Archives for February 2025

I had gone to bed almost on time and did most of my morning routine. This time my husband showed up right when I was about to get up, he had remembered that the heating was on in the living room and was afraid I would forget to turn it down when opening all the windows in the morning.

We had breakfast together after my long routine of morning pages, writing and yoga. The writing went pretty well for a change. We talked a lot which was nice. But then we were a little late for everything else. I did the dishes while listening to some Schubert for four hands, that was excellent.

By then I was very late for the supermarket run and had ti push some other errand to today.

I managed to time my bike ride to the supermarket perfectly so that I ran into masses of students getting out of school both on my way there and back again. Shopping itself went well and was completely unremarkable. On my way to the supermarket I had to wait for the green light when crossing a busy road twice. First I was stuck behind a car that had to let the pedestrians cross first, and then I had to wait for the same light to turn green so that I could cross myself. When I was making my way back, taking great care not to run over a student or two there was a young student on a bike before me. There were still half a dozen students walking in the direction of the supermarket there. The student on her bike and I were crossing the road, weaving between the students who were walking. The crossing is awful, there is a t-section with the short arm of the T consisting on two streets in parallel. So as a pedestrian (or someone on a bike) who wants to cross the road you first cross the big road and then the small one. There was a transporter coming from the long arm of the T who wanted to go left into the narrower of the two streets. The young girl on her bike was crossing the big road and then the small one. She had the right of way. The guy who drove the transporter had clearly not seen her, took the turn too fast and bumped into her.

My heart almost stopped, I was behind her, close enough to see everything. She was unharmed, by the way, and the driver was completely shaken. He asked her repeatedly if everything was okay.

She was all calm and happy until she realized what just had happened. Phew.

I went home, unpacked the groceries and told my husband the whole story and then realized I was almost crying. Not for long though.

Lunch was already on the table and for once the boy sat down at the table with us. We had polenta with beans:

After that I ate some chocolate and took a break. I only taught very few students with lots of breaks because the series of cancellations due to illness continues.

I finished teaching at 8, having eaten dinner before my last lesson of the day. Then I answered some messages, started writing this post, did Duolingo (I need to play for XP right now because I managed to get myself into an extremely cut-throat league this week, and I’d like to not lose my 79-week streak in the Diamond league. As silly as that is), and went to bed without watching anything because it was already too late.

Today will be a rather light teaching day and some housework and then the weekend.

So, I went to bed only half an hour late which I count as a win. Then I slept until my alarm went off, woke up and the next thing I know it’s an hour later. Which is a bit of a problem because I have a morning appointment at the neurologist.

But this is where the advantage of a lengthy morning routine comes into play: if you skip it you can have a leisurely breakfast and still get ready in time.

Then I took a train to Munich and went to my neurologist’s appointment. That office was much nicer and less crowded than the cardiologist. The doctor was also extremely nice and the first one who asked me about all the specifics of my dizzy spells and my life. She looked at all the info, was a bit miffed that I didn’t have the report from the ENT, did a couple of quick tests, had some more major arteries checked and told me that everything was fine and that the reason for my vertigo was probably stress and psychosomatic. Or maybe the hearing loss in one ear but for that I’ll go back to the ENT.

Anyways, for now the string of doctor’s appointments has a break until the end of March.

On my way home I picked up some yogurt, mozzarella, chicken breast, dried coriander and chocolate and went home where my husband was sweeping the sidewalk in front of our house. It was rather nice that he a) took care of all the dirt and cigarette butts that had been bugging me for a while, and b) greeted me when I came back.

Then he made mezze zita with bolognese sauce for lunch and I helped with the salad by chopping various things:

I took a break, ate all the chocolate (I need to stop doing this, my weight is going back up already) and read a bit until it was time to teach. I taught two students, then had a long break that I used to help my husband with something computer related and then I watched more course videos while crocheting a bit and started installing the new WordPress theme.

I taught two more students, my last student of the day had canceled, and then I was done for the day. I ate dinner, talked briefly with my husband, ate some extra cheese and more chocolate (why yes, I tend to eat when tired and exhausted), talked briefly with the boy, did Duolingo, made my self a cup of tea, did my foot exercises and dawdled for too long and had to skip watching C-drama.

Today I’m happy to go nowhere, I’ll just stay at home. Maybe a walk but that will be it.

I’m having two busy days in a row, so no time to write about them, really.

I did make it to the cardiologist and to the dentist yesterday. I was reminded that no doctor actually wants to hear the whole story start to finish, what they want is a sentence, or two, then some tests and then to have you out of their office as fast as possible without doing too much damage.

But everything went well, everybody I dealt with was very nice and professional and apparently my heart and my carotid arteries look fine.

