Archives for May 2020

That’s what my husband said to me at the end of yesterday, „That has been a long day, hasn’t it?”

Yep. Which is why I didn’t prepare this post the night before and am blogging later than usual as well.

So that long day included grocery shopping, lasagna making, recording the podcast, teaching and a virtual knitting meeting with a friend. And then quite a bit of reading while eating a whole bag of potato chips and going to bed too late. I did take a picture of the lasagna, though:

And another one:

Today will be another long day, hopefully not quite as long as yesterday. I’m planning to do all the cleaning, all the teaching, get the podcast ready and watch Star Trek tonight. This might be possible if I would start right now and only stop for food on the way but that is extremely unlikely. So, I guess the podcast will be out tomorrow or the day after…

Woke up early, did not manage yoga or anything helpful the whole morning and was rather grumpy because of it. I did start a new cowl for my husband after breakfast and found that alpaca and I definitely don’t mix. I already knew that I can’t wear it but when knitting with the really nice and soft yarn made me sneeze and feel itchy all over I knew that project would never see the light of day. So. I have three balls of light gray, very nice and soft alpaca yarn that is useless to me. I hope I’ll find someone who wants it.

Then I went to the pharmacy with another prescription from my gynecologist. Maybe fourth time is the charm. Then I went on my run/walk. Because I felt so grumpy and down and unmotivated and cranky I decided to not run most of the way. Well, 7 k of walking is still exercise. The weather was nice and there weren’t all that many people out:

It wasn’t as warm as it looks, in fact my husband built a fire that morning and cooked lunch on the wood stove. Still. Pretty. Sunshine:

I came back home, took a shower and tried washing my hair with all new product following the ‚curly girl method‘ as best as I could. I should have taken a picture, sorry, but there wasn’t much time. I can attest that my hair is more curly indeed. The new shampoo smells fruity and flowery but it’s tolerable and way less overwhelming than what the boy uses. He basically smells like a tropical fruit basket for a while after washing his hair. I tried his shampoo once and had a deep urge to get away from my own hair’s smell for two days after. (There is a reason I always washed my hair when coming back from the hairdresser.) His product is for curly and thick hair. Mine might be wavy but thick it isn’t.

Lunch was lovely:

My husband is struggling with the fact that now that he has started to throw himself into video lessons there might be a chance of us getting back to teaching in-person soon-ish. None of us is happy that apparently the boy will start school again next Monday. Mostly because of my mother-in-law but my husband and I are also a little at risk.

I don’t think music lessons will start again that soon, definitely not before Pentecost break. Today we tested doing online drum lessons in-house because the part of the basement where the drums live is really small. It would be possible to let a student in, have them go downstairs to the drum set (many of my husband’s drumming students don’t own one) and then teach them from upstairs all while keeping the proper distance. I’ve also thought about how to keep that 1.5 meters while teaching piano. I guess I would have to set up a separate keyboard so that the student and I can sit far enough apart and that we never touch the same keys.

Online lessons are much safer, though. And they do work remarkably well. By now we all have gotten used to them and most students have found a setup that works as well.

Of course, when I start teaching yesterday afternoon there were many troubles. The Skype call with the first student broke up after fifteen minutes. We tried reconnecting for ten minutes, then I called him on the phone. We got the connection back for a few minutes and that was that. And with the next student we both tried but never could get the call to work. We rescheduled completely.

So I prepared the next podcast episode.

Then taught two more students without any problems whatsoever, sent some emails to students and such, was reminded of Miriam Makeba’s song „Pata Pata“ by someone on Ravelry which led me to yet another research rabbit hole from which I emerged with a freshly bought Dizzy Gillespie album. The poor boy had to listen to „Pata Pata“ in its entirety and then to selected Gillespie songs complete with an explanation how jazz improvisation works which I swiftly explained by playing „The Nearness of You“ with Ella Fitzgerald and Louis Armstrong.

The whole Gillespie album reminded me of the nineties when I lived in Munich, played the album „Con Alma“ on repeat on my Walkman and practiced improvising by singing along to all the solos on that album. Unfortunately, that album is nowhere to be found. But the thing I bought seems to have most of the important recordings from that album so I’m fine. The boy was pretty game to dive head first into Afro-Cuban BeBop but that’s definitely not his music.

Oh, and the books. I might have gotten four new books yesterday. All of them free. But I’m definitely reading less than I want to. I have gotten eleven new books already this month, most of them free or in Kindle Unlimited but so far I only finished one. That’s partly due to the fact that I’m reading all the material for the class I’m taking and watching a ton of video to absorb all the information. Well.

I am enjoying „Defy or Defend“, the newest Gail Carriger, though.

So. Today there will be a supermarket run, the recording of the podcast (I hope), a little teaching and then a virtual knitting meeting in the evening.

Well, you all knew how this would start: going to bed way too late makes for a grumpy and unproductive next day. Duh.

Mostly I felt meh because I didn’t have a knitting project I was excited about so I didn’t do anything else either. I did spin a little during my husband’s breakfast. I went for a run and after about twenty minutes in decided that I didn’t want to so I walked the rest of the way. Still, I went out and I moved:

Not all that many other people out. You can see that that lovely patch of nature where I walk and run is actually encroached upon by nearby Munich. There is construction to all sides. Where there were only fields when I moved here 25 years ago there are now furniture stores, high rises and a completely new settlement that is supposed to house 30,000 people in the near future.

