I had gone to bed at 1.30 and had topped up my sleep deficit very nicely. Yawn.

I did the morning routine but never got around to writing a list for the day, had an argument with my husband over breakfast (and managed to set up the next part of the fingerless mitten at the same time – without a mistake this time) and then the day felt ruined.

I walked to the nearby supermarket, had lunch (apparently it was also my fault that the chicken got a little burnt because I sat in the kitchen while it happened and didn’t do anything. Never mind my husband was the one cooking and had wandered off somewhere else:

It still tasted okay but the mood was less than ideal.

I had only three students and high hopes to get stuff done but, well.

My husband was the one vacuuming the annex because one of his students didn’t show which made me think I should vacuum our apartment as well but then I couldn’t find the vacuum cleaner and when I finally saw it in his studio it was plugged in and clearly in use, only he was outside preparing a garden bed for planting garlic.

Maybe today.

I tried folding a load of laundry but it wasn’t quite dry yet.

I sat around after my last student, ate snacks and chocolate bars and licorice and read „Paladin’s Grace“ (highly recommended) and played Genshin.

Until it was rather late and I still had to start writing this post, do the dishes and make a list for today.

Somehow I don’t think I’ll manage to run errands and clean today plus have my longest teaching day of the week including the new student and do bodyweight training. The new singing student requested two songs I had never heard before but they are not difficult and when I listened to them they were the kind you can sing along with even if you have never heard them before. I’d say I have become more skilled but I suspect current pop music often has super easy melodies in a small range.

I’ll also have to start doing Christmas songs. I am somewhat reluctant because playing the same five songs over and over for six weeks can become a little boring and repetitive.

So. Better today. And I seem to be too tired and exhausted to be concise.

And it’s Friday the 13th. Huh.

But hey, the yarn for the new blanket is on its way, it should arrive tomorrow from the Netherlands.

Oh, and speaking of yarn I did finish putting all the yarn I pulled out the day before into the big yarn drawer where I will hopefully find it again when needed.

Next step is to clean the doors to the new yarn cupboard and mount them which should be easy if dirty work.

So my husband needs a new bedspread for the futon thing in his studio. And since we happen to have baskets full of crochet blankets he thought he’d just use those. But none of them are big enough. So for now he has two on there, side by side, but that doesn’t really look good.

And I’ve been wanting to make another blanket but didn’t quite know which. Also, see piles of blankets that nobody uses.

So I decided to take the pattern of the one he likes best and – make a bigger one. Which is entirely sensible and logical. Also, Lucy from Attic24 is doing another CAL in January and I really like the new pattern, so I’m thinking about making that one as well.

But. Each time you buy one of those yarn packs for the blankets your left with a ton of leftover yarn. But not enough for another blanket.

The bigger blanket, on the other hand, could probably be made with one yarn pack and leftovers that I already have.

Cool.

So I went off to the Wool Warehouse website to order the yarn but – they no longer ship to Germany. Boo.

I did find another online shop that ships to Germany from the Netherlands but they don’t have the yarn packs, just individual balls. Which has the advantage that I can just order the colors I need but which also meant I had to spend half an hour finding each color in the shop.

But that was in the afternoon.

In the morning I knitted and did all the usual morning things. I did decide to move yoga to the evening which did not work out in the end.

I went walking/running though, and it wasn’t even raining. Much.

I came back home, took a shower and ate lunch:

Instead of taking a break I went straight on to sort my leftover yarn and make a list of what I need for the two blankets.

Then there was teaching. More yarn wrangling. I now have a nice and somewhat tidy yarn cupboard and I put the yarn for the next blanket in my crochet basket but I also have piles and piles of stuff on the living room table because I had to empty that basket.

But, behold the blanket yarn cupboard:

I read a little but did not have time for Genhin. I played the piano, dusted and cleaned the mirrors.

I did not open the manuscript. Again.

In the evening I ate dinner, then opened Genshin and – had connection problems. And just as I was starting to play for the first time that day the boy showed up with some paperwork he needed and all kinds of things, and needless to say I did not go to bed on time.

I was just about to write „thank God it’s Friday“ but, um, it’s not.

I folded two loads of laundry, knitted, did the breakfast dishes, started a new load and went to my mother-in-law’s bank and the health food store.

Lunch was pretty good:

Then I only had a little time before my first student, so I did not do the dishes, and after my first student I hung the load up that I had started earlier.

My teaching day ended pretty early because I had two students cancel and one reschedule and by then I was so tired that I almost fell asleep standing up.

I still played the piano for half an hour, played some Genshin and ate dinner while waiting for the boy to come home so we could do bodyweight training. Which we did.

The I read a bit, played some more, tried finishing a quest (always a bad idea in the evening), still had the dishes to do and started this post.

Things that didn’t get done involved opening the manuscript, cleaning the mirrors (I did change the towels, at least) and spinning, oh, and some lesson prep.

Might have been too long a list, who knows.

And no, I did not go to bed on time. Again. Grr.

I did that thing where I look stuff up while writing morning pages, I don’t recommend doing that.

Nonetheless, I started out writing about other people and the patterns I see where my expectations get lower and lower.

And then I started thinking about my own patterns, the ones where I do stuff that is clearly embarrassing.

Huh.

And, you know, the things where I keep saying I want to change things and then I don’t do the things I need to do to actually change something.

That gave some big, fat Monday energy. And the I promptly offered to skip yoga and meditation so we wouldn’t be as late with breakfast. Husband didn’t accept that offer, phew.

We talked after breakfast, as usual, and I found that I finally had managed to make all the stitches line up properly in the fingerless mitten:

Yes, I was reading „War and Peace“ while knitting the last few stitches of ribbing.

I did the dishes, brushed my teeth and went walking/running:

I hit a rather energetic part of the BTS-playlist I use while running, so that made my pace a little faster than usual.

Meanwhile my husband was stressing out again, he had started trimming the hedge thinking that he only needed to do half of the front but that assumption turned out to be wrong. So he got into a huge time crunch.

Because I was really set on doing my training I did ask the boy to help, which he did. Good thing he had been too late for uni in the morning because that meant he was home and awake in time to take care of all the cutting and dirt before it was time for teaching.

Lunch was pretty simple but the tomatoes were homegrown:

Then I read a little, started the next mitten, cut my nails, fought the boss that had frustrated me five times already and won, did the lunch dishes and called a potential new student on the phone. Good thing I start teaching late on Mondays. I had already taken a shower before lunch.

I taught a handful of students, played the piano, ate dinner, talked with husband and worked on the manuscript for half an hour. Well, I say worked on the manuscript when in fact I’m still reading through the old book 2 but it is fascinating, there are so many great ideas in there. Most of them are just lose ends, but still.

I then started writing this post, made a list for today, fought some more video game bosses, brushed my teeth, re-watched the first episode of ‚Mobius‘ while plying purple yarn and went to bed.

I was late in the morning again but did my morning routine anyway. I did nof find time to open the manuscript which means I’m lagging behind on my writing goal for the month.

I called my mother on the phone and everything was well. While my husband was busy cooking lunch I ripped another bit of the fingerless mitten back. Setting something up while watching Chinese TV with subtitles is not a good idea. And I remember looking at the sequence of k2, p2, k3 and feeling that it was off somehow.

Because „knit to the last stitch of ribbing“ does not mean I had to knit the last stitch before doing the next decrease, it meant starting the decrease with that stitch. And that gave me a much more pleasant flowing pattern and the right stitch counts. Duh.

I am getting a lot of knitting time out of this measly ball of yarn, though.

And then we had the most delicious meal, entrecôte fried and cooked on low heat in the tajine, oven potatoes and Brussel’s sprouts, yum:

After that late lunch I read a little and then played some Genshin. I’m currently doing one of the bigger new world quests and while it is interesting, I also completely failed to kill the last boss. Four times at a time where I should have gotten ready for bed, so I gave up eventually.

I am so bad in shooter mode. Playing that mode on my iPad with a controller is also very frustrating. Maybe I should try using the touch screen next time but I doubt it will make much of a difference. I am also very, very slow and have a hard time aiming properly. Ack.

My husband had wanted to meet at four to get a move on regarding his mother’s papers.

At four I was still playing but that turned out to not be a problem because he only showed up an hour later. Well, to be fair he did show up at four but only to tell me that he was about to make himself a cup of coffee and drink that before meeting.

We managed to clear her whole dining table but that only means the paper had been transferred to some drawers and files but not that we actually have a grip on the numbers.

But, things do seem a little clearer and I took pictures of important invoices so I can change things and move payments over to our accounts. I hope.

I then ate dinner and waited for the boy for bodyweight training. Again, I just started to play at the time I thought was the time to start, and again I only saw him an hour later. But until then I had eaten dinner and had played another part of the quest.

We interrupted bodyweight training briefly to deal with the rest of the sewing things in my mother-in-law’s kitchen and bedroom, put most of that away to were it belongs and resumed our exercise.

Good thing I ate dinner before.

I then played some more video game, failed spectacularly and then the boy wanted a boatload of information for his new job. Which brought us to things like, „does the boy have a social security number and if so where do we find it?”

We eventually got things mostly under control and he will make a list for what else he needs and that will hopefully work.

I then started writing this post at a time that I would have loved to turn the lights out, got ready for bed, decided to write the list for today and the list for the week today and went to bed. And now back to teaching.

After a little more than an hour I gave up, found a fleece jacket and fingerless mittens in addition to the extra warm pajamas, wool socks, down comforter and wooly blanket and read for a bit until I felt a little warmer.

I woke up at 7 and coudn’t fall back asleep.

Interestingly, my energy was much better than the days before. But that does tend to happen, once in a while not getting enough sleep makes you actually feel a little better but that never lasts.

I did my complete morning routine, ate breakfast with my husband and tried to finally fix the fingerless mitten. But no matter how hard I tried and tinked back, I couldn’t get the number of stitches I needed.

So I ripped most of the mitten back, all the way to the ribbing at the wrist and started again from there.

And I think I know what I did wrong the last time!

So, after the ribbing you do a provisional cast-on, pick up some stitches and then you decrease ribbing stitches. I did remember that I as supposed to decrease not half the stitches but 2 more. Or less. And that was the problem. I had put my marker that showed me how far to decrease in the wrong place which meant two steps further I had too few stitches. No wonder that ripping back the thumb did not make things better.

But now I should be on track. Unless I did something stupid in the evening while watching TV with the rest of the family.

I did the dishes and went walking/running:

Then a shower and then there was pizza:

Those are anchovies, they needed to get eaten.

After lunch I did the dishes right away, then some Genshin, and then I tidied the living room that was covered in sewing paraphernalia and pieces of paper pattern for the costume project.

Oh, and somewhere in there I also folded two loads of laundry.

The episode of ‚Mobius‘ was good but it had been so long since I had watched the episode before that I have a strong urge to rewatch all the episodes we have watched so far.

I might just do that.

After TV I played more Genshin and had to tear myself away at one point so that I wouldn’t go to bed super late again.

I started writing this post, the boy made me a cup of chamomile tea and I took that with me to bed to read a little so that I wouldn’t be super cold again.

And now for the last day of fall break.

Yesterday was pretty boring, supermarket run, this time with the bike, lots of Genshin again and teaching one student. And some half-hearted editing.

Today I woke up after eight hours of sleep (yeah, me!), skipped yoga and meditation and so could eat breakfast with my husband for real for once and then we set off to our annual hike to the Andechs monastery.

We don’t actually hike there all the way, we take a train to Herrsching and then hike up the mountain. This time it only took one hour, might have been due to the cold, none of us wanted to stand around for long anywhere.

The weather was almost freezing, dark and gray but being outside and seeing the fall leaves was actually rather nice. No, I did not take a picture.

Since it was so cold we went inside but we got the same exact food as we always do. And we shared a dark, extra strong beer and a light alcohol-free beer:

We went back down again without a hitch and walked a bit further to look at the Ammersee:

It is nicer when the sun is shining but it was calm and quiet.

Then we took the train back home and I decided to see if the supermarket right next to the train station might have the old version of myfavorite potato chips. Because the day before I bought a bag that had „new recipe“ on it. The new thing was the added sugar. I think. I did not see the two bags side by side but when I was finished eating that one it had a very sweet aftertaste.

So I ate potato chips for dinner the second day in a row. The old recipe tastes better by far. But also, I might have to rethink my relationship with potato chips in general, maybe they are not my favorite food after all?

Anyway, I played Genshin and finished a world quest only to start another one, then met with my writer friend online and read through the old version of book two and made two pages of notes. Ideas might be happening. Oh, and I even read a bit on the train in the morning.

After the writing meeting I started this post, played some more Genshin and went to bed.

Two more days left in fall break but I guess I’ll just treat them like a regular weekend.

I had already pulled for two new characters in Genshin before breakfast (only 20 wishes) and then decided to throw 20 more pulls after it to get another one but failed.

There was a shower and lunch:

And then it was all Genshin all day. I ate half a pint of ice cream in the late afternoon, played some more, set up the new landline phone after about an hour of failing to connect it with my router, ate a quick dinner and played some more.

At around midnight I switched to scrolling through Instagram, always the best idea at that time. Not.

Today I need to get some more stuff done.

And no, I still haven’t written down my goals. I might not want to because the things I write down are the exact same things every month. And most of them are things that will never get done. Exercise, write, make music, they are just ongoing habit. Or rather aspirations for habits but who know how it will turn out in the future.

Today there should be a little more structure but also lost of Genshin again. I have to build two more characters. I still am very unsure about their weapons and artifacts and still have to pick a ton of flowers and fight this one boss. Well, at least I think it’s just this one.

Oh, and it looks like I just acquired another character who would like the exact same weapon as three others so I’ll have to swap even more.

I did the complete morning routine, then spent too much time talking with my husband and left the house later than I wanted.

I had packed my broken sewing machine into our big trekking backpack and took the train to Munich. A first for me was a rail replacement bus service for the tram.

The people in the shop were very nice and efficient. They asked me if I had brought the piece of thread that had made weird coils but I hadn’t. I was very proud that I could show them a picture but hadn’t thought about the fact that the person who will repair the machine would not be in the shop.

I came home for lunch an hour late but my husband had waited for me:

While I was in Munich the boy met the prof who had told him he should apply for his institute’s master program. So they talked and it looks like the boy’s master thesis is off to a good start including some paid work at the institute. He spent more than an hour i the evening telling me all about the institute’s work and how fascinating it is, so that sounds good.

Apparently my excursion had totally depleted me, I was barely conscious when talking with my husband over lunch and after my brain was complete mush. I was also firmly convinced that a) I am a bad teacher, b) I would never get new students ever again, and c) the potential new student I was due to meet that evening would never sign up with me.

I knew that it was all just in my head and probably just the exhaustion speaking but it did feel real.

I took a break and continued reading, played some Genshin and talked some more with my husband before it was time to meet that student.

I also finally started on planning for November but I still didn’t get around to write my goals down. It seem to be extra hard this month. I might just move last month’s goals to this month after all.

It was completely fine. The student is nice and promising and we agreed to meet once a week from now on. Phew. I could even show them some things that improved their singing right away. Ha!

Because I was so drained I decided to reschedule the writing, the bodyweight training, the housework and the co-writing session to today.

And I’m only now realizing that that means I will go walking/running and do strength training in the same day. Oops. A day where there is a major Genshin update.

But first I went to bed a little late but still got eight hours of sleep, hurray! And then I dawdled like crazy and had to skip most of my morning routine, oops.

There was breakfast with my husband where we talked about my dilemma of being stuck with the current novel I’m writing and while talking to him I realized what I should do is to start writing book 2 in that series and then write an ending that leads towards it. Ha! I got super motivated right away and started making plans.

I did do the breakfast dishes but that meant I was five minutes late for my doctor’s appointment.

I had made a nice list beforehand that I then left sitting on the kitchen table but I did use my time in the waiting room to recreate the list on my phone. Should have done that in the first place.

So we talked about my blood pressure medication („I don’t need to see your numbers, if you say you need a higher dose I trust you,“ is not something any doctor said to me before but I like it), my vitamin D levels (just take more it will be fine), the RSV vaccine (not necessary), and the fact that my smartwatch thinks my blood oxygen levels during the night are a little low at times.

I got an appointment to get a sleep monitor in two weeks and then we’ll see if there actually is a problem or not.

So that went very well, I walked back home via the supermarket that has the good yogurt (I had to suffer two variants of bad yogurt this week) and the health food store where I get the boy’s multi-vitamin and vegetarian Leberkäs.

Then there was still a little time before lunch and I went for a short 30-minute walk/run:

Came back home, took a shower and had lunch with my husband:

After that I read a little, ate too much Halloween candy, played a little Genshin and then I went out for the second round of errands.

I took a train to one town over and renewed all my prescriptions at my gynecologist’s, then went to the nice health food store there for meat but the selection was disappointing. Don’t go and try to buy meat on a Monday.

I took the train back home, dropped in to our usual health food store for all the things that are heavy or not available at the other store, walked home and realized that I had forgotten to go to the pharmacy.

The boy was home and about to get ready to leave the house to get his covid and flu shots so we walked back together, I got all my meds and went back home.

Ate dinner real quick and looked at what we had talked about in coaching the last time, then had a coaching session from my writer friend where we mostly talked about my goals and what progress I made since the last time.

I then started writing this post, did the dishes, played some more Genshin, made a list for today and called it a day.

And no, I still haven’t written down my goals for November but I am getting clearer on them, at least.

I did take the shower first thing, so that was good and did the usual morning things after that.

Breakfast went well and then I set the next part of the mitten I’m knitting up. That is always the trickiest part of this pattern and I am having high hopes that I don’t have to rip back this time.

I called my mother and we talked but not before finding out that the landline phone isn’t working. No idea if it’s the router or the phone but it just didn’t work so I had to use my cell.

I did test what happens if someone calls the number, it doesn’t ring or anything but the voicemail account that I can check with my email registers the call so it seems the problem might be the actual phone. At first I thought that might be due to the complete electricity chaos from the day before but my husband did use the phone after that, so probably not.

When I was done talking to my mother I did the dishes as fast as I could while my husband was building a fire in the woodstove. It has been so cold that I asked for it. I have been freezing for weeks now.

From dishes I went straight to peeling and chopping veggies and then I folded and hung laundry. It was a long wait until lunch because the oven had to get going first. But the food was good:

The boy told us a little bit about the party the day before. (He met a lot of people he hadn’t seen for five years and he got asked what his costume was supposed to be a lot, also people gave him compliments for it as well.) He has never been that talkative about people.

Then I read a bit while eating Halloween candy, and then I played Genshin. For hours. I finished a major exploration goal, so that was nice but I didn’t get much else done.

the boy and I did bodyweight training, I ate dinner rather quickly because I had a meeting with a fellow writer. We chat once a month and I’m always looking forward to it.

