Archives for September 2019

I didn’t really sleep well and managed to veer off my morning routine again after ‚meditate for five minutes‘. I did make breakfast at a reasonable time and finished reading „The Accidentals“ some time after lunch.

The rest of the morning went quite well with a conversation with my husband, doing lots of dishes and some stretching. Then we made lunch:

The boy had been considerate enough to text me mid-morning to say that he was still alive and that all was well. And another text when he was on his way home.

He arrived just as we were done with eating lunch, tired, exhausted and hungry and we talked a bit while he was having his lunch.

About half an hour later he came downstairs again because the toilet in his bathroom upstairs was misbehaving. I fetched a screwdriver and took the flushing mechanism halfway apart. Now if it doesn’t stop on its own you can jiggle it. It’s only a temporary stop-gap, though. I need to do additional research for that.

Then I finished reading the novel, set up my journal for the upcoming month and week, spent too much time online, started writing this post, decided to not do strength training because of the dunnwannas and read some more before it was time to watch some Star Trek.

Here are some pictures of my journal to make it seem like I was productive. Also I like to challenge people’s believes about how a bullet journal should look. I do like colorful ink but I only used two colors because I ran out of turquoise and was too lazy to refill the pen. Today’s list and the habit tracker:

Monthly spread with calendar and list of goals:

Keeping track of all the books I read and buy:

Weekly spread with tasks I want to accomplish some time during the week at the top, a spread that assigns stuff to certain days, a list of things to do for teaching and another one that’s ongoing and not urgent. The days mainly have my planned exercise, grocery shopping and cleaning on them. Yes, I write that down every week even though it doesn’t change much. Because otherwise I tend to forget. Since Thursday will be a public holiday I will need to do all the grocery shopping on one day next week:

And I even managed to get to bed on time!

Today will be all the typical Monday things, including some running, a potential new student and half of my regular lessons. Since I’m ever the optimist I have been planning to get all the things done as well. Fun!

And we all know how well I do with those.

I woke up from the alarm after a slightly too short night. Started the morning routine and allowed myself to get derailed before writing.

Had breakfast. Started reading „The Accidentals“ by Sarina Bowen. After finishing a Seanan McGuire story. Apparently I have abandoned the crime novel I was reading for now. I also seem to have downloaded about a dozen book samples again. I wanted to buy at least three more but managed to hold myself back a little.

My husband showed up, we talked and talked some more and then it was time for running. Everything went well until I was about twenty minutes in and then I just felt meh about it. Still, the weather was nice and the podcast I was listening to was interesting.

 

When I came back home the boy was already back home from the birthday party he attended. He left a note saying that he’d come down for lunch.

Half an hour later he appeared in the kitchen, somewhat pale and tired and said that a friend of his was in Munich and if he could go to Munich to meet them. Those are all friends that he met through those MENSA workshops. So he took a shower, got dressed and left again.

Huh. Just like a regular teenager. Who would have thought.

So we had lunch without him, just the two of us:

Then I waited until I could take a shower because I thought my husband would want to shower first and I sat there and scrolled through Instagram and read Ravelry and such. Until finally talking to my husband only to find out that he had wanted me to shower first.

Then I packed three packages, two birthday presents and on show return and walked to the post office to mail them. And then I got myself some potato chips, gummy bears and chocolate, walked back home and ate those for dinner.

The boy sent a message asking if he could stay overnight which was a little weird because that had never happened before but we rolled with it.

I watched more of the Marie Kondo show, got myself ready for bed, started writing this post and turned the lights out a little too late.

So. Today I need to get one or two things done. Including folding all the laundry and wash some more. Other than that it will be a slow day, I think.

I woke up from the alarm well rested (::shakes pompoms::) all determined to get stuff done.

I did all the morning things up until the writing which I – didn’t feel like doing. Yes, I know that’s not a valid reason. Got up on time, made breakfast, talked to the boy, enjoyed the new yoghurt and actually started with the novel once the boy was gone. And realized that I needed more research.

So I looked things up until my husband was ready for his breakfast.

