Archives for July 2019

I seem to have been so tired that I didn’t wake up from my (silent) alarm. Woke up fifteen minutes later. That wouldn’t even have been a problem on a school day much less during summer break but it shows me that I need to get to bed earlier.

I lounged in bed, managed to meditate at least and had a nice and quiet early breakfast. My husband showed up around the usual time but by then I had already made a pot of mint tea and folded a load of laundry. For once I didn’t want to sit around all the time.

I knitted a bit and was reminded about all the vegetable I will need to reap and use over the next few days. My husband was a little stressed out and tensed but managed to pack without my help. I did the breakfast dishes with the boy’s help and then sat around waiting for my husband to leave which he did around noon.

Then the boy and I went out and had sushi for lunch. Which was rather nice. I forgot to take a picture, sorry. And then we bought some lemons because I wanted to make lemon ice cream.

Which I did and it was rather delicious:

Between making and eating that I taught two students which was nice as well, and then we ate more ice cream for dinner. While watching Star Trek. Then we talked some more and I watered all the things in pots outside.

I saw that there was yet another webinar. That presenter usually doesn’t have replays so I watched a good chunk of it even though it was past my bedtime. Well, turned out I had already seen that one. Or at least the part I managed to stay awake for. I did practice drawing lines and circles while listening so there was that.

But I went to bed way too late and didn’t sleep well.

My original plan had been to write and write all day but then I realized that I just didn’t want to. I actually would love to try just hanging around doing what I want for a few days and see what happens.

Today I want to go for a run and do some grocery shopping. There are all kinds of things I could do, sew, write, spin, read – we’ll see what happens. And I’m planning to make pasta salad for lunch.

And I didn’t get enough sleep yet again. And didn’t write before breakfast but that was to be expected with me being a little anxious about the MRI.

Had breakfast and got ready for that. Walked there and was on time even thought I thought I would be a little late. Had the MRI and used the time in the machine to meditate. The thing I find most unpleasant about the whole experience is having to take my glasses off. When I was returning to the cubicle with my stuff I had no idea which door to take. But everybody was very helpful.

The radiologist looked a little puzzled when talking to me about the results. „So, have you had knee troubles before?“ Yes, I had. „Have you had surgery?“ Nope. Seemed that my meniscus was looking like it had been operated on and smoothed. Puzzling.

I walked back home, the knee was alright so I talked a little with my husband, did the dishes and then went for my walk/run:

Then back home where a friend of my husband was visiting. Which made lunch rather late:

And then I went off again – this time without doing the dishes first. But I did finish „99 ways to tell a story“. Most excellent book:

To see the orthopedist about the MRI results.

He was his usual non-talkative self. „We have the results of the MRI and everything is looking fine. You must have sprained your knee without noticing. You can move it normally. If it hurts, use the bandage, bye.”

Um, okay? I don’t think it was a sprain. Especially since the other knee is a little painful as well. I’m thinking that too much sitting around is the cause of the pain. That my muscles are tense and pulling the joints out of whack and that I should have stretched after exercise.

And I’d like to take a look at the old images of my knee from a few years ago when I first had that knee pain. Some time around 2013 or so. I might even have a CD with those images somewhere in the house. No idea if I can find it.

So, officially my knee is fine.

Now I just need to continue those exercises. Because if I don’t do them it starts hurting again.

On my way back home I went to the health food store. And then I collected the boy and we started the adventure of doing a video call with my mother. That was pretty funny. But we were victorious over technology. The boy and I were very amused when we sent her a screen shot of his phone with the camera button circled in yellow so she saw where to look for it and she still couldn’t find it.

Turned out she had tapped the screen shot repeatedly and that had somehow failed to connect us. But we stayed polite and didn’t laugh.

And when we finally managed to get that video call going it turned out that we didn’t know what to talk about so we ended the call after a few minutes.

To be continued.

After that my husband and I met to discuss garden care during his trip. He pointed out every little pot and plant. I do understand, he is leaving all his babies in the hands of a woman who doesn’t like to get her hands dirty and is allergic to basically everything. I will try to take care of everything as good as I can but I did draw the line at collecting and disposing of snails.

Then I helped him order some legendary pickups. It was one of those shops where they tell you to send an email or call and my husband had never dealt with something like that before. So I helped him to write the email and when there was an answer only half an hour later or so I helped him transfer the money from his bank account.

And then it was too late to write. Which was rather unfortunate because even with my reduced goal for Camp NaNo I still had about 13,000 words to go before Wednesday night.

I still decided to watch Star Trek with the boy. We saw another excellent Deep Space Nine episode that tied in perfectly with the kind of moral dilemma that the boy and I had been talking just minutes before.

Then I talked to my husband some more and finally told him what the doctor had said in the afternoon. I did my knee exercises at last and barely managed to turn the lights out on time.

Today there will be the panic before my husband leaves for his trip (it’s inevitable but at least he organized the packing much better this time), and I will teach two students.

And then I will attempt to write like the wind.

And now I remember why I started uploading my daily blog post the night before.

