creative.mother.thinking

Woke up as usual, had cake for breakfast and forgot to take a picture. The boy had the first two periods off (well, that was the part where the whole school goes to church that isn’t mandatory) and so he and my husband got up around the same time.

I unpacked my presents:

A card from my mother, a great book from my sister (plus a rather nice card, my mother resents spending money on things like birthday cards), and a drawing by the boy. The flower was from my husband. Apparently those grow in our yard, I had no idea. He also gave me some money with the words, „You are always so strict with your budget so I thought you’d like this.“ He was right.

I loved the drawing:

Then I sat down to knit. In between I pulled out the new bluetooth keyboard I got for my phone and found it covered with the remnants of the black purse that I had thrown in the bin after the last time I had used it. It was disintegrating so hard that I was covered with flecks of black „vegetarian-friendly leather“.

So I took my husband’s birthday present and ordered myself a new black purse. Apparently I’m still at that stage where money can buy happiness.

Then I got ready and decided to mend my orange dress. I was too lazy to pull out the sewing machine and did it all by hand. Sloppily:

Then I taught a student, there was champagne, sandwiches and an omelette for lunch and then I taught some more. Watched the Tour and spun in between.

I was very happy that I only had a few students, it was as hot inside my studio as outside.

In the evening we went out for dinner. It’s a medium-fancy Italian restaurant that we usually like a lot. The food was great but our waiter wasn’t.

When we came they were in the middle of a rush so we were okay with waiting a little longer for our menus and to order. But then the rush subsided and a lot of people who had arrived later than us got their food and left much earlier. Most of them just had pizza instead of a four-course menu, but still.

Ihre was an attempt to calm myself down (the restaurant was rather loud as well, serves us right for going out on the last day of school):

We had an aperitif and then carpaccio made from guinea fowl with baked tomatoes, mushrooms and figs (I was too hungry and impatient at this point to remember to take a picture before starting to eat):

The waiter had forgotten our bottle of wine, when we reminded him he brought a glass of wine, and then he brought the wrong wine first. The boy had mozzarella caprese:

For our pasta course we had panzerotti with mushrooms and ricotta. The boy didn’t get anything at this point (he had ordered no meat course; no idea why they decided to let him sit hungry while we were eating our pasta – the waiter might have forgotten, most likely):

Then we waited for about half an hour again. Another waiter took our empty plates and asked if we wanted anything? We said that we had ordered the menu and weren’t done yet. He was a little surprised. A few minutes later our waiter re-emerged, brought us some more bread while trying to charm us and told us it would only be two more minutes now!

We think that he probably only ordered our meat then.

By then I was not hungry any more and tired enough to want to go home. But we waited a little longer for our veal with mushrooms:

It was very tasty. The poor boy still didn’t have his pasta at this point and I found it interesting that we only got the meat, nothing else. We started eating, our waiter breezed by, saw the boy and said, „Two minutes, only two minutes!“ when he saw the boy didn’t have any food.

Then somebody else showed up with pasta for the boy (he had the panzerotti too) and – mashed potatoes, carrots and broccoli for us.

When I had told the waiter in the beginning that I would like my dessert without strawberries (I really hate strawberries.) he had wanted to discuss this at the end. No idea why he couldn’t have jotted that down and remembered but apparently that was not doable.

So when we were finished with out main course we sat and waited some more (the mood was not quite as nice at that point; behind us a family had started fighting over dinner which was a little distracting as well) then he came up saying, „Dessert!“ Before vanishing again.

We started hoping. At this point I was rather sure that I would get my dessert with the strawberries (mascarpone cream).

Then he came back with his notepad, „What do you want?”

Huh? We had the menu. There was dessert included in the menu. We explained that we had ordered the menu, that I didn’t want strawberries with my mascarpone cream and that the boy wanted just regular tiramisu.

„I’ll go and see if there is any mascarpone cream left,“ he said.

We did manage to convey that we’d rather have just regular tiramisu if it made no difference to him because with our fructose-intolerance both my husband and I don’t do well with fruit.

We got our tiramisu. It was good. The lunar eclipse was in full swing when we left. My husband said, „Next time I’ll just stand in the kitchen and do two courses instead of four and the food will be almost as good but we won’t have to deal with waiting for ages, car and motorbike noises, people’s perfume and cigarette smoke.”

