Archives for May 2019

I almost got enough sleep, woke up five minutes before my alarm. Then lounged about and meditated a bit. And then I started thinking about the scarf I want to make for the boy and went researching yarn. It has to be the right weight and super-soft.

Breakfast was had. Then more yarn research. My husband showed up and the boy was less late than anticipated. After everybody’s breakfast the boy had to decide about the yarn so I could order.

Then I realized that I need more yarn for the Crazy Tee which meant spinning more. So that is a project and I started right away with pulling out fiber and weighing it and looking for bobbins.

Not running does give me a more leisurely pace for my mornings and I feel like I need that at the moment. It doesn’t mean I actually get other stuff done, though.

My husband came back from running and went back out again to dig yet another vegetable bed. He is doing it slowly this time so we’re hoping for less bed-digging stress.

Then we made lunch. We had planned to make some kind of salad to take with us to the meditation meeting originally. We didn’t go but we still had the rice and eggs we had cooked for it. The whole thing was born out of a vague idea of rice salad and the need to use up the rest of the asparagus. So this is what we came up with:

It was the first time we roasted asparagus in the oven and I really like it. There was garlic in there (roasted as well) and olive oil, lemon juice and some cheese. We ran out of parmesan so I grated some Cheddar. This was rather good and I’m hoping to make it again.

Then there were dishes and I went off to spin in front of the TV:

One of the boy’s classmates came over so they could work on the pieces for the chess set they are making for school. The two of them spent all afternoon in our basement working. Nobody got hurt. Well, at least not much, the classmate banged his hand twice and needed a bandaid. Not too bad. (Beforehand my husband had given the boy a lecture on how to treat someone with a serious cut to the wrist. Poor boy was a little freaked.)

I was so low on energy that I managed to doze off in the middle of the afternoon. I guess I need more sleep still. But I did manage to finish spinning the singles, so that’s good:

I went to bed real early and did not watch the big soccer game with my husband. I also did not watch anything with the boy. First, because of soccer and second, because he was all peopled out and still had things to do.

Today will be another day of mostly nothing. I want to watch more bike riding and would love to ply the yarn and start spinning the yarn for my husband’s sweater.

I think spinning on the wheel is good for my leg at this point. It gets moving without any strain.

Most important will be to go voting in the European election, of course. I think we’ll do that in the morning. We usually do.

I woke up at six again and didn’t do anything worthwhile until breakfast. I had muesli again. Seems I have gotten so used to it that I don’t want anything else. Which is good.

The boy didn’t really want to go to school, as often, and wasn’t looking forward to his physics test.

My husband showed up late, I knitted some more on the Crazy Tee and ran out of the orange/yellow yarn. Which means I will have to spin more before I can continue knitting.

The leg is getting better and better but I might have used it a little too enthusiastically in the course of the day. So, still not all better.

I did work on the podcast any time I could in the morning which meant I got it ready to upload some time after breakfast, finished the blog post between breakfast and lunch and published the video a little earlier than planned. But I got it out.

Then we started making lunch a little too late. It was rather yummy but I didn’t get the dishes done before I had my first student:

Two of my students had canceled and so I managed to squeeze some cleaning in before the last one was due.

After that the boy and I ate dinner in front of TV, I finally did the dishes and managed to turn the lights out at a reasonable time.

My husband and I decided against going to the Buddhist meeting today. We would have loved to go but it felt like squeezing another thing into lives that are already a bit overflowing. The boy will have some guys over for yet another school project, they are building a chess set from dead wood for biology. Since the whittling is far from done they will sit in our basement using our crappy wood tools for most of the weekend. That will be fun for sure. My husband is rather worried that someone will hurt himself.

So today there will be still no running. A lot of sitting around and waiting probably. I’m not sure if I should attempt spinning on the wheel or sewing. I would love to have another t-shirt to wear but on the other hand there is the Giro d’Italia which works better with spinning.

Oh, and here is yesterday’s me made outfit:

Interesting how well the leggings work with the striped top even though that color is not in it at all. That skirt feels to short to wear without tights but too long to go with them, by the way. I think I need skirts of different lengths for different kinds of weather.

I still love it, it has the bestest pockets ever and is sturdy and comfy.

I woke up from the alarm again at six and basically didn’t do anything all day. My energy was better, though, and the leg is hurting less and less. I think the magnesium might be working!

There was breakfast. I ate a pastry for once because I had gotten some for both my husband and son and felt left out. Bad move, I didn’t feel so hot afterwards. I’ll stick to muesli again in the future.

