Archives for August 2019

I didn’t feel well all day. That is what happens when you eat too much junk and drink too much.

I had turned my alarm off but it didn’t do me any good because I was awake by six as usual. Then I basically spent most of the day waiting for it to be over.

My husband and I went out for lunch and that was rather nice, though:

Those were the appetizers and for a main course I had this:

It does look a bit like Klingon food but it’s pasta with shrimp.

Then we walked a bit and I got myself some ice cream.

I did clean a thing or two but not enough. The boy and I watched some Star Trek, the end.

Today we will honor that it is still sunny and hot and ride our bikes to the Wörthsee, hop in the lake and eat some pork roast. So I’m guessing there will be nothing productive yet again.

One more week until school starts.

Woke up at six and for once had gotten enough sleep. Well, almost. The Fitbit says I ran two minutes short.

I did meditate for five minutes, write morning pages and then lost some time online. I thought I would make up for it by writing on the train. (Spoiler: I didn’t.)

I had breakfast and tried to get the sock-in-progress to a point where I could take it with me on the train but failed. I am at that awkward stage where you turn the heel and I’m losing stitches right and left and have to be super-careful not to end up with the dpns falling halfway out all the time so I just packed the spindle. Which I carried all the way there and back without taking it out.

I was almost early enough to be completely ready before my husband showed up so that we could talk a few minutes before I had to leave.

I had decided to wear my trusty denim skirt with a t-shirt, leggings and bright red hand-knitted socks that were corresponding to my red backpack and bright red rain jacket. Also a hand-knitted cotton cardigan. That skirt always looks a little ridiculous but it is great for traveling because it is sturdy, it is a wrap-skirt so the width is adjustable and it has these huge pockets.

I walked to the train station and went to Munich. Then changed trains. The train to Nuremberg was pretty empty. I did not write on the train. I told myself that I couldn’t because there were no tables or trays on the train but really, I just don’t like writing on trains and should just accept this.

Instead I read. I almost finished „The 15 Secrets Successful People know about Time Management“. I have to say that the second half is not as good as the first one and, as I said before, I didn’t really learn anything new. But then I have been reading these kind of books for decades. I did finish „Furtive Dawn“ by Helen Harper and have to say that I liked it better than the second in the series, it was a very satisfying end to the trilogy. And then I started „Saphir Flames“ by Ilona Andrews. I am a third through by now and this is really, really good. I might have to dissect this one to see how it’s done. These two are just so good. (Ilona Andrews is a husband and wife team writing.) I mean, Helen Harper is good and what I’ve read from her has a cozier feel to it which means the pace is not as fast but still. I pick up anything from Ilona Andrews and it pulls me right through the book. I’d love to learn how to do that eventually.

Speaking of pacing I did watch another lesson in the pacing workshop. Next up is the first assignment which I still have to do. When the workshop was recorded they did it in weekly installments with homework assignments. I bought it when it wasn’t live anymore, so I can’t send my homework in but I can still do it. And I’m determined to do it because I bet I’ll be getting more out of it that way.

When we pulled up to Nuremberg it was raining so I put my rain jacket on. And then it stopped again so I put it back into my backpack. Over the course of the day I was shedding one layer after the other until I was in just t-shirt, skirt and shoes. Everything else went into the backpack.

Since I often have trouble deciding where to eat when I’m on my own and don’t know the place I’m at I actually looked on the map beforehand and decided to have a burger at the hipster burger chain that the boy likes:

And the food didn’t disappoint:

Since I had the lunch menu and there was a warm beverage with it I did drink my one cup of espresso for the year:

I liked it.

Then I walked around a bit to look at the city and then I headed to the Germanic National museum. I only managed to see a small part of the exhibits. I saw the musical instruments, some everyday items from medieval times and all the clothes, of course. I took oodles of pictures but won’t put them all in this post, sorry.

