creative.mother.thinking

For once I did get enough sleep, I had set my alarm for 5.45. I meditated a bit and wrote morning pages and then it was time to make breakfast.

The boy had his first day of school and everything went well, he even had the afternoon off. My husband showed up a little earlier than I thought he would and then we talked quite a bit.

I went running for the first time in weeks and am happy to say that while my knees are still sore at times running doesn’t seem to affect the pain. Maybe it’s making it less, even. I did 6.4 k, mostly walking but running as well:

You can see that there has been rain and there was a bit of a drizzle while I was out but the path is still mostly dry.

I came back home and helped to make lunch:

First meal I knew would agree with me and taste wonderful in almost a week.

I spent a lot of the day thinking about traveling with fructose-intolerance. When I’m home I don’t really notice it. I can eat everything my husband cooks and most of what is in the house. But when I eat elsewhere it all comes down to a constant stream of worry. Will there be too much onion in the sauce? Is it better to take the fish with the mustard sauce or the salad? How will the salad dressing affect me? Did I manage to pull out most of the onion and what did they put in?

Everything comes down to guessing what ingredients are in any given meal. There are usually no labels. I can eat bolognese sauce at home because my husband makes it with lots of meat and only a little carrot and tomato. Choosing from the menu is not about what I’d like to eat and what will taste good, it’s just about anticipating how my body will react to it.

And it’s not like I eat something and know half an hour later if it was okay or not. Which is both a blessing and a curse. I don’t usually have to rush to a bathroom right after a meal. But my long reaction time also means that the reaction hits me a day later when I don’t expect it.

And it isn’t as clear-cut as when you’re lactose-intolerant. We do tolerate a certain amount of fructose just fine. I eat blueberries and banana in my muesli each morning, and veggies all the time. Having some protein and/or fat with the fructose makes it better digestible. It’s a constant dance for balance. And you only know if you did it right a day or two later.

And I keep forgetting that we choose the things we eat at home for a reason. We eat this certain type of brat or wiener because we know they’re okay. But when I eat brats or wieners elsewhere they can contain too much fructose.

So when I travel I avoid veggies and sweet things and sauces and soups because I can de-construct a sandwich and pull out what I don’t want to eat but that’s near impossible with something pureed. On the other hand I tend to crave sweets when I travel because when I eat too much fructose or when I am exhausted I want something sweet. And since sugary things are okay in moderation when I’m at home I have them when traveling as well. Only more of them. Plus the food that is not great for me.

By Saturday last week I was feeling totally sick. I just wanted to stay in bed. I was dizzy and nauseous and sweaty and feeling faint. It took me a bit to realize that I would feel better immediately once the food had passed a little further along, and yes, two hours later I was fine again.

But the whole experience drove it home once again that traveling with a food intolerance is no fun. And explaining the complexity of it is much harder than saying, „I need to eat vegan,“ or „I’m allergic to onions.”

Next time I travel I will lay off the sweets and take more of my own food. But that’s what I said before the Hamburg trip as well.

Anyways. I taught my students, called the woman who was looking for a guitar teacher for her too young son back, had dinner and went to bed early.

Today there will be grocery shopping and teaching and preparation of the podcast.

It is good to be back home. I like traveling (apart from the food issues and the sleep deprivation) but I like being home much more.

Which is a good thing because I’m home way more often than I’m away.

Woke up at six and regretted it. I am really looking forward to getting enough sleep again.

I did everything very slowly because I didn't have anywhere to be. Had breakfast (I am also looking forward to breakfast at home at lot.) and made plans for the day.

Shortly before ten I walked to the “Museum für Kunst und Gewerbe”. I spent all morning there and it was wonderful. I looked at Greek vases, pottery from all over the world, swooned over ceramics that were thousands of years of and from the other side of the world, felt my heart beat a little faster when seeing the harpsichord collection. (And there was someone in there practicing for a concert. The piece he was playing was really intrguing. The concert will be tonight and they are playing rather modern music on rather old instruments.)

I left the Art Deco and the Bauhaus stuff for last because I love it so much and wasn't disappointed.

And then I started thinking. Why does this kind of museum make me so happy? I was basically looking at old furniture and pottery and clothes. Of course this was rather special furniture and clothes but still. And now that I'm writing this it just occurred to me that when I'm stressed I usually go and look at things like tiny houses or minimalist packing guides. More furniture and clothes.

The funny thing is that for someone who can be soothed by pretty things my home is not furnishes with this in mind. I am one of those people who doesn't change a room once it's furnished, who values her time and energy higher than finding just the right thing for her living room, and about three quarters of the stuff in our house is something we have because we got it for free. Then we put it in place and there it sits, 25 years later.

After the museum I had to eat lunch and decided on a bag of potato chips and some chocolate because I couldn't be bothered to choose a restaurant and find out what I wanted and such.

This was delicious but turned out to be a big mistake. I love potato chips but they don't agree with my digestion. And I had been eating too much fructose every day for days at that point.