We got going pretty early, I started cleaning when the boy was back home again. Apparently 11th grade means a lot of free periods. Since he still needed to write a birthday card he wanted some hand-holding. So I rushed around with him trailing behind me asking questions.

Then he went back to school. I got the usual cleaning done in record time and then tried to call my father because of his birthday. Had to try three times before I got him on the line. Before, when I was still cleaning I had gotten a message from my mother that her oldest brother had died. When I talked to her briefly she said he had passed on Tuesday, so no idea why she decided the day of my father’s birthday would be a good day to tell me.

Now, I barely knew that uncle and he was 85 years old with a weak heart so while this is sad news it’s not earth-shattering in any way. I wasn’t quite sure if I was supposed to show at his funeral but since my mother only told me to call my aunt (her sister) because she had had an accident and broke her shoulder I’m guessing not. (It seems to be ‚aunts in hospital‘-week, my mother-in-law told me the day before that her sister-in-law was ‚back in the hospital because of her back‘. Now, we knew that she had been in the hospital, only nobody told us that she was back home at one point. Oh, and she had ‚some kind of procedure‘.)

Yeah. Communication. It’s hard.

But. My husband and I made pizza. On time:

And it was rather tasty. Most of what’s in the salad was again from our garden, except the onions and the carrots.

The boy and I did the dishes, I published the podcast episode, got ready for teaching and then my first student was early.

Taught almost non-stop until six, with a short break where I talked to one of my husband’s students who want to take a singing lesson with me.

Then there was half an hour of bodyweight training, and then the blessed weekend with eating leftover pizza in front of TV watching the Marie Konto show. I had to watch something without the boy because he had left in the afternoon to attend a friend’s birthday party. His plans involved burgers, and escape room and staying up all night. Probably playing poker or video games.

I managed to go to bed at a reasonable time, at least.

Today there will be lots of reading and knitting, some running, some sewing and definitely some cooking. There’s a list somewhere, of course.

I’m feeling the cumulative strain of the week starting to weigh down on me but I’m okay so far.

I slept well but woke up at 5.10 and couldn’t get back to sleep. As often on podcast-recording days I didn’t want to push myself to write because I knew I’d need the energy later.

I tried the new Greek yoghurt at breakfast and it tastes really great! We have a winner. I’ll switch from yoghurt in disposable plastic containers to one in reusable glass jars! I only will have to eat the rest of the old yoghurt first.

The boy came down on time and there were more niggling small things to discuss like swim goggles and swim trunks and insoles for his new shoes. That’s one of the joys of being a mother, you get even more of that stuff to deal with on a daily basis. Even if he deals with stuff himself some help in thinking things through is always appreciated. And I find my husband and I do the same thing for each other.

My husband showed up and had his breakfast as well while I was knitting the boy’s scarf. Then we did the dishes and after that and a few chores I got ready to record the next episode of the podcast which will be the epic 90-minute English episode. Recording went without a glitch for the second time in a row so I’m thinking maybe I found something that works but since it went on for so long I couldn’t help preparing lunch and was a little late as well.

Lunch, by the way, was amazing:

This might not look like much but it was super-delicious. It’s styrian bean salad (with some additional bulgur because my husband wanted a side dish). It’s scarlet runner beans (at least that’s what the dictionary tells me) with goat cheese, spring onions, pumpkin seed oil and vinegar. Add some tomatoes (not for me), arugula and herbs and it was really, really good. We didn’t leave a morsel behind.

Then I did the dishes and took a break and ate some chocolate and then it was time to prepare the podcast and get things ready for teaching. Which I did. Including getting a guitar out for a student to lend, print out two contracts, write some emails to students and work on the podcast a bit.

When I came back to my studio after lunch I was greeted by this sight:

So I picked everything up and put most of it away, then there was teaching and then more podcast preparation and then the boy asked something for my mother-in-law and I went upstairs to talk to her. I hadn’t seen her after her first cataract surgery and since she wanted to mail a package I thought I’d offer my help. No need for her to carry heavy packages all over town and wait in line and such.

Speaking of packages, yesterday my father’s birthday present arrived just in time for his birthday today.