Back home I didn’t have to help with cooking again. Seems my husband is getting a grip on making lunch. He put leftover lamb in for us carnivores and leftover lentil burgers for the boy:

I didn’t have much time before the first lesson of the day and went on to teach the whole afternoon. But I did have time to look through my yarn stash, pull out yarn for three new projects, download two new patterns and make plans to cast on a cowl from alpaca I inherited, a shawl from handspun merino and a flow cardigan from handspun that used to be a pi shawl. There I was all desperate because I thought I didn’t have any yarn. I had already started thinking about dyeing some of the sock yarn I have pretty colors for a cardigan. I even had an idea of what I wanted it to look like. I couldn’t find a pattern that fit my idea so I was just about to start imagining the colors, the shape and the whole pattern design when I came to my senses. What I needed was a shiny, new knitting project right then. Not a major project that would mean dyeing samples for days, knitting endless swatches and think of nothing but sweater design and math for the next two weeks or so.

Then I wrote emails and such, had dinner (more leftovers), started writing this post, waited until the boy was done taking a shower, did all the dishes and regretted not getting anything worthwhile done for the day.

So today there will be a quick trip to the health food store, lots of teaching, probably some actual work, a phone call to my gynecologist because – surprise – whatever ails me is still not better, possibly some yoga and maybe I’ll try the Star Wars workout. Sounds fun, at least.

Woke up pretty early again and started reading right away. Finished „The Switch“ and can heartily recommend it. Then I decided that I needed to buy a book I had looked at months ago because of a free short story I read. (Story is no longer free, sorry.) So I researched the book, bought it and the second one in the series (or rather the first), read four pages and decided to switch to „Defy or Defend“ that just came out. As one does.

Then I wanted to properly start the day with yoga. I thought it would be a good idea to use the TV for Youtube but then I couldn’t get the TV to connect to wifi, something that had been a problem before. So I – had breakfast.

Husband and son showed up, there was conversation and actual laughter. Also dishes. I still don’t have a knitting project which is completely unacceptable. I did some spinning.

Then I ordered Greek takeout for lunch and walked all the way to the restaurant to get it. The weather was sunny but windy and cold. Lunch was very tasty:

Just a bit too much.

Then a short break, some email, a conversation with my sister on twitter and then, instead of finally preparing the next podcast episode I started troubleshooting the TV’s network problem. It does seem to have worked. In the end I decided to postpone the podcast (again).

I did manage to finish sewing the masks I started the weekend before. I did find out why I had a leftover piece of elastic, even, when I finished sewing the inner and outer parts together and turned the masks inside out one of them only had elastic for one ear. But with a little help from my trusty seam ripper I managed to make that all better.

Then the boy and I watched Voyager and Enterprise. The second half of the Enterprise pilot still had great test design and some interesting concepts but the boy and I are not in love with the characters at this point. The first episode of season 7 of Voyager on the other side was excellent. We could have done without the romance element but then that’s often the case.

After that I spent some time updating my bullet journal and starting this post before going to bed too late.

Today there will be running, some admin, teaching and some small, niggly things. Hopefully a new knitting project though I don’t think I have any yarn to use. I’ll have to go and look later.

Woke up early again. I’m still practicing that sleeping thing. Scrolled through internet stuff for an hour, then did Day 3 of yoga. I’m really liking this.

Breakfast was had and I spent quite some time reading Beth O’Leary’s „The Swap“. There was a slow bit there after the beginning but two thirds in I’m back to loving it.

It was supposed to rain but then the sun shone and therefore we tried getting out the door for running early. The woods were packed even though you can’t see it in the pictures:

Running went pretty well. I’m slowly (very slowly) getting there.

I did finish a pair of socks in the morning and am finding myself without a proper knitting project. And without yarn that I can just cast on. Unless I want to knit a pair of beige socks. I still have ten skeins of sock yarn that need  dyeing. Look, socks:

My husband and I prepared the chicken we got with out eggs this week. We get our eggs delivered  from a nearby farm every Tuesday:

The dumplings were made from store-bought dough. One of these days I’ll learn how to make potato dumplings.

After lunch I spent most of the afternoon sitting around and reading. At one point I got up from the kitchen bench and took care of this mess:

This is what happens when you leave the breakfast dishes for later and then prepare all the food. Just when I thought about getting the sewing machine out it was already time for dinner.

We watched an excellent Voyager episode (season 6 finale) and the very first episode of Enterprise. Let’s just say that there is a reason I never re-watched that one. Some aspects are great, like the ship design and the uniforms, others not so much. Captain Archer is just so – American. And very Kirk-like, only thirty years later.

So that was my Saturday. Apart from running I didn’t really get much done, haven’t really started on my big, scary homework-thing that is theoretically due on Monday. Which means I will have to do everything today. Like, preparing and recording a podcast episode, scary homework thing, mask-sewing, cleaning, laundry, yoga, the usual daily chores and helping the boy get part of a paper ready. Right. That will so totally happen.