creative.mother.thinking

Not bad, though.

Woke up early, dawdled a bit but managed to meditate and touch base with the novel before breakfast. Seems we are actually having a new morning routine now. We’ll see how it translates into weekends over the long run.

My husband started fiddling with his new guitar right after breakfast and I started crocheting the next part of the Sweet Pea CAL blanket. I’m a little sad that it will be two weeks until we get the next part of the pattern but then that will give me time to work on the Dalek hat.

I had wanted to write some more late morning but instead played games on my iPad. I was just so tired.

Did manage to clean the house and make pizza only a little late:

My husband made the red beet salad for us. He met a friend for Greek food leaving us behind. Pizza was rather good and I think after making the exact same dough for years now I’m finally getting the hang of it. Note to self: use the rolling pin it makes things much easier.

Then I did the dishes and only had a little time before teaching. There was a one hour break between students that I used to work a little more on the book cover design course. I’m right at the beginning, still, where you set up your workspace and finding out how to do things in Affinity Photo does take quite a bit of time. Interestingly it is much easier to use than GIMP.

Then I met a new singing student and she was delightful. Am looking forward to work with her.

Then the boy and I watched a little TV and then I went off to bed even though I hadn’t written enough words yet.

Sleep is more important than productivity. Especially since tired people aren’t really productive anyway.

So I’m hoping for more writing today and some running and the usual stuff and then I’ll force myself to pull out the sewing machine again.

Looking forward to a nice empty weekend…

I woke up from the alarm at 5.30 having gotten enough sleep for once. Yeah! This did not send my energy levels through the roof, though, because several days of not enough sleep demand more than one night of enough.

I was a little later today with writing which meant I only had fifteen minutes before my husband showed up but at least I had those.

There was breakfast and crochet and all the usual. Since we were expecting three packages (one of them the new guitar!) we only left the house one at a time. My husband went to the farmer’s market for potatoes and then running, and when he came back I went out for my run.

I’m still listening to the David Goggins memoir and I’m still loving it.The weather was really, really gorgeous:

Wonderful run. Not slippery much.

Then there was lunch that my husband mostly made without my help:

Pointed cabbage stew.

I had to think of a student of mine who had said to me, „Well, when you don’t allow yourself to eat anything, like when you’re trying to lose weight, that’s no good because you need things that taste good. I guess I can’t reach my goal weight because I like eating too much.”

And there I was sitting in front of that stew, starving, because I’m trying to lose the weight I have been gaining back, and let me tell you, real food when you are totally hungry and have been hungry for several hours already and especially if you have been exercising, well, nothing tastes better.

So in a way I’m enjoying my food much more when I am really hungry before eating. When you just stuff something on top because you have been constantly snacking all day, that doesn’t taste half as good.

Then I pinned the yoga pants together that I want to sew. I’m crossing my fingers that I did it right so that I end up with something wearable.

I practiced a bit and then I had big plans of doing website research but that never materialized. I did look through my books about singing, though, because I wanted to research something for one of my students and I have found something promising. Now I just need to work through the exercises myself first which means I need to pull the optical drive out and connect it to the computer. Or I could use the old laptop which is sitting right there and has an internal one. Huh. That was easy.

I taught a few students, one of them the new ukulele student who bought herself a really beautiful ukulele. I got a little envious even.

I started writing this post, the boy practiced piano without me nagging and that was mostly it for the day.

The boy seems to have a really productive week as well, he told me he tricked himself into starting his homework right after school by not going into his room but sitting down at the kitchen table right away. Which meant that he had time to do the things he wanted to do as well.

There was a Facebook live-thing I thought about attending but then I decided against it.

I rewarded myself with reading some more of the current novel in bed and turned the lights out early.

Today will be another busy day yet again. Sine the guitar didn’t show up yesterday we are expecting it today. We also have plans to go visit the former music store’s owner and I need to get groceries. I’m hoping to get all of that done in the morning all the while somebody is at home all the time because of the guitar.

