creative.mother.thinking

That was a day that went by fast. I did my complete morning routine but instead of writing I figured out the feedback for the cover designer and sent it off.

I also tried booking a hotel room for our family reunion in September. I’m a little sad that the boy didn’t want to come but, well.

I called my mother on the phone, did dishes and then there was lunch:

I ordered another non-fiction book and yes, I still don’t really read those.

I finished the Wilshores blanket by weaving in all the remaining ends:

Unfortunately I managed to take the picture of the wrong side, oops. The border in a 

I had plans to finish cleaning (which I did) and set up the new blurb but the blurb didn’t happen.

We went to vote in our very regional elections. Looks like 

I played my video game a little too long but managed to tear myself away in time for vacuuming the old part of the house and doing washbasins and toilets.

And then I went to bed to late. Great start into the week

I did try tackling my list but only got about a third of it done. There was yoga, I opened the manuscript, decided that I needed to look at book 1 again for the timeline of events, had breakfast with my husband where we talked a lot and he helped me sort through a few things I need to do where I was stumped because it really doesn’t matter what part of the task I do first or how I do it. I always find that challenging. Together we figured out the best way for me.

I crocheted quite a bit and ended up finishing the border on the crochet blanket in the evening.

I somehow was so late with chores in the morning that I could not fit the vacuuming in, decided to do it after lunch and ended up not having time left because the things I did in my video game took too long.

Lunch was great, comfort food is the best:

There might also have been a steady stream of licorice all afternoon, ahem.

I went to writer Zoom, folded all the laundry, failed to change the sheets on my bed and watched the wrong episode of ‚Columbo‘ with the rest of the family. It was rather confusing when we thought we’d watch the one with Mrs. Columbo but instead we had a writer murdered by her younger lover. Who was so irresistible to all the women that he could do what he wanted to any of them, including the older sister of his lover who knew perfectly well  what an ass he was and had told her sister to break up with him. That was no plausible at all. Especially since she knew he had shot her sister (though at that point they didn’t know he had actually murdered her) and was definitely after the money she would inherit from her sister.

Also, as we all know, romance authors are sweet and innocent and not business savvy at all. Sure.

Anyway. After I went back to my game and finished that part of the quest the I had to leave hanging for Zoom and TV and then I was too late for everything. I still started writing this post and made a list for today.

That list looks remarkably similar to yesterday’s list plus the phone call to my mother and voting in regional elections. Oh, and setting up a new router. Will I manage to do all of that? Probably not but I’ll try.

Every transition from one task to the next involved long periods of sitting around losing time.

I still managed to vacuum the annex and I also taught all the students. Then played Genshin with the boy, fell down a social media rabbit hole and ate too much licorice. We had pancake soup for dinner and an omelette for lunch.

Good thing it’s the weekend and I have weekends off.

I went to bed only half an hour late and might even have gotten eight hours of sleep if the boy hadn’t made himself breakfast at 6.30. In his defense he tried being really quiet and he did have to be at uni early.

Because I was so early I decided I had time for a quick look at Instagram before everything else. Ahem. And then it was very, very late. I wrote morning pages, did yoga and meditated very briefly. No manuscript time at all.

Husband and I had breakfast then he left to start working in the garden. I thought I might maybe have some manuscript time or write feedback for the cover designer or something but, no, my brain decided no to cooperate.

I also thought I would be well enough to brave biking to the bigger supermarket but by the time I had done the dishes I was feeling more fainting couch than mall, so I changed plans and walked to the nearby, smaller supermarket. There are things on the grocery list that have been there for three weeks now. But it can’t be helped.

There was lunch:

I took a break, read and played my video game and took a shower and then it was time to teach. Nice teaching day. My last student forgot about his lesson and texted me after the fact. I only waited for 7 minutes or so, and then decided to play the piano for fun.

I talked with my husband while eating dinner. He had done the dishes and was busy making red beet salad. His student hadn’t shown up as well.

I then went on reading and playing Genshin Impact. I am currently upgrading all the weapons my characters use and everything takes longer than I would like.

In between playing the piano and eating dinner I refilled three fountain pens and managed to let one drop on the hardwood floor. I am now having lovely turquoise sprinkles on the floor, ahem.

