life

As often as it takes, apparently.

I actually went to bed on time and slept well, phew. I still was super tired all day but at least I wasn’t making the problem worse.

I did my morning routine without manuscript time, seemed I was totally blocked about the novella-in-progress, so much so that I thought about starting something else or revising the new urban fantasy.

Husband and I had a great conversation over breakfast that we had to cut short because he had to leave for his dentist appointment.

While he was away I tried to make myself write unsuccessfully. I spent some time online and I knitted while reading.

Just as I was about to get up from the kitchen table my husband returned. Everything had gone well, things are looking good.

I did the dishes while listening to Piazolla and then to a podcast about writing.

And then I went out and redid the first day of Couch to 5k for the umpteenth time. I wasn’t quite sure if I’d be up for it but thought I’d just try and if the running parts (45 second intervals) were too much I could always just walk back.

It was glorious:

The sun was shining and it was fun to move and to listen to some BTS and I got to think round and round the novella-in-progress until I felt all motivated and had sorted through all kinds of problems with my writing.

It looks like this might not actually be a novella in the end, though, those two guys have some serious stuff to work through.

Very exciting!

I came back home to lunch already on the table so we ate next:

We ate together, then I played some Genshin and took a shower before teaching all the students. One of my students had canceled so I used that time to get a start on writing down the timelines for the first romance novel because that is relevant for the second one. I can’t write more until I have sorted that out.

Thought looking at the timeline of those heroes’ lives I might have to go back through that story again to make sure people are all their appropriate ages. The whole thing is ‚contemporary‘ without any world events or covid. Sure.

I taught my last student of the day did a few scales on the piano, ate dinner, then started writing this post, made a list for today, did the dishes and sat down to tackle more Genshin. I really have to put some time in next because there are several things I want to do until the end of the week (there is an event that is ending plus another thing that feels urgent but isn’t).

Then a bit of reading and lights out.

Today will be a very, very full day including grocery shopping, making something for lunch, teaching and all the other stuff.

As expected I was thoroughly zombified all day because five hours of sleep is definitely not enough for me. I spent a big portion of the day being angry at my former self and also angry at doing the dumb thing of staying up for hours after my bedtime while knowing that I would definitely regret it the next day.

I still set my alarm at the usual time, and everything took ages. I wrote morning pages about sleep and about my mindset around it and interrupted the writing to buy a couple of books, ahem.

A little later in the morning I started reading „Hello Sleep“ by Jade Wu. I had been thinking about getting that book for a while but, well, I a not insomniac. I’m just needlessly sleep-deprived.

In the prologue she writes:

So, when did you lose touch with sleep? When did it stop being an enjoyable thing and become a struggle instead?

Ouch. So, when and why did sleep become something to avoid? I remember going to bed because I was sleepy even as a teenager. I am definitely a morning person, so that’s not it. The first time in my life that I did not just go to bed when I was tired was when I met my husband and we moved together. He is a definite night-owl and that and our afternoon working hours meant that I shifted my sleep to more of a night-owl schedule. But still I would get around nine hours of sleep most nights and when I was tired I’d go to bed and fall asleep.

There is a story I tell a lot when my husband and I were on vacation on Madeira and in the morning I told him that I had been tossing and turning for ages before falling asleep and he said it had taken me about five minutes. Duh.

Then I got pregnant and had a baby and first I had trouble sleeping and then the baby would wake me up all the time, as they do. A couple of years later I actually did have insomnia, I would wake up in the night, unable to fall back asleep and get more and more stressed out about my lack of sleep.

I thought I might have a thyroid disorder, or something else was wrong and did a sleep study. And nothing was wrong.

So after that I decided that if my body wanted to be awake in the night it was its own problem, I’d just stay in bed, nice and cozy, and tell myself quiet stories. My body could take care of sleep or not but a few nights with non-adequate sleep wouldn’t kill me.

And my insomnia went away and I went back to my usual „sleep like a log as soon as my head hits the pillow“-state. Maybe with a break or two to use the toilet but that was it.

Then I decided to get more productive and become a real, full-time writer and read the „Miracle Morning“-books. Some time in 2016 or so I decided to get up at 5 am every day, regardless of when I went to bed and that sleep was for the weak.

My plan was to do a lot of journaling and writing and meditating in the morning but somehow I always ended up writing some more in the evenings because I didn’t fulfill my quota. In the end I got totally used to just being tired all the time. I don’t even know how much sleep I need anymore. Tiredness or sleepiness is meaningless because if I followed that clue for when to sleep I just wouldn’t leave my bed in the morning.

See, those are the things I’m thinking about. How can I heal my relationship with sleep? When did I become one of those dumb people who think sleep is a waste of time?

When I do get enough sleep everything is easier, I don’t lose as much time, I don’t do as much stuff I later regret, I don’t impulse buy books by the dozen and snacks by the pound. Sleeping more actually gives me more usable time than sleeping less plus doomscrolling for a few hours.

