Archives for February 2024

I had gone to bed at midnight and the day reflected that. But I really wanted to watch something before going to bed and also the boy was out with friends and I tend to wait without really wanting to whenever one of my people is not at home.

I slept well but woke up at 6 wide awake. This time I did manage to doze off again but I’m completely over this, don’t need it, thanks.

I also woke up in a pretty bad mood and decided to skip the morning routine. You know, the one I follow because it makes me feel better. Yeah. On the bright side I am reading „The Watchmaker of Filigree Street“ and I really like it. On the not so bright side I also spent half an hour on Instagram first thing in the morning.

There was breakfast and all the while I was waffling between either dedicating the whole morning to exercise and proofreading or doing the supermarket run a day early. Meanwhile my husband skipped running so he could take half the right front hedge down with his new, spiffy battery-powered chainsaw. At one point this winter we had so much snow at once that the hedge almost keeled over. Or rather got spread out over twice the space. Which meant it was encroaching on the walkway between the front doo and the garage. Now it’s cut in half and looks rather sad and full of holes.

In the end I spent half an hour on the novel (phew) and then went to a nearby supermarket. When I came back home my husband was all in a tither because we didn’t have any frozen veggies anymore. Well, besides cauliflower. Now, getting everything on the grocery list is always a big hurdle. I try to write down everything that passes through my hands when I sort the recycling but sometimes I forget between the basement and the kitchen.

Anyways, I came home with the groceries and very painful feet and my husband threw a fit because I hadn’t checked both freezers for things we need. I thought he maybe could have written peas on the list when he emptied the bag while cooking. But, you see, he can’t do that because there might be another bag in the downstairs freezer. I don’t see any problem in having two bags of peas in the house as long as there is still freezer space.

By the way, we had leftovers for lunch. And my husband cooked himself some potatoes and veggies (eventually) to go with the leftover burgers:

Yeah, I didn’t get to eat potatoes, I had leftover polenta (fried) with leftover fennel in leftover tomato sauce with leftover ground beef and a lone burger. Every single thing on that plate has too much fat for my stomach but well. Since I had dumped the ground beef into the fennel the boy couldn’t eat it.

After this meal we ended up with leftover potatoes, leftover peas and carrots and another leftover burger. Why yes, my husband tends to cook too much food. Every time.

Fighting over lunch was not the best use of our time and afterwards I had just a measly thirty minutes left before teaching. I did read, eat chocolate and tape my feet. Somehow I was not the most patient teacher in the world. On the other hand my last student canceled and my next to last student rescheduled so at least I was off early.

I ate dinner, read a bit, watched some YouTube, talked with my husband (no more fighting), did the dishes, started writing this post, made a list for today, did Duolingo, watched C-drama and went to bed. The drama I’m watching is in its travel ad portion right now, it’s the slump in the middle with gorgeous landscape shots and a slightly irritating character narrating all the tourist attractions.

Today I will attempt the cleaning part of the week, then teach many students and go to bed early.

I turned the lights out at 11 (yeah, go me!) and even skipped C-drama watching for sleep and then – I woke up an hour before my alarm and couldn’t fall back asleep. I closed my eyes again and stayed in bed for another 40 minutes but no dice.

I wrote morning pages, did yoga but had to skip meditation again. There was breakfast and a wood fire and a shower and then dishes. There was also a note from my mother-in-law telling us that my husband’s aunt will meet us Saturday at noon for lunch. I mean, we might have had plans, but okay.

I’m actually looking forward to it, even the boy will show up. But as he said, this will be a day-destroying event.

I did feel better than expected with the lack of sleep at first but kept losing time all through the day. Whoops, another thirty minutes gone and I didn’t realize.

I went to the health food store and helped a little with making lunch. Husband told me to please not cut the fennel too small so I went a bit overboard in the other direction:

I did a load of wool things, mostly socks, promised to hang them up between lunch and teaching and promptly forgot. I did remember three hours later when I had a break between students. My last student canceled and I spent the whole time sitting there starting at screens. I also finished the excellent „Violets and Violence“ by M. Kato. I can’t wait for book 4 but it will take some time.

I also started „The Watchmaker of Filegree Street“ because there is a book club on the Discord server of the German NaNoWriMo forum but now I’m unsure about the rules. Do I start it now or should I wait? And if I start it now how many books will I read before I finally read „A Court of Thorns and Roses“? I’m really curious about that one because everybody is reading it and I did like the beginning but it wasn’t really pulling me in. Also, I am currently all about M/M romance. Purely for research reasons, of course. Though I don’t really need more research to tell that the 140,000 word slice-of-life instalove M/M romance I wrote that is completely without angst or breakup doesn’t really hit the tropes. On the other hand, I do happen to enjoy that kind of story. Where the protagonists sit around, talk over food and kiss. Sigh.

