life

I went to bed half an hour late, slept well and still had a morning where I was dragging my feet. Morning pages happened and I did manage a semblance of yoga but that was mostly it.

Husband and I had apparently reached that stage where we both are very exhausted and end up misunderstanding each other constantly which means we have to talk through those and that’s even more exhausting.

Anyway. I did the breakfast dishes listening to some Alessandro Scarlatti concerto, very nice, with recorder. Around noon husband and I were all ready to walk out the door but we had to wait for the boy, and then all three of us walked to the other end of town to the nice Italian restaurant. I had the first alcohol-free aperitif of my life:

It was nice but, I don’t know, mostly fruit juice, of course.

We didn’t go for the 3-course menu this time but only ordered one dish each. My husband and I both took the lasagna with lamb ragout and the boy had the trofie Genovese. We are happy that there are vegetarian dishes on the menu but vegetarian lasagna would have been great. My husband and the boy both ordered a salad as well:

We decided that we need to make lasagna at home soon. With homemade pasta, of course.

All of us then decided to order dessert as well. The boy had tiramisu and my husband and I had pistachio mousse. It was delicious as was the rest of the meal:

We speedwalked back because my husband had to teach and made it with only four minutes to spare. The day was so hot that all of us felt like the sun was making us melt. Sitting at the restaurant outside was super nice, especially because of the parasols.

I had a bit more time before my first student. She was a little late and I thought she might have forgotten but then she turned up after all. I taught all afternoon until 6.45, then met with the boy and we did 20 minutes of bodyweight training. And after that I finally ate dinner.

I lounged about for an hour, started writing this post, did Duolingo and my foot exercises, decided I was too tired to watch something and went to bed with a book.

I’m looking forward to a weekend of doing mostly nothing. Sounds perfect to me.

Well, I did go to bed on time, slept well and then my smartwatch told me my „readiness for the day“ was low. I mean, really?

It was right, even, I did not have a ton of energy. And so the new month energy that I was wishing for somehow didn’t manifest and I did not start the month by writing all the words and doing yoga in the morning.

I read in bed until it was time for breakfast, husband and I had a conversation that made both of us feeling a little bad (but we cleared that up an hour later), I had plans to do all the things and I didn’t.

The boy did sleep until after lunchtime, he had a bigger sleep deficit than me and apparently was trying to make up for it.

Before lunch I sat down at my writing desk and did finance stuff, moving money around. I was also happy to see that we got our deposit back from the car rental company.

Lunch was tasty:

I took a break after, then talked with the boy while he was eating lunch and since he recently started learning Chinese I gave him a ton of recommendations for apps and videos and such. He said he has trouble learning the pronunciation (which I totally get, it is hard) and Duolingo isn’t really cutting it. I mean, it’s nice that you can get a compliment from the owl with „good job!“ even is you totally mangled the sentence and didn’t even say the second half but that doesn’t make learning it easier.

I had the very best intentions to start doing the actual things I wanted to accomplish at 3.

I sat at my computer in my studio only twenty minutes late. This time I logged onto the perpetual Zoom call, called „The Office“ instead of relying on willpower. Body doubling is a thing that can be very helpful and the writers on the call were really nice. And also pretty disciplined, there were only a few minutes of chitchat in between work sessions.

I sat down, figured out where to find all the files I needed and set my very first book up for preorder. It should come out at the end of May! Very exciting!

The book is finished, I only need a few details, like an author picture, my website looks terrible and I need to set up my newsletter again but the ebook as such is all set up. Hurray!

Afterwards I was happy and also very exhausted. I spent another thirty minutes proofreading book 2 and called it a day.

Then I told my husband, ate dinner, started writing this post, realized I had forgotten to plan the month, watched some C-drama and went to bed.

And today we’ll go out for lunch to celebrate both our wedding anniversary and the boy passing another exam.

I went to bed on time, slept well, and felt surprisingly good in the morning. The boy didn’t need me to wake him because of his new alarm clock.

