Archives for September 2018

I woke up early feeling a little timid and angsty. I’m blaming the not-writing the day before. No, I have no idea when I’ll learn. And of course I didn’t start writing right away as well. It was Saturday! No need to get started early!

Yeah. About that.

I did get up at a reasonable time and had breakfast and then, just when I was about to start writing, I swear, the boy showed up. At eight. On a Saturday. „Oh, I went to bed at the usual time last night,“ he said, laconically.

Poof. Second window of writing opportunity gone.

Then my husband got up, we talked, I crocheted (the blanket is the only thing I’m working on at the moment because it’s so big and warm), we did the dishes and then I packed the birthday present for my BIL and sent it off.

Then running. Well, mostly walking, but some running:

Then a shower and cooking. My husband had plans to make veal cutlets and homemade gnocchi. I was in charge of the gnocchi. I did follow the recipe and told him to not put an egg in and was stressed out and confused and hungry and only remembered that it had said, „Add salt to the dough,“ when the gnocchi were already in the boiling water and I hadn’t read the recipe carefully and we might have had a teensy argument.

This was the result:

Each part of those mashed potatoes had once been a lovingly handcrafted piece of pasta that I pressed a fork in for nice-looking lines.

At least it did taste good. After putting some extra salt on it.

Then a huge washing up.

The boy needed some rubber gloves and I sent him to get them himself. Mostly to teach him a lesson but also because I’m a little tired of him coming down to the kitchen declaring things like, „Mama, I’m out of toothpaste,“ or shampoo or cleanser or lotion or whatever one or two days after I went grocery shopping.

To sweeten the deal I told him to get himself some candy. And he brought some for me to. Only, it was not the candy I wanted and so I ate it and then went out and got some more chocolate. And some for Sunday as well. And then I sat down and ate it all.

Note to self: be more strict about the no-buying-candy rule. No matter how much you eat it never feels enough anyway. Thanks.

And then I sat around reading, surfing the web and procrastinating. ::head desk::

I did manage to work on the dress a little, at least, and I also managed to give myself a kick in the butt and write some but still.

We watched some Star Trek while more crochet happened.

Today there will be: no candy, all the writing and all the sewing. Also, the laying out the bullet journal for October which means looking at my September goals and setting new ones for the month. I did pretty well in September, so that’s good.

Woke ups early but didn’t want to write because I was really slow the last time I did that. Which is an absurd excuse because slowly written words are still words written.

Breakfast. After which I still didn’t want to write. I don’t know what I was thinking but I didn’t really feel up to anything.

I did manage to do my weekly cleaning in time and even vacuumed the annex before my husband was back from running. We did make pizza and it was great, as usual:

We were a little late with lunch but the boy came home later still so he didn’t eat with us.

Then I didn’t have enough time to do the dishes as planned so I sang and waited for my first student. After her lesson I went back to the kitchen and only managed to sort the dishes instead of washing them. I did play the piano for ten minutes, though. Then I taught two students. Went back to the kitchen (my calendar said „sew“ at that point), did the dishes already, and right when I was debating whether twenty minutes was enough to start setting up the ironing board my next student rang. Twenty minutes early. So I taught her. The next student was only five minutes early so I spent the time between the two trying to get my BIL’s birthday present on the way but I was interrupted.

Taught the last student of the day. Watched one – excellent – episode of Star Trek TNG (the last one with Wesley Crusher!). Ate some cheese (bad move), started writing this post.

Still hadn’t written anything. I did finish reading „How to Write Pulp Fiction“ which is rather entertaining and has a few nice hints but I guess I have read too many books about writing fast by now.

I did decide to skip the webinar because I realized that I had attended one in June by the same guy covering the same topic. I did review my notes, though. That is where a bullet journal comes in handy. Once I knew the date (from my emails) I could look into the index of the relevant journal and had the whole thing ready to read just like that.

So. No sewing yesterday and no writing. Serves me right. Writing first thing is always the best plan to follow. Because writing later is vulnerable to all kinds of disturbances.

