Archives for March 2020

I woke up super-early and spent the first two hours of the day or so online checking the news. This is not recommended. So no writing, no meditation, no morning pages and then I forgot my thyroid pill which meant a late breakfast.

The boy came downstairs for the daily meeting almost on time again. There really wasn’t anything to discuss but if there had been we would have been ready.I read and I knitted and there was a lot of talking.

I also went out to the health food store and because I didn’t get what we needed I went to the butcher and the bakery and a nearby supermarket as well. There were very few people around, everybody kept the distance and some shelves were still rather empty. There is still no yeast to be had in any form. Or canned tomatoes and such.

My mother-in-law was feeling better already, well enough to go to her scheduled eye appointment. 

Then I helped to make lunch. Mostly leftovers but also chicken. And papadums:

Then I took a little break, did the dishes and started teaching through my iPad.Things went well, I taught all my regular students. There are of course major drawbacks to this but it’s the only way to have music lessons while keeping the right distance and therefore I love it. We are still figuring out what is possible. And today both my husband and I had to learn how to share documents with the students (and vice versa).

It is rather exciting but also pretty draining.

I had lofty plans of doing strength training afterwards but instead I ate some bread and cheese for dinner and watched a webinar about moving live events to livestreams by Patreon. It was aimed at musicians and so those ‚tools and tricks‘ they were talking about were pretty relevant for me. Even though I probably won’t do live events on my Patreon. But then maybe I should.

By the end of the webinar I felt myself nodding off so I just started writing this blog post, brushed my teeth and went to bed. I moved the journaling to this morning.

Today there will be running and pickup at the tea shop and then more teaching. I might teach my first ever singing lesson online. I didn’t have the time to record backing tracks or warm-up exercises but the whole thing doesn’t have to be perfect right away. I see more research heading my way later today. And this will be a very long day.

I woke up around five or so and didn’t get anything done at all before breakfast.At least breakfast was on time. I didn’t sleep well because of brain weasels. But then there was soothing knitting:

Daily family meeting went alright, the boy was almost punctual. The I did the usual morning chores and was just about to leave for my walk/run when the boy came downstairs and said that my mother-in-law wasn’t feeling well, was all dizzy and wanted to take a taxi to the doctor’s office. We both tried to make her stay at home but she was determined. When I asked her if she had looked at her blood pressure she said she hadn’t measured anything but that it was surely way too low and she needed to see the doctor right away. If she called beforehand they would just tell her to come in an hour later and by then she would be lying on the floor unconscious. So the boy did not start his school work as planned but instead went with her in the taxi. He helped her from the taxi to the doctor’s office up the stairs and all and then walked back home. It’s just five minutes if you’re not frail and dizzy.

Then I went walking/running:

By then I was already pretty late and lacked the oomph to run a lot. I cut the whole thing short by ten minutes or so. I also was so out of it that I forgot to start my running app at the beginning. I only realized when I didn’t get a reminder to start running after the warm-up after five minutes.

Came back home just in time to help with cooking, explained what had happened to my husband and just when we sat down to eat the boy got a call to come back and get my mother-in-law again. He had to eat later. Food was yummy:

The boy came back and told us that the doctor doesn’t know what’s wrong either, that her blood pressure was way too high and that she had gotten another blood pressure pill. She already felt better on the way home but still not all that great. So, in hindsight it would have been better if she had taken her blood pressure at home and phoned the doctor’s office. What with the coronavirus and all.

After lunch the boy went to take a nap, I did the dishes and then wrote all the emails to all the students because of our new online teaching. My husband needed to discuss a ton of things with me. I had to teach people how to use Skype while still learning about it myself and the boy wanted help with his school stuff. At least we got him set up in the living room with my old laptop and that made him marginally more productive:

I helped connect my husband with Skype for his first student and managed to put on a skirt just in time to start my own teaching day. I would have preferred to be better prepared but there was no time left. I taught four students over FaceTime and Skype and it went pretty well. It’s not perfect but we’ll manage. I got the impression that the students and their parents are as happy about that slice of normalcy as we are. And I am really missing my students. This is what it looks like, by the way (and this is the less messy part of my studio at the moment:

Teaching over tablet. For piano lessons I move the tripod, the music stand and the chair and turn the iPad so that the students can see both my face and my hands on the keys.

The whole affair is still rather exciting, and somewhat exhausting. I miss the transition periods between two students when one packs up and leaves the room and the the other comes in and unpacks. When I teach the students in person I can put things away in those moments or go to the bathroom real quick. Also, the big wall clock in my room is behind me in this setup and that makes it much harder to keep track of time. I kept glancing around the students’ homes in search for the time. Maybe I should move mine in the future.

Afterwards I was totally ded. Then my husband and I compared notes. I helped make dinner, the boy had lots of questions regarding school stuff again, I did the dishes, he talked to me some more, I started writing this post and then I got ready for bed.

