Archives for July 2018

It’s funny, I keep thinking that tomorrow will be less busy than today. I’ve been doing that for weeks now. And it never really happened.

Yesterday I woke up from the alarm which tells you how much I needed the sleep.

I did not write in the morning because I was a little late and then I started preparing the podcast.

My husband got up early, he had breakfast and then I helped him choose a fitness tracker. The challenge was to find something that you don’t need a smartphone for.

Then I went grocery shopping. It was the first time that I used the trailer again and it was much more comfortable than using the bike panniers. And I didn’t even have to leave the groceries in the trailer unattended, I could carry everything at once. Win!

Then we had lunch, pork cutlets with potatoes and cucumbers. Both the potatoes and the cucumbers were fresh from our garden:

Very yummy.

The boy came home in a bad mood. He had lost points on a physics test because he had used math that he is only supposed to learn next year in the answer. Unfortunately, he could also have worded his answer better. I offered to send an email to his teacher to talk about this but he didn’t want me to. Those points made all the difference between an A and a B.

He didn’t want me to talk to the teacher, though. The test won’t make a difference in his final grade. It is bugging him, though, which I can totally understand.

Then I left all the dishes in the sink and went to record the podcast. Then teaching and then a surprise webinar by Jessica Abel again. I spun while watching so that was good.

Then I finally did the dishes, wrote some more show notes for the podcast, attempted to do some fiction writing with not a lot of success and finally went to bed on time.

Phew.

Today is the usual busy Friday with pizza making and cleaning and teaching and at the end of it my husband and I will go out and see a free improvisation concert yet again.

Phew.

Since I watched soccer the night before I didn’t quite get enough sleep. I did wake up before the alarm, though.

Slightly late breakfast (and no morning pages). The boy didn’t even realize because he was late as always. Not late for school, he still managed to get there on time mostly but late for breakfast.

I managed to write a few words and was giddily looking forward to writing more later.

Helped my husband with garden planning for a bit, ran 6.44 k:

It was a little chilly. In the beginning I was a little faster than usual but by the end I had reverted to my regular pace.

Then I helped to make lunch. My husband insisted on taking a picture of the spice grinder because it looks so pretty:

He really likes it that people are commenting on pictures I’m taking of the food that he is cooking. We even get decoration these days (the food as such is much tastier than it is photogenic):

Rice, dal and cucumber yoghurt with all kinds of veggies and herbs from the garden again. This is what we eat when there is almost nothing left in the pantry and fridge.

I did go to the health food store before lunch but we had already decided what to make before then.

Then dishes, and a little procrastinating and quite a bit of teaching. Then more procrastination about writing and surfing the web.

In the morning I finished reading another „Emma Schumacher“-novel. I am still highly recommending those if you read German. And like cozy mysteries set in the 1920s. I have already started the next short story and downloaded novel number four on my ebook reader.

There was another soccer game that I watched with my husband while spinning. They went into overtime which made me rather late for bed again.

Today there will be grocery shopping, the recording of the podcast, teaching and all the usual, including lots of procrastination again, I’m sure.

Not good hair, just slightly better.

I woke up really early, like 5.20-early. Wrote my morning pages. They felt endlessly long yesterday. Tried to write before breakfast, decided to do my daily update on Ravelry first, tried putting a picture from my blog into the post I was writing and, bam, my day got derailed.

Because my blog was offline. „Database connection error“ which is the same error that my husband’s blog has been showing for weeks now. The one I haven’t taken care of because it wasn’t a top priority for me. My own blog, though, immediately became top priority. (To be fair, my husband hasn’t posted in ages and the blog was hacked a few years ago and while I got the posts back up not everything was working properly. But he didn’t mind. I should address that problem in the next few weeks, though, because he wants to start posting again.)

So. Customer service opens at 9. Which is sensible, I mean, who wants tech support at six in the morning? So I wrote them an email. I decided that would be the better option. Instead of sitting next to the computer waiting for a few hours.

I had breakfast, I tried writing but only was able to focus for 2 1/2 minutes, yielding me a total of 69 words, 29 of which I deleted immediately. My husband showed up for breakfast, I knitted a bit, did the dishes, put on makeup and got ready for my hairdresser’s appointment.

I walked to the train station as fast as I could because I had forgotten that I needed to buy a ticket first. Reached the station three minutes before the train was supposed to leave, money in hand for the ticket. There was only one ticket machine in operation. There were two women before me. I changed money for one of them, helped her buy her ticket, told her that yes, she could use the same ticket on her way back while frantically punching buttons and trying to wrangle the ticket out of the machine. Stamped it, pushed the button that opens the train doors (it was still glowing green) but the doors didn’t open and the train pulled away without me.

Which made me late.

The next train was two minutes late on top of that (trains only go every twenty minutes). The good thing was that I would have had thirteen minutes to spare with the original train, so I was exactly seven minutes late for my appointment. Which was no big deal, I had to wait for ten minutes while she finished someone else’s hair first.

Now I’m basically looking the same as before with better bangs:

I still haven’t mastered the art of the selfie.

Then I ate a rather late lunch:

With some chocolate on the train, some fried zucchini blossoms before, this pasta with zucchinis and tomato sauce and a lot more chocolate afterwards.

Dishes. Teaching. Had a pretty enjoyable lesson with the two very young ukulele students who had been on the verge of giving up just a few weeks before. Phew.

Then another attempt at writing (I’m not giving up!) and then watching the World Cup with my husband. I thought I’d spin while watching soccer instead of bike riding for once. That was rather enjoyable. The game was really good and we talked quite a bit and had fun.

To bed a little too late.

Today there will be running and stranding and all the usual and teaching and – probably more soccer.

As they tend to do.

I did get enough sleep, woke up before the alarm and decided to write morning pages. After ten years of almost daily morning pages there came a time when I stopped doing them, but I might take them up again. We’ll see. I also might journal once and then not for weeks.

I thought it might be a good idea to not jump online first thing in the morning for a change. What I’d really like to do is write fiction first thing in the morning but at the moment I can’t make myself do it.

Then breakfast and reading and meditation (only five minutes) and reading in the ‚Daily Stoic‘ and then I procrastinated a bit and it was almost time for my husband to have breakfast. But I was so angry at myself for not writing for days that I decided to try writing anyway.

And it went very well.

I wrote for 6 1/2 minutes before my husband showed up an got 250 words.

So much for the „I don’t have time to write“-excuse. It doesn’t go that fast all the time but still.

My husband felt low because he has all these things he needs and wants to do and every time he does one thing the other thing sits there undone. As one does.

So we talked and I pulled all my productivity and time management tricks out of my head. I also checked his account to see if all of his students had paid for the month and helped him download an MP3 on a USB stick because he needs it on the downstairs computer.

Not that he can’t do these things himself but he was unsure which USB drive to use and other things. Those small hangups really can hinder progress.

Then I went on my 6.44 k run:

I ran longer than planned because the app stopped when I took that picture and didn’t restart on its own. I ran all the way around that field you see before realizing.

It was hot. I met my husband on the way and we talked some more. And then I met him again at the end of the route (we ran separately). I ended up running 7 k but that’s okay.

Then we made shrimp risotto:

Then teaching. I between students I finally managed to make dentist appointments for all of us. Phew. I have been wanting to do this for months now.

Then plying and a little spinning:

And a little more writing (more than six minutes this time). And to bed on time.

Today I will go to Munich to get my hair cut and then there will be some light teaching in the afternoon. It’s supposed to start raining some time throughout the day, I hope I’ll get home dry.