After that I started this post, finally did the dishes, wrote a list for today, printed my blood pressure numbers for today’s doctor’s visit, and failed to plan the month again.

Today should be rather busy, doctor’s visit in the morning, errands in the afternoon and coaching in the evening. No teaching, though.

Husband and I got into a silly argument over breakfast but at least I started the next step on the mittens I’m knitting.

Since we had a grocery fail I then went out for two different kinds of meat, Brussel’s sprouts and more Halloween candy. Because I thought I didn’t have enough.

And then I went on a very short, very easy walk/run:

When I came back home the house was in a bit of an uproar. There had been a bang upstairs in the hallway, the cover of a junction box had blown off the wall including the wallpaper over it and – there was no electricity in our apartment and most of the basement. That included the stove my husband was using to fry our food at the moment.

He changed the fuse but that didn’t make a difference. So he finished cooking on the small stove in the annex and we ate lunch all together.

I called my brother-in-law because he is an electrician but he said he had no idea and didn’t know what to do either. We did not want to spring for an emergency electrician. Since the furnace and the freezer were still working as was most of the house with the exception of our apartment it wasn’t all that urgent. We could have moved the food from the kitchen to the small fridge in the annex.

But we didn’t want to give up that easily.

Husband and I climbed the stairs with a stepladder, an assortment of tools and a lamp that we plugged into a socket in my mother-in-law’s apartment.

There were only four cables in that box and they looked like they had been part of the house since it was built in 1938. Husband changed a connector, put the fuse back in – nothing.

He changed another connector, changed the fuse back in – there was a blue spark, then nothing. He took the fuse out and put it back in and – the lights were turning on in the hallway again.

In fact, everything was working.

Except for everything in the laundry room and in the cellar where we keep all the tools and the pantry.

Which is a bit unfortunate because the freezer is in the laundry room. But. We do have extension cords and so my husband got the freezer plugged into an outlet that is still working.

After that there was not enough time to sew the boy’s costume shut so he had to go and close it with safety pins.

I was just completely done at that point and spent the rest of the day playing Genshin, reading and watching YouTube. I decided I did not want to give out any candy and holed up in the back of the house, not even showering until today. Also not doing the lunch dishes because you can see the light in the kitchen from the street.

We will have to call an electrician on Monday because something is still clearly wrong but at least so far things work again.

I always think it’s worth it which is why I am so often sleep deprived.

I did my morning routine in a pretty timely manner including yoga and only had a very short breakfast with my husband because he had another dentist appointment.

I did the breakfast dishes and vacuumed the house (only the middles) and then sat down to sew hook and eye closures to the costume. I got one of the done before it was time to eat lunch:

We only had a quick omelette because my husband didn’t have much time.

I read a little and played Genshin for a bit and then it was time to teach all the students. In between I got updates on the boy’s day. He had left the house in the morning to go to uni, tried finding a prof with no success and when he wanted to go back there was a medial emergency on the subway line and he had to wait for a long time. He tried taking a bus to another subway station but only succeeded in finding the station where the emergency was happening. After the bus got mssively delayed by things like a car blocking two lanes and such.

His commute is normally a little over an hour and yesterday it was 2 1/2.

After I finished teaching I ate dinner and went back to sewing hook and eye closures to the coat. The boy wanted to take over the sewing so I helped him a bit, and then we finally decided to have him try it on.

Well.

Hook and eye closures don’t work because there is no tension on the fronts so every time he moves in any way the coat just pops open. We did another test with sewing the hook on the other way around and that was better but not good enough.

In the end we resorted to safety pins. We will probably eventually sew the fronts mostly together so that he can still get it on and off over his head, but not today.

There was no time for the rest of the things I wanted to do that day, including bodyweight training, and by the time I had to get ready for bed I had reached the stage where I feel like spontaneously breaking into tears.

I did not do that but I took it as a sign that I had pushed it a little too far and need rest.

I also wanted to plan the upcoming week (fall break!) and watch a webinar in the evening but both those things fell flat as well.

Which is okay. I’ll do those today. I hope.

1. I almost finished the costume, the only thing left to do is to attach hook and eye closures. Here’s the coat on its own:
   And here’s the whole thing with the hood but without the goggles and mask:
   The only place to hang it right now is behind my bedroom door because it’s so long. The boy is definitely taller and broader than me.
2. My husband didn’t actually talk about planning as such the day before what he meant was granular planning of SMART goals, something I really dislike as well because when you don’t hit your precise goal you feel awful. the thing we also both dislike is planning that takes up more time than doing the thing and that is not flexible.
3. I figured out why I’m having such a hard time going to bed on time this week when a student of mine talked about the time change. Duh. By the time I should get ready to bed I’m already so super tired that I don’t have the energy to get ready.
4. My neck, shoulders, knees and fingers hurt because of all the sewing and the lack of exercise. Though I did do yoga in the morning and meditation and that helped a little. I also listened to the Graphic Audio version of „Sweep of the Heart for many hours and went to the nearby supermarket.

Today is the last day before fall break and the list I made in my head so far for next week is a bit scary. I better take some time today to actually sit down and think it through (and then write it down so I don’t have to hold it in my head all the time) today so I feel a bit more settled and can prioritize.

There were lentils and rice for lunch:

Phew. That was some intense sewing including having to rip the sleeve borders off after the first time because they weren’t working, the two fronts being different lengths and the borders slowly drifting off towards the bottom and starting extra late because my last student was stuck in traffic because of the construction work on the train lane so she had to take a bus.

Okay. Today I will figure out how to attach the hook and eye closures, teach six students and then roll into a ball in the corner.

So there was no morning routine at all and I was rather worried the day would go on unstructured and wasted.

My husband and I had a long and slightly heated discussion about how I don’t have a grip on my life (his grip, of course, being perfect). Meh. The whole thing was not made better by me not having a current knitting project. Knitting makes tense conversations easier for me.

My husband is also very frustrated that he can’t really help me. I think he’d really like me to learn the errors of my way and follow his example of just following my intuition. Um. It’s not that I don’t follow my intuition, but my life has a lot of moving parts and things I’d like to get done and demands on my time by others. Planning makes the whole thing much better.

Apparently, my husband has the feeling that planning just causes frustration and a feeling of failure when plans don’t work. Me, I like to keep my plans fluid and readjust over time. I make plans so I have a rough roadmap. Like planning a trip and then you get stuck in traffic and then the trip takes longer, and then you get a flat tire but you still end up where you wanted to go, only it takes you longer.

And it always takes you longer.

I also am perfectly aware that I am not a machine. I make a plan the night before so I can go to bed so I sleep better. I look at the list several times a day, mostly, and then add things or move them to another day or drop them. the list still helps me to keep my focus on what is important. Otherwise I would get caught up in things I find urgent or momentarily exciting. Like starting to gather certain materials in Genshin before breakfast because I get a hyperfocus and then stumble around unsure where I found them the last time, and then get distracted by other things along the way.

Ack.

Anyway.

I decided to spend most of the day sewing, so after doing the dishes, brushing my teeth and doing the dishes (half an hour late but that didn’t matter because my husband was late as well) I started sewing that hood and cowl.

Things went rather well until I realized that I had made a spatial error. I had forgotten that the seam allowance adds to the length on one side and that meant I didn#t have enough fabric left to wrap it around to the other side.

So I had to spend some time taking the stitches out I had just painstakingly sewn.

Then there was lunch.

And a little reading and a 15-minute session of Genshin before I spent half an hour sewing that same seam again, this time with the right seam allowance.

Then there was teaching all afternoon, and the new student who had said they’d start after fall break canceled and I wrote an email to yet another new student. I think they’re Portuguese (or maybe Brazilian) because the part of the email that tell you „this person wrote this and your answer was this“ is in Portuguese. I briefly tried scrapping up the rest of my Portuguese but I can’t say anything. Apart from grammatically incorrect sentences saying „I only speak a little Portuguese and I – shit what is the word for understand, anyway I can do that a little better..

I’m also at the stage where everything tuned into Chinese, not that I can actually speak Chines but every time I try to grab the word for „I“ which is „eu“ in Protuguese I land on “我”. it’s not far off, it’s pronouned „Wo“, sorry I don’t now how to do the wiggly accent.

I had a break that I used to read and eat dinner, unfortunately, the whole family showed up in the kitchen at the same time, so the reading didn’t go as well as I had hoped for.

After teaching I took a break, ate a ton of chocolate because one of my students had their last lesson and got me half a pound of chocolate. And I was dreading the sewing.

But I did it anyway and listened to quite a chunk of my „Innkeeper“-book, I’m at „Sweep of the Heart“ by now. And intergalactic edition of „The Bachelor“ is actually quite entertaining.

And I eventually ended up with this:

The finished cowl and hood, the thing that will greatly determined the look of the costume, ha! I am rather pleased with how it turned out and for some reason the hood even fit right in the neckline, no fudging needed. Huh.

I then talked with the boy a bit who did the dishes, and had spent the afternoon constructing and cutting out the first border for the fronts of the coats, started writing this post, made a list and went to bed.

I am starting to think about next week which is fall break. I don’t do well with no structure but I’m also looking forward to getting stuff done that I don’t have time for when teaching.

Now I just need to figure out how to manage that. Would be a first.

I did okay in the morning with my regular morning routine and being „only“ half an hour late for breakfast. I shortened my errands so I would have time to sew. Then I folded three loads of laundry instead. But that was not a problem because I had lots of time later in the day.

I also finished a sock:

My husband made rice and beans:

After lunch I read and I played Genshin but not for long.

I had a break between students that I used to clean the mirrors. My last two students didn’t show, one canceled and one rescheduled. So I played the piano. I had a snack and read some more. I waited with bated breath for the boy.

He had gone to uni early in the morning (and got there half an hour late), spent the whole day there and then had to get back in time for his flu and covid shots. Which wouldn’t have been a problem if there hadn’t been construction on the line again which meant there were busses instead of the trains and subways at certain points.

On his way back he got lots twice and then two of the busses got stuck in traffic at rush hour.

He did not make his appointment.

He wanted to call them to explain but the office doesn’t take phone calls after 5. So he left an email instead. To be continued.

So I sat there, reading and doing whatever until he was finally back home at 7. And at 7.30 I finally started sewing. I sewed one hem and did a few tests to see if my idea how to attach the borders will work. The answer is yes, but we might have to make the inside part a little narrower.

This is the right side:

And the wrong one:

So, having red stitches on the white fabric is not really working. But I know what to do.

And I still have to do it today because that was all I got done yesterday. Banzai!

Because I had an orthopedist appointment. I had briefly thought about biking there but decided to take the bus instead. Making an appointment for a Monday during flu season turned out to be a bad idea, I had to wait for over an hour. One interesting thing about that is how much I expected to be home much earlier. This was the first time I had to wait for a while with that doctor.

My right knee got examined properly and x-rayed and the verdict is arthritis. Not quite what I expected but also no surprise. I have all kinds of arthritis, one more doesn’t make much of a difference. The doctor recommended a few things like cushioned shoes, biking instead of running for exercise and such. She also pointed me towards eventual injections (not covered by insurance) but did not steer me towards them right now.

So. I looked up stretches and exercises and will try that first. Fingers crossed that will work out like the arthritis in my hip which seems like a distant memory at this point. I did them right away and it feels as if they might help with the pain. They are no fun, though.

There was no time to work on the boy’s costume before lunch but I did take a shower. Husband had made fish:

Yes, I was taken back by the bell pepper on that plate as well. I guess there was just one left in the garden that needed eating.

After that I was very determined to start sewing almost directly after eating but then I didn’t. I did empty the wastepaper baskets, at least before my first student.

I taught a bit, then one student canceled which left me with a cushy one-hour break that I used to put some darts into the boy’s costume. He also tried it on and I pinned the hem but then I needed to go work again.

In my next break I played the piano for a bit and ate dinner. I am learning „Ambre“ by Nils Frahm and am really liking it.

I then gave my writer friend an online piano lesson (and some tips for learning Chinese).

I read a bit and ate some more chocolate, started writing this post, made a list for today, and played Genshin briefly.

I’m really hoping to get back into some semblance of routine today. Plus sewing. I know that there is no such thing as a typical week, but still.

I read quite a bit and played a little Genshin and there was lunch:

I took a short break then the boy tried the coat of his costume on and the fit was – not good. We had added width to the body and that made the shoulders and sleeve not fit at all. There was way too much material and it was all bunching up.

So we tried around and I experimented with pinning some of the extra fabric away but then I ran out of time and had to get out the door to see the delayed live stream of the BTS concert in Buenos Aires.

When I left the house it was raining and just as I crossed the street it started pouring down like crazy. My jeans stayed damp all evening. Fortunately, my shoes mostly held the water off and my winter coat stayed dry inside but my gloves got wet and did not dry because I put them inside my coat pocket so I wouldn’t lose them.

It was great fun but also a little weird. Right behind me was someone who screamed RM’s name every time we saw him in a close-up and half the cinema apparently stanned Sugar. There was a lot of squeeing.

The experience of sitting in an audience that was singing along to all the songs was pretty nice, even though I can say that I don’t really like it when people wave lightsticks in my face. With my new lenses every light in the dark has a halo so I kept seeing weird rainbows. I was also slightly afraid of being clocked in the face.

I was also rather lucky that I was not actually allergic to the perfume the women right next to me took out a bottle of perfume lightstick woman had given her and spritzed it on herself generously. She even freshened the scent up in the middle of the concert.

I didn’t really like the scent but hey, no asthma attack!

And those two kept talking all the way through the concert. Apparently, perfume woman was new to BTS and got the full explanation.

Other than that seeing the concert in a movie theater might have been the best way to enjoy it. The screaming and singing was on a tolerable level, the music was clear but not too loud and we could see everything much better than the people in the stadium.

Someone even brought a life-size cutout of Jungkook and people kept standing in line to get a picture with it.

Anyway, I almost bought a ticket to see the livestream from São Paulo next week but then remembered that I am a sensible grown woman.

And now I’m off again for a doctor’s appointment.

No yoga, breakfast with my husband and a shower and then it was almost time to walk to the Greek restaurant to meet my husband’s aunt and her friends for lunch.

When we arrived fifteen minutes early they were already sitting in the restaurant. It was very windy and cold so I had opted to wear all the knitwear and long johns. A woman walking around a corner visibly startled when seeing me. Might have been the combination of bordeaux coat, orange wool had and mittens and my Goff Place mystery shawl. I looked but couldn’t find a picture of the finished shawl so here is one of the parts. You can see the colors, at least:

We ate an excellent lunch:

We talked a bit, and then we went on to the cemetery so that the aunt could put some flowers on her husband’s grave.

My husband had been feeling rather unwell all day, the covid and flu shots hat hit him much harder than me this time. Still, he opted to go with them to visit his mother in the hospital after.

The boy and I went back home, took a short break and then started working on his costume. Three hours later I had the basic coat and the boy had cut out a few more pieces of trim.

The boy also had a friend over and they were both sitting in the kitchen, the friend drawing while the boy was cutting out pieces of fabric and both talking and eating snacks.

After a somewhat late dinner time somehow became fuzzy and then I went to bed too late.

But I got an hour back, our time change was last night, so that’s alright.

And then I was super slow.

We had our appointment for the vaccinations at 9 and that went very smoothly. Then I walked back home and sat down again with the rest of my morning tea.

I had taken a double dose of anti-histamine (not the one I usually take but another one) and I think that really helped with the reaction. I did not get a fever this time. Like the last time where I took extra cetirizine.

Then I changed the sheets on my bed, very slowly, and cleaned the washbasins and toilets with quite a few breaks while my husband was making lunch:

And then I had a short break before teaching.

I had thought I could maybe use the break between students to play the piano and also work a little more on the boy’s costume after my last student but by then I was very, very cold and a bit woozy so I decided to just sit around the rest of the evening.

I finished reading T. Kingfisher’s „The Wonder Engine“ and started „Daggerbound“ right after. Konstanze had recommended I should read the ‚Clockwork Boys‘ first before continuing the ‚Swordheart‘ series and that was a good idea.

I’m also pretty sure I will be reading more T. Kingfisher in the future. I should probably start with „A Wzard’s Guide to Defensive Baking“ and „Hemlock and Silver“ because apparently I already own those.

I did play quite a bit of Genshin but I mostly did one of those Story Quests where you mostly just watch animations, run around and click ‚continue‘.

The boy did the dishes for which I’m grateful, and I went to bed pretty early with my book because I was sitting in the heated kitchen, wrapped in a crochet blanket and shivering.

Fingers crossed today will go well, we’ll be meeting my husband’s aunt and some of her friends for lunch. I would really love to be back to normal by then but we’ll see.

I got almost eight hours of sleep but not quite which is still good. And then I was super slow and only did five minutes of yoga instead of my usual ten and still was late with everything.

I knitted a bit and talked with my husband and filed some stuff and paid a bill and tried doing other admin. I went to the nearby supermarket and after coming back and putting the groceries away I chopped all the vegetables and some parsley. In between i tidied and folded some laundry.

There was lunch and it was good despite the weird mix of veggies. There were a few things from the garden that needed to be eaten and my husband just threw them all in.

It seems I forgot to take a picture. There was breaded chicken, black beans with an assortment of veggies and rice.

Then I played Genshin for a short bit and then it was time to teach my first student. After I had a one-hour break because someone moved their lesson to tomorrow, so I started sewing the coat for the boy’s costume. And no pictures here either.

I taught another student, then dusted and vacuumed the house. Very sloppily but things are still a bit cleaner than before.

I taught another student, the one who never shows, and they said they want to stop lessons which is fitting. Two more months.

Then another student canceled and at first I was all set to use that time to work on my manuscript or something but then I realized I was just way too exhausted and tired. So I took a break, read and ate lunch. I also got another call on my cell from my husband’s aunt to please call her back, preferably the same day.

I really dislike it when people don’t say what they want when leaving voicemail. Like, „Hi, this is Markus, call me back.“ Why? Are you standing somewhere without money and need urgent help? Do you just want to chat? Big life crisis? Only need some info that I could leave on your voicemail?

Anyways, she called to ask if we really had made a reservation for Saturday. Yes, we did. Like we already told you three times. And yes, we know that you’ll be bringing a flower arrangement for your late husband’s grave. And also, unlike you we also have other stuff to take care of in our lives. And we don’t think that meeting for lunch and visiting the cemetery really needs six phone calls. I mean, we don’t really do phone calls if we can help it. But of course she doesn’t use a smartphone. Or a computer.

Then another student, bodyweight training, talking with the boy, more Genshin than I probably should including six attempts at a challenge (all failed) and seven (also failed) attempts at clearing a level of endgame content. Harumph. I might have to ask the boy to help me with this, I just can’t seem to get past this boss even though my team should be able to.

