Archives for May 2020

I woke up early but then dozed for another forty minutes. Did manage yoga, meditation and half my morning pages, so that was good. And I got breakfast ready in time for the boy. After weeks of getting up after nine he had to roll out of bed at seven again.

He got out the door on time, mask at the ready. Then I worked on the novel for thirty minutes, my husband showed up and had breakfast while I was knitting a sock. I have to say that mornings with the boy at school are much smoother. There were dishes and such and then I went running/walking. I’m back to running for two minutes and walking for three because I just can’t make myself do uncomfortable things at the moment. At least I was out there and it was wonderful:

There were quite a few people around but it wasn’t crowded.

I went back home, took a shower, helped very little with lunch-making and there was stir-fry:

My husband even grew sprouts for this one meal. Very yummy.

Then Is started researching pre-made book covers for Academy Urban Fantasy, as one does, until I didn’t have any time left for doing the dishes or hanging up the load of laundry. I did switch loads and texted the boy to please hang the laundry up but it turned out that he was playing an online game with friends and couldn’t get away either.

Then I taught students for the rest of the afternoon, found a warm meal waiting for me when I came back to the kitchen and a husband who had tried to do all the things and failed. I hung up the rest of the laundry, had my meal, did all the dishes, decided to have a beer after all, wound the first skein of lace yarn for the cardigan I want to knit, started writing this post, wrote in my journal, read a little and went to bed.

Today there will be all the grocery shopping. Because Thursday is a public holiday I can’t go to the supermarket then which means I will go to at least three stores today. Then there will be some teaching and in the evening I’m looking forward to virtual knit night.

I woke up around 5.30 again but instead of getting up right away I somehow stayed in bed for forty minutes or so. Still, there was yoga, a little meditation and morning pages. Only one session of fiction writing but that’s better than nothing.

Breakfast, talking with husband, talking with son, dishes. My husband picked all the spinach and we spent an hour getting it ready and made pancakes with spinach for lunch:

Dishes again, a short break and then more spinach. We spend another hour or so cleaning it and got everything ready to freeze. Phew.

And there went the time I had planned to spend on recording the podcast. Good thing there’s a public holiday on Thursday.

Then I started making three more masks. The day before I had determined which size mask fits the boy and so I needed to make three more for a total of five so he can wear a different one every day when he gets back to school. I even found some more elastic. Which is very good because I thought I had run out of the kind that’s narrow enough.

It took me two hours to make three masks. I guess I’m getting faster but it still feels rather slow.

I was finished just in time for dinner. The boy and I ate in front of TV and watched some more Enterprise and Voyager. I did like both episode but the boy found the Enterprise one very boring. I had planned to spin but it was so cold in the living room that I ended up wrapping up in a blanket and knitting.

I started writing this post, planned the week, wrote in my journal and went to bed.

Today the boy is going back to school. They established a rotation so that half the students stay home every week which is why he didn’t have to go last week. There are rules about wearing masks and keeping the distance and opening the windows and such. There will be no PE, no singing and apparently no English conversation class.

I’m hoping to write a little, maybe start reading the first Eva Mandel novel for revision, go running and certainly teach all the students. Bonus points for laundry and getting all the elastic into all the masks.

I was way too tired last night to start writing this post and right now I am a little pressed for time, so here are some pictures:

Lots of walking.

Very yummy bifteki, baked potatoes, green beans and tsatsiki:

Quite a bit of procrastination, two masks sewn and I got myself someone to listen to my ideas and help me think things through:

Today I’ll try to get everything done that I didn’t the day before. I’ll report back.

Phew. Pretty full day. In a good way.

I woke up around 5.44 and actually got out of bed ten minutes later. Got dressed, did yoga and then meditated for five minutes. I tried using the guided meditation offered by the very sweet woman who does the yoga videos I’m using but found that the affirmations she is using are rubbing me the wrong way. I think I am a pretty positive person in general but every time somebody says something like, „I am safe and sound and nothing can harm me,“ or that very American thing, „Everything will be okay,“ my first impulse is to get up and counter with, „No, you don’t know that, don’t lie to me!“ And sorry to break it to you but as far as I know we’ll all die eventually. Now, I am rather convinced that death is not the worst thing that can happen to me but still.

My whole point is: please don’t promise things you can’t control. Thanks.

No idea why I got a little morbid there. Sorry. Anyways, I’ll just go back to just my regular meditation.

Then I wrote morning pages. Achievement unlocked! I made breakfast early enough that I could actually look at the novel-in-progress even. Hurray! I had been waffling between finishing it now or later but in the end decided that I need closure most of all. Having something lie around almost finished was continuing to bug me. Of course, the plan was to spend some time on one of the other novels as well but that didn’t work out.

