Archives for December 2023

For real.

I had turned the lights out at 12.30 and set my alarm for 6.30 so was a bit tired. I managed to do yoga, meditate and take a shower all before breakfast. Husband was not happy that the whole kitchen was filled with all the dishes from the day before and started angry-washing them while waiting for the water to boil on the wood stove. In between driving each other slightly up the wall we also managed to talk about the fact that the annex was weirdly cold. So, like, maybe there was something wrong with the heating in that part of the house? Husband went into the basement, said there was a blinking light on the circulation pump. I turned everything off, then on again, searched for the manual for the pump and the rest of the furnace, it looked like everything was okay but the annex really was too cold.

 

My husband called our heating guy who said he had no idea when he could come around, he had a cold and a coloscopy scheduled. Bummer.

I did all the dishes and a very quick Duolingo lesson. I had started the second mitten after breakfast and had written morning pages as well. During morning pages I realized how anxious I was about several different things and so I went to find my husband to talk with him about it. I had really bad thought-spirals about all kinds of health stuff. Fun! That’s what one gets when not sleeping enough. Among other things.

Just before I was about to leave the house for an epic round of errands I got a voicemail that heating guy could be expected 15 minutes later. Which meant my husband had to fit him in around making lunch.

I decided to move yogurt-buying to Thursday or today because I was way too late already, went to the pharmacy to get my husband’s meds, to the tea shop and to the health food store.

Well. Apparently the doctor had tried some new-fangled electronic prescription-thing. He had said my husband should be able to get his meds in any pharmacy the day after. Only there was a problem with the data transfer. No surprise there. I’ll try again today, I guess.

The tea shop in advent is a madhouse. There were only two customers in front of me in line and they both did the „I want some tea as a present, no I don’t know what I want, can I have that wrapped in glitter“-routine. Whereas I went in with I’d like 500 grams of this, 250 grams of that and another 250 grams of that other one, thanks.

Went to the health food store and back home where heating guy was working hard. Circulation pump was broken and he was putting a new one in, one that is quite a bit bigger and almost didn’t fit.

Then there was lunch:

Only when we were finished with eating my husband remembered that one of the main reasons for this meal were the sprouts he had cultivated beforehand. No, you can’t see any sprouts in the picture above. The sprouts were at that point sitting on the porch so that they wouldn’t wilt.

The boy did get some into his portion because nocturnal boy is nocturnal again.

I took a very short break, then went to teach all the students. My first student was late which was rather puzzling until I found out that he and his mother were waiting in front of the closed garden gate. I had left it open, securing it with the rope we use for that purpose after coming back home and heating guy must have helpfully closed it again.

Teaching included a possible new student, a kindergartener who was very cute and me and my best singing student learning a new Scarlatti aria together which was rather fun. Especially because one of the big anxieties in my morning pages had been losing my voice and never being able to sing properly again and then I went on to sing for almost an hour and afterwards my voice was strained, yes, but not completely shot.

Seems I need to add daily singing warm-up to the list, along with thrice daily stretching, and all the other stuff I need to do.

I ate dinner, started writing this post, did the dishes, more Duolingo, a bit of C-drama and went to bed a little earlier.

Today I have a doctor’s appointment that means I need to leave the house at 8. I can tell already that that was a really bad idea and that it will throw me off for the rest of the day.

Woke up from the alarm at 6.45 and did my whole morning routine. Which was a great start into the week I’d say.

Then I had breakfast and talked with my husband while he was starting the fire. I finished the first mitten for my mother and continued reading:

Husband left for a doctor’s appointment and I took so long knitting, reading and playing games that I hadn’t started the breakfast dishes before he came back. I did fold a bit of laundry but found that not all was dry due to inefficient hanging and so couldn’t finish that task. I maybe should pin a note to the drying racks reminding everyone that crumpled fabric takes a lot longer to dry.

I had planned to do bodyweight training and open the manuscript but then got a voicemail from an official-sounding woman asking if we had returned the cards she had put in our mailbox on November 29th regarding reading the electricity meters. You know, those cards.

I dimly remembered reading at least one meter, maybe two and reporting in but I distinctly remembered one of them meant moving the big table in the laundry room which means it must have been the water meter. And maybe the gas meter. But I’m not sure because I’ve done it so many times I don’t remember. I could look that one up, though.

