Archives for October 2025

I went to bed almost on time and slept very well, and am now pretty much back to normal. I‘m not quite sure if I want to go walking/running today, or just walk, we‘ll see.

Yesterday I managed to wrap and mail my mother‘s birthday present, drop off a return package and walk to the nearby supermarket. I had vague plans to start cleaning as well but ended up so pre-occupied with my packing course homework, plus I had an additional student, so I decided to do it in small pieces over the weekend. I hope that will work.

When I came back from the supermarket my husband was right in the middle of cooking, so I put the groceries away and started chopping salad ingredients. Lunch was rather good:

I had a short break between lunch and teaching that I mostly used for reading and stumbling around in Genshin Impact, then I taught all my students and used a break to watch some more course videos.

Then I dressed in the travel outfit for my imaginary trip to Prague:

It was a very cold day so I chose a shawl and fingerless gloves. I really need to find a place to take pictures that is not quite as backlit…

After that I ate dinner, finished reading „Penric‘s Shaman“, unearthed some travel stuff (because the homework includes actually packing for the pretend trip to see how it all fits together) including an old bluetooth keyboard that I can use with my phone. Because I am contemplating leaving the ereader and tablet at home the next time, and to only take my phone and said keyboard.

Which is why I wrote this post using just my phone and that slightly weird keyboard. Which is also why there is no alt-text.

I then finally did the dishes, posted my travel outfit, did Duolingo, made a list for today, talked with the boy about his advisor’s feedback and canceled today’s Zoom so I can help him more. (He need to write a bit more, he is doing very short laconic sentences, like „here is the definition, here is the data, bye). We’ll spend some time make it flow better. I hope.

And today will hopefully mark the new back to normal. Well, almost.

Though the tiredness and slowness might also have been from the antihistamine. I think by now I’m over the worst of the vaccine reaction, at least.

Yesterday morningI still felt like crawling back into bed. Nevertheless I wrote morning pages and did yoga. I ran out of time for the rest of the morning routine. Husband and I were still a bit at odds. The time crunch was partially due to the boy who needed a bit of hand-holding and took a one-hour nap at one point and needed to be woken up again after.

Because he spent two days non-stop writing his bachelor thesis. He ended up sending a finished draft to his advisor at the end of the day but it was a huge last-minute effort. Well, more than last minute, technically, because he should have sent it the day before.

I took a picture of the mittens for my mother:

I did a humongous pile of dishes and took a shower and then it was almost time to leave the house.

We met with my mother-in-law, my husband’s aunt and two friends of hers at the Greek restaurant that isn’t far from the cemetery. We had excellent Greek food. Huge plates of appetizers that I forgot to take a picture of, souvlaki for me and fish for the rest:

When we were finished with eating the weather had turned worse, it was raining and very windy when we walked to the cemetery. There we put a flower arrangement on my husband’s uncle’s grave and then it was time to return home so we could teach.

I had a bit of a weird afternoon because of cancellations I ended up teaching only three students with long breaks in between. There was a bit more hand-holding the boy, I played some Genshin, and also worked a bit more on the packing class. I am actually learning something which is exciting and unexpected. A few things fell into place over the course of the day but I still didn’t have time to actually pull the things out that I would take on my imaginary trip and actually pack them. Because that’s what you’re supposed to do for the class which is an excellent idea.

It just feels a bit weird to pack everything together and not go but then I’m making packing lists for imaginary trips all the time. It looks like I might be able to half the size of my toiletry kit without sacrificing anything which would be great. I might even be able to squeeze the knitting and the ereader in the bag, still.

Anyway, I probably won’t have the time to actually pack until the weekend but that’s okay.

After teaching I talked with the boy while eating dinner, played some more Genshin (I might be slightly obsessed at the moment), started writing this post, almost forgot about Duolingo, spun and watched some C-drama and went to bed.

Today I want to go grocery shopping, send a package off or two, clean the house and teach. This might be a little too ambitious but we’ll see.

Didn’t feel all that good most of the day but then the only thing I really had to was teaching. And dishes.

And that’s what I did. Along with a few conversations with the rest of the family here and there.

I sorted my knitting basket, I needed to empty it out so the newest blanket project will fit. I watched more course videos for the packing course and found myself contemplating travel outfits. Not that I usually do anything as complicated as an outfit, I’m more a jeans, graphic tea ad a hoodie person these days.

