creative.mother.thinking

Basically it’s typical for July but totally different from usual.

My first mistake was not writing after breakfast. I felt really low on energy and didn’t have a lot of time and I thought that I would have quite a bit of time after lunch. You should have seen the to do-list I had. It was a thing of beauty.

Of course I ended up not doing any of it.

I actually tried making the dentist appointment that I had been procrastinating about for three months but I only got voice mail.

The I went grocery shopping and then I helped making chili:

Then I talked to the boy about electric shavers, did the dishes with his help, ordered one and went to the bank with the boy to withdraw the money for said shaver from his savings account.

Hung up laundry and was just in time for teaching.

The apricots I bought to make jam from are currently sitting int eh fridge because I didn’t have time to take care of them.

After teaching it was time to watch the opening ceremonies for the Tour de France and spin:

And then I sat down and read a new book until I went to bed too late. Only a little. But still.

Today there will be cleaning and helping to make pizza from scratch and dealing with apricots and maybe some music and hopefully some writing and spinning.

I did manage to wind the newly spun yarn into a ball so I will be able to continue knitting on the mystery shawl.

And then the weekend.

I woke up at 6 and promptly went online. That is a habit I might want to break in the future.

I had breakfast rather early and everything went smoothly. I even worked on the novel, deleted a scene and started a new one that went rather well. And admired the yarn I finished spinning last night:

It’s a perfect mixture of the two other colors. It is sitting on Latin editions of „Asterix and Cleopatra“ (French comic, very good) and „Harry Potter“. It doesn’t bode well that both of these arrived the night before and are still sitting in the kitchen. The boy didn’t really touch them yet.

My husband and I talked a little too long and then it was rather hot and humid when I went running. So I ended up walking most of the way:

After running I went out again right away, still in my running clothes and everything. I bought concealer at the one rather fancy store that stocks only beauty stuff. The sales woman was a little surprised at me waltzing in, sweaty and in Vikram Five Fingers, asking for a particular brand of concealer and the color number and then rushing out again. And no, I didn’t want any samples.

Then the bakery and then the health food store which was out of tomato pulp. Bad.

In the meantime my husband had started making lunch. We had decided to have leftovers.

The way my husband did this involved frantic cooking for an hour and now we have about the same amount of leftovers than before.

We had: fried zucchini blossoms, fried rucola, fried eggplant, fried potatoes, leftover pasta fried with an egg and zucchini, salad, leftover potato salad (that didn’t get eaten), leftover hamburgers and he cooked some rice that he wanted to serve with tomato sauce but that still sits on the stove top untouched because of the lack of tomato.

No picture today. But you have to believe me that the table was groaning under the weight of serving dishes.

I didn’t have time to do the dishes before my first student because I still needed to take a shower and get ready for teaching.

Then my first student showed up to tell me that she wouldn’t be taking lessons today or the next weeks. If it was alright to give me a call in the fall? Yeah.

(I doubt it will happen but we’ll see.)

So I did the dishes.

And taught all.the.students. Who all showed up early.

I talked to one of my students about procrastination and phone calls one has to make and decided to at least look up the number of my hairdresser. And through that I found that I can make appointments there online! I didn’t even have to pick up the phone and talk to a person! Ha!

Which means I may have overbooked next week with the hairdressers and the podcast and the concert we’re seeing and the meeting an old friend on Saturday. Everything including a one-hour train ride to Munich and then a one-hour ride back. Fun!

Then the boy played piano and I started spinning and watching „Arrow“. I do like the show but it’s a little too much drama all the time to watch every day. I might go back to watching „Buffy“ after all.

So a very good day but mostly go, go, go all the way through. But I did manage to read a little before bed (and to buy the next trilogy in the urban fantasy series that I’m currently reading plus two free books by a very good romance author). I told the boy that I want half a year off where I only read so that I can get through all the good books I have but then that would get a little boring too.

Today there will be a little less stuff, I will do the rest of the grocery shopping (including the tomato pulp) and only teach very few students. Usually that means I don’t get anything else done but I’ll be happy to be pleasantly surprised.

Tonight I will spin watching the presentation of the Tour de France riders and jerseys for a change.

So it was clear that that would be a very busy day but at least I did sleep enough.

And then I felt all mushy in the head, as one does after the first night of decent sleep after a lot of bad ones.

The low energy lasted until the afternoon. I still went for my short run but it was more of a walk than a run. Well, at least I did get out there.

And I tried writing in the morning but it didn’t go well. I think I need to scrap the last two scenes I wrote and go into a different direction.

I also looked at my progress and the fact that so far it has taken me 148 days to not quite finish this story and that I wrote 549 words per day on average.