In the morning I finished Lindsay Buroker’s „Battle Bond“ and immediately preordered the next in the series. I waffled about what to read next all day (because the next in series comes out in ten days), started a book or two and finally settled on „Blood & Ash“ by Deborah Wilde. The first fifteen pages were very promising. Seems I’m in an Urban Fantasy kind of mood.

Today there will be a trip to the health food store, more phone calls and emails with students and quite a bit of teaching through my little iPad. And if things go extremely well I will record the warmup exercises for my singing students. Or I might move the recording to another day and have them warmup with something else. We’ll see.

Lots going on at the moment. For all of us.

Woke up at 5.30 and didn’t get much done at first. I did meditate for five minutes and wrote rudimentary morning pages, though. This is what greeted me when I opened the curtains:

Not very spring-like.

Then breakfast on time. My husband showed up at 8 and built a fire while I started a new bullet journal. It is unfortunate to start a new journal with only nine days left in the month but there was nothing I could do. I decided against migrating everything because it didn’t seem worth it which means I’ll have to carry two notebooks for the next week or so.

My husband had his breakfast and then the boy came down for the first ever daily family meeting. Well, more like a huddle. It was funny, my husband was just about to leave the kitchen, thermos and tea mug in hand when I told him we were about to start the meeting we agreed on the day before. Turned out he didn’t realize he was included.

I think it was a good thing to talk about what each of us wanted to do that day.

Then dishes. And some yoga:

I’m stiff as a board right now but my hope is that yoga will make that better. It is physically impossible to sit on my heels at the moment so more yoga is clearly the answer.

Then I folded a lot of laundry and talked with my husband who still is having a hard time with the cooking. It ia a little puzzling to me how someone who has cooked every day for years now can still find it that overwhelming and confusing but, well, at least I am not doing it.

There was pancake soup:

And homemade potato salad with Leberkäs. And eggs:

This potato salad is much greener than usual because we went a little overboard with the arugula, cress and cucumber.

I did the dishes right away with the boy’s help because I had scheduled a virtual knitting meeting at two.

Which I attended and we talked for more than two hours without realizing where the sun went.

After that I had a date with my husband to teach him how to use FaceTime and Skype for teaching. It went rather well. Only we found out that the spot he is sitting in usually had the worst lights in the whole house. He unearthed two lamps and in the end there was enough light to actually see what he was doing.

Then more laundry and the boy and I watched ‚Interstellar‘. Very good movie, I can heartily recommend, found it great.

And then I tricked the boy into watching the beginning of the documentary „Alive and Kicking“ about LindyHop (and he liked it), then talked with him about his schoolwork and then I watched half an hour of the documentary.

Then off to bed way too late.

Today there will be running and email and two Skype-lessons.

No Tv today we decided to be sensible for once.

I slept a full eight hours for the first time in over a week. Ah. Did five minutes of meditation and then went down the internet rabbit hole again. I made breakfast on time and read a bit.There was lots of talking with all members of the family. There was knitting:

It was really cold, gray and wet so my husband built a fire in the wood stove. We went running:

Less people outside than the last days. People are really staying home right now. When I reached the train tracks I met my husband coming back from the other side. We stood and talked and someone passing us was giving us the stinky eye. Well, he was right. He couldn’t know that we live together and therefore don’t have to keep our distance outside as well.

For the first time in weeks I felt like the short running intervals weren’t enough. I would have liked to run for longer and so I did here and there. Then there were pancakes for lunch:

Then dishes and installing Skype on all the devices. And freeing my account from being suspended. (Apparently you need to use your Microsoft account occasionally to keep it.) Then a break and some chocolate. I wrote a ton of emails to students setting up video lessons for next week. And then the boy helped me learn how to Skype.

My husband and the boy did their usual thing and wandered in and out of the kitchen. This time I didn’t get mad because I was expecting it. And by now my husband has realized that remote teaching is the only way forward in the current situation. He even had a student asking if he could come in on Monday but we decided no, he can’t.

So today in the afternoon I’ll try and bring my husband up to speed. That will be interesting.

I had a lot of cleaning on my list as well for the day but there was no more time. I did change the sheets, though. And then the boy and I watched the first part of „Interstellar“. Wow. That movie is seriously good. We stopped in the middle so that we could go to bed on time but we really didn’t want to.

Today there will be yoga and knitting and a virtual knitting meeting and teaching my husband how to do FaceTime and Skype and then I’ll make lists for teaching admin. No idea where I’ll fit the rest of the cleaning in but we’ll see.

I did wake up early again and again I did not do my morning routine. Unless you count going online right away as a routine. I guess by now it is.

Made breakfast at 7.20, tried to find out whether I have a Skype account or not and to create a new one and failed. I started finishing my husband’s sweater but didn’t actually finish the finishing. Talked to my husband. Knitted:

That’s a handspun Viajante by Martina Behm. I made another one in 2014. I know which year that was because I remember knitting that one when in the hospital for my inner ear infection and sudden hearing loss. Part of that old Viajante was knitted with the yarn held in my right hand instead of my usual left because of the infusion port (Is that the right word? I’m too lazy to look it up.) on the back of my left hand. I guess now the Viajante in progress will forever be the coronavirus project.

