Archives for August 2018

My plan for the day had been to go running and tackle one of the big scary projects I had looming.

I actually managed to write for fifteen minutes in the morning, so that was good. And I spent quite some time reading one or two of the books on design that I got, so that was good as well.

Then the boy showed up for breakfast at the exact same time as my husband. We were both shocked, I can tell you. Apparently, he had woken up thirsty. I even forgave him for showing up in pajamas.

My husband then proceeded to tell me that today would be the prefect day to go swimming. Or rather the only possible day until next year.

Which meant that I had to record the podcast yesterday instead of today. Oops.

When I had gotten out of bed it became very clear that I wouldn’t be running at all. My muscles were so sore still from our hike on Monday that I could only hobble around the house. Slowly. No running.

I did weave in the mystery shawl’s ends, so that was good. And managed to weave my last skein of sock yarn that isn’t white and start a new pair of socks which was very good.

Even though we had decided to eat fish that day my husband had pulled out some ground beef and we had tagliatelle bolognese. And salad.

It was even cool enough to eat outside.

Then I had to procrastinate on recording the podcast for two hours or so, and then I got finally ready to record it.

Recorded for an hour, trying to make sure that there would be enough visuals for the people watching on Youtube and no awkward pauses for those just listening to the audio.

When I finished and tried to save everything I found that I had forgotten to click the record button on the video.

Thought about making this episode audio only.

Took a fifteen minute break.

Recorded the whole thing again.

Started pre-production but stopped after half an hour or so because I was somewhat exhausted at that point.

The boy had spent the afternoon at a friend’s house and came back almost in time for dinner. Even though we hadn’t talked about when he was expected home again.

Procrastinated about my „learn how to draw“-lesson and decided to start today instead. (Yeah, because it will be so much easier today than yesterday. Sure.)

Today my husband and I will go for a swim. If weather permits that will include a 1 1/2 hour bike ride before and after. We’ll leave the boy to fend for himself which usually means giving him money for frozen pizza.

That will probably be it for the day. Of course, my new swimming goggles did not arrive in time. They were supposed to arrive from the UK a week ago. I’m really, really nearsighted and these were supposed to correct that.

And I know that that is a very first world problem to have.

That’s always so much fun.

Woke up around six, wasted a lot of time surfing the web and flitting from book to book. I started reading too many books over the past few days. I am okay with reading more than one at a time but having three from the library on top of the thirty in progress might just be a little too much. Especially if one of them is a 940-page-behemoth about GIMP and I found that I need to read something else before I’m ready to actually start on that one.

Breakfast, no meditation because I had dawdled for too long. I finished the pair of socks I had been knitting. They are beautiful. No picture yet, sorry.

Did a mound of dirty dishes.

Then my husband started talking to me about when to paint that balcony. His mother thinks it’s not necessary yet but I went outside and had a hard look and yeah, it is totally necessary. On the other hand it’s her balcony. If it rots away under her feet that doesn’t affect us in a big way, other than our porch becoming a deck again.

We need a stretch of three days without rain to do this. When there aren’t any other things planned. And no Sundays or holidays because you’re not allowed to make a lot of noise on those days. Which I find a good rule. It’s just sometimes a little inconvenient.

So. We were just about to jump off from the table and go to the hardware store with me being almost catatonic from anxiety (I have all these other things planned. I hate having to use power tools for hours and hours on end. When will I finish my novel? I already had plans for the next three days.) when my husband checked the weather app again.

There will be thunderstorms today and tomorrow. Friday will be rain. My husband will be away over the weekend. It will rain most of next week.

Then we have the week after where we might have two days in a row. If it doesn’t rain. And two days between me coming back from my family reunion before a doctor’s appointment with the boy and my colonoscopy. Which I timed a little inconvenient anyway because I will have to prepare for the colonoscopy on the same day that the boy and I go to the dermatologist. Fun!

After that my MIL has a friend visiting for a week and then summer break will be over.

We made lunch instead. I had one of the two days per year where I want to eat only salad for lunch. My husband wasn’t feeling it at all. We already had salad for lunch the day before. Still, salad it was:

Thinking of big things that hang over my head and make me feel bad I then decided to look at the DS repair again. The next step is to watch a video where someone repairs the exact thing I want to repair. Unfortunately, I have already pulled the thing apart completely following another video but I couldn’t figure out how to put it together again. I feel like I need a calm head and lots of patience for this.

I am not a patient person.

So I sat at the kitchen table, dreading the task and thinking idly about all the huge projects I have taken on that are hanging over my head.

There might have been cheese. And chocolate.