Oh, and speaking of disturbances, I got a letter telling me to pay 80 Euros for a newspaper subscription that I never wanted or signed for. Again. I sent them an email with the emails attached that had been written a couple of weeks before. I just hope that this will be the end of it. Imagine getting a letter telling you to pay for something you never wanted. With your first name spelled wrong. Huh. That threw me off all morning. I am still working on my stoicism. Saying that I’m getting mixed results would be exaggerated.

So. Today there will be running and some kind of food, I’m sure and also I’m really looking forward to moving the dress along. Sending the package off to my BIL would also be a very good idea. And I would like to watch some more Star Trek with the boy as well. Oh, and write, of course.

Exciting plans.

Since I had turned the lights out around nine the night before I woke up at five.

For once I actually did write first thing in the morning. Okay, second. Still. I wrote before leaving the bed.

The boy apparently liked going to school ten minutes earlier than usual the day before and has decided to do this everyday. (Why yes, I had been suggesting that maybe going a few minutes earlier might make mornings less stressful for years. What do I know.)

So I had time to write some more between my breakfast and that of my husband:

I decided to work on the crochet blanket while he was eating because it was so cold in the house. I also decided to turn the heating on, at lest in the old part of the house. The annex heating is dripping so we better leave that off until it has been repaired.

Then I went to the pharmacy, the health food store again (our grocery list discipline is seriously lacking), and to the bike shop. Where I not only got my bike back with a new lamp and stand but I also remembered to get a new pump. I spent loads of money today but I have to say that small things like proper lighting on bikes and a stand that doesn’t have you lifting the whole bike with all the groceries for a week on it do make my life much better.

We had a really nice lunch and the weather was warm enough to sit on the porch for it (figures since I turned on the heat):

Then I ate chocolate and fell into a slump. The two might be related, or maybe they aren’t. I did manage to pull out the sewing machine and sew some more. The dress is starting to look vaguely dress-shaped, I have a top and a skirt-like thing and facings.

Then I taught a student. And then I sewed some more. There wasn’t time to get the iron going to press all the seams open, alas, so that will have to be left for another day.

Then I taught some more. My last student didn’t show, weirdly enough. And I had the second cancelation this week (one yesterday and one for tomorrow) because of the student having a cold. What can I say, it is Oktoberfest-time…

And then (and that was certainly one of the highlights of the day, a student of my husband’s came for his lesson and when he closed the door he was holding the door handle ins hand. This has been happening every few days for years now. We tried fixing it but couldn’t get the cover off. So we just put the handle back ever so often.

Now this student happens to be a carpenter. He started by saying that you just need an Allen wrench to fix it. Ha! As if. We’re not that bad with mechanics. But. Having more experience with things like this he managed to use my husband’s tools and fix it. No more students being unable to leave because they can’t open the door! No more small kids afraid that they have broken the door! A thing that has been on my list to have fixed for ages was just taken care of.

Phew.

Since the house is still rather cold I went to bed early.

I have to confess that I am actually hoping to finish the current novel (book two in the Eva Mandel series for those of you following along) by the end of October. Which is ridiculous. It would mean to write 2,500 words per day. The first book went extraordinarily slow with an average of 480 words per day. 2,500 might mean 1 1/2 to 2 hours of writing each and every day.

Hm.

But I’m trying to use the deep want of writing something else for energy to make this one go faster. And with all those students canceling I should be able to find an additional thirty minutes in my day here and there. So we’ll see.

If I extend my deadline to mid-November it would be a more reasonable 1,700 words per day. And yes, I am perfectly aware that a few years ago writing 1,700 words per day every day for a month left me totally depleted of energy with my whole life falling to the wayside. But that’s the great thing about practice.

And if it doesn’t work I’ll change things up. As usual.

