Archives for March 2025

Yeah, I’m not a fan. I went to bed a little late – for regular time – and ended up getting an hour less sleep than I needed. I kept looking at the funky-looking bar on my sleep app and it took me ages to figure out that that was the hour we skipped during the night. Duh.

I wrote morning pages, then I opened the laptop to work on my manuscript and let myself be drawn into fiddling with the word tracker spreadsheet some more. The bad thing is that it took all my manuscript time. The good thing is that I figured it out. The other bad thing is that it was just a case of the cell being not wide enough to display the deadline date in the format I had chosen. I took out the day of the week and everything was fine. And for that I spent half an hour on Google. And these days I constantly have to click over to the actual results instead of the AI summary. Blah.

Then it was already a bit late. My husband had done the sensible thing and slept in a bit. He had realized that the sun wasn’t doing daylight savings, so there was no need for him to get up at 7 to build the fire before it was shining on the chimney.

I thought I had to be quick with everything because he wanted to watch ski-flying but we ended up talking quite a bit and he missed the complete first round.

Then I did my internet rounds, read and knit a bit, attempted to sideload two books on my ebook reader and failed, then talked with my mother on the phone, talked with my husband some more, we washed the tea things, made frozen pizza and salad together and ate lunch:

The boy was nowhere to be seen.

Then I took a long break, started reading through some online articles that I had saved to read later, read some fiction, and started doing the dishes right at the time where I had wanted to get to the important stuff of the day.

With impeccable timing the boy showed up while I was doing the dishes, 20 seconds before the end of the Hildegard von Bingen song I was listening to. He didn’t stay long and seemed a bit grumpy. When he left I found that the only thing left of the song was actually the part where they sing „amen“. Funny.

I watched some more of the publishing course. Thinking about advanced copies and reviews and „influencer marketing“ makes me break out in hives but I guess I should start immunizing myself. I also had the sobering thought that I’ll never have more time than I have now. Meh. But. Then I realized while that might be true I also will not have to rebuild my website or any of the infrastructure behind publishing my books from scratch for every book. So, in a way I will have more time. Phew.

Then I finally moved over to my studio to work on that WordPress theme course some more. Things are moving at a glacial pace but I guess I’ll just have to accept that learning this stuff takes time. And I am making progress. And all that „and now click here, do this and then click here and do that“ will probably teach me stuff just because I’ve done it a lot before. That’s often a problem with learning new things, you look at something, you think you get it but it doesn’t stick. This will probably stick.

I would have liked a bit more time for clicking here and that but the boy and I were set to do bodyweight training at 6. We met, we did our training, I forced him to take all his clean laundry upstairs and I took that opportunity to put away the cookie tins and other Christmas paraphernalia. So right now the top of the shoe cupboard is almost empty.

Oh, and when folding laundry I ran across that hat that had been lingering around for years, only needing a bath and a picture:

It’s not easy to take a picture of the top of your own head, so in order to get the crown as well I had to lay it flat:

There is a story behind this hat. I got the fiber in a swap in 2011 in the „Friends of Abby’s Yarn“-group that was organized in tandem with the first Stringtopia retreat. I spun the yarn on my heavier Bosworth spindle for the Wooly Wormhead KAL in 2013. I distinctly remember spinning on it during a meeting with other parents. I thought it was when the boy was still in kindergarten but I didn’t spin at that time. It just was the same restaurant we used to have parent meetings then. Spinning it took roughly three weeks.

I remember being disappointed that the color was so light. I knitted the hat from November 5th to 22nd in 2013, finished it, and put it in a pile of things that needed to be blocked and photographed. Ahem.

I mean, it’s only 11+ years later…

The boy and I talked a bit, we ate dinner, I read some more, then started writing this post while the boy came downstairs to cook a couple of eggs and make dashi which didn’t help my focus. And yes, I was sitting at the kitchen table again, I mean, who would have thought the kitchen to be such a hot spot at that time of day.

I then proceeded to do Duolingo, plan out the week, do my foot exercises, watch some C-drama while knitting and go to bed.

And today I’m having an eye doctor appointment. Yeah?

I did go to bed at a reasonable time and slept pretty well. I still was slow in the morning but I did manage my complete morning pages, manuscript time, yoga and meditation routine. While my husband was taking care of the fire in the wood stove again.

