creative.mother.thinking

explaining my life to strangers

I still don’t eat sugar

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Well, at least not much.

A couple of weeks ago I decided to give up eating sugar because I felt like I was addicted to it. In fact I haven’t been giving it up entirely. This is the amount of sugar I eat every day:


It’s all brown sugar, I choose the very dark chocolate that has brown sugar as the last ingredient on the list (I even tried chocolate with 99% cocoa in it, bleargh.) I don’t even remotely like dark chocolate. But I’m starting to get used to it. Better than no chocolate anyway. The müsli has a tiny amount of brown sugar in the corn flakes. I could eat the same sugar-free müsli as my husband but I like this much better. And the sugar cube shows my weakness, I can’t bring myself to drink black tea without sugar. And no, I won’t try artificial sweetener (Are you nuts? There are enough weird chemicals in my food as it is, and besides they taste horrible.), or splenda. (I don’t even know if that is available in Germany.) But from what I read about it I’d rather eat some honey or brown sugar, or even white sugar, before I tried that.

I know that when I’m writing about this “no-sugar”-thing I trigger every woman’s “I’m not eating healthy, and I should lose weight anyway.”-trip at once. Especially now that everybody is going the Atkins-route again, and carbohydrates are flailed right and left. I love carbs. I still eat a lot of sweet things. And I don’t think everybody should stop eating sugar. Only, when I start eating sugary things I instantly crave even more. And then, often, I can’t seem to stop before all is gone.

I still feel calmer when I don’t eat much sugar. But I’m getting used to it. At first, every time I ate something like cake I’d go completely hysteric. Or depressive. Now it doesn’t affect me that much. When I’m invited for cake, I eat cake. I only eat one piece though, not three. On Tuesday I even had iced coffee with ice cream and whipped cream with sugar in it. And stayed reasonably calm. I never eat those kinds of things at home though. My son’s candy is firmly out of bounds.

So it would be quite easy to say, “Oh, now I got it. I can have some white sugar on a regular basis without becoming all addicted again.” But I don’t think so. Every single time that I eat a piece of cake or a cookie I end up craving sugar even more than before. So this craving seems to be insatiable for me.

I’m still getting used to this. I miss baking. Every time I go to the grocery store I recite, “I can’t have this, and I can’t have that. ” “No sugar, no candy, no cake, no cookies, no ice cream,…” But it’s getting better. There are whole aisles I’m not going into anymore. And I’m finding peace in that. I don’t miss the bloated and disgusting feeling I had when I ate a bag of potato chips, chocolate, and a bag of jelly beans in one sitting. I don’t miss that feeling at all. And I don’t miss all that discussions going on in my head like, “But I want only one more piece of chocolate. And then I’ll stop.” and the mother-me saying, “But you already had four pieces. And you know that you will keep on eating, so why don’t you just stop now and eat the rest tomorrow.” – “But I waaaant toooooo.” – “Stop it.” – “Waaaaaaa.” – Sigh. “Okay, but just one.”
(After writing a screen play for three weeks I still haven’t got the hang of formatting dialogue. And in case you’re interested, 13,491 words so far. I know, I’m way behind.)

Oh, and if you think of cutting back on sugar for weight-loss reasons, I can tell you that eating two pounds of nuts for snacks every week will take care of that. I mean, the weight loss. Or, the lack of.

How to be creative when you don’t have the time (part 3)

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It’s been a while but I didn’t forget. In the first two installments of this series I wrote about finding the time, and finding resources. I promised to write about physical space but since then I have come to think that that isn’t exactly thrilling. So I’ll write about that briefly and then go on to talk about finding the space for creativity in your mind. And then, maybe, there might be a last post about inspiration.

3. Finding physical space

Most creative things don’ need that much space. Again, writing is a winner, sit down anywhere with notebook and pen, and voilà, instant creativity. For music space isn’t the issue unless you want to play drum set or grand piano. Sculpting is harder but then, if you stick with your play-doh…

When I was sewing my grocery bag a student came early. My whole teaching room was full, with the fabric and the sewing machine and the ironing board. And she said that she loved sewing too, but that one really needed time for this, and a place where one can leave it all. She had a veery longing gaze in her eyes.

