creative.mother.thinking

I went to bed 45 minutes late, harumph. But, I then slept in and ended up getting a whole eight hours of sleep, hurray! I did most of my morning routine but there was no time for opening the manuscript (funny how that is always the thing that falls off when I’m short on time).

After breakfast my husband and I kept talking and I finished the heel turn on the sock-in-progress. Then I found the heel was off by two stitches because I had misunderstood the instructions before the heel turn. I briefly considered fudging it but then thought, pulling just the heel turn back wouldn’t take much time.

And I was right.

I turned the heel again, a little grumpy that I needed to start that part over, finished it, then looked at it properly and – it was offset way worse this time. No idea what I did wrong there. I mean, I started the turn in the entirely wrong place, that much was clear, I only have no idea why.

So I pulled it back yet again and started over (fortunately only the heel turn which is only a few stitches and rows), this time very slowly with lots of focus. Until I went back to reading while knitting. This time it was the newest Penric & Desdemona story, Darksight Dare by Lois McMaster Bujold, great book, I finished it last night.

I am happy to say that I finally have a working sock heel, one that actually will line up with the chart for the foot. Which I’m planning to start today:

Sorry for the bad picture, when I wrote about the day in my journal last night I realized I would need a picture of the sock. I took it right then because I knew this morning would be a bit rushed again.

I had plans of doing some cleaning in the morning but instead I reviewed the past month and made plans and goals for this one. I’m pretty happy with last month, even though I only finished reading one book instead of five, played music for fun (as opposed to during work) only seven times instead of thirteen times.

But I did keep up with my exercise schedule, apart from when I was traveling, I did open the manuscript, and moved quite a few things forward.

Lunch was delicious, pasta with zucchini:

We were even sitting outside when eating. It was nice and warm but rather windy and after half an hour outside I started sniffling and my eyes were itchy. It’s clearly hay fever weather.

My husband started doing the dishes right away and I helped him, so I did not sit in the kitchen looking at a big pile of dirty dishes all afternoon. I took a short break, read and ate chocolate, and then went on to tackle video game tasks.

That kept me busy until it was time to meet a friend for an online writing session. We did this for the first time ever. Normally we meet over video call to chat or coach or teach piano but this time we had agreed not to talk longer than five minutes or so, and then to actually do the work.

Well, we wrote for almost an hour and I got a record number of words written. it was great because I had been thinking about these scenes for a while already.

I couldn’t do it for longer because I was scheduled to do bodyweight training with the boy. Which we did, and I confirmed (again) that the new version of squats I had been doing the past two weeks or so were what makes my knees hurt. So I scaled it back to something easier.

Then I could finally eat some dinner and confirm that the new kind of bread I bought tastes indeed awful. The rest of the family agrees so I won’t buy that one again. More chocolate as an antidote, and some more reading and then I looked at some online ukulele lessons about inversions and movable chords. The lessons were a little too long to start that time of day but I did play through her easy version of „Autumn Leaves“ and then pulled out a few songs that I used to play every day when the boy was much younger.

I used my travel ukulele that had been sitting in my bedroom in it’s bag for so long that the battery in the tuner had stopped working. Playing ukulele again made me very happy.

After that I did my best to improve the boy’s rather asymmetrical (not in a good way) haircut, started writing this post, finally did my Chinese app thing, wrote a list for today, played some more video game, read some more and went to bed.

Yep, good day even if not everything fit that I would have liked. But the things that did fit made the day better.

You’d think I’d have more time on a public holiday like today but I’d like to do all the things today and also enjoy my time off.

So. Only 5 1/2 hours of sleep, no manuscript time but most of the rest. I went to the nearby supermarket and hung up a load of laundry.

I helped my husband with lunch and we had several disagreements, especially about the consistency of the sauce:

I only had three students because the first one canceled and ended up doing something Genshin-related wth a time limit. I mean, that is mostly what I’m doind in the game right now. Quick, this mini-game will be gone in a few days!

I mean, the boy helped me a lot.

I taught my last student a bit longer because reasons and then proceeded to have a disagreement with my husband because he wanted to do the dishes while I was teaching and then his student arrived ten minutes early and I dropped the thermos for chamomile tea (only into the sink but that was quite a bump), then I finally ate dinner

More Genshin, starting this post and making a list for today. Which includes making more lists because we’re in a new month. And no teaching but an appointment to meet a friend for writing instead.

But I’m still okay. I went to bed half an hour late, and despite having all the best intentions I skipped everything but morning pages. I did open the manuscript after breakfast but ended up with just four new words. Because I filled out a quiz for one of my main characters to determine the right job for him.

Well, that was not really helpful. And I bumped up again my abysmal mental math skills. I’m sure that character would not have taken that long for those problems.

Breakfast with my husband was very cozy when the doorbell rang all of a sudden. It was a friend of my husband who wanted to ask him for a favor. After talking with his friend he went out early to buy asparagus at the farmer’s market. Which allowed me to spend time with the manuscript.

I walked to the pharmacy to pick up the two meds they didn’t have in stock the day before, then turned around and went walking/running. Well, there wasn’t much running involved, I felt hot and low on energy and my knees hurt but I was still glad to be outside:

Came back home to lunch:

Then I could take a nice break before teaching. Had another break between students where I mostly wrote emails and listened to voicemail, and then the next student texted me that she couldn’t make it because she and her daughter were at the doctor’s office waiting and it would take a while.

I asked her to come in an hour later than usual and that worked. But it also made me late for dinner.

I ate, I started playing my video game against my better judgment and, yep, went to bed too late again.

Today will be another busy day but the next three should be a bit less packed.

I actually got to bed on time. Well, eight minutes late to be honest but that was because I did an 8-minute evening yoga routine.

