Archives for June 2018

Well, since I decided to not only stay up for the webinar until 10.30 but then also to start reading a new book and have another beer I was not feeling all that rested in the morning. Even though I had set my alarm for 6.30 instead of 6. (Spoiler: I woke up at six anyway, ugh.)

That meant I was a little late with making breakfast but then the boy was very late for breakfast so it didn’t make much of a difference. When asked why he is getting up too late every morning he said that he was getting up and dressed at 7.15. Which is the time he should be downstairs to start eating breakfast.

He said he’d rather in his room a little longer instead of getting ready for school but I tried explaining that this was not about getting ready for school earlier but instead all about eating breakfast in peace and have a bit of respite before having to go out.

Because – as you all probably know – getting up late because you’re dreading the day just makes you dread it more and stresses you. If you get up and dressed early you have this wonderful time in the morning where you can enjoy your breakfast and tea (or coffee) and maybe read a little and talk with your family. When you get up later you still need to get ready but you will feel awful all the way through while deciding if you have still enough time to wolf down breakfast or if you have to leave without it.

No idea if he got it. We’ll see.

Because I had stayed up late I was having a slow, slow day which meant no writing after breakfast (I can self-sabotage with the best of them.) I did get out the door for my run on time:

It was a little wet from all the pouring rain yesterday.

This is me wearing a cap so that my glasses stay mostly dry.

This was one of the spots where I had to wade through the puddles in order to get to the other side. My running shoes are not waterproof so I came home with my feet soaking wet. I didn’t really mind, though, funny enough that kind of weather is less annoying when you are out and about in it.

I helped making lunch which was just quick and plain and very German:

And yes, we ate inside.

After lunch I had a one-hour slump before pulling myself together to do the dishes. I still had time to write but almost fell asleep when I tried.

My first student didn’t show (she often doesn’t come when it’s raining and she never calls to cancel which is irritating) and the second canceled. Then I had a big break that I used to start writing this post and avoid more writing.

Then two more students and no dinner. I was very firm with myself and managed not to binge-eat later, even.

I had planned to get ready for bed very early because I know myself and when I’m that tired I only have two options: 1) hang around and get nothing done while feeling awful until it is really, really late and start the same thing over the following day, or 2) get completely ready for bed around the time you’d start a toddler’s evening routine. (Brushing my teeth is also an excellent strategy against late-night binge-eating and deciding that I really want a beer after all.)

Then I wanted to sit in bed in my pajamas, read or write a little and if I fell asleep in the middle of something I am already in bed, no harm done.

Well, I’ll just leave a note to myself not to sit in the kitchen in the evening and spin where it smells like food everywhere…

So today I want to record the podcast and teach my students. And get back into my routine yet again.

For the second time in a row I managed to actually write from 8 to 8.30. Only thing that I’m not happy with is that that resulted in very few words. There was a lot o reading what I wrote before and thinking to be done.

I had hoped to write more later in the day but that didn’t go as planned.

I went to the tea shop and to the nearer grocery store. I helped to make another wonderful lunch, Greek salad again, this time with lamb burgers:

I did make a little music as well, and taught my students.

Then the day went a little off plan, the repaired balcony is still spewing water over the sides. We weren’t able to figure out why, though, and now we’re stumped.

And then I waited and waited and waited for the boy to come down for piano practice and dinner, and for my 9 o’clock webinar to start.

Went to bed too late.

This will be a low-energy-day, I bet.

There will be running and teaching and music and writing. And a whole lot of rain.

It still was a good day.

For once I did want to keep sleeping when my alarm sounded. Not quite sure why.

I am trying something new again, I decided to measure my writing by how long I’m working and not by how many words I’m writing. And I also decided that setting my goals higher and higher wasn’t working at all.

So I decided to try aiming for one pomodoro of writing per day, better two. And in order to get that done I was diligent about my time in the morning, and the minute the boy was out the door I started meditating and then I started writing right away. For 25 minutes.

That made me feel much better.

I also did the math on spinning for the mystery knit-along I talked about yesterday, and then was very happy to find that I still had a hundred grams of the fiber I ordered in my stash. So I could start on the first skein of yarn immediately.

I also went for my run. It was too hot already at 10.30, I should run earlier. And that made me pretty slow. But still. I got out the door, and I ran. That is good. And – maybe most important of all – my hip doesn’t hurt! So my new way of running seems to work. Which is very, very good.

