creative.mother.thinking

I might be settling down a bit, though.

So I managed to go to bed at a reasonable time and sleep for eight hours. We’re not talking about the fact that I woke up often.

In the morning I tried speeding myself up a little and I did but not enough. So I only wrote two morning pages, then skipped yoga and meditation and breakfast. I did take a shower, though, for the doctor’s appointment. And I talked briefly with my husband.

There is a lot of making plans and assigning tasks to each other these days.

I walked to my doctor’s office, had a nice chat with him, got an ECG and had blood drawn and he wrote me a letter for the eye surgeon. He said that I probably don’t need all that hullaballoo for cataract surgery but that some doctors insist on it. He also took blood for my thyroid levels, so I can check that off my list.

Oh, and he measured my blood oxygen – which was great – and because of that I mentioned that my smartwatch keeps telling me that my blood oxygen is a little low when I sleep. So I’ll get that checked out at a later point but it’s not urgent.

Wouldn’t it be interesting if one of the reasons I am all tired all the time would be sleep apnea?

I walked back home, made myself breakfast, talked briefly with my husband who was in a tizzy because of all the things that need to be done and the sheer vastness of stuff that landed on our plates because of our mothers’ recent issues.

Eating breakfast while reading was very helpful.

I then walked to my mother-in-law’s doctor’s office to pick up the forms he filled in for us. Turns out that cost 25 €. I had not taken my wallet but that’s what paying with my smartwatch is for.

Then I set out for the grocery store on my bike. I was earlier than usual and that meant things were way less crowded. Who would have thought. I also usually go on Thursdays not Friday. I only realized that I had forgotten to put more cash in my wallet when I was about to pay but, hey, debit card.

I had almost forgotten the bike panniers again but did remember just in time.

I unpacked the groceries in a kitchen where my husband was dealing with a boatload of basil. He had an actual tub of it sitting right in the middle of the floor. At one point we were both busy with the picking and chopping. And I am very proud of myself for smelling that the pine nuts were toasted enough, and I pulled them off the heat about a minute before my husband came dashing back from the annex. I also grated a lot of parmesan. We made enough to fill some extra jars with pesto, always nice.

We ate outside again:

Afterwards I only had a little bit of time left and I spent most of it hanging up a load of laundry, and only a few minutes reading.

I taught my first student, had a break where I played Genshin, then two more students, and two cancellations. Which meant I had time to write all the messages and do the dishes while participating in a Zoom call. I even went on the call (after the dishes) and vented about the current chaos in public.

I really like that coach and she was helpful, as always, but there was one thing she said that stuck with me because I couldn’t relate, she said that it was normal to feel like having so much come at me at once was not fair.

And I’m like, fair? This isn’t about fairness. This is just what happens. This is life. And it is a normal part of life. You have aging parents or small kids or something like that there will be crises hitting you. And while it is all pretty overwhelming it is still not war or famine or anything. It is just a bit much and at one point it will become less. Or maybe more, who knows. Fairness in these situations is such a weird concept to me, as if there is a person who I could complain to.

Even if there were a god who did that to me on purpose, I’m still pretty sure what we’re dealing with is harder for our mothers by far. Finding yourself old and feeble and unable to care for yourself, relying on others. And then you don’t know if you’ll ever get back to be able to lead your life without help. And I guess at one point you’re also not quite sure if you’re up to trying to get up and moving again. And they don’t know if working for that will do them any good.

So, I’m not thinking about fairness at all. I’m thinking about my mother-in-law who was displaced from her home not once but twice, who had to take care first of her husband’s parents, then of her own husband, and then for her own aging parents, all while working a job and doing all the cooking, cleaning and gardening around the house.

Talking about fair.

Anyway, I then met the boy for bodyweight training, we ended up talking about the current situation with each other and my husband for too long so that I did not have time to eat dinner before meeting with my writer friend.

By that point I was so low on energy that I could only spend twenty minutes on writing but I did start this post, so that was good.

Then I finally are something, spun a bit, played Genshin and read a bit, and went to bed.