Today there will be the cleaning, and the pizza, and quite a bit of teaching but not as much as I hoped for. Then the watching of Star Trek and then another webinar, “3 Steps to a Bestselling Author Platform“. Yeah, I don’t know why I keep doing this when I’m still at stage 0: ‘write book’. And all the stages that come between ‚finish book‘ and ‚publish book‘. I mean, I don’t think things will go the bestseller-way if I only throw up a PDF on Amazon. (Actually I don’t think this book will become a bestseller. Not because I’m making myself smaller than necessary, only because a) I am only starting out, and b) the whole thing as is can only appeal to a small niche-audience.)

So I’ll be watching the webinar like a TV show, mostly, but with my notebook and pen ready and focus on a) writing the book, and b) reading „Let’s Get Digital“ with a pen and make a list of next steps for book one.

I woke up from the alarm again. Seems I’m sleeping like a log again. I’m blaming the cold.

I did not write first thing in the morning yet again.

The boy had to leave ten minutes earlier than usual for school but that didn’t make a difference to me. I started writing after he left and 400 words later my short story was finished. Woohoo!

My husband showed up while I was looking for typos with Grammarly.

Then I knitted some more on the cowl.This is taking longer than I want it to. But I’m still harnessing the energy of wanting to start a new project to finish the old one. Feels good.

I went running:

It was beautiful and sunny but really, really cold.

It’s becoming a bit challenging to find interesting views on my run because I’m taking the exact same route every time.

When I came home there was still a lot of time until lunch so I wrote some more and started the second novel in the Eva Mandel-series. I have decided to finish three books before publishing. That also gives me more time to learn how to actually publish a book, make covers and such. Well, in theory.

We had chili for lunch. I was so hungry that I forgot to take the pictures before starting to eat:

The day before I found that I was stumped on making the website for our music lessons better by not having nice pictures to put on it. I kept trying different looks for the website and only when everything looked bad did I realize that I needed more and better pictures. Since I talked about that issue with my husband he then immediately started brainstorming and decided that we should take pictures of him teaching the very same afternoon. His student was willing if a little surprised so that’s what we did.

Then I taught a student and afterwards I started sewing. I have now sewn the sleeves into the bodice. This might become an actual summer dress some time in the next few weeks.

Then I attended another webinar. I got a lot of spinning done while watching. And then, because I was sitting right there, I watched a video about doing a book launch. I took more than a page of notes so I guess that was a good use of my time.

Then it was time for the boy to practice piano, and I retired to bed because it’s the only place that’s actually warm. I am really looking forward to our furnace guy being back from his summer vacation and taking care of our heating. We could turn the heating on in the old part of the house but there is a leak in the annex.

It is supposed to get a little warmer again the next few days, so we’ll see. I guess we’ll use the wood stove over the weekend.

The zucchini plants have died last night because it was almost freezing. Or maybe it was freezing. Something like that. The whole living room-to-be is full of chili plants, by the way. Poor things.

In bed I wrote in my journal and decided to celebrate my finished story by playing a game on my phone.

I might have made plans to finish the next novel in time to start the third one for NaNoWriMo. Which is totally crazy because it would involve writing close to 3,000 words a day, every day. When I was writing the last novel I was averaging 482 words per day, by the way. But that’s only about twelve minutes of my time every day, which isn’t a lot.

We’ll see how that goes. I’ll keep you posted. I do love a challenge but I don’t like to do too much and crash.

So. Today I will fetch my bike from the shop and hopefully remember to pick up a new inflator. Then I will buy ground beef (and maybe chocolate, shhh) at the health food store and go to the pharmacy. And then I’ll do the grocery shopping, will be too late to help making lunch (Leberkas an potato salad). Then it will be time to sew a little, I will teach a student, finally practice a little (I really need to get back into the groove with making music), teach some more and then I will be totally spent and exhausted.

Sounds like a plan.

Oh, and it’s my father’s birthday today. I shouldn’t forget that.

Woke up from the alarm after nine hours of sleep which is a little weird. It did feel good while I was sleeping but it seemed I never really woke up throughout the day.