The yarn is wonderful, nice and soft.

Then my husband went for a run and I started the daily dance of brushing teeth, doing dishes, sorting recycling and such. Then I started the weekly cleaning and ran out of time just after vacuuming the annex. I waited for my husband to return home. I probably should have used that time to vacuum the rest of the house and clean the washbasins and toilets but my husband doesn’t like it when he comes home in need of a shower and I’m busy zooming through the house like a ball in a pinball machine.

So we made pizza. And I vacuumed most of the old part of the house. And we made salad. Behold:

Then I wrote some emails to students, including an email telling a student’s mother how to help him learn the next piece and another giving another mother of a student links to things to prepare for that day’s lesson.

Then I taught my first student of the day (always 1.5 meters of distance, everybody washing hands and everything wiped down) who told me that Bavaria had declared a harder curfew. There are a few more shops closed and people are only allowed outside for grocery shopping, work and necessary things. Fortunately we’re still allowed to go for walks and exercise outside but only alone or in groups of people who live in the same household.

So, no more students in our house. Which I’m rather relieved about. I think this is the right thing to do. It also feels weird and makes me a little anxious because of lack of income.

Then I taught another student and then I had my very first video lesson. With my one student that learns both piano and ukulele.

I have to say it went better than expected. We used FaceTime because we both own Apple devices. We both had two devices, one for the video and one for playing songs on Youtube and such. Since her keyboard is in the part of the house with the worst wifi we only did ukulele. That connection was fast enough that we could play together, even.

After pulling out my MIDI keyboard, podcasting microphone and good headphones I ended up just using the iPad for the video part and my laptop over my sound system as playback. One thing I need to do is to move the big clock I have in my studio so I can better see when the lesson is supposed to start and end. I also need to leave about two minutes on each end for transition.

This first lesson was really promising. There are quite a few drawbacks to this methods but it does work and it is definitely much better than not teaching at all. There is more preparation involved and I need to see how it will work with Skype as an alternative but still.

Of course, not all the students will be able to do this. I already know that one family only has spotty wifi at the moment. I did read an article about teaching over speakerphone but I’m not sure I’m up to trying that.

That lesson also showed me how much I’m missing my students. Some I haven’t seen for two weeks already because of the quarantine. And I need to make sure that I’m making music and singing over the next few weeks because the only time I’m really singing these days is during voice lessons. And every time I do sing I remember how much I love it.

After that the boy and I had planned to do bodyweight training but I canceled. I was all hungry and exhausted, my left middle finger apparently decided to have a flare of arthritis or something (it looks like it got trapped in a door but I did nothing unusual to it.

We watched ‚Picard‘, ate leftover pizza and some ice cream, I started writing this post and went to bed.

Today there will be running, the rest of the cleaning, probably prep for the next podcast episode and some more prep for the video teaching thing.

I’m getting all these emails at the moment talking about how much free time we’re all having at the moment. Well, my time wasn’t even free enough to put on my usual makeup for work…

Not that I’m complaining, mind you. And speaking about free time, apparently the boy has been busy with school work and has managed to reduce his backlog. We’ll see how that goes today.

Phew. Long day and a full one.

I woke up at 5.30 and promptly did not do my morning routine. Instead I went online and then decided to play a game on the iPad. Not the best move.

I made breakfast at 7.30 and then started researching for my upcoming online lessons. I did that on and off all day. My husband showed, the boy got up at 9.30, I did dishes and then I asked my mother-in-law what to bring her from the supermarket.

I walked all the way through a beautiful day, passing the Greek restaurant with one lonely customer in it. The supermarket was much fuller. I held my distance as much as possible and bought quite a few things. I even scored some flour, tomato paste, pasta and toilet paper. On the walk back I was regretting that I hadn’t taken the bike.

When I came back home my husband already had lunch almost ready:

I did the dishes, ate some chocolate and got ready for work. There might have been a bit of a discussion between family members. We’re all feeling the strain. At least the boy sat down and did some of his school work. Finally.

I talked with all the students about online lessons. There was a phone call from a potential new student. The boy helped me test different setups for video teaching. Turns out that my laptop camera is actually the worst I own, both the iPad and my phone have better quality. Guess I’ll switch recording the podcast to the iPad in the future. I also tested the new iPad clamp for my tripod and where to put the device for best camera angle.

Meanwhile my husband was hard at work getting the garden ready and hanging up laundry. Since it was rapidly getting darker and colder my husband headed out again while me and the boy took care of the rest of the laundry.

Afterwards it was time for me to help the boy. He needs a new lightbulb for his room so we went through the whole box in the basement but there was none that fit. And then I got him a hammer and nails, we looked at the sparkling lights set-up in his room and he hung them up.

I ate dinner. And talked with my husband. And started writing this post and did email and then I did the dishes, took off my makeup and got ready for bed.

Today there will be cleaning and teaching and my first video lesson ever. For both piano and ukulele. Afterwards it would be great if we did strength training and then I’d like to watch some Star Trek.

And then the weekend.