creative.mother.thinking

Nothing serious but last night I was too exhausted to start a blog post and right now I don’t have time (and energy).

Anyways, things went mostly well, husband and I were both stressed and low on energy which led to spectacular misunderstandings and tension around lunch.

I feel like it’s time for another school break. Ten more days to go, or so. And sorry for the lack of alt text:

I still don’t manage to go to bed on time. On a completely unrelated note, I really loved the last episode of „Guardians of the Dafeng“, that is a hell of a character arc, and I loved that they addressed the issue that had me wondering all the way through the series.

I went to bed around midnight because first I was waiting that the boy and his friend finished eating and then the boy was doing the dishes. At least he did the dishes.

As usual everything took longer than expected, so his ramen meal was only ready around 10 pm. I had to politely decline the offer to eat some because I had already eaten dinner three house before and also the soup was pretty spicy and I still can’t do spicy food especially not right before going to bed.

So I was pretty tired all day but fueled by new month energy I did my complete morning routine.

My husband and I talked at length over breakfast, about teaching and students and other things. Very nice. I tried doing the breakfast dishes but was overruled and walked to the health food store instead. When I came back my husband was rather surprised. „But you just left!“ Yeah, and there wasn’t much on the list either.

Of course, right when I came back we figured out that we also would have needed carrots, garlic and oatmeal cookies.

I managed to wake the boy up in time beforehand because he was due to take a train to Munich to visit the strong beer festival. (Interestingly, when I go on the website and look for the English version there is an American flag there, not a British one.)

Of course it would have been too easy if they all met there, no, he had to take a train and the subway all the way through the city to the other side so they could all meet up at the institute for a group photo, then there was a break where he met with a friend for lunch and then they all went right into Munich proper for the festival.

I can’t tell you how it went because I haven’t seen him since he left the house.

So it was only my husband and I for lunch:

Right after I finished eating I got a slightly panicked text from the boy that he didn’t have his train ticket. He has one that auto-renews. But it’s the version for university students, so it does not auto-renew at the end of the semester. Duh. He asked if this was something he needed to do (and how) or I. Well, he could have done it. But he didn’t know his password. Guess who did know his password, the whole procedure and who whipped out her laptop to renew his ticket? Yep.

At least the process is much faster and painless than before, I could log him in, then connect the ticket with his university account and he had an email confirming renewal in his inbox within minutes. Phew.

Then it was time for me to start teaching. I had a rather frustrating conversation with a student who set out to prove to me that he actually doesn’t have time to practice at all. Mind you, we’re talking third-grader here. I mean, they do have a lot of things going on but, come on, we all know that’s not the real problem here.

Since I had a cancellation after that I decided to at least prove to myself that playing the piano is fun and played two pieces. One is the one I started learning a while ago, the one that I always gravitated towards when I play a bit, and then I saw some Burgmüller etudes standing right there, opened them up and tried the first piece.

I’ve been thinking about learning, frustration, desirable difficulty and such for a few days, and found myself actually practicing that one. You know, like noticing that that one measure is kind of weird and that you just stumbled on the same three notes every time you encountered them, and then taking those three notes and practicing only those? Repeatedly and with varying tempo and taking care with the fingering?

At one point I really need to teach my students how to do that but every time I try they look at me the same way I used to look at my piano teachers when they told me the same thing.

Then I went and worked on the WordPress theme course for half an hour. Speaking of frustration. I think if the course creator did a little less „click here, then click there“ and explained the concepts instead that would make a huge difference. But I will prevail.

One other student didn’t come at all without notice which I really dislike because then I’m waiting all the time and can’t really use the time for anything else. I did finish reading a story in my Mandarin reader, though, somehow that new month energy meant I turned back to that (pretty boring) HSK 2 reader. I’m struggling there as well because there is a ton of words that I should know, have read and heard a lot and every time I see them I have no idea what they mean or how they sound. Ack!  Even when I just committed that word to memory a few hours ago.