No panicked phone calls, at least.

I had gone to bed too late again but not quite as late as the nights before. I overslept and did my morning routine very slowly.

Over breakfast we talked about what the day would bring and I decided to reschedule the grocery shopping for today. The big thing on the calendar was meeting with my mother-in-law’s doctor at 12.30.

We talked, we did the dishes and got ready, I looked through the care home paperwork and found a form that her doctor should fill out and around noon, when we were still drying dishes we heard a heavy thump from upstairs.

We both dashed up the stairs thinking that did not sound good.

My mother-in-law had fallen flat on her back for no apparent reason. Oh, and when my husband had went upstairs while I was doing yoga before breakfast she had told him that she had taken two of the emergency pills. Which she shouldn’t have done because those are only for when her blood pressure is sky-high and she feels bad. And we have never given her two of those before.

So, what happened seems to be that the pills made her blood pressure go down too much and that caused her to fall.

We got her up from the floor and onto her sofa and I went over to her doctor because we had an appointment twenty minutes later anyway.

I got to talk to him but he did not want to come to our house because he said, if she had been injured from the fall she’d need an x-ray, not him.

He also told me that she shouldn’t take those emergency meds anymore, that there is a new study out saying that people over 80 do much better without blood pressure medication because without it there are not more deaths but there are way fewer falls. Duh.

I got us some Chines takeout for lunch:

The boy had left the house early to write an exam. He seems to be pretty happy with how he did. Fingers crossed.

We gave my mother-in-law the soup she had wanted from the Chines place for lunch. She keeps saying that she doesn’t want to eat anything. She was in very low spirits all day.

The boy went and checked on her several times throughout the day. He was with her when her doctor called and told her to reduce her medication. We’re hoping that will make her feel better. It will be hard, though, because she thinks all her problems are due to her blood pressure being too high. Turns out those numbers are perfectly fine for someone her age. And we can see that she becomes livelier and more coherent when it is a little higher.

I taught two students. During a break I went to the office of her doctor again to ask him to fill out the form for the care home, then I taught two more students.

I made myself dinner and ate it before remembering that I still had half my lunch. I had planned to eat that instead. Well, it will keep in the fridge until tonight.

I then met with my writer friend for a writing sprint. After forty minutes I ran out of juice, but hey, forty minutes! And I started this post right after.

Today will be super busy as well, I have to go to my doctor to get my bloodwork done for eye-surgery, so I’ll only eat breakfast later today. And then it will be non-stop go, go, go until tonight. Phew.

I got less than 7 hours of sleep but compared to the nights before that is an improvement.

I also managed to do my regular morning routine (Writing? In this economy?), then talked to my husband briefly. We decided to not divide the errands but do them together because neither of us was happy about doing them so we opted for moral support from each other.

Turns out, that weird piece of paper from my mother-in-law that was supposed to give me a mandate to do her banking stuff might actually have worked. Unfortunately, we couldn’t find it again. Prolonged contact with her means that the kitchen bench, always a point where my paperwork, books and other stuff accumulates, looks like an extension of her kitchen table, strewn with pieces of paper with handwritten notes clipped to it. I never know what to do with the paperclips, I should probably give them back because I detest them. They make weird indentations in the paper and then you have them everywhere and have to corral them.

We did go to the bank anyway, got the information that we should just bring a letter giving us the mandate, then their legal department would check it, call her on the phone (we told them that she is unable to get to the bank herself) and things would be done and ready.

Then we biked to the care home that she would like to go to. She probably won’t be able to afford it, and her dream of moving in next week or so is, um, not realistic.

We asked and got told it might take up to two years to get a place. On the bright side the receptionist is someone I’ve known for years because our kids went to pre-kindergarten and kindergarten together (she said I recommended that specific kindergarten to her, and I still like it and am hearing good things from a student of mine who works there), her kids had piano lessons with me and she took a few guitar lessons, so she said if we can get the paperwork to her until Saturday she’ll try to put in a good word for us. She also remembers my mother-in-law who used to pick up our son from kindergarten, and she remembers her social work and that she knows people at the home, is a nice person, and has ties to the home. All points in her favor.

