creative.mother.thinking

I slept rather late, woke up from the alarm. Was in total vacation mode and lounged in bed for an hour before getting up.

The boy was up early again. Very strange.

Then I got an acute case of procrastination. I ended with me decimating all the cheese in the house and all the chocolate and reading a third of the last Heartstriker novel which I highly recommend, only not instead of cleaning the house. I did measure myself and the gauge swatches and decided on a size for my sweater.

I barely got started cleaning before it was time to go out for lunch. Lunch was really good and it was great to be out with my husband and son. A rare treat:

Then I decided it was time to buy more cheese (and chocolate). Came back home, started getting the podcast ready for publication, wound two skeins of the burgundy merino. Then I hung up a load of laundry and started knitting the sweater.

Watched an episode of „Deep Space Nine“ with the boy and while we were doing that my husband came in and put the fiber advent calendar package on the table. You know, the one I have been waiting for for more than a week. Looking at the address label made it clear why I hadn’t gotten it yet. Not only was the street wrong by one letter but the number was also totally off. As in 15 instead of 50.

But it is here now. It does look a little worse for wear but the bags with the fiber look unharmed.

I am very happy that that has gone well in the end. Now I only have to wait for another month before I can see what color the fiber will be. But that is the nature of an advent calendar.

Then I still had to write all the words. Fun! And decided not to. Dumb move and not fun. That made the day a major procrastination day. Boo.

Today there will be running and writing and knitting. Not much else because while we were planning to see a concert it turned out that this time the trains wouldn’t be running and we would have to take some busses instead. That combined with a double concert made us reconsider so we might stay in tonight.

You won’t hear me complaining, I am pretty happy staying home. Maybe that will give me some much-needed writing time.

Yeah, I know. The time is not the problem.

Woke up rather early, wrote my blog post. Had breakfast. Read Rachael Herron’s essay about meditation and decided to double my meditation time to a whole ten minutes. She writes that meditation actually strengthens your executive function and I can use all of that that I can get.

I did everything rather slowly so there was no writing in the morning. Great start to NaNoWriMo.

The boy got up pretty early so at 9.15 there were all of us in the kitchen at the same time. I did a huge pile of dirty dishes. Then I sat down and forced myself to write. Uphill, through the snow, you know how it is.

Then we made lunch. We had slightly underestimated the time it takes to make gnocchi from scratch so there was a bit of drama and bad temper and we had lunch a little late. It was delicious, though:

And this is how the kitchen looked afterwards:

Gnocchi from scratch, veal cutlets, tomato sauce with mushrooms, mushroom sauce to go with the veal. That equals all the pots.

I did procrastinate for 45 minutes I have to admit but then I washed all those pots and dishes.

Then I recorded the podcast. Worked on it for a bit more, watched a video about „What’s stopping you from doing your big project?“ And then I watched Star Trek with the boy.

I wrote the rest of my words for the day, went to bed on time (yeah!) and went to sleep.

Today there will be the cleaning of the house and the going out for lunch. (I’ve been looking forward to this for days now.) Then I want to get the podcast ready for publishing and write more words.

Yes, I woke up early again, at 5.15, and I wrote between 5.30 and 6 and that just made my day.

After breakfast I meditated for five minutes and then I started preparing the podcast.

Then I cleaned the water filter. You see, the day before we had realized that there were moss or algae growing inside it. Since we don’t like that in our tea there had to be something done. I also talked with the boy about how university works. I’m not the best person to give advice on that these days because university changed a lot since I was there but since he knew nothing about it…

Then I went running. Or rather mostly walking with a bit of running thrown in:

 

Went back home, confused my husband (I wanted to buy a new water filter right away, he didn’t) and then I helped to make lunch:

Only procrastinated a little bit. Then I started plying two more balls of burgundy merino and washed the yarn I made that two days before. I finished the plying just in time to teach my one student of the day, watched some Star Trek with the boy, slumped down at the kitchen table and went to bed a little late.

Today there will be the beginning of NaNoWriMo! Which means a little more writing than yesterday. And I will record the podcast. Not much else planned for the day. If the yarn is already dry (which I doubt) I will knit a gauge swatch for my NaKniSweMo sweater.

Fun!

I woke up early again but only at 5.30 which is completely okay. I have apparently reached the part of fall break where I just wait for it to be over which is rather annoying. I have plans. I’d like to not spend my day sit around and eat chocolate and cheese (not together).

I lounged in bed until after seven, had breakfast and started reading about design again. I also looked at the tracking for that package and decided to contact customer service. I called them on the phone and was rewarded with a cheery, „Good news! We have your package and it will be delivered to you within one to two business days.“ Yeah, right.

So I wrote an email venting a bit, got a reply pretty soon where I was told that the mail person hadn’t been able to find my address. Now, there was a typo in the street name from the bit I could see but then how had he been able to try delivery twice without reaching anybody? It remains a mystery.

In the end I wrote back and took them up on their offer of switching delivery to one of their „package shops“ only to get an answer telling me that they were really, really sorry but that the package was not in delivery anymore and that I should contact the original sender.

I have to say that I am really, really angry.

Now I’m just hoping that the package will get back to the wonderful hand-dyer I bought it from and that she will be able to send it to me again. Maybe using a different mail service this time.

I was also worrying about my favorite spinning wheel, my Little Gem. It isn’t working properly. I had thought that it was only a faulty bobbin but I tried using it the day before and it wasn’t working with a completely different bobbin and flyer.

So I had to do some research on what might cause this. If I’m lucky this is just about grease getting onto the brake band so that there isn’t enough friction on the bobbin while spinning. Everything else would be a little more complicated.

