Archives for September 2018

I slept and slept and slept, I think I even dozed a little after six.

So I slightly late breakfast at 7.30 and some knitting, talking to my husband, the boy was up on time for once which was a nice surprise, then dishes and such and I did some yoga. First time in ages and it did me a load of good. I have had hip and back pain again lately and it feels like the yoga helped with that.

Then an easy lunch of gemelli bolognese with a big salad:

Then dishes again, and some laundry. I sang and then, instead of sewing or writing, I finished watching a video that I have been watching in bits and pieces all week. I did spin a little while watching it so that was good.

Then I started packing my father’s birthday present, I inked one of my fountain pens, then it was time for watching Star Trek.

I did write but only in the evening. I do prefer doing it in the morning but for that I need to finish breakfast early enough.

Today there will be running and sewing and teaching. Just a normal Monday. I hope.

So I knew I wouldn’t get a lot done yesterday with the whole „sleeping only for 4 1/2 hours“-thing. But for that things went really great.

I am a little more hopeful at the moment. And I think it’s totally due to two things. One: I am brushing my teeth right around dinnertime which prevents my nightly binge-eating (plus there is no chocolate in the house at all) and two: I wrote for three days in a row. For only 25 minutes but it’s making all the difference.

Also I have been adopting the policy of just moving the needle a bit all the time. I don’t just sit around reading and knitting when I feel low on energy but I realize that I’m low on energy and ask myself, „What small thing can I do that will make a difference  in the right direction now?“ And do it.

The drying rack is completely empty for the first time in weeks. Clean dishes get put away. Bills get paid. The clothes on the chair in the bedroom get hung up. And all of a sudden I have a little more energy than before. Huh.

Of course, I already knew this. And I am a bit afraid that I’ll crash and burn again but I am also taking long breaks and I’m reading a lot. Not quite as much as before, thought. And I’m totally okay with that.

So. I woke up super-early and thought about a comment someone made the day before, as you do when you wake up to early and can’t fall asleep again. And all of a sudden I was flooded with ideas about my own life and things I want to learn and change and do. (Yep, hopeless optimist, that’s me.)

I got up only half an hour later than usual and had a lovely, lone breakfast but then there was no time to write before my husband was getting up.

We had a nice talk and I decided that my new ‚work glasses‘ were bothering me enough that I’d go to the optician again to talk about it. I was sure that something had gone wrong with my prescription. I did the dishes, changed into jeans and went there.

I totally expected the place to be packed but they actually did have time for me and it turned out that no, there was nothing wrong with my prescription, it was just that I am so used to my old work glasses that allow me to read the time from across the kitchen now. I couldn’t have done that three years ago when I got them. So I need to just get used to my new glasses. The optician also suggested that I wanted to wear my old work glasses while teaching but I’m not sure. I tried playing the piano with those yesterday afternoon and I wasn’t happy either.

Seems I need a little patience.

I came back, went running rather slowly, trying out a pace that wouldn’t make my hip hurt and the app didn’t give me cues for changing from running to walking and back, again. I think I won’t use it anymore. I am thinking about starting the half-marathon training yet again (third time is the charm, or so they say) and just do the first week over and over and over until I feel that it’s easy. I don’t have a specific date for running a half-marathon, I just want t flexible running practice that will make me fitter over time. Also, being able to run 21k sounds really, really cool. Running pictures:

It’s starting to look and feel like fall here. I even had to wear a jacket. It did turn out to be too warm halfway through. Which was also when I met my husband going in the other direction. He was complaining that he should have worn a wool hat because his ears were cold. It is rather funny because when he runs (about twice as fast as me) he wears a ton of clothing while I’m wearing less clothes than indoors and the minute we return home he sheds all layers while I sit in the corner, shivering, wearing all the wool head to toe.

Then I took a shower, cut my own bangs for the very first time in my life (they don’t really look different and I think I need to cut some more on one side), and helped making lunch. We were late, as usual on Saturdays. The mood in the kitchen might have been a little tense:

This is a picture of my last bite of fried zucchini blossom. I was so hungry that I forgot to take a picture. Second course was feijoada again:

I love eating beans and rice, especially when it’s cold outside. Well, cooler at least.