This was interesting, fabric printed so that it could be made into a waistcoat easily:

And I guess this is what one of these would have looked like:

Though I can’t quite figure out how they pieced it together, there must have been a seam on one of the fronts.

I also looked at some of Franz Marc’s sketchbooks and then I had to stop looking at things because it was almost time to get back home again.

I bought some junk food for dinner, boarded the train again and went home. I read all the way and while changing trains I listened to podcasts. Oh, and I have now found out that Google maps doesn’t give me audio clues anymore while I’m wandering around. It’s the Bluetooth earphones. When I was in Hamburg I had found that the audio cues only worked with the earphones plugged in, not with Bluetooth. Well, so I just used the other pair of headphones. But. My new phone does not have a headphone jack. Oops. That made things more inconvenient. Not impossible, though. And I was still in a major tourist area where you have all the signposts.

When I came home my husband was busy practicing drums in the basement. I sent the boy a message and shortly afterwards we were all reunited. My feet hurt.

I took a shower, spent some time only, started writing this post and went to bed.

Today there will be the cleaning of the house, some writing (I hope), lunch at one of the Greek restaurants in town (the boy has lunch with my mother-in-law again), the publishing of the podcast and lots of slumping, I’m sure. Because while day trips are fun they are also exhausting. But totally worth it.

Since I had gone to bed way late I was rather tired when the alarm went off. I had contemplated not setting one but had hoped to magically get enough sleep between eleven and six. Ahem. Bow to the power of my logic. (I need eight hours of sleep minimum, by the way.)

So I basically gave up right there when I woke up, The day would have been packed if I had followed my initial plan. I had even put everything important into my calendar, you know, time-blocking everything. Well, apart from the supermarket run because when I did put everything into the schedule I hadn’t planned for my upcoming day trip.

So I continued reading „Help me!“ by Marianne Power about her year of trying self-help (spoiler: it didn’t make her a completely different and perfect person just by snapping her fingers), crocheted two more stripes on the crochet blanket (I hight be a little obsessed.), walked to the grocery store in my new and shiny running shoes (They fit! And don’t hurt my feet! A miracle!), went running but gave up after 2.5 kilometers:

Unfortunately I still had to walk home after that. But there wasn’t much more running.

I think I’ll repeat this week of the Couch to 10k-program next week.

Then I helped to make lunch, took a quick shower and ate lunch:

Did the dishes, had a short break, taught a student while her baby was watching us, procrastinated for half an hour, got the podcast ready for uploading, taught another student, started writing this post, answered some email (but not all), prepared for today’s trip by downloading the map for Nuremberg and buying a train ticket and then watched some Star Trek with the boy.

In between students I had taken yet another look at the 3-day-novel contest. I read everything on the website yet again and briefly thought about participating. It takes place next weekend from Saturday through Monday and you attempt to write an actual novel start to finish in that time.

A short novel has about 50,000 words, maybe 40,000 (though that is very short these days) and so you would have to write between 13,000 and 16,000 words a day. Which would mean to sit down and actually write for something between ten and sixteen hours per day.

Yeah, I don’t think so.

Maybe I am better off just developing that daily writing habit I’ve been reading so much about.

Of course, today I will be writing all the words on the train. Because I always write so much on trains. (Um, no, I never do. Trains are not calm and quiet.) Well, maybe this will be the one time…

I’m also taking a spindle, I think, and something to read. I’ll be spending six to seven hours on trains, depending on which connection I’ll take, and maybe four hours or so in Nuremberg. But I’m really looking forward to it.

I’ll be taking all the things. The only other things I’d need if I were going away for a weekend would be toiletries and pajamas.

Sigh.

But. An adventure!

I didn’t get enough sleep because I’m dumb and went to bed too late. In my infinite wisdom I decided that reading a new memoir was more important than feeling good and being productive the next day. Another bad move if I say so myself.

I did turn the lights on only ten minutes after the alarm. And I followed my new and improved morning checklist right up to „write or 25 minutes“. I did check email and read a fascinating post about learning to do a handstand before breakfast, scrolled through Instagram and things I can’t remember right now and that meant that I didn’t have time to write in the morning. Which meant I didn’t have time to write. Period.

