week in review

 So that was somewhat panicky and is continuing in the same vein. The good thing is that I managed to meditate and journal this morning and that I now am having a plan.

You all know about the corona virus crisis. So no need to dwell on that.

Writing:

I wrote a total of 1,500 words. What can I say, I was unable to focus and it looks like I will be unable to focus for a while longer. ::shrugs:: 

Reading:

I finished reading Lindsay Buroker’s „Sinister Magic“, loved it and started the second in the series as soon as it came out. In between I read „Swap with me“ by Ilona Andrews. It seems I am on an Urban Fantasy kick right now. Due to lack of focus I did not read any non-fiction even though I started reading „Unoffendable“  by Einzelgänger. I like it so far.

Exercise:

I did walk/run three times. I’m still not back to form and I guess I’ll just take it slow. I think running outside will be alright because while we do see people it’s easy to keep the distance. And – and this is very exciting – I did yoga for the first time in ages on Sunday. Yeah! I am pretty stiff and inflexible at the moment but continuing yoga will hopefully remedy that. 

Teaching:

There was teaching but less so than before. The first cancellations came in starting Wednesday. On Friday it became clear that the schools would be closed for the next three weeks. So far we are offering to teach anyway. Everybody entering the annex is supposed to wash their hands right away, we try to keep at least 1 meter distance from all students at all time and the piano is cleaned after every student. I am also looking into teaching online. 

Health:

Fortunately, all of us – including my 84yo. mother-in-law are still healthy.

Other stuff:

The podcast went out a little early this time. I finally finished the sweater for my husband and started a new knitting project. A lot of the week was spent setting up the living room. We got the new TV set, I moved all the furniture around, assembled the TV stand, set everything up and last Friday the boy and I finally watched Star Trek on a bigger screen in a much nicer environment. We love it.

Next week:

After spending most of the week mostly scared, repeating my mantra of „we have an emergency fund, we won’t starve“ I now have a plan to set up online teaching for our existing students. I am now watching Youtube videos and will test the equipment this afternoon. I hope I can start teaching over the web in the next few days.

I hope you all stay healthy and sane, love.

 Yeah, there was a reason I didn’t blog last week, the past two weeks were slightly crazy. My voice is still not back to normal, the laryngitis is still lingering on. Maybe I would be all back to healthy by now if I had rested my voice better but needs must when you’re self-employed and when your husband has been planning a big thing for months. 

Writing:

Nope. Nothing to see here. I saved my energy for other things. Which means no writing at all this month. I did spend about fifteen minutes staring at the document and changing a word here and there one morning and ended up with – five less words than before.

Reading:

I read 3 1/2 novels and a novella in those two weeks. One of the novels was a beta read for Marla Holt that I really, really loved. Can’t wait for the next one in the series. Unfortunately, the book won’t come out until May. I also started Lindsay Buroker’s Urban Fantasy novel „Sinister Magic“ and I really love it so far.

Exercise:

No exercise on account of being sick. I still walked to the grocery store and it turns out that walking back and forth to the party venue, making food and performing are pretty active but I didn’t feel like doing real exercise at all. I almost thought I had turned lazy until feeling well enough to attempt running last Saturday and finding that I was still pretty short of breath. I had to walk most of the way, not for mental reasons but because I was still not well enough, so that’s that. I did enjoy the walk, though:

Teaching:

The slightly insane teaching continues. Even through carnival break because I used the beginning of the week to make up for the day I had skipped in January so that we could celebrate my husband’s birthday in Salzburg. So Monday through Wednesday were totally packed. And I still didn’t really have my voice back and was super-low on energy. 

Health:

I guess you’re sensing a theme here. I was sick the whole two weeks, only doing the things I absolutely had to. I had low energy, almost no voice and a lovely intermittent cough. Up to the end I was not sure if I would be able to sing backing vocals on the weekend. In the end I did but I really shouldn’t have. I didn’t feel bad enough to cancel the whole thing, though.

I am getting better and at times I feel pretty normal again, hence my attempt at running. I’m still taking care that I get enough sleep and rest and such.

Other stuff:

The big highlight of those two weeks were the back-to-back concerts we gave last weekend. On Friday all the musicians descended upon our house and we had our dress rehearsal in our basement. Everything went pretty well but we were crammed together:

Only two people stayed overnight but we had to prep everything for that as well as for all the food for the parties and such. When I went grocery shopping on Thursday with the boy my bike almost fell over because it was so heavy.

On Saturday morning we got the keys to the venue (a basement that a couple of people we know rent for their private gatherings) and then we moved all the equipment there. Amps, guitars, keyboards, mics, stands, everything. While the others did the soundcheck I stayed behind to make all the food for the buffet and learn the vocals to „Black Magic Woman“ because it turned out that it was too high for the keyboarder and so my husband and I sang it together. You really need a male voice but doing lead vocals and guitar solo at the same time turned out to be rather tricky so I was hired to help. Unfortunately, I missed the crucial part both evenings. Oops. Everything else went well, even though the drummer played everything very slowly.