I still don’t have a grip on the couple for the second book in the series, though. And should probably not think about them either because I should be proofreading Urban Fantasy. Where people sit around talking over food. Interspersed with vague magical somethings.

Anyways. There were dishes and reading and silly iPad games and tea and an episode of „Love Me, Love My Voice“ where people sit around and talk about food after cooking, interspersed with people staring longingly at each other and making music. See, there are many reviews calling that series boring but I’m really loving it. (I also love that I can actually understand the title (did I already talk about this?) in Chinese. It’s “很想, 很想你” or „Really, really miss you“.)

Oh, and speaking of Chinese, one of my students has a ‚Cobra Kai‘-hoodie and was wearing it a week ago. (What is ‚Cobra Kai‘ you ask? Well, remember the ‚Karate Kid‘ movies? It’s a new series picking up decades later. About karate which will become important later.) That hoodie has Chinese characters on the sleeves and since I might be a little obsessed with Chinese I, of course, tried reading them and, also of course, failed. I just couldn’t figure them out. I looked at them for a bit, talked to him about it (no worries, my students all know that I’m a bit weird), googled a little and couldn’t figure it out. I thought they might spell something that means ‚kung fu‘ but they looked nothing like ”功夫“ which is how you spell ‚kung fu‘ in Chinese. Or rather ‚gong fu‘ but that is due to the system of transliterating Chinese changing in the 50s.

Apparently, my brain was still mulling the whole thing over six days later because that was when it suddenly went, „I know what the first character on this hoodie was!“ And it gave me „空“ and I was all „haha, someone just put some random characters on a sweater without knowing the meaning”. Because I thought it had spelled „空夫“ which would be ‚kong fu‘ but is not a word as far as I know.

Now, I got lucky, the student was wearing the same sweater again a week later and I had to realize that the second character was not „夫“ but „手“ which looks very different but I forgive myself because I had to read it sideways on a scrunched up sleeve in a sort of calligraphy script and then remember it for six days but also, it actually did say „空手“ and also while in Chinese this is ‚kong shou‘ in Japanese it is pronounced – ‚karate‘. And, that was the moment when I remembered that the movie and series was all about karate which is, um, Japanese. Not Chinese. And those characters mean ‚empty‘ and ‚hand‘. As in fighting with empty hands. Duh.

Also, Japanese is very weird.

And also, my brain still doesn’t have a grip on time as I’m writing this. As you know, when I’m tired or exhausted I can’t shut up.

I’d tell my overactive brain to go play with itself but that usually means it keeps forgetting and messing up things. So I guess I’ll see how much focus it gives me today.

I woke up from the alarm after sleeping well and enough. Yay!

I jumped out of bed right away because we were expecting someone to install our new windows. So I started with yoga and meditation but ran out of time for morning pages. Had breakfast, talked with my husband a bit, and crocheted a little. Oh, and I only got like half a breakfast because there was only a tablespoon of yogurt left:

The window guys did not show up at 8. Of course.

They were scheduled to change four of our windows, two bigger ones in the annex guest room (it is not a guest room anymore) that were installed 24 years ago and are rotting from the outside because wooden windows that don’t get painted and are facing the side of the house where all the weather attacks don’t last forever, and two in the basement that might have been original to the house.

When we asked for a quote for the windows the one window we really wanted to switch out was the big one in my studio. It looks even worse than the ones in the guest room. But the very nice man who helped us was adamant that you can’t put connect a plastic window to a wooden one. My studio has a skylight with a wood frame and he flat out refused to have anything to do with it because he was convinced it would leak.

Well, my husband looked at the window from the outside with his mother the day before and realized that there is actual some copper cover on the edge. So. He decided to just ask the window guy what he thought about putting some plastic windows in that spot.

Long story short (not really, you know me): we might have just ordered new windows for my studio. We’re so relieved! We already know the guy and his work, everything looks fine, they did what they said and were pretty quiet, left everything clean and communicated clearly. The only thing that bugged me was that one of the workers took cigarette breaks right outside the open door which meant the whole annex smelled of cigarette smoke for a bit.

Anyways. While there were windows being installed I walked to my doctor’s appointment. Oh, and my feet are miraculously better at the moment, no one knows why.

I did get my referral for a thyroid biopsy and we discussed my gastritis. Well, it’s not bacterial. I’d be happy if that didn’t mean, „You’re free to try any over the counter remedies you like, good luck!“ I will stop taking the omeprazole eventually, I’ve been told I need to slowly wean myself off. I also went to the pharmacy and got a recommendation for some magic papaya/oats stuff. It tastes awful, like sweet slush but does seem to make a difference. Which is good.

I’m also very proud that I did not buy any sweets when buying new yogurt. Since the boy and I made a pact to only buy sweets after talking to each other beforehand when there’s a special occasion I wasn’t allowed and had to let it all sit there on the shelves.

