Archives for April 2020

Don’t worry, I didn’t go out and meet people.

I woke up early (not enough sleep yet again because the boy and I talked until midnight, yawn) and lounged about. I am fully occupied with taking the material of the „Strengths for Writers“-course in and have to admit there isn’t much space in my head for anything else.

I started the day by blogging and didn’t even touch my bullet journal. So no list for the day. I did spend some time trying to fix the issue with my pictures not syncing between my phone and computer.

Long conversation with my husband, then running /walking. Look how green everything looks with the rain:

I was rather lazy and couldn’t make myself run a lot so it was basically a long walk.

Because of the weather there weren’t many people around. It was pretty chilly and I really should have worn gloves or fingerless mittens. When I came back home my fingers were so stiff that I couldn’t unlock the door. Fortunately, my husband heard me.

My husband has started doing all the cooking without help which is both nice and a little strange. In return he isn’t helping with dishes anymore. We had the leftover chicken from Monday with assorted other bits:

Then dishes, a short break and some talking about work with my husband. Then I started teaching. I had a short break that I used to test the setup for the virtual knitting meeting that night. We were using a new-to-me system that required installing a different browser and/or an app. I had to decide if I wanted to use the iPad or the laptop and since the hosts had asked us to use headsets I actually tested different ones by recording myself on my laptop while speaking into them. (Yes, I am a bit of an over planner. Also a geek. Sorry. Excessive prep is my security blanket.)

Interestingly, the gaming headset I borrowed from the boy was not the best solution, my old iPhone earbuds were the clear winner with my new bluetooth ones being almost as good. In the end (for all of you who aren’t bored with details yet) I decided on a combination of laptop and phone earphones because using cables to connect things is usually faster and makes less trouble. I might test the bluetooth earbuds for recording the podcast, though, because being free to move might be worth it.

Then there was more teaching. My singing student and I decided to move his lesson to a different time slot because at 6 pm the internet starts to slow down. I’m guessing that people are starting to stream Netflix at that time.

After my last lesson I grabbed a quick sandwich and my knitting and spinning project and went right back into my studio for the meeting.

It was wonderful. There were about a dozen of us, all people I had met through Ravelry before. Most of which I had never met in real life. Since I was a little late I missed the first few introductions but still. I had so much fun that I stayed in the meeting until 10 pm. I had a beer, I had a lot of fun and I even managed to turn the heel of my sock-in-progress with only having to knit back five rows or so. (New record for this pattern. I’ve knitted it five times already and I always screw up the heel turn.)

Online afterwards did I realize that I shouldn’t have mixed alcohol with my anti-fungal meds. Oops.

Meeting all these people and knitting was really wonderful but I have to say that communicating via video chat is even more exhausting than in person. It’s harder to see whose turn it is to speak next and where you can sort out people talking over each other in real life the video chatting software usually boosts one speaker and turns down all others. Which might mean that someone getting up from their chair is the loudest thing in the room and prevents everyone from hearing what someone else is saying.

Still. I continue to marvel at the wonders of technology. We should definitely do this more often. I’ve been thinking about adding video meets to my Patreon for the podcast for years now, no idea if anybody would be interested.

I stayed up for another hour (or two, things became blurry at that point), decided to move all blogging and journaling to the morning (which is why this is later than usual) and turned the lights off. Long day, pretty exhausting but nice.

Today there will be the grocery shopping, the teaching, maybe the strength training (I’m still not doing that as much as I’d like to). It would also be a good idea to get started on my challenging homework because I promised to have that done by Monday but frankly, I’m not sure when I should be doing it. And I want to sit down and make a plan for May but I’ll do that tomorrow, I think.

It does feel a little unreal but my husband and I have been married for 25 years now. Since we both had to work we made it a mostly normal day with just a few special touches. The boy surprised us with a drawing:

So there was the usual morning things, though I did get a little misty-eyed thinking back to when I first met my husband, and I went to the health food store. Which was interestingly empty of people.

In celebration we had Asian takeout for lunch:

All very fancy…

Then it was time to teach all the students. And read some more stuff for the „Strengths for Writers“-course. And then, finally, my husband was finished teaching and we opened a bottle of champagne.

We watched the news, the boy joined us and we managed to have a family fight about something we all agree on. Just because of a clash of communication styles.

So there was more talking and I went to bed too late.

Today it is finally raining. There will be some running and walking. And lots of teaching. And in the evening a virtual knitting meeting that I’ve been really looking forward to. We’ll see how coherent I’ll be by dinnertime.

Woke up early, lounged in bed but got up at a decent time because the boy had a video thing for school at 8.30 and needed his breakfast on time. It was almost like regular school. I finished the shawl I have been knitting:

Husband and I talked, there were dishes, I went to the pharmacy and got my new medication (fun!) and found out that it’s not to be taken at the same time as the anti-allergy medication I’m taking. So I guess I’ll skip the allergy pills for a week or so. Sniff.

Then I went running/walking:

Not as sunny as before and not as many people. Funny that.

I did save some of my energy and didn’t run as much. I was okay with that, though, because I knew I would need the energy later.

I didn’t even get to help with making lunch:

 

Unfortunately, the chicken was not done so I only have a bite or two from the outside. My husband cooked it some more but by the time it was finally good to eat I had already finished all the rice and beans. It will keep.

Then more dishes and I put on makeup and everything because I had that coaching call I have been blabbering about all week.

And it was fun! Very nice coach, great conversation, and I got a challenge for homework. You all know how much I love a challenge but this one will be a tough one. I do think that talk was rather helpful. Now I only need to take action. And we all know how easy that is for me.

So.

Today my husband and I celebrate our 25th wedding anniversary. A quarter of a century. Lots of love. Lots of fights. Phew.

Since we’ll both be teaching quite a bit we won’t be doing much today but there will be takeout for lunch and probably some champagne tonight.

Well, I did get more done than I thought I would but the list remained.

I woke up early but had slept enough for once. Didn’t even attempt to do anything resembling productivity before breakfast. My husband got up rather late and was obviously cranky and majorly overwhelmed. That was fun. The boy was almost punctual even though our daily meetings have gone out the window.

My plan was to go running early and skip the dishes but then there were so few of them that I just dealt. Before running I looked into the mailbox, saw that the prescription I had been expecting was already there and went to the pharmacy, mask and all. Of course, they didn’t have it there but had to order it. I’ll get the new meds on Monday. Wish me luck.

I went running. Well, mostly. I had decided to repeat week 7 of the Couch to 10K-program, so I did 4 minutes of running and 2 minutes of walking with 5 minutes each of warm-up and cool down for a total of 68 minutes. That resulted in a great total of 8.4 k. I’m still super-slow but getting faster. I was lucky, there weren’t that many people out with me:

Already looking a little worse for wear at the halfway point:

The plan was for me to cook lunch because of husband’s overwhelm but in the end we did it together. First asparagus of the year:

Remind me to buy it already peeled next time. I never get it right.

The dishes, talking with the boy, some reading („Code of Honor“ by April White – so good!) and admin work for the teaching. Also, I finally wrote the newsletter. I had planned to do more admin and cut out face masks but then I met my husband who was enjoying the sun on the terrace and we started talking and there went the rest of the afternoon. But we finally had the conversation we both missed all week. And he had taken my advice of taking the afternoon off to deal with the overwhelm because no amount of hustling would have let him do everything he felt he had to.

Then I looked through my fabric scraps while the boy was cleaning the window in his bathroom and then I waited for him so we could watch some Voyager and such.

Today there will be yoga (the boy borrowed my yoga mat so he can do yoga in the morning), leftovers for lunch and all the sewing in the afternoon.