daily journal

Yeah!

I honestly only half remember yesterday morning but I did get up early and I also did my complete morning routine. My yoga is still very wobbly but that can’t be helped.

There was lots of talking with my husband again, up to the point where I felt like a limp dishrag around 11 or so. I still girded my loins to do my weekly cleaning but then I needed to fold all the laundry. All in all I folded three loads yesterday and hung up one.

Then I changed the sheets on my bed and started doing the weekly cleaning. My husband had already taken care of the annex floors and said he’d clean the washbasins and sinks there as well, so even with all the laundry and talking I did manage to finish everything just in time to be ready for teaching.

Lunch was mushroom omelette because extensive cooking and cleaning the house don’t really co-exist in harmony. Apparently I did not take a picture.

I also had the idea to have salmon on toast with champagne tonight which meant someone had to go and buy salmon, vegetarian ersatz-salmon and champagne. So after lunch and after talking to the boy I went out to the smaller supermarket. And found out that when you scan alcohol at self checkout you’ll need to wait for a supervisor to make sure you’re not underage. Which makes sense, I just didn’t think about it beforehand.

I only had three students that afternoon, all of them very pleasant and fun to teach.

After my energy sagged a bit, so instead of starting my blog post and doing some writing and other things I just went straight to dinner. My husband did the dishes again. He is really chiming in which I appreciate a lot.

Dinner was one reason I wanted to go to the supermarket. With my energy seriously flagging I wanted potato chips, licorice and a beer and that’s what I got. I shared with the boy because I really don’t need something around 1,400 calories in one meal. (I also don’t really need 800 for dinner but well…)

I took my food with me in front of TV, watched an episode of C-drama, started a second one while knitting and was way too tired to do anything.

So I took myself off to bed at 9 and was asleep almost before my head hit the pillow.

This morning I woke up at 5.30 before the alarm. I have a long list for today (of course), let’s see what I get around to doing!

Sorry, apparently I set yesterday’s post to get published today? And yeah, things are a bit wonky at the moment.

Husband is still in emotional crisis. It’s also a chance to maybe get closer together but it feels very draining and chaotic at the moment. I am trying to fit my routines around deep, emotional conversations and what feels like total chaos.

My tolerance for high emotions and disturbed routines is very, very low. I really hate it. I mean, I’m the kind of person who hates it when a student cancels even if that means no lost money and an extra bit of free time. Because my schedule changed suddenly and I really don’t like that.

Let’s see. Yesterday started out great, I then moved my yoga to the annex so that my husband could start the wood stove (it’s still really cold here, brr). I don’t like using my studio for yoga because the students aren’t taking their shoes off anymore and so the floor is always dirty. But the nice thing is that the floor is heated. And while lying on my yoga mat I could see the blue sky above me. First time it was blue in weeks.

Husband and I had breakfast and talked some more which resulted in more emotions. After that (and during) I got ready to do my supermarket run. Since it was so cold I didn’t want to ride my bike and tried walking there and back for the first time in ages.

Which turned out to be too much for my poor feet. It was nice, though, threading through all the students on their way home is much easier on foot than with the bike. I unpacked the groceries, there was a pretty late lunch and more emotional conversation:

Yes, I know, there is no cheese on goulash but it tastes good.

Then I proceeded to eat all the sweet things in order to feel better. It only worked a little.

My last student had canceled, so I only taught four students with a break in the middle that I used to scroll through Twitter or something. 

After teaching the boy and I did strength training. Wow, that was hard! Not doing it for two (three?) weeks really made a difference. But then I was under the weather so I’ll just have to start again. The boy and I ate dinner together which was rather nice.

After that I was at the point where I start calculating which evening routine to skip in order to make it to bed at a reasonable time when my husband came with more emotions. I suggested a walk in order to feel better and he went, „Really? You’d do that for me?“ all puppy-eyed. It was a misunderstanding because what I meant was that he should go for a walk to calm down.

But, I mean, I couldn’t say no, so we went on a walk. And I have to say, having difficult conversations is much easier when walking than sitting down.

When we came back home my husband did the dishes, I sat down and watched an episode of C-drama and went to bed straight away.

And today is Friday which means I try to do all the things again.

Well, it was cold enough that it was snowing in the afternoon. Didn’t stick, though.

I went to bed almost on time and set my alarm at 6. Which was better than the days before but not good enough because when I say ‚on time‘ I actually mean ‚on time for a 7 am wakeup time‘.

I did do my complete morning routine including shivering yoga. That I really enjoyed but I am quite a bit weaker than two years ago. Which means now I get to build my strength back up.

There was a conversation about emotions with my husband before his breakfast (but after mine, phew), some knitting and then I did everything very slowly. My husband had a dermatologist appointment and asked him to pick up some bread because we had run out.

We had plans to make beans and polenta for lunch but it turned out that we didn’t have enough polenta. Being tired and cold also meant I wanted more chocolate and I couldn’t bring myself to go for a walk for exercise so I just went the short way to the health food store for polenta, frozen blueberries and chocolate. My husband was the one cooking:

We talked some more over lunch, then I took a short break before teaching quite a few students. I wanted to use my first break to fold laundry and hang up the load I had started that morning but my husband did it instead.

