blogtober

Did I already tell you that I only turned out the lights at 1.30 yesterday? Well, that certainly had a bit of an impact on my Sunday.

I did sleep in until 8 but that was still not enough, of course. I skipped morning pages and meditation but did manage yoga, yeah!

I was in a weirdly good mood. Which often happens when I don’t get enough sleep and also I had talked with the boy a lot the night before which was nice. While making breakfast I then proceeded to tell my husband something the boy had told me, there was a misunderstanding and we had a one-hour slightly tense conversation afterwards. Not that fun. But my mood stayed up and husband and I were still okay.

Then I talked to my mother on the phone, things on her end look up at the moment. For once I did the breakfast dishes before the phone call because I had had this silly idea of making mushroom lasagna from homemade pasta. Which meant I had to make the pasta dough first, then we took care of all the veggies and ingredients for the three sauces (béchamel, tomato sauce with meat and without) and of the eggplant, the last one from our garden.

I made egg pasta and it took ages. I still need to learn how to do this properly. Near the end I got panicky because it looked as if I didn’t have enough dough, so I made it even thinner and we ended up with half the pasta not needed for our meal. This is how the kitchen table looked at the start after the veggies had been dealt with:

Here are the leftover lasagna sheets, and yes, that is how messy the desk in my studio is:

The pasta we actually used was even thinner than that. And here are two pictures of the finished lasagna. First the mushroom version:

And here the meat and eggplant version:

The whole thing is a bit more soggy than I would have liked. Most of the recipes said to pre-boil the pasta but we didn’t want to so I told my husband to make the sauces thinner than usual. Which turned out too thin. I should have known that fresh pasta doesn’t need a much moisture as the dried sheets we usually buy at the store.

I learned a lot and we finally had lunch at 2.30. And we didn’t fight but instead had fun cooking.

After that I didn’t do much all afternoon. I did start the first sleeve on the sweater-in-progress, though. I had to pick up stitches three or four times before realizing that I can’t fit a regular size sleeve into a tall size armscye. (My computer thinks that armscye is not a word. I beg to differ and so does Google.)

Then I planned the week ahead, played some silly games, ate dinner, did Duolingo, started writing this blog post, did not do the dishes, watched an episode of C-drama, got coached from 10 to 11.30, read a bit and turned the lights out.

My voice is still not a hundred percent and I have a full teaching day ahead. Oh, and a doctor’s appointment in the morning. So, full day ahead.

Getting back home yesterday was a bit exhausting, my first train of the day was canceled so I had to set out half an hour early. Which was not a problem because my mother showed up when I was still lounging in bed all tense because she thought we’d have to leave in thirty minutes. We still had 90 minutes, she was still on daylight savings time.

Fortunately I grabbed my phone to show her something, saw a notification from the train app and found a different connection. I made sure to leave ample time for changing trains. Which turned out to be a very good thing.

So there was one train to Osnabrück (10 minutes late) and another one from there to Hannover. I tried getting a reservation for that one because it was a high speed train and the app said it would be packed but no chance, the train was all booked out. The fact that my first train had been late did not stress me out because my way of booking just meant that I only had – 50 minutes to change trains. I drank a cup of peppermint tea and ate a pastry outside the train station.

The packed high speed train was actually packed but – being the experienced traveler that I am I just walked to the very end of the very long train, got on as one of the first (all hail the minimalist packing) and sat down on the first seat that wasn’t reserved. I really pity the people who had to stand with their ginormous suitcases. (They were all younger than me and not as sick so I felt okay sitting there.)

That train was late as well and the nice, one-hour break at Hannover that I had thought I’d have when I planned this trip became half an hour and at last – 8 minutes. Which still was time enough to change trains but not enough to get something for lunch. I did eat some trail mix and a KitKat on the platform when it turned out that train was late as well.

It finally arrived, I had two seats to myself all the way to Munich and then I went and had lunch in the dining car.

I know, this lentil soup doesn’t look all that appetizing but it was very good.

After that I sat and waited for the next four hours or so until I was finally home. The train to Munich was about ten minutes late as well and again I still had time enough to catch the train home.

I hugged my husband and the boy, had nice, warm food and my favorite beer, didn’t talk much because of no voice, watched the last episode of „Storm Eye“ which did not feel like the last episode but instead like a new beginning for season 2 and went to bed.