Then she took a picture with me to send to her daughter who still plays piano for fun, always a joy to hear because that is exactly what I want my teaching to achieve. Not professional musicians who win competitions but just regular people enjoying music who have the skill and knowledge to continue playing on their own. That made me happy.

We went back via a doctor’s office to renew a prescription for my husband and the pharmacy. I had plans to buy chocolate bars and trail mix but didn’t in the end because I wanted to get back home.

At one point I added things to the list for my MIL’s doctor today. That is a long list.

Husband had planned to make homemade pesto but because we didn’t have all that much time we ended up with pasta and eggplant. Yummy! Which was unexpected because I used to dislike eggplant because it is so mushy and I didn’t like the taste but these days my husband uses the ones fresh from the vine and roasts them and that makes all the difference. I was also pretty hungry:

While he was cooking I went on a short 30-minute run/walk. My knee is feeling much better, I am suspecting that skipping squats the day before might have helped. I self-diagnosed runner’s knee. We’ll see. I should do exercises but I am pretty short on time.

I used the sneakers that used to be my good ones. I am waiting for a new pair. And yes, I looked stressed and tense in this picture, that is just my regular state right now. There will be different times again for sure. And maybe I will grow and be able to just sit in the middle of chaos all serene at one point.

That is a skill I really would like to have. I’ve been working towards it for a long time now. I am definitely not chill or serene or calm or relaxed by nature. But who knows, maybe I can free my inner Buddha at some point that would be awesome.

There was a shower and then lunch:

I did the dishes right away, had ten minutes for Genshin (I am busy leveling my new character up, I drew Columbina the day before which makes me super happy, I coveted her ever since she came out but had to be sensible. I hate that.

I did play her for the first time last night and it was just a dream. Much better than the free character I used in that team slot before.

I taught all the students but I was very fuzzy and distracted. At one point the boy texted me about my mother-in-law’s blood pressure and meds right in a student’s lesson and I had to interrupt the lesson to answer. I don’t like that but, well, family health has priority.

I popped upstairs at one point, I paid a bill that was overdue, I found the paperwork for my cataract surgery and looked at it again so I know what to talk about with my doctor tomorrow, I ordered more contact lenses for in between surgeries and decided to go with a mono-focal lens. I hope I won’t regret that. I might have to get myself a magnifying glass or something for reading, we’ll see. My phone has a Zoom mode that I find rather annoying in normal life but that might be helpful eventually.

I taught more students. My new toner cartridge has just been dispatched from the UK so I am very happy that I didn’t need to make any copies.

After my last student I went upstairs again, talked with my mother-in-law and then I had eight whole minutes to eat dinner before meeting for a writing sprint. I still ate at the beginning of my writing session but I was only reading, so that was okay.

I spent 45 minutes and ended up researching Turkish coffee and how to make it for a while. The whole thing is fascinating but unfortunately I don#t do coffee at all, my stomach does vehemently protest against it.

After researching I, of course, decided that my characters don’t really care and just throw some water and coffee grounds in to a regular pot, they care more about quantity than about texture and foam, and they only do it when the moka pot is in use and they need additional coffee quickly.

After that I played some more, I went upstairs to watch my mother-in-law take her blood pressure and went back downstairs to play some more.

And then we got the dreaded beep-beep-beep of the smoke alarm upstairs. Don’t turn on the heat under your jam and walk away. Especially not when you’re easily distracted, forgetful and take ages to do anything. (Might be a family trait, my husband does that as well, turns the heat on under something, gets impatient with the lack of progress, leaves the room real quick and is susprised when the food turns out too dark or burnt.

I then started writing this post until an hour past my (hypothetical bedtime), wrote a list for today (extremely necessary because this day needs to be planned meticulously and leaves a very low margin for error for execution, and then I decided to skip the spinning for once.