In the afternoon I met with Eliandhra again. I had been wanting to take a boat or something but we were both rather tired and it was starting to rain. So we sat and knit. The sock I restarted is coming along nicely. And then we took the subway and walked around a lot and started getting hungry and all through that I felt like I was sick and needed to retire to bed. I thought a sandwich would make things better but it turned out it didn't, I felt worse after a few bites so I left it.

We walked around some more and looked at Scandinavian churches and bought lots of licorice and walked some more. By then I felt better, took a ferry along the river and walked around some more. The beauty of feeling unwell because of something I ate is that the worst is usually over after a few hours.

So I was all ready for my 3-course dinner. I was having dinner with a view of the harbor. The food was good, service was impeccable again and I had really interesting conversations over fish. I shared a table with a man I had already met the night before and he was telling us about visiting Gambia, and a woman was from the region I was born and was a teacher too and the two across from me were from Munich and we were talking about all kinds of things. Very nice.

Then I mingled and talked some more with Eliandhra and her husband and at the point where someone pulled out the guitar and started singing “Country Roads” I decided to not join in but leave to keep my sleep deprivation at a level where I wouldn't spontaneously doze off at random times the next day.

My way back to the hotel was nice, I walked a bit in the drizzling rain and took the subway all on my own for the first time.

Today there will be the packing and the getting on the train on time. The Hamburg marathon is going on and quite a few streets are closed off but I'm near the train station anway, it's only 500 meters or so.

And in the afternoon around five I will be home again.

I woke up at six not quite well-rested. Since I had made the mistake of booking a sightseeing thing at nine in the morning so I had to get up early. I meditated, took a shower and had breakfast. And then walked to the meeting point forr the group tour of the Minuature Wonder Land.

It's a huge model train display and really great to look at. Since it's vacation time, though, everything was packed even at nine in the morning. I barely had time to look at everything before it was time for our peak behind the scenes tour where we got to watch the display from the back and got a rather informative and entertaining view at the exhibit.

After that I was hungry again and left so I could wander the 'Hafen-City' and get something to eat. I had a panini that said it was tuna, bell pepper and goat cheese but unfortunately also had a layer of raw tomato at the bottom that I had to extricate first. I don't like them and they don't agree with me.

I didn't really feel satisfied after that meal so I got myself a very tasty Franzbrötchen as well.

And then it was time for the tea tasting. We spent ninety minutes learning about tea and tasted all kinds. Usually I am really picky about tea but this time I actually liked most of everything. White tea, green tea, black tea, all sorts from all over the world I found it all wonderful. Well, apart from the herbal teas and the ones with things like coconut and caramel. Let's not talk about those.

We all got a little gift bag as a parting gift and I was very happy about that until I looked inside and found that each and every tea sample in that bag was something I couldn't stand drinking. Maybe the boy will like them.

I have to say that this tasting made me love tea even more than before because there are so many different kinds. I also learned that Germans don't really do tea and that my husband drink way more than the national average but less than the people in Ostfriesland a region in Northern Germany. I also learned that I apparently am drinking my tea quite a bit stronger than most. Who would have thought?

After that I wandered the streets, trying to find my way back to the hotel and also to pick up a travel size tube of tooth paste, a comb (both things I forgot to pack) and some licorice.

With a lot of false turns and some writing podcasts in my ears I managed to get back to my hotel after 15,000 steps.

I almost fell asleep, read a bit and surfed the web and then it was time to go to yet another Stammtisch at the Gröninger brewery where I had a dinner that was basically meat on top of meat.

Came back home later than I had planned (I should plan better in the future, I keep forgetting that I'm me) and went straight to bed.

Today I will have two lectures, the afternoon off where I might go to a museum, not sure yet, and another dinner thing in the evening.

I woke up at six, forgot to meditate and still didn’t have the headspace to write. And everything still hurt, most of all my knees.

My husband and I had breakfast together, then we did a few things around the house and talked and then it was time to go back to the hardware store. On our way we went to the specialty beer store because it was almost on the way which was nice. My husband had been going there for ages and I had wanted to see it for myself but never went.

We got some nice beer, including some of what I drank all the time when I was in London in 2017.

And then it was time to brave the hardware store. We got some LEDs and a new lamp for the living room. We bought one that we both found okay, there were none that we really loved. I kept going for lamps pretty similar to what we have in there now, no idea if that shows lack of imagination or just a very particular sense of style.

But the lamp was the easy part, the harder part was finding something to prevent the leak on the balcony. That took us some time. I always get into acute overwhelm in there, with all the music, and the smells and all the people and those huge shelves where you never find what you want and then there are all those small screens advertising some product or other on full blast. Shudder.

But we did get a couple of things that might work, spent another fifteen minutes trying to find wood filler and the right type of glue for what we wanted and while we did find some filler the glue search was a failure.

We came home around the time that we would have wanted to eat lunch and my husband started cooking. While I was using the bathroom the doorbell rang. A man that I first didn’t recognize. It was the guy who had built the new garden gates. The locks on those gates aren’t working anymore so he came to change them.

I was so exhausted by then that I stumbled going up the stairs and almost fell flat on my face. For real. I was lucky to catch myself with my hands and got him the key he wanted.

