Archives for July 2024

Not bad but not good either.

Since I went to bed at midnight and then stared at the ceiling for some time because I couldn’t fall asleep (which never happens) I was not at my best when the alarm went off.

Still, I did do my complete morning routine a second time in a row. Success!

We ate breakfast together, I knitted a little, did the dishes earlier than usual as well, talked with my husband, briefly talked with the boy and then there was an alarm on my phone for a dentist appointment. After a little confusion I realized that it was my husband’s. So I went to him in a panic because he had forgotten about it and he was almost out the door when I realized this was an alarm a week before the actual date. The alarms are automatically scheduled. At least he didn’t who up a week early.

After that bit of excitement I walked to the health food store listening to the new Jimin song. It is very catchy.

I came back home, packed the groceries away, listened to my husband talk about how inconsiderate everybody is because every day, when he needs to focus on cooking lunch with all his might everybody around him does things that have nothing to do with cooking or lunchtime. Like me rushing around getting groceries and unpacking them right when it’s time to gather himself for the extremely intricate act of making a meal. And his mother was out in the garden weeding just when he might have had to pick more things for cooking. I mean, the nerve!

Yeah, we all think that maybe I’m not the only one who has a bit of a problem with focus in the family, by the way. And I guess he was a little out of sorts because he was supposed to meet a friend in Munich in the evening but wouldn’t know when and where exactly until some time in the afternoon.

I did ask what I should do instead that would be fitting with the whole cooking theme at that time of day but of course he couldn’t answer my question at that point because the cooking was taking up all his brain power.

This was the meal in question. It would be unfair not to mention that he was talking about that time of day in general:

I actually would have done the lunch dishes right away but remembered the load of laundry I had started in the morning and hung that up instead.

There was some teaching and while I had planned to use the short break between two students for something productive and had even set up my laptop with the bigger monitor because I wanted to do some cover and blurb research I was just too tired for it.

Taught my last student of the day, ate dinner, went into an iPad games, Twitter, Instagram, texting with friends spiral, finally did the dishes, started writing this post and looked up two blurb writing services recommend to me. Of course, when looking at their example blurbs I was unconvinced, so I’m back where I was.

At some point I will beed to commit to a blurb, however badly written.

Then I started watching some C-drama while eating a bag of potato chips and drinking a beer (one of those very mature decisions I make on a regular basis), the boy came downstairs and we talked a bit, my husband came back home from meeting his friend and complained at length about the crowded trains, too many people everywhere and everyone being too loud and smelling of perfume, also the trains are unreliable these days.

I mean, yes, they are, they are running on badly maintained too old infrastructure that was never meant for that many trains and people, they are currently building and doing construction which makes things worse, and also the super-crowded train he was on was so crowded that he just got the last empty seat.

Which tells you that there was actually an empty seat on the train and that there were no people standing. Which means for a train at rush hour it wasn’t crowded at all.

You can see that my husband doesn’t go to Munich a lot these days.

Anyways, we talked a bit about that until I sent him away because I didn’t want to get all riled up before going to bed, then the boy came downstairs again and we talked some more. (The boy is often taking the train to Munich at times when people have to be squashed in to fit them all.)

Then I watched the second half of the C-drama, brushed my teeth and went to bed.

The whole day felt like Friday but I guess that’s just the „last week of the school year“-feeling.

I had gone to bed the night before just slightly too late. I am a little disheartened by my failed efforts to go to bed on time but – my sleep app tells me that my median bedtime was 23 minutes earlier last week than the weeks before so I am very much heading in the right direction.

I slept well despite thunderstorms and rain and woke up from my alarm. This time I did not make the mistake of putting my phone on my nightstand, instead I put it on the dresser while writing morning pages and that made all the difference. I did yoga, meditated and took my blood pressure and then made breakfast.

I didn’t get to eat breakfast alone again but still, a way more grounded morning than most.

We talked a bit and I knitted a bit (the mystery shawl keeps growing extremely slowly). I did the breakfast dishes earlier than usual and then went out for a walk for exercise. I felt my feet are well enough for it. I got lucky, there was no rain during that time:

As you can see, the scar on my neck from the thyroidectomy is still very much visible but getting smaller and smaller.

I came back home just in time to wake the boy up. He had asked me to just four hours earlier before going to bed. He had to get out of bed at that time for his exam in the afternoon.

I took a shower, made sure the boy was still awake and folded a load of laundry. The boy came downstairs and got himself something to eat and went upstairs again. My husband and I had pumpkin risotto for lunch:

After we were finished the boy got ready and actually left almost on time.

I set myself a timer for my break so I could get some more stuff done.

Setting a timer for breaks is one of the things I’m trying out at the moment. If I remember it it works very well. Even of I set the timer twice in a row. I still remember time passes instead of just spacing out.