The instructor told us to choose a travel outfit and then add three tops and two bottoms to it? I’m still reluctant to pack that many clothes. I usually do travel outfit plus a change of underwear, fresh socks and a second t-shirt. But then it occurred to me that the pajama I also always pack is a bottom and a top. Ahem.

I also don’t own any clothes that are specidically for traveling. I’m fine with that, I mean, I’m not traveling that often.

There was lunch:

There was chocolate and a Genshin update so that there wasn’t any time left to play it.

The ball of yarn for my mother’s mittens arrived, I finished them and immediately washed them. And forgot to take a picture.

And at the end of the day I was in a rather bad mood with a headache and decided I needed some salt and sugar for it. Some coated peanuts, a Snickers bar and a bag of licorice later I actually did feel better.

Then I played some Genshin, my son even watched me at some point and deemed my fighting skills adequate. Using the controller is sometimes clunky but not using it makes things worse, I feel.

And then there was the point where I had about an hour before bedtime and wanted to do the dishes, take a shower, and spin while watching C-drama. Right. Great plan.

And today we will probably go out for lunch with my husband’s aunt. Unless the weather is too bad for her and her friends to drive here.

So, I didn’t get enough sleep at all because I went to bed around 1 am. No excuse, that was an awful decision.

I still got my complete morning routine done but it was slow. Husband and I talked while I was knitting, I had just enough time to do the dishes before I needed to leave for the doctor’s office and then I realized that my phone was acting up because it claimed there was no SIM in there. Which wasn’t true.

That sent me into a tailspin even though in hindsight I had seen the same error message for quite some time without actually registering it. Oops. (This also means if my mother-in-law had tried calling me on my cell the call would not have reached me. Big oops.)

So after restarting the phone, and then putting the SIM from another cell into mine to see if it was the phone or the card,  I let the dishes be dirty and was off to the small t-mobile store that happens to be right next to two other mobile phone shops and close to the doctor’s office.

I got a new SIM card, yeah. And then I went to the doctor and got both my covid and my flu shot. And, just like the last time, I forgot my vaccination passport. I should make a note for next time.

Before leaving the house I did also take 20 mg of cetirizine. I saw a thread on Bluesky the other day that said if you react badly to either the covid vaccine or having covid it can be a MAST cell reaction and first generation antihistamines can help with that. Since every time I got the covid vaccine I ended up having a fever and feeling really awful for two days or so, and also I had bought some cetirizine by mistake I tried it out.

I mean, my arm still hurt, I had those cold and hot shivers and was very tired and low on energy but – no fever. The pain in my arm was rather mild and my symptoms overall could also have been due to just being overtired. I mean, not the arm hurting but the rest.

On the way home I ran a few errands and bought some extra chocolate. Lunch was almost ready when I got back home:

I played some Genshin and failed some challenges. I taught some students. I used the time between students to make a little progress on the packing course. For the course we’re supposed to pack for an imaginary trip and I decided I wanted to go to Prague, by train, of course, which is faster than visiting my mother. I would want to walk around and look at stuff and eat and drink things.

We are supposed to choose a bag that is somewhere between 20 and 6 liters. Since this is supposed to be a challenge, and since this will not be a real trip I decided to pack in my 11.5 liter Eastpak messenger bag:

Oh, and while I was away the yarn for my new crochet blanket also arrived but I didn’t take a picture.

Teaching went reasonably well, afterwards I ate dinner, brushed my teeth, did Duolingo and my list for today (this one is very short) and went to bed.

The plan is to not do much today at all, there will be reading and maybe some crochet and teaching and that’s it.

And there was some needless fretting beforehand, of course.

I went to bed on time and slept well which was nice. My plan to jump right out of bed with the alarm didn’t quite work, I fell back asleep for half an hour, oops.

I did not dawdle much, though, and was actually on time with all the morning things. Husband was in a bad mood because he had one of those nights where you wake up every few hours and was still frustrated because of a weekend that didn’t go as planned.

We ate breakfast. And then I had it all planned out so that I could go walking/running, then shower, and still be in time for my mother-in-law’s appointment that was supposed to be at some point between noon and 2 o’clock.

It was beautiful outside. Slightly too warm for my jacket but slightly too cold without:

I came home and went upstairs to tell my mother-in-law I was planning to take a quick shower when she said her appointment was already over. She had gotten a call that someone else cancelled, got asked if she was available earlier, and that was it.

I asked why she hadn’t told me.

She had knocked on my door when she let the official person in but I hadn’t been home. As far as I can tell that must have happened just after I had left the house. If my mother-in-law had told me she had gotten the phone call I would have stayed home. Or she also could have called me on my cellphone.

