creative.mother.thinking

I didn’t actually take a day off from work but I came pretty close.

My husband had planned to get up early because he had a dentist’s appointment and wanted to go running. So I didn’t plan to write first thing after breakfast. He ended up skipping his run and having breakfast at the usual time but I couldn’t know that.

I had a long list of things that I wanted to do but in the end I decided to skip my own run as well so that I could finally repair the DS that had been sitting half-gutted on my desk for weeks now.

I spent most of the morning and some time in the afternoon on this. So far the thing is fully gutted and I have transferred most of the buttons to the new casing. Now I need to find out how to put the two parts of the casing together without a broken hinge. Also, I’m really hoping that I still have all the screws. Well, I should but these things are really tiny.

There are several videos on how to do this but unfortunately no proper manual. I really, really love the ifixit-tutorials. No video, just pictures with clear instructions and helpful hints like „this one opens from the light side not from the dark side like all the others“.

So I will have to spend some more time on this soon. You wouldn’t want to have all those teensy, tiny screws rolling around on your desk for too long.

In between I helped to make salad for leftover lasagna, I taught my students, signed up for yet another webinar and I yawned a lot.

The boy was supposed to come home for lunch at 1.20 and instead was there at 12.40. That is his usual Monday lunchtime but the school’s homepage had said that lunch break had been moved.

As it had. For the other half of the students. Fun! At least we were almost ready for lunch. His lasagna was not quite hot yet and he didn’t have time to eat all of his salad but that was all.

Managed to go to bed early for once. This was sorely needed.

So today everything will be bigger and better than yesterday. I will do a long run because I skipped my run yesterday, I will maybe even go to the health food store. Then I will teach loads of students non-stop and then I will attend – yet another webinar. This one his taught by Orna Ross, at least she is in Great Britain and so I won’t have to stay up much too late.

I tried sleeping in but woke up early again, as usual.

So I had a rather tired day yesterday.

Got up, had breakfast, went running:

Only 5k. It was nice but I didn’t have the energy I wanted because of not sleeping enough, I guess.

Then I started watching the Tour right away, and there were leftovers with a big, fresh salad:

It still seems like a marvel to eat all this green stuff this fresh. And it tastes incredible.

Then I spun and watched and tried writing a little (and I did write but only very little) and then it was time to meet my friend.

We met in Munich and walked halfway through the city while talking. There was a big thunderstorm and we waited for a while until it was not quite as wet. My friend hadn’t taken a raincoat. I did have one which was good. And I had to take a different purse so I could fit it in, and I ended up taking the black purse that is disintegrating, and so I had little bits of black fake leather everywhere for the rest of the day. I think I’ll throw that purse away today. It is no longer fit to be used.

We took a bus back to where we started because it was still raining and ended up in one of my favorite restaurants.

I was home pretty early but then proceeded to talk to my husband for an hour and read for an hour so I went to bed late again.

Didn’t get enough sleep again. Funny that.

Today there will be more watching of the Tour while spinning and watching of the World Cup and then maybe even more watching something with the boy.

It feels a little weird to have a day mapped out where I will watch TV all day. I don’t do this often, though.

I also have a list of other things I want to get done, we’ll se how that goes.

It’s funny, I keep thinking that tomorrow will be less busy than today. I’ve been doing that for weeks now. And it never really happened.

Yesterday I woke up from the alarm which tells you how much I needed the sleep.

I did not write in the morning because I was a little late and then I started preparing the podcast.

My husband got up early, he had breakfast and then I helped him choose a fitness tracker. The challenge was to find something that you don’t need a smartphone for.

Then I went grocery shopping. It was the first time that I used the trailer again and it was much more comfortable than using the bike panniers. And I didn’t even have to leave the groceries in the trailer unattended, I could carry everything at once. Win!

Then we had lunch, pork cutlets with potatoes and cucumbers. Both the potatoes and the cucumbers were fresh from our garden:

Very yummy.

The boy came home in a bad mood. He had lost points on a physics test because he had used math that he is only supposed to learn next year in the answer. Unfortunately, he could also have worded his answer better. I offered to send an email to his teacher to talk about this but he didn’t want me to. Those points made all the difference between an A and a B.