Lunch was early because my husband hadn’t been able to go running. My only contribution was cutting the potatoes into wedges. Have I told you how much I love my new knife? I really love my new knife:

I taught many, many students, ate dinner while reading, did all the dishes from the whole day, started writing this post, did Duolingo, listened to some classical music and K-pop, dreamed of the day I can dance again, decided against watching something because it was already too late, waited for the boy to finish taking a shower and went to bed.

Long day. Today will be almost as long but with less construction work in it.

Since I was out last night and am not feeling my best this morning you just get a short status update:

Last night was very enjoyable but right now I‘m hungover and my stomach hates me. The flammkuchen might have been okay but the 3 1/2 beers definitely were not. We came home around 10 and were greeted by the boy which was nice. Of course I stayed up until 1 am, didn‘t sleep well and am not feeling my best today.

Yesterday went well but I ran out of time for proofreading. I did finish cleaning, we did two loads of laundry, there was bodyweight training and a shower. Of course I had to go out with wet hair, as always. Husband joked that the ‚old hippie‘ look would be appropriate for the evening and it was.

It was a bit like stepping into a parallel world where people under 55 don‘t really exist. The rock band we saw covered mostly classic rock and the newest song we heard was from the 80s. We were lucky to get a seat at a table because we came half an hour before the start and someone canceled.

Here is a picture of my food:

The band was excellent and most of them played at least two instruments and sang and all of that very well. Husband and I agreed that we really enjoyed not having to be up on stage but also that all of these musicians are better than us. I mean, we knew that the background singer/percussionist/wife of the bass player is a violinist at the Bavarian Radio Symphonic Orchestra so when she whipped out the electric violin and played her lines hauntingly beautiful that was not a surprise. But later she also brought out her Flugelhorn and was good at that as well.

It makes me want to play more music again which would definitely be a good thing.

Today there will be proofreading, the phone call with my mother, planning out the week (it will be busy and slightly insane again), Chinese, silly iPad games but not too much of it and who knows what else. Oh, laundry. I need to wash the wool things. You wouldn‘t know how many dirty handknit socks I have looking at my sock drawer because it‘s still full…

I also would like to dig out my embroidery again but I‘m not sure where I hid it.

I started reading „Range“ by David Epstein this morning, can‘t imagine why.

We’ll see if I’ll fall into a Sunday slump or not.

That’s the best I can do most days.

I had gone to bed too late again. Yes, I know this is boring. Now imagine living it. I keep making the same mistake over and over. Boring.

I did get up, wrote morning pages, did yoga and meditated. I think for March I’ll change to a different yoga playlist again. The one I’m doing now is very slow and gentle. It’s nice. But it might be time to do something just a little more challenging again. I mean, challenging for someone who is not in shape.

Oh, and speaking of shape, the night before I found out why my feet are getting worse. I had ordered some insoles from the internet because a friend of a friend had claimed they made her plantar fasciitis go away. I put them in my too wide house slippers. My feet had been getting worse and it took ages before I realized that the pain was in a different spot than before. Huh, I wondered, why are they hurting in that spot? Well, that would be the insoles’ fault.

I switched back to the custom-made insoles and not-as-wide slippers right away – relief! And this morning I tried around and I might have found a solution that is padding the wide slippers enough that I can use the custom-made insoles with them. Because the old pair of slippers is rather slippery with half the soles missing.

My husband and I ate breakfast, I crocheted and starte weaving in a few ends, I changed the sheets on my bed, put many small stacks of clean laundry away, and cleaned the house. I didn’t finish the cleaning, in part because my husband asked me to help him with making lunch. Lunch was very good:

I taught two students, had a break because the next student canceled and used that break to vacuum the old part of the house. I did not get around to clean the washbasins and toilets but I did take a wet rag and clean the dust and grime off the bathtub.

I taught two more students, including one who wanted to play „Summertime“ and I got to impress him with the remains of my jazz singing talents. Oh, speaking of jazz singing, I found that one of the former members of the vocal jazz quintet that I used to belong to has a solo performance coming up in two weeks or so. I’m tempted to go and see her but then I’ll probably not feel like it in the moment. Also, it’s always weird to see people I used to share a stage with perform while I am sitting in the audience. I mean, I gave that up willingly and for reasons but still.

Some time that afternoon I also managed to buy the sheet music for another Elena Kats-Chernin piece, „Late Spring“:

It was originally written for string quartet and voice but there is a piano and voice version as well. I had to dig it up on an Australian website. I hope I’ll be able to play it. Well, eventually. My voice is feeling a little better but not up to singing something like that.

I ate dinner, played some silly iPad games, started writing this post, did the dishes and went on a Zoom call.

Today I hope to finish cleaning, take a shower and go out with my husband in the evening.