daily journal

I tried sleeping a little longer but woke up at 5.30 again. Was too brain-dead to really do anything. Had high hopes of writing between breakfast and lunch but somehow there was no time. Family nerves are high-strung again. I lost an hour to completely unnecessary conflict. The boy is super-tense and stressed because school is really a lot at the moment, husband is just stressed in general and lives in total overwhelm and I don’t sleep enough and don’t write. Those two things are related, of course.

I did have lots of great moments yesterday as well. I sat and crocheted:

I also ordered the yarn for the next Attic24-CAL. Yes, it is a bit ridiculous to make more acrylic blankets. But they make me very happy at the moment.

I went to the health food store and we had leftover lasagna and red beet salad for lunch:

I taught, I hung up laundry and taught some more. I ate dinner. I did dishes and talked with the rest of the family and started writing this post.

Since I’m super-exhausted and low on energy I’ll be stepping away from the blog again for a while. Sorry. I’ll try to post pictures on Instagram, I hope that will help.

I woke up early after enough sleep and – didn’t get going. I did do yoga and meditated but that was it.

The boy was slow and sluggish, my husband showed up late because he didn’t want to get out of bed, basically we all felt meh.

I did my chores and went running:

If you can call it running when you stop for a walking break literally every other minute.

In the second half I gave up and just walked back home all the way.

Since I did get out of the house pretty early because my husband was all stressed out and had so many things on his list for the day I made up for the wasted morning at least in part and wrote for half an hour.

I peeled potatoes, I took a shower, I ate lunch:

The boy came back from school rather late. First he had an art test and then he met with another student because of his upcoming presentation. About Brexit. So we talked a bit and then I sat and read and ate chocolate and procrastinated about getting ready to teach which is always a fabulous idea.

I taught my students, three online and three in person, had dinner, procrastinated doing the dishes and then surfed the web trying to get going on blogging and writing. I did find some really helpful videos for Chinese pronunciation. Actually, I found it especially instructive to watch Chinese women speak English. It helps me to see how Chinese native speakers shape sounds. I also watched a video of a German woman speaking English and that was instructive as well because it was a perfect example of someone who does a lot of things right but has a pronunciation that’s just – off.

The whole thing is rather fascinating. Bad pronunciation is actually rather off-putting. And surprisingly hard to understand.

And then I procrastinated some more while drinking a beer. I was just that kind of day.

I did put some more words down but that made me late for bed.

So. Today I will walk to the health food store, teach a few students, hopefully write more words and go to bed a little earlier. Wish me luck.

At least I’m pretty well-rested?

I set the alarm for 5.30 but was a bit slow in getting up. Whipped out my phone and spent half an hour on social media. Did yoga and meditated. Moved slow again, had breakfast and managed to not write a single word until 8.30 when my husband came over for breakfast. Why yes, I do have enough time to do all the things I want.

I crocheted a bit, we talked, he had breakfast. The boy had breakfast. I did dishes and the boy helped. I stared some more at screens and social media, I helped with lasagna, I called my mother on the phone, I ate lasagna:

There was wine with lunch. I did more dishes with the boy’s help. I watched a lot of videos on YouTube. I practiced Chinese for a bit. Watched more YouTube and crocheted.

I planned the week. Of course, this time I’ll get everything done, ahem. I started writing this post, had dinner, watched some TV, wrote a few words and went to bed.

And now we’re almost at the end of November. Today there will be quite a bit of teaching, some running, some crochet, lots of reading and a bit of writing. Isn’t that exciting?

I woke up at 5.30 but was still so slow that I didn’t get started early enough to write before breakfast. I vastly enjoyed yoga and meditation, though, and am feeling as if I’m slowly getting back into that special meditation head space. Well, for ten seconds at a time.

My husband didn’t want to get up either and the boy looks rather pale and drawn, he had been working on the handout for a presentation all day the day before in between classes and such and only after dinner did he start studying for his chemistry test. He did not get a lot of sleep. And not for the first time this week. I thoroughly disapprove.

The plan was to clean the house but after talking with my husband in the morning and crocheting a bit I spontaneously opened the novel and wrote for half an hour. Then did a few chores, helped my husband peel potatoes and such and wrote some more. Made tsatsiki. Lunch was late but I still had a little time between eating and teaching. Lunch was excellent:

I taught my first student online, wrapped a few presents, taught the next student in person, put the presents into a package and mailed that. Then two more students, ‚Discovery‘ and ice cream with the boy, then a really huge pile of dishes while the boy was talking about his frustrations with German class in school and then I got ready for bed. And I only went to bed about half an hour too late.

Today there will be the running, the writing and a little cleaning because I can skip cleaning on Friday but I really don’t want to skip it for a whole week. Bonus points for writing lots of words or for cutting out fabric, either would be good at this point.

Which isn’t really true, of course. But I’m going to bed too late because I am not content with what I got done that day, then I don’t get enough sleep, have a hard time getting in gear the next morning and move very slowly through the next day while eating too much because I want more energy.

I do get things done like dishes and grocery shopping and teaching but not much else. There’s a lot of that small stuff, though. And the hand-holding for the whole family, myself included.

So, yesterday I got up early enough to do yoga but not early enough to write, went go, go, go all day, got into an after-dinner slump and decided to not write yet again so that I could go to bed at a reasonable time for a change.

Lunch was kale stew (okay, we cook everything separate but traditionally it should be stew because where I grew up it’s always stew). My husband did all the cooking by himself while I was out at the supermarket. And lunch was delicious:

I bought another book about writing lots of fiction words each day because owning that book will certainly make me write faster. Oh, and my Mandarin Chinese phrasebook arrived. It’s really cute and looks rather useful. And I finally learned why I haven’t been able to find out what ‚yes‘ means in Chinese. Because – there is no word for it at all. They use whatever word was used in the question. Huh.

That also explains why the boy and I thought that ‚yes‘ translated as ‚shì‘ 是. Because that’s what they say most often in ‚Eternal Love‘. ‚Shì‘ means ‚be‘. We were confused because they said other things when they meant ‚yes‘ as well. So now I know. (And I found out how to type Chinese characters! I just hope it will show up on the blog properly as well)

So. Today there will be the cleaning of the house, only a medium amount of teaching, the wasting of time between students (it’s traditional at this point) and the watching of ‚Discovery‘ tonight. And then the weekend.