So I looked for a card. And asked my husband. And remembered the letter we got from the electricity company that I still hadn’t read properly that turned out to tell us the new (higher) prices. Then I went upstairs and asked my mother-in-law who pulled out a letter from the phone company that she had been wanting to talk to me about. I assured her that while the phone company would prefer her to receive her monthly bill by email she was not required to get an email address to make their life easier. We determined that if there ever had been any cards we certainly didn’t have them.

I called the woman back after taking pictures of the two meters in the basement. We have two and I never remember which is for which part of the house. The whole thing is made even more complicated because decades past the family made the decision to put the electricity for out part of the house – which used to be the grandparents’ apartment – on my father-in-law’s account and my mother-in-law’s electricity use gets recorded on what used to be the grandfather’s account because he used to work at the then electricity company and got a cheaper rate. Oh, and the top floor is connected to the meter for the first floor apartment. Naturally. In practice there are two accounts, one on my husband and one on my mother-in-law, my mother-in-law pays it all and gets a flat rate for electricity, insurance, garbage disposal, water and other stuff from us. While we pay for gas. And yes, it’s a slightly wonky system.

Anyways, there I was, talking to this woman on the phone who was sure she had given us cards and while I was trying to sort everything out my mother-in-law burst into the room, excitedly waving a newspaper clipping around that said the peopled from the electricity company would come to read the meters some time between October and January. I think that was meant to prove that the woman was in the wrong and we had done everything right but I think that maybe she rang the doorbell, found no one home and thought she had dropped the cards in the mailbox but we’ll never know.

Again, I pushed my mother-in-law out the door as gently as possible while the woman on the phone realized that she had put the numbers from the wrong meter in. Because we had a misunderstanding. She hadn’t really concluded the action but she also had no idea how to change the numbers, so that was fun. In the end she took a note (at least I hope she did) of the readings for both meters and told me that she would have to sort it all out later when in the office.

So we might get a very weird electricity bill. Or not, we’ll see.

Then there was lunch:

I took a bit of a break after that, failed to do the dishes, tried printing two cookie recipes and writing a new, simplified version of „Happy Birthday“ for my first student of the day but the printer was acting up a bit and so I had to finish writing the song down while he was already there.

My next to last student canceled and my last student was still out with covid so you’d think I would have had a lot of time in the evenings. Um, no.

I did some bodyweight training, ate dinner and then fell into a time vortex until the boy showed up at 10.30 just as I had started writing this post. We talked at length, I finally started writing and decided to leave the dishes, the shower and the C-drama for today. A decision that will bite me today for sure.

And today will be extra full, of course, with errands and endless teaching. Well, at least I’m looking forward to book two in the ‚Tokyo MPD Mysteries“ series.

I fell back asleep after waking up from my alarm and then decided to just embrace a leisurely morning. No morning pages, no yoga, nada.

It still was somewhat busy with the whole blog post to write and dishes and talking to my mother on the phone for 45 minutes. She doesn’t mind living alone but it shows that she doesn’t have anyone around the house she can talk to. Which is okay but then for me that phone call was wedged in between blogging and doing dishes before making pizza from scratch. Which meant lunch was late again:

The pizza was nice but, as I said, I’m a bit over frozen mushrooms.

I fell into a bit of an afternoon slump. I had seen the boy first thing in the morning but that was it until around four in the afternoon. So we did not bake cookies because it was too late for the day. I did read quite a bit, watched some more of the „plan your writing year“-video from the day before while knitting, read quite a bit and played some silly iPad games.

Ate leftover pizza for dinner, sat around some more while scrolling through social media, finally did the dishes, watched some C-drama and went to bed.

This week is pretty full already, fingers crossed that I’ll get to the interesting and important stuff as well.

I also didn’t do everything I wanted but, well, that was a long list anyway.

I woke up early enough to do my full morning routine, always a good sign and when I sat down to contemplate what to do in which order my husband started talking about what to make for lunch and said, „I was thinking gnocchi!”

Sure. No problem. I frantically rearranged my day in my head while he added, „I can make them without help.”

Sure.

