Archives for July 2018

Apart from the non-writing this was a very good day.

Woke up at 6.30, had breakfast, decided not to write. (Bad decision.)

Talked with my husband, folded laundry, helped making lunch (barbecue today).

Multi-cultural lunch: tabbouleh, hamburgers, bratwurst and Merlot.

And then I spent all afternoon in front of the TV watching the Tour.

Here’s a complimentary picture of the hydrangea in the garden (I took it for my mother who gave it to me 18 years ago.):

And about half an hour later I watched some more TV with the boy.

I did manage to make some deodorant and did a load of laundry but that was basically it.

I did spin a lot, though, about 50 grams of fiber so tomorrow I can ply that and then I only have 50 more grams to spin to complete all the yarn for the mystery KAL.

Oh, and I almost finished knitting clue 2.

Did manage to go to bed on time which is very good.

Today I will run and teach and do all the usual things.

This week will just be absolutely packed.

And that’s not only about this being the 300th daily post in a row…

Did get enough sleep, yeah! Didn’t write again, boo!

But all in all the day was very good.

I went running while it was still not too hot outside and so the run was sheer pleasure. My heart rate doesn’t seem to go crazy anymore which is rather good. I ran 9.5 kilometers. (One of the downsides of using a US app for half marathon training are these crazy distances I run. The program is set to miles, so today I had to run 9.44 k.

All went well.

This is right beforef the big field that I always take a picture of:

And this is me:

I think the hat was a good idea. I don’t like to wear them but not having the sun shining down on my head might have made the whole thing more enjoyable.

And this is shortly after turning around from the halfway point:

While I’m mostly running through nature and don’t see any cars around the whole area is surrounded by streets actually. This is one of the two highways around it and I run on a bridge traversing it.

There were a lot of people with dogs around today. Of course, there are more people out on a Saturday morning than during the week.

Then I came back home and sat down to watch the Tour de France, helped with lunch a little (and took a shower). Lunch was pretty simple today (well, at least for my husband):

The beans are from the garden. No idea why there is extra bacon on the beans. I’m not complaining, though.

And then I spent the afternoon spinning and plying in front of the TV:

I had quite a few problems with my wheel when I started plying and it turned out that there is something wrong with my lace bobbin. I switched to another one and that went fine. Phew.

I’m debating buying a new bobbin but am shying away because of the cost. When I told my husband he said, „Just buy it.“ As usual.

The big milestone today was that the boy’s electric shaver arrived and he actually shaved for the very first time ever. And it seems that I chose well, no irritated skin or anything. Another phew.

It’s really exciting to see him get all grown-up like that. I like it. He has already been taller than me (and than my husband) for a while now.

Then I procrastinated like crazy, made the apricot jam, watched some more TV with the boy and went to bed early.

Yes, I really need to get back to writing today. I will. I promise.

Other than that I will veg in front of the TV yet again and spin some more yarn. And finish knitting clue 2 of the mystery knit along so that I’m all set for clue 3 on Monday. Oh, and there will be barbecue for lunch.

The days are just packed…

Just for the record: binge-eating and going to bed real late never feel quite as good as you think when you decide to do it.

Of course I woke up around 5 after turning the light off some time around 11.30 which meant I was in a zombie-like state for most of the day. Guess who didn’t write?

Since my third color was all spun, washed, dry and wound into a ball I did manage to finish clue 1 of the mystery knit-along. I also changed the sheets and cleaned the house. As much as I do clean the house.

A package arrived. I had ordered yet another fountain pen (they might be a little addictive):

Now this is a very nice fountain pen. The only problem being that I ordered it in orange and this one is, um, blueish-purple. I’ll keep it, though. I did contemplate ordering it in purple and then changed my mind. (I also did contemplate ordering both and then regained my senses.) And yes, I looked it up, my order clearly said orange.

And I helped to make a huge amount of pizza:

And I prepared the apricots for jam-making. And taught my students.

Then I watched some Star Trek with the boy and some „IT crowd“ and managed to go to bed on time for a change.

Which gives me great hopes for today.

I want to run 9.5 k before the Tour de France starts (which is nigh impossible) and spin a lot. I will also make apricot-jam, of course, and attempt some writing. And to go to bed on time again.

I’m reading a book called „Crank it out! The Surefire Way to Become a Super-Productive Writer“ where the author tells the story of another writer who tracked everything for some time. What he ate, his exercise, his sleep, everything that could possibly relate to his writing productivity. He also spent the same amount of time each day in front of this computer writing. Some days he’d write thousands of word, other days only 100. You know what the only variable was that determined his output?

The only thing that made a difference? How much he had slept the night before.

Basically it’s typical for July but totally different from usual.

My first mistake was not writing after breakfast. I felt really low on energy and didn’t have a lot of time and I thought that I would have quite a bit of time after lunch. You should have seen the to do-list I had. It was a thing of beauty.

Of course I ended up not doing any of it.

I actually tried making the dentist appointment that I had been procrastinating about for three months but I only got voice mail.

The I went grocery shopping and then I helped making chili:

Then I talked to the boy about electric shavers, did the dishes with his help, ordered one and went to the bank with the boy to withdraw the money for said shaver from his savings account.

