Archives for April 2024

So my new „do not disturb“-hack for my phone did work well enough that I went to bed on time. Woot! And setting the alarm 15 minutes earlier meant that I did my actual complete morning routine. Yeah, yoga! And meditation! And my blood pressure was within normal range!

Then I did the usual breakfast things, talked with husband, started the last border round on the crochet blanket, did the breakfast dishes, took a shower, ate lunch very early and took a train to Munich to talk to a doctor (and some admin people) about my thyroid.

Here’s a picture of my lunch since I didn’t take any other pictures all day. My husband made dal and rice and fried some boiled eggs with spices:

The train ride went very well, the clinic is nice and peaceful and it seems the people who work there are nice and patient and the least stressed health workers I’ve seen in ages. When it turned out that I had forgotten to ask the doctor something vital I got to go back and talk to him again, even.

So he recommended what I had thought I’d do anyway. Since there is no way of telling if any of the many nodes in my thyroid is not benign and since there are many and I have one that might or might not be suspicious he recommended surgery and taking the thyroid out. Which means I will have to take thyroid hormones for the rest of my life. Which shouldn’t be a big problem.

I have an appointment for surgery in two weeks and another one a week before to talk about anesthesia and what to do and all the good stuff. I also was tasked with getting another form from my GP and with finding an ENT doctor to give my vocal cords a clear bill of health. One of the risks of thyroid surgery is that the laryngeal nerve gets damaged. Which you really don’t want if you’re a singer. But complications are rare and the clinic I’m going to is the specialist for thyroid surgery in the area.

I am very relieved to have made the decision, it’s been hanging over my head for six years now.

I went back home, loaded myself up with sweets from the health food store on my way back, told my husband briefly what had happened, ate all the sweets, taught my two students of the day and crashed.

Unfortunately I still had to do the dishes and a bit of Duolingo and then I watched some more Fred Astaire and went to bed.

Today there will be way more than two students and a couple of errands in the morning.

I actually got enough sleep! Yeah! I wrote morning pages but ran out of time again for yoga and meditation. I did decide to set my alarm 15 minutes earlier starting today.

There was breakfast and talking with my husband and I started the last border round of the crochet blanket-in-progress only to find that there was a stupid mistake in the round before. I decided to rip back. Which made my husband slightly upset as usual. For me it doesn’t make much of a difference if I finish that blanket a day or two earlier or not. If I didn’t want to spend more time on it I would just have fudged something.

When I went to my studio to call my mother I saw that the corner near the window that I had vacuumed the day before was again full of dirt. I showed it to my husband and for the first time could convince him that this is indeed some kind of bug activity. Husband has asked me to research. I don’t know how. Here’s a picture:

I called my mother on the phone and she tried getting tech support from me for online banking on her laptop. I mean, I had offered to do that at times but I hadn’t expected it to be on our weekly call just before I was set to make gnocchi from scratch. My husband had sprung the gnocchi idea on me at a point in the day where I was feeling rather overwhelmed anyway. He had offered to make the gnocchi without my help but, um, I opted for eating at a reasonable time instead.

Turned out the reason my mother had trouble with online banking was that they completely changed the UI in the past ten days and that now you need to install a browser plugin for it. Seems she’ll stick to the phone app for now.

I did the breakfast dishes, my husband had put the potatoes on in the meantime, I cut some veggies, almost slammed my husband’s hand in a drawer (very grateful for his good reflexes), made the gnocchi and had lunch:

I took a break after lunch, then talked with the boy, played silly iPad games, did the dishes, and then went outside to say hello to my husband and a friend of his who had offered to help him with yard work in exchange for veggies later in the season.

I cleaned the washbasins and toilets, started a load of laundry, planned the week, talked with my husband again, ate dinner, talked with the boy for an hour or so, did Duolingo, packed my purse for today with all the doctor’s reports and stuff and then sat down to watch „Shall We Dance“ with Ginger Rogers and Fred Astaire. That morning my piece of classical music for the day was „Walking the Dog“ by Gershwin and that is from that movie so I decided to treat myself and watch it in the evening.

Today will mostly be about freaking out that I need to go to Munich to a new to me place and talk about my thyroid and what will happen with it. In the evening I’ll teach two students.

I only got 5 1/2 hours of sleep because I thought reading until 1.30 would be a good idea. I found „The Mars House“ so gripping that I spent most of the day reading as well and finished the book around dinnertime.

In the morning I was so tired (and reading some more) that I thought I could do my morning routine after breakfast.

I did not do my morning routine.

I did eventually do the breakfast dishes and started cleaning the house. There was lunch:

The noodles could have used a bit more cooking but my husband followed the direction on the package.

I sat around and read some more but eventually did most of the cleaning and changed the sheets on my bed. I did not start another load of laundry. Which meant there was a certain lack of clean towels. I ate too much again, finally did the dishes at 8.30, started watching a new C-drama and went to bed.

Today there will be more cleaning, the phone call to my mother and preparing for the week ahead.

Again not quite enough sleep. I woke up from the alarm, managed to write morning pages and then started reading so no yoga and meditation again. The plan was to change the sheets on my bed, clean the house, do the weekly cleaning and teach a student, maybe two.

So first after breakfast I waited for everybody to leave the house. My husband met a friend for lunch and the boy went to an anime convention with a friend. They almost left at the same time and before I had to wait with doing the dishes until the boy had re-learned how to boil an egg and had made egg sandwiches. Apparently he even peeled a carrot.

