Archives for April 2021

Woke up at 5.30 with a start and managed to waste more than two hours before getting up. No yoga even. But I did have Osterzopf for breakfast:

With honey:

Talked with husband and crocheted. Called my mother, learned a bit Chinese, made a list for the day. Woke the boy up and then woke him up again an hour later. We’re both having trouble with getting to bed on time, apparently. He is playing video games with friends online at the moment. It was funny when I tried to explain that to my mother. „You know, it’s like they’re calling each other on the phone through their headsets and then they’re talking while they play the games.“ „But is he going out? For walks at least?“ She doesn’t get it.

My husband was the one who did the dishes. He must have felt weird with not having to cook because his mother was making lunch. I even wore a dress for the occasion:

We had the exact same conversations that we always have but this time everything was nicer because my mother-in-law is fully vaccinated and so we can relax a bit more around her.

In the afternoon I thought about my goals, scrolled through Twitter, was on Ravelry, played Duolingo and just when I wanted to start writing this post my husband showed up wanting to talk to me. About singing technique. And he wanted me to listen to a Crusader song. And one by Joe Cocker. And it was all very sweet but then the boy showed up so we could eat junk food and watch ‚Torchwood‘. Another excellent episode, by the way. And I found two Chinese dramas that I’ve been wanting to watch on Youtube. We might watch those together as well. (It’s „Eternal Love of Dream“ and „Word of Honor“ in case you’re curious.)

The boy took a shower, I watched ‚Find Yourself‘ and when I went to the annex to use the bathroom I found that my husband was feeling rather down again. He didn’t want to talk, though. So I watched some more and looked at my phone for too long until it was too late for yoga and blogging and everything and then my husband showed up ready to talk.

So we talked and I think he felt a little better after that and I started writing this post at 10.30, then did yoga, wrote in my bullet journal, brushed my teeth and flossed, did 15 minutes of very relaxing yoga and finally went to bed.

Guess who didn’t get enough sleep yet again?

Right.

So. Today there will be twenty minutes of running, some laundry, something writing-adjacent and I will map out the rest of the week. I’m longingly thinking of bed already.

Really bad day. I didn’t sleep well, fell back asleep after my alarm, barely managed to squeeze breakfast in before my husband was due to show up. I did manage morning yoga, though, but just because I had left the mat out the evening before. Hurray!

I had downloaded a new game for m iPad, one of those where you ‚merge‘ things and restore a house, you know the kind and I got completely hooked on that. So that was what I did all day.

I did go running and it was great fun, intervals of 400 meters of running and 400 meters of walking for 4.8 k. Yes!

It was pretty cold. I was rather late but that was alright because lunch was late as well:

My husband was feeling extra down and was not in the mood for cooking. It was tasty nonetheless.

I spent the whole afternoon daydreaming, reading and playing that game and one when it was already time for dinner did I manage to finally take a shower. The boy was playing video games with a friend online so I just ate dinner in front of TV. I watched two episodes of ‚Find Yourself‘ and in between I started baking Hefezopf. Because of that I went to bed too late.

I almost forgot to practice Chinese and it was way late before I did my evening yoga.

Today we’ll celebrate Easter with Hefezopf for breakfast and my mother-in-law is making lamb roast for lunch. I’m hoping that I will spend less time on playing games and a bit more on things that make me happy in the long run.

I even started playing one of those silly video games where you just sit there and merge things. Ugh.

I did do yoga twice and I did most of the cleaning and practiced Chinese but that was mostly it.

The boy and I watched ‚Torchwood‘ and it’s still excellent. I also watched 1 1/s episodes of ‚Find yourself‘ and that’s excellent as well.

I asked for a simple vegetarian lunch and my husband complied:

I went to bad too late again.

Today there will be running, the baking of the Osterzopf and the watching of ‚Enterprise‘. We’ll see how much else.

I was pretty optimistic in the morning, Got enough sleep and did my whole morning routine. But then there were only seven minutes left for writing. So I didn’t. And then it turned out my husband was twenty minutes late again. I could have written for almost thirty minutes. Meh.

I did use my time well, though, because instead of waiting for him to show up I started looking for photos I can use for book covers. I might not have found the perfect one yet but at least I tried.

There were chores, the boy got up without prompting, I talked with everyone and my husband offered to do the dishes. So I went out to walk to the supermarket. Which was super-crowded. Everybody who usually would go to the store on Friday was there too! Because today is a public holiday. No shopping!

