Susanne

Mind you, I was still spending a considerable part of the day moaning, „I’m so tired, wow, am I tired!“ But at least I had had enough sleep the night before.

I woke up from the alarm, was slow and sluggish again but did write morning pages. And then I skipped yoga again so I didn’t have to rush as much. I had breakfast and knitted and talked with my husband.

I did all the usual morning things including the dishes and such and then set out to run errands. The plan was to schedule covid and flu shots for all three of us with our doctor and pick up some yogurt on the way. What I ended up doing was getting my husband’s prescription renewed, schedule the short, buy yogurt, check out the new, just opened grocery store near the train station, see that it looks like a great alternative to the supermarket at the other end of town, buy some groceries there and then pass by the health food store and get some more groceries.

I came back home and unpacked everything while my husband was busy cooking Indian food. He made veggie rice, chicken, dal and spinach. The chicken was delicious, very tender and tasty:

The night before I had tried to play a real video game for a change and found it very frustrating. (It was ‚Gris‘, for those who are interested.) I mean, I am bad at most of these games but then it’s something that needs practice. But also, I figured the controls on the iPad are maybe not the best. So I remembered I also own that game on Steam, opened it on my laptop and found one needs a controller to play. Weird, but okay. I could probably borrow a controller from the boy.

And then my mind began scheming. I went online to find there are controllers for 25 Euros. That’s not that expensive. But wait, would they work? So after lunch I asked the boy. We figured that his controller is probably not compatible to my computer. So I went and did a bit of research, thought about it for ten minutes or so, and well, I might have ordered a second-hand X-box controller for my laptop.

Then there was teaching. Non-stop teaching but only until 6 pm because my last student canceled. (They are all sick at the moment. One respiratory infection after the other including several cases of covid. Why yes, I’m still wearing my mask when I go shopping or am at the doctor’s office.)

Anyway, that meant the boy and I could do bodyweight training a little earlier. The last time we did it we had decided to not do pull exercises on our doors anymore, the kitchen door is actually hanging a little crooked already and we don’t want to end up pulling the door off the wall. So the boy decided to use the pull-up bar instead. Now, none of us can do a real pull-up but I remembered a couple of mods to the exercise so he stood on a chair so his arms didn’t have to carry his complete weight. The last time I used a 5 kilo dumbbell but that was not quite enough so yesterday I climbed the chair as well.

Anyway, my arms are rather sore today.

Then we finally ate dinner. We were chatting away about the drawing the boy had done that day (he is still doing Inktober) when my husband interrupted us because the TV in the annex was showing a blank screen. Well, we both tried turning things on and off again and niggling all the cables and such but to no avail. The TV was clearly receiving the signals from the remote only the screen was black.

I looked it up, that TV is already 12 years old, so I did some quick research and – ordered a new TV. This is why we have a budget for replacement devices.

The boy and I chatted some more, this time about military helmet design and then I started writing this post while he took a shower.

After that I did Duolingo, did the dishes, wrote for half an hour, watched some C-drama and went to bed.

And yes, these two things often go together.

I managed to stay up until 12.30 again the night before, so I was not all that well rested. I did force myself to write morning pages but then was very slow and decided to skip yoga in favor of eating breakfast alone.

My mood was not the best because I had declared sleep to be my top priority again and again had not actually made it a priority. Also I am behind on writing, feel overwhelmed and my feet hurt. Grumble.

My husband and I talked about something that needed my full attention while I was trying to figure out the next part in the Westknits KAL. I even had to interrupt him at one point so I could watch a video on how to set it up. So I was cranky because of fiddly knitting as well. The morning went on very slowly and I lost an hour somewhere in there.

And I went to the health food store instead of going for a walk in the woods. A walk would probably lifted my mood but well, we were out of cheese and chocolate.

The boy had plans to go to university after lunch so my husband had to actually have lunch ready at one. I had primed him so successfully that we all ate at 12.30, there was homemade pizza:

By the way, that plate that I only use for pizza because it’s bigger than our usual plates is one I got as a parting gift from the school where I taught for a couple of years. The musical notes are a mistake-ridden version of „Oh, Tannenbaum“. It’s awful, the plate always gives me an ear worm and the urge to fix the mistakes. The musical instruments are also not quite right, ugh.

Oh, and I ate two pieces and the one you’re seeing here already has a bit cut off.

Then I sat around reading and playing games and debating what to do first, take a shower or do the dishes. So I sat there long enough that there was only time for a quick shower. I basically had to sprint over to the annex for my first lesson, my hair still dripping wet.

There was teaching and meeting a potential new student. I like them and they’ll start regular lessons next week.

I wrote an email to the cover designer to accept the last version I got. And then I got another email because of the shoes that I returned that weren’t booked back in, you might remember.

