Archives for May 2025

I went to bed half an hour late, sorry to say. I still did my complete morning routine, apart from opening the manuscript.

But yeah, yoga and meditation. My husband and I had a nice, calm breakfast and then I actually managed to use my time in a way that didn’t make me late for everything.

I did my online rounds and then talked with my mother on the phone. It seems I’m doing well because there were several things where she felt the need to correct me. Apparently my thoughts about nutrition are completely wrong, and also she doesn’t understand why I think sewing myself a dress for a wedding in June is a good idea when there are tons of dresses I could just buy instead.

Well. I have to say I’d rather make a dress from a pattern I know I like and will wear often, that will fit me in a color that I love, and that fits together with the rest of my wardrobe, than run around trying to find something that is maybe acceptable if you squint for more money than I spent on the fabric.

I mean, the whole endeavour could go horribly wrong, of course, but that’s what the ill-fitting dress from muslin I made a while ago is for.

I did the breakfast dishes and then we ate lunch, all three of us together:

I wanted to eat early because I had a Zoom meeting for „intuitive authors“ at 2.

That was very enjoyable. I had planned to weave the ends in on Weaver B but then realized I needed more attention for that task. So I knitted instead.

Afterwards I printed the dress pattern and then found I had forgotten that my husband’s friend was coming over. We talked a bit about their upcoming trip to Italy, my husband and I put together and order of guitar and ukulele paraphernalia, and then I planned the week and researched and bought a font for a book cover.

After that it was time to do bodyweight training with the boy, after which we ordered new pajamas for him and then I changed the screen protector on his phone while he took a shower.

I started writing this post while the boy was making himself fried potatoes. I had eaten before, while he was in the shower.

Then we watched an episode of ‚Doctor Who‘ and I went to bed not long after that.

And now a new week. I can already see that it won’t be boring for sure.

I had gone to bed at 10 and woke up half an hour before the alarm. Seems like eight hours of sleep are actually enough after all.

I wrote morning pages and skipped opening the manuscript again. No real reason. It might be that I’m no longer in the story so I should get back to it ASAP.

I did yoga and meditated, at least.

My husband and I had breakfast and talked but not for long. I only got to knit two rounds of my new sock. I did my online rounds and Duolingo, then washed the breakfast dishes wile listening to some Bach (Carl Philipp Emanuel this time). I packed a backpack with a fleece jacket, hat, fingerless gloves, umbrella, water bottle, some almonds, two seat cushions, a power bank and my emotional support spindle. To be clear, the spindle was for emotional support, a drop spindle. I didn’t take it out of the bag but it was nice to know it was there. (I would have liked to have my sock knitting with me but, alas, following a chart while knitting with dark purple yarn is not really conducive to travel knitting.)

So we set out on our bikes. The weather was nice with sprinkles of rain predicted and it was interesting how much the temperature changed between direct sun and clouds. The ride to Westpark went very well even though everybody seemed to be out and about on a Saturday just before noon.

It took us about an hour one way and we arrived just in time to see the Buddha being carried to the stage near the lake:

We decided to get something to eat first and had excellent Pad Thai and spring rolls from the Thai community that is one of the main contributors to the event:

And then we watched all the lovely dancers and musicians.

This year we did not get to see the Japanese flute group because when they were supposed to come on for the second time there was a massive shower of rain.

And then we biked back home with the wind against us all the way. I was completely sore everywhere even before we reached home.

Then it was time to take a shower and for dinner I made myself frozen pizza.

And that was basically it for the day apart from a little reading, starting this post and Duolingo.

My husband said this was the nicest day he had had in a long time and I completely agree. There is something to be said for getting out of the house here and there.

I mean, the morning went a little sideways because I hadn’t gotten enough sleep and that always makes it harder to get stuff done. Duh.

So no writing and I lounged in bed until it was time for breakfast, so no yoga or meditation either. But breakfast was nice and we talked a bit but not all that long because my husband had an early student.

I went online as usual and then ordered stuff on the internet for my mother-in-law. I did the breakfast dishes and listened to music and then it was time to start cleaning. And change the sheets and towels.

My husband made an omelette because he didn’t have much time:

The boy had used the morning to get some red tape stuff done that he had been dreading for literally months. Otherwise he spent the day at home.

I taught my first two students of the day, the used a short break to vacuum the annex, taught another student, cleaned washbasins and toilets in under 10 minutes and taught my last student of the day.

Another short break and then I met the boy for bodyweight training. The good thing was that it was a short session because by that point I was feeling a little dizzy already.

We finished exercising, then I ate dinner and then I felt pretty faint. I did Duolingo and started writing this post, waited until the boy had finished taking a shower and went to bed. The good thing is that my new typing gloves seem to help a little.

Today my husband and I are planning an actual excursion! Exciting!

