Archives for September 2024

I woke up from the alarm after a mere 6 1/2 hours of sleep, so that was not the best. Next time I’ll go to bed on time. Probably. I started writing morning pages but wandered off after half a page. Note to self: don’t put your phone next to you while journaling. Thanks.

I did manage yoga and meditation, though. After that, some breakfast. And I decided to up the dose of my blood pressure medication. I’m still taking the initial, very low dose I started with and my blood pressure has been constantly a bit too high throughout. I’ll just try it out and see what happens. And consult with my doctor of course.

I spent some time with my husband, did a huge pile of dishes because I had asked the boy to bring everything down from his room and so the one mug, one plate and one knife I left in the sink before going to bed morphed into half a dozen dirty plates, all the cutlery, a frying pan and a small pot over night. At least I got to listen to Satie while doing that.

Meanwhile my husband had changed his cooking plans to lasagna. If I had known beforehand I would not have planned all the errands and I would have started the dishes earlier.

I went out, got my picture taken because I need to get a new driver’s license, went to the health food store but skipped the tea shop because it was already too late.

Came back home to a husband frantically trying to assemble two lasagnas. That’s usually my job. We had some miscommunication about which layer was next and ended up with a bit of a mess that included pulling sauce and pasta out again because my husband had put the meat sauce into the vegetarian casserole.

Words were spoken, up to the point where I just left the kitchen.

I still went back and helped with the salad in the end.

Lunch was rather late and not quite as tasty as usual. (See, I’m just so much better at assembling lasagna! Also, the reason I usually start with the red sauce at the bottom is because there isn’t enough white sauce for three layers. No, really. QED.):

I did the dishes right away because I was angry and also I had told a writer friend I would meet her in the online office at three. We ate lunch at two, so there wasn’t much time.

I went and met with a handful of people online to work. I spent an hour doing teaching admin, then wrote the brief for the first book cover and sent it off and then went and looked at photos I might use for a potential cover for the free short story.

And then I had to stop because the boy and I wanted to do bodyweight training together. But before that I refilled four of my fountain pens. Phew. That had been sitting for a while as well.

I can say for sure that I wouldn’t have gotten as much done if I hadn’t had made that date with my friend. And seeing those other people working along did wonders for my productivity. Oh, and one thing I found was that maybe one of my students didn’t pay for all the time he had lessons with me? At least I can’t find any payments. Which is awkward because they already stopped lessons. I guess I’ll write an email next week. I might be wrong or have overlooked something.

The boy and I did our 20 minutes of bodyweight exercises. We were still sore from Sunday and it was way too hot but –  we had said we’d do it, so we did it. And I always feel better after exercising, even if everything hurts.

And then we tackled another thing that has been sitting there for some time. The boy had a pair of pajama pants that have the typical tear on the left side where he hitches them up all the time. It’s the exact same spot where my older pair of jeans broke. So I pulled out the book „Mending Matters“ and my sewing kit, cut an old t-shirt up for a patch and made the pants usable again.

It’s not pretty but it does the job. And I learned something for next time:

I’m very happy that this pair of pajama bottoms won’t share the fate of the other pair (in size S) that has been sitting in my mending pile for several years now.

After that I ate dinner, talked with my husband again, read and played games for an hour, then started writing this post, did Duolingo, watched C-drama, waited for an email interspersed with the smoke alarm starting to blare for no apparent reason, and went to bed. I think the only thing I need to do today is write a couple of emails, go for a walk and not much more but I’m sure, something will come up.

I woke up from the alarm after a good night of almost enough sleep and managed to do my complete morning routine, yeah! And I was early enough that I was almost done with breakfast before my husband showed up.

I did the usual morning things and went for a walk ind the woods for exercise. My feet still hurt quite a bit but I’m totally fed up with that and really want to get back to exercising. I did wear my orthotics and extra padded sneakers:

I’m practicing my selfie-skills:

I came back home, talked with my husband, set the table while he cooked and helped chopping parsley:

After a short break I had some of the cake my husband’s friend had brought the day before:

It was delicious but ultimately did not agree with me.

I sat around, twiddling my thumbs. Once again I had made too long a list and I was also waiting for the boy to come downstairs. In the end it was past 4 when I finally tackled the dishes, then I went to my studio, started finally planning the week and then it was time to teach my two students of the day.

After that I had dinner, finished reading „Dreadful Company“ (highly recommend, the whole Greta Helsing series is wonderful so far), unpacked yet another book:

I have no clue if that was a good idea.

The boy came downstairs to make himself dinner, I started writing this post, did Duolingo and some more planning, watched an episode of C-drama while knitting and went to bed.

Things I didn’t get done yesterday: yoga and planning the week and the month. Things I did get done: everything else.

I did go to bed almost on time, slept much better and wrote morning pages. Spent some time with my husband and did my usual online rounds, also folded some more laundry.

My husband met with a friend of his and the two of them went off to the nice Italian restaurant for lunch. While my own lunch was frozen pizza:

I had asked the boy via text if he wanted pizza as well but he hadn’t answered. And then he was a bit unhappy when there was no pizza for him. He had still been asleep when I texted him. Well, he had to make his own pizza, then.

I did talk to him a bit and then did the dishes after he said he would be taking a shower right away. Turned out ‚right away‘ took long enough for me to wash the breakfast and lunch dishes.

The boy and I had made plans to do bodyweight training together again and we agreed to just do it right away, after lunch. Not the ideal time of day but whatever works. We went back to the super easy version that only takes twenty minutes and we had to scale a lot of the exercises back to make them easier but – we did it.

And then there was nothing left but to tackle the taxes.

I hadn’t prepared much in advance, I still had to hunt for receipts and print things out and try to remember how to do everything. There was also a glitch that meant I couldn’t import a lot of my old data. No idea if that was me or the website but I had to put a lot of numbers into forms from scratch. At least I had a printout of last years forms, so I could take things from there.

I worked all the way through until 7.30 with just a short break to talk with my husband and his friend, and then I was done. In my checklist for doing the taxes there is a point saying „remember that taxes take about 5 hours“ but this time it was only 3 1/2. Phew.

After that I ate dinner, read some more, played more silly games, did Duolingo, watched some C-drama and went to bed.

I’m hoping to do all the planning today.