I have talked about my blogging software acting up on several occasions and the same thing happened to me yesterday morning when I tried publishing that post with lots of pictures. I got an error message for about 14 times and then I got locked out from my own blog until the post finally went through. Which meant that I spent quite some time in the morning trying again and again.

When I upload in the evening and something goes wrong I can always try again in the morning.

It’s the pictures that cause the most trouble and I have not been able to fix this so far. Most times persistence works, though.

Since it’s the weekend I haven’t slept enough, there is always something. I am still setting my alarm but I have a hard time going to bed on time. So there is something to tweak again.

I didn’t even try to write first thing in the morning because I knew I wanted to write the blog post so I did that. Had cake again for breakfast and am happy that the cake is now all gone.

The boy was late in coming down as he often is but I still made it to the live training session on Youtube in time. And I wrote a bit.

After that we made lunch:

More zucchini blossoms with leftover champagne.

Polenta and chili.

There was a mountain of dishes to tackle but I dove right in. I read a bit and then I started working on the „Complete Beginner’s Guide to Digital Art“-course. I actually drew a few bad circles, squares and lines and played around with my iPad and the software I have. Fun!

Then it was time to write some more. Only I was stuck again. And then I realized the reason I’m stuck is that I have all these open loops and hanging threads from the first two books and the beginning of the one in progress and now that I’m wrapping up the trilogy I need to revisit all of them and get everything resolved.

For a second there I thought about letting the third novel rest until I have gone through the other two but I don’t think that that’s a good idea. What I will do going forward is to take notes on what is still missing and unclear and mull things over while doing other things. Like sew or knit or walk around. And then my subconscious will hopefully provide me with answers to all those open questions. (If not I can still stick stuff in and take things out, I haven’t published anything yet.)

Now that was an important realization but unfortunately it didn’t move the book forward that much.

I helped my husband decide which clothes to take on his trip for a bit and took care of the clean laundry that was hanging there all dry, clean and neglected.

And then I sat down in front of the TV again to watch the tour and spin. Three weeks of almost daily spinning came to an end.

So. Today I will have two doctor’s appointments, the MRI in the morning, at 8.20 and a visit with the orthopedist in the afternoon to talk about what they found. We moved the video chat with my mother to ‚maybe today in the late afternoon‘ because of scheduling conflicts. We’ll see how that goes.

I am really keen on getting some writing done and I hope to maybe walk/run as well but that will depend on how long things will take at the doctor’s today.

I basically didn’t do anything the whole day but for once I had planned it that way.

I woke up early, lounged in bed for an hour, had cake for breakfast:

Then I unpacked all my presents:

A fabulous book I had asked for, „99 ways to tell a story“ by Matt Madden. When I showed it to my husband he said, he had another one with the same basic idea which he then pulled out. Turned out it was the inspiration for the one I got. (Both of these links are Amazon Affiliate links.)

I also got a fabulous package from Eliandhra:

She knows me well.

I also got a bit of money from both my parents and my mother-in-law. The first helped buy a new ebook reader and the second bit went into my ‚new cell phone‘-fund.

My husband had asked me if there was anything I wanted, especially from the big music store. I briefly considered buying a new cheap ukulele but then decided that I don’t really need one. He did show up for breakfast with a zucchini blossom in hand, though.

We talked a bit and then I went for a walk/run:

And this is what 52 looks like in the middle of exercise:

Afterwards I got ready to go out for lunch:

Yes, I did add shoes.

Lunch was really good:

We walked back home again, I changed into something more comfortable and spent the rest of the day watching the Tour de France while spinning. I got a lot of phone calls. For once I was determined to actually take them so I carried the phone around all day. Only to find that the battery was empty when I tried taking my mother’s call. Seems I need to get new batteries for the phone.

In the evening we opened a bottle of champagne:

The boy and I had a classy dinner eating potato chips and licorice while watching Star Trek. I went to bed a little late, happy with the day.

And I didn’t wash a single dish all day.

Today there will be some stretching exercises, a video call with my mother (for the first time – not sure that was a good idea), some writing and the last day of the Tour.

And I’m thinking about what I want to do over the next six weeks.

And thanks for all the birthday wishes, I haven’t answered properly yet.

I have a confession to make, I usually write these posts the night before (or late afternoon) and set them to be published the next morning. If something goes different than planned I change it but otherwise I just leave it as is. Now, I am no longer holding myself to daily blogging, so if I miss I’ll miss – no big deal – and that means I am experimenting with publishing the posts just after I wrote them.

And that is why you’re getting two posts in a day today.

I didn’t sleep well at all and got angry about it until I remembered that it was all because of the heat. Sorry for whining about that so much.

So I woke up cranky and did not write and the whole morning went different than anticipated. The boy got up late, my husband had breakfast before him and then went off for running early. Which meant I couldn’t fit all the cleaning in while he was away because I needed to do a huge pile of dishes first. 

We had planned to make stuffed wine leaves because the ones in our yard were at that stage where they are barely big enough but not too leathery.

Making stuffed wine leaves is a big thing to do. We also made skordalia from scratch and I made apricot ice cream.