Then my husband showed up again saying, „I’d like you to help me order a baseball cap or two and some sheets and tees one of these days.“ So I pulled the laptop out and helped him order caps and sheets. We decided to leave the tees for another day because I was definitely feeling decision fatigue by then.

My laptop was almost out of battery so I plugged it in in my studio. Decided to watch the video. Saw the note „print grocery lists“ on my desk and the three fountain pens that needed to be inked. Went for the easy win.

While doing these tasks I realized that I have taken on too many big projects. And that my nonchalant declarations of, „I will make my own book covers!“ and „I need to overhaul our websites and to design a sign for our lessons to hang on our fence and we need new business cards and I need to brand my author website and design a newsletter header and stuff,“ basically means that I need to learn graphic design. It was Eliandhra who reminded me that that is a real profession. That people learn for years. And of course that’s why I’m finding this so hard.

I have learned a thing or two about design in the past years but that doesn’t make me a designer. Still. I can learn things.

I googled a how to and now I have yet another big project. This will be fun. Also a bit much. But that’s nothing new.

Then we vacuumed the annex and mopped the floors and the boy and I watch some Star Trek, the end. I managed to write 45 words in the whole day. Ahem.

Today there will be some form of exercise (no, there was no run and no strength training yesterday), and I’ll prepare the podcast recording. The boy will visit his friend.

And I have my personal design course all mapped out.

Yeah, I know.

Woke up at 5.30 because of someone driving his car very loudly through the street and couldn’t fall asleep again.

Still managed to get up so late that there wasn’t time for writing in the morning.

The others got up a little earlier than usual, especially the boy who had to set his alarm for 8.30 and we actually managed to leave the house in time for our train. It was very warm but still not so hot that you just want to crawl into the shade.

The hike went well and there were way less people around than usual. My fitness has really improved but I still feel really bad at the end of the hike. Nobody else does, by the way.

The beer garden was relatively empty. It seems Monday in August at 11.30 when it’s really hot is the way to go.

It was the first time ever that we brought our own food and that was a great idea:

Despite the heat we still drank our usual Doppelbock:

That beer made me rather talkative on the way back. The boy was talkative as well, we were a little too much for my husband even though the boy had had no beer at all.

We were back home at 2.30 with a visit to the health food store on the way.

Afterwards I got nothing done – which was to be expected. I actually started to watch dance videos on my computer in the afternoon!

The boy and I watched Star Trek, we talked some more, I went to bed early without doing any dishes.

Those dishes are still sitting in the sink now, I’ll tackle them after breakfast.

Today I might go for a short run but then my legs are pretty sore. I want to do all.the.things but it’s still so hot, we’ll see how that goes. Writing would be good, sewing would be great, I’ll see.

It seems I’m finally getting into summer break properly.

I slept wonderfully until 6.17 because I opened all the windows over night. That meant foregoing the blackout drapes which was a great idea.

Only very little writing overall.

I turned the heel on a sock, and learned some more about the GIMP software which is becoming my new major project. It also seem that I need to teach myself how to do graphic design. I hope I’ll succeed.

Around lunchtime I decided that I need to spend less money on books (yet again) and that it would be a good thing to borrow more through the library. I had renewed my library card on Friday so that I could borrow the GIMP book, had borrowed two more through Kindle Unlimited (and one of them was terribly bad but the second one is rather good) and then started dreaming about borrowing all those very expensive non-fiction books that I’d like to read and that are cluttering the „buy later“-folder on my Kindle from the library. I even started researching ebook readers that would work with the library system. All libraries in Germany use the epub-format. And I can’t just convert the files because they are understandably protected.

I was just about to order a cheap Tolino (which is still 60 Euros) when it occurred to me to see which books I could get. So I renewed my card for the Munich library.

Almost none of the books that I wanted were in the system. I did borrow two that looked interesting but my plan to get another device just for that looked rather foolish.

I can read the library books on my iPad, only I like the e-ink readers much better. Not enough to spend the money on one just in case I’d like to get a library book, though. Books like the one on GIMP – with a lot of pictures – are better read on the iPad anyway because it has color.

Lunch was spaghetti aglio e olio e pepperoncine with arugula salad. My husband also had mozzarella caprese. As usual everything but the spaghetti, the oil and the cheese is from our garden:

Wanted to start sewing the Kew dress but the afternoon got away from me. Had thought about altering the ugly, ill-fitting pair of shorts that I bought last year or so. I wanted to shorten the legs to make them a) less constricting and b) a more flattering length.

