Archives for December 2017

Yesterday was mostly a day of rushing around.

In the morning it was extremely windy. We were lucky because only a part of the very old fence in the back fell down and a few panels of the greenhouse fell off. They’re plastic which means they’re not broken.

Then I wasn’t sure if I could go running. The wind had calmed down by then but we don’t usually run in the woods when it’s windy. I waffled between running my usual route, running a different one with less trees, and just going for a walk in the streets. In the end I did my usual run. A few trees had fallen down but the path wasn’t blocked much.

After lunch I taught one student, then rushed off to get the sleep tracking thing, and on my way I bought lots of food in the very nice health food store that’s in the same town as the ENT. The sleep tracking thing is just a small box with some straps, like an old walkman (remember those?) that you strap to your chest. There’s also a sensor you put on a finger to measure the oxygen in your blood, and a cannula leading to your nostrils. The sensor and the cannula need to be attached with tape.

I can say that it makes for slightly restless sleep. Every time you turn you have to take care of the apparatus, and you can’t lie on your stomach at all. My normal sleep tracker thingie is convinced that I slept very well, by the way, because I didn’t move as much as usual, I guess.

I did get almost eight hours of sleep which these days counts as a lot. Not that I’m feeling very rested.

I will have to wait a while before getting the results. I’ll make an appointment this morning and I guess it will be January before I can see the doctor.

The rest of today will be very busy as well. After breakfast I will take the train to return the thingie and make an appointment, then I will record the next podcast episode, maybe clean a little (that’s rather unlikely), help making pizza, teach non-stop the whole afternoon, and then flop into the weekend.

The boy has said he wants to start piano lessons again. I like it very much but that means my usual Friday afternoon break has just vanished. That’s usually the time where I practice music myself. I’m not sure when to do that today.

Also the writing. I did write a bit last night but was rather tired at that point. I’m not sure when I will find the time today. We’ll see.

Not too shabby a day. I ran 6 kilometers, and helped making delicious Indian foo for lunch (and we even made enough that we don’t have to cook today), I sang, and taught lots of students, and there was that little bit of writing in the morning. I also watched more „Firefly“ while spinning, and went to bed on time.

I did not play the piano or ukulele, I did not iron, and my procrastination about wrapping the last three Christmas presents is not even funny anymore. I still need to send two of them off by post as well.

Most of the day I sat around and read a really excellent book, „The Art of Frugal Hedonism“ (Affiliate-Link). I found it through the „Becoming Minimalist“-blog, and wanted it so much that I blew my December book budget for it (there is always some book I do this for these days – bad habit).

It feels as if we have found our people. People who live frugal, trying to be as environmentally friendly as they can, trying to not fall prey to the whole consumer culture but who still enjoy life and everything it brings. Who sometimes buy things and splurge on something when it brings them happiness. Who’d rather have more time than a lot of money.

I mean that’s something so normal for me that I don’t usually think about it but my husband and I work only afternoons, have several weeks a year off from work, and still have enough for everything we really need plus extras like spinning wheels, guitar amps, and books.

This might mean that our kitchen is rather ugly, that our house is in need of paint, and that we don’t have a car but it also means we don’t have to commute, don’t have to deal with bosses and collegues we don’t like, and that we have more time for things like making music and writing.

Instead of delegating everything and paying people to mow our lawn and clean away our dirt we do it ourselves and have learned to take pleasure in it. My husband tried to grow most of our vegetables this year, and now we have a whole chest freezer filled with food.

Instead of shopping at the drop of a hat we wear or clothes until they wear out (or don’t fit anymore), I’m cutting everybody’s hair and still with all our drama and dissatisfaction I have the feeling we are pretty happy all considered. And we don’t need the chimera of the perfect holiday on a beach somewhere to keep us going in everyday life, everyday life itself is the goal.

Not that I’m not looking forward to the two weeks of Christmas break but that will be pretty much the same as usual minus the teaching. Which is great because most of our daily life is something to look forward to.

Like today. There will be another run, and a luxurious hot shower afterwards, and then the rest of the delicious Indian food. (The only thing that could make that better would be homemade naan but I’m too pressed for time today to make some, I think).

Then I will teach one student, hurry off to the next town over by train, buy some groceries at the really good health food store if I have enough time, go to the ENT to get my sleep testing apparatus, come back hopefully in time to teach two more students, do a little strength training with the boy, have a wonderful dinner (sandwiches – I’m thinking boiled eggs as well), do the dishes while talking to the boy or my husband or both, watch another episode of „Firefly“ while spinning my daily fiber, read a good book for a while, and go to sleep early.

Apart from the rushing around part in the afternoon this day sounds almost perfect. And I idn’t even tell you about the reading in the morning, my great breakfast, the talking to my husband while I crochet or any of that.

Just another day as usual. And as usual these days I did not do strength training. I had told the boy to be downstairs at 6.15, and when he wasn’t there at 6.30 I sent him a message, waited some more, did ten pushups leaned to my desk and decided to have dinner.

This is something I really need to change. We used to be pretty good about our three sessions of bodyweight exercises per week but since we change the schedule it is barely ever happening. I keep forgetting on Sundays, and it is pretty hard on Thursdays because I go running on those days in the morning, and all in all I need to get back to it for real.

Apart from the writing in the morning I did not write any more the rest of the day. As usual it just got away from me. I did go to the bakery, and health food store, and the supermarket, and I did practice my music, and did the dishes on time, and made two phone calls. One for a hairdresser appointment which will be on Monday, and the other one to make a hotel reservation for August.