Today will be the supermarket run, visiting my mother-in-law’s doctor with a boatload of questions, looking at the paperwork for the nursing home before, then quite a bit of teaching including meeting a maybe new student and then quickly switch to fiction writing. And ordering takeout in between.

Tired. Very tired at this point.

I went to bed at 1 am again, dumb decision that I regretted instantly. There’s a part of me that thinks I shouldn’t go to bed if I haven’t written or done something productive.

also I procrastinated the dishes and the spinning. Maybe I should give up on the Tour de Fleece but I don’t want to. Here is my spindle right now, this is the third part of the fiber for the sock yarn sample:

I wrote morning pages, spent my writing time researching first-hand experience report of cataract surgery from a writer and a cartoonist. People whose lives are a bit more like mine.

I started doing yoga and eight minutes in my phone went off, my mother-in-law was calling.

She was feeling terrible, her blood pressure was super high and she wanted help. So I spent an hour with her, got her to take her emergency meds, got her to take her blood pressure a couple of times, made her drink something and eat breakfast and when she seemed a little better I finally ate breakfast.

No knitting, no meditation, no taking my own blood pressure. I did the dishes, went upstairs again and went out for errands and groceries.

First I went to my optician to talk about me test lens for in between cataract sugeries. Turns out my optician is on vacation until after my surgery. So I guess I’ll make do with that one test lens. Which is fine but it is mono-focal and I would lime to have something to read with. Should I order some other lenses online? Should I make do with this one because the new lens in the other eye will give me built-in reading glasses?

Not quite sure.

I walked to the supermarket for yogurt, cheese and bananas and to the health food store for just about everything and came back home. Went upstairs right again, then folded three loads of laundry while my husband made lunch. I was very hungry and the food was very good:

Yes, there are zucchini in there, right now there are zucchini in everything, you know how it is when they are ripe. I finished folding the laundry and tried rearranging the dirty dishes a bit so it would be easier to wash them later and then I had about ten minutes to play Genshin and have some chocolate and tea.

I taught two students.

I had a 30-minute break that I used to call two potential new students and arrange test lessons. I went upstairs again and asked my mother-in-law to take her blood pressure. The boy had talked to her before but she is now convinced that I am the only person who knows how to take her meds and when. She might also find me somewhat calming which is funny because I am not calm at all.

I try to make little jokes and be lighthearted and positive throughout, the boy and my husband are a little grumpier, maybe.

I taught another student. The student who often doesn’t show asked if we could reschedule her lesson. Because she had paracticed a lot that afternoon, and didn’t really want to go to my house to play guitar again.

My first impulse was to say that that was totally her problem, not mine, but since I was toast I agreed anyway. But I did make it clear that her time management is not my circus. I have enough stuff to juggle on my own.

Meanwhile I was texting with both my sister and mother. They are settling in but there might be a little friction. Sister is not used to be interrupted any other minutes, and my mother keeps seeing stuff that needs to be taken care of. And she can’t just get up and do it herself.

Oh, and another thing, when I came home from my errands I figured out why there are always so many pebbles in my showed when I go running. I wore the muddy and beat down sneakers for errands and such because I was too lazy to put the orthotics in the nice sneakers:

They are just over a year old. I threw the in the trash and ordered new ones. In the meantime my nice ones will be downgraded to the „running through mud“-pair.

So I had another break but I spent that answering email. I night have talked with the boy a little and watched my mother-in-law take her blood pressure but I can’t swear to it.

In the next to last lesson I wanted to print a new piece out that the student had brought. But the printer wouldn’t budge because it had run out of toner. So I spent ten minutes in a futile attempt to change the toner. Until I sent the student home without new sheet music.

Then I taught another student. I was not in the best shape for that. I’ve known him for very long and he is a patient man who works with small children.

I tried again with the printer because I wanted to print something for him as well, he helped but we couldn’t get the thing to click together. Careful comparison of the old toner thing and the new one showed that the new one has a part that is crooked. No way to bend it without breaking it.

So I ordered more toner.