We did the dishes together, then I went to my studio (no lounging in the kitchen after lunch is the new rule), published the podcast, sang a little, read quite a bit of the internet and played the piano a little. I even practiced. I’m learning Bach’s prelude in C major from the „Wohltemperiertes Klavier“ by heart again. Or maybe for the first time, I’m not sure.

Then came the point in the day where I felt all smug because my to-do list was almost done for the day and it was only early afternoon. The two things left on the agenda were writing and sewing and I realized that I was just too tired to do anything serious. So I decided to do a little spinning (move the needle on a long project) and continue watching a video that someone recommended and that I have been inching through all week. I keep thinking that there will be something worthwhile in there but so far there wasn’t. So I found myself suddenly listening to the video while reading revelry (bad habit) and then there were dance videos on youtube. Oops.

The boy and I watched one episode of Star Trek TNG while I was crocheting on his blanket (cozy and warm) and I had decided to not watch the webinar live because I had seen another one on the same topic half a year before. I might watch the replay at some point because – as I said before – Jessica Abel is really phenomenal and has helped me a lot but I didn’t think I needed to sit there the minute it was recorded.

Then I started writing this post and by then I was really, really tired.

So I wrote some new words on the story-in-progress and went to bed early.

Today will be another semi-lazy day, yoga would be fabulous and writing and music and sewing would be the cherry on top.

Yesterday also showed me again how much an evening off can throw me off kilter. If it weren’t for the #100daysofwriting-challenge and my renewed dedication to get things done this would have been a totally lost day. Which would have made me feel awful instead of tired and enthusiastic. Yes, you can be both at the same time. And that’s okay. Just make sure that you don’t stay tired for long.

That was a rather busy and somewhat exhausting day. But very good.

I woke up from the alarm at six, tried to make myself write first thing and failed. But I did get up on time, made breakfast and helped the boy get ready. He had a school excursion to the German Aerospace Center near us, so he had to leave a little earlier than usual in order to catch a train.

I meditated and read „The Daily Stoic“. Today’s contemplation wasn’t bad but it showed that the author can’t be a dancer. Pity. (The quote said that life is not like dancing but rather like wrestling and if you look at it like Marc Aurel that’s true but Ryan Holiday’s commentary – while still insightful – was missing the point slightly.

And then I set a timer for 25 minutes and wrote some new words on the story in progress. And decided to participate in the „100 days of writing“-challenge. It’s nothing big, just showing up every day, a hundred days in a row and write for twenty minutes. I think editing and such counts as well. I’m hoping that that will help me to get my butt in the chair more regularly.

I was really happy I did that because when my husband came over for breakfast he had one of those notes from his mother that derailed our plans for the morning. It said that his aunt might come over around ten with her car to help us get the hedge trimmings and such carted to the recycling place. His mother had known about this for a few days but only realized that my husband had to do most of the work because his mother is still not back to form and his aunt is having back problems.

So he got ready and waited.

Meanwhile I did the dishes and got ready to go to the optician. There I tested my new ‚work glasses‘ and ordered a sunglass clip. Since they needed one of my frames for shaping the clip’s glasses I left my new glasses with them again and went grocery shopping. Which went well but I forgot some things.

Back home it turned out that there had been no car but my husband had a tentative appointment with his aunt again for 3 pm. Or 5 pm. One or the other.

He had planned to make filled eggplant for days but with all the back and forth with the optician I had no time to help cook.

So I went back to the optician, got my new glasses, the sunglass clip, and a pair of contact lenses to try out, then went to another supermarket and came home. By then it was time for lunch but food was far from ready.

So we cooked together, and we both made huge mistakes because we really needed a break.

The food was wonderful, though, and delicious:

Then it was pretty late and I did regret not doing all the podcast prep the days before. I thought I had a lot of time in the afternoon since my first student had re-scheduled.

So I put on makeup and prepared the podcast and then recorded it and I finished just in time for my first student of the day.

Then more teaching, the boy decided that he didn’t want a lesson but only a quick practice because he was fried too.

Again I brushed my teeth right after work and changed into my pajamas. That really helps to prevent binge-eating. Even though it is a little weird to get ready for bed at 7 pm.

I did my daily drawing and went to bed early again.

Today, there will be the usual Friday cleaning and then I will go and buy Weißwürste and Brezn for lunch because tonight my husband and I are invited to have dinner at a restaurant with some friends of his. I’m really looking forward to it, also to the 8k bike ride there and back.