He didn’t want me to talk to the teacher, though. The test won’t make a difference in his final grade. It is bugging him, though, which I can totally understand.

Then I left all the dishes in the sink and went to record the podcast. Then teaching and then a surprise webinar by Jessica Abel again. I spun while watching so that was good.

Then I finally did the dishes, wrote some more show notes for the podcast, attempted to do some fiction writing with not a lot of success and finally went to bed on time.

Phew.

Today is the usual busy Friday with pizza making and cleaning and teaching and at the end of it my husband and I will go out and see a free improvisation concert yet again.

Phew.

Not good hair, just slightly better.

I woke up really early, like 5.20-early. Wrote my morning pages. They felt endlessly long yesterday. Tried to write before breakfast, decided to do my daily update on Ravelry first, tried putting a picture from my blog into the post I was writing and, bam, my day got derailed.

Because my blog was offline. „Database connection error“ which is the same error that my husband’s blog has been showing for weeks now. The one I haven’t taken care of because it wasn’t a top priority for me. My own blog, though, immediately became top priority. (To be fair, my husband hasn’t posted in ages and the blog was hacked a few years ago and while I got the posts back up not everything was working properly. But he didn’t mind. I should address that problem in the next few weeks, though, because he wants to start posting again.)

So. Customer service opens at 9. Which is sensible, I mean, who wants tech support at six in the morning? So I wrote them an email. I decided that would be the better option. Instead of sitting next to the computer waiting for a few hours.

I had breakfast, I tried writing but only was able to focus for 2 1/2 minutes, yielding me a total of 69 words, 29 of which I deleted immediately. My husband showed up for breakfast, I knitted a bit, did the dishes, put on makeup and got ready for my hairdresser’s appointment.

I walked to the train station as fast as I could because I had forgotten that I needed to buy a ticket first. Reached the station three minutes before the train was supposed to leave, money in hand for the ticket. There was only one ticket machine in operation. There were two women before me. I changed money for one of them, helped her buy her ticket, told her that yes, she could use the same ticket on her way back while frantically punching buttons and trying to wrangle the ticket out of the machine. Stamped it, pushed the button that opens the train doors (it was still glowing green) but the doors didn’t open and the train pulled away without me.

Which made me late.

The next train was two minutes late on top of that (trains only go every twenty minutes). The good thing was that I would have had thirteen minutes to spare with the original train, so I was exactly seven minutes late for my appointment. Which was no big deal, I had to wait for ten minutes while she finished someone else’s hair first.

Now I’m basically looking the same as before with better bangs:

I still haven’t mastered the art of the selfie.

Then I ate a rather late lunch:

With some chocolate on the train, some fried zucchini blossoms before, this pasta with zucchinis and tomato sauce and a lot more chocolate afterwards.

Dishes. Teaching. Had a pretty enjoyable lesson with the two very young ukulele students who had been on the verge of giving up just a few weeks before. Phew.

Then another attempt at writing (I’m not giving up!) and then watching the World Cup with my husband. I thought I’d spin while watching soccer instead of bike riding for once. That was rather enjoyable. The game was really good and we talked quite a bit and had fun.

To bed a little too late.

Today there will be running and stranding and all the usual and teaching and – probably more soccer.

Apart from the non-writing this was a very good day.

Woke up at 6.30, had breakfast, decided not to write. (Bad decision.)

Talked with my husband, folded laundry, helped making lunch (barbecue today).

Multi-cultural lunch: tabbouleh, hamburgers, bratwurst and Merlot.

And then I spent all afternoon in front of the TV watching the Tour.

Here’s a complimentary picture of the hydrangea in the garden (I took it for my mother who gave it to me 18 years ago.):

And about half an hour later I watched some more TV with the boy.

I did manage to make some deodorant and did a load of laundry but that was basically it.

I did spin a lot, though, about 50 grams of fiber so tomorrow I can ply that and then I only have 50 more grams to spin to complete all the yarn for the mystery KAL.

Oh, and I almost finished knitting clue 2.

Did manage to go to bed on time which is very good.

Today I will run and teach and do all the usual things.

This week will just be absolutely packed.