Archives for December 2017

Yesterday was the day that my lack of sleep caught up with me.

I had a pretty slow morning again, and even though I really tried to get out the door for my run by 10.30 I only left an hour later.

Running was great, the sun was shining, I felt fast even but the time on my phone told me that I wasn’t faster than the time before.

I had lots of plans and things to do but did have a slight problem with impulse control… Let’s just say that there are not a lot of cookies left, and that I spent quite a bit of time on the internet…

When I came home from my run my husband was busy making lunch, and also a little upset because his mother had interrupted him. She had wanted to borrow some beer from us for today’s lunch but there hadn’t been enough left. My brother-in-law and his four grown-up children will be at her place for lunch today. Since we usually are well-stocked she thought she could just borrow a few bottles with no problem. And she could have but she was all flustered because there were only a few bottles left. My husband kept saying, „I don’t know what she wants from me! There’s nothing I can do anyway!”

Because shops are all closed here on the two days of Christmas. So she couldn’t just go out and get some more.

So of course I hitched the trailer to my bike, hopped on it and biked all the way through town to a gas station that also sells beverages. Came home with a case of beer. My mother-in-law was pretty surprised. „But where did you get that? But you shoudn’t have! It would have been enough already!“ Well, then she shouldn’t have made such a fuss. Especially not at the time of day when my husband is cooking right after running because his mood is pretty low at that point anyways.

It is pretty funny, he runs the exact same route four times a week, and he is pretty fit but every single time he tells me that he is completely spent and doesn’t have any energy left. Not even to cook. But he does have to cook anyway. I, on the other hand, don’t feel as depleted after running as he does. He basically feels that running takes energy from him for the rest of the day. Four times a week. I found that when I come home from running, even from something like a 10K-run which I’ve only done once so far, I have no problem at all going out and buying groceries afterwards. Or riding my bike for a few kilometers. I’m pretty slow when I do that but my energy feels as if I could go on some more. Weird.

With the whole beer-kerfuffle I actually walked around in my running clothes until right before dinnertime, by the way. After lunch my husband usually takes a nap, and two days ago when I showered in the afternoon I managed to do so right when he wanted to take a shower, and then he had to wait an hour or so until the water was hot again. I didn’t want to risk that, and of course, yesterday he took a two hour nap, and there would have been plenty of time for me to shower, and the water to get hot again until he woke up. But I couldn’t know.

I read, I plied some more yarn, I played the piano and sang, I decided to eat lots of Christmas cookies and some cake and skip dinner because of that. And all the while my to do-list was staring me in the face.

The boy decided that he didn’t want to watch something with me which suited me fine, and dinnertime came around and I still hadn’t written a single word. or sewn anything. I really want to finish the two sewing projects in progress so I can start something new.

In the end I mended two pairs of pajama bottoms by hand, and copied a few pages from the book about drawing, and changed into pajamas (after taking a shower) around seven, and then I started writing. After 800 words I did fall asleep while sitting upright in bed, something I don’t particularly like, then I brushed my teeth and went to bed early.

So at least I got enough sleep for once. I only woke up at six this morning even.

Today there will be writing (a lot I hope but then I always hope for that), sewing, music, sitting and talking with my brother-in-law and his family, strength training, and then we’ll see.

Yesterday might have the least stressful Christmas in many years. Which doesn’t meant that it wasn’t stressfull at all, there was a point when cooking dinner and getting ready where my husband and I both snapped at each other. We immediately realized what was going on and stopped, so that was okay.

I spent a rather lazy morning crocheting, talking to my husband and reading about writing. We had leftovers for lunch, and then I sat down to spin the last advent calendar fiber.

Leftover pasta with leftover sauce with leftover champagne

All the advent calendar fiber spun up.

Afterwards I started plying it right away which was a bit of a mistake. I don’t really believe in letting spun singles rest for ages before plying but trying to chain-ply very fine high-twist singles that have barely been spun might lead to a tangle or too. Also I found that I still need a lot of practice with the chain-ply, and I had the singles break a lot. This will not be the orettiest yarn. I do love th colors, though, and am hoping that the plying will go smoother today. So far I’ve plied about half of the first bobbin.

