creative.mother.thinking

I basically spent the day with my husband, him telling me everything that happened on his trip and me derailing the conversation.

We both went running and met on the way. My husband, true to form, is getting to know everybody he keeps meeting on his run and stops to chat a lot with the dog walkers. Which is nice. So yesterday he introduced me to a nice bus driver and his rather friendly Rottweiler. My fear of dogs is mostly gone, by the way. Which is very good.

I decided to start my running program over from week two. It’s not really about running 21k any which way, and it certainly isn’t about doing a race, I just want to have a structure for my exercise and stretch myself to improve. I forgot to take a picture again, sorry.

And I might have found an app for my new strength training program! I didn’t quite know how to do it and where to start and now I have a little thingy telling me to start on Monday with two sets of pushups and leg raises. It will be wall pushups and I have to look up how to do leg raises again but that is entirely doable.

We had lunch really, really late because of all the talking all day:

Finally we’re having real food again.

I then sunk into a stupor for a few hours, started tackling the blog, and then taught one student.

The boy and I watched some Star Trek, I even spun a little, and then the three of us started wondering where Oceania was and Samoa and so we pulled out the big Atlas and Wikipedia, as one does.

Today there will be grocery shopping and some more talking, I’m sure, and I’m hoping to get some things done as well. Other than reading. Or finishing the sock I’m knitting.

Woke up at six and for once didn’t spend an hour in bed online first thing.

Made breakfast, read, and decided to go for my run earlier than usual to avoid the worst of the heat:

The sun was so bright that I couldn’t really see what was on my phone’s screen:

I came back home before the boy came down for his breakfast. At 10.30. He is supposed to get out of bed at 9.30 by the way…

We talked a little and then I was on my own again. I looked after the garden. Not quite enough for my husband’s high standards, I’m sure, and a few of the tomatoes are looking a little unhappy. I did water them, I swear, and not too much either.

Then I sat down to eat the rest of the potato chips from the night before plus some chocolate and licorice. As one does. This is one of the reasons why it is a very good idea that I am usually living with my husband. Eating properly would be much harder without him. (He basically says the same, by the way, he told me that when I am away he finds it much harder not to snack at night and such.)

This is what I eat when left on my own:

Why yes, that is pepperoni pizza. Frozen pepperoni pizza. That tastes approximately like cardboard.

The boy went out for Chinese with his grandmother in the meantime.

Then I fell into my usual routine of reading revelry and books while hanging around the kitchen table feeling bad. Until I managed to take a shower and close the greenhouse before the impending rain.

I felt sorry for myself some more, then read some emails, started doing my toenails and forced myself to practice singing, piano, and ukulele. Painted my toenails some more. Started writing this post. Did a great job procrastinating about writing. Finally found instructions to change the hinge on a Nintendo 3DS XL and bookmarked them. Started making a facebook page for our teaching and putting our business into google maps. Realized that I need better pictures for this and stopped. At least I got started.

One hour before the boy and I were supposed to watch Star Trek together I started waiting for the day to be over.

Pulled myself together and did some writing after all.

Ate all the sweets while watching TV but managed to force myself to spin some more of the dreaded burgundy merino.

Went to bed on time with my teeth flossed for a change.

Today I will run a bit, go to the health food store, make lunch, teach two students, and wait for my husband to come home.

Woke up early. I had apparently slept for a whole eight hours during the night.

That didn’t really mean I got a lot of stuff done.

I had a late breakfast and no time to meditate or write before my husband got up. Then I saw that someone had left a message on voice mail.

And that started the day’s chaos.

My husband has been planning to visit a friend in Austria for weeks now. Since that friend doesn’t like planning and is a teacher who is on summer break right now they left talking about days to the last minute.

I had been sitting on the edge of my seat for about three weeks already. Because I’m me. I can tell you which train I’m going to take to my weekend-trip at the and of August.