My mother-in-law did not want my help after all. Then the boy went off to school for the third time that day. One of his seminars this year includes doing stuff around the school observatory and that means he has to be at school late on Thursdays pretty often this year. It’s a very good thing that it takes him less than ten minutes to get there.

Then I finally started this post and waited for the podcast to upload to Youtube and then, finally I could get ready for bed.

Today will be a typical Friday, cleaning and pizza-making and then all the teaching, some bodyweight training and then more pizza while watching Star Trek.

Exhale.

Well, at least I did sleep well and enough. And then I went through my morning routine all the way without getting distracted – much. I had to scramble to get breakfast ready in time. But I managed.

My husband was a little later than usual which was great because I was totally busy researching German trial procedures for my novel. As you do.

I didn’t linger after breakfast because I had a ton of things to do. I had realized that I couldn’t record the podcast yesterday early afternoon as I had planned because my husband would be teaching at the same time. And when he teaches while I record my microphone picks up weird bass noises.

So I rescheduled everything, went to the supermarket and then running afterwards. I also decided to make a renewed effort to avoid singular use plastic which meant I spent quite some time looking for Greek yoghurt in returnable glas jars. I also had taken a Tupperware container with me to buy cheese but then chickened out. I just couldn’t bring myself to find out what kind of cheese they had at the cheese counter while asking if they would put it into the container I brought. Plus, everything in there was individually wrapped in saran wrap.

I hope that we still have enough cheese left to last another week. If I don’t binge eat any we’ll do. I’m debating riding my bike to the health food store that’s six kilometers away next week. We’ll see.

If the yoghurt is not to my liking I might try making my own. One step after the other.

So I came back home and the boy was home early. Which suited me fine because my husband was nowhere to be seen and I wanted to go running while at the same time expecting a package in the mail. So the boy had to stay in the kitchen and wait for the mailman. (That worked, by the way.)

Yesterday the plan was to warm up for five minutes, run for twenty, walk for one, run for twenty again and then cool down for five minutes. Guess who didn’t run the whole forty minutes? I did much better than Monday but I’m pretty sure I will repeat this week’s training plan next week.

The weather was nice and cool:

But rather sunny.

Also, a bit windy. And I saw some mushrooms:

When I came home lunch was already cooked and almost on the table. I am rather grateful to my husband for doing this:

For the first time ever my husband had put chicken into the spinach and also for the first time ever the boy did not want his pancakes sweet with jam but instead asked if he could have some of the spinach. Well, we would have shared but he doesn’t eat meat. We’ll know for the next time. (It’s a little confusing. For years and years and years he refused to eat pancakes with spinach until we resigned to just give him jam and all of a sudden he is changing his mind.)

I took a little break, did all the dishes, finally took a shower and tried getting ready to prepare some lessons and maybe sew a little when the boy came back home from school for the second time that day. So we looked at the shoes we had ordered and he tried them on. The boots and slippers work but the regular sneaker-like shoes were way too big so I’ll have to send them back.

I taught my students for the day, practiced a song for singing lessons and another one for a ukulele student and was just about to start writing this post when the boy showed up again, this time with a pile of papers from school. Also, we apparently had done the whole ‚get permission to go on a workshop and miss school for three days‘-thing wrong and had to do it again, differently.

I broke my glue stick in the process, the boy wrote down the wrong subjects, my husband mingled shortly and got asked about the chords to a song that I had been meaning to learn all week (and copied them for me immediately) but we persisted and acme out victorious.

I started writing this, the boy took a shower, then I had to wait forever until I could finally brush my teeth and get ready for bed. I did manage to turn the lights out on time but only barely.

Oh, and the only thing on my to-do list that I didn’t do?

Folding laundry. I can live with that.

Today will be interesting. I decided to try and record the podcast (huge and epic English episode) before lunch and get it ready for publication in the afternoon before teaching. I have a new student coming and am hoping that I won’t be braindead by then. I will also be teaching the student for whom I had wanted to learn the chords to „To Be With You“. Maybe I’ll be mean and make him play them. (He’s learning singing from me and guitar from my husband and has already played the song in the past.) I also want to see him sing and play at the same time because he mentioned that he has a problem with that.

So, basically it will be go, go, go until the evening.

Fun!