We didn’t have as much time to talk as usual because he wanted to watch ski flying on TV. I knitted a bit, made my usual online rounds and then counted all my cash. I try entering everything into my budget app but somehow there’s always a difference between what’s actually in my wallet and what’s in the app. I knew I had a problem when my cash account went to -4.90 €. And no, I did not spend more cash than I had. I don’t know how that happened but hey, having more money than you thought you had is usually a good thing.

I did the breakfast dishes and listened to some Eugen Onegin (not bad) and then went for my walk/run. The partial eclipse might have happened during that time but I don’t know. It was gray and wet and pretty dark anyway.

The running intervals went a little better than the week before, I guess that’s progress:

I actually like running in the rain.

My husband had already started cooking beans right after breakfast and so lunch was almost ready when I returned:

I took a break and decided not to do the dishes because all the pots were still in use and I didn’t feel washing two plates, a fork, a spoon and two glasses was really worth it.

Just when I was about to take a shower the boy showed up. I did not give in to the temptation of talking with him but went straight to the bathroom.

I had made plans to spend time with the manuscript for an hour in the afternoon and also spend an hour with that WordPress course. I even canceled my weekly meeting for it. I was very determined.

Then I was fifteen minutes late. Then I realized how much the broken spreadsheet I was using to track my word count was bugging me and I tried fixing it. Then I downloaded a fresh copy of the spreadsheet. In the end I spent so much time on it that I used up all the time I had reserved for the manuscript and my brain was almost as broken as the spreadsheet.

So I switched tasks and worked on the course. And kept thinking I must have missed something because my practice website looks nothing like the one in the course. So I kept going back and forth. In the end I was pretty sure the only problem was that the course is three years old and both WordPress and the theme I’m using have changed in the meantime. I will still be able to get this done but everything looks just a little different.

Then it was time to meet with the rest of the family for our ritual watching of ‚Columbo‘. I thought the episode was pretty good but as usual it did drag a bit in the second half. The boy said in his opinion the show would have been better with 45-minute episodes and I can see where he’s coming from.

After that I fell into a bit of a „the day is almost over and I haven’t gotten anything done“-slump, watched the second half of the C-drama episode from the day before (it’s all very dramatic, oh my), then started watching YouTube for a bit before coming to my senses.

I did Duolingo, started writing this post, reminded myself of the time change and how sorry I would be the next day if I went to bed too late, realized that I was too late anyway, had a cup of tea, read for a bit and went to bed.

The plan for today includes watching ski-flying in Planica again for my husband, calling my mother a little earlier than usual and frozen pizza for lunch. Oh, and I’ll do all the work I had wanted to do yesterday this afternoon. Of course.

I had such plans! But, I overslept and then was feeling low on energy. My husband had to postpone starting the fire in the wood stove because I overslept, it was a mess.

But I did fold two loads of laundry while waiting for the kettle to boil.

We ate breakfast and talked, mostly about why I went to bed to late and what my husband could have done to prevent it. (Um, nothing?) I knitted a bit. I did the breakfast dishes while listening first to Rachmaninov and then then to the publishing course.

And then I started having a really bad stabbing headache again.

I saw that we were out of toilet paper and decided to get some. I was hoping the walk would help me relax a bit and I also decided that I wanted junk food for dinner.

So I bought toilet paper, croissants, cantuchini (Italian almond cookies), potato chips and gummy bears. Or rather marshmallow mice.

The walk did indeed help with the headache, hurrah! When I came back my husband had already vacuumed the old part of the house and cleaned the toilet there as well.

He had also made pancakes with spinach and feta:

I ate some sweets as dessert, forgot all about the last pancake in the pan (only saw that it was burnt when I came back an hour later), talked briefly with the boy, taught my last student of the day, threw the burnt pancake away and then went out with the boy to buy ingredients for the ramen he wants to cook on Monday.

We walked to the Asian grocery store and took a while to find all the necessary ingredients. We got to test our respective Chinese/Japanese skills but, as usual, it only went as far as me saying things like, „oh, white, something“. I mean, I wasn’t wrong, it was white rice cakes but that’s not enough information to be useful.

We swung by the health food store on our way back and actually managed to not buy any chocolate. I mean with all the gummy stuff and the potato chips at home…

We packed the food away, and then went on to do bodyweight training. Only twenty minutes this time, which was fitting because we were still feeling Wednesday’s session.

