Archives for December 2024

No wonder with getting only 4 1/2 hours of sleep and having had people in the house for three days in a row. Even if I didn’t interact with them much.

No writing that morning because I was so slow with my morning pages and then thought I would do my writing and yoga later. (Spoiler: I did not do my writing and yoga later.)

What I did do was walk to the health food store and to one of the nearby supermarkets for everything we needed for New Year’s Eve. I even remembered that self-checkout is a big hassle when you’re buying alcohol because, of course, you have to wait for a supermarket employee to wave you through. To make sure you’re not a minor.

The alcohol I was buying was the kirschwasser for today’s cheese fondue.

Meanwhile my husband was busy making lunch and this one was very tasty:

In the afternoon I mostly succumbed to the afternoon slump but also did the dishes and took a quick shower. The boy showed up just as I was about to get into the shower, then after I had finished he asked me to help him try on his new shoes. Well, that was when I had only 8 minutes left to get ready for teaching my sole student of the day, so no.

We did that afterwards instead, he decided to keep the shoes despite his misgivings about the shape of the sole and the fact that these lace-up boots also have a zipper. We did order new shoelaces, though.

And then we did bodyweight training. We switched up from 2 sets of 12 reps for each of the four exercises we do to 3 sets of 10. And it wasn’t as bad as I thought it would be. I’m still a bit miffed about one of my husband’s friends saying that push-ups are not doing anything and are just for show. He said planks were more effective which might be the case but I really don’t like when someone tells me something that has been working well for me is shit. If I’m not careful that can lead to me doing no exercise at all.

I am aware that our strength training routine is not the bestest in the world but it is one that a) we know how to do, b) with the equipment that we already own, and c) that is not overwhelming and d) fun enough that we keep doing it. I have the exercises in a now defunct app which means I start the routine and then I just do what it tells me to do for half an hour and then I’m done.

Also, quite a few of my muscles are slightly sore today so I guess it is doing something. And I can see my biceps getting bigger.

I still feel like an idiot doing my pseudo pull-ups. I’m standing on a chair in front of my pull-up bar and try to put as much weight on my arms as I can tolerate. Which isn’t much. The other day I tried my husband’s dumbbells and it seems I’m using the equivalent of 5 kilos. That’s a long way from being able to actually hoist up my currently 86 kilo body. But well, you have to start somewhere.

Even if I never manage to do a proper pull-up or push-up it will make me stronger than before to do those wimpy watered-down exercises. And yes, I know how that sounds and I also know that after gaining more than twenty kilos and unable to do any exercise for quite some time last year I will have to start over again.

It’s either that or giving up. And since I want to be as fit as I possibly can for as long as I can giving up is not an option, period.

Every time I’m disheartened with any of those big project and life stuff I try to remember how big projects work in general. Like, all those crochet blankets. (Did I tell you that I caved and bought two baskets for them? With room to spare? I really love it.) Making one of those things is pretty intimidating at first. It usually takes me about two months of sitting down doing a little bit every day. But that’s just it, crocheting after breakfast and while watching TV is just a way of life for me at this point. And if I do it long enough I end up with a finished blanket.

Anyways, last night I was so tired that I only watched half an episode of C-drama before retiring to bed.

I guess tonight I’ll stay up late again because I haven’t quite reached the point where I don’t stay up on New Year’s Eve,

I mean, we all know how thrilled I am if my plans change at the last minute.

So, turns out going to bed early really does make me feel better.

There was a lot of talking in the morning (good conversations for a change) and really awful goulash for lunch:

We didn’t have the right kind of pasta (not a big problem) and the goulash was slightly burnt, dry and tough with way too many spices and herbs. My husband and I both didn’t finish. The wine, on the other hand, was delicious. It was a gift from one of my husband’s students and I’m sorry but I can’t read the label right now.

At 3 in the afternoon my husband’s friend came back to make music. We had been waiting for words from the percussionist because he wasn’t sure he’d have time to join us. So they played, I looked through old notebooks to figure out how many books I wrote between 2017 and now and how many words that was and then I did the huge pile of dirty dishes.

By the way, I can’t really say how much I wrote because while I did find the records I put in my bullet journals I did not find anything between 2019 and 2022. When I started keeping those records in digital form. I think I should probably go and look on the older laptop. Maybe.

While I was doing the dishes my husband showed up in the kitchen saying that the drummer/trombonist had already left, that he and his remaining friend were both super exhausted and ready to call it quits for the day but that the percussionist had sent an email saying he’d be here at 7.

So I started preheating the oven for frozen pizza for all of us and simultaneously started my vocal warm-up

We had pizza and talked, then went downstairs and made some music and everybody left at 9. But. My plans to watch the Die Hard-storytelling class was shot.

I decided that being done with having people in the house deserved a beer to celebrate and watched an episode of „See My Love“. Yes, all these titles are cringe, sorry. Since I need to wait another two days for the next episode I then watched a bit of Angela Collier’s video on Richard Feynman, decided that retiring to bed to read with a second beer was a splendid idea, spend an hour or so reading, must have dozed off at one point and only brushed my teeth after 1 am.