Of course everyone of us would like to have a crafts room but then it is possible to do it flylady-style too. She has a rolling suitcase for every project. She pulls everything out when she works on it and when she is finished for the day she puts everything back. Which is exactly what I should have done that day. I plan to empty one of the wooden boxes I have around the house and use that as my “current-sewing-project-in-progress”-box. I’ll put it under the box with all the flutes and the xylophone in it.

(And this was the point where I had written this whole post from beginning to finish while my son was first sitting in the bathtub and then later while I was waiting for him to fall asleep, and I was very good, saving it every other paragraph, and happily typing away on my palm and then it said “unexpected error” and all the rest of it is gone. Very frustrating. Sigh. But no, I won’t give up. So here’s the recreation of the rest. Who knows maybe it’ll be a little shorter.)

So, let’s talk about the big issue:

4. Finding the space in your mind

For most of us this may be the biggest obstacle of all. Our minds are full to the brim with little things and little people. Especially the little people can make the task of finding mind space really challenging. Our minds are constantly cluttered with things to do, things not to forget, places to go, people we met, things we talked about, thinks we read about, … So here are a few tips to help:

Find a little time for yourself in the morning:
Every morning I get up half an hour early to do 9 1/2 minutes of sitting meditation. You might ask, “Why does it take 30 minutes to do 10 minutes of meditation?” Well, I’m not very fast in the morning. But when I am, I also write a little in my journal. I have written about meditation elsewhere, and it really helps to clear the mind, but if you don’t want to, anything helps. Get up a little early and write into a journal, or sit down with your cup of coffee and look out of the window, or take a short walk. Just take a little time alone to hear yourself think, feel yourself before the day starts. (And if you have a child that senses when you get up, either leave it with your partner (if you can), or try to make this time as peaceful as possible with the child.)

Find a little time for yourself in the evening:
Again, just sitting down, turning off TV, radio, or mindless chatter helps. Taking a look out of the window, maybe a little walk. I like to sit down in the evenings and write into my gratitude journal. Mad Hatter sits down and blogs (Um, or not, I just read her blog and she is on blog-vacation.). Either way, taking a step back helps to clear the mind.

Find a little time for yourself during the day
Take the peace and quiet wherever you find it. Do the dishes and let your mind wander, hang up laundry with your baby in a sling, put your child in the stroller and go for a walk, sit down at the kitchen table while the children play in the next room, use the tiny scraps of time that you have, put your thinking and your creativity in the nooks and crannies of your day, and you will see that all those scraps together might result in a big, colorful quilt of thinking and creativity.

Start with clearing the physical space
You can also start with de-cluttering. Nothing refreshens the mind better than a little cleaning or de-cluttering. Only be careful not to stop there. Housework never ends. Just let your hands do the work and feel your thoughts lighten.

Move
One of the best things for me to get out of a rut, get my mind working again, think something over, or solve a problem is a walk. All exercise is good for this. (Well, up to a certain point.) But especially good are those that have a rhythm to it and don’t require thinking. Like walking, running or riding a bike. Or maybe yoga. (Okay, not rhythmic and un-thinking as such, but it helps. I know it.)

If you want to find more mind space it also helps to turn off TV, radio, and also – gasp – the computer. All those things can be very stimulating too. But there has to be a little extra space for ideas, and dreams. So you can go and be creative.

And when you have done all that, or maybe only some of that, all you need is a notepad and pen so you can write down your ideas. And then, some other time, you make something out of those ideas. But first you have to have that space in your mind. Which exactly is the reason why we all get such good ideas in the shower or while driving. There even are waterproof notepads for that but in my experience if the idea is really that good you’ll probably still know it, once you’re dry and dressed.