Saturday the venue was pretty full, we heard a guitar solo from one of my husband’s friends, then they improvised together, my husband played some pandeiro and then it was time for the band with some Santana and The Doors pieces. I would have loved posting some pictures here but I just realized that I don’t have permission to post the pictures a friend took of me and that I can’t post pictures of others without their permission. Sorry.

On Sunday we were already ded but needed to do it all again. The good thing was that everything was already ready, apart from the second keyboarder’s equipment and the buffet. So that happened. On Sunday evening there were way less people there, as expected. We had a different solo act, a second keyboarder. I didn’t like what he played as much as the guitar improves on Saturday but well, no accounting for taste. Other than that we played everything again. The drummer was even slower that evening, he was feeling the strain as well. That was the slowest version of „Riders on the Storm“ I’ve ever heard in my life. Almost surreal.

Still, the audience liked it, nobody lingered because everybody had to be back to work on Monday morning, us included and so we herded the musicians out the door with all our equipment. Then we went back to our place, unloaded everything, tried to keep the talking and drinking to a minimum with questionable success and I turned the lights out at 3 am.

I had told the boy to make his own breakfast the next morning but found myself wide awake only three hours later so I got up and started the day. We had breakfast with the second keyboarder and his wife, washed all the dishes and got them back to the venue, cleaned up after ourselves and gave the keys back, then proceeded to regular Monday teaching. Which is why I didn’t blog last week.

I’m still feeling the weekend in my bones a week later but am pretty hopeful that my energy will come back soon.

Next week:

Looks like a pretty normal week. The boy has a lot of stuff happening, including two tests, a math competition-thing where he might travel to Passau on Friday and the first part of the ‚Cambridge Certificate of Advanced English‘-test on Saturday. I did move the podcast-recording to Thursday because I was just too exhausted yesterday and for once I have a bit of time on Thursday afternoon.

Since I ordered a new TV for the living room (very exciting!) I want to move furniture around some time during the week, we’ll see how that goes. I’ve been thinking about getting a second set for ages, and now that we have the new couch and the living room will become an actual living room again we decided against moving the existing TV there because my husband likes to watch movies and sports in the evenings after I have already gone to bed and the master bedroom is right next door. We are also finding that when the boy and I watch TV it often collides with things my husband wants to do in the annex or with sports that he wants to watch at the same time.

I am now picturing myself watching the Tour de France while spinning in the big, airy, light living room instead of the darkest and smallest room in the house.

So, enough excitement for the moment. I’m really looking forward to re-establishing my normal routines. (Yeah, I know.)

Yeah, I’m still not feeling well. I went to the ENT doctor on Monday and he agreed that yes, this was laryngitis. I was advised to rest my voice by which he meant no talking at all. And don’t even contemplate singing! (By the way, whispering is much worse if you’re hoarse than talking mostly regular.

I did not do any exercise that whole week, I did not write – part from 360 words on Monday – no prep for the upcoming party/performance, no nothing. Basically I sat on the kitchen bench, coughing and crocheting and reading. I did watch a few more sewing videos on YouTube.

On Wednesday it became clear that I was getting worse instead of better so I tried the antibiotics the ENT had prescribed and it does seem to work. I’m getting better but definitely not good.

Me losing my voice was hard because of the teaching. As someone who is self-emplyed I didn’t really want to cancel all my students. So I went into survival mode and spent every minute I didn’t really need to do anything specific just sitting around

I finished the Winston brothers series and I almost finished the crochet blanket:

So. This upcoming week there will be carnival breaks but I’ll be teaching three days anyway, to make up for the two days I skipped when we went to Salzburg. And then there will be the massive preparation for the concert/party thing on the weekend with house guests and everything.

And this will be it for this update. I can already say that there will be no podcast this week. Laryngitis and recording a podcast don’t mesh. On top of that I can almost guarantee that the next review will be late.

And then it will be time for another month. A fresh new start.

Not the most productive week I’ve had. But there were reasons. 

Writing:

The week started strong with two writing sessions on Monday, then started tapering off on Tuesday and went to a grinding halt by Friday. Three days of writing, 2,500 words in all. Harumph.

Reading:

 After writing last week’s review I realized that I was halfway through book six of the Winston brothers series without having read book 5. So of course I had to start that. And then all of a sudden I pivoted and pulled out the non-fiction again. First „Indestractable“ by Nir Eyal and then I switched to „Dear Writer, you have to quit“. Since reading those Winston brothers-books had made me lose whole days before I decided to stick to non-fiction until I was done with the day. Which meant I did not read any fiction for most of the week. 

Exercise:

I ran on Monday and Wednesday but then got sick on Friday, hence no exercise for the rest of the week. And probably most of next week as well. Here you can see a bit of what the big storm did:

And this is a picture I took on Wednesday:

Teaching:

Not quite as much teaching as the weeks before but almost. Also, I received a phone call from a potential new piano student. 

Health:

That was the bummer. For some time now I had been aware of a cold creeping up but thought I had it all under control. Until I woke up on Friday with a sore throat and my sinuses hurting. That evolved into me having almost no voice, my sinuses hurting even more and my left ear feeling wonky on Sunday. Yeah! Teaching the one singing student on Friday was already a little hard but teaching two today will be even harder. Wish me luck.

