creative.mother.thinking

So yesterday was the day that all that traveling around and not sleeping enough caught up with me. For once I had gotten enough sleep, and as a result I was all tired all day.

 

I still got quite a few things done but after four pm or so I was just a yawning mess.

 

I was still pretty pleased with how much I got done on the novel, and we had a spectacular Greek lunch. The best was our homemade babaganoush from the eggplants my husband grows in our yard.

 

The most fun thing was that the boy and I tried some new bodyweight exercises. Because of the boy's new school schedule we have had to move our exercise days around, and so we ended up with strength training on Tuesdays when I'm teaching extra late in the evening. None of us wanted to do forty minutes of strength training at a time that would usually be after dinner so I decided to just try a quick workout from the bodyweight app that we use.

 

We ended up doing tabatas which are apparently sets of four different exercises, each done for twenty seconds followed by ten seconds of rest. At first we misunderstood the instructions so we ended up doing squats for several minutes in a row.

 

It was pretty hard to do but it was also fun to shake things up a bit. And we only did twenty minutes so it was really doable. Today I'm having sore legs and abs which will be fun for my run later.

 

Despite the late dinnertime I did manage to go to bed on time, and so I'm hoping for a little more energy today. And there will be more of the usual.

 

I love having a routine but it doesn't make for a good story.

 

But then I'm typing this on my iPad because my laptop is acting up. I really hope it's nothing but maybe that will become a story to tell.

 

There isn’t much to talk about yesterday. I did everything on my list, and went to bed early. Which makes it a really good day.

I went running for 65 minutes with very little walking in between, I think I’m getting better. I’m still pretty slow but that’s getting better as well. We had beets from our own garden for lunch, and then I taught some very nice students, I made a little music, worked a little on my novel, and went to bed early.

I’m still pretty exhausted from all the travel but right now I feel like I will have my energy back some day.

And I’m hoping today will be more of the same.

And I’m back home, and very glad about it. The weekend away was great but I like being home best. Now I can make music again, and wrestle the novel some more, and be with my favorite people in the world.

The trip back home went very well, this time they even had food on the train. Delicious food even. And then there was even more delicious food for dinner at home.

I’m thinking I should eat a little less from now on because – as I might have mentioned – I ate so much in the past few weeks that I gained about ten pounds back. Now I have two options, either I give up, shrug my shoulders and lament because I just can’t keep my weight down, or I eat less than I need until I’m back where I feel best. And then, maybe, I will manage to only eat as much as I need so that I don’t have to have all this drama again. We’ll see.

I also found that I will have to flip my exercise schedule around. I do strength training together with my son, and he has PE on Wednesday now which means Wednesday is a really bad day for him to do strength training on top of that. Which means I will probably go running Monday, Wednesday, Saturday, and do strength training Tuesday, Thursday, and Sunday. Which then moves my grocery shopping day to Thursday which is good. The only really inconvenient thing is that Tuesday is the only day in the week that I work until 7, and when we do 40 minutes of strength training after that it will mean dinner will be really, really late. We’ll get used to it, I hope.

Last night I decided to rewatch „Firefly“. I really love this show. I’m looking forward to it with much anticipation even though I’ve already seen it at least twice.

I still haven’t figured out how to fit everything I want to do into my days but then I don’t need to get that all done today, it’s an ongoing process anyways.

Daily blogging seems to suit me well, by the way, I found myself thinking how much I like it just before starting to write. Who would have thought.

So yesterday I got up even earlier than usual and left for Bielefeld. I love going by train. I could spend all morning reading and knitting and looking out the window.

The only thing I didn't like is that the restaurant car on the train didn't have real, hot food. Due to a technical difficulty with their cooling they only served sandwiches and chocolate bars.

Now this has been the fifth time in a row or so that there was either no food or only very little food on a train I've been on so I might revert back to taking all my own food from now on. I don't know what changed, everything else is excellent, the trains are mostly on time, the conductors and everyone are nice and polite, and tells you what's up, and the trains are mostly clean.

Then I found my hotel which is fine, and right next to the train station but not noisy. And then I started walking. First to my old Gymnasium, then to the castle on the hill where I used to spend days and days looking out over the city and daydreaming, then I walked all the way back to where we used to live, to my old elementary school, and then all the way back.

It is a little weird, things haven't changed as much as I thought they would. Almost every house I passed was the exact same as in 1982 apart from a coat of paint. And where once was a big field of wheat there are now houses and houses. Which look like they are decades old too.

This part of Germany is rather different from the one I live in now. Where I live, close to Munich, construction is booming. There are loads of jobs in Munich, and not enough housing, so the town I live in is constantly changing. Everywhere I look an old family home gets torn down and a much bigger house with several appartments, or several houses will appear in its place.

That's not what happens here in Bielefeld. There is construction, and newness but where I used to live looks almost frozen in time.

I'm very happy to be here. This still feels a little like home but I'll also be very happy to go back home where I live now. I love it there, and the life I made for myself.

And today is ravelry meeting time! I get to meet some of the people in person that I only know through the computer, and I'll be taking a spinning class that I'm looking forward to, and I will look at all.the.yarn and all.the.fiber.

I can't wait.

So yesterday I was so tired that I couldn't even think straight. I also managed to drop a bottle of beer in the basement, and the glass and beer went everywhere. Just before that I had tripped on the stairs and almost tumbled down. Well, better the bottle than me.

And this teaches us that I shouldn't go traveling in the first week after summer break. I guess I'm so excited I couldn't sleep. Silly.

But now I am sitting on a train. The weather is gorgeous here but where I'm going it's supposed to rain this afternoon. Right when I want to go look at all the places I used to live. Go figure.

I'm going to Bielefeld. That city is nothing real special, I guess, but I used to live there. And the rain is no surprise either, it is a very damp part of Germany after all.

As usual I'm thinking that I'll get all kinds of things done on the train, and as usual I will probably only sit and knit.

But for now I'll be looking out the window a little, and check my e-mail, and wait until it's time to eat lunch (about three more hours but I'm already hungry).

I'm thinking about quite a few things at the moment, not the least being how I can move things around in my life so that everything I want to achieve fits. That's nothing new for me, though. I guess I'll always keep doing that.

I'm also thinking about whether I like traveling or not. I have a dawning suspicion that I like the idea of travel better than the travel itself. On the other hand this weekend away is starting pretty mellow. Despite the excitement, packing and getting on the train is a fairly routine experience for me. There was no mad scramble, no frantic search for things I had forgotten, I basically just packed what I always pack, and did what I always do.

Which is a little funny because this is only the third (and last) time this year that I'm traveling. But then three trips is a lot, at least for me.

I'm really enjoying checking in here daily, I hope you enjoy it too, until tomorrow.