Somehow I didn’t have the nerve of tinkering with it. The day before I had switched to my second spinning wheel, the Victoria, and now it might be a little pink on the flyer. My niddy noddy as well.

But. I will be finished with that endless yarn that I started in 2017 soon.

I was also waiting for my possible student of the day to tell me if she would be coming or not.

I really need to learn to detach myself better from uncertainty. Still working on my stoicism…

We had a rather easy lunch – without the boy this time because he was out for Mongolian food with his grandmother:

Then I started winding plying balls:

While watching first a rather boring „creative summit“ online and then a few slightly less boring documentaries on Netflix. I guess I just wasn’t in a film-watching mood.

Then I plied two of those balls. Still two to go, plus some fiber to spin and a lot of ends. I’m not quite sure what to do with those. I’m hoping that I won’t need every bit of string for the sweater I’m going to make.

Instead of my whole strength training routine I only did a few pushups and such. Then I taught the ukulele student, watched some Star Trek with the boy, wrote a few words and went to bed.

Plying yarn is surprisingly exhausting but then I don’t usually wind yarn and spin for hours.

Woke up at 4.33! A little too early but I wasn’t able to fall asleep again. Yep, time change. But I might have gotten enough sleep and in a few days I will have adjusted.

I did start writing around 5.30, so that was good but only got 300 words in. I did write morning pages again. Didn’t want to but did it anyway. I think they are doing me good at the moment.

I got up at seven, had breakfast and dawdled long enough that I thought there wasn’t time before my husband got up. Of course, that meant he showed up half an hour later than usual.

We talked about Buddhism. And Fender bass guitars. I worked on the crochet blanket. And then I made two appointments, one for my thyroid ultrasound and one at the optician again. I need to get the current contacts checked and then I need new reading glasses and then I will be all set for glasses and such.

The morning was rather slow and so we went running a bit late. I spontaneously decided to cut my run short and turn around after 2.5 k instead of 3.7. It was really nice, damp but not raining and no one out there:

 

When I came back I decided that I’d rather go grocery shopping right away instead of the day after. I got some cheese from the supermarket that is near the health food store, bought a couple of things at the health food store – including chocolate, of course – and walked back home. There, I only needed to help make salad because we were eating leftover lasagna:

Yummy.

Then I procrastinated a bit and then I started plying the burgundy merino while watching Netflix. I asked the boy to join me for watching „Doctor Who“ early because I was expecting another delivery attempt of the dreaded package but when I checked the tracking online it said that the address couldn’t be found and that it had gone back to the distribution center. This is starting to make me really furious. I was home every single time that mail person tried delivery apart from Wednesday and if they had just rung the bell upstairs or at the annex I would have had the package on Tuesday already. There is no way of contacting that mail service before tomorrow and I am beyond frustrated.

I do try to remind myself that this is not a big deal, really, but I would have preferred not to go out of my way four days in a row for a mere package. I mean, I even left a message that they could just leave it on the woodpile next to the annex…

„Doctor Who“ was brilliant as ever, I have to say I do love this new iteration of the doctor.

Then I needed to do some more writing but was a little tired. Tough.

Today there will be yoga (my hip says it’s mandatory), and one student (ukulele!) and not much else. Plying, probably and some washing of the yarn. I’m still pushing through that merino-project because I am suddenly determined to knit a sweater out of it in November.

I know it’s silly. Shush.

Despite the time change I slept until 5.30 which is pretty long for me. Because that would have been 6.30 the day before.

I wrote morning pages again, went online (no writing), started breakfast, realized that I had forgotten to take my thyroid medication, had to wait for half an hour before actually having breakfast, tried writing and stopped after five minutes. Okay, six. Which gave me 220 words.

I had expected my husband to show up really early but he was only regularly early. Seemed I was the only person in the family who had remembered the time change. I was also the one who changed the two clocks that don’t change themselves, of course.

The boy showed up early for breakfast, we talked, and I was so engrossed with the crochet blanket that time just went away from me. In the course of the morning I tried three different sizes of crochet hook for the slipstitch edging and ended up using one that is 1.5 mm bigger than the one I used for the main blanket. Strange.

Then I called my mother because of her birthday and helped with making lasagna. Lasagna is always a big undertaking:

Then I read a little and went online a little and my husband showed up every thirty minutes or so to tell me about the bass he is working on. It is all very exciting, it’s a Fender jazz bass from 1972 that needs maintenance and a bit of repair.

After a while I let myself slide down into the slump and decided to skip both yoga and strength training. I usually do yoga on Sunday mornings but because of the phone call and the lasagna there hadn’t been enough time. Doing yoga right after lunch is a really bad idea and then, somehow, I never got around to it.

In order to avoid feeling completely useless I moved myself over in front of TV and watched „Extraordinary Homes“ while spinning. I’m still waffling over which cardigan project to tackle in November and I might put a lot of effort in over the next three days to finish the burgundy merino so that I can knit it up.

Of course it would be a much better and not as crazy idea to knit with the yarn currently drying in the bathroom. We’ll see.

I really should wash the one skein of finished burgundy yarn so I can do a gauge swatch. And spend some time spinning up the rest of the fiber and then wind plying balls. Lots to do.

The boy and I watched an episode of „Voyager“ while I was working away on the crochet blanket. Only 1 1/2 more rounds to go on the edging but those rounds are long.

Today there will be running and maybe even yoga. I want to write quite a bit and spin a lot. There will be a live podcast at night and I need to be ready to receive that package I have been waiting for since Tuesday in the evening. Around 7.42 pm judging by  past delivery attempts.

And there are at least two phone calls on my list. I really dislike phone calls. Some music would be nice as well.

I keep feeling like the Calvin and Hobbes collection, „The days are just packed“.