daily journal

Well, the start wasn’t smooth at all, I overslept by half an hour but then that made up for the time I went to bed too late.

Still, I managed the whole morning routine including a bit of working on the manuscript (lots of looking at pictures, mostly, for setting), some yoga and such and then breakfast with my husband.

After that I did the many dishes and listened to all the classical music. I’m behind with my classic music project again but almost back on track. The one piece that I really, really loved was „Let Nothing Trouble You“ by Roderick Williams the author of „Another Year of Wonder“ says, „I find in both the music and the words intense solace indeed.“ Yep, same.

I tried getting out of the house as fast as possible because we had planned to make all the pesto from all the basil and that takes time. I still wanted to go for my walk/run. I was out for more than 73 minutes and 7.7 kilometers. All I know is that I went through the woods and came out right before the next town over:

And then I went back the same way again.

At home the whole kitchen was full of pesto-making stuff:

There were still two more containers with basil elsewhere.

So I washed my hands, drank a glass of water and started mincing. I found that each portion of basil leaves took about 10 minutes between picking out bad leaves and stems and the actual use of the mezzaluna knife.

All in all I worked for almost 90 minutes. My husband was busy doing everything else and trying to make pesto in an actual pestle. It’s there in the photo, very small in the back, made from olive wood. We bought it at the Christmas market.

The texture of that portion of pesto turned out to be very different. Unfortunately, he put too much salt in, so it was basically inedible.

Lunch was a bit late:

I took a break after that, decided to not do the dishes, finished cleaning, took a shower, decided to make a paperback version of my book after all, bought 100 ISBNs, tried to figure out the mystery of Amazon keywords, and then ate dinner in front of TV with the boy while watching a pretty nice episode of ‚DoctorWho‘. It was the one called „The Story & The Engine“.

After that the dishes looked at me sadly but I didn’t want to. Which I will regret today but on the other hand I felt like I had spent enough time in the kitchen for one day.

Today we will go out and meet actual, real life people in the neighborhood. And I’m planning to wear my new dress.

Not literally limping, thank Bob.

I got a little less sleep than I needed again because I went to bed 45 minutes late and was woken up half an hour before my alarm by the boy getting himself another plate of spaghetti before going to bed. I did fall back asleep but, well.

I wrote morning pages and decided to skip the rest of the morning routine, lounging in bed scrolling through social media until it was time for breakfast. Not the best start to the day.

Husband and I talked a bit but then he had to get going because he had a rare morning student. I did the breakfast dishes and then started the weekly cleaning.

Had to interrupt the cleaning to order takeout for lunch and pick it up while my husband was restringing my guitar. I feel a bit weird because I never put new strings on my guitars myself, I only ever mention to him that I need to do it and ask him for set of strings and – boom! – magically restrung guitar.

He even filed the nut of the guitar down a bit to make it easier to play for me. I’m hoping that will help with my thumb problem.

Anyways, there was Chinese food. Spring rolls:

And fried noodles:

I took a break, then started teaching.

My two last students had both canceled so I finished early. And one of the remaining students didn’t show up without canceling. I used that break to vacuum the old part of the house.

My plan was to finish teaching, then finish cleaning and go straight to my desk to write.

Well.

I got hit by a big case of paralysis like a brick wall and ended up not doing anything but texting friends and eating almonds until it was time to meet the boy for bodyweight training.

We did 3-rep pyramids again which is fun because you do one set of the exercise you’re currently able to do, and for the next two you make them harder. Which usually teaches me that I can go harder than I think. I have to say, though, that pushups with my feet elevated on a chair will not become my new normal any time soon. And any kind of chin-up completely eludes me.

I did some research (again) after dinner and did get a few pointers but on the other hand I can’t really imagine ever getting there. Whereas the boy is progressing nicely. Even if he felt like his progress was backwards yesterday.

After that I could finally eat dinner and then I was just sitting around watching YouTube until my „take your evening hormones“-alarm went off.

I started writing this post, did Duolingo and watched C-drama very briefly before falling into bed.

I think today should be a rest day. Well, apart from my walk/run and finishing the cleaning. I’m toast, I need to take some time off.

Oh, and I did spin yesterday but for less than 15 minutes. Maybe I’ll make up for it today, but maybe I won’t.

But I was too braindead to write, sadly enough.

I did the complete morning routine otherwise with five minutes of yoga only.

Husband and I had breakfast together with a nice conversation. I knitted a few rows on the cardigan ribbing and then felt I needed to get moving because I had big plans for the day.

I got ready with lists and all kinds of things, then went off on my bike. First I went to the bank to deposit some cash. I parked my bike in front of the bakery on the other side of the street and the last few meters I biked on the sidewalk. I promptly got reprimanded by one of those old women, this one was pushing a bike herself. Yes, I am aware that this is not a bike path. But there was no one on that generous piece of sidewalk but the two of us, I wasn’t even pedaling, just letting the bike roll.