While spinning I watched videos, I finished the one about carving out time for writing, and watched other how tos including a spinning video by Sarah Anderson. Since I’m not used to this kind of plying I didn’t look up to actually watch the video at all. I might have to watch it again when I’m doing something that needs less focus.

I was highly motivated to write yesterday but in the end I didn’t which means I’m falling short on my 5,000 word-goal by 1,500 words. Unless I’ll write them this morning. Which would be a good thing anyway, challenge or not. (I said I would write 5,000 words last week but I didn’t.)

I’m not quite sure why I am not writing, I am motivated like crazy, I have enough time, I love the story I’m writing, no idea what I’m afriad of. Maybe of finishing and having to show this to someone. It’s a bit absurd, itsn’t it? But I haven’t shown any of my fiction to anyone ever since the demise of my writing group in 2011 or so. I really should change that.

Christmas dinner with my mother-in-law was both nice and somewhat tense. It is astounding how nervous she is, even when with family. And the boy was really excited. Of course. And my husband just wanted the day to be like any other regular day.

Christmas dinner

The food was really good, and we all had Christmas cookies afterwards, and chocolate, and then I wanted to watch something on DVD but in the end I just read in my new book about drawing (Amazon Affiliate-Link). My sister gave it to me for Christmas, and I’m loving it. She wrote a note saying, „A method like this has really helped me but I’m not sure if you’ll actually use the book.“ Which is just fair, I have a huge pile of books about drawing and I have vowed to learn how to do it many times but so far I haven’t.

Of course now I’m all „Challenge accepted!”

My next thought was something along the lines of, „I should do a drawing a day and post it on the blog.“ I don’t think I will do that, though. But I’ll try to find a time of day where I can put some doodling in at least. Five minutes a day or so. I’ll pile it on all the things I’m doing daily anyway. Plus I will start writing for at least an hour a day. That will be fun!

I might have to reduce my internet time somewhat, though…

So yesterday was a good day even though I didn’t get done what I wanted. But sometimes you have to take it a little slower.

Since I had had only that small amount of sleep I was pretty slow the whole morning. My husband got up at 8.30, and it took an hour for him to get his breakfast ready with the wood stove and everything.

We talked and I helped him with some computer stuff, and I need to remember to do some more of that maybe tomorrow.

I got myself another book on writing, „Writing in the Dark“ (Amazon-Link) by Wesley Dean Smith this time, and I’m finding it really intriguing. This is the first book about writing in a long time that I’m reading all the way through without stopping or anything. That way of working is looking very, very attractive, and might solve a lot of my problems with writing. If it works for me – but I’m pretty certain it will.

I got so caught up in that and some other stuff online that I almost didn’t go running. I didn’t feel like it at all, I knew it would be muddy and somewhat unpleasant and being that tired doesn’t really help with the exercise. But on the other hand the running usually helps a little with the tiredness, and so I did go and run, and I loved it. Duh.

Where I ran yesterday, for once I took a picture of the other side.

This is what your shoes look like after traversing the big mud puddle. I tried to take a picture of the puddle as well but had to find that that didn’t work.

Then I made salad for lunch, we had spaghetti bolognese again, and then I went into my usual Saturday afternoon/first day of two weeks off-slump. Almost didn’t get out of it. I did put new nail polish on my toenails, though, and I played the piano for a bit, and sang, and I read the internet all afternoon, and it was all really nice.

The only drawback to that was that I had planned to write and to sew that afternoon, and I never got around to doing that.

The good thing was that for once strength training on the weekend did happen. Since today is Christmas Eve where we celebrate Christmas, I decided to move strength training to the day before. Because we won’t be doing strength training today while celebrating with my mother-in-law for sure.

And the boy went with it without any protest which was great. I was still a little sore from the time before so it seems I might get back into shape eventually.

Then I realized that there will be a new episode of Doctor Who in a few days which is wonderful, and then the boy and I had dinner in front of the TV where we watched a bad episode of „Star Trek. The Next Generation“ and a good episode of „How I Met Your Mother“. (That Star Trek episode, „Legacy“ might have been the worst in that season.) I managed to spin my advent calendar fiber while doing so, and am still all caught up.

