creative.mother.thinking

Sp yesterday started out about as lazy as the day before. But then it turned out that my husband hadn’t forgotten that we wanted to work on the living room after all.

I spent all morning knitting the first slipper. It is a little small but I think it will block out.

In the afternoon I printed the pattern to the Kew-dress by Nina Lee, and spent too much time putting the sheets together, and cutting the pieces out.

And then my husband and I tackled the boy’s old bed. We did dismantle it and afterwards we were covered in dust and cobwebs. So now we are one step closer to getting the living room back. I’m very happy about that, not quite as happy about all the work laying before us.

We talked a bit and it seems that my husband has come to the same conclusion as I, we will try to just paint over the wallpaper one more time. We need to wash the walls first, and that should tell us if the wallpaper will hold up enough for another coat of paint. Not having to pull all the wallpaper down, repaper and then paint will make things much easier. If it works.

The boy and I didn’t watch anything because he still hadn’t taken care of his internship applications. I’m trying to stay calm and not freak out about this. He has two weeks left until the internship, so things are beyond critical.I have no idea what will happen if he doesn’t find a place. I think she should call his uncle and beg him to take him but all the boy is saying to us at the moment is, „Leave me alone!“ He is super-frustrated – which I can totally understand – and let’s it all out at home. Fun! I’m just hoping he won’t fail this grade. I don’t think he will. Unless things go south somewhat more.

So I watched an episode of „Dollhouse“ on my own. I barely remember the second season, as I have said before, which is a little weird.

Today I go to the doctor’s office to get blood drawn. Since there are problems with the trains due to construction I’m thinking about taking the bike instead. It is quite a bit warmer today (not warm, just not way below freezing) which means I should be okay biking. Taking the train would take ages, and there would be no guarantee of being on time, and if I take the bike not only will I probably be on time, I also will make up for not running today.

Then doctor, then grocery shopping at the health food store that’s so much better than the one in town, then lunch, and then teaching.

I’m having high hopes of making music today, and of starting on the dress. I hope that the 2.1 meters of fabric that I have will be enough. The pattern calls for 2.3. I might have to use different fabric for the facings or something. Which should be doable.

Lots of things to do, and I always love the promise of a new week.

Well, I had plans for yesterday. In the end I sat on the kitchen bench feeling cold all day. While the woos stove was heating the apartment up in a way that everybody coming in felt like they were standing in a furnace.

I did manage to go for a run, so that was nice.

Otherwise I crocheted, and I started knitting slippers and the first one turned out way too small, and so I made another gauge swatch:

And another one, and I read a lot, and did exercises from the book „Growing Gills“ (AmazonAffiliate-Link), and then I sat some more. It took me most of the day to persuade myself to take a shower.

I worked on the novel for twenty minutes in the morning without adding a single word (because I was just looking at what I had already written which is my new process) and then my husband was up much earlier than usual.

I did manage to write 600 new words in the evening at least.

Today I want to do strength training, and to print a sewing pattern. And maybe add to the endless list of stuff that I need or want to do.

I’m also tracking my time again – another exercise from the book – and putting in „sitting, reading and crochet“ for three hours in the afternoon is a little sad. It also describes a great afternoon. I’m a bit torn.

I did start reading „Wraith“ (Amazon-Affiliate-Link) by Helen Harper and am loving it.

The tidying and caring for the house that we had planned for this weekend doesn’t seem to happen. I have it in my calendar but everybody else seems to have forgotten. And I don’t want to remind them.

We are all basically waiting for Easter break to come around which is an unfortunate way to live.

Phew. I slept enough and almost had energy again which was great.

And I even wrote 1,600 words on the novel!

I woke up early because I had gone to bed early and spent the first thirty minutes of the day with email, revelry and writing my blog post in bed. Then I made breakfast, had breakfast, meditated for five minutes, and then I actually sat down and wrote words! That made me so happy, I can’t even tell.

Not writing for five days even though you really want to is not fun. Especially if by day five you’re completely convinced that you can’t write, everything is crap, and you should never try this again ever. This is completely normal, by the way, happens every time with writing and with music. If you don’t touch the piano for a week you end up convinced you’re the worst piano player ever and you really should give up.

That’s a lie, by the way. The best thing to do is to play anyway and do it again the day after, and find you joy in playing returning.

I did manage to change the sheets and clean the house yesterday and the pizza was delicious.

Then, instead of all.teaching.all.afternoon I had a thirty minutes break which meant I could practice singing and piano for the first time all week as well.

I did not do strength training, though, because I spent the allotted time unpacking computer stuff I had ordered. The new laptop needs a case, an external hard drive, and new USB drive, and – most importantly – a docking station so I can actually connect it with things. I found out that the Thunderbolt to FireWire adapter didn’t fit, started the return process, found that the connector that I need doesn’t exist, and instead of returning the one I bought I had got get another one. So recording the podcast will mean putting two adapters between the computer and the mixer. I just hope that will work.