I’m hoping to get the podcast ready for publication this afternoon as well so that it can go live tomorrow.

I’m rather busy at the moment but I’m liking it because things seem to move forward.

But the hectic of school starting is still ongoing.

Students want their lessons re-scheduled and the boy has excursions and a ton of stuff to buy and extra books and workbooks and then he started discussing his prospects for all kinds of extra certifications he might be able to get and test for over the next three years.

And one of these years he will learn that bombarding me with details that include lots of numbers makes my head hurt.

I woke up early yesterday and for once managed to make myself write for ten minutes before getting up. Phew.

My mood immediately brightened. Which shouldn’t be a surprise but of course it was.

I started to weave the ends in on the Cria cardigan. I still have to sew one pocket lining shut, block it and get buttons but then it will done.

I did the dishes and such and then went running. I had decided to stop the half-marathon training yet again and go back to the transitioning from 5k to 10k training which meant that I spent my run mostly fiddling with the settings on my phone. A program of running ten minutes and walking 1 minute several times doesn’t really work when you don’t know if you should run or walk at any given moment.

So I didn’t quite finish what I set out to do. I’m not sure how to proceed, maybe I will restart the half-marathon program again and just repeat each week until I manage to actually run the distance specified. We’ll see.

Lunch was mashed potatoes, peas and carrots and wieners:

Then I talked to the boy and did dishes and made some music and pulled out the sewing machine, taught a student, sewed a bit, taught some more, talked some more with the boy (note to self, put in your calendar for next year that the boy will need extra time for talking through school stuff when school starts), started writing this post, read a little and went to bed early.

No spinning. But I did my daily drawing (that isn’t that daily) in the morning. Otherwise that wouldn’t have happened.

Phew.

Today I will go grocery shopping, get my new glasses from the optician, go to the health food store again because the boy ran out of vegetarian spread and didn’t put it on the grocery list in time, record the podcast, teach a few students and do some other things as well.

I have a list. So I know what to do.

I don’t quite know what happened there but there really was no time at all.

I woke up early and didn’t write again. But I did look at the short story that I’m working on, promptly despaired and closed it again. I started formatting the novel, just to see how it’s done and – lo and behold – this will be a lot of work. I should first read it again and iron out the mistakes, though.

I finished knitting a sock for my husband after breakfast and then he came along with a pretty new shirt that had caught on something in the greenhouse. I knew that I could mend it, but not invisibly. And then he said that would be great but he’d love it if it wouldn’t sit in a pile for the next three years.

So I mended it right away:

Yes, that is the mended shirt. And the color isn’t quite right but my husband was happy with it. It does look less glaring from afar:

Also, it’s in the back. And since I had the mending stuff all out I also mended my favorite running socks:

I wanted to also sew a button to another shirt of my husband’s but I couldn’t find the button in the big pile of things on top of the fridge.

Then I started a new sock, as one does.

Then I went out to the bakery and the health food store and we decided to make salad Niçoise again because we loved it so much the last time, and then, right in the middle of frantic cooking we found that we were all out of mustard. So I went to the nearest supermarket to get more. It was totally worth it.

After lunch I did the dishes and hung up some laundry and then the boy came home from school. There was a lot to discuss and he needed to get all his school supplies still.

I finished everything just in time to do a quick singing warm-up before my first two students. Some time in between I shot off an email to my doctor to renew the prescription for my thyroid medication.

More teaching. Afterwards the boy practiced piano and there was more talking about school supplies. And then my husband told us about a music video he had watched the day before and so we ended up sitting down in his studio watching music videos on youtube for some time. The poor boy was pretty hungry at that point but we all enjoyed it.

And then I wrote another email and such and was right in time for yet another webinar. The monthly Orna Ross one. I keep returning so I must be getting something out of them.

After that I only had time to brush my teeth, write in my journal and that was that.

And what have we learned from this?

If you want to get any writing done? Do it in the morning. Preferably first thing. Because then if anything unexpected happens you still will have written.

So today. I will of course write first thing, and then there will be running and only a few students. I had hoped for some sewing to happen yesterday after lunch, 90 minutes should have allowed for that but actually they didn’t.

But. Today will, of course, be much better.

I hope.