I slept well even with all the coughing for nine hours and woke up definitely sick. I’m having a mild fever which usually means I am really sick and so I decided to spend the day in bed and on the couch.

It is a very good thing that it’s fall break. In hindsight taking that trip even though I was already sick before was a dumb idea but well, it did make my mother happy. This week I only have one student scheduled. I already canceled today’s student and will probably cancel Thursday as well because I sincerely doubt I’ll be able to give a voice lesson in two days.

And as you’re reading this I’m on the train.

So yesterday was pretty busy. Got the message that my mother would be home over the weekend, phew, and went into overdrive as much as I could. Had to skip a few things including most of the cleaning.

I’m afraid I don’t really have the bandwidth to write much, just know that I’m alive, all is well and I’m traveling.

Went to bed too late and didn’t sleep all that well. So that was not the easiest day ever. Not the worst either. While we were eating breakfast I got a text from my mother. Another health thing that might mean I won’t travel tomorrow after all. I’ll know some time today. Ugh.

Which meant I was not all that keen on preparing for travel.

I woke the boy, opened the manuscript and worked on that for half an hour interrupted by my husband twice. Who had forgotten (along with me) that his aunt was supposed to come over with her car to help him cart stuff to the recycling place. Now our garage is a bit emptier with fewer broken appliances, no empty toner cartridges and no old oil cans. Among other things.

Meanwhile I walked to the dentist in the rain. My teeth are fine and I got complimented on my dental hygiene again. Ha! And that with me feeling extra sloppy at that.

Since my husband wanted Weißwürste I then went to the butcher and the health food store. We had lunch rather early:

It all tasted pretty good, even if those Brezen will never be my favorite. The beer was special, it’s made by the brewery in town. Very small and pretty new.

After that I took a break, did the dishes, and then opened the manuscript again and spent 20 minutes on finding out if I actually had written the same scene twice, in which of the books and where. That took a while. And yes, there are two versions of the same moment in there. Next I need to decide what to do about it.

Then there was teaching, I had a short break that I used to scan a picture and get it ready to be printed much bigger but I didn’t succeed. More teaching, then dinner, Chinese, started writing this post and was no longer coherent after.

I still watched another episode of „Storm Eye“ but did go to bed at a reasonable time.

Today I’m planning to bike to the supermarket, do a very quick cleaning of the house and teach. Also, take a shower and then either pack for my trip or cancel my ticket and replan my weekend. However that works out, today is my last teaching day before a week off.

Yes, I know that doesn’t really make sense. Though I have to say that sometimes people with depression get told to not sleep to elevate their mood.

But I think the main reason was that I could talk with people who understand the slightly weird struggles I’m having, the fundamental „Why can’t I make myself do the things I want to do and that I know make me feel good in the long run?“ So while Monday’s coach declared me unfixable we laughed and commiserated and that helped.

Yesterday had a bit of a rocky start because I had gone to bed at 1.30 after two beers. I did get up at 7, did my complete morning routine, had breakfast with my husband, wove some ends in on the crochet blanket and proceeded to do all the things.

Woke the boy, opened the manuscript for revision, did the dishes, addressed and mailed two letters, went to the health food store, put everything away, called the IRS and finally reached an actual person. Who told me to throw the letter they sent me away because everything was in order.

I put the groceries away, had an early lunch with my husband where we continued talking about his struggles learning Italian. We had potatoes, spinach and fried eggs:

This for me is comfort food that reminds me of my childhood. We had spinach – the frozen one with cream sauce – every week because spinach is so healthy and I had an iron deficiency. Of course now we know that spinach doesn’t really contain that much iron but well.

Since we were so early I decided to do some more revision after lunch, wrote two emails and took a break before teaching that was too long to deal with all the laundry and take a shower but at least I hung the first load of the day and folded the one that had still occupied the drying rack. I had a student cancel which meant I had a one-hour break in between students. I went on to hang up the second load of laundry but found that my husband did it.

I refilled my fountain pen, remembered that I needed to print out new grocery list forms, managed to squeeze that in before my last two students of the day, then took a shower, did the dishes, watched some TV, did the usual Chinese lessons and turned the lights out a little earlier for once.

Today there will be more things to get done, teaching, and some exercise. Or maybe I will go grocery shopping today because I’m having a dentist appointment tomorrow morning, we’ll see.