creative.mother.thinking

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.

I went to a total of two doctor’s offices and five shops yesterday.

But first I went to bed a little late but still got eight hours of sleep, hurray! And then I dawdled like crazy and had to skip most of my morning routine, oops.

There was breakfast with my husband where we talked about my dilemma of being stuck with the current novel I’m writing and while talking to him I realized what I should do is to start writing book 2 in that series and then write an ending that leads towards it. Ha! I got super motivated right away and started making plans.

I did do the breakfast dishes but that meant I was five minutes late for my doctor’s appointment.

I had made a nice list beforehand that I then left sitting on the kitchen table but I did use my time in the waiting room to recreate the list on my phone. Should have done that in the first place.

So we talked about my blood pressure medication („I don’t need to see your numbers, if you say you need a higher dose I trust you,“ is not something any doctor said to me before but I like it), my vitamin D levels (just take more it will be fine), the RSV vaccine (not necessary), and the fact that my smartwatch thinks my blood oxygen levels during the night are a little low at times.

I got an appointment to get a sleep monitor in two weeks and then we’ll see if there actually is a problem or not.

So that went very well, I walked back home via the supermarket that has the good yogurt (I had to suffer two variants of bad yogurt this week) and the health food store where I get the boy’s multi-vitamin and vegetarian Leberkäs.

Then there was still a little time before lunch and I went for a short 30-minute walk/run:

Came back home, took a shower and had lunch with my husband:

After that I read a little, ate too much Halloween candy, played a little Genshin and then I went out for the second round of errands.

I took a train to one town over and renewed all my prescriptions at my gynecologist’s, then went to the nice health food store there for meat but the selection was disappointing. Don’t go and try to buy meat on a Monday.

I took the train back home, dropped in to our usual health food store for all the things that are heavy or not available at the other store, walked home and realized that I had forgotten to go to the pharmacy.

The boy was home and about to get ready to leave the house to get his covid and flu shots so we walked back together, I got all my meds and went back home.

Ate dinner real quick and looked at what we had talked about in coaching the last time, then had a coaching session from my writer friend where we mostly talked about my goals and what progress I made since the last time.

I then started writing this post, did the dishes, played some more Genshin, made a list for today and called it a day.

And no, I still haven’t written down my goals for November but I am getting clearer on them, at least.

I had gone to bed past midnight without doing the dishes or taking a shower and that came to bite me in the morning. Naturally.

I did take the shower first thing, so that was good and did the usual morning things after that.

Breakfast went well and then I set the next part of the mitten I’m knitting up. That is always the trickiest part of this pattern and I am having high hopes that I don’t have to rip back this time.

I called my mother and we talked but not before finding out that the landline phone isn’t working. No idea if it’s the router or the phone but it just didn’t work so I had to use my cell.

I did test what happens if someone calls the number, it doesn’t ring or anything but the voicemail account that I can check with my email registers the call so it seems the problem might be the actual phone. At first I thought that might be due to the complete electricity chaos from the day before but my husband did use the phone after that, so probably not.

When I was done talking to my mother I did the dishes as fast as I could while my husband was building a fire in the woodstove. It has been so cold that I asked for it. I have been freezing for weeks now.

From dishes I went straight to peeling and chopping veggies and then I folded and hung laundry. It was a long wait until lunch because the oven had to get going first. But the food was good:

The boy told us a little bit about the party the day before. (He met a lot of people he hadn’t seen for five years and he got asked what his costume was supposed to be a lot, also people gave him compliments for it as well.) He has never been that talkative about people.

Then I read a bit while eating Halloween candy, and then I played Genshin. For hours. I finished a major exploration goal, so that was nice but I didn’t get much else done.

the boy and I did bodyweight training, I ate dinner rather quickly because I had a meeting with a fellow writer. We chat once a month and I’m always looking forward to it.

After that I started this post, finally did the dishes, wrote a list for today, printed my blood pressure numbers for today’s doctor’s visit, and failed to plan the month again.

Today should be rather busy, doctor’s visit in the morning, errands in the afternoon and coaching in the evening. No teaching, though.

First of all I did get enough sleep, hurray! I still woke up in a cranky mood and had to push myself to do everything.

Husband and I got into a silly argument over breakfast but at least I started the next step on the mittens I’m knitting.

Since we had a grocery fail I then went out for two different kinds of meat, Brussel’s sprouts and more Halloween candy. Because I thought I didn’t have enough.

And then I went on a very short, very easy walk/run:

When I came back home the house was in a bit of an uproar. There had been a bang upstairs in the hallway, the cover of a junction box had blown off the wall including the wallpaper over it and – there was no electricity in our apartment and most of the basement. That included the stove my husband was using to fry our food at the moment.

He changed the fuse but that didn’t make a difference. So he finished cooking on the small stove in the annex and we ate lunch all together.