The boy was looking for me again because my mother-in-law wanted me to hold her hand throught the next blood pressure measurent, we chose the right meds for her to take and I went to finally eat dinner.

My husband and the boy persuaded her to eat dinner. And later I went upstairs for her taking her blood-pressure again. And take her emergency meds. And try to cheer her up a little.

The other two also convinced her to watch some TV, she had been sitting on her couch unmoving doing nothing for most of the day.

While the boy and I were upstairs my husband had done all the dishes. Phew. Oh, and in the morning he had a friend come over to drive many, many things to the recycling place.

I played Genshin for a bit again, talked with both my husband and the boy, and pulled a character that I have been wanting for months with surprisingly little pulls. Yeah.

More talking, then I started this post, wrote a list for today while sipping some tea and went to bed too laet again.

Did I tell you that my husband and I went to my mother-in-law’s doctor in the morning to make an appointment to confer about her condition and our next steps? Anyway, we did that too.

I also started the process of maybe getting refund for the defective toner, fingers crossed.

At 11.30 pm I was still texting back and forth with the boy about matters blood pressure.

Not my own, though I’m pretty sure that one has been lower than it is right now.

Oh, and the boy and I skipped bodyweight training with all the hullabaloo. Plus he has an exam tomorrow and needs to study like crazy.

I went to bed at 1 am again, dumb decision that I regretted instantly. There’s a part of me that thinks I shouldn’t go to bed if I haven’t written or done something productive.

also I procrastinated the dishes and the spinning. Maybe I should give up on the Tour de Fleece but I don’t want to. Here is my spindle right now, this is the third part of the fiber for the sock yarn sample:

I wrote morning pages, spent my writing time researching first-hand experience report of cataract surgery from a writer and a cartoonist. People whose lives are a bit more like mine.

I started doing yoga and eight minutes in my phone went off, my mother-in-law was calling.

She was feeling terrible, her blood pressure was super high and she wanted help. So I spent an hour with her, got her to take her emergency meds, got her to take her blood pressure a couple of times, made her drink something and eat breakfast and when she seemed a little better I finally ate breakfast.

No knitting, no meditation, no taking my own blood pressure. I did the dishes, went upstairs again and went out for errands and groceries.

First I went to my optician to talk about me test lens for in between cataract sugeries. Turns out my optician is on vacation until after my surgery. So I guess I’ll make do with that one test lens. Which is fine but it is mono-focal and I would lime to have something to read with. Should I order some other lenses online? Should I make do with this one because the new lens in the other eye will give me built-in reading glasses?

Not quite sure.

I walked to the supermarket for yogurt, cheese and bananas and to the health food store for just about everything and came back home. Went upstairs right again, then folded three loads of laundry while my husband made lunch. I was very hungry and the food was very good:

Yes, there are zucchini in there, right now there are zucchini in everything, you know how it is when they are ripe. I finished folding the laundry and tried rearranging the dirty dishes a bit so it would be easier to wash them later and then I had about ten minutes to play Genshin and have some chocolate and tea.

I taught two students.

I had a 30-minute break that I used to call two potential new students and arrange test lessons. I went upstairs again and asked my mother-in-law to take her blood pressure. The boy had talked to her before but she is now convinced that I am the only person who knows how to take her meds and when. She might also find me somewhat calming which is funny because I am not calm at all.

I try to make little jokes and be lighthearted and positive throughout, the boy and my husband are a little grumpier, maybe.

I taught another student. The student who often doesn’t show asked if we could reschedule her lesson. Because she had paracticed a lot that afternoon, and didn’t really want to go to my house to play guitar again.

My first impulse was to say that that was totally her problem, not mine, but since I was toast I agreed anyway. But I did make it clear that her time management is not my circus. I have enough stuff to juggle on my own.

Meanwhile I was texting with both my sister and mother. They are settling in but there might be a little friction. Sister is not used to be interrupted any other minutes, and my mother keeps seeing stuff that needs to be taken care of. And she can’t just get up and do it herself.