I got almost everything but no chervil for the traditional soup. My husband had grown some but it wasn’t quite ready yet. And there wasn’t enough for all of us.

I walked back home with three bags of groceries all sweaty because it was really warm and sunny. Then I went out again to see if there was any chervil to be had elsewhere. I bought more groceries at the health food store. And then I went to yet another store but got tired of waiting outside and just walked back home again.

At home my husband was rather frantic and too late with the cooking. The chervil was not enough and full of dirt and he hadn’t had time to do the dishes so there was no space to cook. Fun!

I plucked the dirt off every blade of chervil by hand, re-arranged stuff, my husband cooked and we had the best chervil soup I’ve ever eaten:

And yes, that’s real beer. It’s the holidays after all. There was even a second course:

And here’s the vegetarian option with a soy cutlet:

My first and last student of the day had canceled, so I had enough time to do the dishes right after our very late meal. I took a short break eating way too much chocolate and then I taught two students.

Ate some more chocolate, played Duolingo, scrolled through Twitter or something and then it was time for dinner.

The boy and I watched another episode of ‚Enterprise‘ which was a little better than the last one but that’s the nicest thing I can say about it. I also finished reading „Mad about Ewe“. Not the best book ever but very nice.

After that I watched another episode of ‚Find Yourself‘. It’s still so good even with the re-watching that I didn’t manage to stop until halfway through my second episode. I tidied the kitchen a bit, finally put the extra bread in the freezer, started writing this post, practiced some more Chinese and did the first of the Evening Yoga Challenge.

We’ll see how today will go. There will be cleaning even if it’s Good Friday, there will be crochet and reading and the weaving in of ends, maybe some strength training and maybe something productive even.

I did get enough sleep for once but only because I dozed after my alarm went off and only got up at 6.30. It did do yoga and meditated, so that was good, had breakfast and then did not write. My husband had been angry at me the day before because I was right in the middle of something at the time when he usually shows up in the kitchen so I tried being considerate. Of course, he then was twenty minutes later than usual which means I could totally have gotten half an hour of writing in. Boo.

The boy did actually wake up without prompting and came down for breakfast at 10.30. Woot!

By then my husband had finished his breakfast, we had talked and I had done the dishes.

So I went out for my Wednesday run:

It was warm and dry and there weren’t many people out.

The sun was shining so hard that I was running without a jacket.

I’m only doing twenty minutes of intervals on Mondays and Wednesdays at the moment.

When I came back home it was still early. The mail person rang and I got a mystery package.

It was the first installment of my sock yarn club. I subscribed for three months and had almost forgotten about it. I hope the next picture isn’t a spoiler for you:

There were chocolate, stitch markers and buttons in the little coffee filter cat:

Fun!

My husband had made tofu and green bell pepper from the „Every Grain of Rice“-cookbook. Very tasty:

I did the dishes right away and then my energy for the day was all gone.

I read my way through Twitter and Instagram and was tempted to open Ravelry and got crankier and crankier because I hadn’t done anything important. I did practice a little Chinese in the morning but then just sat there in the kitchen.

Until I just went outside in the garden and found my husband. We sat on his porch, talked about the menu for the next few days (I bought amazing food and it is Easter after all) and we talked a bit. We concluded that these are times where everyone is feeling a little down and productivity is low and that it’s perfectly fine not to get anything done.

So I decided to at least fold the rest of the laundry and think. Unfortunately, that was the time of day where my husband comes and goes and wants to discuss things with me. So I’d be deep in thought for about five minutes, folding laundry and then the door would open. „Do we have bacon? Oh, I just wanted to get the Indian cookbook,“ then he’d be out the door again.

After the folding of the laundry and putting it all away I thought I might work on something novel-related but my husband was still in the menu planning stage so I just did some more Duolingo. It’s easy to put Duolingo down and pick it up again. Not so easy with novel writing.

I did manage to set my bullet journal up for April, at least. I’m not quite sure about my goals for the month. I’m still not getting anything done anyway. We’ll see. I put the same things down as the month before. Not very motivating…

I started writing this post right before dinner, finished it while my husband was eating leftover rice, texted the boy to show up already and then we watched an episode of ‚Torchwood‘ and ate.

I did manage to go to bed on time because one thing is completely clear – I need to do novel-writing in the morning before 8 am. If I don’t it just doesn’t happen.

Today there will be the walk to the supermarket (it will be super-crowded because tomorrow is a public holiday) and I’ll teach all afternoon.