The bank had a long, long queue out the door, as always, but there are several ATMs in the foyer and there was one that looked like it might accept cash. So I just tried it and yes, I could deposit my cash in there, it counted it and all, put it in my account and gave me a receipt. Hurray!

Next stop was the pharmacy where I found the sun screen stick I had been looking for for a while (I want sunscreen for my lips), and picked up mine and my husband’s meds. Unfortunately, my doctor forgot to put my blood pressure medication on there, so I see an email and another trip to the pharmacy in my future.

I got on my bike again and went to pick up my orthotics. That done I braved the traffic again and went to the big supermarket. I bought all the things, six kinds of cheese, four kinds of ham and salami, four kinds of bread, my bike panniers were full to the brim.

Went back home, unpacked the haul and helped cut up things for lunch:

I had quite a bit of time between lunch and my first lesson but I didn’t do anything in that time I was just too exhausted and tired.

Then there was teaching, junk food that I bought explicitly for dinner (I even put it on the grocery list), then I caved and bought yet another productivity book, started writing this post and lost all energy.

I still did the dishes and Duolingo and then watched some C-drama while spinning and knitting (not at the same time).

Today there will be Chinese takeout and cleaning and then the weekend.

I went to bed on time and slept well though the app thinks I didn’t get a lot of deep sleep. Whatever.

I got going a little faster than usual because I wanted to write morning pages and do yoga before I had to leave. I even looked for a 5-minute morning yoga video the night before.

I had planned to at least drink half a cup of tea before I had to leave the house but didn’t manage.

The day was much cooler than the ones before and I had to dig out long pants, socks, a hoodie and a raincoat. I even took an umbrella but didn’t have to use it after all.

At my doctor’s office I didn’t have to wait for long and used the time to buy another book. (I am so immersed in the „Her Majesty’s Royal Coven“-series that I really want to know what happens in book 3. That is the peril of book club choices.) There weren’t enough assistants, apparently, so after a quick chat with my doctor he was the one to draw blood. You can see that he used to be an anesthesiologist because he didn’t bat an eye when I showed him my extremely hard to find veins.

After that I went to one supermarket for most of the ingredients we needed for lunch and to the health food store. My husband wanted to make pasta with peas, ham, and cream, and the only things we had in the house were the peas from the garden. I mean, we did have all kinds of pasta, just not tagliatelle and we were almost out of parmesan.

I came back home earlier than expected and finally had breakfast. I did half the breakfast dishes and then I worked a bit on the dress-in-progress. I sewed the side seams, then put the twin needle in the machine and threaded it (always hard, especially with bad eyesight and it makes me appreciate the automatic threader for regular needles even more), and then I started the iron to press the seam allowances to the inside. And this is what I saw:

One of the skirt pieces was about two centimeters longer on one side than the other. Mind you, I cut one of those pieces out with the first piece as a template and in a hurry but wow, was that uneven. And I had managed to put the whole thing together in a way that the front piece was longer than the back which is just unacceptable. I tried it on, folded it in four and chopped the excess off. So now at least the whole thing is symmetrical and the front and back are the same length which will probably lead to the back hem being a bit short but, well, most people don’t even see these things. And if I ever wear this dress in my mother’s presence she can have fun chiding me for not evening it out properly.

Then I spent an eternity pressing all the seam allowances to the inside and then it was time for lunch:

We added the ham on our plates so the boy could have vegetarian cream sauce. That cucumber you see in the picture looked delicious, crisp and tender but unfortunately most of it was extremely bitter. Phooey!

I had a brief break before my first student, used the break between students to spin some more yarn (the spindle looks basically the same as the first day), taught some more students, helped the boy with the dishes when one of my students canceled (he had offered without prompting, yeah!), then taught some more, wrote a bunch of emails and found two scheduling conflicts in upcoming weeks (and set reminders to deal with them), my doctor called during a lesson to tell me he had renewed my prescription and everything was fine.

The boy and I had agreed to do bodyweight training in the evening. While I waited for him I folded a load of laundry, we did 20 minutes of exercise and then it was finally time for dinner.

In between I tried figuring out how old my mother-in-law’s old treadle sewing machine might be without pulling it out and failed. I should ask her about the machine and learn how to set it up and use it. I’ve been lusting after a machine like this every since I was a teenager and I was very cross when my aunt threw my grandmother’s treadle machine away and made the desk and treadle part into a table.

I the did Duolingo, read a bit more, and started writing this post.

Then there was a bit of knitting, a cup of tea and making a list for today and then to bed.

I’m really looking forward to spending some time with my husband today, and hopefully sew some more.