I started writing this post a little late, wrote a list for today, and went to bed.

I am reading three books at the moment: „War and Peace“ where everybody is in the war against Napoleon at the moment, „Star Shipped“ (no war and I just started it) and „Discoverability“ by Kristine Kathryn Rusch which is a bit outdated but still helpful.

Today I’ll do a teensy bit of cleaning and teach all the students. Somewhere in there I really should do publishing stuff but I dunnwanna and my brain is still mush.

And again, not much time.

The appointment went well and was very short, I now have another appointment in May to talk with the surgeon for my cataract surgery.

I did feel a bit better in the morning despite the lack of sleep but taking trains and being in the waiting room with a few unhappy toddlers brought my headache back.

At home lunch was almost ready and my husband had bought potatoes at the farmer’s market. That we didn’t eat that day:

The boy had several laundry-related emergencies, one of them was that his only pair of pants was dirty and he needed  real pants for today. In the course of those I taught him again how to use the washing machine.

There was a lot of teaching, my husband did the dishes while I ate dinner and we were both completely exhausted at that point.

I played some Genshin, read a bit, started writing this post, made a list for today and went to bed.

And yes, today will be busy again.

I went to bed at midnight, never a good sign, wrote morning pages, opened the manuscript, managed one sentence and closed it again. Felt crushed by the still undone cover feedback and blurb but completely unable to do anything.

I have an eye doctor appointment today and it has been paralyzing me for days. Sigh. And all of this when I’ll only talk to the doctor briefly to figure out how, when and where to get my cataract surgery.

But, even though I’m still coughing and sniffling like crazy, I did do yoga for the first time in weeks. Yeah! I started day 1 of the easiest yoga routine I know and every single pose hurt like crazy. I really hate starting over again and again but since the only alternative is giving up…

My husband started a fire in the wood stove because it was so cold and then we had our traditional fight over breakfast because I was overtired. I mean, we don’t always fight when I am sleep deprived but the chances are much higher than usual.

The start of the fight was that my mushy brain couldn’t figure out that half past seven is not 8.30. It makes more sense in German where you say „half eight“ to 7.30 and my brain made that into 8.30 because there’s an eight in there, but still.

Stuff like that involving numbers happens to me all the time. And in this case I thought it through three times and came to the exact same conclusion(wrong) conclusion all three times until it finally clicked. And every time I told my husband that he was wrong. Which he didn’t take well. Fun times and completely unnecessary.

I forbid him to do the dishes for me because I wanted to sit a little longer drinking tea while crocheting and also I felt bad that I had not done the dishes the night before. So I did that later and he sneaked in and helped me dry them. Which was good but meant I didn’t listen to my daily piece of classical music. For the third time in a row. Shrug.

I then walked to the health food store where I managed to drop a bottle of sugo on the floor. Poor employee who had to clean that up.

Lunch was something simple, my husband is still not really inspired to cook:

Afterwards I ate all the sweets, finished reading „After Hours at Dooryard Books“ which I really, really liked and started reading „Star Shipped“ which came out yesterday right away. Seems I am on a Cat Sebastian kick.

I was not really looking forward to teaching but then the student who often doesn’t show didn’t show, another one had canceled in the morning, a third one canceled right before their lesson and I was left with an unexpected 2-hour break that I couldn’t really use. At least I finally figured out why the numbers in my budgeting app and in my bank account weren’t the same. I had already spent half an hour on this in the morning but it took some more time (and a slightly less mushy brain) to figure out that the bank had somehow not moved the boy’s pocket money to his account. And that was why I had more money than expected and my brain that is apparently really bad with numbers had flipped everything so that I had been looking for a lower number when I should have been looking for too much money in the account.

All those students canceling at least meant I could take care of the dishes in the afternoon, then I taught another student, turned around and played the piano for myself for half an hour, ate dinner, and in between the boy showed up with the very happy news that he had finally passed that exam that had been hanging over his head for literally years.

There are still a few hoops he needs to jump through but the biggest hurdle has been cleared.

I then started writing this post and made my list before playing/reading/watching stuff in the hope that I would get to bed earlier.