In the end I went to bed too late the night before but I did my complete morning routine including ten distracted minutes of working on the manuscript. My blood pressure is still a bit high, harumph.

Husband and I talked over breakfast and I worked on the new pair of socks. There was the usual internet rounds, some tidying of the kitchen and then I biked to the supermarket while my husband went on a short run.
But before that I did some research about computer keyboards and typing gloves. And ordered some. And then realized that I don’t have anything to wear to a wedding in four weeks, and also don’t have a summer dress that fits me so I spontaneously decided to sew one and ordered fabric.

Grocery shopping went pretty smoothly and I managed to avoid not only the streams of students leaving on my way but also most of the usual senior shoppers. It’s a bit funny that my usual daily schedule is so similar to that of people in retirement. And that while I continue working.

Husband managed to time making lunch perfectly this time, everything was already in the oven when I came back with the groceries and I could unpack and put the away in peace. Hurray! 

Lunch was delicious:

And afterwards I ate a whole roll of Marabou chocolate for dessert. Ahem.

I started teaching a little later than most days but then taught all the way through past 7. At which point I was totally done. I ate dinner, read a bit (I’m almost finished with „Radiance“ and will read book 2 right after that.) and then watched a video about the psychological reasons for buying books one doesn’t read. I won’t link it here, it wasn’t very good.

To me that huge library of unread books is equal parts good intentions and FOMO. Every time I buy a book I am totally looking forward to reading it and think about how lovely it will be. Or helpful. Or that it is the next book in a series I enjoy. Or a book by a favorite author. And a part of me, the one that didn’t have money for books in the past, is afraid if I don’t snatch the book up now it will be gone. Which is a not irrational fear with traditional publishing. You want to buy book 3 in a series that came out ten years ago? Pity. But that is changing, of course.

Let’s see. So far this month – like two weeks in – I pre-ordered two books from favorite authors, „Copper Script“ by KJ Charles and „A Suitable Stray“ by R. Cooper. The last one is a book in a series I really liked. Well, I liked book 1 and 2, I bought book 3 but haven’t read it yet. I’m sure I’ll love those two as well, when I am in the right mood for those stories again. Both those preorders are due in May.

I also bought a novella by R.Cooper and two books of Sherlock Holmes stories in Chinese. Those two are graded readers and are just about easy enough for me to read. (Never mind that I already have two more of these books half-read already. But I was so elated I could understand most of one of them that I bought two more because I had this vision of myself reading some Chinese every day.)

I downloaded seven books that were free because six of them are comparable to the one I am about to publish and they looked interesting. The seventh one is a cozy mystery by a friend.

I bought „The Seven Day Stress Prescription“ by Elissa Epel because, well, stress and I could really need some help with that, and also it was only 3.99. I read the first few pages so far.

I bought book 2 and 3 of the „Wraith Kings“ series because Ilona Andrews recommended Grace Draven and the series and I am enjoying book 1 tremendously.

And that’s it for books I bought since May 1st.

If I don’t count the free books (and I stopped tracking those a while ago) that makes six books, seven if I count the one that will come out at the end of the month. So far I finished reading – three, four if you count „Radiance“ which I might as well do because I’m only three pages away from the end.

Well.

At least these days I buy mostly electronic books so while they clutter my ebook reader they don’t really clutter my house. I am not ruining myself even though spending less money on books might be a good thing. I will continue monitoring the whole thing and it will be alright.

And as I was opening my ebook reader to see how many pages I had left in the book I saw that every single book on there was blank and I got an error message that the item had been removed and was unavailable for download. I also saw that the device was telling me it had only 0.48 MB of storage when in fact that number should have been around 32 GB.

I restarted the thing several times, de-registered, re-registered, did a factory reset and all in all spent a fabulous long evening trying to deal with the issue. A quick internet search told me I was not alone, apparently Amazon is aware of the issue and working on it. Just wonderful!

So basically my whole evening imploded because of this issue. Meh.

Interestingly, when I decided to give up for the day and borrow my husband’s ebook reader, found that one with a battery almost dead and looked for another charger, my own gave signs of life again. I had to set it up again from scratch but at least it was working again. Phew.

Apart from my wrists getting more painful but I’m working on that as well.

I went to bed at a reasonable time, slept well, woke from the alarm, dosed off again, and then proceeded to do my complete morning routine. Including 15 minutes of working on the manuscript. Yes!

It is a weird feeling – as always – to write so slowly because all the characters have been sitting in that room talking over brandy for weeks now. At least that’s what it feels like in real time for me. At the point where people might read it it will be only a short chapter. Anyways, writing happened and that is a good thing.

When I was about to eat breakfast I realized I had forgotten to take my thyroid pills so I did that and then waited for half an hour. I talked with my husband and I finished a pair of socks:

They make me very happy and it is funny that I lined them up in a way that the stripes between the socks line up when they really don’t match at all. (The pattern is Black Rib by Anne Fletcher, the yarn is Supersocke 4-ply.)

