Archives for December 2018

I woke up at the civilized time of 5.30 which was really good, after having gotten enough sleep (phew!). I wrote my morning pages and failed to write anything on the novel and made breakfast.

The boy got up early as well because he had promised to tag along when I would buy the sacred bratwurst for Christmas for the first time.

So we set off around eight and when we arrived at the butcher’s there was a long queue but I have to say, it wasn’t as long as I had expected.

The funny thing was that we met my husband’s cousin and she was standing in the queue right in front of us. Which was a very good thing because on the way there I suddenly realized that I had no idea what the sacred Christmas sausages were actually called. „The sausages“ as my mother-in-law keeps calling them could potentially refer to dozens of kinds of sausages, even half a dozen kinds of bratwurst that they had in the shop.

It turned out that the cousin was there for the first time ever as well and only slightly better informed than I was but through keen observation I found out that what I wanted is called the „Christmas sausages“. And the distinctive characteristic is that they are with milk and veal. So I learned something new again.

We were victorious and while the sales woman was a little overwhelmed by my order of 45 „Christmas sausages“ and it took her some time to count them out and squeeze them into plastic containers the boy and I felt rather accomplished afterwards. We did a quick detour to the post office and then went home again where my husband was building the fire in the wood stove and ready to have breakfast.

I dawdled quite a bit but managed to eventually go on my Monday run. I even did the whole 6.4k and I ran more than I walked:

Running that much (after walking all the way to the butcher’s was a good thing because I might have eaten quite a bit of cheese for my second breakfast.

The we had spaghetti aglio e olio for lunch:

Then I had my usual afternoon slump. I was basically waiting for my mother-in-law to come back home. I hate not knowing things for sure.

Well, it turned out that she had called late in the morning and because my cell phone had acted up I hadn’t received the message before 3 pm. She had called to say that she would be staying in the hospital until Thursday or so because she was still not feeling all that good.

Since I was too fuzzy for writing I decided to get back to my book cover design course. It’s funny, I’m watching the videos and keep thinking, „Oh, that’s easy, no problem.“ And then I start doing things myself and find that I have no idea how to even select a box and move it around on the screen. I have to say that GIMP is about the most un-intuitive program I have ever used.

Well, there’s no way out but to go back, watch all the videos and do all the exercises myself. And the next time I think, „Oh, that’s easy, I don’t need to practice how to draw a box and fill it with color.“ I will have to eat my words yet again. Better to just go ahead and try to draw the box and fill it with color myself. I’m usually pretty competent with computers. This software is really humbling.

Then it was time to take care of the sacred Christmas food. My husband had started the sauerkraut right after lunchtime and was pretty irritated when I was sitting in the kitchen most of the afternoon failing to look after the wood stove and said kraut. Well, let’s say it was only slightly burned and there was still some left over in the end.

I did manage to start peeling the potatoes in time and we had our Christmas dinner rather early:

You should take note of the placemats and cloth napkins because this is really the only time of the year I will pull those out. This year everything was even clean and ironed. Woot!

The food was wonderful. Gorgeous.

Then I basically had to force the boy and my husband to open presents. I was very happy with the presents I got from my sister, namely the Neil Gaiman and Chris Ridell book „You must make great art“ which is wonderful and moving and which I read straight through right away and another one about making cloth from wild nettles. That one’s pretty cool too.

The boy and my husband were happy too, The boy got a „Tool“ t-shirt (yes, that’s an actual band) and quite a bit of money, and my husband got two CDs he had been wanting.

Then we did all the dishes and then I realized that I still needed to spin my advent calendar fiber. And that I still hadn’t written any fiction words.

So I spun the fiber and I wrote very few words and then I went to bed.

Today there will be the teaching of one student in the morning and some strength training and then the mounting of the smoke alarms (because it’s been a year that we got them and we should really mount them before my brother-in-law visits us next) and more fiction writing. Also, I do have a list.

Another day where I woke up stupid early. This is starting to get ridiculous.

And didn’t write.

I did manage to have breakfast on time and I did meditate for ten minutes. Also, I joined the body and sleeves on the Owligan. Then it was almost time to get ready to take the bus to where my mpther-in-law is in the hospital.

Everything went well, I had bought the ticket in advance, even. I have to say, buying tickets with my phone without any paper involved still feels like magic to me.

We were lucky, it was supposed to be raining all day but in the end we only got a little damp when we were walking back home from the station again.

Lunch at the Turkish restaurant in that other town was fantastic. The boy was slightly confused because there were three vegetarian main dishes to choose from.

Then we went to see my mother-in-law. She looks fine and might even come home later today. She can walk around using a walker and seems very much herself. It seems that getting a pacemaker is not major surgery like I thought it was.

There was more discussion about the bratwurst for Christmas and I will go to the butcher first thing today, right after breakfast to get all the brats for all the family.

We were home earlier than I thought we would be and then I basically did nothing again. (I’m getting better and better at that, practice makes perfect, you know.)

I did update my laptop’s OS, though, and it seems that everything is still working. Phew.

Then the boy and I watched Star Trek while eating chocolate truffles and I was spinning the next to last batch of advent calendar fiber. Today will be the last and then plying. I’m planning to ply the first two bobbins tomorrow and the second two the day after.

Today there will be the buying of the bratwurst and running and cooking Christmas dinner and I’m also hoping for writing and normalcy. There will also be the opening of presents. Very few of those which is fine by me.

Even though I went to be after 10 I totally slept in until 6.30. I had turned my alarm off.

