Archives for November 2024

And I even went to bed on time the night before! These two things might be related.

I did most of my morning routine, including writing new words. It was one of those days where writing feels like wading through treacle and then once I look at my word count I find it went really fast.

I only did half of what I wanted to, there was another long conversation with my husband after breakfast, I ordered a replacement living room lamp, I did the breakfast dishes while listening to music and a podcast, I folded two loads of laundry at one point and helped to make lunch:

I’m not a big fan of spaghetti alla puttanesca because I don’t really like olives, capers and anchovies. I had some chocolate and cookies afterwards.

Then I sat with the boy while he ate lunch, did the dishes, did a quick vacuum of the old part of the house and waved a rag in the direction of the washbasin and toilet before jumping in the shower. I hit my weekly Zoom check-in with other authors two minutes late with wet hair but I was there.

The meeting was really nice, as always, and wasn’t overly long this time.

After that the three of us had dinner together, some frozen samosas and falafel and prosecco. Not quite a classic combination:

We had a rather enjoyable meal with a conversation about language learning and fluency and then went to the living room to watch our weekly episode of ‚Columbo‘ which was excellent, as always.

I spent most of that episode knitting one measly row only to find that in my excitement during the afternoon meeting I had started the next color on row too early. (I kept wondering why the main color was hanging off the other end but never stopped to really think about it.) So for the second half of the show I unknit two rows at once which turned out to be a mistake with that grabby a yarn:

It took 45 minutes to untangle that yarn and wind it back onto the ball. At least then I could continue knitting.

And after that I made the dumb decision to get myself a beer and watch some more TV which ended up with lights out past midnight. I knew it was the wrong decision while I was making it and the boy looked at me with that slightly exasperated expression and said, „Mom, better don’t have that beer.“ He was right, I also knew it and then I went and did it anyway.

I mean, I wasn’t drunk or anything but the better course of action would have been to turn the TV off, get up from my chair, maybe make myself a cup of chamomile tea and read a bit. Not watch 1 1/2 episodes of C-drama and then falling down a „just 5 more minutes!“-YouTube rabbit hole.

Well, I still got up at six this morning. I am expecting a massive afternoon slump today though, ahem.

I woke up early after only seven hours of sleep yet again, wrote my morning pages and some new words on the novel-in-progress and decided to skip yoga because I was lazy.

There must have been the usual breakfast and talking with husband and such but I don’t really remember at this point. I did the breakfast dishes and then we were scheduled to mount the new living room light.

Which we did. Not without frustration, of course, the place where one has to put the screws in to close the light are in a place where it’s really hard to reach. I tried a couple of times because my fingers are way narrower than my husband’s and still the screws fell down to the floor three or four times before we finally succeeded.

So yeah, we have a new ceiling light in the living room. But boo, the remote control for the light doesn’t work and so we have a glaring, white eye-searing amount of light there that we can’t dim at all. I mean, I really like my ceiling lights to be bright and I’m the one who turns on all the lights at all times but this light is so bright and cold it hurts my eyes.

We also hung the cupboard that used to be in the kitchen and that will hold some of my yarn in the future:

I will add the shelves and doors once I’ve cleaned it a bit.

So we had to think about whether we want to return the living room light or not. Husband actually likes it better than the one before, the boy and I both hate it with a fiery vengeance. So this morning I made the executive decision to return it. (Husband said, „But it’s used! We can’t return a used light fixture!“ Um, yes we can, if it’s not working. And you can’t figure out if it’s working or not without mounting it. And then he said maybe it’s due to our old wiring. I really don’t think so.) I’ve ordered a replacement (that costs 7 euros less because of Black Friday week) and if that one’s remote isn’t working either I’ll just learn to live with it.

After all that home improvement I didn’t really have time to clean anymore, so I helped a little with lunch:

This is basically the easiest Chinese meal ever, you need green bell peppers, tofu and rice, start by cutting th bell pepper and tofu into strips (husband cut the tofu into chunks, oops), dry-fry the bell pepper, take it out when it’s almost done, heat some oil, fry the tofu, add the bell pepper, salt and soy sauce and eat it with the cooked rice, the end. Husband couldn’t help himself and added black pepper which works well but I had to step in before he added garlic and ginger as well. Interestingly enough this tastes better without.

After that I wanted to take a break and then do the dishes and get started on cleaning but instead the boy showed up, back from uni, we talked and I didn’t look at the clock until it was time for my first student.

After that I had a break. Now, cleaning, proofreading or vegging out? Well, I did some online shopping for my husband, answered a few texts and did an online puzzle.

Then one more student and after that I did bodyweight training with the boy. After which we shared a bag of potato chips and one of licorice. I added a beer and ate it all in front of TV. I had looked forward to that for days and really enjoyed it.

After that I decided I was too tired for the whole foot exercises, bullet journal, Duolingo, start the daily blog post thing. The boy tried talking to me but I was thoroughly zombified at that point and just went straight to bed. With all the dirty dishes still in the sink.

