Susanne

At one point in the afternoon, yesterday, but I actually haven’t really talked to her yet.

I went to bed at 1.30 and that was definitely not enough sleep. I woke up from my alarm and saw messages that my mother-in-law had tried reaching me on the phone three times between 6 and 6.45 am. I was not awake at that time. I tried calling her back but it took two tries to actually reach her. She sounded calm and her usual self and said she’d be home either the same day or today.

I did most of my morning routine but did not open the manuscript and was pretty distracted overall.

When I was finished with yoga and meditation my husband was already finished with his breakfast and ready to go outside. He wanted to work in the garden, go for a run, and make fried chicken for lunch. So not a lot of time.

I finally ate breakfast, then somehow found myself taking a closer look at my misbehaving spinning wheel and testing all sorts of theories about what was going wrong.

Oh, and here’s a picture of the first bobbin that I plied the other day:

I ordered two new drive bands (I have a spinning wheel that has a lower and an upper drive band) and pulled the second spinning wheel out. I’ll just use that one instead until I can get the other one working again.

And then I sat down and spun for a bit. Which made me super late with dishes, the ones that I had not done the night before, and that were clogging the kitchen at that point. But the spinning went well:

The kitchen that my husband needed to put the chicken in the oven on time.

That was not a good move.

We dealt with the whole thing with just a little conflict (I am actually proud of how we handled that situation), husband helped to dry dishes and later I helped forming the dumplings. We buy the dimpling dough readymade but you have to make it into balls yourself.

We ate only half an hour late:

And then we talked a little, so I did not have time for my video game before my first student. I did read a bit, though.

Then there was teaching, one student after the other all afternoon. At one point a student’s mother showed up in my studio saying that my mother was outside, having come just from the hospital and had a problem with two taxi drivers who both wanted to be paid and she didn’t have enough money on her.

So, my mother-in-law was back. The hospital had called a taxi for her, she had also called one herself and had gotten into the one she could have sent home without consequences, or something. So I fetched some cash and paid the driver, carried her bag upstairs, texted the boy that she was back and started the next lesson a little late.

After teaching I played the piano for a few minutes and then got ready for bodyweight training with the boy.

He was a little late which was a bit of a problem because I had scheduled another writing sprint with my friend and had hoped there would be enough time between exercise and writing to eat dinner. But no, I set up my writing desk between sets and turned everything on just in time.

I thought I was stuck and started faffing around with formatting and wanted to write scene cards or something but then I had an idea and started writing new words. Quite a few, actually.

After that I started this post, finally ate dinner, made a list for today, offloaded the dirty dishes to the boy, played Genshin for a bit and went to bed.

This will be the first Saturday without my regular writers meeting in more than a year. Which is both weird and nice. I can use some free time.

I went to bed past midnight but at least I did the most important things beforehand. Wrote morning pages, could not make myself open the manuscript, did yoga and meditated.

Ate breakfast, knitted and talked with my husband, did the dishes and walked to the nearby supermarket. I went to that particular shop because I wanted to get a special cleaner and then they were out.

An older woman chided me for dropping my veggie wieners into my basket from up high. „You shouldn’t treat the food like that,“ she said and then she added a little giggle to show that she wasn’t serious.

Well, apparently I didn’t have a good day because I went all, „This is my food and I can do with it what I want“ at her. Which wasn’t very nice but then I really have it with people telling me what to do. I didn’t break anything, it wasn’t really loud or anything, I don’t know. The anger of a lifetime of being scolded by old people surfaced just like that. And I mean, I am an older woman myself. And I was just in the middle of looking at all the shelves in the dairy section to figure out where they keep the dumpling dough (in a completely different corner next to the butcher, by the way) and stressed and all.

When I returned home my husband was laughing in the kitchen. Huh.

„The faucet is dripping again,“ he said, „and it is worse than before.”

The faucet that had been repaired just two days before was spewing water everywhere. Not quite the result we had hoped for.

I unpacked the groceries, I chopped a mountain of basil and most of the salad ingredients and we ate outside, all three of us, talking about cow breeds, as one does, because I had seen some unfamiliar white bulls the day before on my run. It was a really enjoyable meal on all counts. Homemade pesto and a good salad:

Next up I tried reaching my mother and mother-in-law on the phone without success, and sent a text to the plumber because of the faucet that wasn’t working again.

I read, I played my video game and ate some chocolate. I taught my first student of the day and got a text that the plumber would squeeze us in in the afternoon.

I had had big plans but couldn’t really get started on anything.

I taught my second student of the day and a couple of minutes before the end of that lesson the plumber (not the one we saw the other day but the senior plumber who is of retirement age) showed up. I led him to the faucet and went back to my student.

He fixed the faucet (the younger plumber had only changed one o-ring, not two, and had not changed the sieve-thing on the end (sorry, I can’t remember how that is called right now).

Right now the faucet is working again, hurray!

I ate dinner, talked with the boy, mostly about his upcoming trip to my mother, about what stuff to take, how long he’d probably stay there, and how to make sure he can still study for the one exam still left in September. He will stay here until most of his exams are done, then go up North and come back before the last one.

And then it was time to meet my friend for a writing sprint. I was super scattered and actually wandered off to other parts of the internet in between but managed a few new words, at least.

I then did the dishes, spun for a bit, and went to bed.