Or so we thought.

I got up at 6.30, wrote morning pages, opened the manuscript and such and was happy to receive a message from the boy at 8 that he was awake. Just in time for his 10 o’clock lecture.

By 9 I was a bit uneasy. He still hadn’t been downstairs. I filled his water bottle and set it outside. I texted him to ask when he needed to leave.

Well, at ten to ten the boy came downstairs, emptied his bottle, and told me that he had fallen back asleep. He did move his alarm clock further away from the bed, so we’ll see how that goes in the future.

Meanwhile I did the usual Wednesday things, the breakfast dishes and such, talking with the rest of the family and then I went for my run/walk. For the second time in a row I set out to do week 4, day 2 on my 5K-app and for the second time I ended up actually doing week 5, day 2. Needless to say I did not run all the way through those running intervals.

I was very hungry when lunch came around and it was delicious. (Too much marjoram in the brats but that’s definitely not my husband’s fault. I’m the one who bought them.)

After lunch, just when I was about to leave the table after a short break the boy came downstairs for his lunch (grr). We talked briefly, I took a quick shower, and then I decided that I needed to research sheet music for piano lessons. I’m not super happy with the book I’ve been using for the past 30 years when it comes to the really young beginners. I’m not quite sure how to find what I’m looking for but we’ll see.

Then I taught one student after the other. I had an unexpected break because of a cancellation that I used for more research. My last student of the day had a hard time getting out of work that day, so in the end I ate dinner before teaching her, and I had to postpone bodyweight training with the boy three times.

I don’t like that but money is money.

We finally did bodyweight training around 8 which is definitely way too late, and after that I was so exhausted and tired and hungry that I ate a few too many almonds and some chocolate.

I even gave up watching something and instead went to bed with a book. (I started reading „Ready or Not“ by Cara Bastone yesterday and as of now I’m 56% in. I really love the book but also I keep thinking how much the quirks of the love interest that the main character is finding so charming will bug her just a few years down the road. But then this is a romance novel, not real life. Important difference.)

I have reached that stage where I have to focus to walk in a straight line. And I don’t even have the excuse of being a new parent or anything.

I did fall into a ‚just one more short YouTube video‘-hole, not a good idea. In the morning I felt like my whole body was made of lead and I spent about 45 minutes in complete mental paralysis unable to make myself move. I also did not go back to sleep. Of course.

The good news is that the boy’s new alarm clock works, so yesterday was probably the last day I had to get up at 6 because he needed to go to uni.

My husband’s mood tanked right away when he saw that a) the bread he had planned to eat for breakfast was moldy, and b) there was no honey in the house even though he had put it on the grocery list. Twice. He ended up eating a small cookie and rejected my offers of going out and buying something more suitable.

I do count the fact that I managed to make myself write for thirty minutes after breakfast as a big win, I did the dishes and all the usual stuff and left the house actually on time to go to the health food store. Since Thursday will be a public holiday I also went to the supermarket afterwards.

I did come back with honey this time. I also managed to buy the wrong kind of risotto rice which meant that my husband used sushi rice instead. Good thing I brought another package of risotto rice from the supermarket.

Before grocery shopping I sat down to start knitting the fingerless mitts in earnest. I am happy to say that the days of thinking and planning and math-ing have resulted in the beginning of an actual, wearable mitten. Behold, skulls:

And then there was risotto for lunch:

I didn’t have a lot of time afterwards but still managed to eat a chocolate bar and a whole package of peanut snacks. And then I also wrote sheet music for a student. I have a piece that he really, really wanted to play that’s much too hard for him and I’m transcribing the melody.

Then I taught from 2.30 to 7 without a break. Well, unless you count the five minutes when a student was late but I used those to answer texts.

When I was done for the day I printed new grocery lists, helped the boy with his form yet again, finally ate dinner, started writing this post, put the bread I bought into plastic bags and put it in the freezer, did Duolingo and my foot exercises, watched some C-drama while knitting and went to bed.