Anyway that email meant I had to download a form, fill it in with information that I first had to go find and then I was left – again – with the need to find a tracking number for my return package and proof of said return. I downloaded the form and filled it out and uploaded it again. I wrote an email to the original seller to ask for the tracking number after having looked for one for twenty minutes or so. Then I talked to the boy who said something like, „But you have to have a receipt“ and my brain clicked, I tried a different search term and found an email that said the package got accepted by the carrier, yes!

Oh, and do you know how I figured out which day in June I had sent the parcel? I read through my blog for that month. And now you know why over-documenting your life can be useful.

Fingers crossed that the information I sent will be enough and I don’t have to deal with this wretched return in the future.

Then I ate too much for dinner, played some more games, started writing this post, did a very short Duolingo lesson, tackled the dishes at 9.30, played „Gris“ for a bit and went to bed.

I did not write any new words but I thought about the new story constantly.

Let’s see, I turned the lights out at 1 am, great idea. Not. I did write morning pages (mostly about my idiocy in staying up late without a reason every night), did yoga and meditated and felt immediately better. Breakfast was nice too and then I knitted a bit while my husband was eating. No wood stove, it was just a bit too warm for that.

I talked with my husband about playing Solitaire on my iPad for way too long and it turned out he had no idea what Solitaire actually is. So I pulled out my old deck of physical cards and quickly showed him the version my father learned from his mother. My grandmother played Solitaire endlessly, she even had a dedicated table for it in her studio apartment. And the last years my father constantly played Solitaire on his laptop.

I like playing it but I’d like to do other things as well. It’s easy to just fall into a game like that and go „just one more round“ for hours.

Then I talked to my mother who seems to feel slightly better than the week before which is a relief. My husband decided to do a quick and easy lunch so we had wiener, mashed potatoes, peas and carrots:

The boy even ate with us. Then we talked a bit more, I took a generous break and did the dishes before going to my studio to write. But first I did research on the price for piano lessons in Munich. Phew. Most teachers seem to take more than us which means I should definitely raise my prices.

Then I wrote for half an hour and I might slowly be getting into the story.

I got the new, new version of the book cover and I really like it. Yeah! One step closer.

I started writing this post, did bodyweight training with the boy, ate dinner, watched some C-drama and went to bed.

And today it’s back to teaching again and seeing a potential new student.

Going to bed on time was awesome and I definitely should do it more often. I woke up from m alarm with the best intentions and then – picked up my phone. So no morning pages, yoga or meditation. I was actually pretty slow all through the day.

I had breakfast and knitted a bit, then wrote my daily blog post, started a load of laundry, did the breakfast dishes and waited for my husband to make lunch. I did open the manuscript and started the new novel for the third time, then got stuck again.

Lunch was a family favorite, pasta e fagioli, but sadly the beans were a little undercooked and there was not enough salt:

And yes, these are real life photos and not very pretty. Also, for some reason my husband always fills our plates at the stove and carries them over to the table. (My mother insists on putting the food in serving dishes and setting them on the table so that no one needs to get up during the meal. And it’s looking prettier than having pots on the table. I like it better when I can decide my portion size myself but my husband really loves feeding people, so we let him.)

After that my husband was in a really good mood. He talked about visiting Naples next year. By train. I mean, I like train travel but a 12-hour train ride with my husband who gets claustrophobic is not on my bucket list. When I did travel to London by train I spread it out over two days. (Shoutout to my sister for hosting me for a night on my way there and back.)

I took a little break anyways but since I had told a friend I’d be in the online Zoom office to write in the afternoon I was there at three. I was the only one there for the whole two hours but well, I tried. And I wrote. I think I started over for the third time (not quite sure) but I finally got a beginning that works. It’s still a bit wonky and I’m not sure if I want to tell the story from different POVs or not. I think I’ll do dual POV but there might be three? And I kept changing the main character’s name. But then I did manage a little more than 1,000 words. Which makes me 5,000 words behind still. ::shrugs::

I did delegate hanging up the second load of laundry to the boy but neglected to have somebody do the dishes for me. After two hours writing I had my weekly check-in meeting with a bunch of writers. It was a lot of fun and very motivating, so I did stay for 2 1/2 hours. The rest of the gang then stayed on to talk about cozy fantasy which I find a fascinating topic but I decided it was time for dinner.

So I ate some toast and read at around 8, then sat there playing Solitaire on my iPad over and over and over until I finally did the lunch dishes at 11, started writing this post and went to bed.

Wasting those two hours felt really awful and I would have preferred to go to bed earlier but I couldn’t make myself.

Today I’ll do the usual Sunday things and write some more, I hope.