I taught until 7.30, then ate dinner and talked with the boy. I had been cross with him all day because being sent away after rising at six to help someone get out of bed is no fun and also I was worried that he was sliding back into bad habits skipping too many lectures. He assured me that he was almost on top of things and we talked a bit.

When I realized that I was just slumping around waiting for him to start doing something else I started writing this post, then I did Duolingo, watched some C-drama while knitting and went to bed.

Now I’m definitely over the hump, teaching today and tomorrow will be way less.

On Monday evening I was so tired and exhausted that I just moved everything to yesterday and yesterday was so busy that I forgot.

At least I had gone to bed at a reasonable time. Woke up from the alarm at 6, did my complete morning routine, would have had time to write but didn’t. I guess I have reached that stage where you’re so far away from the story that writing it seems completely unreal.

After breakfast I picked up all the stitches for Clue 4 of the shawl-in-progress. While the boy was talking at me. I decided to leave the dishes for later (again) and went out to the smaller supermarket, two health food stores and the butcher. When I came back home the wood chopping people were already there with their big truck and chopped. This was the pile of stuff to be chopped before I had left:

My husband had spent literally hours carrying it all from the back of the yard to the front of the house. We usually do that together, often with his mother and the boy but this time it didn’t work out. The letter telling us when the whole thing would happen was in the mail after it was all over. But my mother-in-law did call the relevant office, so we knew since Monday after lunch.

I dropped my shopping and went outside. Husband was writing a letter and said he had done enough already, so it was just me and my mother-in-law who kept telling me that women aren’t build for hard labor. Sure. And I don’t really think lifting and carrying a sack full of mulch, especially if I just lift it on the wheelbarrow qualifies. But then when you’re 87 the definition of „things that are too heavy to carry“ is a bit broader than mine.And yes, I am lifting from my legs and am making good use of my core muscles.

After that we had white sausages for lunch. With a beer. To be honest, those sausages don’t really taste like much which is why one definitely needs the sweet mustard and the beer. The pretzels are the part of the meal that tastes the best, by the way:

After that there was a brief break that I spent mostly reading and then it was all teaching all afternoon until 7. After that I met my mother-in-law once more, she had a blinking light on her phone that I managed to stop blinking. Not before I had found the manual on the internet and looked things up, though.

Then there was dinner, the boy came back home from uni and we talked briefly and then I fell into a pretty understandable evening slump.

I started writing this post, did Duolingo, opened the manuscript, watched an episode of „Love is a poison“ while knitting and went to bed.

Today will be a little less crowded but there will be another long teaching day.

I went to bed at a reasonable time, set my alarm and promptly overslept. So I did get eight hours of sleep.

I did my complete morning routine including shining a bright light into my face for half an hour. I am pretty happy that I have done yoga every day this month with only one exception.

There was breakfast and talking with my husband and sitting around lazily. There was all the laundry and the usual dishes and no exercise again.

My husband made lunch while I was looking up how to repair a zipper on his jacket:

My husband has been super motivated to finally tackle the mess we’ve been accumulating the past few years and so there were a lot of moments where we had to decide what to keep and what to throw out and where to put stuff. I have to say I’m already feeling better with the slow progress he has been making in the annex.

But the crowning glory was this:

This lamp has been broken for years. The fluorescent tube broke a couple of years ago, so I bought a new one. When we put it in it kept losing contact and going out. My husband tried sticking things into the slot, we spent a couple of weeks trying to learn how to wiggle it just so and then we gave up. All the cooking and dishwashing and such we did after dark had to be done by the sad light of the lamp over the kitchen table.

But. Yesterday my husband decided to drill a hole through the lamp so he could take a wire to fix the tube to the fixture. We were both a bit cautious, though, drilling through without being able to look at what is inside didn’t seem like a good idea. So I thought, why not drill through the silicone he used to basically glue the lamp to the wall? (Yes, all of the repairs in this house are done according to the highest craftsman standards, cough.)

And that was it. He drilled through the silicone, threaded a piece of (insulated) wire through, twisted the ends together and that finally pressed the tube into the fixture in a way that means when we press the switch the light turns on. And stays on. Phew.

Who knew that would make such a difference? My husband also put the big basket upstairs that has been sitting in the living room waiting for the boy to finally take it up the attic. It held his stuffed toys and was sitting against a wall that became moldy. (Don’t worry, the stuffed toys were inside a big trash bag. The basket got moldy but the bag and the plushies inside didn’t.) My husband had cleaned the basket and while he did that the boy had put the trash bag in the attic. And that was it.

We have bold plans of mounting the living room lamp we bought in 2019 (I think) next and hanging the cabinet that has been sitting in the living room since 2020 or so.

Anyways. I spent the whole afternoon eating cookies and playing silly games, trying to get myself going and failing.

Around 9 the boy and I were sitting in the kitchen looking at Twitter when it turned out we both still wanted to take a shower.

I went first because my bedtime is earlier. Than I started writing this post while he was holding his phone under my nose in regular intervals, I did Duolingo, had a beer in front of TV and went to bed.

I have high hopes of getting more stuff done today. I mean, I’m all rested now. Obviously.