creative.mother.thinking

It just involves writing for 1 1/2 hours every single day. Simple.

Not that I did that yesterday.

I did all the usual morning things which means I have done yoga every day so far this month. I’m also experimenting with not taking my blood pressure medication because my blood pressure has been in the optimal range for weeks now. Chances are it’s still normal without the pills. We’ll see. I will be extra diligent in looking at the numbers every day.

I had another slow morning but it was refreshingly cool and so running/walking was rather pleasant. The only uncomfortable thing was that my legs felt, really really heavy:

My husband was in a rather bad mood, he had started to pull the weeds in his garden beds the day before and was very frustrated that he kept pulling the carrots out with the weeds. Those weeds are way taller than the things he sowed, so his frustration is understandable. And he has a pretty brutal teaching schedule overall, poor thing.

He still cooked a delicious meal and on time, even:

I had planned to take a shower right away but ran into my husband who wanted to do the same as I was picking up fresh underwear from the drying rack. So I folded the laundry and took a break reading and playing my game. I had to rush to finish my shower in time before my first student.

Then it was non-stop teaching, the last lesson was my writer friend who brought a delightful Bach piece and we had a refreshing conversation about classical music and such afterwards.

I finally ate dinner at 7.30, then met the boy for our weekly video game bosses, played some more and then it was rather late already. But I still hadn’t done the dishes, started this post, done my journal entry or my daily spinning, oops.

I helped the boy strategize a little, he has four exams coming up very close together. I started this post while he made himself fried potatoes. I spun some yarn and I did the dishes. Here’s my spindle:

So it was all quite a bit but it’s always hard to fit everything in when teaching ends that late. Today I’ll be done earlier, so I hope that will translate into more sleep.

And another very short post because I’m running out of time. And I didn’t even open the manuscript.

I did all the usual morning things (without writing unfortunately), ate breakfast and called my mother at the hospital. She is feeling marginally better but recovery is very slow.

I planned the week before lunch which was a little late but pretty tasty. There might not have been salt in the lentils but with some added salt it was very good:

I spent the afternoon playing Genshin, starting to help the boy install a fly screen but we didn’t get far because there was some cleaning to do beforehand that he did without me.

At 5 I had another video call, this one happens monthly and it was a lot of fun.

Then I waited for the boy to come downstairs for bodyweight training, and I ate dinner before. Maybe not the best decision.

We did our exercise and I got a tiny bit better with my pull-ups and afterwards I looked at the spinning wheel. I had unpacked it again in the afternoon and had lubrucated the treadles and the flyer but it wasn’t working.

In the end I just put some oil on the flyer shaft and it finally started working:

Then I played too much Genshin (but almost finished building one character and started leaving up another one, and then it was too late again.

So, today: reading, writing, running, teaching. Oh, and some spinning, of course.

I did have a long and busy day but did not get much done. I did go to bed at a reasonable time (not on time, of course, what do you think) and set my alarm back to 7, so, yeah, eight hours of sleep, hurray!

I’m giving you a very short account of the day because today is also pretty busy and I want to use my time for other things.

I did open the manuscript for twenty minutes which is an improvement over the days before but not really enough. If I write for three hours today I will be super happy but that is highly unlikely.

I almost finished the two gauge swatches and I’ll show them to you another time, I hope, I did the dishes and went on my run/walk half an hour late.

I’m calling it a run/walk now instead of a walk/run because I have flipped the ratio between running and walking intervals. By the time I went out it was past noon and pretty hot so there were a few stretches of way that were feeling to hot and I did walk part of the running intervals sometimes but not much. Oh, and no alt text today as well, sorry but here is my usual running selfie:

Yes, I’m looking a bit exhausted and hot. Also, I was feeling the harder strength training the night before but was sore in a good way. Mostly.

I came back home, helped a little with chopping things for lunch and we ate outside again:

That weird red thing is red beet risotto, made with red beets my husband grew. And we have too many eggs and not much protein.

Then I took a shower, read a bit and played my game. The plan was to either spin or write before my weekly writer Zoom but because the host had given me a heads up that she wanted to stop hosting I was too preoccupied with how that would go.

It went very well, by the way, she said that this would be the last meeting, and that she was sorry because she would miss seeing us all every week but that being host and doing it every Saturday was very draining for her and too much. The reaction was, oh, that is a little sad but understandable.

We still checked in but this time we talked about what we all want to achieve the rest of the year. Because we’re at the half-way mark already.

One of us had the idea of meeting again in three months to check in. Which is a good idea and we actually agreed on a date. I hope this will actually happen. I did put it in my calendar already. Of course I did.

These are the times when I think back to my mother calling me over-organized. I’m still pissed at that. There is no such thing as over-organized, there is only properly organized. There is a point where pending more time and energy on organization gives you diminishing returns and isn’t quite worth it but still.

Then my husband, the boy and I met to watch an episode of ‚Columbo‘ that was really unusual. Not bad but the pacing was a little too slow for my taste.

After that I folded some laundry, did a huge amount of dishes (took 45 minutes, I stopped the time), started writing this post, made a list for today, spun for ten minutes on my spindle because there was definitely no time to get the spinning wheel running but it also was the start of the Tour de Fleece and that was mostly it.

Phew.

And more of that today, hopefully with more writing.

I was very determined not to go to bed too late. I brushed my teeth early and did everything right. And then I was almost finished with the novel I was reading and there were only a few more pages…

On the bright side I only went to bed an hour late which is better than the days before. And I set my alarm back to 7 so I did get a little more sleep.