No opening of YouTube this time. Phew.

Wow, was I tired! I helped the boy the night before and only turned the lights out past midnight, which was bad enough, but then I needed to get up at six again to wake him up in time for uni. I did order him an extra loud alarm clock because I don’t want to get more sleep deprived. I mean, going to bed at 9 and getting up at 5.30 would be great but not when I often teach until 7.

So the rest of the day I had to make do with only half a brain. I still wrote my morning pages and worked on the manuscript but that was basically it.

My husband and I ate breakfast but only talked briefly because he had so much stuff to do. And yes, it was our wedding anniversary and we did acknowledge that but will celebrate on Friday.

Then I spent a little over an hour re-designing the fingerless mittens I want to knit for the boy. The pattern I bought was neither test-knitted nor tech-edited. I played around with the motives on the palm side and I think I found a pleasing way of arranging everything, now I just need to make a decision on the thumb increases and then I should be good.

I did the breakfast dishes while listening to a YouTube video, completely forgot about my classical piece of the day, and then went running. Well, mostly running. In my sleep-deprived daze I accidentally started a training that was a bit too hard for me but for that I’m pretty happy with how I did.

The weather was very warm, I was wearing shorts:

The boy was back home before lunch so we all ate together, mmh, pasta and veggies:

I did the dishes right away, then took my customary break and then a shower. With time to spare for my first lesson. I had a rescheduled lesson so I ended up with a generous break between students which I used for researching stuff for publication. Then another student and ten minutes of playing the piano before it was time for bodyweight training. I pulled up the wrong program, we should have done military presses but, well.

Then I finally could eat dinner. I read a bit, talked briefly with the rest of the family, played a silly game for 15 minutes, hunted for the fountain pen I had been using in the afternoon and finally found it inside the notebook I had used, did Duolingo and my foot exercises and then watched a short episode of C-drama before going to bed.

Today will be a very long day, I already know as much, but hopefully with an early bedtime.

And wow, am I tired.

There actually is no real reason why I went to bed an hour late again. But it tied in with another afternoon of waiting. I was very determined to get stuff done and actually completed the whole morning routine. Alas, writing went very slowly.

My husband and I ate breakfast together and were happy to talk about the last few days, then I decided I did not have enough time to do a second writing session and ultimately had to scramble to call my mother on time.

The fact that I pulled out one of my knitting projects in progress and got hooked on redesigning the chart didn’t help. (I started a pair of „Chaos Mittens“ for the boy some time in October, found that there was an error in the pattern, tried correcting it, found even more errors, decided to redesign the whole thing and got stuck.

That morning I did some more math, changed the number of stitches significantly and started over with the full intention of winging everything. (Spoiler: winging it probably won’t work either)

Since a lot of stuff had happened in the last week both for me and for my mother we talked for a whole hour and then I helped a little with lunch:

Lunch was a little late and afterwards I took a break. I did plan the week ahead but then got stuck in indecisiveness. Somewhere in between I hung up a load of laundry, vacuumed the old part of the house and tried finding some elastic to replace the one that prevents the bathroom door from crashing into the one leading into the apartment.

Turns out the reason I haven’t replaced that yet even though it’s worn and no longer very elastic is that there was no suitable elastic in the house. My subconscious might have known, the rest of me did not.

I did the dishes again, ate dinner, watched an episode of ‚Filter’ and then it was time for another Zoom call. Signing up for a call from 9 pm to 10.30 was not the best idea, by then I was tired enough to fall flat on my face.

The boy showed up with some questions about how to fill out a form for work and other stuff, I made myself a cup of tea, started writing this post, did my foot exercises and went to bed. Too late again, of course.

Guess who needs to get up extra early today?

Yep. The boy needs to be at university early.

I have ordered an alarm clock for him that is supposed to raise the senior citizens, the deaf and even teenagers, so we’ll see if that works.