Archives for March 2025

My morning routine is not routine at this point at all. I’m starting to feel a bit dispirited. But then that’s just the natural up and down of my mood.

I did write morning pages and spent 15 distracted minutes on the manuscript but yoga and meditation didn’t happen again.

Husband is feeling down and overwhelmed as well and so we spent two hours after breakfast talking about a people problem. I did wake the boy up on time, and my husband and I worked together making pasta salad early enough that the boy could have some before leaving for his oral exam.

I went walking/running while he left. For once all the trains seem to have been almost on time. The weather was nicer than expected:

When I came back I thought we’d eat lunch right away but my husband was busy cleaning mirrors and windows. I used the time to fold some laundry (but not the load that was on a rack in my studio) and got crankier and crankier because I was hungry and I saw my thin slice of afternoon time evaporate.

There was lunch, finally at 1.30. It was delicious:

With talking over lunch and me starting the dishes because I was so impatient to get things moving, and the usual debate on who takes a shower when I had to scramble getting clean before teaching yet again. When I stormed my studio my husband said, „I’m folding the laundry because clearly, you forgot.”

Um, no, I didn’t. I’m only super stressed because I only have ten minutes left to do it.

And now I have a laundry hamper with clean laundry (mostly folded but not sorted) and three piles of folded laundry sitting around the bedroom and living room. Will that laundry ever get put away? I highly doubt it.

Laundry is one of those things where I have a system and if anything interrupts the usual flow of tasks I’m screwed. But I’m a bit girl. I can do this. I can take some time today, sort and maybe re-fold the clean laundry, put the boy’s stuff on the towering pile of clean laundry on top of the shoe cupboard in the hallway and set the „please take clean laundry upstairs“-note in a more prominent place on the kitchen table.

I taught my students. I had big plans for doing email and working on the WordPress theme course in my 30-minute break. I ended up starting to work in the course ten minutes late, then had a conversation with my husband about something that stressed him (should have closed the door), and then spent a total of 8 minutes on the course.

I taught some more. I was moved to play a Tori Amos song. I’m making it a rule that if I want to play music and I have 5 minutes to do it that’s what I should do.

I went to the kitchen and saw the overripe avocado on the kitchen table. So I googled how to make avocado toast and made myself some. I spoke with my (very stressed) husband again.

In between all of this the boy had texted me while he hadn’t received the results of his oral exam yet the prof had said he was likely to pass, so yeah! I mean of the five exams he needs to do this semester he passed 3 on first try, so it seems that maybe his prep this semester was actually a little better than before.

He still needs to prepare for and pass two more on the next try, so my fingers stay crossed.

Speaking of the boy, he came downstairs when I was in that lull after dinner where I need to get going with bullet journal, Duolingo, starting the blog post and watching TV but I ended up just sitting there, playing dumb games on my phone instead.

I went to bed a little late with a cup of tea and turned the lights out at 11.

I started today by feeling completely paralyzed yet again. I guess I should dig out the „Anti-Planner“ or something.

I thought I felt better, then I didn’t and so I ended up not doing much of anything all day. I even canceled group coaching in the evening.

Lunch was a bit more involved, we made gnocchi from scratch despite my husband and me both being under the weather:

I spent quite a big chunk of the afternoon doing mock exams with the boy. I still can’t remember the correct formulas for things like entropy and enthalpy but then I don’t have to pass the exam.

I went to bed a little late, a life choice I regret right now, but I wasn’t tired. Maybe because of the pain meds plus caffeine I took.

Anyways new week, new luck!

I went to bed early and slept well. The migraine (if it is a migraine) got a little better but didn’t go away completely. I decided to do my complete morning routine because I thought yoga and meditation would help. And it didn’t hurt.

I was so out of it that I didn’t even make a list for yesterday and I only realized that now.

Still, I did do the breakfast dishes while listening to classical music and a bit of the publishing class that was very helpful, I went on my walk/run while my legs felt like lead, and so I just did an easy session from week 1 of the 5K program:

I had to borrow sunglasses from my husband because I don’t actually own any that don’t clip onto my regular glasses. With the contacts I should get myself a new pair of non-prescription sunglasses.

I came back and helped a little with making pizza and salad:

It was very tasty.

After I went to the supermarket right away while my husband vacuumed the house. I went because we were almost out of bananas and flour but also came back with licorice and coated peanuts. Of course. So I sat and read and ate half a bag of licorice.

The boy came downstairs while I was doing that, so good thing I had planned to share the licorice with him anyway.

We talked a bit and then I was very late to take a shower and get ready for my weekly writers Zoom. This week I did remember daylight savings has already started in the US.