And then I declared that it was too late and I really should write, start this post and such, turned around and played a 30-minute quest.

Today will be interesting, I’ll get the covid and flu shot. Fingers crossed those won’t knock me out for two days again. But I have my anti-histamines at the ready and last time those did make a difference.

I tried doing my morning routine a bit faster because I thought my husband had to leave the house before 9 but failed. When he still hadn’t shown up at 8.15 I went over to remind him of his dentist appointment and learned it was an hour later than I thought.

We got to talk a bit over breakfast but he had to leave soon after that which was probably a good thing because I myself had an appointment with the boy to work some on his costume.

We met (later than planned), talked through some more design choices and technical sewing things, and then I set the sewing machine up and showed him how to use it. And that made me realize something I know from my job and see every day, there are so many small movements and habits around doing things that you can’t really teach but need to develop over time. Like the way I hold both the thread and the piece of fabric in my left hand while starting the machine first with my right hand and then with my foot.

Like the way you hold the bobbin case when putting it in the machine to prevent the bobbin from falling out. How you navigate the position of it by feel. How threading the machine becomes just one fluid motion after a while. Well, not the actual threading of the needle on my old machine because I have to do that by hand and while my new eyes are great they don’t really work at close distances like that.

Anyway, he still has a long way to go but he did well, and with a bit of practice he’ll do fine.

We only had a little bit of time, though, because I still wanted to go walking/running:

I came back (a little late, of course), took a shower and had lunch:

I played some Genshin before teaching and then I taught quite a few students without a break until the evening. One student got a lecture about the second Viennese school on top of learning how to play D sus for „Nothing Else Matters“. Then I briefly talked to the boy and had a quick dinner before meeting with my writer friend for an online writing sprint.

Where I promptly wandered off, started doing unnecessary research and then started writing this post so I could at least get something done.

I*m so close to finishing this book. But close isn’t finished.

I did play some more Genshin, I did the dishes and played the ukulele a bit and then went to bed with a book.

And today there will be another busy day. Though I have to say I like the busy ones better than the slow ones. Well, up to a certain point.

First of all I went to bed later than I wanted and then woke up an hour before my alarm unable to fall back asleep. Which might have contributed to the persevering feeling of meh.

Husband and I talked about things over breakfast that would have needed more time and space but I just started talking and went on in the same direction. A good conversation but cut short because of all the stuff that needed doing.

I might have to revive my Trello board.

On the other hand, I do have lists. In my bullet journal.

I dawdled and was late to go to the health food store but first I did the dishes and started the pretzels for lunch. Look what we got this time:

My guess is that they thawed at some point, while the box was stuffed somewhere and that made the pretzels into an almost amorphous lump.

I let the, thaw while I did the dishes and managed to rescue six of the pretzels for lunch. Then I toddled off to the health food store and my MIL’s bank but not to the two other shops I wanted to go to. I came back home, fumbled most of the pretzels apart and baked them. I had also bought fresh ones and another package of frozen ones. This time I opened the box right away and they looked fine. I also found yet another boy in the freezer. I should keep my mouth shut about other people’s pantries and overbuying of groceries.

The pretzels were still delicious if a bit misshapen and the white sausages were okay, I’m not a big fan:

That is just half of my lunch, white sausages don’t really taste great when they are lukewarm which is why normal people put the pot on the table and you just pull out one sausage at a time, but my husband – of course – let them on the stove.

I taught my students, then used a break to dust, clean and move two shelves of craft book to a different bookcase. I also realized that I had a ton of morning pages books and pulled them out. No idea where I want to store them. Or throw them away, that’s a possibility too, I mean, who wants through dozens of notebooks with all your blah thoughts.

I cleaned the doorhandles after teaching and played a bit of Czerny. I still have to decide what to do with those notebooks.

I ate dinner and talked with he boy an we did bodyweight training. 

We ate, I ate quite some sweet things and then it was time to teach.Almost half of my students either rescheduled or canceled, the student who never shows vowed to come in on Thursday and ask her mother to remind her.

After lunch I played my video game, I’m still busy leveling characters and weapons by throwing all my in-game money at it. I also bought another monthly pass for 5 €.

I canceled my mother-in-law’s doctor’s appointment, she is at the care home, in a different town and right now she is in the hospital so I’m guessing she is in good hands, medically.

I ate dinner, talked with the boy who had spent the whole day at uni and we did bodyweight training. Without the new weights which are still in transit.

The plan had been to start sewing in earnest that day but we were both completely knackered. So we moved the sewing to today.

And then I was so tired that I did not open the manuscript again. Sigh.

I still managed to do things and was not as slow as I would have expected.

There was the complete morning routine, breakfast, talking with my husband (we had both calmed down and were good again), some dishes and ten minutes in the manuscript. I did an online order for him and decided to delegate choosing a new bedspread right back to him. I was feeling so tired that all I wanted to do was lie on the floor and sleep but I went walking/running anyway:

The weather felt gray and dreary at first but looked up later.

I came back home to a husband who was stressed from cooking, took a shower and ate:

This was supposed to be soup, but well. It was delicious.

Then I did some of the dishes, read a little, played Genshin and started teaching. Between students I had planned to get started on moving books in my studio but ended up running out of time because I was playing the piano.

I taught some more, then cut out the pockets for the boy’s costume, set the sewing machine up in my mother-in-law’s kitchen and started pressing the white fabric. I also started teaching the boy how to iron and he finished the second half of the fabric.

Then it was time for an excellent coaching session with my writer friend after which I started writing this post, played some more Genshin, made a list for today (another long one) and went to bed with a book.

Now I just need to figure out how to fit costume-sewing, bodyweight training, errands and writing into today but, well, piece of cake.

I found an interesting statistic:

So, obviously I got less sleep than the week before but what I find super interesting is the pattern of median sleep throughout the week. You can see that on Mondays I decide that sleep is important and I need to go to bed earlier, so I turn the lights out at 11.15. Which is still too late.
Then my bedtime creeps back by 15 minutes every day, until I try to turn things around again on Friday with not much sucess, and on the weekend I apparently tend to go to bed around midnight (definitely too late) and sleep about fifteen minutes longer than during the week.

Also, I seem to get about7 hours of sleep on average. I’m pretty sure what I actually need is 8 1/2 but I’m not quite sure because the last time I slept that long for more than one night was on our trip to Verona. Two or three years ago.

So, yes, I do need to change something.

I did a quiz about my bedtime procrastination type a while back (by Dr. Vanessa Hill who I heartily recommend, I love her YouTube channel. I actually don’t remember which type I was but I think there was something about being an „Autopilot Procrastinator“, my self-regulation runs out and then I just stay up on autopilot.

I’ve called this being too tired and exhausted to get ready for bed before.

The cure is to set on concrete cue to stop what I’m doing. Like the „get ready for bed alarm at 9.15 that I turned off 75 minutes ago as I’m writing this part.

So. Deliberate pause. Tomorrow, I think.

Yesterday went a bit off the rails. There were about three incidents of getting into an argument with my husband, I did do my morning routine but way late and then there was no time for talking with him after breakfast and knitting because he needed to call his aunt and he wanted to mop the kitchen floor. Which did take care of that task. The task that was on my list as well.

It’s a bit embarrassing. He is so easily triggered that you can just mention a thing that you’re dreading, like cleaning the rim of the bathtub or mopping the floor and he will just go and do it. And then he will resent it massively and tell you how awful his life is and how exhausted and stressed he is and that things will never be better than the horrible mess that life is right now.

Life is not a horrible mess right now. It is exhausting and things are definitely quite a bit too much, and taking responsibility for our mothers, his aunt, the house, the garden and the finances is really a lot but it’s not impossible. I mean, other people do these things every day as well. And while yes, the fact that his mother is in a care home (well, the hospital right now, but same difference, makes more responsibility and work for us, I feel that it’s also a chance to chart our own course. And sorry, I think that dealing with housework and gardening and finances and work and people is just something we should be able to do as adults.

Husband, on the other hand, thinks these things are objectively too much for one person (or two, he keeps forgetting that I do stuff as well. Until I travel and am not home for a few days and he drowns into the part of housework that I do most days.)

Anyway. I did part of the dishes before calling my mother on the phone this time so that lunch might still be on time.

Lunch was not on time. I started talking to my mother around noon, we talked for 20 minutes, then I went back to the kitchen and the only thing that had happened was that he had picked a zucchini, some tomatoes and herbs from the garden. Fine. He made penne with zucchini in tomato sauce. I waited for quite some time and then it turned out that he thought I would be doing the dishes and tell him when I was done. I told him I was done before calling my mother.

Around 1 pm the pasta water was slowly getting warmer and he started cutting the veggies.

Next up he was super stressed because he was cutting the zucchini while the pan was already way too hot while the pasta water was boiling. He asked me to put the pasta in the water. As he usually does it there was way too much water in the pot. When I out the pasta in it was clear that the water would boil over soon. So I asked him if I should pour some of the water out. He answered that he couldn’t really think about that at that point because he had the stressful job of cutting veggies.

So I poured some of the water off and that was apparently completely wrong. He had put the exact perfect amount of water in and pouring some off was not acceptable.

Never mind that he has pasta boiling over so often that I am conditioned to run to the kitchen, pull of the lid and wipe overboiling water from the stove in autopilot. I have at times run to the kitchen to take care of this while being completely focused on something else.

I folded laundry. I went downstairs and set the washing machine on tumble because it hadn’t worked. Again. I hung up laundry.

We started eating lunch at 1.37:

About 90 minutes after he had gone outside to pick one zucchini.

And he told me that he had planned to fry some bacon as well but hadn’t had the time for it.

Yes, I find that puzzling as well.

Sorry for complaining so much.

We ate lunch, we got into another argument. I did the dishes, more argument. The boy and I were set to work on his costume at 3.30. I ended up having roughly 25 minutes to myself.

I played some Genshin and got pretty frustrated.

Then we talked about the costume, designed some more, the boy cut the last pattern piece out and I started cutting the fabric for the cowl and hood.

At one point I held the back of the coat to the boy and we had to realize that piece was too small. Quite a bit too small. Turned out we had just taken his measurements and used them for the pattern pieces. No ease. Duh.

Husband came to apologise – more argument.

We found that we had another length of fabric because it was wider than expected, so we cut the body pieces again. And that was bascially it, no more time (or energy) for more cutting.

We did twenty minutes of bodyweight training and ate dinner. Not in this oder.

I wandered off trying to get the kitchen sink back to normal at one point.

And then there were more talks with husband and more arguments. One of the arguments was about the fact that we couldn’t find the jacket my mother-in-law wants us to bring. The clothes she brought with her in August aren’t cutting it anymore.

I packed a bag that the boy can drop of today.

More arguments but before there was the rather nice gift of a bottle of beer he had bought just for me.

I talked with the boy some more who had grievances about one of his things at college, I started writing this post, I played a tiny round of Genshin and went to bed.

Phew.

On the other hand I had a very productive week, so it’s okay.

I went to bed too late again and while I slept well I was super slow in the morning and skipped yoga and meditation. After the boy wrote me a long list of things to help me improve my Genshin account I had a bit of a hyperfocus on implementing all of them, ahem, and started playing before breakfast even.

I still went out for my walk/run and the weather was very nice:

I came back a little late but there was still time to take a shower before lunch.

There was an excellent Swiss chard risotto with Swiss chard fresh from out yard:

Then I read a little and threw myself back into playing my video game. I leveled all the things and spent in-game money like a drunken sailor. Not real money, though.

Then the boy and I reluctantly worked on his costume for a bit. If I can call it that. We had a lot to discuss and then I cut some pattern pieces out and drew a half-circle on a piece of paper. We decided that we need to make better progress tomorrow but it looks as if the pattern construction phase is coming to an end.

And then my husband started tackling the clogged sink in the kitchen which was as great idea but a little disruptive. We let that sit for a bit while eating dinner in front of TV. We watched our weekly episode of ‚Mobius‘ and again we enjoyed it a lot.

Then I played some more Genshin, debated strategy with the boy, realized that all his tips and lectures were the result of a remark I made that made him think I really wanted to get full stars in one of the endgame thingies in the game. I mean, it would be really neat to manage that but both my character built and my gaming skills are not quite up to that. I did try the thing anyway and he watched part of it and got to tell me all the ways I can improve my gameplay. We also tried different team compositions and I now have a note on the kitchen table telling me not to forget that I swapped the weapons of three characters around. For just regular play with my regular team that would be a bad idea, so I need to swap it all back after.

Then it was already time for bed but I still needed to start writing this post, make a list for today, do all the dishes and put the kitchen back together. So no, I didn’t get enough sleep last night either.

I didn’t dawdle (much), though, because we had plans. I did the usual morning pages, yoga, meditation and breakfast and then we went to my mother-in-law’s bank to get some info and cancel her credit card. That she never used, she didn’t even know she had one.

After that we caught a train to Munich to visit her in the hospital. When we arrived she was alone in her room and crying. But it turned out she was just very moved by something the hospital priest had said to her.

We had barely said hello before a nice young man showed up and introduced himself as her physiotherapist. He told us that we were on the geriatric ward, that she would probably stay for about two weeks and get physio and other therapy. Which told us that she was not in any acute situation. Also, that she’d need some more clothes and stuff. She had just gone on in an ambulance, she had not packed a bag or anything.

We left a few minutes later so she could get her physio and went back home.

Where I did the dishes, folded a load of laundry and ordered and picked up Chinese takeout:

I just realized that I usually let my water sit there all through lunch and only drink something at the end. Huh. When we were kids we were not allowed to drink with meals because that would wash the food right out of our stomachs. Interestingly, that did not seem to have been a problem for when we drank cocoa with breakfast or herbal tea with dinner. Huh. Not that we drank plain water then. It was all soda all the way.

Lunch was pretty early so I read a bit while eating a bit of licorice chocolate and then I played a little Genshin. I had to cut that short so I could teach. I used the break between students to clean washbasins and toilets and hang up a load of laundry. While talking with the boy.

My last student canceled, so I played piano, changed the towels and ate the second half of my lunch for dinner. Then bodyweight training with the boy, then I ordered a new set of 5-kilo dumbbells because one of the other pair broke apart, and then it was time to meet my writer friend for a writing sprint. This time we were more focused than the day before and I managed to write half a scene, hurray!

After that I was pretty exhausted. I started writing this post, made a list for today, read some more (I’m really liking the second Clocktaur War book), played some more Genshin and went to bed.

Phew.

Today there will be exercise, sewing and watching TV with the rest of the family. And some rest is in order methinks.

And then I saw that someone from my mother-in-law’s care home had left a voicemail on my cell. Which I hadn’t gotten because my phone is turned off during the night.

My mother-in-law had gone to the hospital the night before. We were not told why but we at least knew which hospital.

My first reaction? Not again.

I tried reaching her on her cell and failed at first but (not to draw this out too much) I did reach her around lunchtime, she is well, she fell nothing really happened but she wanted to go to the hospital anyway because she was feeling so dizzy.

We also got a call from the care home again in the afternoon and they said, she fell, her knee is really swollen and painful (though the boy said she already had trouble with her knee when he visited her the day before) and also her blood levels were off.

Anyway, we briefly considered visiting her but decided to move that to today. First, because that fits better into our schedule, and second, there will hopefully be results from the tests they do at the hospital.

Then I wrote my morning pages, did yoga and meditated. And then breakfast with my husband.

I wrote some emails, I did the dishes, I talked with my husband and started the heel turn on the sock that I’m knitting and I went grocery shopping.

Came back, put the groceries away, folded some laundry and had lunch:

I played Genshin very briefly and talked with the boy and then it was time to teach.

In between students I vacuumed the annex, sorted my files back into the drawers that my husband had repaired earlier, and talked some more with the rest of the family.

After my last student I played piano, tried eating dinner in 8 minutes (and failed) and then I met online with my writer friend, we talked about learning Chinese a lot because she had her first lesson right before (and I got to try speaking Chinese out loud which I never do) and then we spent half an hour working on our manuscripts.

Afterwards I started writing this post, made a list for today, said hello to my husband, asked the boy to do the dishes, played some more Genshin and went to bed with a book.

Phew.

Today will be similar, the plan is to go to the bank, then the hospital, lunch, teaching, some cleaning, bodyweight training and another writing meeting.

Allons-y!

I went to bed past midnight and jolted awake around 5.30 and couldn’t fall back asleep. Interestingly, I did not feel as tired as I would have expected.

There was the morning routine but very, very slowly, and then a short breakfast where I almost reached the heel turn for the sock-in-progress, I did dishes and then I called my mother-in-law’s care home to talk with them about a) her care grade (or rather lack thereof) and b) some medication that she probably shouldn’t be getting.

Now I have the contact details of her new doctor and also the nurse on the phone told me the assessment for her care grade had already been done and things were looking good. Fingers crossed.

I didn’t know how much that was weighing on me until I felt quite a bit lighter.

Next I called the sewing machine place to make an appointment to get my good sewing machine repaired and they told me to just come in and drop it off.

I did the dishes and was pretty late after all of that so I only went walking/running for half an hour:

I returned home, took a shower and had lunch:

Then I did not do the dishes because my husband needed to take a shower, read a little, played Genshin and started teaching.

I had a break between students near the end that I used to vacuum the old part of the house. Oh, and while I was teaching my husband’s cousin came in, they had been promised some things by my mother-in-law. I only could say a brief hello because I was needed in my studio again.

After teaching I played the piano for a few minutes, ate dinner while reading (I finally caught up with „War and Peace“ again after reading all T. Kingfisher all the time), played more Genshin, started writing this post, made a list for today, did the dishes and went to bed.

I did not open the manuscript but I had all kinds of ideas about the next few books I want to publish and write, so that was good. I’mm counting that as working on the manuscript.

I’m hoping to do a little bit of everything today again, wish me luck.

I did the complete morning routine, and I made some progress on things I had been procrastinating on for a while. I put some mini tasks in my calendar and I had quite a bit of free time in the afternoon which also helped.

Husband and I ate breakfast and talked but not for long because we both had so much stuff to do. I went to get yogurt and to the health food store and for the first time in ages I decided to not put my orthotics in my shoes. So far my feet are fine, yeah!

I was back relatively early and moved my hole punch, a few sheets of paper and a pen upstairs to my MIL’s apartment where I was planning to work on her paperwork in the afternoon. I also tried folding laundry but the laundry still wasn’t dry.

Then we had a pretty early lunch:

I took a break and tried fighting a boss in Genshin Impact but I only had fifteen minutes and failed.

I taught one student, then played the piano and went upstairs to wrestle the filing. And I was pretty successful.