After that we did the dishes. My husband was all confused because he had planned on doing them after work but I had the feeling he had done work enough for a day.

So I didn’t get to do half the things on my list but then I did go out shopping with my son instead, which is good.

Then I finally ate while reading, sat around for a while, did Duolingo, started writing this post, watched some C-drama and went to bed.

And now the weekend!

I had gone to bed on time and had managed the complete morning routine. I did a detour through the internet and only spent ten minutes on the manuscript but, well.

Husband and I spent two hours talking about his low mood, a conversation none of us really wanted to have that left us both cranky. But we managed to pull back out anyway and have a better rest of the day. With better mood as well.

I decided to walk to the nearby supermarket because we didn’t need much but before I woke the boy up. He had a friend coming over and wanted to prepare. That meant he actually emptied all the trashcans in his room, yeah!

Lunch was supposed to be leftovers, we had cooked potatoes and burgers. But we did not have enough potatoes for three people, only for two, so my husband cooked some more, then fried them and I bought baked beans to go with them. Of course now we’re having leftover potatoes again:

Husband said he was rather nervous because the boy makes very, very good fried potatoes where he very patiently fries them in portions for maximum crispiness. There were very good as well. The drawback of portioning them out is that some of them are cooling while you fry the last ones.

The boy ate with us and the started moving stuff around. The reason for his friend’s visit was that the friend had bought a second Warhammer 40K figure and wanted to borrow the boy’s tools and paints. So the boy took all of his figures and stuff downstairs. They talked and they did a couple test games (or whatever, I am completely ignorant of this stuff). Because of the visit I did the dishes right after lunch.

I had plans to get some stuff done before my first student but didn’t. I did use my break between students first to say hello to the boy’s friend and second to work on the WordPress course. I skipped a lecture, by the way, and then had trouble following later. Looks like I will have to watch that one after all.

After teaching I talked with the boy and his friend for a bit, then ate dinner. The boy was telling me all about all the figures and such and showing them to me because they were all on the kitchen table anyway. Then he moved his stuff and I finished eating.

I was very tired and exhausted at that point. I did Duolingo, then tried to decide if I should start the blog post, write in my bullet journal of watch C-drama first and ended up just playing silly games and reading stuff on Bluesky. (Note to self: putting my phone on its charger before dinner is not optional!)

The boy came downstairs again, we talked about Belgium (because a package I am expecting from the UK is send through the Belgian post for some reason) that led to us looking up which languages are spoken in Belgium (Dutch, French and German, by the way) which somehow led to us looking up how long Bavaria has been a state (since 1180, roughly, if I remember correctly), I mean, you know how those things go.

At that point the boy asked if I was okay with him taking a shower, I thought, yeah, sure, I wanted to watch TV anyway, I sat there some more, not doing what I had wanted to do, until he was done in the bath, said he wanted to make himself tea, I asked him to make a cup for me as well, I kept sitting at the same table some more, drank my tea and somehow didn’t get around to getting up and going to bed.

I turned the lights out at 11.30. This morning I overslept. Great start into the day, yep.

I went to bed an hour late but woke up from the alarm and did my complete morning routine. I only wrote for 15 minutes but, well, better than nothing.

My husband and I talked over breakfast and since the topic was politics we ended up feeling both worse afterwards. And then I waited for the piano tuner. And waited. And waited some more until I got a voice mail that he’d be 45 minutes late. He did say he was sorry but he only called me when he was already 30 minutes late.

He was nice, as usual, and I am very happy with the tuning, by the way. Of course, the weird buzzing sound the piano made when anyone would press A4 could not be replicated while he was here. He did point me towards a possible reason, though, so I’ll keep an eye on that.

While I was waiting for him to finish my husband and I dealt with laundry and dishes and I listened to a Steve Reich piece. I really, really love Steve Reich, should listen to his music more often.

When the piano tuner was done I finally went out for my walk/run. I got lucky, the rain stopped:

When I returned home lunch wasn’t ready yet so I took my shower before. We had goulash and pasta. This time the goulash had not gone bad, so that was wonderful. (Not so long ago the goulash I had bought turned out to be really bad, ack. But not this time.)

The boy even ate with us. Then I read and ate chocolate for a bit until it was time to teach.