We had planned to talk about tarot but the conversation ended up meandering which I’m usually pretty okay with but I did end up being a little bored this time, I would have found a conversation about the topic itself more interesting.

So I ended up leaving the meeting pretty early so the boy and I could do a combined bodyweight training and study session. I have to say that I sometimes have a hard time following formulas while doing pushups but mostly it did work because we have a lot of breaks between sets.

After that the whole family met for leftover pizza and ‚Columbo‘. It was an episode (‚Double Exposure’ that I remembered being very good that turned out to be a long, long slog after the first third or so. And of course we now know that that kind of subliminal advertising doesn’t work. Still, it was time spent with the family and I got some knitting in on the sock-in-progress. After botching the shoulder shaping on the vest-in-progress on my afternoon Zoom call.

After that we all decided to leave the dishes, the boy took a shower while I watched a bit of C-drama and some YouTube and nodded off in my chair and then I went to bed at 10.

Today I will attempt my usual Sunday things. My head is still not back to normal but much better.

I woke up, tried doing my morning routine but gave up after morning pages. I didn’t feel all that well, despite going to bed early. I hadn’t slept well after my junk food orgy the night before and felt nauseous and had a massive tension headache. Or was it an earache? Ot just the sun being too bright?

Anyways, I felt awful. My husband suggested that I take an ibuprofen and I scoffed because that doesn’t help again this kind of pain. I don’t know if you remember but I have been talking about what feels like „headaches without headaches“ for years. I feel like I have a headache but there isn’t really much pain at all, I feel tense, all the light is way too bright, it feels as if I have tunnel vision. I’m also nauseous but then I am most days so I didn’t register that as a symptom.

Since I felt so bad I decided to pull out the pills I got against tension headaches and migraines. I googles the medication because I wanted to know the dose, found a headache quiz and got a result of „sounds like migraines without an aura. Duh.

I took the maximum dose allowed and tried putting sunglasses on inside the house and, lo and behold, I felt a little better. Not good but better. Duh.

So my working hypothesis is that those are migraines after all. I’m starting a headache journal and am allowing myself to take said painkillers. (And yes, I know, not for too long or too often. I am one of those people who actually do read all the instructions.)

Lunch was mine to take care of for once and it was delicious:

Even yummier than usual:

The boy showed up right in time when I was about to get ready for teaching. I briefly contemplated wearing sunglasses while teaching because my studio is extremely sunny (and warm) but decided against it. My new ukulele student had their first regular lesson and I had been making a rather confused and fuzzy impression anyway.

Teaching was nice, four students and four different instruments, then I stayed at my computer for a bit, watching YouTube.

I ate dinner, decided to take some more painkillers despite the caffeine they contain and then the boy came downstairs and asked it it was okay if I helped him study. So I pretended to give him an exam on thermodynamics, statistical physics and something quantum. Or whatever. I’m doing my best but I sometimes can’t even read the formulas aloud. Also, the boy’s handwriting and abbreviations. Is that an m or a weird Greek letter that I don’t recognize? Why do you pronounce d and delta the same, and is it even delta when it’s not that triangle? (It is. The triangle is the capital letter.)

We spent 1 1/2 hours on this and while I don’t really mind it meant I didn’t have time to watch TV yet again. Well, I guess we’ll have repeat performances every day until the exam on Monday.

I went to bed with a cup of tea and a book and turned the lights out half an hour late. And then I slept like a log, so that’s something.

I’m still not a hundred percent today but am feeling a little better. I’m hoping a walk/run and some rest will make me feel better.

And it was glorious!

I went to bed on time, woke up from the alarm and decided to – skip my morning routine completely in favor of reading „Neanderthal seeks human“ which I can not recommend highly enough. It was wonderful to lounge in bed and not do anything for a change.

The there was breakfast with my husband. I worked on weaving in ends on the Starbright blanket, only two more squares to go. Then my husband and I started talking about things being a little too much (yet again) which triggered some old stuff for me and so we ended up having a rather emotional 2 1/2 hour conversation. Phew. We obviously hit on something important but could both have done without that kind of energy drain on a regular Thursday.

Then I took my bike and went to the far away, much nicer supermarket to buy all the things. Went to the pharmacy and the drugstore as well and hauled three big bags and a package of toilet paper home after.

At home my husband started the frozen green beans I had brought right away and helped me put everything away. I’ve rarely spent so much money on groceries but then the pantry, fridge and freezer are now all filled to the brim. (Unfortunately, the fridge was so full that something moved the dial for the temperature. Good thing I had bought ice cream and ate it after dinner because that make me notice the ice cream was pretty melted.)