So now that we have cleared our minds and started thinking, it becomes easier. Remember when you fell in love and couldn’t think about anything else but that person? That’s how it feels when you start a new creative project. And then life comes in the way, and procrastination. Of which I will write another day. The only thing that we still need for being creative is inspiration. That will be the conclusion of the creativity-series.

Four things meme

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I’m always so happy when I get tagged for something. I suppose this has to do with not being tagged very often. Chani just wrote about the problem that tagging people for memes always leaves someone out. I’m undecided about this. I think you can try all you might but there will always be somebody who feels left out. I know that there are many bloggers out there more popular than me. Of course, bloggers who are read and loved by many do get tagged more often. I don’t think that takes anything away from me. In fact I’m really happy to have a circle of readers who come back. Even though I’m posting infrequently. And if you like a meme, well, do what I usually do – steal it. Though there has been talk that one can go blind when tagging oneself, I doubt it very much. (And I wanted to link to that but it seems to have been at an incarnation of sober briquette’s blog that’s lost to the world. I appreciate it very much that she has named her new archives “I shall not delete” in this new blog-incarnation. I had pondered to backup for her.) At least I’m only extremely short-sighted. (And Chani’s eyesight has been improving lately.)

So, enough for the mangled introduction in which I make fun of my friends. (Sorry, De.). The lovely and extremely flexible (she’s a yoga teacher, what did you think?) Liv of “madness, madness I say!”has tagged me for the four things meme. Off we go:

Four Jobs I’ve Had
1) I worked in a bakery. I was selling bread and buns and cake.
2) I worked in a company that prints labels. I was the one entering all the data into the computer. By hand. I’m really fast at typing numbers.
3) For one year I worked as an assistant at the institute of music education at Munich university. I pretended to work on an encyclopedia of music educators while writing my dissertation.
4) I was a music teacher teaching grades 7 to 12 at a school with mostly disabled students.

Four Movies I Can Watch Over & Over
1) L.A. Story
2) Jumping Jack Flash
3) The Fifth Element
4) all Star Trek Movies with Data

Four Places I’ve Lived
1) Bielefeld
2) Bünde
3) München
4) the place near Munich where I live now. Its name starts with G.

Four Places I’ve Vacationed
(only four?)
1) Ubatuba, Brasil
2) Madeira
3) Tuscany, Italy
4) Germany, all over the place

Four of My Favorite Dishes
1) Green Beans Stew (Grüne-Bohnen-Eintopf) Though I have to say my stew doesn’t look like the one in the picture at all.
2) Garlic Lime Chicken (there is the recipe when you scroll down a little, it’s in English) with broccoli and rice
3) Spaghetti Bolognese cooked by my husband
4) Chicken saté

Four Sites I Visit Daily
You know I have a really long blogroll over there, and there are other blogs that I read too. I won’t pick one over the other though. So, here’s my list:
1) statcounter
2) bloglines
3) psychedelic zen guitar (Well, I’m the tech person for this site… Also, very good music. And pretty pictures.)
4.) Script Frenzy so I can enter my word count (8,524 so far).

Four Places I Would Rather Be Right Now
Do I really have to be somewhere else? I’m quite content here in my home in my room with the prospect of a little guitar playing and maybe an episode of “Buffy” while knitting in the future. And then bed… So, if I must:
1.) At the Osteria Italiana in Munich. I may well have eaten the best food in my life there.
2.) At a workshop about tarot cards.
3.) A singing workshop with Bobby McFerrin and Voicestra
4.) At Blogher-Conference

You know, there are a million beautiful places in the world, but the best view doesn’t help if I’m bored, or sick or if my spirit has left. Being at the beach and soaking in the sun is nice for about a day or two. While there are a few cities I’d like to visit sometimes, like Paris or San Francisco, I can as well go out of the house, walk for about five minutes and be on the fields and among the trees. It’s very beautiful there. I could take a train for half an hour and have five beautiful lakes to choose from. Or I could take another train for about ninety minutes and climb the Alps. Or take the first train back for about half an hour again and be in one of the biggest and most beautiful cities in Germany.