Since one student canceled I had a nice break in between. I thought I’d hang up the rest of the laundry that my husband hadn’t had time for but it turned out he had a canceled lesson as well, so I spent the break reading stuff on the internet and texting with friends.

After my last student I started writing this post, ate dinner, did the dishes and my usual evening things, watched an episode of „Guardians of the Dafeng“, read a bit and went to bed.

And today is supermarket day, of course.

After going to bed too late again I did sleep well and woke up feeling actually motivated. I wrote my morning pages and then that was it for the day. I mean, almost. I had one of those super paralyzed days.

I only got out of bed at a time when I should have already sat in front of breakfast, my husband was rather confused when he should up late and I was just changing out of pajamas.

We ate breakfast, we talked. Husband wanted to know what was up and how he could help but I could only shrug. I’m in a mood, can’t get started, no idea why, no, you can’t help, sorry.

I finished knitting the front of Weaver B and started the back, at least. I wrote my blog post and did the dishes while listening to some music, I also listened to a bit of publishing workshop and then made a list for the health food store. And the tea shop.

I walked to the tea shop in the sun, met the tea shop owner for the first time in ages and bought all the tea. And ordered two more pounds. Turns out if I buy two pounds instead of one I get 10% off. 

By the time I was at the health food store it was already rather late but I did get most of what I needed, some other things and an extra helping of chocolate.

I came back home, my husband and I unpacked the groceries together and then we ate lunch:

I’m trying to to eat more veggies, always a good idea, but I just realized that veggies for the past few days meant loads and loads of cabbage.

Then there was teaching. This time I did make use of the short break and watched some more of the WordPress theme course. At one point I finally realized that I don’t have to sit through every single, „and to set the margin on a column we open the settings menu in the column, click on design, then on margin…“ video start to finish.

While I was busy being bored it had started to rain. While I was teaching the next student the rain became harder and harder, until it started to hail. And then there was thunder. And lighting. And it was really close. You know, when the thunder and lighting are almost at the same time? And then it comes even closer and it feels like lighting struck our annex and then the lights go out? While hail is coming down on your skylight?

Very exciting.

So I flipped the fuse switch and the lights came right back on. Phew. But. There was no internet. Oops. Probably the router. I restarted the router, then went to make a copy for my student. While I was at the copier the student after called me on my cell but I was to slow to answer. At the same time my husband told me he didn’t have internet and that the lighting must have hit the annex because there had been a spark from a power strip in his room. (I think if that had been the case the fuse in the power strip would have blown but what do I know.)

Anyway, turns out we use the internet a lot, even when teaching. Especially YouTube.

I talked to that student who had tried to reach me, she didn’t feel safe getting to her lesson. The student who had left had been picked up by a parent in a car so that was alright.

I restarted the router again, then restarted the mesh routers, nothing. I turned mobile data on, got a message from another student who was afraid of leaving the house and asked about doing the lesson online. Well, not without wifi. Tried it again, all the time dealing with students and their parents. My husband had a student who had parked his convertible in a side street but the top wasn’t working properly. So when it started hailing my husband supplied him with a tarp and something to weigh it down with.

My next student had arrived by car as well, the last student of the day and I finally managed to meet online and the weather turned sunny again.

Oh, and I took a picture of the hail on the skylight:

After that I met my husband in the kitchen again, where he was doing the dishes. I had to wait for the boy so I helped him.

The boy and I did a new variation of our bodyweight routine. Instead of 3 sets of 10 we did 10 sets of 3 with dynamic effort. Which means every time you do something away from the floor you do it real fast. Lovely. And every set lasts only one minute. When I told the boy that that was what my book told us to do he thought that it wouldn’t really make a difference. Ha! The book says we’re supposed to take it easy the next time with 2 sets of 7 and I can already tell that I will definitely need that.

After that I could finally eat dinner, the boy and I demolished the leftover pasta salad. I spent some time online, then started writing this post, made a list for today, watched some C-drama, did Duolingo, foot exercises and read a bit and then went to bed.

And today the piano tuner. I need to make a note, the A4 key has a really annoying buzzing resonance and then there is another key that feels like it’s almost catching on its neighbors but only when I play that one particular song.

I’m sure I’m the piano tuner’s dream client. Very particular and incredibly vague at the same time.