My husband showed up and built a fire (it’s still really cold here) and during his breakfast talked to me about, um, lots of things that I frankly don’t remember. Oops. The boy was late again. I think that is a sign of him dreading his return to school next week. The husband went running and I did dishes and started cleaning a little late. We had to google something while washing up, as you do. We did look up hormones and chemistry that day and Africaans, Dutch and Frisian. You know, the usual. Oh, and at some point during the day the boy and I had a disagreement about the color of one of the peonies in the garden. There are three visible from the master bedroom. Two are clearly red but one is a reddish purple and we couldn’t agree if it is violet (the boy’s chose and clearly wrong) or a reddish purple. Maybe boysenberry? It is interesting how often the rest of the family disagrees with me on colors.

I did eventually clean some things but didn’t get to the bathrooms before it was time to make lunch. While my husband was cooking I folded about two loads of laundry and then had to stop in order to help making salad and deal with all the fresh herbs. Lunch was very good but unfortunately had an hour late:

So I did not do the dishes before my first lesson of the day because there was no time.

Taught non-stop until 4 and then the student couldn’t be reached. Later, it turned out that they had put the wrong time in their schedule. Nothing to be done, unfortunately, especially since this was a reschedule for another lesson they had missed. I’m hoping to see them again next week. I had a short break that I used to wind yarn into balls and find a pattern for a lace cardigan I want to make.

Then another student and dealing with all the admin from the day’s lessons. My husband and I have found that the best way to deal with it is to just accept that we need to tack on another thirty to sixty minutes after finishing teaching because otherwise we end up forgetting what we promised or sending things way late.

Then I cleared the living room surfaces of piles of laundry and we got read for the ritual watching of Star Trek. Both episode were rather good and I did some spinning.

Then the huge pile of dirty dishes awaited me and the boy helped, there was even more talking and then I started writing this post, wrote in my bullet journal and went to bed.

Today there will be some running, the cleaning of the washbasins and toilets, the preparing of another podcast episode, some sewing (I hope) and I also seem to have promised my husband to help him sort through all the spinach and maybe repair the greenhouse because the new panels for that arrived yesterday. We’ll see how much of that I will get done.

I woke up early and managed to meditate, write morning pages and do ten minutes of yoga. Breakfast was only a little late at around 7.30. My husband showed up early to build a fire and make coffee on the wood stove. The boy was a little late but not as late as the day before.

I was pretty anxious because of m gynecologist appointment with a new-to-me doctor and because we hadn’t heard fro my mother-in-law since she went to the hospital the night before.

I went to my doctor’s appointment and all went well, the train was almost empty, I wore my mask, everything was fine. The doctor’s appointment went spectacularly well. He is a former student of my husband and we started with chatting about learning guitar, reading music and the fact that his daughter might be looking for a singing teacher. Then I recounted the whole ‚possible yeast infection‘-saga for him. He did actually listen, he explained his reasoning in detail and explained just about everything. I like learning things and getting details so that was good.

As I had thought I don’t have a yeast infection after all. After four different kinds of anti-fungal treatments that seemed rather improbable. Also, it turns out that women my age and older don’t get those anymore. Instead my problems are probably due to a lack of estrogen, again something that is pretty common, and so that’s what we’ll be treating. It might take some time to show results but that’s okay with me, at least I don’t have an infection festering away.

So, looks as if I have a new gynecologist. Phew. I’m really relieved and feel like I’m in good hands.

Then I took the train back home, went to a supermarket that was on the way and to the pharmacy. When I came back home somewhat late for lunch the others were just getting ready to sit down. Yummy lunch:

Stuffed bell peppers with bulgur and tomato sauce. Not pictured is extra feta and extra parmesan.

Then dishes. While I was away my mother-in-law had called and left a message. She was feeling okay and getting electrolytes and more tests. Her Covid-19 test was negative. While the boy was helping me with dishes he got a message that he should go to the school to fetch equipment for the experiments he needs to do for his big paper that will be due in the fall. He didn’t really want to leave the house which I totally get but I told him to go anyway. Next Thursday will be a public holiday which means it would be today or two weeks later and who knows what will happen then?

He came back after only thirty minutes or so with a big bag full of instruments and inductor coils. (I’m not quite sure what it says about me that I didn’t have to look up how to say ‚inductor coil‘ in English.) He was happy to have met one of his best friends. They are in different groups at school and haven’t met for weeks. Won’t really meet in person either and were keeping the appropriate distance anyway. Still.

Then I helped my husband with some technical stuff and started teaching. All hail the video chat.

Then dinner, more talk with the boy and with my husband and another phone call from my mother-in-law, she expects to be back home today in the afternoon. I started writing this post and went to bed.

Today there will be the cleaning of the house, loads of teaching, the folding of all the laundry, maybe the changing of sheets, the watching of Star Trek and the spinning of the yarn. I also might have ordered a rubber duck because I need to implement a rubberduck debugging protocol in my life. I hope it will help with clarity.