Since we could not get hold of my husband’s mother yesterday that will be the first task for today, and then I might ride my bike to the hospital. If I stay home I will help with making fried chicken.

Meh.

Not my fault, I might add.

I did go to bed only an hour late, slept well and woke up a little late, so was pretty okay on sleep.

I set the table and took my thyroid meds and was just sitting there writing morning pages when the boy showed up.

He just wanted to tell me that my mother-in-law had been feeling unwell that morning and was calling paramedics in to get her to the hospital.

Apparently she had tried calling my cellphone, had had the wrong number, left a message on our voicemail (that I somehow got hours later) and finally called the boy on his phone. He was surprisingly calm and coherent for someone who had had only 4 1/4 hours of sleep at that point.

So this time he got to get her bag ready and open the door and then stand around awkwardly while someone examined her and such. It seems that her blood pressure was suddenly extremely high after a week of being rather low, her heart was beating fast, she was dizzy and afraid, so she called.

They did take her, I gave them my cellphone number and the boy tried to get back to sleep for two more hours. I later learned that he didn’t succeed, poor thing.

I decided to get dressed right away, no yoga, no meditation, and then got to tell my husband the news over breakfast. None of us panicked, this was not our first rodeo but I have to say I am still feeling a little out of whack.

I did the dishes and went on my run/walk:

It was blessedly cool if rather humid and yes, I did get rained on. My legs felt heavier and heavier along the way but my cardio fitness is fine.

I came back home to lunch already on the table:

I couldn’t do the dishes then because my husband wanted to take a shower, and then I took a shower and then I ran out of time. Before I tried teaching both my mother and my mother-in-law on the phone with no success but my mother sent me a text. My mother-in-law had her phone turned off.

I taught many, many students. In my penultimate lesson the boy texted me six times because he had trouble finding the thing I had asked him to pick up on his way home from uni. In the end it turned out that he had been looking for something that looked like the container we have at home not knowing that we just refill that thing from a package that looks completely different.

And then my mother-in-law called and I had to let my poor student sit there while talking to her. They had been doing all the tests, she would be staying overnight but she didn’t know anything. Things sounded pretty low-key.
So I started the next lesson somewhat late, was completely mushy and managed to push the wrong button on my amp and my foggy brain meant it took me ages to figure out how to finally get sound out of the speakers.

Fortunately, he had a little more time and so we extended the lesson for ten minutes.

After that I sat there just scrolling, unable to get the next thing started for half an hour.

I ate dinner, started writing this post, made a list for today, did the dishes, briefly opened the manuscript (I had planned for an hour, very funny) and plied for a few minutes.

In theory today should be less chaotic. I’m planning a short grocery trip and have a very light teaching day but who knows.

It just involves writing for 1 1/2 hours every single day. Simple.

Not that I did that yesterday.

I did all the usual morning things which means I have done yoga every day so far this month. I’m also experimenting with not taking my blood pressure medication because my blood pressure has been in the optimal range for weeks now. Chances are it’s still normal without the pills. We’ll see. I will be extra diligent in looking at the numbers every day.

I had another slow morning but it was refreshingly cool and so running/walking was rather pleasant. The only uncomfortable thing was that my legs felt, really really heavy:

My husband was in a rather bad mood, he had started to pull the weeds in his garden beds the day before and was very frustrated that he kept pulling the carrots out with the weeds. Those weeds are way taller than the things he sowed, so his frustration is understandable. And he has a pretty brutal teaching schedule overall, poor thing.

He still cooked a delicious meal and on time, even:

I had planned to take a shower right away but ran into my husband who wanted to do the same as I was picking up fresh underwear from the drying rack. So I folded the laundry and took a break reading and playing my game. I had to rush to finish my shower in time before my first student.

Then it was non-stop teaching, the last lesson was my writer friend who brought a delightful Bach piece and we had a refreshing conversation about classical music and such afterwards.

I finally ate dinner at 7.30, then met the boy for our weekly video game bosses, played some more and then it was rather late already. But I still hadn’t done the dishes, started this post, done my journal entry or my daily spinning, oops.

I helped the boy strategize a little, he has four exams coming up very close together. I started this post while he made himself fried potatoes. I spun some yarn and I did the dishes. Here’s my spindle:

So it was all quite a bit but it’s always hard to fit everything in when teaching ends that late. Today I’ll be done earlier, so I hope that will translate into more sleep.

And another very short post because I’m running out of time. And I didn’t even open the manuscript.

I did all the usual morning things (without writing unfortunately), ate breakfast and called my mother at the hospital. She is feeling marginally better but recovery is very slow.

I planned the week before lunch which was a little late but pretty tasty. There might not have been salt in the lentils but with some added salt it was very good:

I spent the afternoon playing Genshin, starting to help the boy install a fly screen but we didn’t get far because there was some cleaning to do beforehand that he did without me.

At 5 I had another video call, this one happens monthly and it was a lot of fun.

Then I waited for the boy to come downstairs for bodyweight training, and I ate dinner before. Maybe not the best decision.

We did our exercise and I got a tiny bit better with my pull-ups and afterwards I looked at the spinning wheel. I had unpacked it again in the afternoon and had lubrucated the treadles and the flyer but it wasn’t working.

In the end I just put some oil on the flyer shaft and it finally started working:

Then I played too much Genshin (but almost finished building one character and started leaving up another one, and then it was too late again.

So, today: reading, writing, running, teaching. Oh, and some spinning, of course.