I got an email with the result of the placement test for Chinese I did the day before. I’m very happy because I am apparently at a higher level than I thought. I mean, I did some creative guessing at the end and the whole test was single choice but still. Apparently I could start studying for HSK 3 now if I wanted to.

Good thing I had just ordered the textbook for HSK 2… But no, I’ll work through it anyway, can’t hurt to actually get to that level.

I’m still thinking about taking an actual course but it would be around 600 € until the next level and I would need to either attend classes in person or online. There are intensive courses, some of them during school breaks but still. I guess I’ll study some more on my own. The problem with that is that I won’t learn how to speak that way and I don’t have anyone correcting my pronunciation.

When my timer rang for the second time I did some research of urban fantasy blurbs and jotted some ideas down and then it was time to teach.

While busy with my second student of the day the boy texted me that his exam went well and that he had passed! Phew. That made me very happy. Well, all of us.

I used my break in between students to do some admin, taught my last student, ate dinner, started playing silly iPad games and started writing this post a bit later than I wanted, then did the dishes, watched some C-drama and went to bed.

I am hoping for another near perfect day today. Let’s see how that goes!

Let’s see. I went to bed way too late at 12.30. Because it took me two hours until I managed to get myself in the shower. And that only worked because I told myself I could skip using lotion afterwards. And yes, that made me feel itchy all over but, well.

I didn’t sleep all that well either. Might be due to the beer I had at night. Or the many, many almonds I ate. Who knows…

I woke up from the alarm all determined to do my morning routine and have the best Sunday possible but then I picked up my phone and decided to skip the morning routine in favor of eating breakfast all alone by myself. I then promptly dawdled just enough that I took my first bite of muesli the second my husband came over for breakfast.

I did the rest of the usual morning things, called my mother on the phone, helped a little with lunch (I cut the mozzarella, tomatoes and basil), and ate together with my husband:

We had a very harmonious morning and lunch. You have to trust me on the Caprese salad we did, I never ate any of it because I don’t do raw tomatoes. I also don’t do raw tomato juice which is why in our house there are never ever tomatoes in the salad, they are always on the side. Which I appreciate greatly.

Then we started talking about mental load, getting into a short discussion about things that happened almost thirty years ago, so that was fun, but after that harmony was restored.

I sat around some more, scrolling all the things and reading a bit of „The Duke at Hazard“ from time to time, interspersed with eating all the cheese. As one does.

The plan had been to plan the week and check in with my online writing group, and I did, but very late.

I did spend a sizable part of the day researching Chinese classes nearby. Even though I have no idea what level my Chinese is. I did do an online test at the Confucius Institute, we’ll see how that turns out. And I ordered the HSK2 textbook and workbook. I have no idea what level I’m on but it should be somewhere between HSK1 and 2. HSK refers to the official levels of Chinese language proficiency. There used to be four of them, now there are six which makes the whole thing harder to determine because the current level 2 is quite a bit harder than the old level 2.

I thought I’ll just look at the level 2 book and if it’s way out of my league I’ll buy level 1 as well.

And thenI only have to find the time and determination to actually do the exercises. Harumph.

I talked with the boy briefly, he is basically a wreck, today is his first exam in this round. Then I talked with my husband again, we did the dishes together, I finally looked at the week ahead and put some things on the grocery list, contemplated buying new t-shirts and shorts but then didn’t, watched some C-drama while knitting and went to bed.

And now to the last week before summer break is upon us.

And also it is way too hot. Those two things might be somewhat related as well.

The night before I went to bed past midnight after drinking a beer. And didn’t sleep all that well either. I know. Sp predictable.

I woke up from the alarm and was slow again, completely distracted by everything, skipped the morning routine again and so on.

I was almost feeling sick, foggy, tired and exhausted. I never even wrote a list for the day, I was just flopping around waiting for the day to be over. I made the executive decision to switch from biking to the big supermarket and running two other errands to just walking the nearby one and back.

There was lunch:

The salad, cucumber and herbs are all from out garden. Apparently all the herbs have to be cut back all the time which means a lot of our meals turn very green. In the evening when the boy was putting together some leftovers I saw him pull out bushels of herbs and discard them.

After lunch I ate all the sweets and some cracker and peanuts that I had bought to help me feel less miserable at once. Which made me decidedly more miserable. But even before that I felt bad enough that if I weren’t self-employed I would probably have taken the day off.

So I crawled over to the annex, taught all the students and in the end felt better than at the start. I have quite a few enjoyable students on Thursdays.

After that I realized that I had forgotten to hang up the load of laundry that my husband had started. So I ate dinner, hung up the laundry, sat around idly looking at screens until the boy came downstairs because he wanted to take a shower, did the dishes, started writing this post, did Duolingo and did not watch anything on TV so that I could go to bed at a reasonable time.

Today will be super hot again. Also it’s cleaning day. But I don’t have very many students.