Archives for June 2018

Of course I woke up rather early again which made me thoroughly sleep-deprived.

And then I basically spent most of the day reading, one novella and three quarters of a novel and about half a non-fiction book. Well, it was a very short non-fiction book, only 75 pages.

We decided not to go to the beer garden after all because it was cold and windy and gray. So we had pork cutlets and mashed potatoes and cucumbers from the garden:

Which was very good.

Then I procrastinated and read some more and then I finally managed to make the red currant jam I had wanted to make all day:

And then it was time to watch something with the boy and then I watched some more Netflix while spinning and then it was time for bed.

What about the writing you ask? Which writing?

Went to bed a little late but it was still okay-ish.

Yeah, not all that good. I’m hoping to do better starting today.

Today there will be running and teaching and preparing the sour cherries my husband picked today to make cherry jam tomorrow. It’s a little weird, this year everything is about a month earlier than usual.

Got up a little later than usual and my husband got up half an hour earlier than usual, so no writing in the morning. I did have time enough, I only was grumpy that my routines were disturbed. If I can call something I do twice per week a routine.

I went running, 8k, and the run went well (slow as always) but I was totally hung up on feeling depressed. From beginning to end which is no fun. But. Good rung anyways:

Then we had Moqueca de Peixe for lunch, very yummy. Still depressed.

I ordered more spinning fiber because I decided to not use the red yarn I had spun in the wrong direction in the shawl.

Then I basically sat around feeling sorry for myself and reading. My husband brought me the red currants that are ripe and I cleaned them for two hours. There are a lot of re currants.

I made red currant juice, watched the really thrilling soccer match, Germany versus Sweden, while spinning and went to bed too late.

So today I want to write more than zero words. Should be doable. And while I am not really looking forward to making red currant jam I will do it anyway, and I will spin some more.

Maybe we will go to a beergarden for lunch, that depends on various things and the weather. We’ll see.

I did sleep until 6.30 because I went to bed after midnight. Which was a rather bad move and had some bad consequences.

Made breakfast and did all the usual things, and I even started writing right after breakfast but I only got 361words in. Which isn’t all that much.

We were pretty early, and I did most of the cleaning on time and read about strength training (I did buy a new book and am hoping that that will motivate to start again.) and read a novel I didn’t want to put down.

I made pizza on time and got ready for teaching early enough. (First Friday student continues to be almost 15 minutes early for her 30-minute lesson which continues to make my Friday lunchtime somewhat stressful.):

Next time I’ll make this pizza I should try to knead it quite a bit more before letting it sit. I think that will improve the texture of the dough a lot.

Then I taught a medium amount of students. I had a one-hour break before the boy’s lesson which I spent eating cheese and chocolate (not my best move). I failed to write some more which had been my plan. Note to self: don’t go to bed too late. No, not ever.

Then I waited for the boy for an hour before he remembered that he had a piano lesson. I did read some more, so the time wasn’t completely wasted.

His playing is coming along nicely and I am trying to make him realize that no, he isn’t a bad pianist, he is actually quite good for the level he is at (also for the level he is practicing). And he actually has a feel for music. Seems that his parents’ profession has rubbed off a little.

We were also talking about other stuff, he just spent all his money on computer games, and then I found out that he lacks adequate loudspeakers upstairs. He likes listening to music and usually uses his computer speakers which sound horrible.

Well, that is the other advantage of living in a household where music is rather important (also in a household where his grandfather used to work for a company that built loudspeakers and amps) – there are several options for giving him an adequate sound system, we just need to lug the stuff upstairs and connect it. (The boy, „But what about cables? Do we need to buy some that are long enough?“ Cue ROFL – we have a huge box of cables in the garage so that shouldn’t be a problem.)

The boy and I used a break between soccer games to watch some Star Trek: TNG but he was so slow in making his dinner that we didn’t finish before the next soccer game started. So we ended up watching the last five minutes on my minuscule laptop screen. The sound was great, though, because the speakers my laptop is connected to are much better than the ones built into the TV. (Why yes, we should put a sound system into the TV room as well.)

Then I spent some more time not doing anything productive and then it was time for that day’s webinar. (Tim Gral on author platform, not bad at all.)

And then I went to bed too late.

So for today I really need to get some words out, and I also want to run about 8k. And spin.

The spinning was somewhat frustrating yesterday because I had set up my wheel in a way that made me spin the third color for the shawl in the opposite direction of the first two. Which is.a mistake that can’t be fixed. I just hope this won’t show up much in the knitting but I will have to live with it regardless of the outcome.

I also think that the colors don’t really work with the shawl design because the designer was looking for color progressions that are much more subtle. Again, there is nothing to be done about that.

But. It’s the weekend! No teaching! And no appointments!

Maybe there will even be an excursion to the beer garden. It might be too cold, though. We’ll see.

Ugh. That was one of those days where I procrastinate about the writing all day long until after bedtime. Did manage to write 600 words in the end. Yay me?

There was the playing of a new game on my phone, and then a slightly late breakfast and meditation and the usual. And then I deleted the game from my phone again because I decided that that is not where I want to spend my time. And I finished a sock and started the second one, and then I went grocery shopping.