I might be a tad tired today. And this is just another example of me doing something dumb while being perfectly aware how dumb it is. There’s just a small little voice in my head that says, „It will be fine! This doesn’t make that much of a difference! You can just pretend to be awake and alert, no problem, nobody will notice.“ Right. Sure.

If I were my own child I’d give myself one of those “disappointed while being amused and angry at the same time“-looks. But as with my son that look apparently doesn’t work on me.

Anyways, I’ll try again today.

Well, I had turned the lights out after midnight (great choice there), and did my usual dawdling in the morning, including doing a bit of research if one can get addicted to sleep deprivation. Um. And yes, being sleep deprived does give one a sort of high and that can become addictive in a way but, of course, not like a drug. On the flip side, sleep deprivation can lead to other addictions because your impulse control and rational decision-making is inhibited. Duh.

I wrote morning pages and did twenty minutes of fiction writing but decided to do yoga later. Well, spoiler, later never came.

I was very determined to go for a walk in the morning but with one thing or the other I didn’t get that done either, and also didn’t change the sheets on my bed. But still, the morning did go reasonably well.

We had leftovers for lunch, I got to eat all that was left from our Christmas Eve meal:

And then I played some silly iPad games and also a bit of ‚Neva‘ which I’m really enjoying. Then I finally took a shower, then did the dishes. The good thing was that I procrastinated both things a bit because then my husband emerged from his nap and it turned out he needed to shower as well. If I had done it as planned he would have had to take his shower cold.

I talked with the boy for a bit, my husband’s friends turned up and I went into my studio for my weekly writers group check-in. That conversation was really, really fun and helpful. I got to pick other peoples’ brains who had totally different experiences with publishing.

One thing that is a bit weird is that a lot of them started thinking about publishing in 2012, just like me, but they have dozens of books out by now. I don’t. Well, it is what it is. And I just realized that if I look at how many books I wrote from then to now I’ll have an idea how many might be feasible in the future. Huh.

Right in the middle of the call my door opened and our percussionist friend showed up. He couldn’t figure out where the music was coming from.

I finally did my vocal warm-up but just as I was about to go downstairs and join rehearsal the whole gang was coming upstairs. It turned out that my husband and I were the only ones who had had lunch that day, they were all starving so we went out for dinner. No pictures, sorry.

We came back home, finally rehearsed that one song I’ll be singing with them, the one my husband and I wrote together when we were in Brazil, and by 9.30 his two friends claimed that they needed to catch the last bus and were off. (The last bus goes two hours later and they also could have taken the train that runs all through the night, just not as often.) But I’m not complaining.

I thought it was still early enough to watch a short episode of something but then almost fell asleep while doing Duolingo so I took myself off to bed at a reasonable hour for a change.

And I got a little more sleep which is rather nice.

I woke up from the alarm, lounged in bed, tried to bring myself to do my morning routine and failed. So I decided to just not do it until the end of the year. No alarm, no routine, nothing. And I felt better immediately.

I actually can’t remember what I did all morning but in the end I did manage to get a walk in. In my Five Finger shoes, even. I’m really hoping that I didn’t hurt my feet with that but so far it feels okay. A bit sore but that’s to be expected:

When my husband started cooking we found that the duck breast we wanted to make was still frozen. We both had forgotten that I bought it that way, and then, of course, stuck it in the freezer. Oops. The dumplings are from store-bought dough (I really am intimidated by making potato dumplings which is silly because I do make gnocchi from scratch) and the red cabbage came from a can:

Then I ended up playing all the games in the afternoon, including a lengthy session of „Neva“ again, before finally doing the dishes at 5, then losing time again until I finally ate dinner at 7 and then started watching the course on storytelling in „Die Hard“.

After that I did a short Duolingo session, watched another episode of „Love is a Poison“ while crocheting and went to bed a little late.

Today I need to get my act together because I want to do all.the.things! And we’re having guests over in the afternoon.

Let’s see, it feels like not a lot happened but that’s okay for a holiday, I guess.

There were many long conversations with my husband again, I’m sure, I did not write, I did help with making lunch a little and then had an idea for something that happened before the novel I’m currently writing. More backstory, this is driving me nuts, remind me not to write about really, really old characters again in the future.

We decided to make a lunch that was not about the cabbage:

In the afternoon I played „Neva“ and „Gris“ and a bit of „Life is Strange“ but mostly I was just fighting the controller. And I think I’ll take a break from „Neva”, as much as I like the game the fighting is stressing me a little and I don’t need that every day.

The boy got up really late, so he ate, then we did bodyweight training, he took a shower, we did the dishes and then we watched the „Venom“ movie from 2018 as a family. The boy and I shared a bag of potato chips and some chocolate truffles in front of TV, my husband ate something more sensible for dinner.

The movie was fun and exciting enough that I stopped crocheting at times but not something we’ll watch again, I guess. All those action scenes had the advantage that my husband didn’t have a hard time with the dialogue. As always we had to turn the volume up and down all the time. These things just sound better in a movie theater.

After that I watched another episode of „Love is a Poison“ and went to bed too late. I am proud that I did not drink a second beer but instead made myself a cup of herbal tea and did my foot exercises.

I already started this day in a massive slump so that will be fun for sure!