat for breakfast, and am looking forward to a day that will be less stressful. I hope.

My plans include running, publishing the podcast, maybe cleaning, and maybe, maybe baking Christmas cookies. I did get the missing ingredients yesterday on my way home form the doctor. Before I had tried to find ground almonds in three different stores but failed. They were all out.

Originally I had hoped to do some sewing this weekend but it’s looking rather unlikely. Well, the dress-in-progress won’t grow bad. It’s been sitting there for months and months, it can sit a little longer.

It’s funny, I have a muslin cut out in a smaller size, and the fabric for the actual dress in a bigger size. I cut the real fabric months before the muslin. I have no idea how to put that dress together, it’s looking rather daunting which is absurd because the dress itself is not that complicated. It’s just that I don’t understand the instructions at all. I hope they’ll make sense once I’ve started. If not I might have to put it together by feel. It’s just a dress, not rocket science.