Archives for December 2023

I actually went to bed at a reasonable time and woke up from my alarm around 6.30. Which was good. Then I briefly checked my email and saw Konstanze’s comment about my blog not showing up in feedreaders and that sent me for a spin. I tried focusing on the important stuff instead and telling myself I’d have enough time to deal with that issue later in the day but, well.

And I am perfectly aware that everybody says not to check email first thing but I’ve been doing it for years now, just a brief check on my watch and then I go about my day.

So I wrote morning pages, then decided to switch meditation and yoga around which meant I did meditate but not do yoga. Figures.

All the morning things were drawn out very, very long because it took so long to get the fire going and get water for tea boiling on the wood stove and then people went in and out and back into the kitchen again until my focus was shot. In between I managed to have a look at the blog, fully braced to have to overhaul everything and install a new theme but then I saw a plugin that was leading nowhere because the service it had been accessing doesn’t exist anymore. I turned that one off and lo and behold all the post landed in the feedreader again. Phew.

Husband was stressed out when cooking again and at one point was irritated that the box with the boy’s new desk chair was sitting right at the garden gate. With the implication that I should have done something about it. When in fact I was still waiting for the delivery, it said the time window was 2.30 to 3.30 and no one had rung the doorbell.

Well, see for yourself:

And that box was heavy enough that if no one had been home we wouldn’t have been able to open that gate from the outside. On the box it says „this side up“ and „keep dry“ and the side that is supposed to be up is on the right right now. I am very cross with the delivery person. I mean, I get that they’re in a hurry and that delivery is no fun in this weather but they could have rung the doorbell.

The box is heavy enough that I can’t lift it, so I basically tumbled it towards the house and up the front steps. And after lunch I made the boy help me get it upstairs. I made the mistake of being on the bottom of the stairs so that I didn’t need to go backwards but that meant I had to carry most of the weight. And the boy is not very experienced at getting heavy things around corners. My husband and I have done this dance many times up and down those same stairs but the boy was a bit confused when I told him to back into my mother-in-laws apartment and then into her bedroom so we could do a 3-point turn in her hallway.

Well, the stairs to the third floor (second floor for those of you who count in German) are not only narrow and super steep they also have a ton of small things hanging on the walls and stored on the outside of the steps. We almost got stuck and there was a point where the box was slipping out of both our hands while none of us had enough strength left to push it over the top step but with a desperate shove we got a corner over the edge. Phew.

The chair is my mother-in-law’s birthday and Christmas present for the boy. His old one is starting to lose screws right and left and it is creaking which means my poor mother-in-law often wakes up in the night just because he is sitting in his chair playing games.

Lunch was the result of my husband asking me what he should make. I started from „we haven’t had rice in a while“ and ended up at chicken, broccoli and rice:

Lunch was delicious but pretty late so I only had a very short break before teaching. One cancelation and I was done by five. I ate an early dinner, spent a lot of time on the internet, talked briefly to my husband, started writing this post, finally did the dishes, put away the laundry that I had folded before lunch, did Duolingo, watched C-drama and went to bed.

Today will be super busy with the supermarket run and an extra long teaching day.

And using a different alarm did make a difference, I did get out of bed almost on time and managed my whole morning routine. Husband was a little miffed that I was still taking my blood pressure when he showed up but that didn’t take long.

I did spend a little more time reading and crocheting than I wanted but actually did open the manuscript for the first time in two weeks or so.

I did the dishes and brushed my teeth and then went off to see my doctor. I wanted to talk to him about the reflux issue to see what I should do until my gastroscopy in February and got a metaphorical pat on the back, I’m doing everything right, apparently. While I was there I also got my third FSME shot.

Then I went to the supermarket where I get our yogurt, then to a drugstore where I didn’t get what I was looking for, then the pharmacy and then the health food store. Came back home around lunchtime but my husband wasn’t finished cooking yet. He was doing a recipe and harvesting arugula and preparing it had taken way longer than expected. The big bowl of arugula melted down to almost nothing:

After lunch the boy and I talked a bit until I was almost late for teaching.

I had one student canceling and two who wanted their lessons online, did some teaching admin and was finished earlier than usual. Ate dinner, talked with the boy some more, did the dishes, started writing this post, finally took a shower, did Duolingo, watched some C-drama while crocheting and went to bed.