After work I needed to refill the water in my piano’s humidifier, then my husband asked me to help him re-assemble the high hat stand in the basement which involved bending a bent metal rod back to a semblance of straightness with non-standard tools, and only an hour later I could finally eat dinner.

And then I fell into a huge evening slump. I sat in front of my laptop, half waiting for the boy and half determined to write a list for today and start this blog post. It took my almost an hour to realize that I just didn’t have the energy anymore and that I should really give up on watching anything and knitting.

Then my husband came and asked if I heard anything from the boy because he was worried.

No, I hadn’t. He is a 22-yo out with friends, probably drunk. But then I was startled awake and starting to worry too. So I texted him if everything was alright, and yes, it was, he said they were on their way to McDonald’s and that he would return home after.

I finally went to bed, about an hour late, and only saw the boy must have done the same at one point because the plate we set out for him at lunchtime was gone.

And yes, today will be pretty busy as well. It’s 10.15, I haven’t yet done my morning routine, I also forgot to pick up the two pounds of tea I ordered a week ago, and want to go for a walk/run.

On the other hand, there are still four hours left before teaching…

And also it feels like I ran around all day.

So, I did my best with my bedtime but it wasn’t quite enough. I did sleep well and got up from the alarm. And then I had to keep on track right away because I had to leave around 9.30.

But first I wrote short morning pages, then went off to do some research for my doctor’s appointment (uncharacteristically late for me), spent half an hour on the manuscript (and would have loved to write for longer), decided to do a short 5-minute yoga routine and skipped meditation.

Meanwhile my husband had started a fire and then made me tea, nice.

We had breakfast and started talking about a friend of his and then I had to rush off because I was already a bit late.The research had not been the only thing I had left too late, I also had to take my wardrobe apart because I was looking for my dark grey wool cardigan. I bought it in the late 90s and it would have been the only thing I could wear with my purple meh’ t-shirt and my wide-legged pants. I do own a purple cardigan but it is long and flowing. I mean, I am already looking rather stocky in those pants, I don’t need to wear a top that makes me look like a sausage roll wrapped in two tents. In the end I had to settle for the black cotton cardigan that is a bit too tight and too short.

I went out the door five minutes later than I wanted, started speed-walking my way to the train station, put my earbuds in and realized that I had forgotten my phone. Deciding that I’d rather miss the train than go without my phone I turned around and picked it up.

I mean, being a little late to a doctor’s appointment is not the end of the world. And when I had looked up which train to take I decided against the one getting me there right on time because chances were high that one would be late.

I didn’t find out, though, because I did catch the intended train after all. After speed-walking all the way, getting seriously out of breath climbing the stairs, then running towards it when I saw it had already pulled in, but the train driver was gesturing at me to take it easy, that he would wait.

I stamped my ticket, put my mask on, entered the train, sat down, and realized I needed my asthma inhaler. I don’t like this. I really need to lose weight again, asthma sucks.

Anyway, I arrived at the eye doctor without incident, saw someone who measured my eyesight with one of those machines that show you a red balloon, talked briefly to the doctor, had my eyesight measured with my glasses on the old-fashioned way, got eyedrops, had an image made of my retina (only 95 €!) and went back to talk to the doctor who shone bright lights into my eyes.

(Weirdly enough my mother did not know what I was speaking about when I mentioned the measuring machine with the balloon to her. It’s called an autorefractor.)

The result was that a) my eyesight is 100 % in my right eye and 50 % in my left with glasses, so I can drive if I want to. I had asked because we’re renting a car during Easter break; b) my macular pucker is looking pretty much the same as half a year ago, c) cataracts in the left eye are severe enough that they basically reduce my eyesight by 50 % but, most important of all: it’s probably best to leave it all alone for now.

If I had surgery on my left eye they would have to operate the right one as well. That is standard procedure in cases where there would be a severe difference between the two eyes. The right one will probably need surgery for the macular pucker eventually but no one wants to do that before it’s really necessary. When they operate a macular pucker they usually will give you an artificial lens as well because that operation often leads to cataracts.

So. I left with the advice to come back in a year, earlier if something is wrong.