Now I need to wind another skein of sock yarn before I can start a new pair.

I also spent some time researching computer keyboards because I found out that typing on my laptop might be a big factor in my wrist pain. I had first noticed it when doing pushups and similar exercises, then when doing yoga and only yesterday did I make the connection that the parts of my hands that are hurting the most are the ones that rest on the hard metal surface of the laptop when I type.

I do a lot of typing on my laptop, way more than on a real keyboard with the big monitor. Oops.

I almost bought a gaming keyboard the boy recommended for my purpose (White! And purple! With glowing keys (that I would never turn on)) before I decided to first try the small foldable keyboard I have to use with my shown while traveling. That one did work but I don#t really like typing on it and it is smaller than a regular keyboard which is bad for my wrists as well.

My dear son then reminded me that I actually do own an Apple keyboard and that I could maybe try that out first as well?

So this is the setup I started writing this post on at the end of the day:

But first I went out for my walk/run. Since I had felt so bad while running lately and since it was rather warm and already past noon I decided to repeat a day in the Couch to 5K-program that was all 1 1/2 minutes of walking alternated with 1 1/2 minutes of running and, what can I say, it was fun! I ran all the running intervals. Even the one that lasted for two whole minutes!

So I guess I’m making progress.

When I came back home my husband was in a veritable cooking frenzy, throwing food and tools around in a panic. So I sat down and chopped everything needed for the salad.

The boy even joined us for the meal. He had planned to go to uni, was too late for the lecture, decided to at least attend the practice thing after it, missed his train and was afraid he had lost the charging case for his earbuds and stayed home.

Lunch was good if a little late:

After lunch I talked with the boy briefly and played a silly time management game (no idea why I seem to enjoy these so much, I mean my life should be time management game enough), then I took a shower, taught a few students, used a short break in between to do the next task on my list for publishing, taught some more, ate dinner, talked with my husband a bit again and then started writing this post.

After that I did Duolingo, made a list for today, did my foot exercises, watched some C-drama and went to bed.

Today will be a pretty long day again so I guess apart from teaching a lot and going to the supermarket I won’t get anything else done. Well, that and starting a new sock.

I woke up from the alarm and while I did dawdle quite a bit I also managed my complete morning routine. Well, apart from opening the manuscript. I have now officially decided that I don’t have the mental space to think about the new story right now. I did research some website stuff, though.

But. I also decided that I need that structure of another 30-day yoga challenge, that it is perfectly fine to start the challenge right in the middle of the month and that I’m also okay with doing the one that is much easier.

The boy was actually up at roughly the same time as me in the morning which was a little confusing but great news.

I had realized I would need to renew a prescription that day which meant I had a lot of errands to do. My husband and I ate breakfast and talked a bit while I knitted, then I did my online rounds, brushed my teeth, did Duolingo, looked at the grocery list for the health food store, packed my bag and washed the dishes real quick while listening to classical music. I did not have time to dry the dishes as well but I left them in the drying rack, so I guess that was alright.

I then dashed off to the train station, ended up with 3 minutes to spare, took the train to the next town over, went to my gynecologist’s office and got my prescription renewed. Then off to the nice health food store in that town and when I was finished shopping I realized the next train back home was due only 5 minutes later.

I almost jogged with a full backpack of groceries but I made it. Just as I was stamping my ticket I heard the train approach.

Back in my hometown I picked up yogurt at one supermarket, my meds at the pharmacy and more groceries (plus chocolate) at the other health food store. I walked back home, dripping with sweat because it was a very warm day and I had worn a jacket that I definitely didn’t need in that weather.

I came back home to a husband who was busy grating potatoes for potato pancakes. So I put the groceries away and then helped him with the frying. Turns out I have more experience making these than he does. The dough was a bit too thick and next time we’ll probably use a different grater. The apple sauce is one my husband made from our very own apples and it was delicious:

After that I had a whole thirty minutes to relax, I spent most of them talking with the boy and then asked him to hang the load of laundry up that my husband had started.

Then I taught two students, used the break before the next one to research photos for a book cover, taught another student, waited for the next student in vain (always somewhat irritating because you can only sit there and wait, not actually do anything when you don’t know what will happen), taught another student, then the missing student showed up with a friend for the friend’s lesson (the two of them are learning a song that they want to play together). After that lesson and quite the lecture I gave the two about the evils of smoking it was time to change into exercise clothes and do bodyweight training.

I had been hungry for at least two hours at that point so I might have eaten a bit more than I actually needed.

I started writing this post, did Duolingo, made a list for today, did my foot exercises while my tea was steeping, knitted in front of TV and went to bed.

Today I will mostly stay at home and recuperate.