Archives for August 2018

Woke up at six and for once didn’t spend an hour in bed online first thing.

Made breakfast, read, and decided to go for my run earlier than usual to avoid the worst of the heat:

The sun was so bright that I couldn’t really see what was on my phone’s screen:

I came back home before the boy came down for his breakfast. At 10.30. He is supposed to get out of bed at 9.30 by the way…

We talked a little and then I was on my own again. I looked after the garden. Not quite enough for my husband’s high standards, I’m sure, and a few of the tomatoes are looking a little unhappy. I did water them, I swear, and not too much either.

Then I sat down to eat the rest of the potato chips from the night before plus some chocolate and licorice. As one does. This is one of the reasons why it is a very good idea that I am usually living with my husband. Eating properly would be much harder without him. (He basically says the same, by the way, he told me that when I am away he finds it much harder not to snack at night and such.)

This is what I eat when left on my own:

Why yes, that is pepperoni pizza. Frozen pepperoni pizza. That tastes approximately like cardboard.

The boy went out for Chinese with his grandmother in the meantime.

Then I fell into my usual routine of reading revelry and books while hanging around the kitchen table feeling bad. Until I managed to take a shower and close the greenhouse before the impending rain.

I felt sorry for myself some more, then read some emails, started doing my toenails and forced myself to practice singing, piano, and ukulele. Painted my toenails some more. Started writing this post. Did a great job procrastinating about writing. Finally found instructions to change the hinge on a Nintendo 3DS XL and bookmarked them. Started making a facebook page for our teaching and putting our business into google maps. Realized that I need better pictures for this and stopped. At least I got started.

One hour before the boy and I were supposed to watch Star Trek together I started waiting for the day to be over.

Pulled myself together and did some writing after all.

Ate all the sweets while watching TV but managed to force myself to spin some more of the dreaded burgundy merino.

Went to bed on time with my teeth flossed for a change.

Today I will run a bit, go to the health food store, make lunch, teach two students, and wait for my husband to come home.

So it turned out that my husband’s friend had sent him an email on Saturday morning but my husband only received it in the evening, about twelve hours late. Getting that earlier would have made our Saturday much more enjoyable for sure.

So I woke early and had breakfast and did not write. (I am seeing a pattern here.) But I did meditate so that’s a step in the right direction.

My husband got up early-ish as well. We talked, he started packing, I did the dishes. Then I mostly sat around waiting.

We made lunch very early because he had to catch a train around our usual lunchtime:

Bockwurst, carrots and peas and homemade mashed potatoes. The carrots from the garden taste spectacular and everything else as well, even though I put a bit too much milk into the potatoes.

Then my husband had about thirty minutes before he had to leave. In those thirty minutes he wanted to: 1) take a shower, 2) water the garden, 3) finish packing, and 4) buy a ticket.

Yeah.

I bought the ticket for him online and printed it out and I did most of the watering.

Then I did the dishes with the boy’s help and ate some chocolate and made more music than in the past two weeks altogether. I did most things on my list.

The boy and I had a junk food fest with potato chips and candy in front of the TV last night.

I still managed to go to bed on time.

Today will be a pretty normal day, running and all the usual. The boy will go our for lunch with his grandmother so I’ll be left to myself. I’m seeing some eggs in my future. Or maybe I go out for lunch as well, we’ll see.

Woke up early. I had apparently slept for a whole eight hours during the night.

That didn’t really mean I got a lot of stuff done.

I had a late breakfast and no time to meditate or write before my husband got up. Then I saw that someone had left a message on voice mail.

And that started the day’s chaos.

My husband has been planning to visit a friend in Austria for weeks now. Since that friend doesn’t like planning and is a teacher who is on summer break right now they left talking about days to the last minute.

I had been sitting on the edge of my seat for about three weeks already. Because I’m me. I can tell you which train I’m going to take to my weekend-trip at the and of August.

So they both emailed back and forth and my husband didn’t want to use the phone and so it looks as if he won’t be going at all. Or maybe today. Or tomorrow. Or not at all.

Which is driving me a little crazy.

So there were a lot of slightly upset conversations yesterday, and a lot of waiting, and not much else.

I did manage to get the podcast ready for publication, though. I did not manage to actually publish it because uploading to youtube was very slow and hadn’t finished until bedtime.

Today, though.

I went for my first run in two weeks:

We had fish and veggies and baked potatoes for lunch:

Spent most of the afternoon on the podcast and watched some more Star Trek.