Then I went to the health food store. I did forget that the boy comes home for lunch early on Mondays. Just like every Monday lately. I have now put an alarm in my phone to remind me.

Helped my husband make lunch. Sugar peas from our garden, that was really good. My husband was Thai-inspired, and used Thai curry from the health food store that turned out to not be hot at all. So next time we’ll put some chili in there:

Then I did the dishes, read a little, did my singing warmup and started playing a Brahms waltz that I want to learn.

Then teaching, then a little more writing, then a little spinning and then to bed.

Rather good day.

Today I will go to the grocery store, and teach and repeat mostly what I did yesterday. I’m totally okay with that.

At least I was not quite as tired as I thought I would be.

I decided to restart the sock I had started the day before because I didn’t like the way the yarn was pooling. I briefly knitted with 1.2 mm needles using 68 stitches instead of 60 stitches on 1.5 mm needles, and then decided that I actually wanted the 68 stitches on the bigger needles. Here is a picture of the sock before ripping back, I did have a nice, lazy and cozy morning with a good book:

And I’m just realizing that you can’t seen the color at all in this picture. Sorry. Wrong light. The yarn is actually bright orange, red and fuchsia and the lighter bits there on the picture are the orange breaking up and being all over the place. My husband just shook his head. He thinks I’m foolish to rip back things so often.

I’m much happier now with the colors. I will probably go back to the smaller needles after the heels. And the pooling will change anyway when I’m increasing for the heel and then on the foot there will only be ribbing on the top of the foot, not the bottom, so that will change things up again.

I also realized that I have signed up for a mystery knit-along. Where I will knit a shawl out of 300 grams of fingering weight yarn. The whole thing will start in a week or so. And I don’t have yarn.

My options are:

1. Buy fiber and spin yarn. All 1,200 meters of it. Ahem. That’s like spinning for a sweater, and I don’t have the fiber, unless I would want to make the shawl out of naturally colored Ronaldsay. (My spell checker says that Ronaldsay is not a word. Phooey.)
2. Dye three skeins of the ten skeins of socks yarn that I have. That one is not quite shawl quality yarn, though, I bought sock yarn for robustness. Hmpf.
3. Buy three skeins of yarn that coordinate. (I currently have only two skeins of sock yarn in my stash. One is in the process of being turned into the above-mentioned socks and then there is another one that doesn’t match.)

And the longer I take to decide the least likely it will be that I can spin the yarn for this. I might have to toss the stash but, as I said, I don’t think I have anything that qualifies.

(I just looked and the nearest store to me that sells the yarn suggested in the pattern is in Finland. And I actually held two skeins of this in my hands last Saturday. They were, apparently, 27 Euros each. Um, no.)

I am almost regretting committing to this. It’s not as if I didn’t have enough challenges in my life. All voluntarily, but still.

But then, not having the right yarn is not that dire an emergency. I will figure something out.

My plan was to either write like crazy yesterday and/or sort through all the piles in my bedroom.

In the end I washed all the wooly things. A whole load of wool things in the machine and four skeins of handspun in the sink. (And no, none of that yarn is suitable for the KAL.)

I also started looking at the piles and pulled out a sweater I knitted years ago that just needs blocking. And found a huge circular shawl that needs blocking. And about a dozen socks in need of mending.

My original plan had been to just buckle down and mend away, or at least do something but some how the day got away from me. That is happening a lot.

Still. I started the process of sorting through the piles. That is good. I am imagining how great I’ll feel when they will all be gone. Might take a little while, though.

I am also working on my mindset like crazy (why yes, I am reading self-help books again, sorry) and am formulating a plan for the writing. Which didn’t involve a lot of writing yet again but next week will be better. Of course it will.

Today there will be the running and the teaching and the writing and I have great hopes of playing the piano even. I stumbled upon a Brahms waltz (I’m reading Austin Kleon’s blog, like you should do too.) that I know in and out but I don’t think I ever played it. Which is a little freaky. Anyways, it looks pretty doable and like it might be a good piece for students to work on, so I decided to learn that. Starting today.

And then I will be trying to make this week better than the last one. Write at least twice the amount of words, make music every day, and floss every night. You know, the usual Monday resolutions.

But I just read that successful people are mostly people who don’t give up (the words tenacity and grit were frequently mentioned) so I thought I’d just continue trying. Until I either succeed or die. Whichever comes first.

That went a little different than planned.