So, now for the tagging. First, I don’t want to exclude anybody. Consider yourself tagged. Also, since I am a little behind with the blog reading I don’t really know who has done this or not. But I’d really like to hear De‘s answers to this. When she can spare the time. The last I heard she was buying paint too. And crazymumma’s answers. And now I’d like to go and watch my DVD. Oh, and if you don’t have a blog and want to answer these questions? Do it in the comments. I love comments. Or send me an e-mail.

Pink – the third

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justpostmay2007

I know I have milked the subject of pink shoes or socks enough already, but – today is the day of the May just post roundtable and there will be some new readers coming over to read the story of my son’s pink socks. All because I didn’t write anything else remotely social or just for the whole month. And those new readers – and the old ones as well – will then think that my poor son still suffers and maybe cry a little for him.

(And for those who are new to this and too lazy or pressed for time to follow the links: my son wanted to have pink shoes which I didn’t buy because I was afraid that he would be made fun of at preschool. Then I bought him pink socks. He wore them to preschool once and after being laughed at never wanted to wear them again.)

I’ll continue to be angry at gender inequality, I promise. And right now I have the feeling that maybe little boys don’t have as much choices as little girls. And then they will grow up and become men. And maybe they will be grown men in a society where they still earn more money than women, and do less housework. They might live in a world where a mother has to come home from an important meeting immediately because her child puked so she can mop it up, even when the child is with his father at the time. If said child’s father on the other hand were to be – let’s say – going out with his friends for a couple of beers, and the child got sick, there might be a fat chance that he heard about the incident only the morning after. “Oh, by the way the child will be staying home today, it got sick in the evening.”
(Disclaimer: This is not to be confused with the situation at creative family where master guitarist and creative mother share childcare duties and mopping up. Each of them is considered to be a fully grown parent without need of further assistance.)

So maybe I should shut up about the pink socks. And I will. I only want to write this post to assure you all that my son isn’t sad any more about the pink socks or shoes. He has forgotten the pink shoes entirely. For a four year old he has a remarkable memory so this shows it hasn’t been that important to him. It was important to me. Because I chose to use my powers of persuasion to change his opinion. And though I use my powers of persuasion all the time with my son this time felt a little immoral. Only I didn’t want to have to buy another pair of shoes.

So. His social standing in the preschooler community obviously didn’t suffer much. One boy who had laughed at him because of the pink socks invited him to his birthday party just last week. The little girl who had said to her mother, “The boy is wearing girly socks.” did so not in malice or ridicule but in curiosity. She found it odd and remarkable but not alarmingly so.

I won’t talk to the teachers about this issue because I doubt that there is anything they can do about it. The children already know that they shouldn’t make fun of others. They still do occasionally. They are just trying to figure out how to be social animals. Friendships are forged and broken. At least in this school the atmosphere is very friendly. When we go through the door in the morning there are children shouting, “Hello Leo.” right and left. The children are nice to one another. Unlike my memories of preschool, girls and boys play together often. A boy can play with the dolls or in the doll kitchen without being stigmatized. When I was four years old there was a boy in my preschool who liked to play in the doll’s corner. He never recovered from that. And I went to school with him until fourth grade. I don’t think that something like this could happen in the school my son attends.

Also his teacher told me that she admires my son for being quite independent. She said, “He plays nicely with others though he is quiet and a little shy. He has no problems. And when he has enough or doesn’t want to play what the others are playing he goes away and plays alone.” That made me quite proud. My son is independent and self-reliant. He won’t let himself get coaxed by peer pressure. At least for now.

Those of you with preschoolers and kindergarteners probably know that this is one of the most rigid and conservative phases in life. These children are setting out to learn the rules, and so they like people to stick to them. They try to understand what being male or female means. They try to understand what being a child and an adult means. They try to see the big picture, how people work, how one does things.

So my son goes back and forth between his likings. He declared, “I no longer like pink, I like black and brown now.” a couple of weeks ago. When I told him that one can like all three at once, he said no. You can’t. Just yesterday he declared, “I don’t like black and brown any longer. I like pink better again.”