And the rest of the day basically went the same.

I got up at the time I usually have breakfast, I knitted, I meditated, I decided on how to proceed on the Owligan, I ran a lazy 4.8 k:

There was kale for lunch. But before there was a little kerfuffle with my MIL’s sister. MIL apparently had forgotten her meds so she called her sister and asked her to take them to the hospital. Sister arrived at our place while my husband and I were both out running. The boy can’t hear the doorbell (any of the three doorbells) while up in his room, especially since he is usually wearing headphones.

So I cam back from running to a note at the door saying that we should call her because of the pills. Also, there was a message on the answering machine. So I called her back and she said she’d be here in thirty minutes.

So I couldn’t take a shower until she arrived. An hour later. We did get the whole thing sorted just before having lunch, so that was good.

Then kale. From our garden from 2017:

It was very good. We did a load of laundry.

I had started uploading the video for the podcast the night before but it took all morning until 3 pm for it to actually get uploaded. Then I could finally publish the podcast.

Then I crossed ‚baking‘ and some other thing from my list. I didn’t want to. My new bullet journal arrived. I really wanted a new notebook which is silly because there are still forty pages left in the old one and that will be enough until the end of January or so. I mean, I know there are people who always start a new bullet journal at the start of the new year but I usually don’t. Forty pages are forty pages.

So I just hung out and enjoyed not having to do anything. Then the boy and I watched some Star Trek and I spun my daily advent calendar fiber. Only two more days to go. Sigh. But I have another spinning project lines up afterwards. Or two. And since I’ve read the ‚Ply Magazine‘-issue about sock yarn I have been wanting to spin all the sock yarn again.

In the evening my brother-in-law called to tell us that my mother-in-law is fine. He saw her in the hospital already.

Today there will be yoga. And writing. And we will take the bus that only goes once per hour on Sundays to visit my mother-in-law. There was talk about a Turkish restaurant on the way.

I’ll probably spend the rest of the day doing nothing again…

So that was interesting.

I had gone to bed a little later than usual but still around 10 pm and then I woke up around 4 am with a bad case of the brain weasels. Not the anxious, panicky ones, fortunately, but the excited, over-motivated ones. Still, more sleep would have been really nice.

And then I was basically too tired to do anything productive for the rest of the day. No writing in the morning, nothing. I did look through all my bullet journals from this year to find out what I had originally planned for the wardrobe project (nothing, it seems) and then I sat down and drew up a plan to follow next. And if I manage to sew two garments per month for the upcoming year I’ll get everything done. Says Ms. One-t-shirt-the-whole-year.

Everything took ages. Nothing got cleaned. I did the breakfast dishes, hurray.

I also got my contact lenses from the optician and tried buying a new bullet journal at a local store. Yeah, no dice. So I ordered online yet again.

Came back home, met the boy who had just lugged an old computer home all the way from school. The school was getting rid of it and the boy took the remnants.

Then we went out together and had lunch. Sorry, no picture today but I had duck with cashew sauce. It was pretty good.

When we came back home my mother-in-law was already waiting for us to tell us she’d be going to the hospital to get a pacemaker. There had been talk about pacemakers just a week or two ago but her doctor thought it wasn’t necessary yet and now she was packing up and getting a taxi.

The boy helped her. And she called later that day to say that she will be getting that pacemaker today. I really hope that that will help her.

Then I started to get the podcast ready, taught a few students, ate too much chocolate, (by the way, you guys have opinions about chocolate and licorice; I’ve been told that I need to try Scandinavian licorice chocolate), worked some more on the podcast, did not listen to all of it, watched some Star Trek with the boy and called it a day.

Today there will be running (I hope) and maybe a little baking, we’ll see.

I woke up at 5.30 again, this time I had slept a little better. Wrote my morning pages, added some words to the novel, made breakfast, meditated for five minutes, wrote some more words on the novel. Because I knew I’d be insanely busy the rest of the day for once I was almost disciplined.

The I finished the second sleeve on the Owligan. I’m thinking I need to switch knitting projects more often, my right wrist ist starting to be a little sore and I’m blaming the super-bulky held double. Time for a bit of sock knitting in between.

Then I went grocery shopping. It was crazy busy but oddly enough not as stressful as I had expected. I’m getting used to the store and I did expect a bit of pre-Christmas madness.

Came back, unpacked the groceries, diced a carrot. Had a very lovely lunch:

Afterwards I hopped into the shower right away and even blow-dried my hair which I never do anymore because I wanted to record the English podcast episode. Which I did. But not before explaining bra construction to the boy. As one does. Priorities.

I managed to cram all the content from nine podcast episode into 90 minutes, even. And was finished in time for teaching.

Then almost non-stop teaching for three hours with the boy’s piano lesson right in the middle. This time my husband joined us because now he wanted to teach him all about swing feeling. We’re taking our jazz serious in this house.

Then I started writing this post, did all the dishes together with my husband, spun my advent calendar fiber and fell into bed.

Today will be the last official teaching day of the year! With only three students even. And there will be the cleaning and the going out for Chinese and sushi for lunch and maybe the getting my new contact lenses from the optician.

Also I will get the podcast ready for publishing and the boy and I are planning to watch some Star Trek, We can’t yet decide if we’ll do the big ‚chips and licorice‘-palooza tonight or just eat lots of chocolate truffles instead. We need to decide, though, because chocolate and licorice don’t really go together well.

I’d say that’s a great problem to have.