I think I have found a packing method that works without leaving me frazzled. You see, I was always trying to cram all my groceries into my bike panniers as fast as the cashier could push them over while at the same time packing sensibly. Like putting all the frozen and cool items into the isolated bag I had with me. But that never worked and left me frantically throwing stuff into my bags while the cashier was tapping her fingers waiting for me to get my stuff out of the way of the next customer.

So yesterday I decided to not be as efficient as I can but instead to reduce stress, and so I just put everything back into the shopping cart, and then I pulled over to the side and packed my bags in a more leisurely way.

I will go back to using the bike trailer and the boxes, though. It is much easier to ferry all that stuff around that way, and the packing is easier too, and nothing gets crushed. But I have to walk quite a bit between the supermarket and where my bike is parked. And I can’t carry two boxes that far. Well, mainly because I can only ever carry one of those boxes at a time without anything falling out.

But. If I put those boxes in the shopping cart, and then push the cart to my bike and put the boxes in the trailer, and then leave everything unattended for about two minutes everything would be much easier.

Of course I would risk that someone steals my cheese but I guess that is not the most likely scenario.

I came back, I put all the groceries away in a hurry, and then helped making lunch. I was dicing and slicing veggies and preparing herbs at high-speed. We had our traditional pasta bolognese, for once with tagliatelle instead of spaghetti and a salad that was mostly herbs:

Then I procrastinated for an hour or two, then I taught some students, then I procrastinated some more, spun the daily portion of fibers, finished watching that house-building show I had been watching for the past week, started watching „Arrow“ and then I opened another beer, ate quite a bit of cheese and finally sat down to write a few words.

Went to bed too late.

Today there will be the weekly cleaning, much teaching, the pizza making, some writing, some music, quite a bit of spinning and yet another webinar. I don’t really think I’m addicted to them but there sure seem to be a lot of them. This one is about platform building for authors, and no, this has nothing to do with wood and nails.

And then the weekend.

Yesterday was actually a pretty good day but I’ve been feeling down low and giddily high almost every day. At times it feels like there are all lows but of course that’s not true.

It’s funny because at the time I write these posts I forget about the black hole and am hopeful and optimistic, and then – just an hour or two later – I go down again. Now that I’m seeing the pattern it is rather interesting to watch. Some of it might be hormonal, some of it has to do with the amount of energy I have at that time of day, some of it comes from being hungry or satisfied, and it never stays the same for longer than an hour or so.

It would have been easy to hunker down in the black hole and declare the day a disaster. Basically every day in the past few weeks but that would have been a shame. Life is good, even if I feel awful at certain times of the day.

One huge factor is the writing, of course. I am getting closer to finishing the current project and there is both an excitement at being finished and done and the fear of it never getting finished and of it being really bad and everything in between. I guess this is just part of the creative process. Like having stage fright.

And I always feel bad on days where I don’t write much. This week has been a little better but yesterday hasn’t. The story is stuck. I did poke at it several times throughout the days but the unsticking hasn’t happened yet.

So I got up and had breakfast and did all the usual things, and tried to go running a bit earlier than usual because it was another sunny and rather warm day:

I’m starting to run out of ways to take photos of that field, by the way. 

Then there was a wonderful, wonderful lunch:

Doesn’t look like much but this is homemade Indian food. There are cucumbers, zucchini and herbs from the garden in this. Since we were running earlier and were pretty hungry afterwards we had lunch so early that we were all finished by the time the boy had his lunch break.

So I sat with him a bit and I took a picture of the garden for my mother to cheer her up:

Then there was a little music and a few students and some plying and then early to bed, as usual.

Today there will be the grocery shopping and only a little teaching and I’m hoping to make up for yesterday’s lack of writing. Lots of wonderful things to do and dozens of great books to read. Life is good. Including the darker bits.

Of course, after a very good day the day before I started yesterday not quite as good. Everything went pretty well until I just couldn’t bring myself to write after breakfast. I was also very keen to finish the novel I was reading and didn’t want to put it down.

I went running again, for only 3.2 k and it went very well. The run was so short that I didn’t even take a picture.

There were pancakes with spinach for lunch and the weather was nice enough to sit outside again:

While we were eating the boy showed his hands and said, „Look! There is skin between my fingers again!“ Apparently the creme is working and his eczema is healing. I have been forcing him to apply the creme three times a day, reminding him constantly, and now I hope he’ll stay on top of it.

Then I did an enormous amount of dishes, sang a little and finally managed to force myself to write. The problem had been that I thought I would write the big kidnapping scene today but it turned out I need something else first.

I am having a suspicion that this will be a rather long story after all.

I taught quite a few students and had a potential new ukulele student call me which is very good. Then I talked to the boy some more. I think he was in a pretty good mood because his dreaded German test was over as well.

I did spin up the second quarter of the yellow fiber. If I keep this up for the rest of the week I should be able to swatch on the weekend and start knitting next Monday when the knit-along starts in earnest. Of course, then I will still have to spin the second half of everything. But I’ll have more time for that because I’ll be knitting for six weeks if I remember correctly.

The early to bed.

Today there will be more running and quite a bit of teaching, and more writing and spinning. Also plying.

I have to say that I’m somewhat glad that I’m still skipping dinner because it gives me an additional thirty minutes of time per day. And I’ve done well on the ‚no binge-eating and no alcohol‘-front for the past two days by staying out of the kitchen in the evenings. Turns out it’s much easier not to eat and drink anything when you’re not sitting there  surrounded by food, smelling the bread right behind you.

Duh.