Fortunately I decided to just roll them up first and it turned out that they are so ill-fitting (and also too small everywhere but in the waist) that it would have been wasted effort.

I then decided that the next time I needed to wear shorts I’d just use my running shorts. They are a pair of black short leggings that I drafted and made myself. They fit rather well and look much better than those other things.

Today we will do our annual hike to the Andechs monastery. The boy doesn’t really want to. He said, „The food isn’t any good and it’s hot and exhausting.“ He is right, of course, but he will have to come with us anyways.

We parents are only doing it for the beer but he doesn’t want any. (It would be legal for him to drink beer or wine here with his parents present. The ouzo he got last Friday would not have been but nobody really cares.)

In addition to the running shorts I will also be wearing my brown tee with the Jane Austen quote and my Vibram Five Fingers. I offered to stay ten meters behind the rest of the family to not embarrass them after my husband asked if I couldn’t wear any other shoes. The alternatives were Birkenstocks (not the best for hiking up- and downhill), Mary Janes, or sneakers that make my hips hurt. I really want to get myself some ‚barefoot‘ sneakers that look a little less ridiculous but I’ll need to save up for that first.

We’re hoping to get going early enough to not melt on the way. Most of the hike is in the trees but not all. I really hope I won’t regret this.

This week is shaping up to be full again, hike on Monday, Stammtisch plus one student on Tuesday (one after the other – student first), the boy visiting a friend on Wednesday, podcast recording on Thursday, me meeting a friend in Munich on Friday, and then I’ll look forward to an empty weekend. Also, my husband might be away Saturday through Monday.

Writing? What writing?

I woke up at 5.30 which turned out to be a very good thing because there was time to just read in bed for half an hour and scroll through instagram and then breakfast and five minutes of meditation and then I actually managed to write for thirty minutes until my husband showed up half an hour earlier than usual.

I knitted some more, then it was time to make cannelloni:

The wine is one that my mother-in-law got me for my birthday. I am allowed to drink alcohol again because I don’t have to take the antibiotic anymore.

Then I read a little, borrowed an ebook about GIMP from the library and started fumbling around with the software, sang, played the piano and then it was already time for dinner and Star Trek.

Managed to go to bed on time which is always a good thing. Somehow I never got around to doing yoga.

Today there will be more of the same with maybe a little spinning or sewing thrown in, we’ll see.

Woke up half an hour early, had breakfast, talked with my husband but only briefly because I needed to take my shower before going to the doctor.

The doctor (different one than last time) said that my foot is fine and I don’t need to take more antibiotics. I hope she is right. The foot is still painful and a little red but way less than before.

Then I went to the pharmacy to get stuff for the rest of the family, and then to another one because the first one didn’t have what I needed. The second one didn’t have it either but I gave up and had them order the anti-allergy spray.

Went to the health food store. I have been to that store every day this week now. Bad organization.

Went back home, talked briefly with my husband again, found that the boy ran out of his favorite almond creme, started cleaning but had a really slow low-energy day.

We went to the Greek restaurant for lunch. Unfortunately none of us was in a great mood and all of us were super-sensitive to sound and such. There were people talking loudly in the restaurant, in fact, there was a woman three tables behind us who overpowered our conversation.

People were smoking, of course, because we were sitting outside.

The loudspeakers of the restaurant were so high-quality that all you could hear was the high-hat of the music they had put on, and that was just a hissing in the background. Felt like something crawling over my skin. Fun.

Still, the food was good. Sorry that I didn’t take a picture. I had fish. It was very good and I didn’t have to help cooking it and didn’t have to do the dishes afterwards. My poor husband had to drink three ouzos because the waiter just put them on our table. I said I didn’t want one because I can’t drink alcohol at the moment, and the boy certainly didn’t want one but no dice.

At least we did something together and at least we were all affected by the noise in the same way.

We went home again, I sat and read and knit for a while and then I braved the heat again to walk to the pharmacy again. And to the health food store. For almond creme and chocolate.

Back home I managed to clean with lots of breaks in between. Did a load of laundry.

The boy and I had dinner in front of the TV watching Star Trek again.

Talked some more with my husband. This time we might have reached a sort of conclusion to his problem. Phew.

Went to bed early and vowed to do even better today.

There was talk of hiking to Andechs today maybe but two of us had the feeling that it was just too hot.

So if we’re staying at home I am planning the same things I always do.

Best thing about yesterday was that I managed to write 100 words on the novel. While vacuuming the annex I started to write the next story in my head. I really should finish the one I’m working on so that I can start that. It’s way more exciting, of course…

Hung up the laundry, started writing this post.