Archives for March 2021

Woke up a little late, did yoga but nothing else before it was time to make breakfast. The boy was extra late and skipped breakfast before his test. He came back an hour later and ate then.

We did all the usual stuff, I went running/walking for about twenty minutes:

Took a shower and had lunch with my husband, the boy was eating with his grandmother.

The bratwurst is made from lamb, first time ever that I saw something like this in the supermarket, so I had to get them, of course.

Then there was not quite enough time to do the dishes.

I taught all the students. While teaching my last student of the day I heard an incessant beeping noise but had no idea what that was. Also, it was starting to smell like smoke. That was weird. Since it was only five minutes before the end of my lesson and since I heard nothing else and was not sure if the beeping was outside or inside I let it be until I got off work.

Turned out that my husband had forgotten to turn the stove off after reheating the rest of the mashed potatoes for the boy. The whole house smelled of smoke and all the windows were open.

Fortunately, my mother-in-law had heard the smoke alarm and had fetched my husband right out of his last lesson of the day. I haven’t assessed the damage to the pot yet, it is sitting outside on the porch.

Afterwards got ready for my virtual knitting meeting. Got everything set up, settled down with my tablet and crochet, started listening to the first few people, found that 25 people was just way too much and that I was definitely not in the mood for more talking over screens and logged out again. Settled in fron of Netflix instead.

I did settle for too long and then it was too late for everything yet again. I decided to let the dirty dishes be dirty dishes, started writing this post and got ready for bed way too late yet again.

Today there will be a huge pile of dishes, walking to the supermarket, quite a bit of teaching and hopefully an earlier night. And the boy has a German test.

Since I was so set on getting all the things done on Monday I went to bed too late and that set off a chain reaction resulting in almost nothing getting done on Tuesday.

So, apparently that Monday was a bit too much.

I woke up at 6, rolled out of bed fifteen minutes later, did yoga and decided that it was too late to meditate or write morning pages. (It wasn’t. Not really.) Made breakfast for the boy who was late as well because he didn’t need to leave the house. When he was done I told myself there was no time to write and proceeded scrolling through Twitter and the news. Hence giving up twenty perfect minutes for writing fiction.

My husband showed up, we talked, the usual.

I did most of the dishes but not all because I was still slow and late, went to two different health food stores while listening to a Chinese podcast. Not only do I still no understand anything, this one also came with annoying background music. I have no idea why people insist on putting awful, artificial, cheap music behind their talking voices but I can say that if you do that – I’m out. As a musician it feels like listening to two conversations at one. One is boring and annoying and the other is in Chinese. Um, no.

When I came back a few nice men were operating heavy machinery in front of our garden gate. Apparently, they put new pipes in. So I spent the rest of the morning feeling off because of construction noise.

My husband made chili:

I then had to ask my student when her lesson was because my phone had borked calendar sync. That was fun. I had a long, long break until my first lesson of the day and filled that with, doing nothing, then reconciling my budget which included emptying my wallet and counting all the change. I ended up with about 350 more Euros than I thought I had which is weird. But I checked all the accounts, the credit card, PayPal and cash. And having more money than expected is way better than having less.

I promptly put some of it into my travel fund and the rest into the eating out fund. My husband just told me he had put some cash into his travel fund as well. As a sign of hope even though we won’t be traveling anytime soon.

By the way he seems to feel a little better. Not quite as doom and gloom.

So I taught my three students, did some teaching admin, talked with my husband, started writing this post, had dinner, practiced Chinese and went to bed. No writing.

Today there will be all the things (I hope) including running, teaching way too many students and then I will attend a virtual knitting meeting. In order to make it more enjoyable I will probably leave my studio, connect the iPad to the big TV in the living room and sit there. It’s more comfy and won’t feel like work. The wifi is not as good, though, and I have never tried using Jitsi on the iPad. We’ll see how that goes.

Which is weird. Especially since my husband has much less energy at the moment. I’m hoping that when the weather changes soon he’ll feel better.

I woke up early, lounged in bed for half an hour again and did my full morning routine. Made breakfast in tie for the boy to go to school and then worked on the novel-in-progress for half an hour before my husband showed up for his breakfast.

We talked, I crocheted, the wood stove warmed the house. I was pretty late for my run because I had looked up stuff on the internet and had ordered a workbook for writing Chinese characters. When I got ready to go out the boy was already back from school. Because the last two periods were online instead of in-person. Shrug.

Running was nice. I’m liking these short twenty minute runs:

Yes, it’s still very muddy. I put my running shoes in the washing machine on the weekend and found that there is a small hole between between the first two toes on my left shoe. Now I know why my feet are instantly wet in that shoe and why I end up with mud all over my feet. Running still was fun.

I listened to a podcast in Chinese (an American comedian who does a Chinese podcast). It was fun even though I’m still at the point where it sounds like, garble, garble,garble, the US, garble, Chinese people, garble, garble, I don’t understand, garble, yes. I think I got a gist of what they were talking about and could hear different accents and mannerisms for each of the two guys talking but that was it.