I can totally see myself slaying the novel in the next two weeks. Even if instead of writing 2,000 words a day I’m doing more like 800. But I’ll definitely make up for it today. Right?

I worked on the crochet blanket, listened to the riveting tales of choosing the right Gibson Les Paul. (In an unsuspected twist my husband found more Les Pauls on another website which also lists their weight! After much thinking he decides that weight is really the most important parameter of all! Now he only has to choose the best-looking among the lightweights.)

Then it turned out that my husband did not want to go swimming and biking on his own so we kept moving things around and looking at the weather forecast again and thinking until it was time to leave the house. No dishes. We did meet the boy before leaving, though.

We rode our bikes to a health food store that we don’t visit often because it’s a bit far, bought some groceries, chocolate and lip balm, as one does, packed the frozen meet in an insulated bag with some freezer packs and cycled to another town nearby for lunch. We left the boy to fend for himself, only leaving money for frozen pizza. Our lunch was much better, by the way:

That beergarden is rather pretty. Behold:

I tried to take a picture that showed non of the people around me. Tricky. And there is a creek right next to it, the Würm:

We rode our bikes back and there was even time enough left before my first student to put all the groceries away. The frozen meat was still frozen, phew.

I taught my student, worked on the podcast (at one point I thought I had deleted the main part of the podcast without a chance to recover it, that was exciting!), taught two more students, watched an episode of Star Trek with the boy and went to bed too late.

Today there will be running in my new running shoes (we met the postman as we were heading out and told him to leave the package in the yard which he did, he is great), I will be going to the supermarket, teach two students, finish the podcast and prepare my day trip to Nuremberg. Lots to do. Fun!

Woke up before the alarm and was spending time on my phone on social media right away. Not good. I did meditate and write for 25 minutes but that was it.

I went running and it was mostly fun, also hard:

I am now doing intervals of four minutes of running and two minutes of walking. I might not have run for all of those running intervals. Maybe I will need to repeat this week, we’ll see.

On my way back my left foot felt like there was a stone lodged under the ball of my foot. That was somewhat painful. When I came home I found that the new pair of running socks that I had worn for the first time already had a hole.

I examined my shoe. No stone. I examined it again and felt something. Turned out that the shoe was disintegrating, a bit of the material had bunched up and I had almost run a hole through the sole. Huh.

I thought that I had bought those shoes just a year ago but in fact it was two years. I went online and found another pair for two-thirds of the price. Vibram Five Fingers are pricey so while the new model seems to be a bit more water-resistant I can run with wet feet for a bit longer if it saves me 45 Euros. I have ordered one size up so that getting them on and off might be a little easier.

I took a shower while my husband was mowing the lawn and helped with making lunch. We were late again but only by 15 minutes this time:

I did the dishes right away, took a break for reading (almost bought yet another book but consulted the book budget beforehand) and then took the old Kindle keyboard apart to change the battery. I had pulled that one out so my husband could read a particular book and when I tried charging it I found it dead.

But. I had ordered a new battery years ago. Taking it apart was rather easy:

Put the new battery in, plopped the cover back on and voilà:

I am rather attached to this Kindle, I bought it as soon as I could, when you still had to order from the US and have it shipped. I’m not quite sure but it might be ten years old at this point. I can’t seem to find out when I bought it.

Then I recorded the podcast with only a few technical problems, had a long conversation with my husband regarding his choice of Les Paul (he is still spending a lot of time looking at different models, thinking about pros and cons for all of them).

The boy and I watched some Star Trek, I failed to write more words (which makes me rather behind already), bought the new book after all (I just moved 3 Euros from ‚groceries‘ to ‚spending‘, no biggie) and stayed up too late reading. This bodes well for today, don’t you think?

Today there will be some grocery shopping and some teaching. No idea what else.