creative.mother.thinking

I woke up after only 5 1/2 hours of sleep. Funny enough, „I’ll just read for fifteen minutes before getting up,“ still isn’t working. One of these days I’ll learn.

So after reading for ninety minutes I did some yoga. I’m trying the 30-day-yoga challenge for the third time in a row. I think I usually end up doing 18 days of yoga or something like that but I figure that’s better than no yoga.

I had breakfast right at the time when my husband usually shows up but he was a little late as well. As was the boy.

I crocheted a bit:

I called my mother on the phone (she is still in pain but slowly getting better). I had half an hour after that that I wanted to use for writing but instead I chose to do an online jigsaw puzzle.

My husband and I made lasagna:

I went on Facebook to watch Becca Symes kick off her NaNoWriMo-thing, went back to the kitchen to drink tea, eat chocolate and read, started playing ‚Breath of the Wild‘ on the Wii (That one is actually on my list of tasks for the month. I thought putting fun onto my list would be, um, fun.) and then went back to my studio to write my 3,000 words for the day.

I watched several Youtube videos, went on Ravelry, read some more, and finally put my butt in the chair and wrote the final scene for the novel I had started last year on November 6. Phew.

Then I procrastinated some more, made a new Scrivener project for the novel I want to write next and was just feeling inspired when it was time for dinner and a movie.

And then I waited for the rest of the family to show up for almost thirty minutes. I could have written many words in that time.

We watched „Rising Sun“ together, all three of us. It was fitting with Sean Connery passing the day before but I actually had planned to watch this film for weeks. We all liked it. I still am not quite sure what it all means.

After that it was too late to write some more so the first day of NaNo sees me with 1,000 woads less than I need. Meh.

Of course, today I will totally make up for it. Sure. I really mean it this time.

I woke up really early at 5.30 even though I went to bed too late yet again. And then I made the mistake of telling myself I’d just read for five minutes. Spoiler: I didn’t. 90 minutes later I made breakfast.

So, no yoga, no meditation. I did manage to write for half an hour while my husband was busy with the wood stove. I finally finished the annoying essential fight scene and reached the point where I can write the nice little scene at the end to wrap it all up. I also had ninety minutes of time in the afternoon to do it but what I actually did instead was – read another book.

By the way, I can heartily recommend „Alpha“ by Audrey Faye even though I’m only a quarter in, or so. But I haven’t met a book by her that I haven’t adored.

I did manage to clean the house – as much as I ever clean. The key to Friday cleaning success is to no cook lunch. Apparently. As an extra treat we had takeout:

Then it was time for teaching. In my long break between students I read and ate too much chocolate.

In the evening I ate the second half of my lunch, worked on the border of the crochet blanket and watched ‚Discovery‘ with the boy:

Then I started writing this post, looked at the novel for a few minutes before giving up and went to bed. Not without reading some more of the novel.

Today there will be exciting things! Running, first day of fall break and the first ever, long-awaited Handgemacht virtual knitting meeting. I will also make a plan for November. New! Shiny! Month!

I woke up early, at 5.30 and immediately started reading. And that was basically it for the day.

I did finish all the squares for my Aria blanket (sorry, no picture) so I will start the border today. I went to the supermarket and I taught all the students. It turns out that teaching for four hours a day or more makes me brain-dead and completely unable to communicate. Both yesterday and the day before I ended up checking out of conversations I had with my family. I tried to listen and to talk and I found the whole thing really interesting but my brain just flipped the off-switch. Talking with people is hard work.

I know it’s not the same for everyone but that’s what I talk about when I tell people that I’m a serious introvert. I am rather chatty and animated when I’m with people. That makes me seem an extrovert. I overcame childhood shyness by systematically practicing social interaction while being coached by a friend. Up to a point where I was convinced that I was an outgoing people-person.

An outgoing people-person who needed at least two days all alone by herself every week. And if she didn’t get those days she would get sick. Funny that.

An outgoing people-person who found out that hanging out with friends for a few hours between classes at university was way more exhausting than spending the same amount of time in the library studying.

Don’t get me wrong, I like people, I certainly like conversations and talking, I mean, I basically never shut up but I also have to take care to spend enough time alone and be quiet.

Anyways, my husband made this for lunch because I had bought too much tofu:

In addition to that I tried to de-stress myself and fight exhaustion with sweets and a beer in the evening. It kind of worked, as it always does, that’s why I keep doing it.

One of these days I’ll develop healthy coping mechanisms but probably not this week or the next.

Today there will be the cleaning of the house (wish me luck), the changing of the sheets, Chinese takeout for lunch, only four students and then the new episode of ‚Discovery‘.

And then fall break. Which will kick off with a virtual knitting meeting for listeners of my podcast and then there will be NaNoWriMo-time again. And since the past three days were supposed to be dress rehearsals for NaNo where I will need to write roughly 2,000 words a day, and since I managed only 1,200 words all week – now you know why I’m a bit skeptical.

This will be fun for sure!

Woke up at six again and did yoga and meditation. Got breakfast on the table on time so the boy wouldn’t be late for school and then I wrote actual words in my actual novel-in-progress.

My husband started the wood stove, I crocheted, I did the dishes after his breakfast and did my ten minutes of Mandarin on Duolingo and walked to the health food store.

My husband had made tomato sauce from the tomatoes he had harvested the day before and when I came back home he had peeled the potatoes and started to cook them. And then I made gnocchi from scratch:

The family verdict was that these are a favorite for all of us:

I had to start teaching only fifteen minutes after finishing lunch and then there was one student after the other until seven. I ate dinner and then tackled all the dirty dishes with the help of my husband and the boy.

And then I sat around watching cozy sewing videos on YouTube instead of writing some more of getting ready for bed.

Today there will be running, loads of teaching again and some writing if I’m super-determined.