Archives for August 2025

My morning went much better than usual after getting enough sleep, highly recommend.

Husband and I talked a little too long, then went on our respective runs:

It was slightly too hot but I could live with that. When I entered the woods I actually met my husband. He must have changed his route to meet me because he normally goes another way. That was nice.

When I came back from running my husband was right in the middle of cooking panic. I took a shower (at the time we should have eaten lunch), then helped chop stuff up, and then we could finally eat. With the boy, even:

The boy was very busy at that point because he had to prepare everything for his friend’s visit. I even straighten the piles of books and papers on the kitchen bench and I managed to do the dishes on time.

The boy’s friend showed up and the two holed up in the kitchen and drew. They set each other challenges and they spent all afternoon on it, up to my bedtime. In between the boy made frozen pizza and they ate.

So I spent some time in the living room reading, then went over to my studio, tried formatting the paperback, found a typo in the file, tried correcting that, imported the new Word document into the formatting software and then realized the new file did not contain front and back matter. Of course.

I guess I’ll spend some quality time with my backup drive this afternoon.

I was so engrossed in reading after eating dinner in the living room that I didn’t have time to watch something again. And then I had to wait for the boy to clear the kitchen so I turned the lights out a little later than I wanted.

Today will be another super busy day with errands and video calls and such, and now I have to run.

Since I went to bed way late I had another slow morning. I skipped opening the manuscript and still was late for breakfast. Again.

Husband and I talked quite a bit, then I called my mother on the phone, did the dishes and helped to make lunch. Red beet and mangold risotto:

We even had the boy at the table for lunch and had an interesting conversation about what constitutes breakfast, and what lunch that wandered off into breakfast in Japan, you know how these things go.

And then the boy and I just kept talking for the next two hours or so. Which meant I did not get the stuff done I had planned to (and neither did he).

Eventually it was time for the Zoom call of the day. I had thought being on Zoom would be too hard on my focus to start  the second cardigan sleeve but it turns out I could pick up stitches just fine and even start the whole complicated short row process.

I also have now confirmed that both the desk chair in my studio and the wooden kitchen chair at my living room desk are awful to sit on for more than half an hour or so. Interestingly, I can spend hours on the kitchen bench just fine. Maybe because it’s easier to change positions on the bench.

After Zoom the boy and I met again to do bodyweight training and then I could finally eat dinner and some chocolate.

I read a bit, started writing this post, did Duolingo, watched some C-drama and just let the dishes sit in the sink and went to bed.

Planning the week will have to wait until later today, I guess, but that’s okay.

I woke up with this super paralyzed feeling. I mean, not literally paralyzed, thank Bob but feeling like I couldn’t move and couldn’t do anything and was destined to stay in bed doing nothing but scrolling and reading for the rest of my life . You know how it is. Or maybe you don’t, no idea.

I know that feeling isn’t real, or maybe it is, I don’t care, but I know if I wait long enough it will go away.

I tried making myself do my morning routine but nope. I did set the table and open the windows and took my meds but then I just sat there and read someone’s newsletter on my phone. It was a good one but not the best time of day for this.

Anyways, I felt like I was deep in despair and life would never be good and I would never get anything done ever again.

I got up shortly before my husband came over for breakfast and we ate together.

I was still feeling paralyzed, I even talked with my husband about it who said he couldn’t really give me advice.

So this was it. I would just spend the rest of my days sitting there feeling miserable. Of course.

I went online again, I looked at my to do-list and could already feel myself in that slump I always get into after lunch, only this time it started early. Early as in the evening before.

I knitted a bit, feeling like the sleeve I was making didn’t grow at all (which seems to be a common feeling, the Yarnharlot calls it ‚sleeve island‘), growing completely sure that the sweater won’t be finished in time for my trip and feeling generally meh.

Then I found myself thinking I have so many big, on-going projects and that they are so vast I could work and work and work and never finish. So I pulled out my notebook and made a list of those projects. I grouped them according to theme:

• EM1 – format paperback
• EM2 – make ebook
• MR – final draft
• UFOs – buttons on Lauriel, finish striped cardigan
• Chinese – apps, read, write
• Music – learn Chopin piece, play piano for fun, pull out ukulele, read books about playing the piano
• Teaching – read books about learning
• Courses – Instagram for authors, website builder course, iPhone photography
• House – deep clean bathroom
• Health – eat less, do regular exercise

Once I had finished that list I felt immediately better. I mean, that’s not that bad, is it? A mere ten projects! (Shh, I know, don’t say it.) All of a sudden it felt way more doable for some reason. And most of these things will be fun or at least rewarding.

And with that my motivation changed. Snap!

I got up from the kitchen bench, did the dishes, changed the sheets on my bed and started cleaning. I also realized why the message ‚mend duvet cover‘ had been popping up on Tuesday. Well. I did push that to the last minute but I did it before going to bed.

My husband cooked, I put the shower curtain in the washing machine, and I went around the house with a feather duster. Lunch was very good with cucumbers from our yard:

I took a break, ate some chocolate and read for a bit, was just about to get up when the boy finally came downstairs for his lunch. This time we talked a bit and then I went straight to doing the dishes. Yeah, I’m shocked too.

I did some more cleaning. I had high hopes that I could do at least 15 minutes of something publishing-related but that didn’t work. I went straight from cleaning to Zoom. Oh, but I did manage to vacuum the top of the curtain rod in the bathroom and all the small nooks and crannies where dust accumulates over time. I gave myself permission not to do the whole bathroom but only a small part of it.