I taught another student and waited for the student who never shows who – didn’t show. So I read a bit further in „Clockwork Boys“ (I actually finished the book over dinner), went around the house with a feather duster and cleaned all the mirrors.

Then I taught another student, ate dinner, and met the boy for bodyweight training.

I talked briefly to my husband who was completely exhausted and in a bad mood, then I did the dishes, opened the manuscript, started writing this post, made a list for today, tried the boss again, read some more and went to bed.

I’m really hoping that today will be equally productive. I guess that’s up to me, then.

I went walking/running:

Lunch was pretty early which was good:

But that meant I couldn’t shower before eating and then I had a hard time convincing myself to get wet and that meant my afternoon went a bit off the rails. and my evening.

And now I get to try again on not enough sleep.

I still got the whole morning routine done after but it took a while. I keep being reminded that I’m always feeling better if I do yoga and my little bit of meditation.

Breakfast was delicious as always, and my husband told me all about a documentary about the ‚Neue Deutsche Welle‘, something that was pretty influential for me but was not on his radar at the time at all.

While talking I started the heel increases on my sock-in-progress.

Then it was the weekly phone call with my mother in all its normal absurdity, I folded a load of laundry, planned the week ahead and chopped some veggies for lunch:

 This is eggplant, zucchini and green beans from our garden. Among other things.

Since I had lots of things planned for the rest of the day I actually did not dawdle for once, read a bit (I started „Clockwork Boys“ by T. Kingfisher on Konstanze’s recommendation, so I get more of the backstory before reading“Daggerbound“), played some more video game and then met the boy to work on his costume. I spent most of the afternoon and in the end I had pressed the red fabric (but not the white because I forgot) and cut out the front and back pieces and the sleeves. There is still a lot to go.

The boy spent all that time designing the borders, white cog teeth. Decisions about how tall, how wide, how to place took a while and he didn’t get finished because we still wanted to do bodyweight training and had a deadline for that.

So we exercised (ouch), I ate dinner in 10 minutes and rushed off to my monthly Zoom call with a writer friend.

While I was busy talking my husband had cleaned the toilets and done the dishes, yeah! So I opened the manuscript and wrote a few words (not a lot because it turned out what I had written the time before needed a lot of clean-up), then started this post, played ukulele for a bit, wrote a list for today, played some more Genshin Impact, read some more and went to bed.

I really hope I’ll make better use of my time and energy this week than last, so fingers crossed.

It was still a good day. I went walking/running in the rain

And we had a very typical Bavarian lunch. There goes the last cucumber from our garden, unfortunately a part of it was bitter but the rest tasted great:

The boy and I worked on pattern pieces for his costume and we watched another episode of ‚Mobius‘ as a family.

Today will bring more costume-related activities and some other stuff.

I was super late again for breakfast but then got my act together somewhat and was back from grocery shopping at lunchtime. Unfortunately, lunch was not ready yet so I helped a little with chopping and such:

My husband had grabbed a bag of flour that had something with pizza on the side but turned out to be durum wheat flour, not quite what you’d use for pizza but it was not bad and very crispy.

I tried to make use of all the small pockets of time but there weren’t many. I started stripping my bed before lunch and ended up putting the new sheets on just before crawling into bed.

I did eat an early dinner, then met with my writer friend and wrote for a bit and that changed my mood completely. Then the boy and I did bodyweight training while my husband did the dishes and he also cleaned most of the bathtub which was super nice because I had just been complaining to him that I hadn’t managed to do it for ages and that it was filthy. He doesn’t even use that bathroom.

When exercising I found that the session two days before had actually left me sore, it was just that those were muscles I don’t really use a lot in everyday life.

I then went and played another quest in Genshin Impact until it was a little late, started writing this post, made a (very long) list for today and went to bed.

Today should bring walking/running, progress on the boy’s Halloween costume, maybe some looking into my mother-in-law’s finances, watching something with the rest of the family and hopefully a lot of sleep.

I went to bed too late and woke up at six with a start and that was that. And then I was super slow all morning which resulted in having to skip yoga. Meh.

Husband and I talked about all the stressful things that are haunting us at the moment and that made me even later so I decided to just reschedule grocery shopping to today and get some junk food instead.

There were the last homegrown eggplants for this year for lunch:

The afternoon was a bit of teaching and some breaks. No idea what I did in between students other than playing the piano at one point and more talking with my husband.

I then sat down to eat my potato chips for dinner and the rest of the family descended upon me, the boy had questions about his Halloween costume and my husband wanted to talk as well while making himself dinner.

After an hour of talking while my brain was already half asleep I got to read a bit, then played some Genshin, started writing this post while texting with my husband’s cousin and went to bed.

I’ll be having an unusually teaching-heavy Friday this week and then I’ll be ready to just flop down in a corner or something.

My husband and I visited his mother in her care home. The most pressing reason was that there was a snafu with her meds and also we felt that it was time again.

The trains were late but not by much. My mother-in-law was muddled and said things like, „I waited in my room so you could see where I’m living right now,“ when we helped her move in and have visited her several times already. She kept telling us the same things over and over.

She keeps talking about wanting to move to the care home nearer to our home when there is no chance of it because they don’t have space for her. Also, we don’t really want to move her again and fill out all the forms and, no, just no. The home she is in gives a good impression, she is generally happy with the place, her sole concern is that her daily afternoon cake is dry and not not varied enough.

We brought her some reading material and one of the five identical boxes of chocolates my husband found in her wardrobe. Most of those were beyond their best before date.

I did not manage to get hold of anyone from the home this time, will have to call them or write an email. Or both.

We took a short walk with my mother-in-law who is surprisingly fast with her walker and then we had to leave to get some lunch and be back in time for teaching.

We went to a Thai place near the train station where we had to change trains. My husband found that place while we were going to my eye doctor and I had completely overlooked it.

I ordered over an app for the first time which was made extra hard by the relentless sun in the sky, I could barely read the screen. Also, while green and white are lovely colors for their branding a light green button with white text does have its challenges, especially when you’re not wearing reading glasses and in the sun.

But the food was excellent:

We had to wait for the train for a while, trains were late again but we managed to get home in time.

My husband had to start teaching right away but I had a little more time so I could take a break.

There was teaching and helping the boy find some more paper for the pattern pieces for his costume.

And then I picked up a package for my husband, finally ate dinner, played Genshin for way too long and ended up too tired to open the manuscript around midnight. Sigh.

I did think about book two in the new Urban Fantasy series. I have an interesting problem for my main character but I have no idea how to weave all the loose ends of book 1 in, so, you know, the usual.

But first I need to finish book one. And take care of my mother-in-law’s finances. And ask about the medication that she is not supposed to take.

She is too out of it to even realize there is a problem but still able to hold up her end of a conversation to a certain extend. Sigh.

So I sat around waiting for him to be done while being in a very bad mood. Not the best choice.

So I started my walk/run too late. The weather was gorgeous, everything went well but I carried my bad and low mood around like a shield that cut me off from the trees and flowers and nature.

There was a brief moment when I saw small blue flowers in a field that felt a little better but I just revived my anger and squashed any positivity.

Husband and I had a misunderstanding just as we were about to start eating lunch and then the boy showed up and ate with us. Not the most relaxed meal, especially since the boy is also slightly miffed because we kept bugging him about the state of the part of the house that he uses. But the food was delicious comfort food:

I played some Genshin and did a last minute shower before my first student.

And then my mood suddenly lifted somewhat. The student was nice and motivated and I felt needed and accepted, things were better.

I only had a few students that day and my plan had been to make great use of the breaks between. One of my students had obviously been forced by his mother to leave me a voice message saying that he wouldn’t come because he had behaved so badly that he wasn’t allowed to but that he would try to do better until next week. Which was rather cute. He didn’t sound upset and had his mother right there as well.

I tried preparing for my coaching in the evening and found that I hadn’t opened my notes since then at all. I ate dinner before that and at one point I tried calling a potential new student back.

Coaching session was great, though, and rather helpful. Afterwards I immediately started sorting through a folder in my file cabinet and threw most of the papers away.

Then I went into the kitchen where the dishes were halfway done, dripping all over the counters. I am very grateful that my husband does so much housework but I would be even more grateful if he a) used the draining board and b) would not wander away in the middle of the task that often.

I also apparently should have closed the windows while on Zoom. I keep forgetting that my husband opens the windows upstairs every day. Maybe it’s time for another alarm.

I finished the dishes, folded a load of laundry, ate some chocolate, talked with a disgruntled husband and read a little. The there was more Genshin, some ukulele playing, starting this post and then I was very, very tired but still hadn’t done a list for today or had done Chinese.

But today is another day and I hope I’ll be a bit more sorted and grounded.

But hey, I finished a sock after breakfast:

I called my mother, we talked for 45 minutes and then I did the dishes too late and helped a little with cooking.

So lunch was super late but delicious:

Stuffed bell peppers from our yard. And some of them not stuffed because there wasn’t enough filling.

I read a little, then played Genshin and finished most of the newest big quest, yeah!

And then the boy and I were due to start working on his costume. It turned out that we both were super tired and couldn’t think straight, so all we did was cut the fabric into three parts and decide that the next step should be making pattern pieces from brown paper.

Then I ate dinner while reading, bought two more books because Konstanze recommended reading the Clocktaur War books after „Swordheart“ before „Daggerbound“, utterly failed to plan the week for some time, started writing this post, did the dishes, played some more Genshin and went to bed.

And now for a new week. Here’s to hoping it will be less chaotic for once.

So, here’s the short version of yesterday:

• I did not get enough sleep, went to bed way too late
• did most of my morning routine but did not open the manuscript. Again.
• talked with husband, did dishes, went out for my walk/run and before I hadn’t even started properly I got a phone call on my cell by my husband’s aunt. Who demanded to know why my husband was not answering the landline. The one we never ever answer. And when he*d be back and answer the phone and why he wasn’t answering his cell either. Because the number she had called is my cell phone number because my husband doesn’t use his if he can avoid it. I promised he’d call her back.
• I entered the woods, turned a corner and ran into a former student of mine with his freshly-minted wife and their dog. Cue small talk. It was nice but I was still not running.
• (Should have brought sunglasses or a hat, the light was way too bright.)
• Came back home, found a letter for a neighbor in the letterbox along with quite a few letters to me.
• Took a shower.
• Ate lunch: 
  
• played Genshin, talked with the boy
• went on my long-awaited Zoom call with writer friends (we agreed three months before to meet yesterday), sat around for four minutes all alone, was finally joined by one of the four others, apparently everybody else had forgotten. Sad.
• did internet stuff
• ate dinner, splashed half a bottle of alcohol-free champagne over the coffee table and some remotes
• watched episode 3 of ‚Mobius‘ with the rest of the family
• talked with the boy, talked with my husband, played more Genshin, forgot the time, started writing this post, did the dishes and went to bed.

And I had to leave the house at the time when I usually eat breakfast and I took a shower before leaving because I had a mammogram and you’re not supposed to use deodorant that day and so I thought I better be squeaky clean at least.

Everything went well, I returned home and finished my morning tea, then did some research while my husband cooked. I had a rather aspirational to-do list but, well.

I did teach a handful of students, the student who never shows didn’t show again. I actually waited for them three times that week, so I guess I did put in my time.

Lunch was only half an hour late:

Leftovers and mushrooms in an omelette. My husband ordered ten more eggs when we still had nine from the week before in the fridge.

After lunch I remembered my goal of doing the dishes early this month and did them right after eating with no break. And then I had to fold a load of laundry so I could hang up another one and there went my lunch break. I mean, the part that would have been a proper break, not the eating lunch part.

Teaching was nice and included a student who I hadn’t see since the end of July because they started a new job and finding a time that works for both of us became much harder.

I had plans of doing bodyweight training in the evening but decided I was too low on energy, played the piano for a few minutes (also an October goal), ate dinner, played a lot of Genshin and had fun, then opened the manuscript for a whole four minutes, started writing this post and went to bed way too late yet again.

Better today, I hope.

But I did play the piano, so that was good. And ate all the things including lunch:

More zucchini from our garden.

And then I was very determined to do everything in time which meant I even could open the manuscript before breakfast. Only for a few minutes and when I did open it on my computer there was a sync error that needed to be fixed but at least I tried. And did 5 minutes of yoga again.

There were dishes and such and I went for my first walk/run since my eye surgery:

And I’m happy to report that 1-minute running and 4-minute walking intervals were no problem at all.

I returned home and took a shower before eating lunch:

Those beans were picked just minutes before by my husband.

I would have liked to do the dishes right after eating because I made a resolution to do the dishes earlier from now on but I couldn’t because my husband still needed to take a shower.

So dishes had to wait until the evening but I folded some laundry instead.

And then I played a bit of Genshin before I started teaching.

One student canceled but I did not use that time well.

After my last student I ate dinner and played more Genshin. Originally I had wanted to attend a Zoom call but then I found I was too tired to listen to anything properly. I can watch that call later and I hope I will actually do that.

And then I realized that something game-related had only two hours left and got a move on. I did not do a good job and when the boy came downstairs and saw what I was doing he ended up grabbing the controller and doing a full run himself, ahem.

I did some more Genshin while I waited for the boy to finish his shower, then we did the dishes together, I started this post and wrote a list for today.

I will go to the supermarket today and am hoping to plan the month ahead, and I finally want to teach my friend who kept rescheduling.

I went for a walk instead of my planned run/walk because I still have the sniffles and a bit of a cough. I also did not take a shower because I had one the day before and there wasn’t much time.

Husband made tagliatelle bolognese:

Teaching was nice, so there was that with a break in the middle that I used for admin.

In the evening my writer friend rescheduled her piano lesson so I could quiz the boy earlier. And then I immersed myself in Genshin for a while. The started writing this post and did all the dishes.

I went to bed too late again because I was determined to do the dishes before bed.

Yawn.

And more busyness today.

Husband and I talked about his phone call to his aunt after breakfast and I started researching different car rental companies. It’s not as easy as it seems. I also tried to connect my husband’s new phone to my account and succeeded but only in theory because it’s still not connected in the app.

I went grocery shopping and to my MIL’s bank for her bank statement. I also reconciled my accounts, so that was fun.

Husband was rather busy so there was only frozen pizza. Which was rather good:

Yes, I only ate half the pizza.

I did teach some students and was rather nervous for the boy’s exam. He had left the house before lunch so he had a bit of a buffer. The exam was an oral one which made im very nervous.

He did well, got a good grade, and was asked to apply for a place in the institute master’s program.

And yes, I am proud.

Two of my students canceled, one because she was sick and the other one sent me a text that they couldn’t find their capo and if we could reschedule.

Um, no, you can just come in and I will give you a capo to use during that lesson.

Since she has skipped quite a few lessons this year I offered her two time slots to make up for that lesson.

I was rather determined to go to bed at a reasonable time and not let myself be drawn into non-essential stuff.

I went to bed super late yet again and then decided to leave earlier than planned. Which was a very good idea because while the first bus was on time the first train wasn’t. I also had been waiting for almost 20 minutes at the wrong bus stop (I was half an hour early, ahem) before realizing that the bus left at the same stop it arrived at. It makes a loop and doesn’t come back the same way.

I got myself an avocado arugula bagel at the station and that was the best thing I ate all day. There were veggies! And greens! Hurray!

At least the train to Hamburg was not crowded and I had a lot of time before my next train. I bought all the junk food and then proceeded to the platform. Which had lots of construction going on and was so filled with people that you couldn’t really get anywhere.

There was another train to Munich at the platform and everybody kept wondering if that was the train they should take. The answer, of course, was „it depends“ but while that train had the same destination it usually takes quite a bit longer to get there because it’s taking a longer route. Where it can’t go as fast.

And that train sat there. And sat there. And my train couldn’t get into the station because there was no space. In the end it stopped on the other side of the platform and I could finally get on.

At this point we were already 15 minutes late. And the train was so crowded that you were not supposed to get on without a seat reservation. There were people sitting on the floor in the space for luggage next to me.

Forget about the quiet car.

My original plan had been to open the manuscript and write, read a bit, and knit while watching the episode of „Shine on me“ I had on my phone. I did do quite a bit of reading because „Swordheart“ by T. Kingfisher is really great but otherwise I just couldn’t focus.

In the end we arrived in Munich 45 minutes late, and just as my next train was pulling out the station so I had to wait for 20 more minutes.

My husband and the boy were already waiting for me, I got homecooked food and talked with my husband for a bit, started writing this post and went to bed.

May I have a weekend now? That was a bit more exhausting than I had thought it would be.

And I didn’t take a single picture all day, so here is another one from Schwerin on Saturday:

I need to catch another train so I‘ll make this short. Here‘s a picture for you:

This is the fabulous Schwerin castle. We had a tour there, and a boat tour on the lake and another tour through the city, as I said, it was a bit much.

It was great but I‘m looking forward to being back home again tonight.

But first I had to get up super early and catch a train at the time where I usually start opening my morning pages notebook. And I did it.

I even finished my whole big pot of tea before leaving the house which meant I could use a regular water bottle instead of the thermos I use for tea.

The trains went smoothly, and the first two were even pretty empty. The high speed train was super cold, though with the a/c at full blast. I wished I had brought a scarf or shawl, and I did wear my fingerless mitts part of the way.

I had lunch in the dining car where I caught one of the last two empty seats. The burger I had decided on as the least unappealing option from the menu was out, so I had currywurst:

And I was still somewhat hungry afterwards. So I thought I‘d get myself a pastry or something in Hamburg but at that point my train was already a little late.

Apparently there was a big technical difficulty around Hannover which meant my train got diverted. I didn‘t have to change there this time so it didn‘t make much of a difference for me.

All in all we were only 15 minutes late which is not too bad.

But in Hamburg there was no time to look for a bakery or something, I just went straight onto a very, very crowded train.

And tried to figure out how to reach my hotel. Good thing I looked at the map in detail before deciding to walk for half an hour because that walk was right next to a big road with lots of traffic. Instead I took a bus and in order to get a ticket I installed an app over train wifi and connected it to a way to pay and then I bought that ticket online while waiting for the bus.

When I arrived at the hotel the reception area was already full of relatives of mine and there was quite the line for check-in.

I even made a friend in line, there was a young man in front of me who was there for a job interview and he asked about the throng of people.

My room is nice but freezing cold, blasting AC again. I think I might have figured out how to turn it off.

I went downstairs for dinner which was a rather overpriced buffet with no good options. I‘ll try to buy something at the supermarket tomorrow because I won‘t eat that food again.

After dinner we all met in one of the conference rooms, seems there will be 39 of us in attendance. It‘ a little sad that most of the older generation is gone by now, there‘s just two brothers left of all those many cousins now.

But the younger ones are making up for it, there were even quite a few babies and kids around.

We talked a lot, I had a hard time getting food and drink and when I asked about how the payment would go they were very surprised that we wanted to pay individually.