So they both emailed back and forth and my husband didn’t want to use the phone and so it looks as if he won’t be going at all. Or maybe today. Or tomorrow. Or not at all.

Which is driving me a little crazy.

So there were a lot of slightly upset conversations yesterday, and a lot of waiting, and not much else.

I did manage to get the podcast ready for publication, though. I did not manage to actually publish it because uploading to youtube was very slow and hadn’t finished until bedtime.

Today, though.

I went for my first run in two weeks:

We had fish and veggies and baked potatoes for lunch:

Spent most of the afternoon on the podcast and watched some more Star Trek.

Went to bed at a regular time.

I have almost given up hope of getting anything done until September.

Today I will publish the podcast, finally, and find out if my husband stays home or not.

And then we’ll see.

So as planned my husband and I went to one of the five lakes that are West of here.

I woke up early but not early enough to write, had breakfast and started working on a project that occurred to me the day before while recording the podcast.

My husband and I had planned to leave at 10. We actually got away half an hour later than planned but that meant we could talk with the boy a bit before leaving. He even helped me do the huge mountain of dishes.

Slathered in the dreaded sunscreen we hopped on our bikes and went our merry way. It was still rather hot. But on the bike it seemed a little colder than while walking.

It took us 75 minutes to get to the lake. Then we changed and jumped in briefly. Then off to a nice restaurant with a view of the lake (it’s the Wörthsee):

And yes, the water was that turquoise in real life. We had some very good pork roast:

And then traditional amount of beer. Eliandhra reminded me the other day that in Bavaria a small beer is what the rest of Germany considers a big one. (The small one is half a liter which is a little more than a pint.) These glasses are one liter and it used to be that that was all you could get at traditional beer gardens. If you ordered a small beer they would look at you funny.

At this restaurant they didn’t have the big ones (Maß) on the menu but when we asked it was no problem.

We went back home pretty soon after having eaten. By then it was really, really hot and we felt lucky that half the way was through the woods.

We were back home around three.

After a brief pause I decided to go grocery shopping anyway, so I hopped back on my bike (ouch) and went to the big grocery store. I didn’t buy much but I did get some licorice and chocolate. My husband will be away for two days or so next week and the boy and I are planning a big junk food-palooza.

Also, my MIL talked with the boy, offering to cook for him while my husband is away. So that I won’t have as much work.

I find that baffling. When my husband is away I usually cook things that are really easy like frozen pizza. If she cooks for the boy that still means I need to make something for myself. I never quite get how her brain works. She probably assumes that I’d just eat a sandwich for lunch when left on my own.

Um, no.

When I was still living alone I did cook for myself all the time. Maybe not with all those fresh herbs and such like my husband. I also usually cooked something that would be enough for two days and only reheated everything every other day. I definitely believe in taking care of myself as well as of others. (Junk food aside.) We only do the junk food thing because my husband is rarely away. If it were just the boy and me we would still have wonderful home cooked meals every day. Once I had relearned how to cook, that is.

It’s funny. When you never cook and have only used the ‚new‘ stove for reheating things you get totally out of practice. I am rather fast at chopping, though.

Then I finally took a shower and the boy and I watched some Star Trek. I had already changed into pajamas (at six) and sent the boy to open the door when someone rang the bell. Turned out that the student of my husband’s who didn’t show last week decided that he’d come in today. We couldn’t find my husband at first but he agreed to teaching eventually. That’s the self-employed thing you don’t say no if you can make money.

I fetched him a shirt and then he came to ask the boy and me to get the garden ready for the impending thunderstorm. Which we did.

The one evening I decide to spend in my pajamas. I don’t think I did that in months.

Then we finished watching our episode, I remembered the load of laundry in the basement and helped my husband hang it up and that was that.

I don’t think the podcast will go out today. There was just no time to get it ready yesterday and today I will leave around 9 am to meet a friend. She lives a couple of hours away from here and only comes to Munich once a year.