Today should be a pretty short teaching day. I probably won’t do any strength training so I can rest after my shot. Maybe I’ll even get around to opening the manuscript again.

Yesterday was busy, I overslept again and kept wondering what was wrong with the alarm on my smartwatch up to the point where I actually checked the accompanying phone app and found that the alarm app doesn’t work with the new OS. Which explains a lot. If I set my alarm for 6.45 but it doesn’t go off, of course I’ll keep waking up at 7.30. So using a different alarm it was.

Everything else was late and took ages as well and then there was lots and lots of teaching. It was freezing still and we were all happy we didn’t need to go anywhere because there was still no train service the whole day.

My husband tried going for a run, well, he did but a lot of the trees in the woods had fallen and while someone had cleared the path it was slippery and it was hard going. I am not really doing cardio at the moment because my feet still hurt but I did bodyweight training.

Had plans of taking a shower but ran out of time. Lunch was fish, potatoes, peas and carrots:

In addition to teaching I did some admin and changed the BRITA filter. I looked up an astonishingly high number of things on Wikipedia. How a photocopier works, if Bulgarian is using Cyrillic script, how the earth looked millions of years ago and also where Munich subway trains are parked over night.

I didn’t really understand copier mechanics but Cyrillic was actually invented in Bulgaria, there are two subway depots in Munich but only one has repair facilities and that one is situated up north and also each endpoint of a line has space to park trains.

Oh, and I got my Duolingo report:

Apparently I learned 1593 words or so over several languages, mostly Chinese and Korean.

I did watch an episode of C-drama while almost falling asleep and then went to bed.

Today will be super busy as well, health food store, doctor’s appointment, lots and lots of teaching. The usual.

I woke up a little late and went on Twitter first thing, so no morning routine. I did have a leisurely breakfast instead which was nice.

I finally wove all the ends in on my husband’s sweater, it is finished now:

I briefly thought about going to the Munich Knits event after all but there were no trains still and it was freezing cold.

I talked to my mother on the phone, did the breakfast dishes and Duolingo, sat around playing silly games while my husband cooked lunch and we all ate together. There were red beans and polenta because we had leftover Bolognese sauce. It was very yummy:

I spent the afternoon pottering around, I vacuumed the old part of the house, cleaned the washbasins and toilets, hung up a load of laundry, went online a lot, planned the week ahead, made an appointment for a dental cleaning and watched quite a bit of YouTube. I also ordered some yarn for my mother’s Christmas present. We don’t usually do presents but when she saw my pair of Kærlig mittens she asked me to make her a pair as well, so that’s what I’ll be doing.

Then I started writing this post, ate dinner, finally watched ‚Doctor Who‘ with the boy, did Duolingo, planned for today, read a bit and went to bed.

I have a full week ahead, lots of teaching and such. I’d like to get the ingredients for making Christmas cookies and am hoping the boy will be interested in making them together.

Are you into holiday things? Decorations? Special food?

Somehow I overslept, I think the smartwatch that I use as an alarm might be glitching. Might also be user error. So I woke up at 7.30, got up, looked outside and it was clear that something needed to be done about the snow. So I texted the boy while my husband was showing up, already unsure on how to get to the snow shovels in the backyard. This is the view out to the front, the path between the house and the hedge is completely blocked and half the hedge has almost toppled over:

View out the back:

So we all put on some clothes, jackets and gloves and went shoveling.

And this is the view of the path between the front door and the garage with part of the hedge almost broken off. That part added its snow to the path underneath. You can see the snow on the path is as high as the front door steps. Husband measured 47 centimeters at one point:

I got up at 7.30 and started making breakfast at 9. The boy shoveled like a crazy person and my husband excavated the whole path between the side gate and the back of the garden.

Then I built a fire:

So it was clear that I would not go to Munich for the yarn event. I didn’t want to risk getting stranded somewhere and also there were no trains going. So I settled in at home for the rest of the day.

We had lentils and potatoes for lunch:

I spent a rather leisurely afternoon sitting, reading, reviewing November and planning for December. The boy and I had agreed to watch ‘Doctor Who‘ in the evening but he didn’t set a timer and so he forgot.

I procrastinated doing the dishes again and forgot that I wanted to take a shower at least twice, so I gave up, watched an episode of C-drama, did Duolingo and went to bed.