I am very proud that I managed to tell the dentist that I really dislike being patted on the shoulder while getting injections and he put that in my file and was not only rather nice about it but proclaimed he was grateful I had said something. Huh.

I came back home in time for lunch:

I had a break after lunch where I mostly sat around reading and doing social media, then I taught all the usual students, talked with the boy afterwards, we did bodyweight training, I started writing this post, watched the second half of the C-drama episode I started the day before and went to bed.

Oh, and I went back to reading „War & Peace“. No idea how far I’ll come this time.

I went to bed on time and slept well. Wow.

Then I did my complete morning routine including yoga and everything. I ate breakfast alone because my husband is trying to give me more space, and also, turns out when he does more than half the housework and teaches more he also needs more time alone than before. Funny that.

I did my usual online rounds, talked with my husband a bit and then with my mother on the phone. The boy had asked me to wake him up at noon, which I did, I finished the dishes my husband had started while listening to a marvelous and haunting choral piece by some Scandinavian composer whose name I have forgotten, then I bought a new WordPress theme and downloaded it, returned in time for lunch but it wasn’t ready yet.

So I folded 1 1/2 loads of laundry. Since my husband had asked me to choose between spinach, potatoes and fried eggs or spaghetti carbonara with guanciale, we had – of course – spinach:

The boy showed up earlier than usual, we had just started eating. He was very excited about finally understanding something in theoretical physics. We talked a bit and then I took a break. I have to say when I don’t play those silly games and also don’t spend as much time on social media I do have more time for other things. Who would have thought. I played „The Stillness of the Wind“ again for half an hour or so and then helped my husband move the futon in the garage. We had put it on top of the rain barrels and when my husband took one of the barrels out the futon fell in a way that blocked access to the bikes. Since he is having trouble with one of his fingers right now he did not want to attempt heaving the whole thing back up so I went out with him and helped.

After that I had planned to plan the week and spend some manuscript time.

Well, I did plan the week. I also texted with friends and then started trying to fix that weird problem with our cable yet again. After my husband got his new TV some of the channels he used to be able to watch stopped working. And those were the ones that we pay extra for. But. Somehow yesterday I found a thing on the website under „your devices“ (I didn’t know we had any devices from the cable company) where you could activate your smart card. And bam! Everything is working again.

Just when I was about to go and eat dinner the boy showed up again and I helped him with something again.

My husband was washing dishes when I came back into the kitchen, he had a friend show up in the afternoon who wanted computer help, and therefore didn’t finish the dishes and hanging up the laundry. So I dried dishes while he washed the rest, then ate dinner and then procrastinated some before starting to write this post.

Somewhere in between I also packed my bag for today’s doctor’s visit with all the paperwork I’m supposed to bring. I did Duolingo, took a shower, made a list for today, watched some C-drama and went to bed.

New week, new luck!

So, while I was sluggish in the morning and did not do yoga or meditated, I did get going pretty soon after breakfast. I changed the sheets on my bed, vacuumed the old part of the house, did the breakfast dishes and cleaned some of my bathroom.

I went walking/running for half an hour and the weather was glorious:

It even seems as if my feet aren’t angry about it, yeah!

Lunch was a little late but nobody cared, my husband made pasta e fagioli with the wrong kind of beans. None of us cared about that either, the stew was delicious:

I only took a somewhat reasonable break after that and started playing „The Stillness of the Wind“. I’m not quite sure the game is compatible with my computer, it did run but there were a few bugs and when I open the game it tells me that my computer can’t run 32-bit games.

It’s hard enough to find something that runs on a Mac, I’d rather not have to unearth the 2010 laptop for this. I’m not tie sure how the game works yet, I am really not good with computer games at all but it looks like something I would enjoy.

The boy informed me the other day that the kind of game I like is called a „walking simulator“ by people who look down on games where you don’t have to attack something every other minute. I do like the sound of it. Walking around, looking at the world, gathering clues and solving puzzles? Sounds great to me.

The boy came downstairs while I was playing and we realized that we needed to do bodyweight training right away to fit it into our day. So he ate and then came back downstairs for exercise. Always fun on a full stomach.

We did our exercises and felt woefully out of shape, then I had to sprint to take a shower and get ready in time for my weekly writer’s meeting. That was nice and rather short for once, then I watched a rather mediocre episode of ‚Columbo‘ with my husband.

I almost nodded off during the episode and kept dozing in my chair afterwards so I decided to go to bed early for once. So I did Duolingo and drank a cup of tea while reading in bed and then decided to push everything else to today.

Just as I was about to brush my teeth the boy came downstairs to take a shower but I prevailed and turned the lights out at 10.30.

Today will be a little less busy and I am having high hopes of maybe opening the manuscript again in th afternoon.