Archives for July 2024

At all.

Going to bed on time was good, as was sleeping well but then I skipped my morning routine and spent the rest of the day reading and trying to get started on things.

I actually did get quite a few things done in the morning, went to the doctor’s office to renew a prescription then bought yogurt in one shop, vitamins and vegetarian white sausage in another and went to the health food store as well.

The weather was super hot and I was happy to be back indoors after that.

Deciding what to eat for lunch was a group effort this time, the boy complained about there being too many plain potatoes (my husband bought the new ones the week before and they are delicious). Husband had also bought a smoked trout at the lake the day before. The boy then was inspired by the picture on his vegetarian ersatz-cutlet and we had fish with potato salad. Which is perfect on a hot day because it’s all cold:

Then I sat and took a break, sat and waited for the boy to show up, waited for the boy to be finished with lunch and then waited until I was ready to figure out what to do next. Spoiler: I never figured it out.

I thought I had two students that day starting at 6. I managed to tackle the dishes around 4.30. I must have spent three hours playing solitaire and lots and lots of time reading „Divinity 36“. That book is so good, I’ve already read it but I was sitting there thinking, just a bit more, just one page, basically until after midnight.

I watched a bit of the „Publishing 101“-course. Around 5.30 I finally figured out that I had misunderstood a student’s text and that it didn’t say, „If I don’t text you again I’ll come back next week,“ but instead, „I won’t come in for several weeks for sure.“ Who knew? I mean, I didn’t.

Determined to finally tackle the harder stuff I retreated to my studio for a change of scenery and opened the HSK 2 textbooks. That don’t contain the answers to the practice questions. But, internet to the rescue.

I did a couple of questions, found that I am very, very bad at the listening ones and was briefly convinced that I don’t know Chinese at all. Then realized that all Duolingo ever gives me is listening together with writing in a very predictable computer voice or the exact same sentences I have heard a thousand times before. (Which reminds me that I should go back to the TrainChinese-app, they have native speakers recorded on the street which is very good practice but also very hard for me.)

And then I tried writing down a list of publishing tasks. And didn’t know where to start and what to use. I don’t want to use my notebook because I’ll need that more often than once (I hope). I would use Excel but I don’t have that on my iPad and I find Google Sheets slightly off-putting for some reason.

I opened a Notion-template I have called „Author Central“, took a look at all the tasks that are so different from what I need, briefly tried to figure out how to delete a task and gave up.

By the way, this morning I was going on and on again about that list, thought to myself, „Well, I started doing that list a while ago, didn’t I?“ opened the PDF on my iPad and executed a literal facepalm because, there it is. The list that I need. The only thing missing is author bio and photo.

Sometimes I don’t know what to do with myself. But it’s no wonder that I resisted making that list so hard. I had already done it. In 2021, by the way. Because there is a column for a „NaNo 2021“-project. Duh.

There is definitely something to be said for moving through projects faster than this. For one you won’t forget everything you did before.

My second student then canceled because they suspect they might have covid which I really appreciate. I had eaten dinner before six already, then procrastinated a bit longer in my studio getting irritated by my husband walking back and forth in front of my studio door and the fact I couldn’t keep it open. That studio is so hot and stifling in the summer, it’s no fun.

I went back to the kitchen and realized I had forgotten all about bodyweight training. I almost decided to skip but then just gave myself permission to do a short 20-minute session.

Then I sat down trying to get myself over to the living room for watching C-drama, finally gave up, went to bed with a book and turned the lights out at 12.30 or so.

I mean, I did finish „Divinity 36“ and am already halfway through book 2 („Demigod 12“) at this point. I guess I won’t be good for anything until I finished the whole trilogy…

Yes, I went to bed too late again. I also fell back asleep after the alarm. Not for long but I only managed morning pages before it was time for breakfast.

I had a very long list for the day and was very determined to get through it all the way. (She did not get through it all the way.)

I did yoga after breakfast, then Duolingo and listend to some Josquin des Prez (highly recommended), did the breakfast dishes and then started the weekly cleaning of the house. I changed the sheets on my bed and actually finished cleaning before lunch. Yeah!

As usual my husband was thrown off by me rushing through the house with recycling bins, cleaning tools and the vacuum and complained that everybody was giving off the wrong energy for focusing on cooking. I was not happy to be told I was vibing wrong while scrubbing the toilets and might have been just a tad sarcastic when saying, „Oh, thank you Susanne for scrubbing the toilets!“ After lunch we actually talked about the whole thing again. We both managed to stay calm and reasonable and I asked him to please tell me what he wants me to actually do while he is cooking.

He didn’t really have an answer but said that I really wasn’t the problem, just the whole world. Everybody rushing around, driving their cars, whatever. That no one actually takes the time to cook a proper meal for lunch.

I mean, yes, it is always very busy around lunchtime. We live on a fairly busy street, people drive to and from school and work in their lunch break. I told him that there are probably a lot of people staying home and cooking at the same time as him but he doesn’t get to see them because they are at home cooking.

I think the only way to deal with this kind of thing is to learn not to be bothered as much by the world and also to practice better focus. I’m also perfectly willing to do the cooking myself or help or whatever makes things better because constant conflict is really no fun. We definitely both agree on that.

And then we ended up with our old difference in opinion on, „But this is not a thought, it’s instinctive!“ versus „But the Buddha said there is a gap between what you perceive and your reaction, however small, and one can learn to react differently.”

