creative.mother.thinking

And that despite going to bed at midnight and waking up just 6 1/2 hours later unable to fall back asleep.

I did that thing where I look stuff up while writing morning pages, I don’t recommend doing that.

Nonetheless, I started out writing about other people and the patterns I see where my expectations get lower and lower.

And then I started thinking about my own patterns, the ones where I do stuff that is clearly embarrassing.

Huh.

And, you know, the things where I keep saying I want to change things and then I don’t do the things I need to do to actually change something.

That gave some big, fat Monday energy. And the I promptly offered to skip yoga and meditation so we wouldn’t be as late with breakfast. Husband didn’t accept that offer, phew.

We talked after breakfast, as usual, and I found that I finally had managed to make all the stitches line up properly in the fingerless mitten:

Yes, I was reading „War and Peace“ while knitting the last few stitches of ribbing.

I did the dishes, brushed my teeth and went walking/running:

I hit a rather energetic part of the BTS-playlist I use while running, so that made my pace a little faster than usual.

Meanwhile my husband was stressing out again, he had started trimming the hedge thinking that he only needed to do half of the front but that assumption turned out to be wrong. So he got into a huge time crunch.

Because I was really set on doing my training I did ask the boy to help, which he did. Good thing he had been too late for uni in the morning because that meant he was home and awake in time to take care of all the cutting and dirt before it was time for teaching.

Lunch was pretty simple but the tomatoes were homegrown:

Then I read a little, started the next mitten, cut my nails, fought the boss that had frustrated me five times already and won, did the lunch dishes and called a potential new student on the phone. Good thing I start teaching late on Mondays. I had already taken a shower before lunch.

I taught a handful of students, played the piano, ate dinner, talked with husband and worked on the manuscript for half an hour. Well, I say worked on the manuscript when in fact I’m still reading through the old book 2 but it is fascinating, there are so many great ideas in there. Most of them are just lose ends, but still.

I then started writing this post, made a list for today, fought some more video game bosses, brushed my teeth, re-watched the first episode of ‚Mobius‘ while plying purple yarn and went to bed.

I went to bed at 1 am but at least I finally got my bullet journal set up for November. And then I lay in bed, feeling super cold, unable to sleep. Which never happens. I mean, not the feeling cold-thing, I feel cold all the time, but the part where I can’t fall asleep.

After a little more than an hour I gave up, found a fleece jacket and fingerless mittens in addition to the extra warm pajamas, wool socks, down comforter and wooly blanket and read for a bit until I felt a little warmer.

I woke up at 7 and coudn’t fall back asleep.

Interestingly, my energy was much better than the days before. But that does tend to happen, once in a while not getting enough sleep makes you actually feel a little better but that never lasts.

I did my complete morning routine, ate breakfast with my husband and tried to finally fix the fingerless mitten. But no matter how hard I tried and tinked back, I couldn’t get the number of stitches I needed.

So I ripped most of the mitten back, all the way to the ribbing at the wrist and started again from there.

And I think I know what I did wrong the last time!

So, after the ribbing you do a provisional cast-on, pick up some stitches and then you decrease ribbing stitches. I did remember that I as supposed to decrease not half the stitches but 2 more. Or less. And that was the problem. I had put my marker that showed me how far to decrease in the wrong place which meant two steps further I had too few stitches. No wonder that ripping back the thumb did not make things better.

But now I should be on track. Unless I did something stupid in the evening while watching TV with the rest of the family.

I did the dishes and went walking/running:

Then a shower and then there was pizza:

Those are anchovies, they needed to get eaten.

After lunch I did the dishes right away, then some Genshin, and then I tidied the living room that was covered in sewing paraphernalia and pieces of paper pattern for the costume project.

Oh, and somewhere in there I also folded two loads of laundry.

The episode of ‚Mobius‘ was good but it had been so long since I had watched the episode before that I have a strong urge to rewatch all the episodes we have watched so far.

I might just do that.

After TV I played more Genshin and had to tear myself away at one point so that I wouldn’t go to bed super late again.

I started writing this post, the boy made me a cup of chamomile tea and I took that with me to bed to read a little so that I wouldn’t be super cold again.

And now for the last day of fall break.

And also, apparently I posted Thursday’s post today and forgot to even write a post this morning. Oops.

Yesterday was pretty boring, supermarket run, this time with the bike, lots of Genshin again and teaching one student. And some half-hearted editing.