Went to bed at a regular time.

I have almost given up hope of getting anything done until September.

Today I will publish the podcast, finally, and find out if my husband stays home or not.

And then we’ll see.

Woke up early again, failed to write again, had a very pleasant breakfast.

My husband showed up half an hour earlier than usual because he wanted to talk to me before I had to leave. I went to Munich and met my friend at a café. I’m not quite sure if cafés have become louder in the past few years or if it’s me. Might be all those fancy coffee machines.

It’s always nice to talk to someone you’ve known for a long time. We had a whole year to catch up on.

Today you don’t get a picture of my lunch. I forgot to take one when eating eggs and bacon at the café and again when eating some nuts and chocolate later at home.

I walked a bit before taking the train home and bought some more junk food. Plus my favorite mint tea that I can’t get locally.

Went home and basically did nothing the rest of the day.

I really hope to get back into the groove today. Not quite sure though, if it counts as ‚back into the groove‘ when you’re been out of the groove for so long.

So, I better don’t make any predictions about what will happen today.

So as planned my husband and I went to one of the five lakes that are West of here.

I woke up early but not early enough to write, had breakfast and started working on a project that occurred to me the day before while recording the podcast.

My husband and I had planned to leave at 10. We actually got away half an hour later than planned but that meant we could talk with the boy a bit before leaving. He even helped me do the huge mountain of dishes.

Slathered in the dreaded sunscreen we hopped on our bikes and went our merry way. It was still rather hot. But on the bike it seemed a little colder than while walking.

It took us 75 minutes to get to the lake. Then we changed and jumped in briefly. Then off to a nice restaurant with a view of the lake (it’s the Wörthsee):

And yes, the water was that turquoise in real life. We had some very good pork roast:

And then traditional amount of beer. Eliandhra reminded me the other day that in Bavaria a small beer is what the rest of Germany considers a big one. (The small one is half a liter which is a little more than a pint.) These glasses are one liter and it used to be that that was all you could get at traditional beer gardens. If you ordered a small beer they would look at you funny.

At this restaurant they didn’t have the big ones (Maß) on the menu but when we asked it was no problem.

We went back home pretty soon after having eaten. By then it was really, really hot and we felt lucky that half the way was through the woods.

We were back home around three.

After a brief pause I decided to go grocery shopping anyway, so I hopped back on my bike (ouch) and went to the big grocery store. I didn’t buy much but I did get some licorice and chocolate. My husband will be away for two days or so next week and the boy and I are planning a big junk food-palooza.

Also, my MIL talked with the boy, offering to cook for him while my husband is away. So that I won’t have as much work.

I find that baffling. When my husband is away I usually cook things that are really easy like frozen pizza. If she cooks for the boy that still means I need to make something for myself. I never quite get how her brain works. She probably assumes that I’d just eat a sandwich for lunch when left on my own.

Um, no.

When I was still living alone I did cook for myself all the time. Maybe not with all those fresh herbs and such like my husband. I also usually cooked something that would be enough for two days and only reheated everything every other day. I definitely believe in taking care of myself as well as of others. (Junk food aside.) We only do the junk food thing because my husband is rarely away. If it were just the boy and me we would still have wonderful home cooked meals every day. Once I had relearned how to cook, that is.

It’s funny. When you never cook and have only used the ‚new‘ stove for reheating things you get totally out of practice. I am rather fast at chopping, though.

Then I finally took a shower and the boy and I watched some Star Trek. I had already changed into pajamas (at six) and sent the boy to open the door when someone rang the bell. Turned out that the student of my husband’s who didn’t show last week decided that he’d come in today. We couldn’t find my husband at first but he agreed to teaching eventually. That’s the self-employed thing you don’t say no if you can make money.

I fetched him a shirt and then he came to ask the boy and me to get the garden ready for the impending thunderstorm. Which we did.

The one evening I decide to spend in my pajamas. I don’t think I did that in months.

Then we finished watching our episode, I remembered the load of laundry in the basement and helped my husband hang it up and that was that.

I don’t think the podcast will go out today. There was just no time to get it ready yesterday and today I will leave around 9 am to meet a friend. She lives a couple of hours away from here and only comes to Munich once a year.

Today it’s supposed to be twelve degrees cooler than yesterday. It is raining already. I can’t decide if I should wear jeans or a long-sleeved dress. I might even need socks.

How odd.