daily journal

Since I had stayed up too late to read yet again I was not all that happy when the alarm went off at 5.30. I did do most of my morning routine but skipped morning pages in favor of novel-writing. Made breakfast slightly too late which worked out fine since the boy was five minutes late as well.

My mornings would go smoother if I got up fifteen minutes earlier but somehow 5.15 feels a lot earlier than 5.30. And 75 minutes should be enough time for five minutes of meditation, five minutes of reading, thirty minutes of morning pages and thirty minutes of writing plus checking the weather, using the bathroom and checking Ravelry but transitions are a real thing and so is snuggling in bed for five more minutes.

After breakfast I spent another fifteen minutes just dawdling but then I made myself write for another session and got 1,600 words in. Phew.

My husband was a little late which suited me fine and I knitted while he made himself breakfast and ate. Afterwards we talked a lot about whether to buy new cymbals for the drum set. My husband changed one out and that one, of course, is so much better than the old ones that he was debating getting more of those. That expense has to be weighed against the money still in the bank, possible costs of house repairs next year, the cost of a couch that we haven’t chosen yet and also our mortgage.

We still got going pretty early because of my double grocery shopping run. I decided to not renew my library card for now and went off to the health food store first, came back and walked to the supermarket. Therefore my husband had to make lunch without help so that was a little late as well. But rather yummy:

Afterwards we did the lunch dishes and then it was time for non-stop teaching. Half of the lessons were rescheduled from other days. A little disorienting.

Then I waited for the boy to show up for bodyweight training, we did that for thirty minutes, I started writing this post and then did the rest of the things on my list.

Face-planted around eight, got ready for bed and read some more. Very good day.

As for why my plans never work out, well, I posted my October goals over on Ravelry. This time I thought they were very reasonable:

So. Onwards. I’m hoping that this time my goals will turn out to be realistic:

1. Finish writing EM3 (needs about 23,000 more words, I’m at 74,000 right now).
2. Edit EM0.
3. Do two things each week to improve teaching website.
4. Finish sewing Kew dress. (Two more seams, 15 buttonholes and 15 buttons.)
5. Finish Pacing-Workshop. (18 more sessions, about 15 minutes per weekday.)
6. Re-arrange living room: put wool and UFOs away, mount new light fixture, look at couches and maybe buy one, mount CO detector.
7. Call piano tuner.
8. Read “How to write dazzling dialogue.
9. Visit wool market and have fun.
10. Get birthday present for my mother, wrap and mail it on time.

And then I added a paragraph at the end that read:

And then there’s the usual, do two podcast episodes, blog every day, continue running and bodyweight training three times a week, do household chores mostly on time. And prepare for one of my husband’s friends visiting the same weekend as the wool market. And help our son get ready and pack for the workshop-thing he is going to, again that same weekend. Oh, and that Patreon newsletter again and fiddling with the podcast sound.

That right there is the problem. I have this pretty ambitious but doable list. And then there is the rest of my life that is already full and then there is this other list that I didn’t realize I had that sits hidden under „Oh, there is this one weekend that is kind of crazy.”

Also, I did forget the t-shirt in progress. And the daily meditation and morning pages. I might save time by not eating snacks and dinner (if I manage to do so – a very big if) but I don’t save energy that way.

And that is why time-blocking is such a great planning tool. Only when I block out my time in advance there is never a block of „have a long conversation with the boy about Inktober and spend some time looking for the blank notebook I knew I had and the fineliners I never use. What do you do then? Do you tell your son, sorry, but you’ll book a time slot for him come Saturday? I mean, yes, I know that there are people who tell you to only plan out half your time. Those are wise people. You need time for unexpected stuff like leaking toilets. And delightful conversations with family members.

The other problem that often I will have time but no energy. Or the other way around.

So, looks like October is pretty full already? Yeah?

I woke up at 5.30 after a restful night of sleep. Score! Did my whole morning routine, had breakfast, dawdled a bit afterwards which meant no writing after breakfast but instead I read a few pages of a book about writing dialogue and watched the next session in the pacing workshop so that was alright.

My husband came to the kitchen for his breakfast, we talked some, mostly about the sound problems I’m having with the podcast. Then dishes, the usual morning chores and then I folded all the laundry. Like, three loads or something and put them away.

Then there was running/walking:

When we came back from running (separately, at slightly different times and on slightly different routes) the boy was already home from school. We started making lunch and even got to shower before the food was ready!

Probably the last zucchini from the garden for this year.

We ate, then my husband and I did the dishes while the boy went back to school for swimming before English conversation. I’m sure conversing in English with wet and dripping hair will be lovely all winter. (Hairdryers make his hair look all poof-y and frizzy. Not to be recommended.)