Then there were dishes, and more reading, and watching the lecture about finding time to write – which was a bit ironic because I was watching the lecture instead of writing – then I had the last of the beers that I had gotten from Eliandhra, very fruity Pilsener, really good, and then I wrote another 1,200 words on my novel and went to bed slightly too late.

I’m a bit sad that that was the last extraordinary beer I have. But I will have to check out different beers closer to home soon.

Woke up too early yet again which I’m decidedly meh about.

Today will be a quiet day I think, I want to do a little decoration so my mother-in-law will feel better, my husband will start the sauerkraut right after breakfast, there will be leftover pasta with leftover sauce and leftover champagne for lunch, I’m planning some writing, and some music, and maybe even a little sewing (don’t hold your breath), and then there will be the traditional Christmas dinner with my mother-in-law.

There will be only very few presents, and there will be cookies, and not much else and I’m really looking forward to it.

And I wasn’t able to actually sleep in.

I was pretty happy with yesterday. The piano tuner came on time for a change, and we talked a bit, and now my piano is in tune again which is great. The tuner also told me that I should install a ‚Lifesaver‘, something that regulates moisture inside the piano because where the piano is standing both temperature and moisture are constantly going up and down. And that will damage the piano in the long run.

At first I was a little shocked, especially when he told me about the cost (around 800 Euros) but then I realized that that is what emergency funds are for. I talked to my husband and I guess I’ll have that thing installed some time next year. And then the piano will not go out of tune every few months. As an added bonus. Or be broken in twenty years.

Going out for Chinese for lunch was really great, the food was good, we talked and had enough time to get back home in time for teaching.

I taught all the students, and only practiced a little, and afterwards I had dinner with only my husband because the boy was eating pumpkin soup with his grandmother. Then I managed to find the very thin wrench that I can use on the spinning wheel (and I have now put it in the bag with all the other spinning wheel tools) and I put some oil on the screw that holds the drive wheel and managed to set it up so that the annoying squeaking is gone. Also treadling is much easier now. Phew.

I watched a lecture about „Carving time out for writing“ by Dean Wesley Smith (that you can still get for free until some time in January) that I found very motivating, and then I wrote less than 500 words and went to bed real early. Which was nice.

Unfortunately I have been up since five in the morning now, and I’m basically waiting until it’s late enough that I can have breakfast.

Not quite how I wanted to spend the first morning of Christmas break.

Today I want to run, and write, and maybe sew a little, and play piano, and watch something with the boy, and spin. Two more days in the advent calendar, and then I will be able to ply the yarn and make socks out of it.

I’m feeling that that’s both very slow and rather fast for a spinning project. Of course, if I spin all the time, several hours a day, I can get sock yarn done in a few days but then I don’t ever do that. There was one weekend where I spun a hundred grams of cabled sock yarn but that was a weekend where we were doing nothing else but spinning all day and evening, and in the end it turned out that the yarn I had spun was way too thick for socks, and not enough yardage.

On the other hand there are people who can spin a kilometer of yarn a day, and that would be almost enough for a pair of socks. So if one could spin that kilometer one day, and spin a bit more the next, and then ply everything one would be able to churn out a skein of sock yarn in a weekend, and then one could knit the socks during the week, Knitting a pair of socks takes about sixteen hours for me which if spread out over five days would be a lot of knitting but doable.

But I don’t think I’ll try that next week. I’d like to focus on writing. I did set myself the goal of writing 5,000 words this week, and so far I only did less than 2,000 of them. So it would be great if I managed to write 1,500 words a day today and tomorrow. Though tomorrow will probably be a day where not a lot gets done because we’ll be celebrating Christmas.

And I’m extra tired again.

Yesterday was pretty full – as expected. Things went a little weird with the teaching in the afternoon. I had rescheduled one student for 3.30, and there was another one (the new one who hadn’t paid yet) for 4. Then, at 3.25 the new student was standing in front of the door. He, of course, had to wait half an hour before he could have his lesson. I tried calling his parents to tell them but couldn’t reach anyone.

Interestingly the rescheduled student didn’t show at all, and so I could teach the new student half an hour early after all.

Then I had expected some conflict when mentioning that they still needed to pay for December but the boy’s father just handed the money over in cash. Phew.

Which also means I am no longer broke. Which is a very good feeling.