My son’s biggest ambition right now has nothing to do with clothes but with his deep desire to be master of his own fate. He wants to be grown-up and be able to do everything he can imagine. He just starts to see how rich the world is and what range of things and activities are available to human beings. He wants to grow his own food, make his own clothes, build a space shuttle and travel to the moon, become a knight, have children, and cook.

His most persistent fantasy is that of building his own submarine, build an ocean in the backyard and then live there on his own. So that nobody can tell him what to do. He will be staying up all night, wear his pajamas the whole day and have robots who manufacture everything he desires. (No, he never saw a James Bond movie.) He plans to move out at his fifth birthday, but we can come and visit him. He even told me that I could stay with him in the submarine to travel to Brazil. Or maybe Italy. Or both.

Just a quick update

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Firstly, please remember that today is the last day of nomination and contribution to the Just Post roundtables for May.

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Secondly, the good weather has hit us. So my husband and I are deep into sanding and painting the porch now. The first coat of paint is up. Due to a severe paint shortage (I recommend to actually think about how much paint you’ll need before starting a renovation project. And then go and buy as much as needed. Just saying.) and due to today being a very catholic holiday here in Bavaria (so all the shops are closed) I won’t be painting today. My poor husband though is just heading towards our tallest ladder so that he can apply the second coat of paint to the outside of the balcony/porch. This will be especially uncomfortable for him since he has a newly developed allergy to some pollen or other that causes his eyes to itch and turn all red and inflamed.

husband with protective spectacles while sanding

husband on ladder with more protection gear (wet towel)


The porch/balcony sanded:
and with the first coat of paint:

The script has been going nicely up until the day before yesterday. Today writing feels like I’m squeezing water out of desert sand. I have written 4,852 words so far. Only 15,148 to go. Right now I’m writing a scene that was inspired by Mary Wigman‘s mask dance. I couldn’t find a video of that but there is one of her witch dance here.

The stove has been installed.

If you’re somehow new to my blog and don’t know what I’m talking about, please read the post before this in which I announced my current projects.

Oh, and to those of you who wondered when I’m doing all this stuff, and if I’m like manic or something? Well, just for scale, knitting half a cardigan has taken about two months. I’m knitting while watching DVDs. The Buffy-watching so far took about half a year. Only six more episodes to go. Apart from “Buffy” and an episode of “Deep Space 9” about once a week I’m not watching any TV. Nor am I going to the cinema or reading newspapers. The bag-project will have to wait at least until July, maybe longer. And, most important: We have yet another two-week long vacation. No students for the last ten days, and five days without child, because my mother-in-law took him to visit my parents.

And here’s a bonus:

our son banging loudly on the piano

And sorry that I haven’t visited any blogs. I still read yours and yours and yours… I hope to catch up on Sunday.

Script Frenzy and other projects

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I promise to write the next installment of “How to be creative when you don’t have the time” soon. Seriously. As soon as I have finished reading all of the hundreds of blogs I like to read and as soon as I have written my script.

“What?”, you say. Or maybe “WHAT?” What is she doing now? Well, when she read that there would be a NaNoWriMo-like event in June called Script Frenzy she, that is to say I, decided to use that as a chance to complete the movie script I had started writing in 1992. Back then I chose to finish my master’s thesis and continue writing a script afterwards. And then it never happened. And I really don’t know why it should since I’m not that much into film and won’t submit it anywhere. It’s just that it was a good idea and I’d like to see how it turns out.

Which is quite optimistic considering that I still haven’t had the heart to read the novel I wrote in November. I printed it out, though, and re-read page one. Then I thought to myself, “This is really crappy.”, labeled a new file with “NANOWRIMO-NOVEL”, put the manuscript in there and decided to read it in August. 2007. Maybe. If I have the time.