I’m not saying it’s easy, though. And neither says the Buddha.

Since it was Friday and he went running and knew I would be cleaning lunch was pretty simple. On the other hand, picking and cleaning and washing and dealing with arugula from the garden does take a bit of time:

Not only had I finished cleaning I also had started a load of laundry.

My plan was to do something productive between lunch and teaching, then use the 1-hour break between students to look into blurbs for other urban fantasy books, then teach two more students and do bodyweight training.

Well.

After lunch the boy came downstairs and ate his lunch and we talked. I totally forgot the time and had to enlist his help for doing the dishes. In my defense we were looking at Derek Guy’s posts on Twitter, specifically this thread about „you have to know the rules to break them“ which then led to us talking about clothes, which led to us talking about the dismal state of the boy’s wardrobe and thinking about things he needs to buy.

In my one-hour break I had planned to answer texts, hang up laundry and finally do blurb research.

Well, while I was hanging up laundry the boy showed up again. We had talked about maybe buying him a summer shirt or two and he had found some that didn’t break the bank but were looking nice. He needed help figuring out his size (yeah for always knowing where my tape measures are) and then I just ordered them.

Somehow I ran out of time and had to get back to teaching.

The next student texted me she would be late.

Ten minutes later she said she was sorry but had to cancel because work was running way over time.

So I did my blurb research. Well, I started on it with some help from a writer friend.

Last student of the day texted me to say he would be late as well. (It was the last day of school, of course everything went slightly off the rails.) We had a very nice lesson that ran pretty long and then it was time for dinner.

By then I really didn’t feel like exercising anymore. I played some silly games, started writing this post, did Duolingo, watched C-drama while knitting and drinking a beer, put the cake from the freezer into the fridge and went to bed.

And now summer break!

(We’re just not talking about the teaching I’ll do the next few weeks, okay?)

So, turned the lights out late, yadda yadda… I woke up from the alarm, looked through my email on my smartwatch and found – an email telling me to pay for the shoes I returned in June plus a fine because I was late.

I thought I had dealt with this when I returned the shoes and revoked the contract as per the instructions I got, then a second time when the first „your payment is late“-notice showed up in my inbox and I wrote another email back but no.

So I tried again to figure out where I went wrong. It might have been better to inform both the company that facilitated the sale and the company dealing with the money of the return but I did what I was told to do. I checked and found a message that the return package had arrived at the bakery next to the shop I had bought from, maybe that was the problem.

In the end I decided to write an email directly to the shop owner. The email address was on the website. I told the whole story from beginning to end with citations and all.
Just a short time later I had an answer. They apologized, she had received the return but forgotten to put it in the system. So sorry for the inconvenience. Phew.

Then I went to the drug store, supermarket and to buy socks for my husband. Came home a little late with a huge load of stuff, about half of it for the freezer.

Then we ate lunch:

The burgers are leftovers from two days ago, the cucumbers are from our garden and the flower is edible.

I then just sat around doing nothing until it was time to teach. I had two students cancel and used that time to watch some more online workshops and eat dinner.

After that we got a voice mail from our neighbors who want to invite us for grilled fish. Which is nice, we like them but – the day they suggested is my birthday. So my husband talked to them while I was teaching my last student.

A t-shirt I had ordered had arrived at some point in the afternoon, also the scythe shaft (too lazy to look up the right term again). Only I couldn’t find the shaft anywhere which was a bit disconcerting, I mean a thing like that doesn’t just vanish in the letterbox.

Turned out my husband had already put it away.

I tried the t-shirt – which was too big. I mean, yeah for size conventions, I had ordered a similar t-shirt a while ago in M, that t-shirt is too small right now so I bought one a size bigger. Only, it’s not exactly the same, this one was clearly too big. I stood in front of the mirror contemplating altering it by taking a bit away here and there and also at this other point for a whole ten minutes until I decided to just return it.

Fortunately, this was Amazon and not some obscure aggregate vendor site, so I clicked the right button, chose from a drop-down menu that the item was too large, got asked if I wanted the money back in my account or as credit on Amazon and – to not return the tee.

I turned around and bought the same t-shirt a size smaller right away. So I guess I got the „buy one get one free“-deal.

And then all the energy left me. I still hadn’t done the dishes and for some reason couldn’t face them. Only after a while did I realize that a major problem were the leftover burgers. See, my husband had made burgers two days before. He refried half of them yesterday and then didn’t feel like eating them. So he put them back in the frying pan to eat at night.

I had been wanting to ask him what to do with them ever since lunchtime but kept forgetting because there were all these other things to talk about. Just after he had left the kitchen to watch the news I remembered again, so I went to the annex to ask him. I startled him (that happens very often and I blame his hearing getting worse in part) and he shooed me off, angry about my timing.

Which then led me to sit on the kitchen bench playing solitaire for an hour or so.

Then I started writing this post. I had thought I hadn’t done anything all day but I guess that was incorrect.

I threw the burgers away. (Really, they do taste good fresh but reheating them is not the best idea, even if you fry them again for that. I do like them cold, that’s good.) I did the dishes and watched some C-drama and such.

Again, I breezed through all my nice little evening routine alarms. I’m not giving up on the concept yet but it’s definitely not a raging success.

Today is the last day of school. I already have one cancellation, we’ll see what the day brings.