I also managed to vacuum the annex and make my husband try the sweater on. Now I only need to weave the ends in and then it’s done.

Today will be freezing but despite having a ticket for Munich Knits for today I will stay put again. I’m looking forward to reading and crocheting. And it turns out that that was indeed officially the most snow we every had.

I had a so-so day, and yes, that was despite doing the whole morning routine. But Fridays have become fraught because my husband hates it when I clean after he comes back from running and while he is cooking, the hallways in this house are small and narrow and crossing over between the parts of the house and moving around means we get in each other’s way constantly.

Since I had only two students in the afternoon I thought I’d just do something else in the morning and clean in the afternoon while he was teaching. Problem solved. Only then I didn’t because I never really managed to start the cleaning process. One reason was that it was snowing and I didn’t want to put the recycling in the bins outside and the other was that I had time so there was no obvious starting point.

Around 45 minutes before I needed to teach and while it was already getting rather dark I thought, „Well, I could just vacuum and do the washbasins and toilets and declare it good enough.“ Then I decided to start writing this post instead but cutting the project in half, like, only cleaning parts or doing it so-so is often how I manage to get at least some things done.

That and the series of Sarra Cannon videos I’ve been watching got me thinking. Sarra Cannon often does motivational talks and I’m always a little puzzled by those because „You got this! I am so proud of you!“ and „You did the best you can! Go you!“ often leaves me slightly confused. At first I thought this was a US thing. All smiling and positive at all times! Everyone is the specialest of special snowflakes and here is your participation trophy.

Don’t get me wrong, I really like her, a lot of things she’s talking about I find highly relatable and also motivating. It took me a while to understand that a lot of her talks are as much aimed at herself as at her audience and I can definitely see why people find that appealing. I’m the weirdo who always shuts down when I feel someone wants to motivate or influence me. My „you can’t make me!“-impulse kicks in.

But the thing I wanted to write about today was the „you did the best you can!“-message. Because, no, I did not. And that’s not me being self-deprecating. That’s just me being realistic. I definitely could have cleaned yesterday. I definitely could spend more time keeping the house in order and less time playing silly iPad games. That was a choice that I made. It is also a choice that I don’t do the best I can in most areas of my life. And for a reason.

My time and energy is limited. I mean, everybody’s is by nature. If I did the best I could in all areas of my life I’d break down after a week at most. By only putting a minimum of effort in most times I get to have some energy left. Also, I don’t need to strive to be the best musician/writer/teacher/mother/wife/whatever. I can just put in enough effort to get the result that I need or want. And no, I also don’t need to become the best that I can, I can just be myself, flawed with executive dysfunction.

I have been dreaming of the time that I get a grip and have my life in order ever since I tried becoming a tidy person at age 6 or so. I am 56 now and I still am not a tidy person. I don’t really need to be, even, just tidy enough that my life doesn’t become utter chaos. And that goes for all areas of my life even the ones that are really important to me.

For me it all started with the Flylady motto of „housework done incorrectly still blesses the family“. Just moving the vacuum through the middles is better than not vacuuming at all. And I have to say that goes for just about everything. It is very freeing to just be yourself. To not live up to your potential. Apparently I had a lot of potential but I have made my peace with never having lived up to it. Doesn’t mean my life was wasted.

And no amount of me telling you „You can do it!“ will give you better skill or knowledge. „I believe in you!“ only helps when the problem is that you have all the skills, knowledge and resources you need but lack belief in yourself. And sorry, but that belief can’t really come from the outside, that can only come from within. By you proving to yourself that you can do those things because you’ve done things that are similar. Trust has to be earned, even from yourself.

Which doesn’t really help me personally here because all I have proven to myself is that the way I approached my Friday this week didn’t work. Doesn’t mean I can’t find a way that works, though, I’m creative. I could also, potentially, clean today. Will I do it? Probably not.

If I clean I’ll just vacuum the middles, move a rag over the washbasins and toilets and declare it done. Minimal viable effort.

And today after lunch I’ll go to Munich and look at yarn. I’ll tell you how it went tomorrow.

Speaking of lunch, this was yesterday’s:

And here’s the almost finished sweater I made for my husband. Part of the reason why I didn’t clean was also that I decided to sit down and do a sewn bind-off on the sweater first. Which took about an hour or so:

As I said. Minimal viable effort and now I need to get ready to buy yarn I don’t need.