Maybe I’ll look for a Chinese podcast by someone who actually is Chinese the next time.

At home I took a shower while my husband made lunch. I was very hungry and lunch was delicious:

There is cream sauce and ham somewhere underneath the huge pile of pasta. While eating we looked up pasta Alfredo. My husband had never heard of it. Apparently it’s a thing in the US. For Italians it is just pasta burro, pasta with butter and parmesan, nothing fancy. But there are versions with cream and all kinds of stuff added to it which is why I thought of it when seeing my husband’s cooking.

I did the dishes, took a short break, played Duolingo and taught all afternoon. Afterwards I started writing this post, then I ate dinner in front of TV, learned some more Chinese and did a bit of revision before going to bed.

Today is the day I go to the health food store and only teach three students. I’m hoping for more words and the usual.

I’m surprising myself.

I woke up around six and did my full morning routine, including 25 minutes of fiction writing. Yeah! I gave myself a gold star for that.

My husband showed up a little late. Since I anticipated that – he has been getting up about ten to fifteen minutes later than he said he would for weeks now – I was able to use that time to write some new words. Woot!

He built a fire, I worked on my crochet blanket, he had breakfast, we talked. He is really depressed still but there is nothing we can do about it for now. Most of it is due to the ‚current situation‘. Infection numbers are rising. Meh.

I did the dishes and started an update for my Apple Watch. Which took way longer than I thought it would, up to the point where I just took my watch and went on my run even though the update was still in progress. The boy got up without prompting (yeah!) and had breakfast. He did help me with dishes, even.

Running was a lot of fun. I did a 4.8 k run with running and walking intervals of 0.4 k each. Very satisfying:

There weren’t many people out, no idea why.

I came back home and waited for my husband who was running a way longer loop. I wanted him to shower first because he uses the shower in the annex and that one runs out of hot water pretty often. I use the one in the old part of the house and the water stays hot way longer.

My husband did all the cooking:

He had this idea of doing something with lamb and sour cherries like that Persian dish a friend of us makes. So he used lamb, made risotto, used yoghurt and the sour cherry jam I made last summer and there are also a few green bell peppers that we had in the fridge. It was good but a little weird. Don’t put verbena in your yoghurt, by the way.

Then the boy and I did the dishes again, I took a long break, wrote more words, played Stardew Valley, practiced Chinese, wrote a few index cards with Chinese characters (they still look pretty awful), had an early dinner, practiced some more Chinese and then the boy and I watched some Chinese TV. We saw the penultimate episode of ‚Eternal Love‘. It was a little slow and full of passionate speeches but they did a good job of setting up the spin-off series. Now we just have to find out where to watch it here in Germany. Might not be that easy.

I also watched an episode of ‚Find Yourself‘, started writing this post and failed to work on revision for that other novel.

Other than that I’m very pleased with the day.

Today there will be the traditional phone call to my mother, more writing (I hope), more Chinese, some revision and the watching of ‚Star Trek:Enterprise‘. We haven’t made any progress on that series for ten days or so so it’s about time.

Woke up early, fell back asleep, got up at 6.20. So no morning pages but yoga and meditation. Made breakfast for the boy and me, he went to school a little late, my husband also has been getting up later. He is still feeling a bit down and doesn’t really want to get out of bed in the mornings.

There was snow outside. But I didn’t have to shovel because there wasn’t that much. It was pretty but made running somewhat harder for my husband.

I did start cleaning the house but had one of those days where you’re distracted all the time and so I was far from done when my husband came back. We did manage to work around each other for once, though, so he was making pizza dough in the kitchen while I vacuumed that annex and then he took a shower in the annex while I vacuumed the old part of the house and I did get the cleaning done just in time to help with the pizza and salad.

Lunch tasted wonderful and was even on time:

Then the boy and I talked until it was time for me to start teaching.

After the first student I remembered the load of laundry I had started and hung that up, practiced Chinese and ate a snack. Then another student, ten minutes of strength training (first time all month, yeah!), some YouTube and then I started revising the first Eva Mandel novel. It took me twenty minutes to get through six pages so that might take some time. The whole thing has 363 pages. Oops. That would be twenty hours. On the other hand the first few pages always take more time to revise. At least I hope so.

Then the last student of the day.

The boy and I watched an episode of ‚Torchwood‘. One of my favorites. Then I watched an episode of ‚Find Yourself‘ while the boy took a shower, the two of us did all the dishes, I started writing this post and got ready for bed.

Today there will be running, more revision, some writing (I hope) and maybe some mending. Also Netflix. And I started playing around with Chinese, trying to form my own sentences and write them down instead of just relying on what the apps are giving me. It’s really hard but also fun. Writing in Chinese is totally kicking my ass, so there’s a lot to learn. That will be fun! Also frustrating but I don’t mind.