I‘m just hoping that nothing went wrong putting everything on my tab, I guess we‘ll see.

I went back to my room rather early, I was just done for the day and tired of being talked at. So I started this post, opened Genshin Impact on my phone, ate some almonds and chocolate I had brought with me, and went to bed.

Today we‘ll be doing all the things, a boat tour, a city tour and a castle tour and we will sit and talk for hours again, phew.

I sewed like a very determined whirlwind and finished the second t-shirt. So I’ll be traveling in all homemade clothes today. Well, apart from my coat, underwear an pajamas. Here is a picture of one of the tees and the skirt:

Yes, black corduroy is hard to photograph.

We had lunch:

I taught some students and used my breaks for sewing and later for putting the sewing stuff back where it belongs, and in between I started piling things on the spare bed to take with me today.

After my last student I fell into a hole of paralysis, the boy had asked me to quiz him again and part of me thought he’d be downstairs any minute when in fact he was waiting for me to take a shower first.

We sorted that out, I took my shower, he did the dishes, I finished packing apart from the stuff that I still need until I depart and then it was again after my bedtime.

And now I need to run and catch a train to Schwerin.

I spent a lot of time sewing. One result was this:

I’m not sure whether the machine just needs tuning and maintenance or if it’s actually broken but I ended up hauling my old sewing machine down from the attic, the one that has fewer bells and whistles and only four bobbins.

The first thing I did was to overlook that it was still set to zigzag while having a twin needle in there, so, oops, broken twin needle.

But, this is not my first rodeo, I had a second needle in reserve.

Everything took longer than expected then but by around 9 pm I had this:

Yeah, finished tee. I haven’t tried it so far, though.

Then I turned around and started sewing the second one. Fingers crossed I can finish that one without much fuss in time.

My husband made a quick lunch, homemade canned tomato sauce from his own tomatoes and spaghetti:

I also spent a little time in my video game and opened the manuscript very briefly.

And went to bed too late, of course. And sent the boy out to get potato chips for dinner.

Today will be a whirlwind again for sure and that includes packing. And maybe finishing a second t-shirt, ahem.

Husband told me it might be a bit too early to do so, and then I felt immediately better.

I did all the dishes and walked to four shops and took a shower before eating lunch:

And then it was almost time for teaching. Two of my students canceled so I had a bit of a break in between that I used for writing emails and I got to finish half an hour earlier than expected.

And then I sat around, scrolled through social media while eating dinner and played my video game for a bit.

I helped the boy study for his exam for an hour or so, then sat around some more and talked to him for a while.

I managed to dawdle long enough that there was no time for sewing or anything left but the boy did the dishes, so that was good.

I’ll try to get some sewing done this morning instead of going for a walk and then it will be all teaching all afternoon before quizzing the boy again about crystallography.

I had a pretty full day with my nose running non-stop, some sewing (not as much as I would have liked), a dental cleaning in the morning, lots of teaching including a potential new student, some manuscript time and some video game playing.

I don’t have the time or energy for a real post, sorry, but we did have a delicious lunch:

And now I need to run because I left the dishes unwashed last night, have an early start to teaching today and need to go to the health food store.

Maybe I will even sew the sleeves into the t-shirt but probably not.

And I helped the boy with exam prep. Crystallography. It’s all very weird.

I got almost eight hours of sleep but it wasn’t that great of a sleep. I felt sluggish all day and have a runny nose. Fingers crossed I’ll be back in shape for my trip on the weekend.

So my morning pages were late and everything was late, meditation, breakfast and all. Husband and I talked over breakfast and I knitted a bit, I talked to my mother on the phone and then hung up a load of laundry. It was a bit weird, the only thing of mine in there was a hoodie I had bought the day before.

Lunch was late but tasty:

Green beans from our garden, this was the third try of my husband’s to get green beans this year and this one was actually successful.

After lunch I took a break, then played Genshin. It was very frustrating, both things I attempted failed spectacularly.

And then I cut out all the pieces for two new t-shirts. When I ordered the fabric I had thought they would be more different:

the left one is mauve, by the way and the right one burgundy.

After cutting the fabric out I ate dinner and talked with my husband who had repaired the file cabinet under my desk in my studio, phew. He did the dishes while I was planning the week.

Planning the week also included making a packing list for next weekend and looking at the itinerary.

And then I had planned to start sewing but I felt so awful with my runny nose and low energy that I wasn’t sure. I did open the manuscript, though, so that was good.

This week will be slightly insane even without the addition of a cold, so we’ll see how that goes.

I went for a walk in the woods:

I helped a bit with making lunch:

And I sewed for most of the afternoon and the skirt is finished:

I know this picture isn’t helpful at all, I’ll try to get one in daylight with me wearing it.

Today I’ll do more sewing, I still want to make two new t-shirts, so off I go.

I went for a walk in the woods:

I helped a bit with making lunch:

And I sewed for most of the afternoon and the skirt is finished:

I know this picture isn’t helpful at all, I’ll try to get one in daylight with me wearing it.

Today I’ll do more sewing, I still want to make two new t-shirts, so off I go.

I had gone to bed at midnight yet again but slept like a log. Woke up at 7.30 and got moving a little earlier than the other days. There were morning pages and my five minutes of meditation and then I had breakfast with my husband.

I started the gusset increases on the sock I’m knitting and later I found some more leftover yarn that I can maybe use for when the other blue yarn will run out. Now I just need to decide whether to switch right away and use the proper shade of blue for the toe or whether to knit on and only use the new, different shade of blue once the first one runs out. Not sure yet.

After breakfast I did the dishes and such and then I went and started picking out that fabled line of zigzag stitches. It took ages but in broad daylight with extra strong reading glasses I could do it at least.

And then I went on sewing right until lunch was ready:

Yes, there are no veggies on this plate. Yes, that was not quite enough to eat.

What happened?

Apparently my husband forgot to make veggies because making mashed potatoes was overwhelming enough. He really need a break, having all that stress that is hanging over us plus the beginning of the school year, plus harvesting everything, getting the garden ready for fall, plus having a tooth removed was a bit much.

After lunch I had that feeling of, „maybe I should just do the dishes right away even if that leaves you no rest time before teaching“, you know the one and I – actually did it. Felt good.

And I still got to play Genshin for twenty minutes.

I taught a few students and managed to reschedule next Friday’s lessons, I used a 30-minute break between students to vacuum the old part of the house, I taught some more and then I cleaned the washbasins and toilets and changed the towels.

I ate the second half of the bag of potato chips for dinner, read a bit of „War and Peace“ and went on Instagram.

And then I went back to sewing. Until I was at the point where I need to insert the zipper next. I thought I’d better do that in daylight while I’m not so tired that I feel like falling flat on my face all the time.

I played with the new Chinese app I had downloaded in the morning (Hanzifeed) and then opened the manuscript for twenty minutes. After which I started writing this post, made a list for today, played some more Genshin and went to bed.

Weekend time! There will be lots of sewing and we’ll watch that Chinese mystery show, and there are plans to have an Oktoberfest beer in the evening. At home. From bottles. The Oktoberfest only starts next weekend and for me that is usually a sign to avoid Munich at all costs.

Unfortunately, I won’t be able to do that if I want to get to Schwerin next weekend but we’ll see.

Husband was not in a good mood and rather overwhelmed from many different things which led to a couple emotionally draining conversations throughout the day. While we were talking in the morning I was also knitting a sock only to find that I did too many rounds and had to tink back again. I’m also pretty sure I will run out of one color of yarn. Fingers crossed I still have something similar in stash.

All day long I was also texting back and forth with a student, so far we haven’t found a time slot that works for them this week. Or next.

I rode my bike to the bigger supermarket, the weather was nice but not too hot, so that was good.

I came back home slightly later than I had hoped but lunch wasn’t ready yet. So I put the groceries away, talked with my husband some more, helped chopping a few things and we had pasta salad for lunch:

And then I had just barely enough time to continue reading „War and Peace“ and eating some chocolate before my first student of the day.

Student played in a way that caused me a headache, then I had a break, then my second student of the day who was a delight, another break and then I waited for a new student.

I used my break for various household things and for admin, more texting because of time slots. It also turned out that I had forgotten to buy sheet music for two students, then I found out that that particular piano book seems to be out of print, found it online anyway but it looks as if I need to find something new. Meh.

On the other hand it said it would be back in stock in October, so who knows, there might be another print run.

While I waited for that new student the phone rang and I decided to pick up because I thought it might be them.

Instead I talked with a potential other new student and agreed on a test lesson next week. Of course I forgot to get their phone number.

And the new student who was supposed to come in had called earlier that day to cancel because they were sick. Poor thing.

Since I was done with teaching earlier than expected and since I had forgotten to pick up carrots and cream cheese and I also had a prescription to be refilled at the pharmacy I then went out to the pharmacy and health food store.

After all of the day’s frustration, interspersed with conversations with my husband where he kept stressing how stressed out he was and how bad everything was, I ate some potato chips and chocolate for an early dinner.

And then I met my writer friend for a co-writing session. I made nice progress and I am still liking the story which is always a bonus. My writer friend has been stuck on the manuscript for weeks now and was just about to go and do something other than writing during out video call but I told her she wasn’t allowed. Me saying „No, you’re not watching C-drama on a co-writing call“ seems to have left an impression and, funny that, she said she felt better afterwards. Duh.

Then I tried picking out the zigzag stitches that were a mistake but failed, then played some more Genshin where I almost cleared a domain (there were only two enemies left) and then managed to run out of said domain so that it reset.

The boy offered to get me to that same point again while I was brushing my teeth later but I decided I had enough. Oh, and I tried at least four different puzzles in the game and failed those as well.

The boy showed up just as I was overdue for starting this post and getting to bed again, so I brushed my teeth, then talked a little with him, started this post, made a list and went to bed.

Phew.

And yes, the ends are woven in.

I went for a walk:

I took a shower and had lunch:

(Shower not pictured and I’m sorry that there is no alt-text, there is also no time.)

I took a break and played Genshin, then started teaching realizing that I had forgotten to hang up the laundry. But after my first student I had a break and used that to fold two loads of laundry and hang up another one, thinking about the mystery that my husband is the only one of us who does not put his socks in the laundry in pairs. Oh, he also managed to wash one of my compression gloves with the darks and the other one with the whites. No idea why.

There was more teaching and a student who forgot her lesson and texting back and forth about a new slot for a lesson. I used the break to fold more laundry.

One more student who needed a broken string replaced and that took most of his lesson because I don’t do that often and am very, very slow.

Then there was dinner. The boy had done the dishes which was very helpful. I played some Genshin despite having decided I wanted to sew first. The boy talked to me about Genshin.

I went to the sewing machine, win!

I then proceeded to do staystitching with a zigzag stitch instead of a straight one. That won’t do. I tried taking it out but that didn’t work at all, and I found that my new eyes don’t do well with artificial light at all (the trifocals lenses give me halos in bright light and my reading glasses and definitely not the right ones so I gave up.

Then played a quick round of Genshin for, um, two hours before writing this and making a list for today.

Then bed, way too late yet again, yawn.

And yes, the ends are woven in.

I went for a walk:

I took a shower and had lunch:

(Shower not pictured and I’m sorry that there is no alt-text, there is also no time.)

I took a break and played Genshin, then started teaching realizing that I had forgotten to hang up the laundry. But after my first student I had a break and used that to fold two loads of laundry and hang up another one, thinking about the mystery that my husband is the only one of us who does not put his socks in the laundry in pairs. Oh, he also managed to wash one of my compression gloves with the darks and the other one with the whites. No idea why.

There was more teaching and a student who forgot her lesson and texting back and forth about a new slot for a lesson. I used the break to fold more laundry.

One more student who needed a broken string replaced and that took most of his lesson because I don’t do that often and am very, very slow.

Then there was dinner. The boy had done the dishes which was very helpful. I played some Genshin despite having decided I wanted to sew first. The boy talked to me about Genshin.

I went to the sewing machine, win!

I then proceeded to do staystitching with a zigzag stitch instead of a straight one. That won’t do. I tried taking it out but that didn’t work at all, and I found that my new eyes don’t do well with artificial light at all (the trifocals lenses give me halos in bright light and my reading glasses and definitely not the right ones so I gave up.

Then played a quick round of Genshin for, um, two hours before writing this and making a list for today.

Then bed, way too late yet again, yawn.

And now I am short on time, so I won’t write much.

I finished some teaching admin and when I wanted to put everything away it turned out that my filing cabinet is broken. We should be able to fix it but it’s just one more random thing on the list.

I went grocery shopping and ran errands and tried doing admin and paid bills and forgot about laundry.

I taught a handful of students who all felt like they had never played piano before. Which is completely normal after summer break.

Lunch was something easy:

I picked up a package, I started a new quest in Genshin and then my brain locked on to it and didn’t let me go again.

Fingers crossed I will get some better stuff done today.

I’m still exhausted and a little stressed, there is just too much to do.

I woke up early after not sleeping all that well and then dawdled and took ages for my morning pages and meditation.

Ate breakfast with my husband and didn’t even get around to knitting a few rounds which is rare.

I did the dishes and some admin and it hit me that I hadn’t prepared anything for the start of teaching. And then I went out for a walk:

I took a shower and we ate lunch:

I took a break and played some Genshin. And then I sat down to update my list of students and to check the list to see who had paid. I didn’t finish but it was a start. In the middle of that my husband fetched me to help him with the setup in the basement again where I had connected an older tablet so he can teach drums. The adapter I ordered somehow hadn’t worked and the tablet wasn’t charging while plugged in. (The way this kind of connection works is that you have to charge through the adapter.) I ordered another adapter but it might also be the port on the tablet, we’ll see.

I taught my first student, had a bit of free time when the next one didn’t show (we always start a day early and the students often forget because school hasn’t really started yet.

Then it was non-stop teaching until coaching with my New York friend and some chatting. I refilled one of my fountain pens and decided I was too tired to do the rest. I did migrate most things into my new bullet journal because the old one was full and I was getting tired of lugging around two fat notebooks.

I finally ate dinner about an hour later than I would have liked, played some more Genshin while the boy did the dishes and my husband went in and out of the kitchen, then opened the manuscript for ten minutes and started writing this post.

And then I got ready for bed and turned out the lights. I am having a scratchy throat. Fingers crossed that won’t get worse.

I wrote morning pages and meditated for five minutes and talked with my husband and called my mother and then my husband’s aunt. Who then thanked me for such a nice conversation when all I was doing was treading water and making sympathetic noises at her complaints. Which apparently passes for a conversation when you’s 87.

She also keep forgetting that we rented car the last time we visited her because where she lives is even less walkable than the town where my mother lives.

I sorted spinning fiber into new boxes and did not bring them upstairs before lunch because I didn’t want to wake the boy up.

I folded two loads of laundry and hung up an epic load of wool things.

There was lunch:

I listened to my audiobook and played Genshin and played some more and then I set up my older tablet in the basement for my husband’s drum lessons. Which took a while because things were not working as expected. And taught me that the keyboard I had planned to use was just a tad too small so that the iPad kept falling over.

I did the dishes and had dinner.

I played some more Genshin, in fact, I started another quest about 90 minutes before bedtime and finished it half an hour after bedtime. And then I started writing this post, did a very sloppy version of planning the week, brushed my teeth and went to bed.

In between I did some video research about some other aspects of the video game, I am truly hooked at this point.

And today there will be teaching all the students again. I don’t really feel prepared, I have to say.

I didn’t sleep all that well and not enough because of all the junk I ate the day before. Also, playing adrenaline-fueled shooter parts of my favorite video game right before bed might have been a bad idea for sleep. And I forgot my night guards as well, woke up at one point with my teeth hurting. ::facepalm::

Consequentially, I decided to skip morning pages and meditation and started the day in a bit of a mood.

But then I talked with my husband over breakfast and knitted a few rounds on the sock-in-progress, and did some dishes before finally getting out of the house. I spent 45 minutes walking outside while listening to BTS and then I felt somewhat better:

I even wrote a (super bad) blog post on my neglected author blog, hurray!

I took a shower and then it was time for lunch:

Yes, when I came back home the kitchen was deserted and something was frying on high without supervision. No, it was not the chicken breast, that happened later. But it all tasted delicious.

I spent most of my afternoon playing Genshin Impact after having spent some time with my audio book. I’m really enjoying it. The plan for Genshin had been to tackle those pesky realms with the new shooter mechanic that I am so, so bad at but instead I ended up exploring places and doing some quests. There might be a bug in the game because I actually finished that one quest but the game says it’s still locked. Harumph.

Since we had finished watching every episode of ‚Columbo‘ the week before we were a little unsure about what to watch next for our family sessions on Saturdays. I suggested ‚Mobius‘, a fast-paced Chinese crime series. I wasn’t sure how the rest of the family would feel about it. The boy and I really liked it but my husband is still a bit on the fence.

There are some rather ridiculous elements, the hero is very heroic and the action scenes are somewhat exaggerated at times. But it did make the 45 minutes feel rather short and I didn’t really lose interest anywhere in that first episode. I think we’ll watch some more, and if the others don’t want to watch it all I will probably do it on my own.

I then started writing this post, made a list for today (pretty long list I have to say) and didn’t do much else. Since it was the end of summer break husband and I celebrated with some nice Oktoberfest beer so that lowered our energy somewhat.

Today I will need to do all the things! So I can get ready for the start of the school year tomorrow.

Which is funny because I actually did stuff but it turns out my usual exercise does help a lot and calms me down. And boosts my mood.

I might also be a little cranky because it’s the end of summer break, no idea.

There was knitting and the breakfast dishes and I helped a little with chopping things for lunch:

That is parmigiana di melanzane, eggplant with parmesan and mozzarella and boiled eggs and tomato sauce. Since we ate all the bread before the boy had a chance to eat something I then went to the nearby supermarket for more baguette. And some sweets.

Ate all the sweets, read, listened to my audiobook (Ilona Andrew’s „One Fell Sweep“) and then tried to fix the problem that my husband couldn’t access his email.

The good news is that he can now get some of it. The bad news is that I managed to bork the Thunderbird installation so spectacularly that I couldn’t even re-install it. He will have to rely on the mail program that came with the computer.

While I was busy doing that my husband did most of the dishes which was rather helpful.

I had eaten half a bag of potato chips for dinner before the email rescue, so I wrote this post, played some more Genshin, watched a bit of C-drama and went to bed.

Oh, and just before helping my husband with his email stuff I got an email myself saying that I had to change the connection for my trip at the end of the month, so I was busy booking alternative trains and getting even more seat reservations. On the very bright side I finally figured out how to use my train bonus points for those reservations so at least they didn’t cost me extra money. I already had a perfectly fine connection book with all the reservations but no, I had to do that all over again. Fingers crossed that means everything will be going smoothly and on time on the weekend when I’m away.

