creative.mother.thinking

It feels as if it should be Wednesday or something. And the whole family was feeling like we needed a break again, only two weeks after fall break. Weird. 

Writing:

Well, I only wrote about 5,000 words which mean I have gotten even more behind with NaNoWriMo than before. When I manage to write I like the story even though things are going slowly. But then I started a new story in a different world with different characters in a somewhat different voice, so that takes time. Apparently.

I was rather busy all week and that made the writing suffer. I could have spent more time writing for sure. I still had oodles of time to spend on Instagram and staring at the internet. 

Exercise:

Running went okay. I abandoned the running plan and just did roughly 5k-runs three times that week. With no pressure. I decided that the rest of my life is crazy enough that I don’t need to push at the exercise front as well. The weather was gray and cold:

And even grayer and colder:

And rather wet one day as well:

Bodyweight training happened exactly once, on Tuesday. There was another day where the boy and I had a session scheduled but we were both so tired and exhausted that we skipped it. I did some stretching on Sunday. And enough walking to count it as cross training on Tuesday and Saturday. 

Teaching:

Still teaching a lot, that week was extra-heavy. I have more singing students than I have ever had in my life. Which is good. But it takes more energy to teach singing where I need to play and sing and listen and focus constantly than teaching for exampled piano, where I mostly just sit on a chair, listen and say, „F sharp! F sharp! With the fourth finger!“. I don’t have to listen for what the student is doing while playing piano and singing myself.

Don’t get me wrong, I love teaching and I especially love teaching voice but I’ll need a bit of an adjustment period. 

Health:

I’m skirting the line between getting a cold and being healthy. So far my voice was only a little rough on Thursday where I have the three singing students in a row. We moved a student around who takes lessons with both my husband and me so that things are spread out a bit more. His lesson with me got moved to a day where I don’t have other singing students and his lesson with my husband got moved from a day where he teaches non-stop from lunchtime until after dinnertime to a day where he has only a few students. Phew.

I only got enough sleep once all week and that has to change right now. It is what prevents me from getting stuff done and from writing. It’s all nice to set an alarm for five so you can write but if you’re zombified all the time nothing good will come from it.

Other than that things are great, no pain, no nothing. 

Other stuff:

I’m re-knitting the second sleeve for my husband’s sweater and am spinning more yarn very slowly. 

We were invited to a big birthday party for a friend of my husband. That dominated our week. We spent three hours on Saturday on getting there and back with construction work on the train lines, busses that didn’t go at the time expected and having to make a huge detour because of how the trains are set up. The party was rather nice, the food and drink was extraordinarily good and I can really recommend the place.

First, there was pumpkin soup:

And then I had wild boar on risotto:

And my husband took the veal:

And they are making their own beer at the place. I have never tasted anything like it, it was just wonderful, mild and smooth, really great.

 

Next week:

I think my focus will be on going to bed early come what may. I’m hoping that that will boost my word count as well. I’m at that familiar point where I need to write 3,000 words per day to make the 50,000. So far I have never managed that, so we’ll see how that goes. Right now next week is looking doable but that will certainly change.

I’m looking forward to buckling down with both the writing and the spinning. And the sleeping, the sleeping will glorious!

 Yeah, life was a little crazy these past two weeks which is why there was no proper weekly review last week. Nothing major happened, though, so that was good.

Writing:

The main thing of note is that the third in the Eva Mandel-trilogy was finished. I still need to go through all of the novels again, of course, and there is still quite a bit to do before I can publish them but at least that story, the one that I started in February 2018 has been written down.

The plan was to start the next novel right away but it turned out I needed a day off. So far the writing on the new story is going slow as molasses. I remember that it was the same the last time I tried writing that same story so I have hoped it will speed up eventually. The new main character is a nice change from the last one. After spending almost two years in the head of the same protagonist I was getting a little tired of it. 

Exercise:

The running continues to go well. I’m still not running all through but I’m getting better. The colder weather makes running much easier for me.

I went running three times per week as I had planned. I even moved one of my Saturday runs to Friday because I knew I wouldn’t have time on Saturday.

Bodyweight training went not as well as I wanted but at least I did it once a week. No stretching, no yoga. Also, no pain so I’m good.

Teaching:

 I did not have fall break off completely, I ended up with three teaching days that week. Not as many students as usual but more than I would have liked. I felt as if I could really use a full week off work. Since I also like earning money I compromised. I do have two more singing students which is great. My schedule is almost full by now and I’m happy with that. I’m finding that three singing students on the same day saps my energy, one or two is much better but it looks as if I will be able to change students around in a way that spreads them out more evenly. Piano, guitar and ukulele are less taxing so I’m trying to mix instruments up.