Oh, and another thing, when I came home from my errands I figured out why there are always so many pebbles in my showed when I go running. I wore the muddy and beat down sneakers for errands and such because I was too lazy to put the orthotics in the nice sneakers:

They are just over a year old. I threw the in the trash and ordered new ones. In the meantime my nice ones will be downgraded to the „running through mud“-pair.

So I had another break but I spent that answering email. I night have talked with the boy a little and watched my mother-in-law take her blood pressure but I can’t swear to it.

In the next to last lesson I wanted to print a new piece out that the student had brought. But the printer wouldn’t budge because it had run out of toner. So I spent ten minutes in a futile attempt to change the toner. Until I sent the student home without new sheet music.

Then I taught another student. I was not in the best shape for that. I’ve known him for very long and he is a patient man who works with small children.

I tried again with the printer because I wanted to print something for him as well, he helped but we couldn’t get the thing to click together. Careful comparison of the old toner thing and the new one showed that the new one has a part that is crooked. No way to bend it without breaking it.

So I ordered more toner.

The boy was looking for me again because my mother-in-law wanted me to hold her hand throught the next blood pressure measurent, we chose the right meds for her to take and I went to finally eat dinner.

My husband and the boy persuaded her to eat dinner. And later I went upstairs for her taking her blood-pressure again. And take her emergency meds. And try to cheer her up a little.

The other two also convinced her to watch some TV, she had been sitting on her couch unmoving doing nothing for most of the day.

While the boy and I were upstairs my husband had done all the dishes. Phew. Oh, and in the morning he had a friend come over to drive many, many things to the recycling place.

I played Genshin for a bit again, talked with both my husband and the boy, and pulled a character that I have been wanting for months with surprisingly little pulls. Yeah.

More talking, then I started this post, wrote a list for today while sipping some tea and went to bed too laet again.

Did I tell you that my husband and I went to my mother-in-law’s doctor in the morning to make an appointment to confer about her condition and our next steps? Anyway, we did that too.

I also started the process of maybe getting refund for the defective toner, fingers crossed.

At 11.30 pm I was still texting back and forth with the boy about matters blood pressure.

Not my own, though I’m pretty sure that one has been lower than it is right now.

Oh, and the boy and I skipped bodyweight training with all the hullabaloo. Plus he has an exam tomorrow and needs to study like crazy.

But of the kind that leaves you not only fuzzy in your head but also with racing thoughts. And, of course, I was very slow with everything.

I did my morning pages, yoga and meditation but no writing. Took ages to get ready in the morning and then left for my run/walk half an hour later than I wanted. There was still enough time, though.

I did find the crossing in the woods where I got lost the week before:

This is how it looks on my way out, and this is how it looks on the way back:

From this side it seems much less clear that the straight path is the smaller one forward. If I just keep to the right side I think I need to turn evry time, and I think that there’s no way I came along that small path that’s more like cart tracks.

Well.

This time I ran on, thinking that I had gone rather far for half of the 57-minute workout I had planned. My smartwatch kept showing me that I was on interval 4 of 8. For more than five minutes, so there had to be something wrong. I finally looked on my phone that said „interval 6 of 8“. Oops. I was not happy:

I turned around immediately, gave up any pretense of running, walked back the whole way and ended up adding 20 minutes of unplanned exercise to my day.

I then went right back out and mailed two letters for my mother-in-law, and then it was too late to take a shower before lunch.

We ate outside again:

My husband showered first, I played a little and then had a whole 15 minutes to get showered and ready for teaching.

I taught non-stop from 2.30 until 7, then ate a quick dinner, met the boy for our weekly round of video game bosses, we talked, I played some more, started writing this post at the time I should have turned the lights out and then did the dishes.

My mother has safely returned home again and my sister is with her, so that is good. They both need to get settled, of course.

Today will be packed yet again, I think I’ll be running a ton of errands for both me and my mother-in-law, then teach quite a bit before doing bodyweight training. My head is a running list of doctor’s appointments, paperwork and phone calls.

Good thing I have a list. Or two.