I might go for a walk today, since I’m not allowed to actually exercise. I hope that will lift my mood.

I went grocery shopping and took a shower, that was mostly it.

I had a super busy day planned yesterday but only got around to about two thirds of the list.

I went running and walking:

We ate lunch:

I spent some time playing my video game and then I sewed for only twenty minutes before sitting down with the boy to order fabric for his costume. At some point I also ordered stuff for my husband.

My hand is getting better slowly, at times I even forget about the bee sting.

I gave my writer friend a piano lesson, and when I was finished my husband told me that the boy had gone to the health food store with not enough money because we’re short on cash right now. August is always a low income month. We do have money in the bank it’s just that we’re running out of coins and banknotes and my husband gave the boy the last of his.

So I went out to meet the boy because the money he had taken was not enough.

Turned out the boy had cash of his on his person and if that hadn’t been enough he would just have used his debit card and I could have reimbursed him.

Well.

It was still nice to meet him at the health food store and to walk to the other supermarket for yogurt.

Then we had dinner, I did the dishes while watching YouTube, I looked at the instructions for this morning again and wrote this post.

Today I’ll have to leave the house without breakfast or tea rather early. The plan is to take the train back from surgery this time because the taxi was super expensive the last time and this time the train is actually running normally, so changing to a bus this time. And the walk to the taxi stand is about the same as to the train platform.

My list for today says I need to mostly chill after getting back home so that sounds doable. I already started listening to the Graphic Audio version of „Sweep in Peace“ and added a ridiculous amount of videos to my „Watch later“-list on YouTube. I would also like to watch some C-drama. That writer friend of mine has started watching „Find Yourself“ and so I’m thinking of watching it for a third time. We’ll see.

Since I need to rest my eyes a bit there won’t be a post at least for tomorrow and then we’ll see.

The boy and I went to the big Dutch fabric market in Dachau yesterday right after breakfast. Well, after breakfast for me, he wasn’t up in time to eat something before we needed to get the train.

We took two trains and a bus and came out on a huge parking lot with lots of fabric vendors. We had a list and very specific ideas what we wanted. Red canvas and some other white cotton fabric for the boy’s costume, some t-shirt fabric, something woven, preferably with flowers in bright colors for a summer dress for me and some fat quarters to make a bucket hat.

Most of what we found were lightweight viscose fabrics, knit fabric in pastels and lots and lots of fleece and sweatshirt fabric. There was some nice upholstery fabric but that was more expensive than we wanted to spend. So we looked at everything but did not find what we were looking for for the boy.

As for my own list, with so many options I felt unable to choose anything and so I decided not to buy anything.

We went looking for the bus back which turned out to be harder than expected and went back to Dachau. Since we were there anyway we decided to walk up to the castle because the boy had never been there before.

It was rather nice and the view was spectacular.

That’s Munich on the horizon, complete with the Olympic Tower.

The plan was to have lunch at the castle. We sat outside and asked for menus that showed more than the coffee and cake menus that were lying on the tables.

The menus came and it turned out that the castle restaurant is really, really expensive. Plus, none of the dishes sounded appealing to me as well. So we ordered some iced chocolate:

Then we walked back to town always looking for a place where we could find something proper to eat but mostly failing until we reached the station and got ourselves some falafel in pita bread. Very yummy:

Even if eating it sitting on the train platform was not the most delightful setting.

We went back home, talked to my husband, then did our thing for a while until we met again for bodyweight training and dinner.

After that I had a Zoom meeting with a writer friend that showed I was pretty tired at this point, did the dishes together, I wrote this post and went to bed.

Today will be the last super packed day this week and then it’s all sitting still and giving myself time to heal until next week.

The boy and I went to the big Dutch fabric market in Dachau yesterday right after breakfast. Well, after breakfast for me, he wasn’t up in time to eat something before we needed to get the train.

We took two trains and a bus and came out on a huge parking lot with lots of fabric vendors. We had a list and very specific ideas what we wanted. Red canvas and some other white cotton fabric for the boy’s costume, some t-shirt fabric, something woven, preferably with flowers in bright colors for a summer dress for me and some fat quarters to make a bucket hat.

Most of what we found were lightweight viscose fabrics, knit fabric in pastels and lots and lots of fleece and sweatshirt fabric. There was some nice upholstery fabric but that was more expensive than we wanted to spend. So we looked at everything but did not find what we were looking for for the boy.

As for my own list, with so many options I felt unable to choose anything and so I decided not to buy anything.

We went looking for the bus back which turned out to be harder than expected and went back to Dachau. Since we were there anyway we decided to walk up to the castle because the boy had never been there before.

It was rather nice and the view was spectacular.

That’s Munich on the horizon, complete with the Olympic Tower.

The plan was to have lunch at the castle. We sat outside and asked for menus that showed more than the coffee and cake menus that were lying on the tables.

The menus came and it turned out that the castle restaurant is really, really expensive. Plus, none of the dishes sounded appealing to me as well. So we ordered some iced chocolate:

Then we walked back to town always looking for a place where we could find something proper to eat but mostly failing until we reached the station and got ourselves some falafel in pita bread. Very yummy:

Even if eating it sitting on the train platform was not the most delightful setting.

We went back home, talked to my husband, then did our thing for a while until we met again for bodyweight training and dinner.

After that I had a Zoom meeting with a writer friend that showed I was pretty tired at this point, did the dishes together, I wrote this post and went to bed.

Today will be the last super packed day this week and then it’s all sitting still and giving myself time to heal until next week.

I did the usual morning routine, did the dishes rather slowly, and then went to the pharmacy to get something for the bee sting on my hand. It was still red, hot, itchy and swollen, and the itchiness is driving me up the wall.

The internet tells me that none of this is cause for concern and that things will be back to normal in a week or two. I seem to be mildly allergic. Or maybe I would be more than mildly allergic if I weren’t taking allergy pills anyway.

The pharmacist sold me some antiseptic ointment that needs to be applied with compresses and will stain everything including my skin yellow.

So far I haven’t used it.

When I asked what I should do about the itchiness he said I should continue to take my allergy meds. The ones that feel like they do nothing but then I have no idea how bad I would feel without them.

Icing the hand does actually help a little and it looks like things are a bit better today, so fingers crossed.

I was late for my walk/run at this point so I just went for a short one. There was a part of me that thought I should skip but I didn’t:

I was in a pretty bad mood for most of the morning and only on my run did I realize that I was a) dreading the sewing project, b) dreading today’s excursion to the fabric market and c) already dreading Tuesday’s cataract sugery.

I took a shower and we had lunch:

And then I played Genshin for longer than I wanted before finally puling out the sewing stuff.

Sewing was not as bad as I feared and I managed about half the skirt before it was time for dinner and the last episode of ‚Columbo‘. By now all the panels are sewn together with unfinished seams. I really hope I can finish the project on Monday.

After watching TV the boy and I started measuring him and figuring out how much fabric we need for his costume. That took two full hours and then I looked up a few patterns that I might want to sew for myself.

Then I wrote this post, made a list for today and packed my bag and went to bed too late.

I skipped yoga and meditation, I did all the dishes from the day before, and I picked up a package from the US. That was a Kickstarter reward I had forgotten about.

And then the whole family went to the slightly fancier restaurant at the other end of town in the heat, phew.

The restaurant was full to bursting at their first day after some time off and service was rather slow. I took the lunch menu, started with an alcohol-free aperitif:

Then a first course of sautéed mushrooms in gorgonzola sauce:

A second course, on hour later ahem, of pasta with fish and chickpeas:

And some frozen, I don’t know, raspberry cheese cake?

Very good but my husband was not really in a good mood, it was too hot, the restaurant as a whole was in a bad mood and we spent a long time sitting around waiting for the next course.

Anyway, I’m happy we went and the food was delicious and we did something as a family, so that counts as a plus.

We walked back home, I took a too long break and then I started cutting out the fabric for the skirt. For the record, it took 90 minutes. That seems a bit excessive for cutting out four pieces but it is what it is.

I ate dinner, the boy and I did bodyweight training, then we talked about Genshin and started planning his Halloween costume, I talked with my husband, opened the manuscript, played some more and went to bed too late.

Fingers crossed that today will bring some actual sewing, let’s see how that goes.

Oh, and my hand is still hot, itchy, red and swollen. I’m trying very hard not to scratch it and it’s driving me up the wall.

I skipped yoga and meditation, I did all the dishes from the day before, and I picked up a package from the US. That was a Kickstarter reward I had forgotten about.

And then the whole family went to the slightly fancier restaurant at the other end of town in the heat, phew.

The restaurant was full to bursting at their first day after some time off and service was rather slow. I took the lunch menu, started with an alcohol-free aperitif:

Then a first course of sautéed mushrooms in gorgonzola sauce:

A second course, on hour later ahem, of pasta with fish and chickpeas:

And some frozen, I don’t know, raspberry cheese cake?

Very good but my husband was not really in a good mood, it was too hot, the restaurant as a whole was in a bad mood and we spent a long time sitting around waiting for the next course.

Anyway, I’m happy we went and the food was delicious and we did something as a family, so that counts as a plus.

We walked back home, I took a too long break and then I started cutting out the fabric for the skirt. For the record, it took 90 minutes. That seems a bit excessive for cutting out four pieces but it is what it is.

I ate dinner, the boy and I did bodyweight training, then we talked about Genshin and started planning his Halloween costume, I talked with my husband, opened the manuscript, played some more and went to bed too late.

Fingers crossed that today will bring some actual sewing, let’s see how that goes.

Oh, and my hand is still hot, itchy, red and swollen. I’m trying very hard not to scratch it and it’s driving me up the wall.

I still had a slower morning than I wanted and when I was drying my night guard something cut me and hurt really badly. I couldn’t quite figure out what happened and thought something sharp must have gotten into the towel but by evening that part of my right hand (of course it’s the right one) was red, itchy, swollen and hot so my guess is it was either a wasp or a bee. I didn’t see anything, so no idea.

I will continue to take my anti-histamine and use some anti-itch gel, I guess.

I did my morning routine and finished a sock:

Then I tried it on, found that it was just a few rounds too short and ripped the whole toe back. As usual that sent my husband into a panic but I’d rather spend some more time knitting than having a sock that pinches my toes.

I did the dishes and biked to the supermarket while my husband started cooking. When I returned he was still assembling everything to put it in the oven.

So I put the groceries away, looked everywhere for my Lightning-to-HDMI adapter, had to conclude that I must have thrown it away and ordered another one.

I got a message that my package couldn’t be delivered and that I should pick it up in a day or so. Which was weird because I didn’t really expect anything, we had been home the whole time and the doorbell was turned on.

But. Then I saw that I would have to pay customs on the package and remembered that there was a physical Kickstarter reward I was expecting.

And I looked at the cutting layout for the skirt I wanted to make.

Then there was lunch and it was delicious:

That’s stuffed peppers from our own garden and some alcohol-free wine that is actually not bad.

By then my afternoon was quite a bit shorter than I would have liked but I still took a break and played a little Genshin. It was all rather frustrating but I persevered.

Eventually I pulled out the ironing board and the fabric for my two sewing projects and pressed the fabric. And then I had only half an hour left to cut the fabric out and the kitchen table wasn’t cleared and there were dishes and so I gave up for the moment.

I taught my student, then spent as long waiting for the next one as their lesson would have been.

When I came back to the kitchen my husband was busy making applesauce. I ate dinner with him peeling apples right next to me. He cooked the sauce, also some red beets and some celery which was all very nice but not conducive to cutting out fabric in the same room.

I mean, I could have cut things out on the floor but I don’t really like it. There is a reason I got myself a cutting mat and a roller cutter.

So I started writing this post in the living room, read my book while waiting for my husband to clear the kitchen, played a bit more, wrote a list for today and went to bed.

It looks like we’ll be going out for lunch today, I’m really looking forward to that. We have been wanting to go out for my birthday for 5 1/2 weeks now, so it’s definitely time.

Fingers crossed I’ll make some significant progress on the skirt today.

I got not quite enough sleep and had another slow morning. I did the morning routine and a lot of thinking about the book I’m reading, „Procrastination Proof“. It is certainly very motivating, we’ll see if it actually makes a difference but, well, it’s never really the book that makes the difference, isn’t it, it’s always me.

It was clear the day would be pretty packed from the start. My husband and the boy wanted to visit my mother-in-law after lunch and had only a very specific time window to do it. And the boy had to get up early for it.

So husband and I talked over breakfast and I even stopped knitting right before finishing the sock so I could get on with my day.

Instead of listening to a YouTube video while doing the dishes I listened to „Clean Sweep“ as an audio book instead because I borrowed that through Audible and have to give it back tomorrow. I got the Graphic Audio version and I really like it. I have a hard time with audio books, normally, because my attention wavers and then I miss big chunks of the text but this is an audio play and I have already read it before. The only thing that is bugging me is the Texan accent of the main character but it really shouldn’t because that character is from Texas.

If I listen to it some more today while doing dishes and such I should get through it, yeah!

I did the dishes and my usual internet rounds and somewhere in between my mother-in-law called me. She had already left a message on the landline voicemail but she also chose to call me on my cell.

Well. Since the others were visiting her anyway she also wanted a) some plum cake, b) some chocolate, and c) a prescription from her doctor.

Sure.

So my husband not only went to the farmer’s market for potatoes, he also went to the bakery for cake and took some of her chocolate. But we couldn’t get her prescription renewed and none of us really believed that she wasn’t getting her blood pressure meds. You aren’t even allowed to bring your own meds, everything goes through the care home. For good reasons.

So I wrote an email to someone from the care home who I hope is the right person to address this and we’ll see.

then I finally went out for a walk/run. A little late because my nose was bleeding:

I had forgotten my hat. And this is how I look when the sun is bright. All the pictures taken of me as a kid in the summer look basically like this, with my eyes barely open because the light is too bright.

I came back home just in time for lunch and the three of us ate together:

That is cucumber from our garden and yes, it it cooked. Yummy.

And then the other two got ready to leave the house while I was reading and taking a break.

I did the lunch dishes and washed the two freezer drawers we had emptied the day before, then got distracted looking for the skirt pattern with some computer admin stuff and then I pulled the rest of the spinning stuff out of a shelf in my studio which means there are now two empty shelves. Hurray!

That was the point at which I really wanted to take the much overdue shower but my husband wasn’t back home yet and he was expecting a student. There was not quite enough time for me to take that shower and be presentable in time to open the door to his student (and often students come in early) so I puttered around some more.

Husband and the boy came back home just in time for husband’s lesson and I went off to finally take my shower when my husband came back and said my student was already there waiting on the steps. She had had another appointment before and was passing our house. She was at that point where it was too late to go back home and come back so she decided to wait for twenty minutes.

So I got dressed again and gave her a lesson. And I played the piano for ten minutes just for fun.

Then my husband asked ,e about the piles of spinning fiber in the annex hallway so I brought most of it upstairs into the attic cupboard. I need a box for the rest so will have to find something.

After that I finally ate dinner, talked some more with my husband while we were folding laundry and wrote this post.

In between I made the second attempt of finding the paper pattern for the skirt I want to make and finally succeeded. It was at the bottom of the „sewing in progress“-box. Which shows you how little I sew, there was a t-shirt pattern on top, then the dress pattern I made twice (no idea how long ago that was), the leggings pattern and finally the skirt.

I did eventually get in the shower and I also opened the manuscript but not for very long. And played some more Genshin because I needed to farm materials that you can only farm on specific days.

And today will be another super full day. Fingers crossed for some actual sewing!

I did my complete morning routine, had breakfast with my husband who was talking about feeling lonely and was not happy that I had planned to spend most of the day away.

I knitted a bit and did the dishes and left the house somewhat later than I wanted.

So I took the train to Munich, got off at Karlsplatz and walked for half an hour to a rather nice café where I had an excellent cheeseburger for lunch:

I read all the way on the train and while eating and was halfway through „Procrastination Proof“ before getting back home.

And then I walked some more to get to the exhibition I wanted to see. About hair and power and all kinds of things.

The exhibition was very good but a bit disconnected they had tried showing many, many facets and that felt a bit too much. And since the rooms were structured along themes, not historical periods or something you had a 17th century painting next to a music video. Not bad but also a bit disjointed.

Another thing that I hadn’t realized was that apparently Tuesday is the day the entrance fee is half off. So there were many, many people there with me, most of them women my age or a little older, most of them in groups of two.

But I did look at everything before going back home. I got lucky, when I arrived at the station there was a late train in my direction just coming in, so that went well.

Everything went smoothly, I dropped by the health food stores on my way back home (I had put the grocery list in my bag when I left the house) and when I returned home my husband was out in the back mowing the lawn. He had been too busy to feel lonely after all and everything was fine.

I sat down for a break, talked briefly with my husband, played a bit of Genshin, helped my husband look through his mother’s part of the freezer and throw away most of the contents, did bodyweight training with the boy where I declared that I had not felt sore at all after the last session only to start feeling the soreness when I did the same exercises again, oops.

Then I ate dinner, talked with the rest of the family again and proceeded to spend hours in Genshin farming materials. I had to pry myself lose at one point because it was past my bedtime already and there was no chance of getting all the materials I needed in a reasonable time.

I then finally wrote my blog post, opened the manuscript for five minutes just so I could say I had worked on it, made a long, long list for today and went to bed.

And then I was super slow, dragging my feet with the morning routine, and just as I was about to finish my morning pages my phone rang and the student of mine who just stopped showing up with no notice was on the line.

Well, the reason they didn’t show up was because they were in the hospital and very sick. But they’re feeling better and were asking about picking up lessons again and will come in on Wednesday. Which makes me very happy because I really like that student.

Because we had talked on the phone for so long I skipped yoga and meditation. Again.

Had breakfast with my husband, knitted a bit, took a few bags of yarn and spinning fiber out of my studio to put them in the attic cupboard and then realized that I would wake the boy up if I brought them upstairs at that point. I measured myself for my sewing projects, did the dishes and figured out that I can probably make this skirt a size smaller than the one I made two years ago. Nice.

And then I went out for a walk/run:

I took the route with more shade but it was still pretty warm. It was also the first longer run since the beginning of August and it felt glorious.

I came back, took a shower and we had lunch:

And then I read and ate all the licorice. I need to stop buying licorice because that stuff isn’t good for you when you have hypertension. 

I then played Genshin for two hours, I did my weekly bosses, and farmed for weapon materials and all that jazz, and then I briefly sat down to review August and set myself goals for September. Well, August didn’t go as planned at all, the only goal I reached was to have successful cataract surgery. But that’s okay, I didn’t know what would happen.

We’ll see how September goes, it looks pretty full already as well with the start of the school year, the second eye surgery and a trip to the family reunion at the end of the month.