Other stuff:

Not much else. The boy got his report card and everything looks pretty good. My husband had a friend over on Saturday and they were also rehearsing for the end of the month. On Sunday I had a virtual knitting meeting. Or rather crochet in my case. Only four more stripes to go on part 6 of my Dahlia blanket. Looks like I’ll be all up to date for Friday’s clue.

The podcast went out on time, I didn’t write the newsletter yet again. My author website was wonky and didn’t have an RSS feed but somehow I seem to have set that right. No idea which of the things I tried worked in the end. 

Next week:

The most important thing will be to return to normal health. I have two pretty insane teaching days on Monday and Wednesday, two regular ones on Tuesday and Thursday and a rather light one on Friday. And then it will be carnival break.

Only two more weeks until the performance/party. I should really start practicing. But not while sick. And that will be mostly it.

 I know the week was full and at times hectic but right now it really doesn’t feel like it. Maybe because of an extremely leisurely weekend. My poor to-do-list feels thoroughly neglected.

Writing:

 I tried to write as much as I could which apparently meant for about twenty minutes per day. I wrote on five days for one pomodoro a day apart from Wednesday where I did two. That came down to 3,944 words that week which amounted to my best week in January yet. Still, I did fall short of my self-imposed goal by about 4,000 words

I am still liking the story, I still have no idea what will happen next. I did try to plan out the last few scenes, was rather happy about them and then promptly veered off. As one does.

Reading:

Lots of reading. I keep making my way through Penny Reid’s books, finished the very last book in the „Knitting in the City“-series, the one with all the extras in, on Monday and went on to buy the first book in the Winston Brothers series. Finished that one on Sunday and started book two in that series right away. I am sadly neglecting my massive TBR pile in favor of the new and shiny. So far I am enjoying the books big time. I did keep myself from just buying the whole series in one fell swoop but I might have picked up another one or two. One was on sale some time ago and then I bought what I thought was book two but in fact is book seven. The books can be read out of order but I don’t want to. So I won’t.

Exercise:

There was some running but not a lot. The weather was rather mild all in all. This was Monday:

Wednesday I had to shovel snow in the morning but then it was mostly gone later:

And on Saturday I felt so lazy that I cut my run short and walked most of the way:

Strength training, stretching and yoga didn’t happen. Mostly because of my teaching schedule but also because of the same laziness on Sunday. I hope that I will get back to that soon, though.

Teaching:

There was a lot of teaching but also quite a few canceled lessons because of students calling in sick. Things seem to be settling down again which is good. 

Health:

While so many people were sick and sniffly I did remain unaffected. I did have a bit of a sniffle in the middle of the week but that felt more like allergies to me. My husband reported blooming willow, maybe that was it. My knees are doing well apart from a bit of stiffness in the morning but I can live with that. 

Other stuff:

I had an unexpected rehearsal for the end of February performance on Friday after a full day of teaching. That went unexpectedly well even though I wasn’t really prepared. There will be several bands and for this one I’ll be doing backing vocals.It’s all Rolling Stones, Doors and Lenard Skynyrd songs so not that hard to learn. Playing with those guys, all of whom could be my sons (apart from my husband) was more fun than I had expected. This is a rather low-stake thing so I just enjoyed myself.

The boy and I watched both the new ‚Doctor Who‘-episode on Saturday. This was my favorite this season with the Judoon and one of my very favorite characters returning. Can’t wait to see what will happen next. The new ‚Picard‘ episode was also excellent. I really like what they are doing with the series.

The boy had a pretty hectic week with tests and papers to write and presentations to prepare for. Plus, he went climbing again on Friday and spent all of Sunday with friends. I’d say he is in bad need of a few days off and some extra sleep. I’m very happy about the new printer, by the way, because it’s making printing all those papers and handouts a joy.

This was our first week of mostly vegetarian eating, something that is somewhat tricky with the fructose-intolerance. There were lots of pulses and cheese…

Black beans, rice and sausage that was still in the fridge:

Leftovers:

Falafel thingies bought frozen, peas and potatoes on Friday when the boy’s vegetarian friend came along for lunch:

Bulgur, chickpeas, eggplant and feta on Saturday:

On Sunday my husband had a friend over, they went for a walk and out for dinner while I indulged in potato chips and chocolate and spend the evening watching Youtube videos on the big TV while working on my crochet blanket:

Next week:

So far it looks to be just regular craziness. I’ll be teaching until 7.30 for three days in a row and I hope I can remember that at that point I need sleep more than food. I did pretty well with that last week, got more sleep and lost a pound of weight so that’s good.

There will be another weekend that’s mostly empty, though I want to record the next podcast episode. It’s funny, at the moment the schedule is so spread out that it’s all podcast all the time. I record on Sunday and the episode gets published the Friday after so I’m constantly doing something on the podcast.

All my crafting time goes into the blanket at the moment but I am constantly scheming and planning which is great fun.

I made my list of things I’d like to accomplish in February and it is rather long. With the performance at the end of the month I’m sure there will be no space for boredom at all.