Archives for June 2024

And I guess I’ll have more of those for a while because of the makeup lessons.

So. Lights out at midnight but I still got up around 7 and did the complete morning routine. It feels like those 10 minutes of yoga and the journaling makes a huge difference. My feet didn’t hurt quite as much, by the way. Maybe the new exercises make a difference. Or maybe the difference is that I didn’t do the new exercises the day before. I guess I’ll figure it out eventually.

Speaking of feet I have started to stick my orthotics into my barefoot shoes again. Those are the shoes they were made for and I wasn’t sure all the cushioning is doing me any good. I’ll continue experimenting.

I knitted while my husband had breakfast and we talked about some health stuff of his and then about the early Rolling Stones and their equipment. He is reading a book about it and is totally fascinated.

I didn’t have to go out for once so I sat a little longer knitting. The knitting takes much longer than I like. Doing twisted purls and cables in cotton on 2 mm (size 0) needles requires some patience.

I was pretty late with the dishes. But before that I finally answered an email, paid the window bill and asked the piano tuner for an appointment. As usual I sent him an email which was answered by a call to our answering machine. When I tried calling back I had his answering machine on the line. But. I’m making progress, I left my cell phone number which meant I could talk to an actual person the next time they called. He – or rather his son – will come over in two weeks, tune the piano and do some other maintenance. Which will take about four hours so that will be pricey, for sure.

Meanwhile my husband’s computer was supposed to be delivered but they rang my mother-in-laws doorbell and she didn’t know anything about it. But I had written the security code down on a piece of paper, could confirm that the huge box was indeed for us and everything was fine.

I unpacked the computer and started the set up, then we found that we didn’t have enough parmesan, so I walked to the nearest supermarket to get some. And chocolate.

Lunch was very good:

The boy even ate with us. After we got talking about why he still hasn’t chosen a new phone. We sat down and quickly decided on one after realizing that he really doesn’t care. I clicked „order“, then went to google and looked the model up only to find the headline „why the S21 was a flop“. Well. Too big, too heavy and no SD card slot. So we canceled the order.

Over that I had almost forgotten the time and had to take a super quick shower before my first student. Teaching was fun but a little exhausting and at the end I met another potential new student. Really interesting adult learner who will start next week.

After that I saw that my husband was doing the dishes, I ate dinner while he was busy and we talked. I did my foot exercises, Duolingo and watched something while knitting some more.

Oh, and very good news, I finally got an answer from the clinic to my email about the bulge in my neck. Well, nothing to worry about, just wait and see, healing takes about three months and I still have two to go.

Today will be pretty full as well but then I wouldn’t want to be bored so I’m fine with it.

I went to bed just on time the night before, woke up on time as well and did my complete morning routine. I deserve a gold star. There was breakfast, a conversation with my husband, dishes, the folding of laundry, the walk to two different health food stores and lunch half an hour late:

Then I taught all the students all afternoon until after dinnertime. Ate dinner, procrastinated like crazy, and sat there scrolling though Instagram for too long.

Then I started writing this post, did a quick Duolingo session, washed all the dishes and watched some C-drama while knitting. I also tried looking into titles of Urban Fantasy novels but had a hard time figuring out how. I did, however, unearth the K-lytics report from last year and looked at a couple of trends. As I thought, the stuff I’m writing is not on trend. No surprise there. I will continue anyway.

Today will be another long day but at least I will have a bit more time in the morning.

I woke up early but at least I had gone to bed on time. I went to bed while the boy was doing the dishes, win! And it turns out him clanging pots and pans doesn’t bother me at all when I fall asleep. Now, in the morning, about an hour before I wake up, well, that’s a different story. Tiptoe past my room and – bam! – I’m awake.

I had set my alarm a little earlier so I could check on the boy who had plans to go to uni after a night without sleep. He was still awake when I checked but turned out he was way too tired to go anywhere or pay attention. Then I picked up my phone and had to skip the morning routine because I ran out of time. Sigh.

My husband came for breakfast and started the wood stove again, it was still very, very cold so I was grateful for that. While he was waiting for the water to boil I finally finished Clue 1 of the mystery knit-a-long. I counted the stitches to see if everything was alright and – the stitch count was off.

Long story short, I had made a mistake in row 63 of 220, had made a 2-row stripe instead of a 6-row stripe, and so I had a problem. I was very proud of myself for not immediately ripping the whole thing back. Instead I took a picture, posted it in the MKAL spoiler thread and asked for advice. Because there are knitters in the group who have test-knit the whole pattern they could tell me what to do. And they did. The best solution is to just knit on for a few more rows, apparently the stripe color doesn’t matter all that much.

Now I have to decide how much it bugs me. Especially since I also botched the edge stitches. Sorry, that I can’t post a picture but – spoilers. I did cast on for my third Lauriel sweater, though. Nothing much to see there so far, I only got five rows in. And had to start the whole thing over twice because counting stitches and setting up an unusual ribbing pattern doesn’t really mesh with re-hashing the argument you had with your husband two days ago. At length. I think we reached a new understanding, though, so at least it was worth it.

All that knitting and counting took quite some time so I posted that sad excuse for a daily post and then started researching videos that teach how to fix your sleep schedule.

And then – another proud moment – I pulled the laptop out, sat down at my new writing desk and fixed the formatting problem on the novel so that I can give my husband an ebook copy. Yeah!

Lunch was leftovers, bifteki and bulgur in tomato sauce. Some veggies would have been nice but my husband spent the morning finally making the recordings he had wanted to do on the weekend and that was more important. He had spent two days trying to get the recording software to record more than one track at a time and failed. The night before I had tried helping him and though he told me to just leave it alone after a while my brain wouldn’t let it go. At least it’s fixed now. We have had that exact same problem before and even remembered the solution but not where to click to get to it. Very frustrating.

Anyways, obligatory lunch pic:

I took a shower right after lunch because I was seeing a potential new student first thing and wanted my hair to be as dry as possible. Which turned out to be not very dry. The student is the sister of another one of my students. She is really nice and will start next week.

Then there was all the teaching. It was fun after two weeks off. And I also started scheduling the first two make-up lessons for the week I was in the hospital.

Determined to not slump down after work as usual and also remembering my do-something-different challenge I made myself my very first ever grilled cheese sandwich:

The boy has been making himself pan-fried grilled cheese a lot lately and since I’m a bit tired of eating the same exact thing for dinner every day and since I am not a big fan of white bread when it’s not toasted I gave it a try. It might not look much but it was excellent.

Then I played my silly games for a bit, started writing this post, skipped the dishes, did Duolingo, watched an episode of „Handsome Siblings“ while working on the cardigan, did some quick yoga and went to bed.

Today will be another busy one but then Tuesdays always are.