Archives for October 2024

Going to bed on time was awesome and I definitely should do it more often. I woke up from m alarm with the best intentions and then – picked up my phone. So no morning pages, yoga or meditation. I was actually pretty slow all through the day.

I had breakfast and knitted a bit, then wrote my daily blog post, started a load of laundry, did the breakfast dishes and waited for my husband to make lunch. I did open the manuscript and started the new novel for the third time, then got stuck again.

Lunch was a family favorite, pasta e fagioli, but sadly the beans were a little undercooked and there was not enough salt:

And yes, these are real life photos and not very pretty. Also, for some reason my husband always fills our plates at the stove and carries them over to the table. (My mother insists on putting the food in serving dishes and setting them on the table so that no one needs to get up during the meal. And it’s looking prettier than having pots on the table. I like it better when I can decide my portion size myself but my husband really loves feeding people, so we let him.)

After that my husband was in a really good mood. He talked about visiting Naples next year. By train. I mean, I like train travel but a 12-hour train ride with my husband who gets claustrophobic is not on my bucket list. When I did travel to London by train I spread it out over two days. (Shoutout to my sister for hosting me for a night on my way there and back.)

I took a little break anyways but since I had told a friend I’d be in the online Zoom office to write in the afternoon I was there at three. I was the only one there for the whole two hours but well, I tried. And I wrote. I think I started over for the third time (not quite sure) but I finally got a beginning that works. It’s still a bit wonky and I’m not sure if I want to tell the story from different POVs or not. I think I’ll do dual POV but there might be three? And I kept changing the main character’s name. But then I did manage a little more than 1,000 words. Which makes me 5,000 words behind still. ::shrugs::

I did delegate hanging up the second load of laundry to the boy but neglected to have somebody do the dishes for me. After two hours writing I had my weekly check-in meeting with a bunch of writers. It was a lot of fun and very motivating, so I did stay for 2 1/2 hours. The rest of the gang then stayed on to talk about cozy fantasy which I find a fascinating topic but I decided it was time for dinner.

So I ate some toast and read at around 8, then sat there playing Solitaire on my iPad over and over and over until I finally did the lunch dishes at 11, started writing this post and went to bed.

Wasting those two hours felt really awful and I would have preferred to go to bed earlier but I couldn’t make myself.

Today I’ll do the usual Sunday things and write some more, I hope.

Even though I went to bed at midnight I did pretty well with the morning routine. New month, new beginning, I thought. I even managed to be finished with eating breakfast before anybody else entered the kitchen. Very peaceful. And then I crocheted a bit while my husband was making himself breakfast.

The boy was up at 9 looking a bit squashed because of his impending theoretical physics exam. On quantum mechanics. I did all my usual morning things including the breakfast dishes (there was a pile of dishes that had mysteriously grown throughout the night) in between the boy making himself a super early lunch, went out to the health food store and when I came back he was on his way to university.

I tried writing the email to the cover designer before lunch but failed. There was lunch with the remaining eggplant from the backyard and only very few kidney beans because we only had a small can. We usually buy them dried but there were none to be had for the past few weeks:

 

After that I ate some chocolate. I did not do the lunch dishes before teaching because my husband wanted to talk at length and then I wanted to enjoy my chocolate and my novel before seeing one student after the other.

I taught from 2.30 to 7. There shouldn’t have been a break but one student didn’t show up. If I had known I could have used that time properly but so I just sat around most of the time waiting.

After work I at least wrote to the cover designer, then talked some more with the rest of the family before finally having some dinner. The health food store didn’t have the rolls I usually buy and the others didn’t look appealing so I decided to have crackers and cheese instead.

After that I started writing this post, finally did the lunch dishes with the boy’s help, watched some C-drama and started writing a new novel. Only for fifteen minutes because it was already late but, well, better than nothing.

I went to bed the traditional half an hour late (yawn), slept well and woke up from the alarm. I would have done my complete morning routine if I hadn’t looked at my phone all the time. I did write morning pages but skipped yoga and meditation again so that I didn’t have to rush.

There was a delicious breakfast with added peach in my muesli. Yummy! Again all three of us were downstairs for breakfast at the same time. The boy opted to eat in his room, though. I talked with my husband, wove in some ends on my first Flowerpress blanket square and starte the second one.

I was all set on braving the hated telephone in order to finally sort the shoe return drama out but then – I got an email from a debt recovery company. Sad face. But, they did have a link to customer support where there was an actual option to send an email with proof that I returned the goods. Hurray! I cited the whole email conversation between me and the shop that sent me the shoes in the first place and there might be a glimpse of hope.

I did the breakfast dishes and finally made a list for the day, looked at my teaching schedule, looked at the email from a potential new student with the words, „Tuesday after 4 pm would be ideal“, had a good laugh because my first open slot on Tuesdays is at 7 pm and a) I don’t really want to teach that late plus b) I don’t think that’s a suitable time slot for a kid in elementary school anyway.

With that discussion (and the other existing student that needs a new time slot) my illusion that I still have a couple of slots open dissipated. I mean, I have. Thursday at 3, Friday at 3 and maybe Monday at 2.30 but only under protest.

I went for a walk because I still can’t run. The weather looked pretty nice before I went outside. Well, it wasn’t really but I can say that my new rain jacket is working well:

The paths are wet but not all puddles and mud yet:

I came back home and went in the shower right away because my husband was still cooking. Then it turned out that he was super stressed because he was making two kinds of mashed potatoes and two kinds of cutlets (pork and veggie) and that I should have helped with the mashed potatoes. And then I talked too much so he ate lunch in the annex. The boy and I had a quite meal, both reading:

The health food store changed their supplier for meat and I think I don’t like it.

The boy and I talked for a while, I ate chocolate and played silly games and read some more, then I remembered that I needed to cut my toenails, so I did that, and even though I only had 20 minutes to do the dishes I tried anyway. And succeeded with two minutes to spare before my first student of the day.

I had planned to make good use of my one break between students but didn’t really. I did unpack the caddy I bought for under the sink and the numbered stitch markers for sorting the blanket squares. The caddy is probably too small, by the way, but I’m sure I’ll be able to use it for something. And then I downloaded a word tracker for my 100k in Q4 writing challenge. I had already started writing the first scene of a new story in my head while out in the woods.

After teaching I sat down to start writing this post, ate dinner, let the boy talk to me about maths and quantum mechanics so he could sort his thoughts, gave up on all the rest but not before reading and playing iPad games for an hour or two, watched some C-drama and went to bed.