Archives for January 2025

I woke up and pushed myself through my morning routine. I did spend half an hour on the manuscript but mostly wandered off doing unnecessary research.

After breakfast I did the gauge swatch for the new blanket:

I’m really loving the yarn, it is merino wool for a change, not acrylic. I’m still being sensible and will finish the blanket in progress first.

The boy and I did bodyweight training and used the new pull-up bar for the first time. In the end we decided to go upstairs with it because the third floor has the only doors in the house with doorframes suitable for it. Those frames are also metal so I’m hoping they won’t get all bent out of shape by the weight.

We still went back to the kitchen for the rest of the exercises, it’s just cozier down there.

After that I went for a 30-minute walk outside. Wearing my five fingers. It was great, I really love walking in them – even if it was very cold – but at the end of the day my feet weren’t all that happy about it. I guess I’ll try around some more. I’m not quite sure if rest is bad for my feet or using them, I guess I need to do a mixture of both.

Meanwhile my husband had made lunch, wieners, peas and carrots and mashed potatoes:

After that I was mostly done for the day. I took a break (setting a timer this time, yeah!), talked briefly with the boy, we coordinated all three of us wanting to take a shower, I showered, cut my toenails and went over into my studio because I had wanted to do some proofreading and/or writing.

I don’t do well with plans that involve „and/or“. I also was pretty exhausted so I just wasted half an hour, then went on my weekly online meeting with other writers. This time we were only chatting away which was really nice. And I made some progress on the blanket. The meeting only went for an hour this time because the one who provides the Zoom link needed it for something else at that time.

I went back to the kitchen, we cut up all the cheese and served crackers and ate in front of TV watching another episode of ‚Columbo‘. And I kept nodding off until both my husband and son scolded me for not getting enough sleep and basically sending me off to bed.

I did not go to bed at 8.30 but soon after. So now I have gotten a full 8 1/2 hours of sleep for the first time in ages and am feeling accordingly mushy. I’m not sure my brain will get full online today…

I did do the complete morning routine by doing yoga first. Not my favorite schedule but, well.

Husband was in a talking mood again. I did wake the boy up but he was super cranky and fell back asleep immediately. He is still nocturnal, meh.

The main thing for the morning was doing a huge grocery haul. I was a bit afraid because the weather forecast was speaking of storm and I didn’t really want to ride my bike to the other side of town in that. I got lucky, though, when I left just before noon everything was calm and sunny.

I went to the drug store for tooth-brushing paraphernalia including a new toothpaste the hygienist recommended. I am a bit skeptical because every time I switch to one of the recommended toothpastes I get scolded at the next cleaning for not brushing properly. But I’ll try it out anyway.

Grocery shopping went well, I ended up with two heavy bike panniers full to the brim, a backpack and a pack of paper towels. When I put the grocery cart back I had a hard time lifting the panniers out and there wasn’t a lot of space and some people milling around, so I put the pack of paper towels on the row of carts. While lifting my bags out I almost hit a guy behind me and then a supermarket employee arrived with a long line of grocery carts that he wanted to wedge in beside me so I fled. Outside I put my panniers on my bike. Then paused. Oops, I had left the paper towels inside.

I decided to leave the panniers on the bike and pray that no one would steal anything.

When I looked the paper towels were gone.

I went back to the cash registers, maybe someone had left it there, but no. So I had to get back in, get a new pack or towels, stand in line, again, and pay for them. Again. All the while peering through the windows at my bike and the panniers full of costly food.

When I arrived back home I was afraid I’d be too late for lunch but no, my husband had just started. Funny enough making calzone from scratch does take a while:

It did taste very good but the texture reminded me of focaccia instead of pizza. I would have liked it if I could have eaten before two as well.

At least we got a lot of laundry folded and hung up in the meantime. I did air my frustration with being the only one in the house who knows how to hang up laundry properly. And yes, I am overly picky. But also, I have one nice viscose shirt and when you pick the drying rack up and move it, it would be nice to also straighten the laundry back out after so that we don’t all end up with weird wrinkles in the middle of our chests. And no, I do not iron stuff if I can help it.

I also like socks straightened before they get hung up and underwear hung a certain way. Oh, and socks hung in pairs. I mean, I am not as picky about this as my mother, that has to count for something. My husband didn’t like my criticism (fair enough) because he is just taking over more housework and all he gets for it are comments on how he is doing it all RONG!

Anyways, I had felt so frustrated that I bought a pastry at the store. I had plans to share it with the boy but then I was angry at him as well and ate it all on my own:

And yes, I am already working on changing that coping strategy.

Which is why I seem to have lost a minuscule amount of weight in the last week. I just stopped buying certain foods and reduced my alcohol intake. Because I had eaten all the sugar in the early afternoon I, of course, was even more hungry in the evening and followed my completely reasonable and delicious dinner with a whole package of grissini.

In between all of these things our new duvets arrived. They were advertised as „warm“ but when they got here they were very, very thin. We decided to try them out anyway and I can say they are, indeed, at least as warm as our old one and feather-light on top of that. Very nice. I still will need a while to get used to the change. Of course.