So we spent all morning cooking. And had to actually wash two pots in the process because we needed them a second time. Here it is, our splendid meal:

Wine leaves with and without meat, tomato rice, and the potato-garlic creme. There might have been a bit of drama. And the boy might have come home right in the middle of high-tension cooking. He wanted to show his report card, of course, but we were pressed for time.

One more picture:

And I used my ice cream maker for the first time in two years:

Homemade apricot ice cream! It was so good. I used the apricot compote I made the day before and folded some heavy cream in and a bit of lemon juice. Very, very good.

The boy’s report card was great. His grades were better than the year before. He finished his last year of Latin better than we thought he would and all in all he did rather well. (I’m trying to word this in a way that protects his privacy while still gushing. That’s not an easy feat.)

I should have taken a picture of the dishes afterwards. It took more than 15 minutes to just sort everything and get it ready for the actual washing. By the time the boy and I were finished with that (my husband had to teach earlier than me) it was time to start teaching for me as well.

One student canceled which gave me a bit of time for spinning and watching the Tour and my last student didn’t show which give me time to write this.

Now, I am a little miffed that I didn’t manage to finish cleaning the house and to write today but I’ll get to that eventually. Next up I’m looking forward to watching some Star Trek and celebrate the last day of school with some more ice cream.

Tomorrow there will be running and going out for Greek food (yes, I know, we didn’t realize in time but the food tomorrow will be quite different from today) and a lot of sitting in front of TV and spinning.

So, this is the official start of summer break!

Woke up at a quarter to six after not quite enough sleep. Which happens when I turn the lights out at ten instead of nine.I did meditate, though, and actually wrote a few words before breakfast. Yeah!

Then breakfast with the boy coming down later than usual because he had first and last period off and shorter periods for the rest because of the heat.

A little more writing after my breakfast before my husband showed up. Then some knitting and a lot of talking about P.A.F humbuckers. (Those are legendary guitar pickups. PAF stands for „patent applied for“ and are a special kind made by Gibson around 1959, they are responsible for a certain sound that is highly desirable. It is possible to buy replicas which are better or worse and if you’re interested in maybe getting some you can spend months on research. Also, my husband has a book about them which he is reading for the second or third time at the moment.)

The boy came home from school just as I was getting ready to go grocery shopping and offered to accompany me. So we went out in the scorching heat, walked for twenty minutes while talking all the time, got groceries including cake and sweets as one does and walked back. Phew.

Then I made apricot compote from our own apricots. First time ever because I just bought the tree last year:

We had pancakes for lunch, my husband and I with spinach and the boy with apricot compote. The rest will become ice cream later today. But first some more fried zucchini blossoms:

And pancakes:

Then dishes and then I sat down to find out how many words of fiction I had written over the last year or so. The tally is:

• November and December 2017: 63,611
• All of 2018: 200,562
• First half of 2019: 87,209

Not too shabby. That was the first draft of a paranormal mystery novel, then the switch to the new, slower writing method which gave me a 95,000 word novel, a 97,000 word novel, a 13,000 word short story and about 50,000 words of the novel-in-progress. Those last three and the story all belong together and are kind of urban fantasy.

First of all this tally makes me feel a little better because it’s not as bad as I thought it was. I am a little behind this year compared to last year but the year isn’t over yet and there was all that renovation and two trips in there.

The reason I had wanted those numbers was because Dean Wesley Smith had talked about „Pulp Speed“ on his blog and answered a few questions in a follow-up post. I would love it if I could come near writing that much but that would certainly mean spending more time at actually doing it.

My real numbers for 2018 come down to about 500 words per day on average. Which usually takes me less than half an hour. But the really interesting thing is that the first thirty minutes of every day I only ever get about 200 to 400 words done because I also spend that time going back over what I wrote the day before. The next thirty usually give me something between 500 and 700 words. Which means if I write for an hour per day I get at least 700 words but more often something around 1,500. The same time on two different days, though will only give me 400 to 1,000 words.

It’s not so much about spending consecutive time, though that does make a difference as well, but it seems that all the sleeping and such in between takes me away from the story and I need time to get back in later.

I also have to say that throughout the whole time period I wrote daily blog posts here, posts that are usually around 500 words and a monthly newsletter. Dean Wesley Smith would count those as well but I didn’t so I don’t know how much that was.

Now that I have that data I really want to write more than 20,000 again until the end of the year. Of course.

After that revelation I plonked down in front of TV, watched the tour and spun for half an hour, taught two singing students, started writing this post, got really hungry, had something to eat, did my knee exercises and tried writing a few more words. With my goal for Camp NaNo cut in half I still have to write 2,200 words a day until the end of the month to ‚win‘.

I promised myself that I could watch some more of the „Digital Art for Beginners’-workshop if I made it. Well, I ended up not getting to watch that. Pity.

Today there will be the last day of school, cleaning, the boy will get his report card, there will be teaching, and making stuffed wine leaves for lunch and homemade apricot ice cream and then it will be summer break.

Ah.

Also it should get a little cooler starting tomorrow.

Exhale.