I called my brother-in-law because he is an electrician but he said he had no idea and didn’t know what to do either. We did not want to spring for an emergency electrician. Since the furnace and the freezer were still working as was most of the house with the exception of our apartment it wasn’t all that urgent. We could have moved the food from the kitchen to the small fridge in the annex.

But we didn’t want to give up that easily.

Husband and I climbed the stairs with a stepladder, an assortment of tools and a lamp that we plugged into a socket in my mother-in-law’s apartment.

There were only four cables in that box and they looked like they had been part of the house since it was built in 1938. Husband changed a connector, put the fuse back in – nothing.

He changed another connector, changed the fuse back in – there was a blue spark, then nothing. He took the fuse out and put it back in and – the lights were turning on in the hallway again.

In fact, everything was working.

Except for everything in the laundry room and in the cellar where we keep all the tools and the pantry.

Which is a bit unfortunate because the freezer is in the laundry room. But. We do have extension cords and so my husband got the freezer plugged into an outlet that is still working.

After that there was not enough time to sew the boy’s costume shut so he had to go and close it with safety pins.

I was just completely done at that point and spent the rest of the day playing Genshin, reading and watching YouTube. I decided I did not want to give out any candy and holed up in the back of the house, not even showering until today. Also not doing the lunch dishes because you can see the light in the kitchen from the street.

We will have to call an electrician on Monday because something is still clearly wrong but at least so far things work again.

I started the day very sleep deprived but thought finishing the sewing on the boy’s Halloween costume was worth it.

I always think it’s worth it which is why I am so often sleep deprived.

I did my morning routine in a pretty timely manner including yoga and only had a very short breakfast with my husband because he had another dentist appointment.

I did the breakfast dishes and vacuumed the house (only the middles) and then sat down to sew hook and eye closures to the costume. I got one of the done before it was time to eat lunch:

We only had a quick omelette because my husband didn’t have much time.

I read a little and played Genshin for a bit and then it was time to teach all the students. In between I got updates on the boy’s day. He had left the house in the morning to go to uni, tried finding a prof with no success and when he wanted to go back there was a medial emergency on the subway line and he had to wait for a long time. He tried taking a bus to another subway station but only succeeded in finding the station where the emergency was happening. After the bus got mssively delayed by things like a car blocking two lanes and such.

His commute is normally a little over an hour and yesterday it was 2 1/2.

After I finished teaching I ate dinner and went back to sewing hook and eye closures to the coat. The boy wanted to take over the sewing so I helped him a bit, and then we finally decided to have him try it on.

Well.

Hook and eye closures don’t work because there is no tension on the fronts so every time he moves in any way the coat just pops open. We did another test with sewing the hook on the other way around and that was better but not good enough.

In the end we resorted to safety pins. We will probably eventually sew the fronts mostly together so that he can still get it on and off over his head, but not today.

There was no time for the rest of the things I wanted to do that day, including bodyweight training, and by the time I had to get ready for bed I had reached the stage where I feel like spontaneously breaking into tears.

I did not do that but I took it as a sign that I had pushed it a little too far and need rest.

I also wanted to plan the upcoming week (fall break!) and watch a webinar in the evening but both those things fell flat as well.

Which is okay. I’ll do those today. I hope.

And not much more because I sewed until almost midnight and today will be packed as well, but:

1. I almost finished the costume, the only thing left to do is to attach hook and eye closures. Here’s the coat on its own:
   And here’s the whole thing with the hood but without the goggles and mask:
   The only place to hang it right now is behind my bedroom door because it’s so long. The boy is definitely taller and broader than me.
2. My husband didn’t actually talk about planning as such the day before what he meant was granular planning of SMART goals, something I really dislike as well because when you don’t hit your precise goal you feel awful. the thing we also both dislike is planning that takes up more time than doing the thing and that is not flexible.
3. I figured out why I’m having such a hard time going to bed on time this week when a student of mine talked about the time change. Duh. By the time I should get ready to bed I’m already so super tired that I don’t have the energy to get ready.
4. My neck, shoulders, knees and fingers hurt because of all the sewing and the lack of exercise. Though I did do yoga in the morning and meditation and that helped a little. I also listened to the Graphic Audio version of „Sweep of the Heart for many hours and went to the nearby supermarket.

Today is the last day before fall break and the list I made in my head so far for next week is a bit scary. I better take some time today to actually sit down and think it through (and then write it down so I don’t have to hold it in my head all the time) today so I feel a bit more settled and can prioritize.

There were lentils and rice for lunch:

 

Phew. That was some intense sewing including having to rip the sleeve borders off after the first time because they weren’t working, the two fronts being different lengths and the borders slowly drifting off towards the bottom and starting extra late because my last student was stuck in traffic because of the construction work on the train lane so she had to take a bus.

Okay. Today I will figure out how to attach the hook and eye closures, teach six students and then roll into a ball in the corner.