I had a long list of things I wanted to do before teaching started but only got to a few of them.

I did see that potential new student and he will become an actual new student next week. In between lessons I spent half an hour researching guitars for a different new student and writing them an email with links.

After teaching I started writing this post. The other things I had wanted to do were: practice, write the monthly Patreon post,  work on the novel for another 25 minutes and prepare all the lessons for the rest of the week. But at 7 pm I was just done with the day. Seems I’ll have to reschedule.

Today there will be all the grocery shopping, maybe I’ll renew my library card, and then all the teaching. With some bodyweight training tacked on at the end.

I didn’t really sleep well and managed to veer off my morning routine again after ‚meditate for five minutes‘. I did make breakfast at a reasonable time and finished reading „The Accidentals“ some time after lunch.

The rest of the morning went quite well with a conversation with my husband, doing lots of dishes and some stretching. Then we made lunch:

The boy had been considerate enough to text me mid-morning to say that he was still alive and that all was well. And another text when he was on his way home.

He arrived just as we were done with eating lunch, tired, exhausted and hungry and we talked a bit while he was having his lunch.

About half an hour later he came downstairs again because the toilet in his bathroom upstairs was misbehaving. I fetched a screwdriver and took the flushing mechanism halfway apart. Now if it doesn’t stop on its own you can jiggle it. It’s only a temporary stop-gap, though. I need to do additional research for that.

Then I finished reading the novel, set up my journal for the upcoming month and week, spent too much time online, started writing this post, decided to not do strength training because of the dunnwannas and read some more before it was time to watch some Star Trek.

Here are some pictures of my journal to make it seem like I was productive. Also I like to challenge people’s believes about how a bullet journal should look. I do like colorful ink but I only used two colors because I ran out of turquoise and was too lazy to refill the pen. Today’s list and the habit tracker:

Monthly spread with calendar and list of goals:

Keeping track of all the books I read and buy:

Weekly spread with tasks I want to accomplish some time during the week at the top, a spread that assigns stuff to certain days, a list of things to do for teaching and another one that’s ongoing and not urgent. The days mainly have my planned exercise, grocery shopping and cleaning on them. Yes, I write that down every week even though it doesn’t change much. Because otherwise I tend to forget. Since Thursday will be a public holiday I will need to do all the grocery shopping on one day next week:

And I even managed to get to bed on time!

Today will be all the typical Monday things, including some running, a potential new student and half of my regular lessons. Since I’m ever the optimist I have been planning to get all the things done as well. Fun!

And we all know how well I do with those.

I woke up from the alarm after a slightly too short night. Started the morning routine and allowed myself to get derailed before writing.

Had breakfast. Started reading „The Accidentals“ by Sarina Bowen. After finishing a Seanan McGuire story. Apparently I have abandoned the crime novel I was reading for now. I also seem to have downloaded about a dozen book samples again. I wanted to buy at least three more but managed to hold myself back a little.

My husband showed up, we talked and talked some more and then it was time for running. Everything went well until I was about twenty minutes in and then I just felt meh about it. Still, the weather was nice and the podcast I was listening to was interesting.

 

When I came back home the boy was already back home from the birthday party he attended. He left a note saying that he’d come down for lunch.

Half an hour later he appeared in the kitchen, somewhat pale and tired and said that a friend of his was in Munich and if he could go to Munich to meet them. Those are all friends that he met through those MENSA workshops. So he took a shower, got dressed and left again.

Huh. Just like a regular teenager. Who would have thought.

So we had lunch without him, just the two of us:

Then I waited until I could take a shower because I thought my husband would want to shower first and I sat there and scrolled through Instagram and read Ravelry and such. Until finally talking to my husband only to find out that he had wanted me to shower first.

Then I packed three packages, two birthday presents and on show return and walked to the post office to mail them. And then I got myself some potato chips, gummy bears and chocolate, walked back home and ate those for dinner.

The boy sent a message asking if he could stay overnight which was a little weird because that had never happened before but we rolled with it.

I watched more of the Marie Kondo show, got myself ready for bed, started writing this post and turned the lights out a little too late.

So. Today I need to get one or two things done. Including folding all the laundry and wash some more. Other than that it will be a slow day, I think.

I woke up from the alarm well rested (::shakes pompoms::) all determined to get stuff done.

I did all the morning things up until the writing which I – didn’t feel like doing. Yes, I know that’s not a valid reason. Got up on time, made breakfast, talked to the boy, enjoyed the new yoghurt and actually started with the novel once the boy was gone. And realized that I needed more research.

So I looked things up until my husband was ready for his breakfast.