Now I tend to plan as if I can write 1,500 words per day easily but if I look at my history so far that is dumb planning. I won’t work. Not with some serious change and it’s not like I haven’t attempted that before.

So maybe instead of feeling really bad every day for not reaching my goal it might be a better idea to adjust the goal.

I’ll tell you how that goes.

Lunch today was completely different from the Greek food fest of the past two days:

You can’t quite see the Leberkäs underneath the eggs but it is there. And that’s potato salad (Bavarian potato salad, not like the one my mother makes at all) with cucumbers from the garden and herbs and some rucola (the rucola is not traditional but tastes great).

Then I set out to teach all afternoon without a break. And the teaching went well. And one student called to cancel so I did have a little break in between.

And then the boy practiced piano and then I spun the rest of the orange fiber and plied the orange and yellow together so in a few days I will be able to resume knitting the mystery shawl.

And then it was too late to do any more writing. But I did manage to turn out the light before 10 pm.

Today there will be another run and maybe an errand or two (didn’t do those yesterday) and a medium amount of teaching and some more thinking about writing and goals and plans.

But then I’m always recalibrating.

Of course I had planned to write first thing in the morning, and of course I didn’t. But I started right after breakfast which is good.

Then I decided to go for a run despite my foot because I just couldn’t stand the thought of sitting around all day. It was warmer than I had thought but running went well:

We had planned to eat leftovers for lunch with a few meatballs thrown in. Then my husband went into the garden and came out with.a pile of stuff including zucchini blossoms.

We cooked for an hour and sat at the table eating long enough that the boy had to leave his stuffed pepper half-eaten on the table in order to be back at school on time:

That is the rest of the pita I baked yesterday, stuffed vine leaves, fried zucchini blossoms and fried rucola, tsatsiki, bean salad and boiled eggs. And white wine. Not in the picture is the feta, meatballs, leftover pasta with tomato sauce and leftover stuffed bell pepper with rice. Have a picture of the actual meal after heaps of starters:

Guess who still has a ton of leftovers?

Then I took a shower and did a massive washing up before hurrying straight to teaching.

In the evening I spun and wrote some more and went to bed on time for a change.

Today there will be running again and al the usual and maybe a few errands. And then all teaching all the time from 2 until 7 without a break. I better get my writing in early because I’m pretty sure I won’t write anything at the end of a day like that.

Yeah, I actually slept until the ungodly hour of 7.30 yesterday. Which sometimes happens ifI go to bed after midnight. If I’m lucky.

So the day started a little off routine, of course. I might not have meditated.

I wrote my blog post later than usual and wasn’t quite finished when my husband showed up.

The boy came down for breakfast on time which might be a first.

And then – we started cooking lunch. Right after breakfast. Because my husband had had his idea of making our own Greek wrapped vine leaves. And some more things. So he cooked the rice and the leaves and then I wrapped them because I’m always the one who has to do the fiddly stuff, and since there was a lot of leftover rice he decided to pick a few bell peppers from the garden and make stuffed bell peppers and we had tsatsiki (cucumber from the yard and garlic) and since we have dozens of eggs sitting around we cooked some of those, and since you really need some pita bread to go with all of that I made some, and we also made bean salad from dry beans put on the stove around 9.30 that morning.

We actually spent all morning cooking.

The food was really good.

And it was warm enough to eat outside, if a little windy:

I sent my mother the second picture and she asked me if we had eaten all afternoon because we had so much food. I still don’t really understand that because that is just my plate with my lunch on it.

We did have a lot of leftovers which is only proper and will have those for lunch tomorrow. With added pasta and Greek meatballs.

Then there was a humongous dishwashing and then I made some more jam. Only 4 1/2 jars this time. I didn’t even take a picture. I’m almost done with the jam-making for the year. Only apricot now, and I need to remember to buy some. We do have a tiny apricot tree but we only planted it this year so no apricots yet. If ever.

Then I played the video game that I bought the day before and put my foot up because I seem to have and infected insect bite that is really bothering me. It’s sitting right where my house slippers rub and so it got pretty bad before I realized what was happening. The only shoes that don#t aggravate it are my Mary Janes and flip-flops so I don’t think I’ll go running today.

Oh, and no writing yesterday either. Which tends to happen after parties and such. All the more reason not to got to them, I guess.

Today there will definitely be writing and maybe some music and more spinning, and the usual teaching and I’ll go to the pharmacy.

Also, getting enough sleep is very high on my list right now.

So I knew that there were too many things I wanted to do yesterday. I alos knew that things are always a little dicey when I know that I will go out in the evening because the prospect of going out always throws me off.