Today it’s supposed to be twelve degrees cooler than yesterday. It is raining already. I can’t decide if I should wear jeans or a long-sleeved dress. I might even need socks.

How odd.

That’s always so much fun.

Woke up around six, wasted a lot of time surfing the web and flitting from book to book. I started reading too many books over the past few days. I am okay with reading more than one at a time but having three from the library on top of the thirty in progress might just be a little too much. Especially if one of them is a 940-page-behemoth about GIMP and I found that I need to read something else before I’m ready to actually start on that one.

Breakfast, no meditation because I had dawdled for too long. I finished the pair of socks I had been knitting. They are beautiful. No picture yet, sorry.

Did a mound of dirty dishes.

Then my husband started talking to me about when to paint that balcony. His mother thinks it’s not necessary yet but I went outside and had a hard look and yeah, it is totally necessary. On the other hand it’s her balcony. If it rots away under her feet that doesn’t affect us in a big way, other than our porch becoming a deck again.

We need a stretch of three days without rain to do this. When there aren’t any other things planned. And no Sundays or holidays because you’re not allowed to make a lot of noise on those days. Which I find a good rule. It’s just sometimes a little inconvenient.

So. We were just about to jump off from the table and go to the hardware store with me being almost catatonic from anxiety (I have all these other things planned. I hate having to use power tools for hours and hours on end. When will I finish my novel? I already had plans for the next three days.) when my husband checked the weather app again.

There will be thunderstorms today and tomorrow. Friday will be rain. My husband will be away over the weekend. It will rain most of next week.

Then we have the week after where we might have two days in a row. If it doesn’t rain. And two days between me coming back from my family reunion before a doctor’s appointment with the boy and my colonoscopy. Which I timed a little inconvenient anyway because I will have to prepare for the colonoscopy on the same day that the boy and I go to the dermatologist. Fun!

After that my MIL has a friend visiting for a week and then summer break will be over.

We made lunch instead. I had one of the two days per year where I want to eat only salad for lunch. My husband wasn’t feeling it at all. We already had salad for lunch the day before. Still, salad it was:

Thinking of big things that hang over my head and make me feel bad I then decided to look at the DS repair again. The next step is to watch a video where someone repairs the exact thing I want to repair. Unfortunately, I have already pulled the thing apart completely following another video but I couldn’t figure out how to put it together again. I feel like I need a calm head and lots of patience for this.

I am not a patient person.

So I sat at the kitchen table, dreading the task and thinking idly about all the huge projects I have taken on that are hanging over my head.

There might have been cheese. And chocolate.

Then my husband showed up again saying, „I’d like you to help me order a baseball cap or two and some sheets and tees one of these days.“ So I pulled the laptop out and helped him order caps and sheets. We decided to leave the tees for another day because I was definitely feeling decision fatigue by then.

My laptop was almost out of battery so I plugged it in in my studio. Decided to watch the video. Saw the note „print grocery lists“ on my desk and the three fountain pens that needed to be inked. Went for the easy win.

While doing these tasks I realized that I have taken on too many big projects. And that my nonchalant declarations of, „I will make my own book covers!“ and „I need to overhaul our websites and to design a sign for our lessons to hang on our fence and we need new business cards and I need to brand my author website and design a newsletter header and stuff,“ basically means that I need to learn graphic design. It was Eliandhra who reminded me that that is a real profession. That people learn for years. And of course that’s why I’m finding this so hard.

I have learned a thing or two about design in the past years but that doesn’t make me a designer. Still. I can learn things.

I googled a how to and now I have yet another big project. This will be fun. Also a bit much. But that’s nothing new.

Then we vacuumed the annex and mopped the floors and the boy and I watch some Star Trek, the end. I managed to write 45 words in the whole day. Ahem.

Today there will be some form of exercise (no, there was no run and no strength training yesterday), and I’ll prepare the podcast recording. The boy will visit his friend.

And I have my personal design course all mapped out.

Yeah, I know.