Phew.

I took the train back home, went to the supermarket where I buy yogurt, and I met my mother-in-law who was very surprised to see me there, didn’t quite get that I just returned from the eye doctor, that I went all the way to Munich, even though she had just seem me leave the house (two hours before), that my eye doctor is not the same as her eye doctor, even though they are in the same street (we have talked about this repeatedly), that I have cataracts even though I’m so young (57) and then continued to tell me everything about her own shopping trip and how she took the bus there. And then she helpfully pointed the bus stop out to me.

I smiled as nicely as I could and walked to the health food store quickly because I felt the need for chocolate.

I came home just in time to wake the boy up at 12 but he had actually noticed his alarm for once.

My husband was busy working on the vegetable beds in the garden, told me he was planning to make fried potatoes, opened the fridge and found that there weren’t five eggs, like he thought, but only one. Because the boy had boiled some eggs the night before for the meal he wanted to make for his friend. My husband didn’t know about that. I said, no problem, I’ll just go upstairs and borrow some from your mother.

Only, she didn’t have any left as well. So I put my shoes back on and walked to the nearest supermarket for some eggs.

I came back, changed into running clothes and went on a very short, extremely easy walk/run. Way more walk than run. I also maybe should have drunk a glass of water before going out. I had a big mug of tea and two glasses of water before I left but that was three hours earlier at this point.

This is what it looks like when take a picture with my eyes not working properly. You know, because of the eyedrops.

I came back home just in time for lunch where it turned out my husband had only cooked for the two of us but not for the boy. Oops. In the end husband decided to just have a bun, he left the potatoes for the boy and me. He had thought the boy wanted to cook lunch, not dinner.

I had a short break, then the boy showed up and told me his friend would be coming over half an hour earlier than I expected. So I had to scramble to take a shower before, because I did not want to flash a 23-yo. (No worries, I took all my fresh clothes with me to the bathroom and even locked up.)

Turned out the friend was late and all was well.

I taught from 3 to 5.30 without a break (pretty short teaching day). I had four changes to my regular schedule (five if you count the student who said he wouldn’t come all April) in just one day. Also one of those emails where the father of a student sends an email (sometimes they put it in the physical mailbox as well) quitting with pseudo lawyer-speak wording and a demand for a reply ASAP. Because it was the last day of the month. I really like the student, she is having a bit of a lull right now which is pretty normal for someone in fifth grade who started a year ago. Oh, and I just raised the price by 5 € per month, so I’m guessing that influenced the father’s decision as well.

Interestingly, the student whose mother quit two weeks before in person with a smile giving me an actual reason who looked really relieved when I told them they could come back any time, made me feel much better about it.

So, after teaching I went to the kitchen said hello to the boy and his friend for the second time, admired their figurines, made myself dinner, went back to my studio, ate and read, did Duolingo, wrote a few texts, started writing this overlong post, and decided to give up on anything else for the day.

I went to bed, watched half an episode of C-drama and turned the lights out.

Phew.

Sorry this got so long, it’s just, a lot happened that day.

Yeah, I’m not a fan. I went to bed a little late – for regular time – and ended up getting an hour less sleep than I needed. I kept looking at the funky-looking bar on my sleep app and it took me ages to figure out that that was the hour we skipped during the night. Duh.

I wrote morning pages, then I opened the laptop to work on my manuscript and let myself be drawn into fiddling with the word tracker spreadsheet some more. The bad thing is that it took all my manuscript time. The good thing is that I figured it out. The other bad thing is that it was just a case of the cell being not wide enough to display the deadline date in the format I had chosen. I took out the day of the week and everything was fine. And for that I spent half an hour on Google. And these days I constantly have to click over to the actual results instead of the AI summary. Blah.

Then it was already a bit late. My husband had done the sensible thing and slept in a bit. He had realized that the sun wasn’t doing daylight savings, so there was no need for him to get up at 7 to build the fire before it was shining on the chimney.

I thought I had to be quick with everything because he wanted to watch ski-flying but we ended up talking quite a bit and he missed the complete first round.