Okay, to be honest basically everything throws me off.

I went for my run a little late as often on Saturdays because we had a slow morning and the boy got up late. (All his fault, of course. Ahem.) Running was nice.

I'm still feeling slow as a tortoise but last night I met someone who told me that my pace is pretty normal for my age group. So if I were to run in a 5K I would end up in the middle of the pack. Huh.

Then we made pizza. I took a picture but my laptop is in the other part of the house so now you have to imagine pizza ona plate.

Then I wanted to do all.the.things. We were already a little late with lunch and I couldn't decide whether I should start with writing or with spinning. (I know, the answer should be writing every time…) And then my mother-in-law brought me a bowl of berries that I had to prepare for jam-making right away.

That with indecision and the need to get ready for a party meant that I – didn't get anything done at all.

I did the huge pile of dishes after lunch, I read for a bit, I decided that I really needed to buy another game for my iPad (as one does), I talked to the boy for an hour and ordered a comic book and Harry Potter in Latin for him, I finally took a shower, was completely freaking out about what to wear (the boy told me that black shoes don't go with an orange dress with red polka dots. He wasn't keen on the polka dots either. His taste is a little timid. He also helped me choose a purse but didn't accept that the orange one was just too small for taking all the usual plus a cardigan, leggings and a sock-in-progress. (Of course I ended up not using any of the extra things that I had brought but I really should have dressed a little warmer for my way back.)

Then I went to the party on my bike. The app I'm using for bike routes sent me right on a busy street where you're not allowed to bike. Of course. So I went almost all the way back and made my way to a point where I would be able to follow the route.

The app had chosen a lot of small bike paths which is nice but doesn't help if the app is screaming in your ear “turn left, turn left, turn left” and there is no path there to turn into. I did find my way eventually but took a lot of wrong turns. And when riding back I had forgotten that the app can only do the route one way so I had to rely on looking on the screen sideways and guessing which turn to take.

On the other hand on my way back I started out on a road called “town where I live”-way and – surprise – it is running straight to my town. Weird.

I also really need to get myself a new bike light. I've been complaining about mine for years now and it really is time to invest a little money and upgrade so that I can actually see where I'm going at night.

The party was very nice. I spoke to the woman I had met on Wednesday about the possible volunteer job and it turns out that the guy who said he would be doing it is back from the hospital and will step in shortly. So I won't be adding another big thing to my life. Which has a lot of advantages.

I talked to people over loud music and smiled a lot and then when I wanted to go home around ten someone said there would be folk dance a little later, so I stayed some more. I am not particularly fond of folk dance but I love dancing and never get to do it.

So I jumped around for a bit and left around eleven. The party was in full swing and I'm sure some people probably stayed all through the night.

I've been thinking about introverts and extraverts a lot the past few days. Well, I had someone tell me that surely I can't be an introvert. And I watched myself at the party. Orange dress and red polka dots (some people thing it takes bravery to wear loud colors, no idea why), talking and laughing and smiling all the time, making eye contact, talking with people I never met in a really loud voice (sorry, singer training) – I know I don't look like the typical introvert.

The woman from the other day told me that I can't be an introvert because introverts don't need other people at all. Yeah, right.

What she doesn't understand is that today and probably tomorrow I will sit around the house like a limp dishrag feeling like I am having an emotional hangover. I might snap at my family just for wanting to speak to me. Recovering from an evening like that usually takes me two days. And I am quite anxious for a day or two beforehand. Why yes, I planned my outfit a week in advance and the route I'd be taking. (I still decided to wear something else because the weather was nicer than expceted but that is not the point.)

The point is that going to a party like that where I don't know anybody (well, I knew more people than I thought I did) is petty nerve-wracking. And while I used to be a very shy, very socially awkward little girl I have now trained being social, and making small talk and eye contact and to hold conversations about all.the.topics including gerbils, folk dance and Bajorans. And so I can be outgoing and chatty for and evening but I really need to hole up in my cave again afterwards.

When I was in my twenties I didn't know that about me. I went out all the time, I went to uni, had a job, sang in three bands and had a group of friends I was meeting. Most weeks I'd just use the weekend to stay in my room alone and maybe go for a walk on Sunday morning. But if I didn't I usually ended up getting sick with a cold or something.

Because going out and being with people is somewhat draining for me. Which doesn't mean that I don't like people. I just can't recharge when I'm with them.

Being with my family is less taxing, of course, but even with them I need my alone time.

Which means that today I will mostly sit around and recharge.

I will also make more jam (just a few jars) and attempt writing and spinning. And going to bed early. That is really imperative.

Yawn.