Then I really need to do that website research and there will be a bit of teaching.

Because I set my alarm half an hour earlier. I figured since I had tried and failed for months to not waste the first 30 to 60 minutes of my day, why not build time in to waste. And I knew that I had to be on time to get out of bed because I needed to shovel snow before making breakfast. My husband had offered to make breakfast instead of me but the earlier the snow is shoveled the easier it is.

So that’s what I did. Spent half an hour on the internet and such, meditated for five minutes and started writing even though I didn’t want to.

Went outside and shoveled. The snow was way less wet than the day before so that was pretty easy. There had been quite a few people walking through it, though, which makes getting it all off the sidewalk near impossible. At least I was the first one to shovel on our side of the street. Win! And I only did the sidewalk, not the inside.

My husband had been a little later than planned because he didn’t hear his alarm. Yes, I’m shocked too, my husband who didn’t use an alarm on principle has now started setting one.

The boy was downstairs early too. And his coffee wasn’t ready yet. I mean, who could know that he’d be five minutes early instead of his usual eight minutes late?

Breakfast was had. My husband and I talked a bit. The boy left for school early. We talked some more. We did the dishes. I folded laundry. My husband said he’d shovel the rest of the snow instead of going for a run and since we were so early I decided to write for another 25 minutes before leaving for my run.

So I sat down and wrote some more and then changed into running clothes and went running while listening to „Can’t Hurt You“. I really do love the book, I’m neglecting all the podcasts for it at the moment.

The weather was gorgeous. I couldn’t stop taking pictures:

My husband went running after all, I met him at the edge of the woods going in when I was about to leave.

Took a shower, made deodorant (that had been on my list for several days in a row), took a shower and helped my husband make lunch:

When I felt the after-lunch slump coming on I immediately got up from the kitchen bench (new trick, it has been working three times in a row now) and did the dishes. The boy helped and we talked a bit about drawing and his math test.

Then I got ready to teach, went over to the studio and practiced a bit. Then I prepared most of my lessons for the week, including finding new songs for several students. That took almost all the time until my first student.

That should have been a new student but she had to cancel because she was sick. She’ll start next week. Then I taught a lesson, then another student called in sick, then I saw a potential new student that will become a new, regular student starting next week. And the new guitar student that came on Friday came by to fetch her guitar that we (well, actually my husband) had repaired over the weekend.

Oh, and I sent an email to yet another new student. I’ll see her on Friday. That will mean teaching late which I don’t like but new students are good. (Old students are also good.) I am currently remembering that I do love doing my job. Most of the time. There was a point where I was so focused on the writing that teaching seemed almost like an afterthought. And then I remembered that a) I will have to sell a lot of books to make the same amount of money as teaching a lesson gets me and b) if teaching starts to be less interesting in any way I can always change things up and make it more interesting. I’m the teacher after all. Though I have to say students can change things up the same I can. And, maybe most important of all, c) I really love music and I love teaching and teaching people how to make music is a really, really great job.

And now I’ve started to prepare the lessons in a slightly more organized way which means I’m not scrambling to get everything ready last minute or with the student standing next to me. Feels much better. And right now seems to take about 1 1/2 hours per week. But I won’t have to do it every week.

Then I made the boy practice piano, started writing this post, finally listened to the piece of classical music for the day (I really liked it, „Fantasie nègre“ by Florence Price. A piano piece hovering between jazzy and very romantic.) then got ready for bed, wrote some more and enjoyed reading the current novel. (I’m still charmed by the “Unlikeable Demon Hunter“-series. I’m currently reading the third one.

I managed to turn the lights out early which is good because of my earlier wake-up time now.

Today there will be errands and the health food store. We’re going to the town hall to register for the petition to save the bees and might stop by the former music store owner’s house on the way, we’ll see.

Then there will be quite a bit of teaching and I’m hoping for strength training. Not much else, I guess.