So. Today there will be running, and a somewhat slower day. I am planning to start the slippers so that I can have toasty feet at the spinning meeting next week.

Some time last week my husband and I decided that this weekend will be the one where we move all of the boy’s stuff out of his room, and also mount the fire alarms. That will be fun for sure.

Maybe sewing might happen even.

But things are looking up. There was a minute there, yesterday, where I even thought of something else than computers.

The new computer is mostly functional, and I managed to move my whole music library over, And my email. And I got the nice people at Scrivener to send me my serial number again. Turns out they still had my old email address, the one that doesn’t exist anymore, so I never received the receipt. Duh.

I didn’t write yesterday and went to bed around nine. I’m still pretty exhausted and tired. I tried to write but only managed eighty words, not good.

Today will be super-busy Friday, I want to clean all.the.things, and make pizza from scratch, and teach all.the.students, and maybe squeeze in some piano playing and such, and strength training.

Tonight we might even watch a movie all three of us together which never happens. (My mother-in-law has guests for dinner which means my husband won’t be allowed to play drums and guitar tonight.)

I guess that will be it, the day is full enough as is.

I’m still hoping I will manage to write about 1,500 words. Ahem.

But first it’s time to get up and have breakfast.

Phew.

And the best thing is that I actually have two working laptops right now.

There was a moment yesterday when I felt really guilty about spending the money on a new one but I think I’m over that now. It is pretty. And shiny. And doesn’t have the things on it that I really need, of course.

So I started yesterday by restoring the older laptop from an older backup. I was hoping that that would eliminate the bug. Losing four weeks of data would be an acceptable price for having a working computer. Especially since all the really important things like the novels and the budget were in the cloud. (Hurray for multiple backups!) It was interesting to note how much I don’t care about photos, by the way. Also a lot of the family photos are still on paper, and my husband has some on his computer as well.

Then I decided to go and buy a USB-C to USB-A cable and a new USB drive. (I have a 32 GB one that the boy lost somewhere, argh.) I rode my bike for ten minutes through the freezing streets. Good thing they were clear.

Then I came back and tried to use the new laptop in target mode with my husband’s computer, but no luck. Then I made a bootable USB drive with Sierra on it – no luck again (someone on the internet said that that had worked for his computer but I guess his came with the Sierra OS in the first place), and then I made a bottle USB drive with High Sierra, and – 

I managed to start the new computer from that drive, and to format the hard disk, and then it was perfectly usable.

Cue snoopy dance, and pompom shaking and overwhelming relief.

I have decided for the first time in decades to not migrate all my data from the old computer to the new one on auto-pilot but this time I will just hand-transfer what I need.

It is interesting to see what is important to me in my digital life. The first app that I installed was Firefox, even though there was a perfectly serviceable browser on there. Next was Thunderbird but then I shied away from configuring all my email accounts by hand. I will try to transfer the preferences file from the old computer later. Then I installed Scrivener (the program I use for writing) and then I spent about half an hour trying to find my activation key with no luck. I found the one for Scrivener 2 which I bought in 2015 but not the one for the current version. Will have to do more digging.

I installed GarageBand and realized that all my podcast files are still on the old computer (but that one is working, so phew), I installed my budget software right away (which was completely painless), and dropbox, and all kinds of things.

I’m waffling about installing Office. We’ll see.

Then I went to bed rather early, and slept like a log for eight hours.

Today the boy is going to the orthodontist to get his braces out. Yeah! I decided not to go with him because I don’t think he really needs his hand held through this, and riding on a bus for 45 minutes, and then sitting in the orthodontist’s office for an hour is a little pointless.

So today I will run (brr, cold), and then take a hot shower, and help making lunch, and I will only teach two students, and in between I will probably transfer all the files from one laptop to the other.

When I told my husband that both computers were working again, and that I was feeling bad about spending all that money he said not to worry. Then he said, „Well, since the old on is working again you can sell it, then.“ Which I really don’t want.

For one I’m somewhat attached to that machine which has been working for me for more than seven years already, and also I think it’s a good idea to have a spare computer in the house. My husband is using one for recording that’s even older than that, and I don’t know how long that one will be working. Also there is 750 gigabytes of data on that computer that I don’t want to lose. Of course I could pull the hard drive out and out the old one back in again that came with the computer when I bought it.

Nah.

Oh, and I have a new student as well. She starts next week, yeah!

I think I’ll go and sleep for a week now. And then I’ll think about how not to get all emotional and tense every time something like this happens.

I did meditate yesterday and read my daily stoic essay, so that’s something.

Seems that I managed to transfer whatever ails my old laptop to my new one too.

Spent all day trying to fix it.

Am a little stressed.

I basically did nothing but work on the computer issue all day. In between teaching students. No writing, no music, no exercise, no nothing.

I wish that these things wouldn't make me panic like that but I can't just put them aside and do something else.

I haven't yet run out of things to try, so there is still hope. Hardware seems to be okay, so I should be able to somehow fix this.

Wish me luck.