Not to mention that it will be much cheaper.

This has been the first time that we were let down by that restaurant, every other visit was really enjoyable and the food is wonderful.

We walked home and the streets were full of people out to see the lunar eclipse. I looked at the blood-red moon for a bit and then I went to bed to elevate and ice my foot that is still looking iffy and that doesn’t like the heat.

Today I might not go for my run – because of the still infected foot – I will spin for sure and write a little and not do much of anything.

No writing at all which is bad. But otherwise it was a god day.

I went running a little earlier than usual:

We do need rain.

7.2 k with lots and lots of walking.

Then I helped to make lasagna:

This time I forgot to take the picture before starting to eat. I was really hungry.

Did the dishes, want to write but there wasn’t enough time because I talked with the boy for too long.

I taught a few students and in between I watched the Tour and spun:

Then I taught another student and went off for my monthly meeting with parents of gifted children.

The good thing was that I talked to my husband before leaving and he said that I should take a jacket even though the weather forecast said it would be hot and dry.

I started biking and it was much cooler than I had feared and then the first drops started to fall and it became really windy and then I ended up riding through a veritable downpour. At least I had my rain jacket. My skirt, sandals and hair were dripping wet but at least my tank top wasn’t soaked. I really should get a rain cover for my bike helmet.

The meeting was really nice and there were far more parents there than usual.

When I biked home everything was dry again. That downpour had been over fast and had only been in that area. There had been no rain at all at home.

When I came back home around 10 there was still light in the kitchen and the boy just had dinner. He had met with my husband at the school summer party and they had heard my husband’s students play with the school band. They had just come home.

Consequentially the boy overslept this morning.

Today I will go grocery shopping and record the podcast. There will also be teaching, of course, and I want to card some more spinning fiber because I spun up everything I had carded the day before.

Two more days before summer break …

Woke up really early because my MIL was rummaging around over my head. Since she was leaving on a five-day trip I was okay with that.

Wanted to write first thing in the morning and – didn’t. Again.

But I was rather early and had breakfast ready on time and things went pretty smoothly.

No writing after breakfast either.

Really nice conversation with my husband then, and then a rather awful run. It wasn’t too hot but it was really humid. Also, I was in that state were you feel completely un-energetic and somewhat desperate. I would have given up halfway in but I still had to get back home, unfortunately. So I just walked most of the way:

At least it didn’t rain while I was running.

I am wearing my „You read my t-shirt. That’s enough social interaction for the day.“-tee which felt appropriate the day before. (And that day as well.)

There wasn’t much to help with lunch because we had capellini with some arugula pesto that my husband made the day before:

I cooked the pasta, my husband made the salad. Cucumbers, arugula, and carrots are all from our garden. This food is incredible, you can’t beat eating something that you just pulled out the ground.

The boy came home a little later than expected. He did run 15 laps (a little more than 10k) for the charity thing. Without training at all. Sometimes I envy teenagers.

He was also rather excited about receiving an invitation to an event where some of the young scientist-types from his school are going to visit another school next fall for a week. They will give presentations about their projects there and will visit all kinds of scientists and see exciting projects. Pretty cool. I hope he gets in. He and his friend were asked by their favorite physics teacher.

Talking about that meant that I was little late in preparing for my lessons.

I taught a few students. Wasted some time when I had a break but did manage to finally do the lunch dishes.

After work I went and pickled some cucumbers.

Then I finally sat down and wrote some words on my novel. I am getting so stressed out about this that I am binge-eating like crazy again. This is a little disheartening because I thought I was over my eating disorder. Seems I am not. For most of the day I had to fight the strong urge to go out and buy gummy bears because I had a hard craving for them.

I remained strong, though.

And I decided that the only way out with this novel is through, so I will write a little more than usual and that thing will be behind me soon.

I hope that works.

And then I attended another webinar. No, I’m not addicted. It was about email marketing without being spammy. Which is a very good thing if you can pull it off. Now I just have to send my very first email to my subscribers. (If you’re interested, these emails will eventually be about my fiction writing and you can sign up on the blog in the top right corner.)

So. Today. There will be a short run (not looking forward to it) and I want to go to the health food store. I will specifically not buy any gummy bears. I am allowed to buy some dark chocolate, thought. I will have a long afternoon teaching because my first student will show at 2 and the last one will leave some time around 7.30. But I will have a long break in between.