Health:

I’m doing fine but I didn’t get enough sleep. Often when I’m ready to turn out the lights it is my husband’s first chance to play drums or guitar in the day and so I have to stay up a little longer while he plays. Drumming next to the bedroom is not recommended while falling asleep. We did talk about the whole thing, though, and last week he started practicing drums in the mornings which is much better. For him as well as me. Because when he is teaching late the last thing he wants to do after that is practicing.
The new schedule is making our mornings more crammed but we’re working on that.

Other stuff:

So the week off was not as open and free as we had thought it would be but then that’s what always happens. My husband had a friend visiting one day and I spent another day in Munich walking from yarn shop to café to yarn shop with Laura from the Wollkanal-Podcast. I had a great time and bought a skein of sock yarn. And came home with some spinning fiber as well:

I finished a pair of socks:

I started knitting a sweater for my husband and am already at the point where I’m running out of yarn not quite halfway in. On the next picture you can see the beginning of the first sleeve:

Since then I have finished both sleeves up to the underarm and not quite half of the body bottom-up. So it’s time to spin some more yarn.

On Tuesday we had a surprise visit. Each fall the town we live in sends two guys with a big machine round that cut your twigs and such down so you can use them as mulch. You sign up, then you get a letter with the date they will show up, they chop your twigs up, you pay a small fee and everything is fine.

Well, this year something went wrong with the letters. The doorbell rang and there they were. We hadn’t heard anything beforehand. Afterwards I found the letter in the mailbox. Twice. No idea why. All our twigs and cuttings were still buried deep beneath cut grass and leaves in the back of the garden and my husband hadn’t cut the trees and bushes yet. The guys were nice about it (well, it wasn’t our fault), went away and returned two hours later. In those two hours we scrambled to pull everything out and carry it in front of the garage. Not quite what we had expected to do that day. That had been the morning I had planned to finally finish the novel, of course. But I rallied and finished it that night.

 

Next week:

My main focus will be on writing again. If I manage 2,200 words per day I can still ‚win‘ NaNoWriMo. That means I need to aim for something between 1 1/2 and 2 hours of writing each and every day. That will be challenging. Especially since we’re invited to a big birthday party next Saturday that involves a 1 1/2 hour train and bus ride each way. Since these days I am toast by 9 pm that whole thing will be, um, interesting. Especially with the train ride and such tacked on at the end. I am looking forward to it nonetheless.

I’m right in the middle of finishing the trilogy-in-progress and I don’t want to take time out to recall my week.

Suffice to say the week was great. And I didn’t finish the novel as planned.

I’ll be back soon, though.

There was a lot of teaching. I did record the podcast on Monday and then had technical problems with iMovie that had me occupied until Wednesday evening. It took a lot of googling and trying things out to get the podcast ready.

I also tried installing a software update on my ebook reader for days. It should have been installed automatically but didn’t for days and every attempt at doing it manually failed. In the end it was probably due to weak wifi. I’m not sure, though.

My husband worked on our kitchen table for several days, sanding it and painting it. It took several coats of paint and we found that the nights are already cool enough to leave the table – that was sitting outside on the porch – completely drenched in dew in the morning.

Running went pretty good, I reached the point in the Couch to 10K-program where I was supposed to run for 45 consecutive minutes. Not that I actually did but I came pretty close.

The weather was warm and gorgeous.

Since the boy had a lunch date with my mother-in-law on Friday my husband and I decided to go out as well:

We had a very nice lunch with interesting conversation.

I finished a sock and started the second one, I didn’t write quite as much as I had hoped but enough to finish the current novel before November.

All three of us were exhausted by the end of the week and are looking forward to a week off. Well, mostly off. I still have three days of light teaching, want to make progress on that teaching website and will start NaNoWriMo on Friday.

Sunday afternoon was a special highlight, my husband and I went to the local museum. It’s tiny, just one room with a few artifacts that were found around town. It was pretty interesting and completely empty. The guy manning the counter seemed happy to have company and gave us a private tour.

They even had a replica of a warp-weighted loom that looked pretty authentic and had properly labeled warp and spindle weights. With a replica spindle completely with thread and something that looked like flax or hemp.

We bought a book and an amulet as a birthday present for a friend.

She grew up in our town, doesn’t live here anymore and we were looking for something special for her. Which was the main reason for our museum visit but it was nice to start fall break with doing something touristy in our hometown.

Now, the upcoming week is not looking as open as I thought it would but then they never do.