In between I went upstairs to talk with my mother-in-law, and then it was time for one of those Zoom calls. This one, fittingly, about how to deal with burnout and overwhelm. Which also meant 90 minutes of knitting time. I actually did Zoom in the living room because it was 2 degrees cooler there than in my studio. But that meant spending 90 minutes on an unrelenting wooden kitchen chair, not my favorite.

After that I met the boy for bodyweight training. I really didn’t want to at first but then resigned myself to it until I enjoyed it.

I ate dinner and read some more, did Duolingo, started writing this post, made a list for today in my journal, finally got needle and thread out and fixed that duvet cover. I only had a few minutes for C-drama after that, unfortunately my Chinese is not good enough to sew while watching. I still need subtitles for most of it.

So fingers crossed my motivation continues into today. It also should be somewhat cooler which will help.

I did go to bed at a reasonable time and had a good start into the day but then my husband needed to leave the house very early so I skipped yoga and meditation so I could eat breakfast with him. The plan was to do both afterwards but, well.

It was another rather hot day. My husband was back from his appointment after an hour and immediately started doing dishes. I got ready to get out the door because Thursday is grocery shopping day. While I was brushing my teeth my husband’s niece passed by the open window with her two kids. They were there to see my mother-in-law. Which made things a little less calm.

Also, she had parked her gigantic car in front of the garage in a way that I couldn’t get to my bike. Of course I could have gone upstairs and asked her but I opted for just taking a backpack and walking all the way. In the heat.

Grocery shopping went fine even if I was dripping with sweat when I came back. I unpacked the groceries while my husband was busy making lunch. My new backpack had arrived but I was not in the headspace to open the package.

There was lunch:

This picture is incorrect because I took it before we added the ground beef. My husband almost forgot.

I unboxed my new backpack. The old one was at a point where the boy had already refused to use it for shopping because the shoulder straps were limp and the foam inside was twisted. Parts of the lining were a bit torn and last Monday a bottle of laundry detergent leaked inside the main compartment.

It doesn’t really look like much but it is definitely a bit bigger than my old one and very compact:

It looks pretty sleek but it has several zippered compartments, including one for a big laptop and one for my wallet and such. I haven’t used it yet but I’m sure I’ll get a bit tired of closing it with a zipper and two buckles. I’m also pretty sure I won’t use the breast strap but it can be taken off.

Then I lounged about eating chocolate and starting to read „The Inheritance“ by Ilona Andrews.

I taught one student, folded some more laundry (I had started before lunch), and then it was time to proofread book 2. But I really didn’t want to. So I opened the website design course and spent a little time on that before seeing I had another tab open with an „Instagram for Authors“-course so I looked at that for a while and took lots of notes.

My second student of the day had canceled because of work so I had quite a bit of time before my last student of the day. Teaching her was fun, and when I came back to the kitchen my husband was already doing dishes.

I helped him and we talked a bit, then I finally ate dinner (coated peanuts and gummy bears, dinner of champions), I started writing this post, did Duolingo and my foot exercises, watched a bit of C-drama and went to bed.

It’s supposed to be scorching hot again today but tomorrow should be a little better.

I did pretty well all morning. My husband needed to leave the house at 9 and wanted to have breakfast at 8. Which he did. I started yoga at 8 and thought 10 minutes of yoga and 5 minutes of meditation would take 15 minutes but instead it took 30. No, I’m not sure why, either.

Husband left, the boy texted me that he was up on time for the video call with his supervisor, I finished my cup of tea and then I went outside for my walk/run.

It was fun, even thought the temperature was way higher than I would have liked. It sees that biking on Monday instead of running and a day completely off yesterday made the running part easier. Nice.

I chose a route that was mostly between trees, so it offered  lots of shade:

I was home early but did not manage to do the dishes then. I asked the boy about having sushi for lunch but he didn’t response.

I got sushi anyway:

We also had spring rolls before but I was so hungry I forgot to take a picture. I was very pleased that the restaurant owner had remembered not to pack chopsticks for us. We always throw the disposable ones away and that’s a waste. Because we own several pairs that are much nicer to eat with.

The ones you usually see in my pictures are chopsticks a friend brought back from Thailand but I also have several pairs that I bought at several Asian grocery stores. (I am also very pleased that the first word my head offered to me when I saw the picture was 筷子. Maybe I will learn Chinese eventually after all.)

I ate some chocolate as dessert and read more „Tears of the Wolf“. The book is so, so good! I am very happy to hear that the second book in the series is already about to be finished and I really loved the video Elisabeth Wheatley made about sheep shears, rooing and shearing. (The link goes to Instagram, no idea if that’s helpful for you.)

Anyway. The boy showed up at one point and told me the next time he’d like fried noodles instead of sushi, please, and that he didn’t get my texts.

I finally pulled out one of my graded reader book in Chinese and stumbled through a chapter of a Sherlock Homes story. I am at that stage where I can read most of the characters (the story only uses 150, so not that impressive) but I still often don’t get the meaning because knowing individual characters only helps so much.

Like, 大 means big, and 家 means family or home but 大家 means all of us or everybody. It can apparently also mean great master or expert or influential family of long standing. Sure. (I actually knew what that meant, I just briefly forgot and I feel it’s a good example.) Also I learned that the character for home is shows a pig under a roof. Meaning your home is where your livestock is, apparently.

Anyway, I talked to the boy for a bit, and then my husband came back from his excursion to a lake with his friend and we talked a bit and then I sat there for a while, reading, and then I finally took a shower, talked to my husband some more, read some more, ate dinner, and still hadn’t done the things I wanted to do in the afternoon.

The boy and I forgot to do bodyweight training, but I did remember at 8 and we decided to do it after all. Even though I was nice, clean and showered and ready to wind down for the day.

Today is grocery shopping day, oh, and my husband has another appointment, this one even earlier.