But first I will go to Munich today and look at pretty pictures! I’m really looking forward to that.

I did my complete morning routine at least (shh, don’t mention the manuscript) and doing yoga again felt very good.

My husband was in a much better mood because he felt that his mother’s apartment was now in a state that we could let it sit for a while, and when he woke up early he went through all the little pieces of paper of hers that he had taen downstairs to sort through.

Since the boy wants to make a Halloween costume this year I was also busy figuring out what kind of fabric to use and where to get it. Looks like we’ll be going to the fabric market on Sunday. We’ll be doing an excursion! Fun!

And that, of course, also means I will have to make a list of possible future sewing projects so I can get some fabric for myself as well.

I called my mother on the phone and I did the dishes and changed the sheets on my bed and the towels. I looked at the sock-in-progress and the stripes are making me happy:

My mother is very convinced that I won’t be able to do all the things I want to do this week, and was also very sure I wouldn’t be able to do everything I wanted to do yesterday. Well.

I have to admit that I wanted to measure both me and the boy and decided to move that to today. I also thought I would be able to look through my mother-in-law’s paperwork and get a picture of what needs to get done next. I now do know what needs to be done next but that thing is to find all the papers and invoices and file them because her files right now are missing almost everything since the end of 2023. I have seen some envelopes and letters in piles so I guess the next step is to look through all of those and file them.

But.

Other than that I did it all. Ha!

But first we ate lunch:

We had two kinds of alcohol-free wine and one of them was good enough that I ordered six more bottles. My husband had gotten those as a present from a student.

After lunch I ate some licorice and played some Genshin and then I found it very hard to get moving again. Oh, by the way, I also started reading John Acuff’s „Procrastination Proof“ book yesterday. I like his style anyway but I haven’t gotten far into it, so we’ll see.

I did the dishes and cleaned the house and was still wiping down toilets as the boy came downstairs for bodyweight training. Which we then did together. We did the very frustrating 10×3-thing and my muscles were screaming after 2 or 3 of those intervals for every single exercise.

I ate dinner, talked briefly with my husband, and only then did I go hunt for my mother-in-law’s files.

After that I opened the manuscript for twenty minutes, started writing this post, made a list for today and for the week excursions!), did a software update on my laptop and – played some more Genshin.

And then it was definitely time for bed.

So, the plan for the week is to sew a skirt, maybe also a t-shirt, go to Munich to see an exhibition, go to the fabric market, teach two or three students, file all my mother-in-law’s papers, and also – wait for it – declutter, clean and tidy my studio.

Oh, and remember how my husband thought he was done with his mother’s apartment? In the afternoon he found yet another cupboard in the kitchen full of food. There was the bread cutting machine and underneath there were cake mixes and such. None of them were good anymore.

I’ve been longing for unstructured days alone but, well, there are people in the house besides me. I have also been longing to get back to my normal routines but since the boy only went emergency grocery shopping without looking at the list I had to either go to the supermarket before breakfast or eat bread for the fifth day in a row.

So the health food store and skipping yoga it was.

Husband and I started talking over breakfast and had a misunderstanding that triggered all my fears about being penniless, homeless and starving (no, I have never had to go hungry, no idea where that comes from) and then my reaction triggered his sense of doom. Fun times.

I let the rest of my tea go cold and stormed upstairs to declutter my mother-in-law’s bathroom right away. Which took me ninety minutes in total. I have never seen that many jars of wrinkle cream in my life. As with food supplies she has the tendency to stockpile things without having any idea how much of it she actually needs. There were five cans of hairspray, all of them open, and four identical jars of face cream, all of them untouched. Also enough cotton balls for a small army.

All of which made me rather late for everything else. While my husband complained that the decluttering meant he had to clean the bathroom instead of playing around with his new bass. I mean, he could have left the cleaning for another day…

I did the dishes and I went for a very short walk/run:

There was fish for lunch:

I played a bit of Genshin, then went outside again to shop for groceries some more. Three shops, including the one I had been to in the morning but now we should be set until next week.

I hung up a load of laundry and folded another one, helped my husband pour the extra water off the hibiscus where the boy had been a bit overenthusiastic with the watering, talked with husbad on and off and then helped him move a door from the garage to his mother’s apartment. His parents had taken the living room door off the hinges decades ago to give the apartment a more open feel and husband and I both think that was a bad idea because that means you’re basically trying to heat the stairwell in winter. There is another door there but we both think it might be a good idea to be able to close the door to the living room.

Then I finally ate dinner and read some more in „Swordcrossed“. I’m really enjoying it so far.

Then I procrastinated taking a shower for an hour or two, finally made it, started writing this post, made a list for today, played some more Genshin and went to bed.

In between I also put everything in my budget app, and moved the date for my mammography from the day I’ll be traveling to Schwerin to a week later.

Things continue being a bit much, let’s see how today goes.

And then we began the process of packing and getting ourselves back home.

The first train was only a few minutes late, everything was fine. And then when I looked at the information for the second train I was very confused to read that half the train would be missing and that it was expected to be super crowded. And, of course, the car our reserved seats were on – would not make the trip.

Ack!

So I booked yet another set of seats, this time on a train an hour later.

We had quite some time to eat lunch in Hannover:

And to acquire snacks for dinner.

And only hours later did I see that I had an email about the train we should have taken where they informed us that they had booked us different seats on the same train. I didn’t know that could happen. And it never showed in the train app, the one that I get all my info from.

So we came back home an hour later than expected but we arrived on time even though the train had left twenty minutes late from Hannover. It was then rerouted to make it faster. I had never have that happen before as well.

We were reunited with the boy, sat around a bit, talking and I turned the heel on the sock.

I finished the last novel in the Freya Marske trilogy on the train, „Unbound“, and loved it so much that I decided I also needed to read „Swordcrossed“ and then found out the ebook was only 1.17 €, ha!

So far I like it.

Today there will be all the Saturday things plus grocery shopping because the boy didn’t look at the list and now we don’t have any yogurt at all. And I want some for my muesli in the morning.

And my mother wasn‘t doing much better, at one point the two of us were so unfocused and confused that we drove my husband slightly nuts. ::shrug::

I did get another night of 8 1/2 hours of sleep. The weather was rather hot and humid all day but there was nothing to be done.

We started the day with another walk to the grocery store to get buns and return some bottles. Also we bought some chocolate, for my husband this time.

There was breakfast. We had taken care to be a little earlier because my mother expected someone to help her take a shower. Well, that person came much earlier than usual, so she had to abandon her coffee mid-meal.

Afterwards we went grocery shopping, this time for my mother. She wanted to go to the store where she usually shops and that one is a bit farther away. Everything took longer than expected, as always.

Back at my mother‘s apartment my husband and I cooked lunch. No conflict, no nothing. Turns out when you have a kitchen with ample counter space where the sink and the stove are not right next to each other cooking together becomes much easier.

There was lunch:

Lamb, chickpeas, veggies and rice. Very nice. And some ice cream for dessert.

Then we all took a break and husband and I went back to our apartment. We returned to my mother about 90 minutes later and set out to go to a small lake nearby.

By then it was really hot and my mother was starting to wilt a little. But we still went, had some coffee at a cafe near the lake sitting outside and I drank my first ever chocochino. Yes, that was hot chocolate and coffee together, very tasty. It reminded me of the days at uni when we used to draw one hot chocolate and one coffee into a big mug at the cafeteria. I don‘t usually do coffee but was intrigued, and I liked it.

Then my husband and I walked all around the small lake, and husband went in for a swim.

We met up with my mother again who had walked around a bit outside the cafe and went back to her place.

Then we ate dinner, got back to the apartment, talked quite a bit, I started writing this post and mentally prepared myself for packing and the way back and went to bed.

And today we‘ll be on trains all day again. And if things go well we‘ll be back home tonight.

I did get enough sleep but it didn‘t really help with the energy.

We got up pretty late and I skipped yoga again. And then we went to my mother‘s where we were met by four people in front of the door, one of which was my mother, drawing us into a conversation about which plant in the flower beds was the weed and which was the flower that needed to remain. My husband was asked about his opinion as well, and confirmed that yes, that was goutweed, a weed that you need to pull out as deeply as you possibly can, and yes, those nice little blue flowers should remain.

At my mother‘s place we met her cleaning woman who was almost done with cleaning and was sitting down for a chat. So we learned everything about her big family. I actually like her and really did want to know but maybe not at the length and volume before I‘ve had breakfast.

We had breakfast, we wandered back to our apartment and spent some quiet time, then went back to go out for lunch.

The Chinese restaurant we went to was very nice, as always, and I ate way too much from the excellent buffet. We went with my mother and aunt and it was actually fun. I did not manage to take pictures of all my food, so here is my first course:

We went back to my mother‘s place via the recycling place to get rid of some electronic devices my mother didn‘t need anymore, and we went grocery shopping for today‘s lunch.

More quiet time in the afternoon, then a walk through the cemetery, where I failed to find any family graves, and then we passed my parents‘ former house. My husband hadn‘t visited for years and wanted to greet our old haunts.

Then dinner with my mother, some quiet time scrolling and gaming, then I started this post and went to bed not long after.

We did sleep reasonably well, picked up some raisin buns and bread on our way and had breakfast with my mother.

The original plan was to go out for Chinese food for lunch but the place is closed on Tuesdays. So we moved things around and decided to hop on a train to Muenster for book research. I‘m writing a series of romance novels that are set there. It is also a rather nice city to walk around in, so that‘s what we did. At length.

We ate schnitzel for lunch:

We walked around some more, ate some ice cream, got tired of walking around but still walked some more, looked at the castle, and at a lake with some sailing boats, realized that the train we wanted to take was canceled and thought we‘d just take the next train to the town where we needed to change trains anyway.

So we walked around some more and looked at nice old buildings, then walked back to my mother‘s place where we met my very chatty aunt, had dinner and then went back to our own apartment for the evening.

We‘re done with trains for now, at least. Though I have to say I got a ton of reading in with all that sitting on trains for two days.

The train ride was uneventful and most of our trains were right on time, even. I found the train rides pretty boring and read half a novel.

We brought our own lunch, my husband insisted:

We arrived only five minutes late and walked to the apartment we have rented for the week. And I finally figured out why it seems as if no one ever expects us at the place we are staying at, they are looking for people arriving by car, not on foot.

We went over to my mother‘s, my husband hadn‘t seen her apartment yet and we had a nice dinner of bread and cheese.

Then we went to the nearby supermarket for chocolate, licorice and alcohol-free beer:

Very nice.

We watched a bit of soccer, I played my video game for a bit while my husband was playing his guitar and that was it for the day.

We were both super tired in the end.

I then had a super slow morning which led to me skipping yoga again.

There was breakfast and the realization that I had knitted 15 rounds more on the leg of the sock-in-progress than I had wanted. Because it turned out I had miscounted rounds on the first sock. And then it turned out my husband actually likes shorter cuffs on his socks. Good to know.

I talked to my mother on the phone but only briefly because we’ll meet in person today, and then I helped a little with making lunch. Which was late. I should maybe stop calling it that because by now we might be hitting a new regular lunchtime:

The thing that is not on this photo are the bell peppers stuffed with feta cheese. They weren’t ready in time, and words were exchanged about the fact that we always have to eat the baked potatoes cold because my husband always starts cooking with making those. And he only put the peppers in the oven after the potatoes were done.

The boy really liked them, apparently.

All throughout the day I was putting more stuff on the pile of things I wanted to take with me. The last tasks were to refill shampoo and conditioner and put all my medication in my bag, and charge all the things. A task that went on all the way until this morning.

My husband decided that he didn’t want to eat in the dining car on the way because the boy had had a train without one last week. But that was a completely different kind of train, and also we’ll be having ample time to get food somewhere when changing trains. But no. So he did some more cooking.

I packed everything up, it all fits in my small 16 liter backpack, even my purse and the knitting project. I did not manage to start said project so I guess I’ll do that today on the train.

Talking with my husband made me feel weird for not taking more things. I should pack the ukulele! And another change of clothes! And some running gear! And bigger toiletries!

But no, I can wash stuff if I need to, I can also wear the leggings and t-shirt I’m taking as pajamas in a pinch and things will be fine. I am taking more stuff than I did in April, not only did I add the tablet computer back in (which adds another kilo of weight) I am also taking all this contact lens stuff and two kinds of eye drops. Well, needs must.

In the evening I gave my writer friend a piano lesson over video call, then met the boy for bodyweight training, ate dinner, hung around reading for a while, then finally took a shower, started writing this post, made a list for today, spent a little time revising, and went to bed.

And now we’re off to Northern Germany while the boy is taking proper care of the house.

It was the usual thing, I had been pushing a list of things that need to be done from day to day, and today is the hard deadline. Because we’ll be traveling tomorrow.

So. I did go to bed an hour late but slept for a little over eight hours again. Score! Of course that made me late in the morning. I still did my complete morning routine, not manuscript time, though.

There was breakfast with one of those conversations that husband and I both would have loved to have skipped, we’re both a bit stressed at the moment.

I did the breakfast dishes, sorted recycling, folded a load of laundry and hung up part of another one and then, just as I wanted to go out for my walk/run there was a thunderstorm.

I’m not dumb enough to run through the woods in that on purpose. But my husband had just come back from his run and said that the storm was passing us to the south. If I waited for ten minutes I would be good.

Well, I did get rained on a bit but he was right, no thunder and lightning, phew:

When I came back we were already late with lunch but there was still time to take a shower before eating:

This was the rest of the lamb from the other day (the boy got tomato sauce only) and pasta from my mother-in-law’s pantry. We still had leftover capellini from another day, so there is a lot of leftover pasta in the fridge right now.

My husband had spent most of the morning and all of the afternoon going through his mother’s kitchen. Several weeks in he is still finding more perishables. And we haven’t even gotten started on the freezer but that will keep a bit longer.

I did help him a little with decisions, and I also advised him to just put all the bits of paper into a box to look at later. It is important to get all the spoiled food out of the house but if we look at the papers this week or not doesn’t make much of a difference.

After lunch I sat down to play some Genshin again and came away extremely frustrated having failed spectacularly fighting the same boss as the day before. In the end I gave up and handed the boy the controller. Who determined that the problem was a) I was using the wrong weapon, b) said weapon wasn’t leveled up enough, and c) the controls on the controller make playing that kind of fight extra hard.

Anyway, he did manage to slay the boss for me, phew.

I did more dishes, carried all of my mother-in-law’s paperwork back into her living room and put it in neat piles, preparing to sort it later.

But.

I also was determined to do at least a cursory cleaning of the house. I had vacuumed the old part before (thought it was already looking dirty again) and my husband had said he’d do the annex. But he was so tied up in all the decluttering that I just took the vacuum and ran it through the middles. And I cleaned the washbasins and toilets, phew.

Meanwhile my husband did a second round through the garden to show the boy what and how to water.

And then we all met for dinner and the penultimate episode of ‚Columbo‘. I had high hopes for this one about a composer and conductor for the movies but it did have some lengths.

After that my husband took over the kitchen to make baba ganush from the eggplant he grilled the day before while I sat in the living room at my dedicated writing desk and started writing this post. I also did a teensy bit of revision, made a list for today and played more Genshin.

I did not refill my travel toiletries and have reached the stage of packing where it feels like it will never come together. I have a big untidy pile of things on the spare bed and need to compare that to my list. I also need to move stuff around from my purse. I’m not quite sure if I should take the purse or a lighter and smaller sling. I will definitely not lug everything around that is my everyday carry.

So, today is packing day. And started the travel knitting day. But we already decided against making wine jelly and apple sauce. There is just no time.

I did get enough sleep, and that did me good but also made me sluggish again.

I wrote half-hearted morning pages and skipped yoga and meditation. I ate breakfast with my husband and knitted a few rounds on the current sock, cut my husband’s hair, and then went online before doing the breakfast dishes around noon.

And only then did I brush my teeth.

Husband had planned to fire up the grill for lunch but only after doing some more decluttering perishables in his mother’s kitchen and going for a run.

So lunch was rather late. I did help a bit with sorting, washing and chopping ingredients.

We actually did eat outside even though it was raining pretty heavily at this point. Good thing we have two outside seating areas with roofs over them, one house the grill and the other one our table:

It was cozier than it sounds.

After that I read for a bit, ate some chocolate, and then played a quest in Genshin Impact until it was too late to vacuum before my one student of the day.

Teaching was nice and then the boy and I were supposed to meet for bodyweight training. He asked if it was okay to move it back 15 minutes which gave me the perfect opportunity to vacuum the apartment.

Then I ate dinner, asked the boy to do the dishes and played some more Genshin. I tried that one boss three frustrating times and failed and decided to call it a day.

I started writing this post, made a list for today and went to bed at a reasonable time.

I also finished reading „A Restless Truth“ by Freya Marske and really liked it. And started the next book in the series right away. And I charged my power bank and my ebook reader to prep for our trip.

Oh, and I started revising book 1 in the new Urban Fantasy series. Very exciting!

I came back at lunchtime and my husband was still right in the middle of cooking. We both chopped basil and grated parmesan like crazy but lunch was still late. I was very sure I had taken a picture of our capellini with pesto Genovese but apparently I had not.

There was mint chocolate, a little reading, some video game playing, and then a lot of emotional conversation, not my favorite.

I got ready to teach my one student of the day only to see that she had canceled.

My husband went through his mother’s pantry some more, there are so many things there and most of them aren’t good to eat anymore.

I decided that I needed some emotional support potato chips for dinner, so I walked to another supermarket for that and licorice, and ate that for dinner. I continue to be very proud that I only ate half the bag of chips.

I played some more Genshin and got some help and shooter game lessons from the boy, started writing this post a little later than I wanted and went to bed.

In between other things I continued to make a pile of stuff that I need to pack for next week. I think I have pretty much everything now, I only need to refill my tiny shampoo and conditioner tubes. And add the second notebook, of course, and the fountain pen.

I’m hoping today will be more grounded and productive.

Since I slept in I skipped yoga and meditation, husband and I had a leisurely breakfast, and then I just couldn’t get myself going.

I did eventually get outside for a walk/run:

The weather was gorgeous and too hot again:

It was rather hot but I am pretty happy with my fitness. I am slowly vamping up again, though that will mean doing easy training until next week, then a week off, more easy training for a week and then – a break for the second cataract surgery.

Well, it is what it is.

Husband had been out running (and swimming) as well and so lunch was rather late. He cooked it in the tajine again, and it was delicious:

I read for a bit and knitted a little, and then talked with the boy while he ate his lunch before following my husband’s suggestion to go out for ice cream. Which meant a nice short walk, then sitting outside on a bench while eating and talking about the boy’s time with my mother and a leisurely stroll back.