I am very happy that I managed that.

And then I went full tilt into my morning routine including a rather productive 20-minute writing session.

Husband and I talked over breakfast and since I was pretty early we could eat together, even. At the end of our conversation and while I was knitting my husband even started doing the dishes. Which then meant I never got around to listening to my daily piece of classical music but that was okay.

And then I squeezed the health food store and the pharmacy in so that my husband and I could go out for lunch together. Because we wanted to celebrate our wedding anniversary.

Everything went well and the weather was nice while we walked to the restaurant. We had hoped we could sit outside but their garden was closed and we had to sit inside in the dark.

I let myself get tempted by the kritharaki and had to learn again not to order things like that at a restaurant. I guess we should make our own kritharaki at home soon. Preferably baked with cheese but the version I had yesterday came with prawns instaed:

We also had eggplant creme as an appetizer but I forgot to take a picture.

Afterwards we walked back home in the sun, and then I had thirty minutes or so off before it was time to teach. I had four very nice students and rather enjoyable lessons with one student really leaning into learning something rather hard and unpleasant. She didn’t get there all the way but she got much better in the course of the lesson.

Afterwards I wrote an email to a potential new student and played piano for a bit before going back to playing my video game.

The boy and I did bodyweight training and I found out that the variation of squats that I’m doing is probably the reason my right knee and ankle feel off. Oops. I thought it might be the running but probably not. So I guess I’ll scale back a bit.

Afterwards we waited for my husband to finish teaching, ate dinner and then opened a bottle of champagne. Between the three of us we also finished it. It was nice to taste champagne again but I’m also very happy to not drink today. While we were sitting there drinking champagne I pulled out the sock yarn sample I’m spinning and I finished the first third of the sample. Yes!

I then started writing this post, was interrupted by the boy, we got talking about Genshin and he helped me develop a strategy for what to do next, and that took up the rest of my evening.

I went back to this post, wrote a list for today and went to bed just slightly too late.

Today will be back to normal, something I always appreciate. I’m all fired up for spinning right now since I finished the first third of the sock yarn sample and all the spinning for the cardigan.

While I did waste some time yesterday morning it wasn’t all that much. I did opt for skipping yoga in favor of opening the manuscript, though, it was either or. And I did get some nice new words.

Husband was in productivity mode and I had a lot of things that I wanted to get done as well, so we didn’t talk as long as usual. I did the dishes, folded a load of laundry, finally cleaned washbasins and toilets and even cleared the sieve in the faucet.

And then I went on a one-hour walk/run. It was very hot. I had 2-minute running intervals and was sure I would drop dead any time soon but every time I felt like that I looked at my smartwatch and saw that my heartrate was only between 135 and 140 so I mostly kept going. Her ie me all sweaty and exhausted at the halfway point:

I think the raccoon eyes are the lack of sleep, mostly.

I returned back home with enough time to take a shower before lunch:

I took a break with chocolate and my video game and then the boy joined me at one point to get his own lunch. He asked if I had time to do the weekly bosses together (that’s where he helps me with the harder ones and you can only do it once a week). The answer was yes, but it went a little longer than expected and afterwards I was very full of adrenaline.

And then I went and taught piano.

I used a break between students to refill the water in my piano and play a little for myself, then taught some more and then met with the friend who is coaching me.

I would have liked to be better prepared but, well. Coaching was helpful as always.

Since I am very determined to make better use of my time in the evenings I then started writing this post, finally ate dinner (was very hungry at that point), did the dishes, played some more video game and went to bed.

And today my husband and I are going out for lunch, just the two of us, because it’s our wedding anniversary.

Slightly weird day after just, ahem, six hours of sleep.

I did all the usual morning things not including the manuscript, then breakfast with my husband and then another one of those draining emotional conversations. It ended well, though.

I called my mother on the phone and we told each other about the past two weeks. Meanwhile my husband was busy making lunch and when he looked out the window he saw his brother’s grown-up children arriving, one after the other.

That was puzzling because we didn’t know anything about it. I took the chance to ask one of them when I saw him in front of the garden gate, and he said they were there to play cards. In our garden. Now, this is also my mother-in-law’s garden but we would have liked a bit of warning.

After lunch it turned out that the boy had known about it. My mother-in-law had told him and had also assumed that we already knew because one of our nephews is taking guitar lessons with him. But, he hadn’t had a lesson in ten days.

Husband had planned to spend the day puttering around the garden, taking care of the compost and relaxing in the hammock but there were five people sitting right there having a small party.

We ate lunch with an accompaniment of grumbling but it did taste nice:

I finished reading the last Sarina Bowen book afterwards and then was slightly stuck on what to read next. I then started playing Genshin Impact.

Around four when I thought about eating a piece of milkbread my husband showed up. His brother and nephews had offered to help us with that plaster board so it was time to put on real shoes and get busy.

Even with the four of us it was not easy. The couldn’t believe how heavy this thing was. But we managed and now our balcony is whole again, after years and years.

That made us so happy!

My brother-in-law even produced a cordless screwdriver from his car that is stronger than mine, and that helped.

I then ate my snack, played some more video game and finished a quest, then started another one, and then it was time to do bodyweight training with the boy. We were a little earlier than usual because we also planned to cut his hair.

Which we did. Just like the last time I did this, years back, I set out to cut it a length that would still work with a ponytail and just like then he ended up with – short hair. That is not symmetrical at all. On the bright side, it looks okay after he washed it but I did not pack the scissors away, I will do some corrections later today.

I also decided to send him to a hairdresser the next time because I find it way too stressful.

After that it was half a bag or tortilla chips for dinner, more Genshin, then I started writing this post, planned the week and today rather quickly and went to bed somewhat earlier for once.