We got going pretty early, I started cleaning when the boy was back home again. Apparently 11th grade means a lot of free periods. Since he still needed to write a birthday card he wanted some hand-holding. So I rushed around with him trailing behind me asking questions.

Then he went back to school. I got the usual cleaning done in record time and then tried to call my father because of his birthday. Had to try three times before I got him on the line. Before, when I was still cleaning I had gotten a message from my mother that her oldest brother had died. When I talked to her briefly she said he had passed on Tuesday, so no idea why she decided the day of my father’s birthday would be a good day to tell me.

Now, I barely knew that uncle and he was 85 years old with a weak heart so while this is sad news it’s not earth-shattering in any way. I wasn’t quite sure if I was supposed to show at his funeral but since my mother only told me to call my aunt (her sister) because she had had an accident and broke her shoulder I’m guessing not. (It seems to be ‚aunts in hospital‘-week, my mother-in-law told me the day before that her sister-in-law was ‚back in the hospital because of her back‘. Now, we knew that she had been in the hospital, only nobody told us that she was back home at one point. Oh, and she had ‚some kind of procedure‘.)

Yeah. Communication. It’s hard.

But. My husband and I made pizza. On time:

And it was rather tasty. Most of what’s in the salad was again from our garden, except the onions and the carrots.

The boy and I did the dishes, I published the podcast episode, got ready for teaching and then my first student was early.

Taught almost non-stop until six, with a short break where I talked to one of my husband’s students who want to take a singing lesson with me.

Then there was half an hour of bodyweight training, and then the blessed weekend with eating leftover pizza in front of TV watching the Marie Konto show. I had to watch something without the boy because he had left in the afternoon to attend a friend’s birthday party. His plans involved burgers, and escape room and staying up all night. Probably playing poker or video games.

I managed to go to bed at a reasonable time, at least.

Today there will be lots of reading and knitting, some running, some sewing and definitely some cooking. There’s a list somewhere, of course.

I’m feeling the cumulative strain of the week starting to weigh down on me but I’m okay so far.

I slept well but woke up at 5.10 and couldn’t get back to sleep. As often on podcast-recording days I didn’t want to push myself to write because I knew I’d need the energy later.

I tried the new Greek yoghurt at breakfast and it tastes really great! We have a winner. I’ll switch from yoghurt in disposable plastic containers to one in reusable glass jars! I only will have to eat the rest of the old yoghurt first.

The boy came down on time and there were more niggling small things to discuss like swim goggles and swim trunks and insoles for his new shoes. That’s one of the joys of being a mother, you get even more of that stuff to deal with on a daily basis. Even if he deals with stuff himself some help in thinking things through is always appreciated. And I find my husband and I do the same thing for each other.

My husband showed up and had his breakfast as well while I was knitting the boy’s scarf. Then we did the dishes and after that and a few chores I got ready to record the next episode of the podcast which will be the epic 90-minute English episode. Recording went without a glitch for the second time in a row so I’m thinking maybe I found something that works but since it went on for so long I couldn’t help preparing lunch and was a little late as well.

Lunch, by the way, was amazing:

This might not look like much but it was super-delicious. It’s styrian bean salad (with some additional bulgur because my husband wanted a side dish). It’s scarlet runner beans (at least that’s what the dictionary tells me) with goat cheese, spring onions, pumpkin seed oil and vinegar. Add some tomatoes (not for me), arugula and herbs and it was really, really good. We didn’t leave a morsel behind.

Then I did the dishes and took a break and ate some chocolate and then it was time to prepare the podcast and get things ready for teaching. Which I did. Including getting a guitar out for a student to lend, print out two contracts, write some emails to students and work on the podcast a bit.

When I came back to my studio after lunch I was greeted by this sight:

So I picked everything up and put most of it away, then there was teaching and then more podcast preparation and then the boy asked something for my mother-in-law and I went upstairs to talk to her. I hadn’t seen her after her first cataract surgery and since she wanted to mail a package I thought I’d offer my help. No need for her to carry heavy packages all over town and wait in line and such.

Speaking of packages, yesterday my father’s birthday present arrived just in time for his birthday today.

My mother-in-law did not want my help after all. Then the boy went off to school for the third time that day. One of his seminars this year includes doing stuff around the school observatory and that means he has to be at school late on Thursdays pretty often this year. It’s a very good thing that it takes him less than ten minutes to get there.

Then I finally started this post and waited for the podcast to upload to Youtube and then, finally I could get ready for bed.

Today will be a typical Friday, cleaning and pizza-making and then all the teaching, some bodyweight training and then more pizza while watching Star Trek.

Exhale.