The thing that went well was that in between students I actually spent some time proofreading the second novel, so that was good.

I only had four students but did teach until past seven, then had dinner, sat around and did nothing for an hour or so, watched twenty minutes of C-drama while crocheting, did not do my foot exercises, spin or floss and went to bed way too late yet again.

I already started this morning by imploding my morning routine so this will go super, I’m sure.

No yoga and meditation again, though.

I had turned the lights out a little late. I’ve moved my bedtime have an hour earlier, otherwise turning the lights out at 11.15 would have sounded perfectly reasonable.

I wrote morning pages and spent half an hour on my manuscript while my husband was busy with the wood stove. And then the water for tea was already boiling and I didn’t want to wait another 15 minutes for breakfast so I skipped yoga again.

We talked a lot again, very nice conversation, then I did the dishes and went out for a walk somewhat late. My husband had told me the streets were not slippery at all, I bed to differ:

The lightweight sneakers I was wearing didn’t help either. Lunch was as good as ready when I returned so there was no chance to take a shower before eating. Food was delicious, nearly perfect:

There was only a very short break, short enough that I did not take that shower after all because I didn’t want to hurry through it and then teach dripping wet.

So I taught a little sweaty and not super fresh instead. Teaching went all the way to 7 again but with a break in between this time because one student canceled. And after teaching the boy and I met for bodyweight training with a small interlude getting his new headset ready to be returned and talk about headsets.

Bodyweight training was nice, if strenuous, but unfortunately our pull-up bar is starting to disintegrate. Most of it is metal and that is fine but there are rubber parts at certain points that proved not up to the task. Also, when I bought that bar both the boy and I were not as heavy as we are now.

So I guess it’s time to get something else.

Then I talked with my husband a bit more, ate dinner, let the boy take a shower first, talked with everyone again, started writing this post, wrote in my bullet journal, finally got myself cleaned up (and had to be very careful with the hot water, did Duolingo and foot exercises and watched C-drama briefly while spinning and crocheting. Not at the same time, mind you.

Phew.

Well, okay no, it was a Monday, actually but it did feel like a Sunday because of the public holiday.

I went to bed at a somewhat reasonable time which was still too late, slept well, woke up from the alarm and then promptly lounged in bed for half an hour. Oh, and I can tell you where my time goes in the mornings now. Take a guess?

Yep. Internet, email and researching weird stuff. So, basically I pick up my phone and then up to an hour just goes poof. I’ll try to do better in the future.

I did do my complete, complete morning routine including meditation. My husband and I are trying a new way of meshing our respective morning routines and I think it might actually work.

After breakfast there was blogging and other online stuff, then the breakfast dishes while listening to classical music and around noon I finally got outside and took a walk. No picture because while I did try to commune with nature nature’s dirt paths were icy, slippery and muddy so I turned around and did the rest of my walk on sidewalks.

I liked walking so much that my husband was rather worried when I came back 50 minutes later.

There was asparagus risotto for lunch:

I took a little break after that, played some silly iPad games and also a bit of Gris. Just as I was about to open another game my husband showed up and we talked about what we wanted to do when in the afternoon. I saw the boy briefly. I started folding all the laundry (three loads) and overreacted a bit because I couldn’t find my favorite pair of pajamas. I had put it in the laundry nine days before or so and it was neither on any of the drying racks, nor where it belonged, nor could I find it anywhere else.

Turned out, my husband had put it back into the dirty laundry hamper. And not in one of the ones we use in the basement to sort loads, no back in the one upstairs. Well, we had a longer conversation about him not knowing that I’d like to wash first what got dirty first. I didn’t know I had to state that. I thought it was self-evident. For example I only own three long-sleeved shirts that fit, and one of those has a small hole. I actually do expect that everything I put into the dirty laundry hamper does get washed within a couple of days, a week at the most.

We also had a brief conversation about whether him always putting black socks in with the whites was intentional. Apparently not, which is good to know.

While I was in the living room I also started taking everything off the Christmas tree. My husband had offered to get the tree itself out of the stand but I just did it while I was at it.

After that I finally wanted to take a shower but my husband reminded me of my promise to help him repair his dresser. It was super frustrating but we managed to get that one drawer back in. Unfortunately, while checking the other drawers as well another drawer fell out. And then we found that those funny little metal balls that we had noticed earlier were actually supposed to be inside the drawer rails (is that the word? I’m too lazy to check, sorry). And then I couldn’t figure out how to put them back in. I think I need to buy new ones. We also had put the screws in the wrong way when repairing the other drawer but it’s working anyway so who cares.

That took ages, so my plan to review 2024 was foiled again. My husband needed to call a friend at that point so I was left with hanging up the laundry (yeah for clean pajamas!) and did the dishes.

Then I started writing this post, wrote in my bullet journal, did Duolingo, made a cup of tea, did my foot exercises, read a bit and went to bed.

And to day it’s back to teaching.