Then it was time for my husband’s aunt to show up and he helped put all the recycling into her car while I was doing dishes and then preparing for podcasting. Lots of feedback on the last German episode.

Then we made lunch:

Then I took pictures of my projects for the podcast, took a bit of a break, did my singing warmup and then recorded the podcast. With a false start. This time I used one laptop for recording video and the other one for audio which is a bit insane.

Then there was teaching. After that bodyweight training, a bit of housework, dinner and then some work on the podcast.

And early to bed.

There was a point in the day where I started writing a list in my bullet journal of all the fiction books on my ebook reader that I still want to read. I gave up after two pages when finding I wasn’t even a third through. So I guess I’ll read some more books from the pile of unread books instead of only new ones? At least I pulled one out that I had bought last year to read next.

Today will be another whirlwind Friday with cleaning and lots of teaching and trying to get the podcast ready to publish. (I can’t promise I’ll get it out before Sunday, I won’t have much time today and no time at all tomorrow.)

So, decidedly not boring around here.

I didn’t sleep well and when the alarm went off at six I wanted to sleep some more. Wrote morning pages after meditating for five minutes and made breakfast.

I did knit on the t-shirt some more and read a bit and my husband got up rather late. We talked and then we found that my mother-in-law had put one of her little notes at our door that said, „Your aunt will come over tomorrow with her car to get stuff to the recycling place. Recycling is on the right side of the garage, right?”

Um, not quite. And so we spent half an hour upturning everything in the garage to sort out stuff. And deflate a million boxes. And decide what to keep and what to throw away. Fun!

Then I limped to the nearer supermarket. It took so long that my patience was severely tested on the way. I had to make tiny steps so I wouldn’t aggravate that calf muscle. I was feeling better than the day before but I still felt ridiculous, crossing streets at a snail’s pace.

When I came back home my husband was in a panic because he had just come back from his first run all week and was rather late in making lunch. We did manage, though:

That’s asparagus risotto. I know it’s hard to see under all that egg and parmesan.

Then I did the dishes right away and taught half a dozen students. The first of which told me to take magnesium to help with my leg. After a bit of research I thought that was a brilliant idea so I limped back to the health food store. This time I limped a little faster, though, because I wore boots instead of my barefoot shoes. The stiffness of the boots made walking easier.

Then there was dinner and chocolate and an early bedtime.

Today I am hoping to record another podcast episode, teach a few students and not much more.

I did wake up from the alarm but decided that I didn’t need to push myself to do anything. Basically I have declared myself sick for the time being in the hopes that I will get back to normal faster that way.

I made breakfast and talked with my husband and knitted. I still elevated the leg with the pulled muscle and iced it. This was the second day I had an inexplicable wet stain on the back of my leggings in the morning. Only yesterday it wasn’t inexplicable anymore because there was also a puddle of blue goo on the chair I had used to rest my leg on. The cooling pack was leaking.

That together with the fact that the elastic bandages I’m using have lost most of the elasticity over the past twenty years led me to order replacements.

I did the dishes and then set off to hobble to the health food store. I was rather happy that I could walk without much pain but less happy that I had to walk so slowly. Trying not to stretch you calf muscles while walking leads to an odd kind of shuffle with very small steps. I always find it strange when just one part of the body is affected. The rest of me is all ready to run and jump but one of the muscles in my calf puts in a veto. And then the rest of me says, „Well, can’t you really not go any faster? This is no fun. Are we there yet?”

But I faked patience and listend to a podcast on the way and went to the bakery and the health food store and brought back everything we needed. Good thing I didn’t need much heavy stuff. I had thought about using the bike because it would be easier than the hobbling but then I realized that I always use my left leg to get off and on the bike and that I would probably not succeed in not stretching my left calf at all while biking. So it will be hobbling for a few more days, I guess. The hobble is becoming a little more balanced, though.

Then I helped making lunch. My husband had one of those days where he starts with, „Let’s make lamb burgers,“ and branches out from there:

As one does.

Then I took a shower and got ready just in time for my first student. Teaching was not bad and I saw the potential new student with her mother and grandmother. She was rather sweet and will start regular lessons next week. I’m looking forward to it.

Then there was dinner and the hanging up of more laundry and dishes again. No reason to complain, though, because my husband did the big washing up after lunch.

And then early to bed. I finished „The Bride Test“ and really loved it. First book in ages that almost made me cry at the end. (No worries, they get their happy ending.) And then I started reading a new one right away, of course.

Today there will be another mostly unproductive day with a few hours of teaching thrown in near the end. It still feels weird to not exercise. I hope I won’t get used to just sitting around all day. But for now it’s all about getting my energy back.