Now that one was a little funny. We have this family reunion every other year. It’s all about my father’s mother’s family. My great-grandparents had lots of children, and they had lots of children as well, and so at one point my father started organizing these reunions. One time there were seventy of us there. I really like seeing the people, and I usually get to go places that I’ve never been to.

When I was a child we mostly traveled to warm places with beaches, and when I was a young adult I mostly didn’t travel at all for lack of funds, and since it was really hard to see Eastern Germany for many years I still haven’t seen much of it. So that’s pretty interesting too.

And this time will be extra special because we’ll be meeting in the family’s home town. Which is rather small and only has the one hotel.

Now I got an email from the guy who organizes the reunions these days the day before yesterday, telling everyone about the date and the hotel, and such. It said that one had to make reservations by phone (something I don’t really like), and that there were only two single bedrooms in the hotel. (There are forty doubles if I recall correctly but I’m not keen on sharing a room with someone I barely know, and the boy won’t be coming with me this time.)

So I looked up trains, found that there is no way to get to the train station on a Sunday because the buses don’t run, and called for a hotel reservation from Friday to Monday on the end of August.

Well, the hotel owner was very surprised that I was calling her now about August. I had called her, didn’t reach her, left a message on her voice mail telling her that I’d be sending an email, sent an email, and when she called me back she said she’s answer my email.

So I’m guessing that one of the two single bedrooms should be mine.

The rest of the day was rather uneventful. Sitting and watching ‚Firefly‘ while spinning my advent calendar fiber is becoming a nice new habit, and I even manged to go to bed on time as well. That has been going a little better.

Today I will go running, and teach quite a few students, and do the usual things, I hope. I am even thinking about some sewing, or maby ironing but that’s probably too much to hope for.

 

Rather uneventful day yesterday. I was happy with it though I had hoped for a little more productivity. But I finished the last pair of leggings! This is huge. Those things had plagued me for a whole year. But now they’re done. Ha!

In the morning I helped my mother-in-law get back home from her coloscopy. Things like these have become a little harder since we don’t have a car anymore. But it’s only about 500 meters to the doctor, and she was well enough to walk, she just wanted someone to lean on because it was a littly slippery in places.

Then I went running, and it was icy in the woods as well which meant that I walked more than I ran. But I was outside and exercising. We had rice and dal  for lunch, and then I put the elastic into the last pair of leggings, and practiced, and taught a few students, and then we had dinner, and then I sat down to spin my advent calendar fiber because the boy had said he wanted to take a shower, and doing the dishes while someone is taking a shower is just cruel.

When I came back from spinning he was just about to get undressed for his shower. Which threw my whole evening off.

The dishes are still sitting there in the sink as I type this the morning after.

I made a valiant attempt at writing after that but only got 330 words. Slept well.

Woke up half an hour before the alarm, and for once got my act together and wrote for 23 minutes. Phew.

Today I will buy all the groceries, and bread, and maybe go to the post office, and then teach a few students and do strength training. And spin and write some more. I am really looking forward to all of it.

Well, to be completely honest I actually forgot about the strength training. Which tends to happen on Sundays so I need to find some way around that.

The good thing is that I actually pulled out the sewing machine. There is a pile of sewing in my bedroom that’s about a mile high. I started making some leggings and have been meaning to finish them for more than a year. Well, now I have mended one pair, and put elastic in two other pairs. Of course I started the sewing with the short pair of leggings. I don’t think I’ll wear those soon…

I am also feeling much better because I finally forced myself to do some writing last night. I had been stumped by that scene for almost two weeks now, and now I’ve started writing it. There is some interesting backstory there, that might become another novel at some point, and I already have an idea for book two in the series. Never mind that I haven’t finished writing book one yet.

I am also keeping up with the advent calendar which means something around 45 minutes of spinning every day. I really like it.

And we did watch some Beethoven last night before dinner, all three of us. The boy wasn’t thrilled but my husband and I loved it. He is still wrangling his broken down computer, and had a test to prepare for, and some more school stuff for which he needs his computer that doesn’t work at the moment. Fun!

Today will be a rather typical Monday. Running and music and spinning and teaching. I’m also hoping for more writing and sewing but we’ll have to see how that goes.

So yesterday was a typical Saturday in that I wanted to do loads of things but ended up doing mostly nothing. That was nice, though. I did run but only a short 5K, I did make music and did some other things but there was no writing (yet again, this is becoming a habit; a bad one), but at least I went to bed on time.

In the morning I spent some time helping the boy get ready for an outing to go rock climbing indoors. It was his first time ever going into Munich and beyond on his own, first time changing to the subway, and his first climbing outing. He did enjoy it, though he didn’t want to go at first.

Then there still is the problem with the Windows partition on his computer. I had to help him find a backup disk with enough free space, and then he had to get a new copy of Windows 10, and there were all kinds of problems as there usually are with computers. In the process he managed to push the USB-socket of one of our backups hard drives into its case so that we can’t access the hard drive. Of course that case is not closed with screws. So far I haven’t been able to find out how to crack it. We might have to destroy the case, and I hope we can do it without destroying the hard drive. Fun!

I don’t think it’s his fault, could have happened to any of us.

Now. Today there will be writing (yes, for real), and music, and sewing, and strength training, and all kinds of things.

I hope.