So lunch was a little late but very good:

I had a bit of time before teaching and used it to read, eat chocolate, and work on the web design course for a few minutes.

I was teaching lots of very nice students, and for once I was really happy with the lessons.

When I was finished I met my husband in the kitchen where he was doing the dishes, so I helped with drying. And then I sat down to eat potato chips, drink an alcohol-free beer and chase all of that with ice cream. And that was when I realized the ice cream wasn’t frozen anymore.

So I turned the dial on the fridge/freezer up and enjoyed my meal.

Afterwards I started writing this post, did Duolingo, and went to bed.

And now Friday.

I woke up half an hour before the alarm for some reason and felt super exhausted and tired and was in no mood to do anything. I forced myself to write morning pages but kept looking up stuff on my phone (and that is why we put the phone elsewhere when we try to focus, kids) and then had a hard time making myself write some new words on the novel. For 15 minutes. And then I skipped both yoga and meditation.

My husband and I had breakfast together and discussed our riveting plans for the day. Which consisted of lots of errands, mostly.

But first he went out and I started the project of installing WordPress locally on my computer so I have a sandbox to play in for the course I bought the day before. I gave in to being triggered by the course and the possibility of learning some new computer stuff and went all in.

And then something went wrong and I got stuck. Of course.

And I ran out of time and did the dishes, woke up the boy for his exam, and then it was time to leave the house.

I took all the empty bottles that need to get returned to the health food store and stuffed them in my backpack and then I set off into gorgeous weather, the sun shining thought it was freezing. First I went to one supermarket for yogurt and vegetarian bratwurst and then to the health food store for all the veggies, frozen meals and chocolate.

I came back home, put all the many, many, very expensive groceries away and waited for lunch.

Just as we were sitting down to eat I got a text from the boy, his train was sitting on the tracks, not moving. For ten minutes. We started eating anyway, there was nothing we could do:

The boy’s train was 15 minutes late! Now this is the lecturer who has loads of rules that no one else has. One of the rules is that you have to be there for your exam 5 minutes before it starts. If you come later you’re excluded. Now, usually the lecturers will tell you it’s your own loss if you come late and have less time but not this one.

Then he had to change to the subway. He reached the subway in time. Phew. Most of his margin was gone but he could still make it.

Only.

The subway was late as well. For a whole 8 minutes. He might have had 4 minutes to dash all the way to the other side of campus. That was the last I heard while we were trying to calm down and enjoy our meal. It was very good. But my husband was unable to focus on eating.

I told myself if I didn’t hear from the boy in the next five minutes it would probably be fine.

The next time he texted me was hours later.

He had made it!

Unfortunately, he didn’t have a good feeling. I mean, with all that excitement…

After lunch I took a break, ate some chocolate and read a bit but the botched WordPress install was bugging me so I tried again. Very slowly I did all the steps again and – it worked! So I tried installing the super fancy WordPress theme but I got an error message. I tried again, no change.

I tried for a while but had to give up because it was time to teach.

I taught two students had one of them tell me they wanted to stop taking lessons because he needed more time to see friends (apparently they are sitting and doing homework all afternoon right into the evening), refilled the water in my piano and then I wrote a note to those of my students who are still paying the old prices.

So, it used to be that every time I raised the price for lessons I’d raise it for all students at the same time. But then my husband said what he does is he gives the new students the new price and just lets everything else go unchanged. Way less work, so I started doing that as well.

The drawback is that you end up with a lot of students paying a really, really low price. Like I had someone start with me a while back who told me another teacher that she had before was taking twice the money for the same length of lesson. Oops.

I’ve been thinking of raising all the prices to the same level again for many months now but I was always too busy and had no idea how to write that note, bla.

But my husband wrote the same kind of letter back in January. And I am trying to get into the habit of asking for help.

So I asked him for a copy of his note, changed it a bit, looked at how many students are still paying the old price and made a list, printed the appropriate number of copies and started handing them out right away.

I taught the rest of my students and since my last student of the day had canceled I decided to get back to my little WordPress sandbox where I had gotten another annoying error message. I googled the error, I found a solution on StackExchange, I went very slowly and carefully, watched some more of the course, and managed to change things in a way that means I can actually start learning things now.

I always get super nervous when I start typing lines of code because I have no idea what I’m doing. But I did know that I could put everything back to the way it was by just re-installing a new version. And I was not working on my live website which is a plus.

Then I finally ate dinner while reading a Sarina Bowen book, ate a ton of crackers, started writing this post, did Duolingo, fell into a social media rabbit hole, decided to start re-reading „Neanderthal Seeks Human“, didn’t make myself stop in time and went to bed almost an hour late.

Today is the teaching day without a break in the middle, so onwards and upwards!