So I guess today will be extra busy with the cleaning and maybe some walking, taking a shower and such. But well.

I went to bed at 11 which is good but not good enough and slept well until 6. I was feeling a little sluggish right away but still wrote my morning pages, worked on the new novel for half an hour and then my husband showed up. I did yoga, he came back to start the fire and got impatient enough with the whole “boiling water on the wood stove“-thing that he used the electric kettle instead.

We talked, I worked on the pair of fingerless mittens I had started for the boy the night before and found that there is a big error in the pattern, boo. So now I need to take some time, make a few decisions and change the pattern. The cuff does look nice, though:

I talked with members of the family and got ready for the day and then went off to the health food store and to buy yogurt. Came back, my husband was right in the middle of cooking and found that „let’s make some pasta to go with the leftover goulash“ had turned into something a little bigger with a pile of green peppers and a separate sauce for the boy. There was still time and my husband didn’t want help so I wandered off to watch a course about newsletters. I got carried away and only returned ten minutes after lunch was ready. Oops.

I set the table and sent the boy a text that lunch was ready and we all met in the kitchen. My husband was already a bit cranky. We talked, there was a misunderstood joke, husband got crankier and declared he wasn’t hungry. And that he had no idea why he was in a bad mood.

The boy and I ate, we talked a bit, I tried shoving him out the door (which resulted in him getting to uni an hour early, apparently) and just as I was about to get ready for teaching my husband returned and asked me to help with mounting that living room light.

So, the ceiling light in our living room is from the 90s and at one point one of the lights burnt out and it’s the kind of light you can’t buy anymore and one of the glass covers for the lights broke and so we decided to get a new one. Which we did a couple of years ago. Around 2020, I think. Since then that light fixture has sat on a shelf waiting to be mounted. And we never got around to it.

The day before my husband had already tried getting the old light fixture off but hadn’t succeeded. So now, with ten minutes until my first student, he was on a stepladder in the living room with me first rushing off to turn the fuse off and the rushing back to assist. The screws holding the fixture were rather hard to unscrew, he got very frustrated and in the end slammed the screwdriver down on our living room table from the top of the ladder. That table has a glass top. Which was covered with a tablecloth. But. On that table sat the new light fixture and all the glass covers for it.

My husband managed to smash all three covers in one stroke. They were nearly pulverized and there are still small splinters on the sofa next to it.

He eventually got the old fixture down but now we still need to buy a new lamp.

So I guess I’ll go to the hardware store today.

After that I taught a lot of students. Two didn’t show without canceling which is always a bit frustrating. (Not frustrating enough to throw a screwdriver, though.) I used one break to set up an account with a new newsletter provider and during the second one I started to do some proofreading but then talked with my husband instead.

When my last student left I decided I really needed to make some music and played the piano for half an hour, then I talked to my husband again, ate dinner, talked with the boy and my husband, then started writing this post, did Duolingo and got ready for bed.

And now the hardware store and more lamp shenanigans.

I didn’t quite get enough sleep but woke up at 6 from the alarm. The boy had told me in advance that he wouldn’t get up at 6, so at least I knew.

I wrote my morning pages right away and tried a new strategy for getting my writing in for the first time. I took my laptop with me to bed, set a timer and wrote for 30 minutes. Then I did yoga and meditated for 3 minutes.

My husband had shown up somewhere between the writing and the yoga to let me yoga in peace. After he came over and started the wood stove.

There was breakfast and lots of talking again, this time less emotional and deep which was rather nice. We’re starting to make plans for December and for fun things we could do together.

I finished the shawl-in-progress. And decided to add the wavy border to it which means I’m not quite finished yet. I’ll probably be sorry soon but the border looks really great.

I did the breakfast dishes while listening to a piano piece by Ligeti. I have no idea where I might have heard it before but it sounded really familiar.

I put my five finger shoes on and walked up and down the annex corridor for ten minutes. It felt both wonderful and a bit too much. And then I switched to orthotics and regular sneakers again and went for a fast walk:

I only walked as far as the train tracks through the woods because I didn’t want to overdo things.

Meanwhile the wood stove had gone out and my husband had stoked it again which meant lunch was late. Fortunately, Monday is the day where we both start teaching later so it was not a big deal. I used that time to take a shower. Lunch was inspired by leftover ground beef:

The boy came downstairs when we were both still sitting there talking. As my husband remarked, ever since changing the way he cooks lunch we haven’t had a single fight at lunchtime. That is certainly worth not eating three different things every meal.

I had plans for my break between lunch and teaching but ended up talking with the boy. I asked him to do the dishes which was really helpful. And then I went teaching. I had an unexpected break between students because of a cancellation that I used to tell some of my Wednesday students the there will still be lessons despite it being a school holiday.

After the last student left I had another brief conversation with my husband, ate some cheese toast for dinner, started writing this post, did Duolingo and my foot exercises, gave up on picking up stitches for the shawl border, watched an episode of C-drama and went to bed.

Today we will try to get the old living room lamp off the ceiling and mount the new one. The one that has been sitting in a box for years now.