Also, why did no one tell me that I had a typo in the headline? Tsk. I only saw it when I replied to Konstanze’s comment just now.
So things continue to be rather busy but I’m doing okay. Ish.
We waited for my mother-in-law to return home until 11 or so, then talked to her briefly. She was very happy to be back home, especially since she had been sharing a bed with her sister-in-law because the other bed was downstairs at the end of the steep stone staircase that she was afraid of going down. My mother-in-law like my husband and son is a night owl but her sister-in-law is a lark and insisted on going to bed around 9 and getting up at 6. Fun!
The whole ordeal brought home to all of us how bad it is to live in a rural place when you’re old, you can’t drive anymore and don’t have any relatives nearby to help you out. The two of them couldn’t even get groceries. The lone grocery store in the village is one kilometer away, at the bottom of a steep hill and the buses are only for carting school children to school and back. Whereas here where we live my mother-in-law can take buses all over town, can easily walk one kilometer because it’s all flat and there are several grocery stores within walking distance for her even when she can’t walk far.
My mother lives in a small town where you can’t get anywhere without a car as well and there are almost no buses and no taxi service. There are some doctors in town but for most things she needs to go to one of the bigger towns a little further away. Nope, I’m all for staying here. My husband has been making noises about maybe moving into his aunt’s house eventually but no, I don’t want to.
I then did some housework, went grocery shopping with my bike, made frozen pizza and had lunch with the boy and then sat around talking to him instead of doing any of the things I had planned to do. My first and last student canceled and one who was supposed to come in today. Did I make good use of the extra time? I did not.
I did eat dinner early, talked with my husband about his lunch date with a friend he hadn’t seen in ages, another tale of how it’s not good to be alone when you’re older. She lives alone in a house too big for her, her daughters don’t come to visit often and she feels rather lonely.
All of that puts all the bickering and fighting with my husband into perspective, doesn’t it? And also, we aren’t fighting a lot at the moment which I really appreciate.
I also had a long conversation with the boy after dinner because he needed to enroll for all his courses for the upcoming semester. He needed to take one course that is not physics. There were a lot of courses like „something, entrepreneurship,global diversity and AI“, one buzzword after the other. He was thinking about taking a language, maybe Chinese but doesn’t want to do team work. He finally settled on „social psychology“ which sounds very interesting (for both of us) doesn’t overlap with any of his other courses and while it is on Fridays it’s not all the way out in Garching (more than one hour each way) but instead right in the middle of Munich (half an hour each way).
I’m trying to make him actually attend his lectures this semester, wish me luck.
After that I did Chinese and then opened the manuscript a little late. I had spent the break between students looking up stats and calculating that I could finish revision for both book 2 and 3 before the end of October if I spend two hours per day on it.
Sure. Piece of cake. Never mind that so far this month I had spent all of 2 1/2 hour all in all. Stay tuned.
And today there will be another jam-packed Friday. On the list there is laundry, dishes, cleaning, teaching only three students again, novel revision, reading, deciding if I want to buy two books about learning or not, Chinese, maybe including some writing which I never do, watching another episode of C-drama and going to bed on time. Bonus points for mopping the floors.
And of course I want to buy the books plus they would be tax deductible. But on the other hand I have hundreds of really interesting unread books sitting there. Hm.
Okay, who am I kidding…
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