Archives for November 2023

But that won’t happen after only six hours of sleep. Again.

I had one of those evenings where I was late, then did most of my usual evening things, decided to watch some C-drama even though it was already time for bed, then remembered something else I should have been doing but decided against it and then I just sat there for almost two hours. As one does.

I did sleep well, at least, but overslept, made the bright decision again to move the morning routine to after breakfast because of lack of time, and then… just sat there again. My husband had a doctor’s appointment and I did none of the things I wanted to do until after he came back. Oops.

At least I managed to order Chinese takeout:

After that I talked with the boy, then taught a few students, finally did the bodyweight training I had planned to do before lunch and then met with the boy to watch the first episode of season 4 of Star Trek Discovery. We’re not sure if we’ll continue watching it, we might just go back to Farscape. Lots of pretty explosions and effects, characters we had come to like but all in all a bit boring?

Then I ordered some Christmas and birthday presents, did Duolingo, started writing this post, did the dishes, watched an episode of C-drama and went to bed somewhat earlier.

Today will be extra busy, that’s just the nature of Thursdays.

But no yoga again because I slept in.

There is a bit less time in the mornings at the moment, first of all I am sleeping a bit longer and second, my husband is starting the wood stove first thing and it takes a while to get the water boiling for tea.

I did all the errands, the supermarket with my favorite yogurt, picked up my new insoles, went to the pharmacy, the tea shop and then to the health food store. My new insoles feel wonderful and it seems the old pair that is just a few weeks old is already worn out with inadequate arch support. I guess even the reduced amount of walking I do is still a lot.

In the tea shop I had a lovely chat with the owner while she filled several little bags with different kinds of fruit tea. I’m looking forward to trying them all and decide which one is my favorite.

Lunch was a little late, in part because I was bringing the green beans:

We don’t eat steak often, it was very good. Also, green beans are one of my favorite veggies.

At the health food store I grabbed all the meat, chicken breasts were on sale, they had pork chops and some venison. I stuck all of it in the freezer.

After lunch I canceled my Netflix subscription because none of us is actually watching anything on there. I might try to binge „Queen Charlotte“ in the next 12 days but maybe I won’t.

Then a long teaching day with two nice breaks, during one of them I caught a bit of a Zoom call, during the other I printed my ticket for „MunichKnits“ on the weekend. After teaching there was dinner while reading something online, checking my feed reader, starting this post and then it was already almost 9 pm. I still wanted to do Duolingo, the dishes and watch something on TV. On my list was also to do some more Chinese but, well…

Today will probably be a little less busy. Husband has a doctor’s appointment in the morning, I would love to do some strength training and then we’ll see.

I actually slept in and was only vaguely aware that the boy got himself breakfast at 7. So no morning routine but I did sleep well and for eight hours.

Then the usual morning things including folding three loads of laundry just before lunch. For the first time in a while I also did bodyweight training and some foot strengthening exercises.

Lunch was risotto cooked on the wood stove, very tasty:

Then I read and played silly games and waited for my husband to tell me that I could use hot water again after his showed but he forgot and so my cue to finally cleaning myself up was when the drum lesson in the basement started.

I had two students cancel and one forget their lesson so a rather light teaching day.

Overate at dinnertime because I got to eat my favorite bread and also decided that I needed all the grissini and some chocolate. When, in fact, I definitely did not need them. Very tasty, though.

Then time just disappeared for a while, I started writing this post, finally did the dishes, did Duolingo and watched some C-drama while knitting.

Today there will be all the things again, all the errands and all the students. Health food store, picking up my new insoles, tea shop and pharmacy. Lots of walking.

So in the end I got less than six hours of sleep. Woke up at 7.30 from the alarm, did a full morning routine and was in a much better mood. I also was a little more productive than the day before but did lose big chunks of time to being super distractible.

I did not manage to mend anything but did knit a couple of rounds on the sweater-in-progress. I called my mother on the phone and near the end the call just dropped. It turned out that our internet was the culprit. Not sure if it was the provider or something else but I did restart the router and since then everything has been fine.

The boy ate breakfast with us and then went outside to shovel snow. He actually remembered that we had talked about this and I was very grateful. The weather was gorgeous, snow and blue skies. I should have taken a picture but I didn’t.

Lunch was tagliatelle with porcini-tomato sauce and a mixed salad:

Then I ate some chocolate and drank some more herbal tea. No peppermint tea anymore. I also found that the antiseptic lozenges don’t agree with my poor tummy. They contain peppermint oil.

I spent the afternoon mostly playing silly games and reading a chat online but I also cleaned the washbasins and toilets, refilled two fountain pens only to find that the next one I wanted to use was also out of ink, folded a load of laundry and helped start another one, planned the week and finished watching a recorded Zoom call about intuitive writing, and did a lot of dishes.

I ate dinner on time which is an achievement in and of itself, did Duolingo, started writing this post and actually started watching my C-drama around 8. I bought yet another book („A Merry Life“ by Sarah Branson). I met the author online, heard that it had Firefly vibes and that was it.

So a pretty good day I would say. And my voice is getting a little better. Fingers crossed that I’ll be back in singing shape by Thursday. And today it’s back to teaching.

I had a long list of things I wanted to get done, I did only very few but that’s okay.

Since I went to bed too late I skipped my morning pages in favor of more sleep. I did do yoga and then forgot about meditation. The boy showed up while I was in down dog so that’s my excuse.

There was a bit of snow on the ground. Not enough that it needed shoveling but enough that I went outside with the bucket of gravel so that no one would slip on the sidewalk in front of our house.

There was breakfast and then I finished knitting the neckband of the sweater-in-progress. Doing a sewn tubular bind-off takes quite a bit of time. I read and played iPad games and such which meant I was a little late with everything else. So instead of doing the dishes and finishing cleaning the bathrooms I only got almost done with the dishes before my husband came back from his run.

So lunch was half an hour late:

Sorry for the messy picture, I was so hungry that I forgot to take one before starting to eat.

I sat around some more, did a load of wool things and another load of darks, hung both up, bought Dani Donovan’s Anti-Planner in a pretty typical and impulsive way, did some Duolingo, ate dinner, sat around some more dreading doing the dishes, watched an episode of „Only for Love“ and went to bed.

Oh, and I gathered supplies for mending two of my husband’s sweaters and a pair of sweatpants. After the third attempt I actually unearthed a small ball of the handspun I used for knitting one of the sweaters which is pretty cool. What’s not as cool is that not only does the sweater have two seams that need some mending, it also has a sleeve that is worn thin with a hole that will need some more extensive repair. I’m thinking duplicate stitch.

The second one need the sleeves shortened which is unfortunate because they’re knit bottom-up. The plan is to snip a stitch, pull out a row, put the stitches on the needles and knit a new cuff. This is made more complicated by the fact that the whole sweater has ribbing all over and the sleeves have very intricate cables. I will have to decide on where to chop the cable pattern and then it might be a good idea to either put a purl row in or knit the cuff in a completely different ribbing pattern. Or maybe just cut, take the resulting stitches and bind off.

I guess that will need some more thought.

As for the sweatpants they don’t need to look good, they just need to hold up. There is a big rip where the waistband parted ways with the back. The tear shows that my son hitches his pants up the exact same way that I do but with his right hand instead of the left. My favorite pair of jeans had a hole in a corresponding place and is now sporting a piece of denim there after repairs.

I do own a very nice book about visible mending but it doesn’t say anything about knits and also not about invisible mending which is what I usually need.

And writing this meant I realized I could just look at YouTube tutorials, duh.

Sorry for going on and on about mending but then you helped me think and I know I’m not the only one enjoying endless tangents…