creative.mother.thinking

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.

Well, I went to bed way too late. But on the bright side something I did to my smartwatch seems to have worked because my alarm went off. Yes, both of them. And then I got up and threw the boy out of bed as well because he was making another attempt at going to uni.

He did succeed, by the way.

After that I moved extremely slowly which resulted in in me not opening the manuscript in the morning. But I did write morning pages, did yoga and my three minutes of meditation before taking my blood pressure.

My husband wasn’t feeling all that great, he had had too much cheese the night before and was still suffering.

I cast on for a new cardigan while we were talking after breakfast, then I measured the potholder-in-progress, found it too small and ripped it all back, and then I was late for everything.

I saw that the clothes the boy had ordered the other day were due for delivery so I waited before leaving the house because I was the only person at home at that point. Before I left the boy came back home, though, and immediately crashed back into bed.

When I went out I met my husband on the way who offered to give me his shirt because he thought my tank top was not warm enough. The weather had turned quite a bit cooler.

I was fine in the tank top, though, even when on my way back it suddenly started raining, just over that part of the woods where I was. Fun.

I was late for lunch, my husband was almost done with eating at this point. He knew beforehand, though.

Afterwards I took a short break, then a shower, started a load of laundry, did the dishes and that was it for the day because then it was time for teaching.

One new student who said her daughter was interested as well, and two potential new students with their mother, one of them for my husband but he didn’t have time and they could only meet him very briefly.

My last student of the day canceled again, so I could eat dinner at a civilized time. I took another break, did Duolingo, started writing this post, made a list for today and sat down to spin for 15 minutes, decided it was too late for opening the manuscript and went to bed on time for a change.

Today I’ll be out of the house early to get my thyroid hormones checked and then I’ll have breakfast after. Meh.

And returning to the morning routine was a very good idea.

I went to bed almost on time which meant I was awake before my alarm and then waited for it to tap me on the wrist (I use my smartwatch), and waited…

So now we know why I overslept so many days in a row. I set a second alarm in a different app this morning and will see if I can troubleshoot the other one.

I made myself do the whole, complete morning routine, including taking my blood pressure before and after yoga because I thought it would be lower before. Nope. Even though yoga is exercise it actually seems to bring my blood pressure down.

My husband and I ate breakfast and talked for a while. I called my mother on the phone, did the breakfast dishes, folded some laundry to make space for the load I had started after breakfast and then we ate a very simple lunch:

Afterwards I wove in all ends on the brown cotton cardigan while watching Bernadette Banner’s video on making a qipao (so cool!) and decided to leave sewing the buttons on for another day, then did my 15 minutes of spinning in front of the TV watching the Tour de France:

Well, progress is progress.

And then I sat down at the sewing machine that had been sitting in the living room idle for almost two weeks and continued sewing the red dress. I really want to wear the dress this Sunday.

That took all afternoon, I finished all the fiddly bits like the waistband, the neckband and the sleeves. I had a point where I was so proud of myself of doing such a good job sewing the sleeves to the bodice and at the end I suddenly realized that the shuttle thread had run out halfway through. Argh! But I’m getting better at pretending I am patient, wound some more and started over.

Next up are both side seams and then all the bits where I need the twin needle.

After that the boy and I did bodyweight training to counteract sitting bent over the sewing machine for hours. I found I was still a little sore from the time before, so I guess I did something right.

Then there was dinner, reading and chocolate, I wanted to start writing this post but my husband appeared to do the dishes so we did them together. I did Duolingo, started this post, very quickly planned the week ahead, watched a teeny bit of C-drama and went to bed.

Today there should be rain and cooler temperatures which is nice. A day to exhale.

I overslept again, after going to bed too late. So I just read for a while in bed instead of trying to squeeze my morning routine in. I keep thinking that it will be nice to not have to do all the things and then, most of the time, I keep realizing why I built that morning routine in the first place.

My husband and I had breakfast together and talked at length. About people and guitars and such.

I did not do the breakfast dishes, so that I’d get out of the house a little earlier because by then it was already very hot again. I went on my walk/run and I had to walk a lot because it was way too hot already:

I came back home half an hour before lunchtime and my husband was just starting to get everything together to cook. He had done all the many dishes after his run.

I took a shower, then helped a little with the cooking. Lunch was late but delicious:

After that I felt like falling flat on my face but instead I pulled out the spindle and spin for 15 minutes for the first time in a long time:

My thumb was not super happy with the spinning but it also was not in actual pain so my guess is that doing 15 minutes per day should be alright. It felt as if I didn’t make any difference at all, I spun less than a gram of fiber in that time but then I weighed th remaining fiber and there is only 13 grams left. Which means at a rate of one gram per day I should be finished with this before the end of the month.

I finally made myself clean the washbasins and toilets, delegated the dishes to the boy, finally pulled out the cardigan-in-progress and knitted the row with all the buttonholes and then it was time for the weekly Zoom call.

That was pretty nice and I finished the buttonband while on it, and then it was time to make guacamole to eat with tortilla chips while watching ‚Columbo‘ with the rest of the family. It was a pretty long episode but also an interesting one.

After that I finished reading one of the novels I started in June, did Duolingo, started writing this post, made a list for today and went to bed.

Today I want to make up for not getting any writing in yesterday, plan the week, spin and sew. Unless something else comes up.

I overslept again, after going to bed too late. So I just read for a while in bed instead of trying to squeeze my morning routine in. I keep thinking that it will be nice to not have to do all the things and then, most of the time, I keep realizing why I built that morning routine in the first place.

My husband and I had breakfast together and talked at length. About people and guitars and such.

I did not do the breakfast dishes, so that I’d get out of the house a little earlier because by then it was already very hot again. I went on my walk/run and I had to walk a lot because it was way too hot already:

I came back home half an hour before lunchtime and my husband was just starting to get everything together to cook. He had done all the many dishes after his run.

I took a shower, then helped a little with the cooking. Lunch was late but delicious:

After that I felt like falling flat on my face but instead I pulled out the spindle and spin for 15 minutes for the first time in a long time:

My thumb was not super happy with the spinning but it also was not in actual pain so my guess is that doing 15 minutes per day should be alright. It felt as if I didn’t make any difference at all, I spun less than a gram of fiber in that time but then I weighed th remaining fiber and there is only 13 grams left. Which means at a rate of one gram per day I should be finished with this before the end of the month.

I finally made myself clean the washbasins and toilets, delegated the dishes to the boy, finally pulled out the cardigan-in-progress and knitted the row with all the buttonholes and then it was time for the weekly Zoom call.

That was pretty nice and I finished the buttonband while on it, and then it was time to make guacamole to eat with tortilla chips while watching ‚Columbo‘ with the rest of the family. It was a pretty long episode but also an interesting one.

After that I finished reading one of the novels I started in June, did Duolingo, started writing this post, made a list for today and went to bed.

Today I want to make up for not getting any writing in yesterday, plan the week, spin and sew. Unless something else comes up.