creative.mother.thinking

I went to bed only a little late and slept well so far until I woke up shortly after 4.30 with a bad case of the brain weasels. You know, all those thoughts that are running around in your head, when you’re convinced everything is awful and it will never get better, and you’re doomed and no one loves you? Yeah, those.

I’m usually pretty good at distracting myself and getting back to sleep but not this time. Half an hour later it was clear I would not get back to sleep.

So I bought myself „Penric’s Demon“ by Lois McMaster Bujold because it came heavily recommended both by KJ Charles and Konstanze. I am really enjoying it so far.

And then I almost forgot my morning routine. I did eventually remember morning pages and my meds, I did yoga and meditated but the rest of the morning went a little sideways. I was super slow and pretty foggy, husband and I had fat misunderstandings, so the usual. We talked about what went wrong the day before when he finally wanted to take a shower at 10 pm after hiking on Friday, running on Saturday and a full afternoon of yard work plus some sorting and picking stuff from the garden in the evening, and when he stepped in the shower there was no warm water.

Because while I could have known that he still needed to shower I had totally forgotten, had done the dishes and then the boy went into the shower. Oops.

We also talked about my existential dread and loneliness crisis and husband was actually very helpful.

I callled my mother, I did the dishes, I helped make lunch:

In the morning I had also almost finished my mother’s fingerless mittens:

The ball ran out, then I found a bit more and then I ran out four or five rounds before the end. There were several possibilities what I could do: 1) order a new ball of yarn and hope it would arrive in time, 2) rip a few rounds back from mitten 1 and use that yarn to make both mittens the same with shorter thumbs, 3) snip a stitch in the bottom ribbing of both mittens, unravel the beginning and use that yarn to finish the thumb and cast off the bottom again, 4) unravel both mittens and re-knit them with shorter ribbing at the bottom.

Option 4 would have been the most elegant, for sure, option 2 would be messy, option 3 would showcase my knitting prowess but be a PITA, and option 1 has the drawback that the mittens probably will be late for her birthday.

My husband and I talked at length and he convinced me to wait for the new ball of yarn. But my natural impulse would be option four, unraveling and re-knitting everything. Of course.

On the bright side I now have this pattern down. I finally understand where I used to go wrong every time, and know what to look out for.

After lunch I played Genshin for 90 minutes or so and then vacuumed everything and cleaned the washbasins and toilets. I was so fuzzy that I started with the washbasin in the old part of the house and then took the washbasin sponge and used it to clean the toilets in the annex. So I guess it’s time to retire the old sponges and use new ones.

I ate dinner early because I was rather hungry, and then the boy and I did a short session of bodyweight training. I played around with Genshin some more, started writing this post, finally opened Duolingo, brushed my teeth and spun a little in front of TV. Oh, and I planned for the week and for today.

This week will be a doozy. The first day with no unusual thing in it will be Friday. Probably. I guess we’ll see.

At least I went to bed on time and did well with all my morning stuff. Proofreading is progressing at a satisfying rate and the second mitten is growing.

Husband and I had a pretty long conversation over breakfast and then I helped him make his TV do what he wanted.

I did Duolingo and the dishes and then went off to my walk/run a little late:

Lunch was ready when I returned home so we ate right away:

I took a short break, then jumped in the shower, played a bit of Genshin (first progress, then complete challenge failure) and then there was not enough time to do anything else before my weekly Zoom call.

Writer Zoom was nice and very good for my knitting progress, I managed to finish the ribbing, do the provisional cast on for the palm stitches and got quite a bit of that done as well. I mean, it’s clear that a fingerless mitten is not as big a project as a sweater or so, not even a sock.

Which should mean I can totally finish those mittens I started for the boy at some point in the near future as well.

I ate dinner while the whole family went in and out of the kitchen repeatedly, read and was online, started writing this post, finally did the dishes, hung up a load of laundry, did more Duolingo, some spinning and watching C-drama and went to bed.

Will I finally clean the house today? Only time will tell, so stay tuned.

Ugh. After going to bed too late I woke up too early and couldn’t get back to sleep. I skipped parts of my morning routine because my husband was eating breakfast early so he could meet his friend for a little excursion.

Which meant I had a nice morning to myself that I used mainly to finish the first  fingerless mitten for my mother:

And then I did some dishes and made frozen pizza for lunch.

My husband came home an hour earlier than expected because the restaurant where they wanted to eat was closing early. At least they had seen it before going on their walk, so they were back in time to eat lunch there.

There was some teaching, and some proofreading, and the changing of the sheets and towels but otherwise I couldn’t bring myself to do anything. That is what you get when you stay up too late all the time. Hmpf.

The boy and I did bodyweight training. After researching how to improve my pushups I decided to scale them back and put my hands on a chair again, and lo and behold, I could almost do those with correct form and my muscles are sore in the right places.

I had crackers and cheese for dinner, played Genshin for an hour (I forgot to set myself a timer and it was really fun), started this post and the usual and spun a little in front of C-drama.

So I guess I’ll clean today, then. And do a few other things, of course.