Anyways, the official verdict is that she is fine, doesn’t need any level of care, nada. So she isn’t getting anything.

Well, not my problem. But I really dislike changing my day around something that doesn’t happen.

I took that shower, folded some laundry and then it was time for lunch:

I used the time between lunch and teaching for working on that course about packing light. The instructor has us pack for an imaginary week-long city trip which I really like. In order to challenge myself I have decided to figure out a way to pack for a week in Prague in a 11.5 liter messenger bag. We’ll see how that goes.

After teaching I met the boy, we talked briefly about his thesis and much longer about Genshin Impact. He told me I had enough wishes to make my first beginner wish, and apparently I had a lot of luck and got two very good characters. Nice. Not that I know what to do with them yet.

And we found that, indeed, his version of „I barely played Genshin today“ and my version of „wow, I spent so much time playing today“ result in about the same amount of time in total.

I had to pry myself loose, though, because I still needed to go grocery shopping. I walked to the supermarket for yogurt and to the health food store. Where I bought all the sweets and a bag of potato chips.

When I came home, my husband was busy doing the dishes, which was rather nice. I ate all my junk food and finished reading „Penric’s Demon“. I like it so much that I got the second book in the series right away.

I then tried doing Duolingo but they had some maintenance thing going on, started writing this post, played Genshin for wax too long, fell down another YouTube minimalist packing rabbit hole and went to bed way too late. Dumb.

Today I’m getting the flu and covid jab and then I will probably be out of commission for the rest of the day. And yes, I will teach anyway. Such is the delightful life of a self-employed person.

I went to bed only a little late and slept well so far until I woke up shortly after 4.30 with a bad case of the brain weasels. You know, all those thoughts that are running around in your head, when you’re convinced everything is awful and it will never get better, and you’re doomed and no one loves you? Yeah, those.

I’m usually pretty good at distracting myself and getting back to sleep but not this time. Half an hour later it was clear I would not get back to sleep.

So I bought myself „Penric’s Demon“ by Lois McMaster Bujold because it came heavily recommended both by KJ Charles and Konstanze. I am really enjoying it so far.

And then I almost forgot my morning routine. I did eventually remember morning pages and my meds, I did yoga and meditated but the rest of the morning went a little sideways. I was super slow and pretty foggy, husband and I had fat misunderstandings, so the usual. We talked about what went wrong the day before when he finally wanted to take a shower at 10 pm after hiking on Friday, running on Saturday and a full afternoon of yard work plus some sorting and picking stuff from the garden in the evening, and when he stepped in the shower there was no warm water.

Because while I could have known that he still needed to shower I had totally forgotten, had done the dishes and then the boy went into the shower. Oops.

We also talked about my existential dread and loneliness crisis and husband was actually very helpful.

I callled my mother, I did the dishes, I helped make lunch:

In the morning I had also almost finished my mother’s fingerless mittens:

The ball ran out, then I found a bit more and then I ran out four or five rounds before the end. There were several possibilities what I could do: 1) order a new ball of yarn and hope it would arrive in time, 2) rip a few rounds back from mitten 1 and use that yarn to make both mittens the same with shorter thumbs, 3) snip a stitch in the bottom ribbing of both mittens, unravel the beginning and use that yarn to finish the thumb and cast off the bottom again, 4) unravel both mittens and re-knit them with shorter ribbing at the bottom.

Option 4 would have been the most elegant, for sure, option 2 would be messy, option 3 would showcase my knitting prowess but be a PITA, and option 1 has the drawback that the mittens probably will be late for her birthday.

My husband and I talked at length and he convinced me to wait for the new ball of yarn. But my natural impulse would be option four, unraveling and re-knitting everything. Of course.

On the bright side I now have this pattern down. I finally understand where I used to go wrong every time, and know what to look out for.

After lunch I played Genshin for 90 minutes or so and then vacuumed everything and cleaned the washbasins and toilets. I was so fuzzy that I started with the washbasin in the old part of the house and then took the washbasin sponge and used it to clean the toilets in the annex. So I guess it’s time to retire the old sponges and use new ones.

I ate dinner early because I was rather hungry, and then the boy and I did a short session of bodyweight training. I played around with Genshin some more, started writing this post, finally opened Duolingo, brushed my teeth and spun a little in front of TV. Oh, and I planned for the week and for today.

This week will be a doozy. The first day with no unusual thing in it will be Friday. Probably. I guess we’ll see.