There was lunch. Rice and dal and fresh cilantro that my husband had grown:

Then I had just enough time to do the dishes until my first student.

I taught my three students, thought the boy would accompany me for grocery shopping but my husband wanted to install the water retention on the balcony and needed help so I went alone.

I even got a new BRITA water filter because our old one had developed the second case of something green growing inside, not the water I’d like to drink. Then I went to a grocery store I don’t like and only got half of what I wanted bought the rest at the health food store, shlepped it all home, unpacked it and put it away, and then I got the new water filter ready for use. And decalcified the kettle, as one does.

The boy and I watched the last two episodes of „The Big Bang Theory“ and finished before the soccer match was on. Poor husband had worked away while we were watching TV.

Then I realized that the bed for our overnight guest wasn’t ready. My husband had put a mattress in my studio and I fetched the bedding my mother-in-law had gotten ready and put some sheets on. Then I did the dinner dishes, finally finished packing and read a bit before turning the lights off.

I am a little miffed that I can’t fit everything I want to take into the daypack, I need to carry the purse as well. I had been hoping to fit the purse into the backpack as well.

And that whole thing is heavy. I’m only a change of underwear and socks, pajamas and one t-shirt besides what I’m wearing but there are the toiletries and the bullet journal and the ebook reader and the iPad with the keyboard and a bottle of water and some almonds and some chocolate and an extra pair of glasses and the knitting project. Lots of stuff.

I will spend most of today on a train to Hamburg. I’ll leave around 9.30 and arrive at 4. There should be lots of time for writing and knitting and reading on the train but experience tells me that I won’t write much. Then I’ll check in to my hotel, get my conference stuff and then I’ll see. I have dinner booked and will have to navigate public transportation on my first night there. But that’s alright.

I’m really excited. Have been looking forward to this trip for more than a year. And I don’t have to work on the balcony while there!

I slept until six and still didn’t quite get enough sleep. Found that I hadn’t read the „Daily Stoic“ for four days in a row.

I waited with breakfast for my husband because I wanted to have a proper Easter breakfast together. We ended up not boiling eggs because there would be quite a few in our lunch. But I did have some more Osterzopf.

Then I started making the dough for our Genovese Easter pie. Making it took all morning and we had to resort to eating an appetizer beforehand:

While lunch was late but it was worth it:

This might not look like much but it’s homemade puff pastry (I hope that’s the right term, had to look up Blätterteig with a filling of spinach, ricotta, parmesan and eggs.

And here you see the inside and also that I should have left it in the oven a little longer:

And my husband’s grandmother’s cake plate.

After that we took a little break and then suited up again to paint the balcony white. Only when we went upstairs my husband’s brother and one of his nephews were there and so we talked and my husband got to tell his brother all about the balcony crisis with the water streaming down the sides since the new floor was installed.

So we only started painting at five. And then we tried to paint the new paint evenly and thickly and failed. And it took ages. Not quite as long as the sanding but longer than we thought.

We did find our rhythm later but it took a while and then it was time to meet the boy at the train station.

I had spent all afternoon peaking at my phone because I knew he’d have about four hours to kill in Tübingen before stepping on the train and then I was a little worried he’d miss his connection.

But he didn’t text. I heard nothing until he asked if it would be okay to take a different train back home from Munich than the one specified on his ticket. It was totally fine, especially since that train didn’t exist anyway.

I painted racing the clock and managed to sloppily stain the last beam that was accessible without a ladder just in time, threw on some clothes without paint stains and when I rushed to the train station he met me halfway. He had taken an earlier train than I thought.

Meanwhile my poor husband was still perching on the ladder, balancing the bowl of paint in one hand and the brush in the other.

We all had another piece of Easter pie, my mother-in-law included, and since my husband had put it back in the oven again the egg in the middle was cooked all through this time. And it was delicious. We will certainly make that again.

The boy actually told me things about his trip. The youth hostel in Tübingen is rather picturesque and sitting right next to the river there, he was learning things about China and drinking all the tea in the morning and they had the afternoons off.

He looked rather tired but it seems his trip was fun. He insisted on unpacking immediately. Which means I taught him well.

Eventually my husband finished painting too, we each had a beer and then I got ready for bed.

Today there will be – wait for it – more painting. While the paint I bought is white it only stains the wood lightly and we are both thinking that three coats will be better than one. And we should have enough paint for that left.

But. That means we need to paint the balcony two more times.

Ugh.

We are thinking we should start real early today and then paint again in the early evening. You’re supposed to wait twelve hours between the coats of paint but I’m thinking the paint won’t explode if we cut it short. Also, it’s really warm and sunny here right now.

So. Painting, eating lamb at my mother-in-law’s and more painting.

Everything is still hurting, only a little more so. I’m still pretty stoked that I am physically able to do all of this. I mean, after the work we did the day before I didn’t expect myself to be able to roll out twelve layers of dough for the pie. They needed to be as thin as strudel dough. That’s the one you’re supposed to be able to read a newspaper through.

Phew.

One more day and then we should be done. Wish us luck.