Note to self (again) don’t do the dishes last because that usually leads to watching YouTube and that makes you go to bed late.

Apart from that the day went pretty well. Husband and I were talking a bit longer than usual, and then, while I was doing the dishes, I saw my brother-in-law and his mother return. He had driven her to a shop where she bought a rollator. finally.

So we talked briefly, I finished the dishes, got ready to leave the house, remembered that I had promised my mother-in-law to ask her if she needed anything and went off to the nearby supermarket.

As usual I didn’t get everything. All the talking with various people had meant husband and I were both late for lunch. Not too bad for me because I didn’t start teaching early but my husband had to hurry. At least lunch was tasty:

I tried to install the new wifi router thing. I did manage to connect it to the network but I am not sure where to place it and if it’s really necessary. I guess I’ll try around some more maybe on the weekend. The part of the house where I want it has very few electric sockets.

I taught two student, then I started putting my new office chair together:

Sorry, I forgot to take a picture of the finished chair but I can assure you that it is a proper chair now, works and seems to be more comfortable than the old one. After that it was time for my last student of the day, then dinner and sitting around reading, I started this post, did the dishes first, then Duolingo and everything else.

And today it’s almost the weekend!

I went to bed way too late but slept well, and while I snuggled in bed a bit after the alarm I did do my complete morning routine. Which includes yoga.

Husband and I talked again about the conversation that went wrong the day before. He is really stressed out at the moment and is easily triggered.

I almost finished the ribbing on the second try for a fingerless mitten. I continued downloading books onto the new eReader. I did the dishes and then went for my walk/run:

The weather was gorgeous but not as warm as it looks.

I came back just in time for lunch:

Then I took a quick shower and a nice break.

I started teaching early and then went non-stop until 6. I had a potential new student, a lesson where my student was accompanied by three other members of his family because they wanted to discuss something, and by the time I was done I was pretty low on energy.

The discussion went very well, by the way, that particular student feels a little overwhelmed with playing two instruments and soccer (which went up from two practice sessions per week to three) and so they decided to have his sister step in and take his lessons. Which is fine with me. The student is still learning an instrument, I gain a new student who seems very nice and all is well.

My new desk chair arrived but I haven’t even unpacked it yet. Also the new wifi-router-thingy which I might try to install today.

After teaching I was super hungry, so I ate dinner first. The plan was that the boy walked my mother-in-law to the dentist and back but she apparently decided she would be fine walking on her own, so that’s what she did. And it worked.

The boy and I did bodyweight training, and I felt like I was making backwards progress.

Then I had to wait while the boy was making himself more tomato sauce for his dinner. I used that time to set up the palm stitches for the fingerless mitten.

After that I started this post and played some Genshin even though I was too tired, finished the quest I started about a week ago, finally, after the boy helped me upgrade my weapons, started the next right away and failed spectacularly.
Then I finally did the dishes while listening to some YouTube videos and then I got sucked into a „jazz musicians react to BTS „ON“ video and ended up going to bed way too late yet again.

Today there will be way less teaching, I had a couple of reschedules and cancellations. So I’m hoping to get the other stuff done. (Usually this means I do all laundry all afternoon…)

I’m assuming that was not due to me having gone to bed on time.

I had lots of plans for the day because I had a light teaching day but first I started by picking up my phone and wasting the first hour of the day with scrolling. I couldn’t even tell you what I looked at.

I did manage yoga and meditation, then breakfast. I also managed to interrupted my husband when he launched into telling me a story in a way that he didn’t want to talk to me anymore at all, not the best start into the day.

I did dishes and then went off to the bank, the pharmacy and the health food store. The chocolate situation remains dire, but I still have a few bars that I bought online. We’ll see how that goes in the future. I think they are phasing out the 100g bars and will then restock everything with the new 80g bars but we’ll see.

I also spent most of the day trying to load my ebooks on the new eReader. Not all of them because I have too many but at least the ones I still want to read or reread. I started doing it one at a time but then I did some research and figured out that you can have the Kindle show collections, tap the 3-dot menu and tell it to download all items. Which I did but at the end of the day it still hadn’t finished.

That also showed me how aggravating it is that the wifi in the kitchen is really slow, so I decided to order another wifi-thingy for our network.

Anyways, before I did that my husband made lunch:

It was very tasty.

I also restarted the fingerless mittens for my mother. Tubular cast-on is always a bear and needs some uninterrupted time and focus but I am now at the point where I can just knit round and round.

I taught a student. I went online and fell down a „posing for photos“-rabbit hole. I finally opened the manuscript and proofread three more chapters. I taught some more students.

I felt cold and weak all day and as if the light was too loud. I mean, yes, the day before was a bit much but not that much. I don’t know.

I ate dinner and texted with a friend, and read a little, then talked briefly with both my husband and the boy, started writing this post, did the dishes, played Genshin and watched some C-drama. The boy went to university for the first time this semester which is why we rescheduled bodyweight training.

I’m hoping I’ll have more energy today but my afternoon is packed, plus I have both a walk/run and bodyweight training planned. I guess we’ll see how that goes.