After finishing my blog post, doing Duolingo, washing the dishes and brushing my teeth it was already noon and time to start the gnocchi. I decided to cut the cleaning in half again and vacuumed the annex. Then there was frantic gnocchi-making and lunch at 2:

That is a tomato sauce with frozen chanterelles, by the way. When I first found frozen mushrooms at the supermarket I was thrilled but I have to say after eating frozen mushrooms weekly for more than a year the thrill has definitely gone down a bit. They definitely taste better fresh.

After that I took a long break unable to make myself do anything because the list was too long, as one does. Around 4 I took my to-do list, prioritized things and made a note how long everything would take and so it became clear that I definitely couldn’t do everything. I had looked at cookie recipes in the morning and realized that I hadn’t bought enough ingredients. Oops. The boy volunteered to go to the supermarket and we decided to do the baking today.

One major thing went well, though. The lightbulb in our oven had burnt out a couple of weeks ago. I did some research and ordered a replacement bulb. When it came I tried changing it but couldn’t unscrew the cover. So I tried again yesterday morning after watching a video about it, and again I couldn’t do it, my fingers hurt but weren’t strong enough.

In the evening I talked about it with my husband, emptied the oven for the second time that day and took the oven door off, handed him a latex glove for better grip and he managed to unscrew the cover and found that the glass part of the bulb had separated itself from the base. He tried unscrewing that with pliers while I was holding a flashlight but no way. So I tried and got it unscrewed, I put the new bulb in while he was cleaning the cover and now we have a functioning oven light again just in time for making Christmas cookies. Phew.

So I changed the sheets, vacuumed the old part of the house, took a shower and gave myself a much needed pedicure almost in time to meet with the boy at 6 to watch ‚Doctor Who‘. Me being late was not a problem because the boy was late by the same amount of time. We both like the second new special but it didn’t feel all that special. Solid episode, though.

Then did the many, many dishes and again was a little late to the start of the YouTube live which was not a problem. I have taken both of Sara Cannon’s courses and have been watching here videos many times so it’s not like everything she talks about is new to me. I did eventually sit down in front of TV watching her with while knitting but found that I was not really able to focus and watched some C-drama instead.

Then I sat around almost dozing off, too tired to even open social media until I finally went to bed. And I even managed to read in bed for a bit.

Today will be equally full, there is the weekly phone call with my mother, making pizza from scratch, possible baking, Chinese, planning the week and another YouTube-thing that I will probably skip.

Last night I actually forgot to start writing this post which is unusual.

Yesterday morning I did the yoga and meditation first thing but was too slow for morning pages. I was feeling very low and a bit hopeless. Everything took ages again but I decided to write morning pages regardless and through that managed to think myself into a better frame of mind. Re-framing can be very powerful.

And then, even though I really didn’t have the time I opened the manuscript for twenty minutes. It was slow going and the part that I worked on needed way more revising than I thought it would but after that I felt much better. I also vented my frustration about the nearer supermarket, the fact that I can never find anything there and my feet hurting so that I can’t do what I want.

Then I ordered some kinesiology tape, walked to the nearby supermarket while listening to BTS and just took my time finding everything. I had to circle the store three times to find canned asparagus and three more times for trash bags but now I know where to find those. It wasn’t fun but I just repeated in my head, „It takes as long as it takes.”

When I came back home half an hour late my husband had already started to worry. Lunch was delicious again:

Then I talked a bit with the boy, we did the dishes together before I had a short break with some chocolate and then it was time for teaching. I had a pretty long teaching day but a planned break in the middle plus a student not showing up. I really need to contact the parents of this particular student to remind them again to please tell me when he doesn’t show beforehand. Not only is it a weird feeling to sit there waiting for the whole time that lesson would have taken, it could also be that something happened to him on the way and no one would find out until much later. There are students where I start worrying right away because they are usually so punctual and then there are others where I just shrug my shoulders thinking they probably forgot again.

After teaching I ate dinner, did Duolingo and some other Chinese app even though I was already pretty tired, crocheted in front of an episode of C-drama, washed my face and everything, got ready for bed and read for fifteen minutes before turning the lights off.

This morning I’m well rest and everything. Huh.

And now I have to run because today will be another extremely full day. But first I’ll open the manuscript.