I was pretty cranky because I hadn’t written in two days and I was low-key stressed about everything but acutely about that day’s optician appointment.

But first I talked with my husband over breakfast, he decided to leave a little earlier than usual for his run, because he is still behind with the garden and he also wanted to go running.

So I finished my tea, read a little and started a gauge swatch with the purple yarn I spun:

The yarn looks nicer than I thought it would.

After that I went on my usual internet rounds, lamented that I didn’t have time to write, realized that I could either lament for ten minutes or just open the manuscript, even if I just stared at it for the whole time, opened the manuscript, stared at it for a couple of minutes and just as I was back into the story and knew what to write next – my husband showed up to put the vacuum back into the bedroom where I had left it for two weeks or so because I would be doing the apartment any moment now.

At first that was not a problem but then he told me something and after that started a discussion about the air in the bedroom being stale and I could feel the idea I had slipping from my fingers.

I was not in a good mood after that.

I got ready and then decided to do the breakfast dishes before leaving and risking being a few minutes late.

Which was not a problem. I made the way in record time and only arrived three minutes late.

The optician was nice and competent as always. He didn’t quite approve my surgeon’s plan but, well, it is decided already and there’s that. And I am not quite convinced he is right.

He was a little surprised that I went to him four weeks before surgery to discuss the permanent contact lens for my other eye to wear between surgeries. Well, I thought it would need time to order that thing and before that to get an appointment.

Which now means there will be time to experiment with test lenses. Or maybe just one test lens. That will be interesting. They also measured my eyes again and – as I thought – my vision has gotten significantly worse yet again since the last time I was there.

I came back home feeling somewhat better for having walked through the nice sunny day that was not too hot. I answered a text and wrote one to the plumber we had asked to come in, um, ten days ago, and then we ate lunch outside even though it was a little windy:

The original plan had been to make calamari, then for my husband to eat the calamari and me to eat the rest of the pasta salad and in the end it was (very little) pasta salad for all of us and some extras.

I had a bit of time before my first student and used that to play my video game.

My second student canceled in the middle of my first lesson via text. The next student was being taught by my husband that week (we move him back and forth depending on whether my husband has time) and I used that time to finally vacuum the apartment and do the lunch dishes. The vacuum is now back in the basement where it belongs.

The next student showed up and played nicely, and the student after that was one who had rescheduled from earlier in the week.

They did not show up at all.

I sat there waiting for a while, and I read and contemplated playing the piano but I didn’t want to.

Just before my last student of the day was due I opened my email and found that the last student had canceled half an hour before their lesson, so I sat around waiting and ready to teach for almost three hours for two measly lessons. Well, and I cleaned and did the dishes which is no nothing.

I then played the piano a bit and ate dinner.

I met the boy and we did strength training, this time the pull-up bar felt like it was mocking me. I’m just hoping I’ll get stronger eventually.

I read some more (have started the „Sugar and Vice“-trilogy over from the beginning), looked at my bullet journal briefly and then started writing this post.

I opened the manuscript for fifteen minutes and then went back to playing more Genshin before going to bed.

I’m just hoping I’ll make good use of the weekend. I mean, I finally have a plan for the month so everything will go smoothly, of course.

It took me most of the day to figure out that a part of me was waiting for news of how moving my mother from one clinic to the other went. Once that fact reached my conscious mind I just texted her, heard back that everything went well and could relax a bit. Sheesh.

I had a generally scattered day, one where I opened social media first thing in the morning. Not good. There were a lot of very helpful conversations with my husband and then I set out to do the big grocery run on my bike.

Came back home a little late for lunch with all the cheese and all the bread and some other stuff as well. Unpacked while husband was talking at me at speed because he was so stressed from the cooking. I even helped a little at the end and we ate outside:

I had quite a bit of time because I only had very few students but I also was super tired so I did not get much done.

I used a break between students to do the dishes, at least. The fan we had ordered for my mother-in-law arrived and the boy tried it out and brought it upstairs. We had tried to make sure that it would be easy to use and it looked like it was. Only one switched that needs to be turned from off to three different settings. And the fan was nice and strong.

After my last student I sat down to eat a bag of potato chips and read. My husband was done at the exact same time so went in and out of the kitchen for his dinner, then decided he wanted to do something about the dripping faucet and clogged drains right away. I tried waiting until he was finished but the tiredness, exhaustion and hunger crashed over me. Then there was a misunderstanding (of course) which meant we had to have an argument on top of everything.

We did talk some and made up again later but that was a big waste of time.

I had settled in the living room at my writing desk to start this post and had the feeling that my external computer keyboard was behaving strangely. So I finally figured out that the app I had gotten warnings about (Intel-based, no longer useable in the future) was the keyboard’s driver. So I had to see if there was a new version (there was), install it, register, and try to figure the problem out. (I did not figure it out.) It’s not essential but it felt like the keyboard lights were flickering, weird. And I couldn’t remember how to turn them off. But then I remembered that I can just use a search engine, and voilà!

I started writing this post, spent some time looking at July because while I was way too tired last night, I also would not have any time for that today, played some more Genshin Impact and vowed to do better today.

I’m having that feeling of dragging myself towards the weekend. I really despise feeling like that, I think the whole week should be something to look forward to. But I didn’t do well with my energy management this week.

As I said, today I’ll be better.