I slept almost until the alarm. My sleep is definitely getting better again. This not drinking much alcohol does seem to make a difference.

I spent a cozy hour in bed, then made breakfast and when my husband showed up at eight I was deep in migrating my bullet journal. I started a new notebook a few days ago and now I’m finally all set up with the new one.

I started uploading the podcast video around seven. When it started it said that it would take approximately 45 minutes. The video was fully uploaded around two in the afternoon. Note to self: uploading to Youtube goes much faster if it’s not the weekend or evening.

My husband had a ton of stuff he wanted to talk about, he is still thinking about getting a new guitar and if so which one. And he wanted to tell me about the amp he worked on during the week. And we talked about his blog and the recordings he did in August. And then the boy came down for breakfast as well and he needed help with his new speaker setup. He needs a new cable and we weren’t sure what to get and where to get it.

All of that took a lot of time and so my husband went running too late. And I left even later. I tried running in the woods again because it was raining and I thought the paths would be muddy but clear of ice. Yeah, not so much. No idea how my husband runs on that but I just couldn’t and so I took the next path out of the woods and kept to the streets again.

And I forgot to take a picture.

I came back home and immediately chopped vegetables for goulash. By that point my husband was rather exhausted and had a hard time with all the moving parts of cooking.

Which resulted in him burning himself twice and about a quarter of the pasta either burnt or on the floor and between the stacked wood.

Lunch was late but tasty:

We agreed on new rules after that: on Saturdays we need to go running no later than 10.30 and there will be no complex dishes. Because Saturday is the day where my husband does longer runs and that with getting away later means that he is totally weak and almost dizzy when it’s time to cook. Especially now that he is having breakfast earlier.

Then I surprised myself by doing the dishes right away. I was afraid of the fabled Saturday slump and determined to evade it this week. Then I went over to the annex, saw that the podcast video had finally finished uploading and published the podcast and announced it everywhere.

Then I slumped a little but made some music too. And then I cut the fabric for a pair of yoga pants:

Hung up a load of laundry and watched some Star Trek with the boy while working on the Sweet Pea Posy blanket.

I wrote for a bit while my husband was playing drums and then guitar in the basement and turned the lights out early.

As I said, good day.

Today there will be yoga and some sewing and more writing and some music. No idea what else but we need to order a new cable for the boy and a birthday gift for my husband’s uncle and aunt.

And I will look back at the week and make plans for the upcoming one.

Woke up ten minutes before the alarm and didn’t anything useful until I rolled out of bed a little too late to make breakfast.

No meditation, no classical music, nothing.

Made breakfast and ate it with the boy. My husband showed up at 8.30. Before then I started setting up my bullet journal for February and migrating the things from the old journal that I still want to keep in the new one.

And I listened to the podcast and wrote the show notes. And found that there is an issue with the sound quality. Nothing I can do anything about. It seems to be a computer issue, not something to do with the new microphone. But still.

I finished part four of the Sweet Pea blanket and started part five. And I cast on for a new hat for the boy but didn’t get far.

Then dishes and cleaning and such.

And then we made lunch. No pizza this week:

Then I worked some more on the podcast, did some dishes, practiced a bit and taught all the students. The potential new student became a new student.

Then I had planned to do strength training with the boy but he had received his new speakers and had tried connecting them to his computer and had run into problems. The cable we ordered was configured in a way that he could only connect one speaker. And that one made weird noises every time he moved the mouse or did anything on the computer.

So that won’t do. We’ll have to send the cable back and get another one.

So we skipped strength training because of the time and watched an episode of “Deep Space Nine“. A very good episode.

Then I got ready for bed almost immediately and didn’t work on anything for the rest of the evening.

I’m hoping for slightly better results today. I’ll get the podcast ready for publishing and publish it, and I’ll go for a run and I’ll write and make a little music and cut out the fabric for a pair of yoga pants.

Wish me luck…