I woke up early after excellent sleep.

Choked down my thyroid medication with awful tasting water. You see, some dumb person dumped a truckload of waste on a field in the water protection area around here which means there might be nasty bacteria in the water coming out of our faucets. So they started putting chlorine in as a precaution. It isn’t much and you barely smell it but drinking tap water has stopped being fun.

This thing will go on for four more weeks. Our water filter that we use for making tea does filter the chlorine out but the water tastes funny when not boiled. Maybe I’ll try boiling the water I drink in the morning first.

I did manage to go for my run. I’m still walking a lot but did walk/run a little more than 11 kilometers:

The big field is starting to look a bit weird. I’m hoping that there won’t be construction on there.

It was raining, hence the hat and ugly coat.

The fences are new.

Also around the small chapel.

Why yes, it was wet and muddy.

I came back home where I realized that I had forgotten my key but my husband was already home and in the kitchen so knocking on the window made him open the door for me.

We cooked, both rather hungry and exhausted:

Rice, chickpea curry, spinach and chicken. It was all very good.

Then I finally took a shower and plonked down in fron of TV for spinning and watching the Tour. As usual there was more watching than spinning but I did make tiny progress. I even finished a cob and started fresh:

The rest of the day I spent procrastinating about doing the dishes and procrastinating about writing. I am a master procrastinator by now. I did buy yet another book about writing a novel in thirty days but unfortunately that didn’t make new words magically appear.

I did manage to write some, though. I told myself I could have a beer if I sat down and wrote so that worked. The boy came home around ten so I did go to bed slightly late.

I’m still aspiring to get back to writing first thing in the morning. I never felt better than that time last year when I got up at five and did just that. Going to bed around eight is rather early, though, and doesn’t really mesh with the rest of the world. Especially when you have a husband and son who are rather active in the evenings. And particularly when you have a husband who tends to practice drums and electric guitar right underneath the bedroom between 8.30 and 9.30 pm.

Something needs to change, though, because not writing is no fun at all.

I’m not quite sure if that’s a good thing or if it’s just a slump that I’ll regret later.

And it wasn’t a complete day off, I still had to teach some students.

The day started a little different than usual because school started an hour later than usual for the boy. Which meant I didn’t really have my alone time after breakfast.

I made another doctor’s appointment, this time for a colonoscopy in August. Since I turned 50 it is time to have one again.

Then I went grocery shopping. Came back a little later than expected and then we rode our bikes to a nearby beer garden. School was out early and my husband and I didn’t have to teach until 3, and the weather was ideal so we managed to cross one thing off our summer break list early:

The boy and I had Obatzda and Brez’n and my husband wanted a pork cutlet with potato salad:

This is about as Bavarian as food can get. And of course there was beer. Not for the boy, though.

We biked home (my Fitbit said that I exercised for 70 minutes all in all with the walking and the bike) and since there was still time before teaching I not only took a shower but also sat down to watch the Tour and spin.

And after teaching I did the exact same thing again.

Until I remembered that I still had the breakfast dishes to wash and that my husband had started a load of laundry after lunch. So I took care of that.

And then I sat in front of the computer for yet another webinar. I know I am a little crazy. But who could resist something that’s called „Create a Six-Figure Author Business in 2018 Without Trad-Publishers“?

Yeah, I thought so. But – more spinning time!

Which was totally worth the time. For spinning. The presenter was telling us that we should pay 1,000 dollars for her awesome course which would give us 11,000 dollars worth of stuff and really, finding that 6-figure book idea would totally be paying for everything. Oh, and she threw in another bonus that only the first five people would get.

Yeah.

As I said, by now I do have an inkling on how selling works.

I just wanted to type into the chat box that ideas are a dime a dozen and having a great idea for a book means nothing. Most webinars I’m watching about book marketing at least tell you that the first thing you need is a well-written book.

I didn’t type that in because I don’t think it would have done anything. I’m trying to be polite these days.

I am writing a note to myself that I really should stop watching these things.

Today there will be the rescheduling of the boy’s dentist’s appointment next week, the cleaning of the house, a little teaching, and the helping with making pizza, I think.

And then the weekend.