Then I did my internet rounds, read and knit a bit, attempted to sideload two books on my ebook reader and failed, then talked with my mother on the phone, talked with my husband some more, we washed the tea things, made frozen pizza and salad together and ate lunch:

The boy was nowhere to be seen.

Then I took a long break, started reading through some online articles that I had saved to read later, read some fiction, and started doing the dishes right at the time where I had wanted to get to the important stuff of the day.

With impeccable timing the boy showed up while I was doing the dishes, 20 seconds before the end of the Hildegard von Bingen song I was listening to. He didn’t stay long and seemed a bit grumpy. When he left I found that the only thing left of the song was actually the part where they sing „amen“. Funny.

I watched some more of the publishing course. Thinking about advanced copies and reviews and „influencer marketing“ makes me break out in hives but I guess I should start immunizing myself. I also had the sobering thought that I’ll never have more time than I have now. Meh. But. Then I realized while that might be true I also will not have to rebuild my website or any of the infrastructure behind publishing my books from scratch for every book. So, in a way I will have more time. Phew.

Then I finally moved over to my studio to work on that WordPress theme course some more. Things are moving at a glacial pace but I guess I’ll just have to accept that learning this stuff takes time. And I am making progress. And all that „and now click here, do this and then click here and do that“ will probably teach me stuff just because I’ve done it a lot before. That’s often a problem with learning new things, you look at something, you think you get it but it doesn’t stick. This will probably stick.

I would have liked a bit more time for clicking here and that but the boy and I were set to do bodyweight training at 6. We met, we did our training, I forced him to take all his clean laundry upstairs and I took that opportunity to put away the cookie tins and other Christmas paraphernalia. So right now the top of the shoe cupboard is almost empty.

Oh, and when folding laundry I ran across that hat that had been lingering around for years, only needing a bath and a picture:

It’s not easy to take a picture of the top of your own head, so in order to get the crown as well I had to lay it flat:

There is a story behind this hat. I got the fiber in a swap in 2011 in the „Friends of Abby’s Yarn“-group that was organized in tandem with the first Stringtopia retreat. I spun the yarn on my heavier Bosworth spindle for the Wooly Wormhead KAL in 2013. I distinctly remember spinning on it during a meeting with other parents. I thought it was when the boy was still in kindergarten but I didn’t spin at that time. It just was the same restaurant we used to have parent meetings then. Spinning it took roughly three weeks.

I remember being disappointed that the color was so light. I knitted the hat from November 5th to 22nd in 2013, finished it, and put it in a pile of things that needed to be blocked and photographed. Ahem.

I mean, it’s only 11+ years later…

The boy and I talked a bit, we ate dinner, I read some more, then started writing this post while the boy came downstairs to cook a couple of eggs and make dashi which didn’t help my focus. And yes, I was sitting at the kitchen table again, I mean, who would have thought the kitchen to be such a hot spot at that time of day.

I then proceeded to do Duolingo, plan out the week, do my foot exercises, watch some C-drama while knitting and go to bed.

And today I’m having an eye doctor appointment. Yeah?

I did go to bed at a reasonable time and slept pretty well. I still was slow in the morning but I did manage my complete morning pages, manuscript time, yoga and meditation routine. While my husband was taking care of the fire in the wood stove again.

We didn’t have as much time to talk as usual because he wanted to watch ski flying on TV. I knitted a bit, made my usual online rounds and then counted all my cash. I try entering everything into my budget app but somehow there’s always a difference between what’s actually in my wallet and what’s in the app. I knew I had a problem when my cash account went to -4.90 €. And no, I did not spend more cash than I had. I don’t know how that happened but hey, having more money than you thought you had is usually a good thing.

I did the breakfast dishes and listened to some Eugen Onegin (not bad) and then went for my walk/run. The partial eclipse might have happened during that time but I don’t know. It was gray and wet and pretty dark anyway.

The running intervals went a little better than the week before, I guess that’s progress:

I actually like running in the rain.