I got up late. And the boy actually did remember to send me a message and got up really early. Which meant I was still in pajamas and scrambling to get breakfast ready when he showed up.

I’m not complaining. But I think I maybe should up my game.

Because I felt so sluggish I didn’t manage to write right after breakfast either. Boo.

I did make progress on my husband’s cowl. It isn’t quite long enough yet, though.

I phoned my ob/gyn to ask for my prescription renewed. Something I had been procrastinating about for two weeks or so. I do still have pills left until the end of next week or so, but still.

Then I went out to the bike shop and ordered a new front light and stand. They are swamped, apparently, so I will have to wait until 5 pm this afternoon before I can have my bike back. Since I’ll be busy at that time that means I’ll get it Thursday morning, just in time for grocery shopping. The young man whom I talked to even changed the 35 € lamp to a 15€ one when he realized that my dynamo was different than he thought.

I bet he hasn’t seen a bike this old in ages. I bought it in 2003 which I remember because there is a picture where my husband sat the boy in a striped onesie in a basket on the carrier.

Then I went on to the health food store to buy less groceries than expected. Since the fridge is still full to the brim I guess that was right. (Funny, how the cheese is still sitting in the fridge a week after I bought it. Seems the binge-eating got better. I advocate brushing your teeth right after work. Well, in case you want to skip dinner.)

Then we had risotto for lunch. Very, very yummy, and very fitting for the cold weather:

And then I fell into a bad slump. All day I had felt like I had a headache, only without the pain. I decided to take an ibuprofen right after lunch and I think it helped. About half an hour later I felt like myself again. I did not do the lunch dishes (there weren’t many) but I did fold a load of laundry and put it away. I did not make any music, and I still hadn’t written anything. More boo.

Then there were lots and lots of students, one after the other. I inadvertently let the boy wait for almost half an hour when I didn’t finish my last lesson on time. My student and I were talking a lot and I didn’t think he would be on time without me reminding him. Oops.

So no strength training because it was already so late.

My husband did all the dishes after dinner which I really appreciate. He and the boy had leftover risotto and an omelette for dinner and afterwards all I did was dry a few forks and knives.

Then the boy wanted to talk to me, lots.

And then I still had to write my daily 25 minutes.

Oof.

Early to bed nonetheless.

Today there will be running and only two students and some sewing and writing and music, and a little less other stuff.

Woke up from the alarm, lounged in bed and got up a little late.

Had breakfast with the boy who also lounged in bed and got up a little late. That always stresses me a bit because I don’t know if he is just procrastinating or if he is actually oversleeping. Since I’m a little tired of reminding him about breakfast every morning he suggested that he should send me a message around seven, telling me that he is already up.

I would totally love that. We’ll see if he remembers.

I did manage to do my writing right after breakfast which is always wonderful and a great start into the day.

Talked with my husband, did the dishes, packed up the birthday present for my father and sent it off. Which included a 2k walk because the mailbox nearest to our house doesn’t exist anymore, so I had to go into the other direction, all the way to the main post office.

Then running/walking. My back and hip are hurting so I was careful and slow. I am seeing more yoga in my future. But I enjoyed the run nonetheless:

Then we made lunch which was especially delicious:

More dishes and actually a bit of sewing. Then teaching.

In between my husband tried hanging up the new sign advertising our music lessons and all kinds of things went wrong, as usual. It is a little bent but it is hanging – progress!

I had planned to write a little more in the evening but instead I wrote a letter to the boy’s school for permission to skip school for three days so he can go to a seminar-thing. And we had to discuss his wardrobe and what he can wear for the class picture tomorrow.

It was really, really cold yesterday (and will be as cold today) so while I did do the dishes after that I then went straight to bed. Warmest place in the house.

Today there will be errands (I want to get a new light for my bike), the health food store, writing, music, and all the usual. No sewing today because I have quite a lot of students. There are plans of doing a little strength training in the evening.

This will be a long day.