Anyway, I talked with my husband for quite some time, watched half a video about medieval knitting guilds while doing all the dishes from the 24 hours before, then did a brief research excursion on speed knitting (funny, there was a video „speed-knitting continental for beginners“ with a pretty slow knitter“), toyed with the idea of learning lever-knitting (looks intriguing and very fast, maybe worth a try), timed myself while knitting half a round on my current sock (50 seconds for 32 stitches in sticky, very dark yarn and 3-by-1 rib where I kept having to knit back because I made mistakes because I couldn’t see the stitches properly and then I went out for errands and groceries.

My husband went to the dentist and found that his appointment was for today, I made an appointment to get new orthotics and found that instead of the weeks I thought this would take I could have gone in today but I need a prescription first, and then I bought all the veggies and fruits and schlepped them home while listening to BTS.

There was an easy lunch:

And then very little time until teaching and I still needed to take a shower. I taught a couple of students with wet hair, had two students not show up at all, and was done early.

I ate dinner an some trail mix, started writing this post, made a list in my bullet journal, did the dishes, brushed my teeth and changed into pajamas and only then did I sit down to relax.

Still not quite sure if I should go for a stupid little walk today, we’ll see. I am definitely no longer so sick that I need to avoid all exercise.

I had gone to bed very late, wasted quite some time in the morning and therefore did not open the manuscript.

I spent a sizable portion of the morning setting up the new router and then connecting it to all the devices including the mesh wifi devices that are scattered around the house so that wifi extends to the whole house.

I did not manage to connect the last two devices before lunch:

After lunch I got a bit hyperfixated on finishing the next part in my video game. I did finish that one eventually in the evening and then got a list of things that I should do next from the boy in the evening.

The boy was also the one who finished setting up the two missing devices which took quite some time. (I could tell right away when he woke up because I got a text asking me why he didn’t have internet.)

My husband did three load of laundry throughout the day.

While teaching I also had to interrupt my lesson to do some emergency tech support because while the internet (and phone) were working my husband couldn’t figure out how to connect his computer with his TV for playing music during lessons.

One student canceled and another one moved her lesson slightly back because she had had a doctor’s appointment and was late but because of the cancellation I could fit her in some other time.

During the break I read the confirmation for my hotel reservation for September and proceeded to buy a train ticket as well. It’s really weird these days, I buy a ticket and immediately after it says that there are current updates. Only there aren’t really, there is just a nagging exclamation mark but no update text.

After teaching I played the piano, I ate dinner, I played a lot more and went to bed too late again. Very late. Today will surely be lovely.

That was a day that went by fast. I did my complete morning routine but instead of writing I figured out the feedback for the cover designer and sent it off.

I also tried booking a hotel room for our family reunion in September. I’m a little sad that the boy didn’t want to come but, well.

I called my mother on the phone, did dishes and then there was lunch:

I ordered another non-fiction book and yes, I still don’t really read those.

I finished the Wilshores blanket by weaving in all the remaining ends:

Unfortunately I managed to take the picture of the wrong side, oops. The border in a 

I had plans to finish cleaning (which I did) and set up the new blurb but the blurb didn’t happen.

We went to vote in our very regional elections. Looks like 

I played my video game a little too long but managed to tear myself away in time for vacuuming the old part of the house and doing washbasins and toilets.

And then I went to bed to late. Great start into the week

I did try tackling my list but only got about a third of it done. There was yoga, I opened the manuscript, decided that I needed to look at book 1 again for the timeline of events, had breakfast with my husband where we talked a lot and he helped me sort through a few things I need to do where I was stumped because it really doesn’t matter what part of the task I do first or how I do it. I always find that challenging. Together we figured out the best way for me.

I crocheted quite a bit and ended up finishing the border on the crochet blanket in the evening.

I somehow was so late with chores in the morning that I could not fit the vacuuming in, decided to do it after lunch and ended up not having time left because the things I did in my video game took too long.

Lunch was great, comfort food is the best:

There might also have been a steady stream of licorice all afternoon, ahem.

I went to writer Zoom, folded all the laundry, failed to change the sheets on my bed and watched the wrong episode of ‚Columbo‘ with the rest of the family. It was rather confusing when we thought we’d watch the one with Mrs. Columbo but instead we had a writer murdered by her younger lover. Who was so irresistible to all the women that he could do what he wanted to any of them, including the older sister of his lover who knew perfectly well  what an ass he was and had told her sister to break up with him. That was no plausible at all. Especially since she knew he had shot her sister (though at that point they didn’t know he had actually murdered her) and was definitely after the money she would inherit from her sister.

Also, as we all know, romance authors are sweet and innocent and not business savvy at all. Sure.

Anyway. After I went back to my game and finished that part of the quest the I had to leave hanging for Zoom and TV and then I was too late for everything. I still started writing this post and made a list for today.

That list looks remarkably similar to yesterday’s list plus the phone call to my mother and voting in regional elections. Oh, and setting up a new router. Will I manage to do all of that? Probably not but I’ll try.

Every transition from one task to the next involved long periods of sitting around losing time.

I still managed to vacuum the annex and I also taught all the students. Then played Genshin with the boy, fell down a social media rabbit hole and ate too much licorice. We had pancake soup for dinner and an omelette for lunch.

Good thing it’s the weekend and I have weekends off.