My husband had already started cooking beans right after breakfast and so lunch was almost ready when I returned:

I took a break and decided not to do the dishes because all the pots were still in use and I didn’t feel washing two plates, a fork, a spoon and two glasses was really worth it.

Just when I was about to take a shower the boy showed up. I did not give in to the temptation of talking with him but went straight to the bathroom.

I had made plans to spend time with the manuscript for an hour in the afternoon and also spend an hour with that WordPress course. I even canceled my weekly meeting for it. I was very determined.

Then I was fifteen minutes late. Then I realized how much the broken spreadsheet I was using to track my word count was bugging me and I tried fixing it. Then I downloaded a fresh copy of the spreadsheet. In the end I spent so much time on it that I used up all the time I had reserved for the manuscript and my brain was almost as broken as the spreadsheet.

So I switched tasks and worked on the course. And kept thinking I must have missed something because my practice website looks nothing like the one in the course. So I kept going back and forth. In the end I was pretty sure the only problem was that the course is three years old and both WordPress and the theme I’m using have changed in the meantime. I will still be able to get this done but everything looks just a little different.

Then it was time to meet with the rest of the family for our ritual watching of ‚Columbo‘. I thought the episode was pretty good but as usual it did drag a bit in the second half. The boy said in his opinion the show would have been better with 45-minute episodes and I can see where he’s coming from.

After that I fell into a bit of a „the day is almost over and I haven’t gotten anything done“-slump, watched the second half of the C-drama episode from the day before (it’s all very dramatic, oh my), then started watching YouTube for a bit before coming to my senses.

I did Duolingo, started writing this post, reminded myself of the time change and how sorry I would be the next day if I went to bed too late, realized that I was too late anyway, had a cup of tea, read for a bit and went to bed.

The plan for today includes watching ski-flying in Planica again for my husband, calling my mother a little earlier than usual and frozen pizza for lunch. Oh, and I’ll do all the work I had wanted to do yesterday this afternoon. Of course.

I had such plans! But, I overslept and then was feeling low on energy. My husband had to postpone starting the fire in the wood stove because I overslept, it was a mess.

But I did fold two loads of laundry while waiting for the kettle to boil.

We ate breakfast and talked, mostly about why I went to bed to late and what my husband could have done to prevent it. (Um, nothing?) I knitted a bit. I did the breakfast dishes while listening first to Rachmaninov and then then to the publishing course.

And then I started having a really bad stabbing headache again.

I saw that we were out of toilet paper and decided to get some. I was hoping the walk would help me relax a bit and I also decided that I wanted junk food for dinner.

So I bought toilet paper, croissants, cantuchini (Italian almond cookies), potato chips and gummy bears. Or rather marshmallow mice.

The walk did indeed help with the headache, hurrah! When I came back my husband had already vacuumed the old part of the house and cleaned the toilet there as well.

He had also made pancakes with spinach and feta:

I ate some sweets as dessert, forgot all about the last pancake in the pan (only saw that it was burnt when I came back an hour later), talked briefly with the boy, taught my last student of the day, threw the burnt pancake away and then went out with the boy to buy ingredients for the ramen he wants to cook on Monday.

We walked to the Asian grocery store and took a while to find all the necessary ingredients. We got to test our respective Chinese/Japanese skills but, as usual, it only went as far as me saying things like, „oh, white, something“. I mean, I wasn’t wrong, it was white rice cakes but that’s not enough information to be useful.

We swung by the health food store on our way back and actually managed to not buy any chocolate. I mean with all the gummy stuff and the potato chips at home…

We packed the food away, and then went on to do bodyweight training. Only twenty minutes this time, which was fitting because we were still feeling Wednesday’s session.

After that we did the dishes. My husband was all confused because he had planned on doing them after work but I had the feeling he had done work enough for a day.

So I didn’t get to do half the things on my list but then I did go out shopping with my son instead, which is good.

Then I finally ate while reading, sat around for a while, did Duolingo, started writing this post, watched some C-drama and went to bed.

And now the weekend!