Hung up laundry and was just in time for teaching.

The apricots I bought to make jam from are currently sitting int eh fridge because I didn’t have time to take care of them.

After teaching it was time to watch the opening ceremonies for the Tour de France and spin:

And then I sat down and read a new book until I went to bed too late. Only a little. But still.

Today there will be cleaning and helping to make pizza from scratch and dealing with apricots and maybe some music and hopefully some writing and spinning.

I did manage to wind the newly spun yarn into a ball so I will be able to continue knitting on the mystery shawl.

And then the weekend.

I woke up at 6 and promptly went online. That is a habit I might want to break in the future.

I had breakfast rather early and everything went smoothly. I even worked on the novel, deleted a scene and started a new one that went rather well. And admired the yarn I finished spinning last night:

It’s a perfect mixture of the two other colors. It is sitting on Latin editions of „Asterix and Cleopatra“ (French comic, very good) and „Harry Potter“. It doesn’t bode well that both of these arrived the night before and are still sitting in the kitchen. The boy didn’t really touch them yet.

My husband and I talked a little too long and then it was rather hot and humid when I went running. So I ended up walking most of the way:

After running I went out again right away, still in my running clothes and everything. I bought concealer at the one rather fancy store that stocks only beauty stuff. The sales woman was a little surprised at me waltzing in, sweaty and in Vikram Five Fingers, asking for a particular brand of concealer and the color number and then rushing out again. And no, I didn’t want any samples.

Then the bakery and then the health food store which was out of tomato pulp. Bad.

In the meantime my husband had started making lunch. We had decided to have leftovers.

The way my husband did this involved frantic cooking for an hour and now we have about the same amount of leftovers than before.

We had: fried zucchini blossoms, fried rucola, fried eggplant, fried potatoes, leftover pasta fried with an egg and zucchini, salad, leftover potato salad (that didn’t get eaten), leftover hamburgers and he cooked some rice that he wanted to serve with tomato sauce but that still sits on the stove top untouched because of the lack of tomato.

No picture today. But you have to believe me that the table was groaning under the weight of serving dishes.

I didn’t have time to do the dishes before my first student because I still needed to take a shower and get ready for teaching.

Then my first student showed up to tell me that she wouldn’t be taking lessons today or the next weeks. If it was alright to give me a call in the fall? Yeah.

(I doubt it will happen but we’ll see.)

So I did the dishes.

And taught all.the.students. Who all showed up early.

I talked to one of my students about procrastination and phone calls one has to make and decided to at least look up the number of my hairdresser. And through that I found that I can make appointments there online! I didn’t even have to pick up the phone and talk to a person! Ha!

Which means I may have overbooked next week with the hairdressers and the podcast and the concert we’re seeing and the meeting an old friend on Saturday. Everything including a one-hour train ride to Munich and then a one-hour ride back. Fun!

Then the boy played piano and I started spinning and watching „Arrow“. I do like the show but it’s a little too much drama all the time to watch every day. I might go back to watching „Buffy“ after all.

So a very good day but mostly go, go, go all the way through. But I did manage to read a little before bed (and to buy the next trilogy in the urban fantasy series that I’m currently reading plus two free books by a very good romance author). I told the boy that I want half a year off where I only read so that I can get through all the good books I have but then that would get a little boring too.

Today there will be a little less stuff, I will do the rest of the grocery shopping (including the tomato pulp) and only teach very few students. Usually that means I don’t get anything else done but I’ll be happy to be pleasantly surprised.

Tonight I will spin watching the presentation of the Tour de France riders and jerseys for a change.

So it was clear that that would be a very busy day but at least I did sleep enough.

And then I felt all mushy in the head, as one does after the first night of decent sleep after a lot of bad ones.

The low energy lasted until the afternoon. I still went for my short run but it was more of a walk than a run. Well, at least I did get out there.

And I tried writing in the morning but it didn’t go well. I think I need to scrap the last two scenes I wrote and go into a different direction.

I also looked at my progress and the fact that so far it has taken me 148 days to not quite finish this story and that I wrote 549 words per day on average.

Now I tend to plan as if I can write 1,500 words per day easily but if I look at my history so far that is dumb planning. I won’t work. Not with some serious change and it’s not like I haven’t attempted that before.

So maybe instead of feeling really bad every day for not reaching my goal it might be a better idea to adjust the goal.

I’ll tell you how that goes.

Lunch today was completely different from the Greek food fest of the past two days:

You can’t quite see the Leberkäs underneath the eggs but it is there. And that’s potato salad (Bavarian potato salad, not like the one my mother makes at all) with cucumbers from the garden and herbs and some rucola (the rucola is not traditional but tastes great).

Then I set out to teach all afternoon without a break. And the teaching went well. And one student called to cancel so I did have a little break in between.

And then the boy practiced piano and then I spun the rest of the orange fiber and plied the orange and yellow together so in a few days I will be able to resume knitting the mystery shawl.

And then it was too late to do any more writing. But I did manage to turn out the light before 10 pm.

Today there will be another run and maybe an errand or two (didn’t do those yesterday) and a medium amount of teaching and some more thinking about writing and goals and plans.