With the script I was quite good yesterday, I sat down in the kitchen with my laptop, without wireless, and wrote 1,125 words. This time there won’t be UFOs but witchcraft. And drumming women. And ethnologists. Of course it’s set in Germany. Oh, and it’s supposed to be a thriller. Right now it feels quite boring to me but then I have yet to write something outside this blog that holds my interest. I suspect that this is the same phenomenon as with my late dissertation. In the end I found it completely boring because I had spent so much time with those same ideas. Each time I told somebody about it though they seemed to be genuinely interested. On the other hand maybe I have a distinctly boring writing style when writing fiction (or dissertations). I’ll have to think about this some more because I’m never bored with the short, short pieces of fiction I write as a homework for my writer’s group. I don’t think they’re well written either but then I can’t expect that much when I always write them on the train on my way to the meeting. (That’s about 20 minutes of time.)

So while I don’t like to work under pressure I do quite well with time constraints. Deadlines. And I’ll be writing another 1,000 words on that script today. Somehow.

The only thing that can hinder me will be very sunny and dry weather during the next week. Because then I will be painting the porch, balcony and some windows. I don’t mind the painting that much but I really dislike having to work on a ladder and, um, there I had to go and look up a word, what I meant to say was “Schwingschleifer”. Probably a sander. Anyway, it’s one of those electrical thingies to grind paint from wood. It doesn’t seem to be heavy until you have wielded it for hours at improbable angles. And then you have to get your sandpaper and try to sand all the nooks and crannies. Afterwards you stand in the heat, wield your paintbrush inhaling paint fumes… I’m so looking forward to this. Not. So that’s project #1. Apart from the script.
(Here I have to add that though this reads as if I were painting and sanding the porch single-handedly, in real life – which is much less dramatic than blog-life – my poor and long-suffering husband will be the one doing most of the work while I will meekly wave a tiny paintbrush around and say, “I’m hot. I’m tired. I don’t want to do this. I have to have a break. Shall I bring you something from the kitchen?” Then I’ll vanish inside to emerge about an hour later saying, “Wow. You sure did a good job. Can I help?” (Yes, I know that I’m prone to exaggeration, thank you.)

Project #2 I won’t have to do myself. We’re getting a wood stove for our son’s room. Yesterday somebody re-opened the chimney and made everything ready and on Monday the stove will be installed. You might ask why we install a stove in our son’s bedroom. Well, this once was our living room and it will be again sometime in this century. And it already had a chimney which was sealed up when we installed the new gas heating.

Project #3 is a project in waiting. After sewing my grocery bag some weeks ago I got bitten by the bag sewing bug and so I’m planning to sew a bag for my yoga mat using the free Amy Butler sewing pattern. This will be the test to see if I should ask for a new sewing machine for my birthday. Will my renewed enthusiasm for crafting continue or not? So far I have visited two fabrics stores and then decided to use some leftover fabric from curtains for the exterior bag and bought some cheap fabric for the lining.

fabric on yoga mat
(in real life the fabrics match because the red is brown-ish and not pink-ish)

Of course I do need a bag for my yoga mat which travels all the way from the right side of my computer desk to the front side of my computer desk about once a week. But it will be nice to install a hook on the wall and have it hung up instead of falling over every time I need a book or an exercise DVD from one of the lower bookshelves. And one really doesn’t need a big reason for a new bag anyway.

Project #4 has been an ongoing project for some time now, I’m knitting a woolen cardigan. This I do because I couldn’t find something pretty, or even wooly at all, and it makes my almost daily “Buffy, the Vampire Slayer” sessions seem more productive. Also I found that my tolerance for family gatherings and such vastly improves when I can take my knitting with me.

chocolate-y cardigan
(yes, I’m worried that it looks so small too)

One could say that the watching of all episodes of “Buffy” in chronological order might be a project too. So far I have less than ten episodes to watch. And then I’ll start to watch all of “Angel” in chronological order. Which will take another six months at least.

To close this rambling post I’ll point you towards the just post roundtable again. You have until June, 7th to nominate post or submit one of your own. If you don’t know anything about it just click on the button below.

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