Today I woke up after eight hours of sleep (yeah, me!), skipped yoga and meditation and so could eat breakfast with my husband for real for once and then we set off to our annual hike to the Andechs monastery.

We don’t actually hike there all the way, we take a train to Herrsching and then hike up the mountain. This time it only took one hour, might have been due to the cold, none of us wanted to stand around for long anywhere.

The weather was almost freezing, dark and gray but being outside and seeing the fall leaves was actually rather nice. No, I did not take a picture.

Since it was so cold we went inside but we got the same exact food as we always do. And we shared a dark, extra strong beer and a light alcohol-free beer:

We went back down again without a hitch and walked a bit further to look at the Ammersee:

It is nicer when the sun is shining but it was calm and quiet.

Then we took the train back home and I decided to see if the supermarket right next to the train station might have the old version of myfavorite potato chips. Because the day before I bought a bag that had „new recipe“ on it. The new thing was the added sugar. I think. I did not see the two bags side by side but when I was finished eating that one it had a very sweet aftertaste.

So I ate potato chips for dinner the second day in a row. The old recipe tastes better by far. But also, I might have to rethink my relationship with potato chips in general, maybe they are not my favorite food after all?

Anyway, I played Genshin and finished a world quest only to start another one, then met with my writer friend online and read through the old version of book two and made two pages of notes. Ideas might be happening. Oh, and I even read a bit on the train in the morning.

After the writing meeting I started this post, played some more Genshin and went to bed.

Two more days left in fall break but I guess I’ll just treat them like a regular weekend.

I got a little over eight hours of sleep, did my morning routine and went for my walk/run:

I had already pulled for two new characters in Genshin before breakfast (only 20 wishes) and then decided to throw 20 more pulls after it to get another one but failed.

There was a shower and lunch:

And then it was all Genshin all day. I ate half a pint of ice cream in the late afternoon, played some more, set up the new landline phone after about an hour of failing to connect it with my router, ate a quick dinner and played some more.

At around midnight I switched to scrolling through Instagram, always the best idea at that time. Not.

Today I need to get some more stuff done.

And no, I still haven’t written down my goals. I might not want to because the things I write down are the exact same things every month. And most of them are things that will never get done. Exercise, write, make music, they are just ongoing habit. Or rather aspirations for habits but who know how it will turn out in the future.

Today there should be a little more structure but also lost of Genshin again. I have to build two more characters. I still am very unsure about their weapons and artifacts and still have to pick a ton of flowers and fight this one boss. Well, at least I think it’s just this one.

Oh, and it looks like I just acquired another character who would like the exact same weapon as three others so I’ll have to swap even more.

I got 7 1/2 hours of sleep, so not too shabby. I need to remember that the boy leaves the house early on Tuesdays (and Thursdays) this semester and that I tend to wake up when he goes to the kitchen to get his water bottle.

I did the complete morning routine, then spent too much time talking with my husband and left the house later than I wanted.

I had packed my broken sewing machine into our big trekking backpack and took the train to Munich. A first for me was a rail replacement bus service for the tram.

The people in the shop were very nice and efficient. They asked me if I had brought the piece of thread that had made weird coils but I hadn’t. I was very proud that I could show them a picture but hadn’t thought about the fact that the person who will repair the machine would not be in the shop.

I came home for lunch an hour late but my husband had waited for me:

While I was in Munich the boy met the prof who had told him he should apply for his institute’s master program. So they talked and it looks like the boy’s master thesis is off to a good start including some paid work at the institute. He spent more than an hour i the evening telling me all about the institute’s work and how fascinating it is, so that sounds good.

Apparently my excursion had totally depleted me, I was barely conscious when talking with my husband over lunch and after my brain was complete mush. I was also firmly convinced that a) I am a bad teacher, b) I would never get new students ever again, and c) the potential new student I was due to meet that evening would never sign up with me.

I knew that it was all just in my head and probably just the exhaustion speaking but it did feel real.

I took a break and continued reading, played some Genshin and talked some more with my husband before it was time to meet that student.

I also finally started on planning for November but I still didn’t get around to write my goals down. It seem to be extra hard this month. I might just move last month’s goals to this month after all.

It was completely fine. The student is nice and promising and we agreed to meet once a week from now on. Phew. I could even show them some things that improved their singing right away. Ha!

Because I was so drained I decided to reschedule the writing, the bodyweight training, the housework and the co-writing session to today.

And I’m only now realizing that that means I will go walking/running and do strength training in the same day. Oops. A day where there is a major Genshin update.