creative.mother.thinking

And – as always – of course I did things, doing nothing is pretty much impossible.

I did get enough sleep, and that did me good but also made me sluggish again.

I wrote half-hearted morning pages and skipped yoga and meditation. I ate breakfast with my husband and knitted a few rounds on the current sock, cut my husband’s hair, and then went online before doing the breakfast dishes around noon.

And only then did I brush my teeth.

Husband had planned to fire up the grill for lunch but only after doing some more decluttering perishables in his mother’s kitchen and going for a run.

So lunch was rather late. I did help a bit with sorting, washing and chopping ingredients.

We actually did eat outside even though it was raining pretty heavily at this point. Good thing we have two outside seating areas with roofs over them, one house the grill and the other one our table:

It was cozier than it sounds.

After that I read for a bit, ate some chocolate, and then played a quest in Genshin Impact until it was too late to vacuum before my one student of the day.

Teaching was nice and then the boy and I were supposed to meet for bodyweight training. He asked if it was okay to move it back 15 minutes which gave me the perfect opportunity to vacuum the apartment.

Then I ate dinner, asked the boy to do the dishes and played some more Genshin. I tried that one boss three frustrating times and failed and decided to call it a day.

I started writing this post, made a list for today and went to bed at a reasonable time.

I also finished reading „A Restless Truth“ by Freya Marske and really liked it. And started the next book in the series right away. And I charged my power bank and my ebook reader to prep for our trip.

Oh, and I started revising book 1 in the new Urban Fantasy series. Very exciting!

I was also extremely low on energy, I slept for nine hours straight and then my body demanded more rest.

Since I slept in I skipped yoga and meditation, husband and I had a leisurely breakfast, and then I just couldn’t get myself going.

I did eventually get outside for a walk/run:

The weather was gorgeous and too hot again:

It was rather hot but I am pretty happy with my fitness. I am slowly vamping up again, though that will mean doing easy training until next week, then a week off, more easy training for a week and then – a break for the second cataract surgery.

Well, it is what it is.

Husband had been out running (and swimming) as well and so lunch was rather late. He cooked it in the tajine again, and it was delicious:

I read for a bit and knitted a little, and then talked with the boy while he ate his lunch before following my husband’s suggestion to go out for ice cream. Which meant a nice short walk, then sitting outside on a bench while eating and talking about the boy’s time with my mother and a leisurely stroll back.

After that the boy and I talked about Genshin and he cleared some endgame levels for me and answered all my many questions.

Meanwhile my husband had started cleaning his mother’s fridge. Which turned out to be a bigger task than he thought. And then we realized that there was a whole big drawer of baking ingredients underneath the fridge. So I looked through that as well and threw most of it away because it was no longer good.

I mean, I sympathize with owning five bags of grated almonds and four packets of grated chocolate more than I used to because I tend to buy ingredients for Christmas cookies every year and then I don’t actually bake them. But we usually go through what we have before buying more.

And most importantly: only one bag or packet is every opened at a time, and when something expires we throw it away.

There was a newspaper clipping in that drawer about which ingredients can be used even after their best by-date expires.

And then it was time to tick the rest of my list off: wind a skein of sock yarn into a ball, deal with the three pieces of paperwork for my mother-in-law that are urgent and fold all the laundry.

I had already finalized my packing list for next week in the morning and had spent some time throughout the day putting stuff I want to take with me on a dedicated pile.

I then played some more Genshin and went to bed.

Huh, it felt like a day where I didn’t get anything done but in hindsight that’s just not true, isn’t it?

And I’m still so sleep deprived that I have trouble walking straight. Literally.

I did have to get up almost an hour earlier than usual because we wanted to visit my mother-in-law before her (rather early) lunch at the care home.

I did my morning routine (we’re not talking about writing at the moment, there is just too much else) anyway, we packed everything we needed (husband was showing up saying, „I just realized we can’t take the basket I used for all the stuff we want to bring her“ just as I was stuffing it all in my backpack) and left.

There are construction shenanigans on the local train lines again but that didn’t really affect us. The transportation app told us to take two busses because it was the fastest route so I fiddled with the settings until it gave me the option to just take two trains, even if that meant four whole minutes more travel time. Also a 20-minute walk on the end but we could have taken another bus there as well.

We visited her, we talked, I got her to sign some stuff so I can send it off soon and then we went on a hunt for her debit card.

I distinctly remember puting her debit card into a wallet-thing of hers together with her health insurance card. Later we realized that we need that card to do banking stuff for her but all she might need is cash. If that.

So we went through her whole room four times. We asked the staff (everybody so far has been super friendly and helpful), no one knew anything.

Anyway, we walked away from there afraid that we had made a decision that meant she lost her card. Or maybe someone stole it.

We decided against. calling in at her bank, and while I went to the health food store my husband went home to see if maybe, against all odds because I remember putting the card in her luggage and I don’t remember taking it out again, the card might be home after.

Well.

The card was at home.

Phew.

All throughout that panic the boy was texting me about his train ride back home. As expected a plan that meant five trains all would have to be more or less on time was not working.

While we were still on trains ourselves he found that he would have to change trains and asked for help with paying for yet another seat reservation.

That time he did specify that he wanted to have at least 20 minutes to change trains.

And he needed them. He also opted to wait for another train two hours later because it was supposed not to be so crowded and eat lunch at a random train station somewhere.

That was a good choice because there unexpectedly was no dining car on his train. When he wanted to sit down in his reserved seat there was a woman sitting there telling him that seat reservations were void on that train. Which wasn’t true.

Fun!

Anyway, at one point one of the new trains was a little over half an hour late but he still managed to catch the next one.

My huband cooked and we ate lunch rather late:

After that we had a short break before tackling my mother-in-law’s fridge. Phew again. That woman had more food in her fridge than we do.

We did manage to get most of the trash into the bins and some special trash bags that we had to buy that mean they will actually get picked up.

Then my husband taught a student and I had a bit of a break, we ate dinner, then the boy came back home, finally, but he didn’t really want to talk to anyone, my husband started the dishes in an attempt to help me get to bed on time, I started writing this post, ma a list for today and went to bed.

Thunk!

All very exciting.

especially since the running happened in a thunderstorm in the woods. The center of the storm was not where I was, fortunately.

There was an easy lunch:

omelette, rice, leftovers and zucchini.

Lots of Genshin, talking with my friend instead of a piano lesson, and a not quite as late bedtime.

And now I’m off to visit my mother-in-law.

I still ran out of steam at some point but, well, one night is only one night.

I went to bed at a somewhat reasonable time and slept well for eight hours, phew. I did my morning routine but shortened the yoga to 5 minutes.

Breakfast with my husband and lots of talking, mostly about the visit from his friends on Friday. I finished a sock:

The pattern is a mix of the Vanilla Princess pattern by Anneh Fletcher and the GumGum sock. I’m using three different leftover yarns and the GumGum-technique helps to wrangle the yarns for those one-row stripes.

It is a super fiddly project, though. Especially with wonky eyes. But I’m very curious how the sock will wear, all those purl stitches at the heel and on the bottom of the foot should make it smoother to wear.

I went online a bit and called my mother on the phone, more talking.

Then I did the dishes while listening to a YouTube video, my husband started cooking and I took care of recycling.

Lunch was nice and easy but there wasn’t enough salt for my taste:

After lunch I read a bit and then I played a lot of Genshin. And failed. A lot.

I then had dinner with my husband, made a plan for the week, started writing this post, did some quick research regarding some paperwork, played a little more and went to bed.

And now for a brand new week!