After that the boy and I talked about Genshin and he cleared some endgame levels for me and answered all my many questions.

Meanwhile my husband had started cleaning his mother’s fridge. Which turned out to be a bigger task than he thought. And then we realized that there was a whole big drawer of baking ingredients underneath the fridge. So I looked through that as well and threw most of it away because it was no longer good.

I mean, I sympathize with owning five bags of grated almonds and four packets of grated chocolate more than I used to because I tend to buy ingredients for Christmas cookies every year and then I don’t actually bake them. But we usually go through what we have before buying more.

And most importantly: only one bag or packet is every opened at a time, and when something expires we throw it away.

There was a newspaper clipping in that drawer about which ingredients can be used even after their best by-date expires.

And then it was time to tick the rest of my list off: wind a skein of sock yarn into a ball, deal with the three pieces of paperwork for my mother-in-law that are urgent and fold all the laundry.

I had already finalized my packing list for next week in the morning and had spent some time throughout the day putting stuff I want to take with me on a dedicated pile.

I then played some more Genshin and went to bed.

Huh, it felt like a day where I didn’t get anything done but in hindsight that’s just not true, isn’t it?

I did have to get up almost an hour earlier than usual because we wanted to visit my mother-in-law before her (rather early) lunch at the care home.

I did my morning routine (we’re not talking about writing at the moment, there is just too much else) anyway, we packed everything we needed (husband was showing up saying, „I just realized we can’t take the basket I used for all the stuff we want to bring her“ just as I was stuffing it all in my backpack) and left.

There are construction shenanigans on the local train lines again but that didn’t really affect us. The transportation app told us to take two busses because it was the fastest route so I fiddled with the settings until it gave me the option to just take two trains, even if that meant four whole minutes more travel time. Also a 20-minute walk on the end but we could have taken another bus there as well.

We visited her, we talked, I got her to sign some stuff so I can send it off soon and then we went on a hunt for her debit card.

I distinctly remember puting her debit card into a wallet-thing of hers together with her health insurance card. Later we realized that we need that card to do banking stuff for her but all she might need is cash. If that.

So we went through her whole room four times. We asked the staff (everybody so far has been super friendly and helpful), no one knew anything.

Anyway, we walked away from there afraid that we had made a decision that meant she lost her card. Or maybe someone stole it.

We decided against. calling in at her bank, and while I went to the health food store my husband went home to see if maybe, against all odds because I remember putting the card in her luggage and I don’t remember taking it out again, the card might be home after.

Well.

The card was at home.

Phew.

All throughout that panic the boy was texting me about his train ride back home. As expected a plan that meant five trains all would have to be more or less on time was not working.

While we were still on trains ourselves he found that he would have to change trains and asked for help with paying for yet another seat reservation.

That time he did specify that he wanted to have at least 20 minutes to change trains.

And he needed them. He also opted to wait for another train two hours later because it was supposed not to be so crowded and eat lunch at a random train station somewhere.

That was a good choice because there unexpectedly was no dining car on his train. When he wanted to sit down in his reserved seat there was a woman sitting there telling him that seat reservations were void on that train. Which wasn’t true.

Fun!

Anyway, at one point one of the new trains was a little over half an hour late but he still managed to catch the next one.

My huband cooked and we ate lunch rather late:

After that we had a short break before tackling my mother-in-law’s fridge. Phew again. That woman had more food in her fridge than we do.

We did manage to get most of the trash into the bins and some special trash bags that we had to buy that mean they will actually get picked up.

Then my husband taught a student and I had a bit of a break, we ate dinner, then the boy came back home, finally, but he didn’t really want to talk to anyone, my husband started the dishes in an attempt to help me get to bed on time, I started writing this post, ma a list for today and went to bed.

Thunk!

especially since the running happened in a thunderstorm in the woods. The center of the storm was not where I was, fortunately.

There was an easy lunch:

omelette, rice, leftovers and zucchini.

Lots of Genshin, talking with my friend instead of a piano lesson, and a not quite as late bedtime.

And now I’m off to visit my mother-in-law.

I went to bed at a somewhat reasonable time and slept well for eight hours, phew. I did my morning routine but shortened the yoga to 5 minutes.

Breakfast with my husband and lots of talking, mostly about the visit from his friends on Friday. I finished a sock:

The pattern is a mix of the Vanilla Princess pattern by Anneh Fletcher and the GumGum sock. I’m using three different leftover yarns and the GumGum-technique helps to wrangle the yarns for those one-row stripes.

It is a super fiddly project, though. Especially with wonky eyes. But I’m very curious how the sock will wear, all those purl stitches at the heel and on the bottom of the foot should make it smoother to wear.

I went online a bit and called my mother on the phone, more talking.

Then I did the dishes while listening to a YouTube video, my husband started cooking and I took care of recycling.

Lunch was nice and easy but there wasn’t enough salt for my taste:

After lunch I read a bit and then I played a lot of Genshin. And failed. A lot.

I then had dinner with my husband, made a plan for the week, started writing this post, did some quick research regarding some paperwork, played a little more and went to bed.

And now for a brand new week!

Though, I did change the sheets on my bed, changed the towels, did some important paperwork for my mother-in-law and have a better understanding of all the different utilities, insurances and such she pays for. Not too bad.

There was also a lot of talking and I did not exercise or anything, it was way too hot.

There was lunch:

The mangetout are from our garden and that is duck breast.

I spent the afternoon playing again and had a pretty frustrated experience in part. I also made some major progress.

And I finally started the toe on the sock that I’m knitting.

The plan was to watch some C-drama in the evening but I procrastinated so long that there wasn’t any time left.

Fingers crossed I’ll feel more like a proper human being today.

The plan was to do some cleaning and change the sheets but first I needed to get groceries. Today is a public holiday here, so everything is closed. And I couldn’t go on Thursday because of the doctor’s appointment.

My replacement pen came. The Lamy duo that lives with my Bullet Journal broke. The ballpoint cartridge was empty and when I took it apart to see which new one I needed something got stuck and the whole mechanism didn’t work anymore. Maybe seven years of daily use is enough.

I do love that pen, though, and so I ordered a new one.

I walked to the supermarket in the heat and bought very few things. We really feel that the boy isn’t home at the moment, we need fewer groceries, of course.

My husband went running and made lunch:

You can’t really see them but there are cherry tomatoes from our yard in there.

The plan was to play my game, change the sheets, take a shower and maybe start cleaning a bit. And all of that before my husband’s friends came over in the afternoon.

Well, I did play. And I managed a shower.

My husband’s friends came in the afternoon and while I did say hello I didn’t talk to them much until we were headed out for dinner. We went to the nice Greek restaurant that we discovered some weeks ago. We never used to go there because they don’t open for lunch on weekdays. Well, turns out when you go in the evening you really should make a reservation beforehand.

But they were super nice and found us a table. The food was fabulous:

My husband and I shared dessert:

We went back home, the three of them made a bit of music and I played some more Genshin. I actually finished the new quest some time around 11.

There was some more talking with our guests and then I went to bed.

I’m pretty sure that today will be completely unproductive, I haven’t slept well or long enough, it’s super hot again and so I’m moving very slowly.

I had another eye doctor appointment but this time it was late enough that I didn’t have to rush breakfast. The eye looks good, the new lens is exactly where it needs to be and I’m cleared for exercise if I don’t overdo it.

My husband had taken the train in the other direction and had gone to a lake for a swim and lunch.

I made myself frozen pizza. After six minutes I checked and found the pizza a little pale. So I set a timer for two minutes and started reading.

At one point I realized that those two minutes were very long.

Because I had set the timer for two hours instead:

It still tasted fine but, wow.

I played a little, my husband came back, I did the dishes and we set off to the recycling place.

It was way too hot so I was dragging my. feet and I had a student coming and was afraid I’d be late getting back. Husband and I were both low on energy and didn’t really want to haul stuff around by bike so that did not go all that great.

But, we did get some stuff out of the house and purchased two extra trash bags to be filled with some of the useless junk that is still cluttering the house.

I taught my student which was very nice, that was my first time touching a piano and singing anything since the last day of school.

Then I ate a third of a bag of chips for dinner and had some licorice, started writing this post, texted everyone who had texted me back, made a (long) list for today, played some more Genshin and started a list of things I want to do next in-game and went to bed.

It’s funny, I just saw a video from Ryder Carrol about an ultra-simple way of doing the Bullet Journal and it is lovely but I’m still filling mine with all the lists and all the to-dos. Though I keep thinking about whether to include my routine tasks every day or not. But I find it much easier to check them off each day than to go to my habit tracker.

So I guess I’ll just continue doing what I’m doing.

Today will be another over the top busy day but the weekend should be a little better. Fingers crossed.

On the plus side there was no summer break paralysis at all so far…

Since there was a major Genshin update I was already in the game first thing. I also pulled for the new character, Odette, and got her and a couple of others, very nice.

Husband had an early dentist’s appointment that I had forgotten about so that didn’t really mesh well.

I did the usual morning things, then went out to run get my husband a new phone plan. I ended up having to walk all the way to the other end of town because the first shop was all out but then found what I needed and walked all the way back in the midday heat.

I had also planned to figure out some admin stuff concerning my mother-in-law but ran out of steam.

Husband made us delicious lunch:

And then I finally sat down to play Genshin for real.

I wasn’t sure if I had a student or not, our communication wasn’t clear the last time, so I took a shower and waited a bit but they didn’t show.

I did some tech stuff and got the phone running, then talked to husband, hung half a load of laundry, played a little more and ate dinner. I also troubleshooted my earbuds that aren’t charging properly. At one point I was convinced I’d need to go to the store and have them looked at today but it seems they’re working again. Maybe the troubleshooting helped.

And then it was time for the solar eclipse.

Well.

We had the proper glasses and some alcohol-free champagne at the ready but then I found there was no place in the house or garden where we could actually see the sun.

We thought the annex roof might be a good idea, so we scrambled up there. I felt very heroic because I don’t do heights well but husband helped me and held the ladder.

And…

That was still not hight enough. There is an apartment complex across the street that made seeing the actual sun impossible.

Husband took the chance to clear leaves of the roof, we clambered down again and the switched between watching the live stream from Munich on YouTube and going outside to watch the light change.

We should have prepared better but we didn’t and it was okay.

I started writing this post and played some more before going to bed.

And today I’ll be mostly on the move. I will even brave riding my bike very slowly. My vision in both eyes should be good enough and I’ll ask the eye doctor beforehand because I’m having an appointment in the morning.

I had gone to bed at 10 and did not sleep well and woke up early.

Talked with husband, went to one town over because my attempt at renewing my allergy meds prescription had failed. Or so I thought.

Renewed prescription, went back, ran all the errands, talked with husband some more and had lunch:

I played a little Genshin Impact and made all the mistakes, then finally filled out the care grade application and some other paperwork, did some research in between, talked a lot with my husband, texted quite a few people, talked with my writer friend over video call, ate dinner with my husband, sent that application off by email – finally – started writing this post, tried doing some more stuff and failed and went to bed.

I did go to Munich and met with a friend which was nice, we only ever see each other once a year or so.

All in all a Monday that had definite Friday vibes, weird. I still didn’t manage to reach someone at my mother-in-law’s care home, sadly enough, so I’ll try again today.

There was lunch:

And plum tarte at a café in Munich:

And I’m very much hoping to catch a breath today.

I still haven’t done any yoga or anything, even though I did bookmark some that I could do right now.

My husband and I had planned to do something together today and tomorrow. Turned out he thought we’d bike through the heat. I’m a bit sorry but I had to disappoint him. I am not biking anywhere at the moment, I’m doing fine with my eyes but walking down stairs is already taking a lot of focus I don’t think I should get on a bike and navigate the world at that speed. And definitely not in the heat we’re having at the moment.

He didn’t take it well.

I talked to my mother on the phone at length which made me late for doing the dishes that I had pushed to the morning and when I came back to the kitchen my husband had already done them.

He is working like a madman right now, he is going through his mother’s stuff and the garage is already full. We will need to get more trash bags, the ones that the city will actually pick up, soon.

There was pasta with zucchini for lunch. The garden might be dry and neglected but there are still zucchini:

This time I did the dishes right after lunch, then played a bit of Genshin and became super frustrated with a thing where you have to fly through hoops. I tried six time or so before I stopped for the day. The boy has given me pointers, though, so I’m thinking it should go better the next time.

I planned the week and realized I was hung up on the whole ‚if we had a cancelation would you be interested in having your second eye done next week“-thing. So I made a plan and wrote at the top that I would just cancel everything in case that happens. Which would be awesome.

Then I tackled my mother-in-law’s voicemail and phone. I listened to all her voicemail, I called one of her friends to give her the new phone number and I changed the recording to tell people why they couldn’t reach her under this number anymore. Phew.

I started catching up on my year-long projects, I am reading „War and Peace“ with priority and I decided to just skip three weeks or so from the book that gives you a piece of classical music every day. I have gone through this list before and so I’m not catching up on that one.

My husband installed his father’s old loudspeakers in my room because they are better than mine, very nice.

And then I met my writer friend on Zoom for a chat.

Today I’m going to Munich (in the heat) to meet at friend that I’m only seeing once a year. It looks as if normal train service has resumed which would be super awesome and make my life much easier.

Oh, and there will be more phone calls and paperwork in the morning as well, great.

We ate breakfast, I did the breakfast dishes and took a shower. There was more paperwork and decisions to make about some of my mother-in-law’s stuff and such.

We ate a very quick lunch, potato salad from the day before and some bratwurst:

Yes, the brats spent a little too long in the frying pan.

My brother-in-law showed up, he and husband loaded one of my mother-in-law’s dressers into his van and we went to see her at the care home. The home is rather nice. She is still very confused but actually looking better than before. She is getting four meals per day, and all the people who live on her floor eat together. I think that does her good.

We went on a walk around the block to a nearby park, even though it was very hot. She still does well when walking but has a hard time getting up and sitting down again.

We talked to two people working there about the paperwork and got the number of someone who I can ask on Monday, we sorted some stuff, my brother-in-law set up his mother’s TV so there is a chance of her finding the channels she wants to see.

We also hope that she’ll figure out her phone, she needs to dial a 0 first, then the area code and the actual number. Because the care home is in a different area but I’m not sure she understands that.

She also has a nice tower fan in her room but she didn’t realize what it was and how to turn it on and off. Same with the electric blinds.

We came back home, I walked to the mailbox to send a letter for my mother-in-law that I had forgotten for days (which reminds me that I need to check her voicemail as well), I took a break, I played Genshin, I ate dinner, I talked with my husband a few times, started writing this post, did the dishes and went to bed.

In between I texted wth the boy and my sister. It’s all very new for him. My sister went back home and was pretty happy to be back in her own home with her feet up and some nice pizza in the evening.

I am very exhausted.

The boy had to get ready early to catch a train to visit my mother. Because of construction just getting to Munich took him twice as long as usual. But we are very experienced train travelers so we booked with ample buffer.

Or so we thought.

Here at home we talked, I helped the boy squeeze everything he needs for 3 weeks into our biggest backpack, waved him goodbye, had breakfast, answered another phone call from my brother-in-law that turned my day from a rest and decompress day into another paperwork, admin and people-day, went grocery shopping (only the light stuff because I’m not allowed to lift heavy at the moment) and had lunch:

Meanwhile the boy decided that a walk, a train, a bus, and another train would be the best route to the main train station. He was right but the last train was so full that he had to take the next one. Not a problem at this point, he still had about 40 minutes of buffer at this point.

Lunch:

The excellent leberkas was a recommendation from the cashier at the health food store who saw me with the last limp package of the prepacked sort, that was looking rather pale and sad and pointed me towards the in-house butcher. I don’t usually go there because you have to speak to a human being to buy there but I did it and it was totally worth it.

And I had a flash thinking about my teenage self. She would never have thought that a situation where I was totally fuzzy and spaced out and had trouble finding the right change and making a decision about meat products could be rather nice and personable with everyone feeling a little better afterwards.

Meanwhile the boy had reached the main train station with almost an hour to spare, hurray!

But – plot twist – the train he was supposed to take skipped Munich altogether. He had to find another one. And the next one, two hours later was completely booked out.

Since he was early he was able to take another train going another route. He was rather scared his ticket wouldn’t be valid but it was. We tried to book him seat reservations for the new route but no luck. And he’d have to change trains more often and would arrive a little later.

Okay.

He got on a train to Mannheim and got a free seat, yeah! That train got later and later and later as well. He changed trains again, to a later one than expected. And had to stand on the train. For hours. He did stand in the dining car (there is a ‚bistro‘ part) and got himself something to eat and a beer. Even though he doesn’t like beer.

Missed the next train. And the next, I think, but at some point I lost track.

Anyway. He arrived 90 minutes later than expected. With all the buffer and missed trains the trip took him 10 hours. A trip that should have taken roughly 8.

On the bright side he got there safe and sound, just a little late.

While I was texting back and forth with the boy I was also busy filling out more paperwork for my mother-in-law. My husband has been decluttering and tidying her stuff upstairs non-stop since the day before. Mostly the kitchen but also some other things. And this will take a while.

A lot of the paperwork I’m filling out right now sadly doesn’t have a „I don’t know“ or a „what is this thing even?“-option. Adobe Acrobat does weird stuff to everything I try to print out. Turns out the PDF-viewer inside my browser does better than that.

At one point it became really clear that I need way more rest than that. Especially with all the reading and writing I’ve been doing. So at around 5.30 I plunked myself down in front of TV, ate a ton of junk food and watched first YouTube and then some C-drama. I didn’t even knit.

And then I procrastinated the dishes. Of course.

Started writing this post, did the dishes anyway and went to bed.

And today will bring: a visit to the care home, and more paperwork. Meh.

And my new yarn arrived and turned out to be DK instead of 4-ply sock yarn. Oops, not what I wanted but I’ll find a use for it nonetheless.

The boy came home from his exam, construction on the train lines had sent him all over the place. He did okay, ate lunch and crashed so that I had to wake him up so he could pack for his trip today.

My eyes are doing fine but would appreciate more rest and I am very, very tired. Despite getting adequate sleep several nights in a row.

I took the bandage off yesterday morning rather early, made myself breakfast and braved trains and busses. I needed sunglasses all the way but was fine otherwise. This was me in the afternoon after surgery on Tuesday:

Today is the day we’re moving my mother-in-law to a care home, also the boy has an exam and needs to pack for tomorrow’s trip to my mother. He goes from caring for one grandmother straight to caring for the other one. He is packing for a maximum of three weeks but all of us (including my mother) hope that he won’t be needed that long.

I still have a rest my eye, so way less screens than usual. I started listening to the dramatized version of „Clean Sweep“ and am liking it, though the (I assume) Texas accent of a lot of the characters needed a bit of getting used to.