There was also something I did yesterday in regards to my finances, I actually went through my budget and put everything that I had spent on books on writing, and the author website, and writing software into its own new category, „author business“. Sounds a little preposterous but I was pretty surprised to see that I only spent about 10 Euros a month on this. I thought it had been more.

I also talked to my husband about spending money for a WordPress theme. We could use it on our teaching website as well as both my blogs, and it would mean way less work in re-designing all those websites, and maybe better SEO for the teaching one. My husband agrees that sometimes it’s better to spend a bit of money instead of a lot of time and energy.

In the evening the boy played the piano, and we did our strength training (we seem to be getting better which is really good), and then he wanted to take a shower after dinner.

And then I had a massive slump. I hadn’t written a single word all day, the pile of dishes was huge, and I still wanted to spin the advent calendar fiber. The spinning wheel had been making a squeaking noise, and I wasn’t sure where it was coming from. Last night I tried a few things after consulting the troubleshooting part of Majacraft’s spinning manual, and they didn’t help but I think I have now identified the cause of the squeaking. Next step will be to locate the one very thin wrench that fits into the gap between the drive wheel and the post so I can tighten the drive wheel screw.

Then I was just about to give up on the day.

And then I wrote 500 words, and did the dishes and went to bed too late.

So I’m tired today but don’t feel like a failure. Well, apart from the massive amounts of chocolate I ate last night.

I am really hoping for an early bedtime today. The day will be rather packed again, the piano tuner is due to come at nine (which will probably mean that he’ll be here around eleven going by past appointments), I have a full afternoon of teaching with just one break in between, and for lunch we want to go out to the Chinese restaurant as a family.

Starting tomorrow it will be Christmas break for two weeks.

Phew.

Also it seems I’ve been doing this daily blogging for a hundred days in a row now. Wow.

So yesterday was packed as I knew beforehand, and since the day before did not really go as planned I put in some extra effort not to go the same route again.

I did put all the cookies into the basement, and I did not put a beer in the fridge, and I told myself that I could only have two, maybe four pieces of chocolate tops. And that I had to put every Christmas present that was edible into my husband’s care right away.

Plus my husband and I had talked about trying a new morning routine. He has been waking up earlier for quite some time but didn’t want to disturb my holy morning metime. Both of us felt that our start into the day was a little late because of his late breakfasts, though. So we talked and decided that he’d come over around eight, that I’d be finished with meditating by then, and then he would start the fire while I could write a bit.

Yesterday was supposed to be the first day of that. So when my alarm went off I did not stay in bed for another fifteen minutes or so reading but instead got up and made breakfast. I started blogging while the boy was having his breakfast. He doesn’t mind, he wants to read twitter during that time anyways. I’m not quite sure I like it but that’s what he does.

That meant when the boy left for school at 7.50 I could meditate for a bit and still be done by 8.

Then I waited.

See, my husband also went to bed too late the day before, and slept in until 8.45 that day. Which was a bit funny but also allowed me to finally get some writing in. Only 348 words but that’s better than nothing by far.

Just when I started the fire he showed up, and I got to crochet a bit. I’m pretty sure I will run out of yarn before the blanket is done. But I’ll think about what to do then when it happens.

We talked, and then my husband went off for his run while I did the dishes, and when I went running twenty minutes later he was just standing there at the entrance to the woods talking to a guy who walks his dog every day. Turned out my husband had had such a good time chatting to that guy and another dog walker that he had just started his run.

Which meant that we actually ran together for a bit. Well, until I did my flailing and thinking that I can’t run anymore because it’s so exhausting thing. But for a few hundred meters we were actually running together and I was only a bit slower than him. Seems I am improving after all.

The rest of the day was busy but uneventful. Lots of teaching, some music, some more writing (not enough but it never is), in the evening I forced the boy to practice piano (he’s still liking it after three days in), we had dinner, I did more dishes, watched „Firefly“ while spinning (I’m all through now. Not quite sure what I’ll do for the next few days.) and there was still time enough to read a bit before going to bed. And I actually went to bed early and got lots of sleep. Yeah!

Today there will be running agin, and a lot of teaching, and hopefully more writing, and music, and going to bed early, and not eating too much.