When everybody was gone there might have been almost enough time to go grocery shopping before I needed to make lunch but in my mind it would have been much better to start with the cleaning. Only I needed something to eat for lunch. I mean, I do know how to cook. At least in theory, it has been years at this point.

So I sat there, completely unable to decide what to do first until I finally made myself get up, walk to the nearby supermarket and come back with frozen pizza, chocolate, tea and ice cream.

This is the picture I took:

I then proceeded to eat a pint of ice cream. As I said, 1,500 calories. Yes, I was very full after but eating calms me and it did work. I read a bit more and then finally did the dishes. My husband hung the load of laundry up that I had started earlier and I got my bike and went to the supermarket.

In order to get myself moving I had promised myself I could get some new makeup. I’ve been a little unhappy about my makeup lately, and have been thinking of wearing it a little more often than twice a year. I tried watching YouTube videos on how to do makeup for people with hooded eyes over 50 but I can’t seem to get through any of the videos start to finish, it’s just too boring. But I did get some ideas and at one point I just need to try things out.

I am now the proud owner of a new eye shadow palette in shades of brown and beige, eyebrow mascara (or whatever you call it), a new lipstick and a new tinted lip balm, some concealer and an eyeliner. We’ll see.

I also got all the groceries and managed to prevent myself from buying more sweets and snack foods. I’d say I had enough for the week.

When I finally came back home I unpacked everything, hung up the second load of laundry, ate dinner (even though I wasn’t really hungry), read some more, decided drinking a beer would be a good idea, watched the last episode of the rather boring C-drama, read even more and went to bed way too late because I didn’t want to stop reading.

So today will probably be spent sitting around feeling paralyzed while still fully determined to clean the house. Ugh.

Oh, and the student I was supposed to teach? Canceled.

After breakfast I had to keep track of time to catch the bus for more shockwave treatment for my left foot. Unfortunately my feet hurt again after my trip. Will the plantar fasciitis ever go away? No idea. The assistant who is treating me is always the same and we even made a bit of small talk.

I went back home and heroically called the clinic because of my thyroid. I got an appointment for Monday. In the afternoon. I did the breakfast dishes and then went on to reschedule almost all my Monday students. Successfully, I have to say.

We ate lunch:

It was very good and I loved that there were so many veggies. I finished writing all the texts and emails because of the reschedule and then it was time for the second doctor’s visit of the day. I went to see my GP for a prescription and get a referral for Monday. I ran a few errands on my way back home, took another break, taught two students, ate dinner, procrastinated about the dishes, talked with the boy, started writing this post, finally did the dishes, watched the penultimate episode of the current C-drama, did Duolingo and went to bed.

I went to bed too late again. I’m blaming the time change but we all know that’s not the real reason.

I did do my morning routine and felt like I might actually open the manuscript at one point even. Well. Husband and I talked. Then I thought I had some time for myself but it turned out he needed help with setting his smartwatch up. And with putting his contacts in his computer. I felt a bit like the week before when I was helping my mother. I’m finding myself growing more impatient with this kind of help where most of the time I don’t really know how to do these things either, I just  try stuff out and when I’m stuck I google. Next step is teaching both of them how to do that themselves. (As I’m writing this my husband gave me his ebook reader to charge. We’re working on it. On the other hand I’m not sure I have another charger laying around that he could use. Maybe I should buy one.)

I actually forgot to call the clinic for an appointment the second day in a row. I’m also not sure I’ll have the time to do it today. This is exactly why I tried making an appointment via email in the first place. You know, the email that got answered with „please send us your phone number“. Which I did.

Lunch was pretty late and a bit too heavy on the acid. I find that I’m not a big fan of lemon zest in bolognese sauce or too much vinegar in the salad – yes, even if it’s balsamic – but other than that it tasted good:

I read a bit, I bought „The Mars House“ because I wanted to read more Natasha Pulley, I got ready for my one student of the day, I frantically did the dishes right before. Then I waited for fifteen minutes, student didn’t show. I printed grocery lists. I got a text from the student saying, „Oh, did I tell you that I’ll be traveling next week as well? See you.“ Oops. So she probably did tell me she wouldn’t come this week.

The boy and I watched „Dune“ while eating potato chips and ice cream (new lemon flavor which was excellent) and I had a beer. At one point he got himself a glass of whiskey while I switched to water. I really, really wanted a second beer and sat there undecided for an hour or two after the film ended. Dumb. Guess who went to bed too late again?

„Dune“ was excellent and we’re all set to watch the second one as soon as we can do so at home. We’re the kind of people who stop the film every twenty minutes or so for something and that doesn’t really work at the cinema. It was a bit weird, I remember reading the books, I think the first three only, but that must have been in the late 80s or early 90s. I only remember them vaguely and I borrowed them from a friend. So I might have bought the first three as ebooks.

Speaking of buying things, I also got my new iPad keyboard/case yesterday. I’ve been dealing with error messages from my Smart Folio keyboard for months now. Two out of three times I had to take the case off and put it back on before I could use the keyboard. I was worried the connector was faulty and tried a cheap case first but that one was nearly unusable. Too heavy and the keyboard was so detachable that it fell off all the time. I sent that one back. And now I bought a Logitech case, the Combo Touch, and I really like it. It is a bit thicker than my old case but doesn’t seem heavier, I can take the keyboard off with no problem and the case protects the iPad much better.

I went to bed past midnight again. Trying to get more sleep might be a lost case. If I were living alone I would just set my alarm an hour later but that doesn’t work with my husband’s schedule. So I’ll do better tonight.

Super busy day ahead, phew.