Woke up, didn’t write, had a leisurely morning. So much so that I went running an hour later than planned.

 

 

My husband was nice enough to make me lunch at 11.45, though, and so I went to the spinning meeting only and hour later than planned.

Spinning meeting was really nice and had a big buffet. I met the woman who had asked me about my spinning wheel and wanted to try it, I met someone I had last seen in December, and someone completely new.

I still went home rather early. I didn’t really feel like spinning and decided I needed a little peace and quiet.

I had taken the bus because I afraid of thunderstorms but there weren’t any in the end.

When I came home much earlier than expected my husband said, „Oh, then you could come with me to my friend’s birthday party after all.”

I thought a little. Two people things in one day is usually a no-go. But the party would be near a lake and my husband never go anywhere together and I felt spontaneous so off we went. About two hours later.

I even started a new pair of socks so I would have something to do with my hands.

We took the train and walked from the train station to the lake, it was all rather idyllic. We met people that my husband has known for more than forty years, people who went to the same school than him and grew up around here.

There were these Thai balloons:

We went home rather late but before midnight. Since I woke up at my usually time I didn’t get much sleep.

So today I won’t do a lot. I want to write a bit and I had this slightly crazy plan of tackling the piles on the dressers in the bedroom. I have been whining about those for years and just the other day I got this idea that I could just spend a day going through them, sorting, putting things away where they belong and this time actually deal with what’s in there.

There are knitting supplies I inherited and unfinished projects that go back years and a mending pile that might still contain the boy’s favorite t-shirt from kindergarten.

I had whined about those piles yet again on my podcast the last time and a very friendly podcast listener was giving me advice about how to deal with the stuff (she was also offering to put a zipper in one of my almost finished sweaters) and I might have had enough of hearing myself complain about this.

I hope. Not having piles and piles and piles there would be great.

On the other hand I am really, really tired today.

I had set my alarm half an hour earlier because I thought I’d spend the first hour of my day writing.

Yeah, not so much.

I did manage some words after breakfast, though, which was a good start.

It was one of those slightly insane days where I put everything in my calendar:

9.30 to 11: clean house,

11 to 11.30 cross train,

11.30 to 12: take a shower, fold laundry

12 to 12,30: write,

12.30 to 13.00: make pizza,

13 to 13.30: have lunch,

13.30 to 13.45: do dishes,

13.45: be ready for student to be fifteen minutes early. (She was ten minutes early, so we started early and finished earlier as well. But I have to say that somebody who is fifteen to ten minutes early every time for the first lesson of the day which is supposed to start at 2, right after lunch, is a little irritating. I get it that parents tell their children to leave a little early so that they aren’t late but that means lunch on Fridays is rather hectic around here. The boy usually gets home around 1.30 and fifteen minutes later the student is ringing the bell. Meh. Second student was early as well.)

And, same as usual, I started later than I thought I would, and then I started researching something publishing related (I saw that webinar the night before and was starting to make something like a business plan for my writing which is a little funny.) and then my husband wanted to talk to me, and then I did clean but I wasn’t finished before my husband got back from running but fortunately he didn’t mind waiting a little until he could take a shower, and then I skipped the cross training and then I skipped the writing, and then I was just tired and exhausted, and then I did my toenails, and then a student didn’t show up and I didn’t make use of that time but just sat there doing nothing.

Pizza today was spectacular, if I say so myself (I made it) and I totally forgot to take a picture.

Teaching was nice but a bit much and then the boy and I started watching Star Trek early because there was a soccer match on at seven that my husband wanted to watch.

And I had high hopes of getting a little writing done before going to bed but then I baked a cake (that burned slightly, but shh, don’t tell anyone) and then I decided to get ready for bed.

So. I did a lot and I’m happy about that but then I really wanted to write more new words. Not enough, though, because otherwise I would have.

I’ll try again tomorrow.

Tomorrow will be pretty busy again because I need to go running early (Saturday is still my long run day.) and then take a shower and then get ready for spinning meeting on time, and have lunch around 11.30 because otherwise I won’t be on time. My weather app tells me that tomorrow will be another day of thunderstorms so I’ll probably take the bus. But we’ll see. Thunderstorms are a little hard to predict.

My husband will go to a birthday party. I was invited but doing the spinning meeting and that party on the same day wouldn’t be the best thing for me. So I’ll probably spend the evening with the boy.

I’m looking forward to that.