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.

I did my morning routine and wandered off my morning pages constantly, I did some yoga and meditated for five minutes and then had breakfast with my husband who was all excited because his new bass guitar was supposed to arrive. We also were both a bit stressed because of all the things that need doing and today’s cataract surgery. Mine, that is.

We moved our running and his errands around so that one of us would always be home, and he let me go first with my run because it was another super hot day and I don’t do well in the heat. We both only went for 30 minutes each, it was that kind of day:

Yes, it was very hot. I walked for most of my last running interval because my legs felt way heavier than usual.

I came back home, took a shower and went off to the supermarket and the health food store. Having my hair wet actually helped even though it did not look very sophisticated.

On my way back my phone rang. I thought my husband was trying to reach me so I could add some things to the grocery list but no, my brother-in-law called to say that he had a place in a care home for my mother-in-law! And she could move in basically right away.

Woot!

It will be very pricy. No idea what we’ll do in the long run but right now this would be such a relief. Brother-in-law said he can probably help her move in on Thursday, that he is swamped at work at the moment but hopes to have a bit of time then.

Earlier that morning my husband had called the part of health insurance that is responsible for care grades and got all the forms.

helped chop a few things for lunch:

I took a break, I read a bit, I played a little and then my husband showed up with some requests for copies, I was completely fuzzy, had forgotten that my mother-in-law’s health insurance card was still lingering in my purse from when I went to the doctor for her and almost sent him on a wild goose chase, emotions got high and hilarity ensued.

Just before my brother-in-law had sent me another list of paperwork that needs to be provided and found and figured out.I had to look up one thing twice before figuring out that it doesn’t apply to her anyway.

I was also a bit out of it because of the impending cataract surgery, and thoughts about how the trip there and back would go (there is construction on the train line, of course, so we’ll have to go walk-train-bus-walk, instead of just zipping through on the train. The trip usually costs less than thirty minutes and is supposed to take at least an hour today.

We decided to take a taxi for the way back. So I downloaded a taxi app. It’s very easy to use. Then I realized that I would probably not be able to order a taxi on my phone right after surgery. And trying to teach my husband how to do it is basically pointless so he will have to find a different way to get a taxi.

I also wanted to make sure that I don’t forget anything important and I’m trying to soothe my anxiety by overpacking a bit. Should I take a water bottle? Sunglasses? A case for my regular glasses in case I can’t wear them? Should I pack my contact lens? A sweater?

Anyway. I knew I would basically be fine with my insurance card, ticket, some money and the paperwork for the surgery. But well.

Originally we had plans to declutter my mother-in-law’s fridge yesterday but that never happened. I also thought I’d give my friend an online piano lesson but she canceled. Which was not the worst thing, I really needed the time for other things.

The boy and I did bodyweight training. We talked about the ramifications of the care home placement. And his upcoming trip. And his exam. And my surgery.

I washed every single dirty dish in the house and there were many, at lunchtime we had reached the point where there was no clean plate for the boy’s meal left.

I finished plying the sock yarn sample, I started writing this post, made a list for today and packed my bag and went to bed a little earlier than usual.

Just as I need to post this earlier than usual, I need to leave the house at 8.15.

So I’ll post again as soon as I can, don’t worry, this is some planned time off. I probably won’t be able to see properly for a few days. I’ll only get one eye done, the other one is due in September. See you soon, I hope.

Guess who didn’t do yoga yesterday?

Husband and I started the day with one of those delightful misunderstandings in conversation that takes a long time to sort out, blah. We also realized that our plan to have lunch at a beergarden today won’t work because at least one of us needs to be home to receive a package. My husband’s new bass guitar is supposed to be delivered today, probably just around lunchtime.

I had an extra long phone call yesterday, first with my mother and then with my sister. It was nice but what I didn’t know at that time was that my husband was waiting for me to help him think through the recipe he wanted to make.

He had gotten a tajine from a friend who is moving away complete with a cookbook. This is what it looks like:

Since it was the first time we were using it we were both a bit apprehensive but it was easy and not hard and worked really well. The food was exceptionally delicious, even more so because the zucchini and eggplant were just picked minutes before:

This portion was not quite enough but I made up for it with half a pint of Ben & Jerry’s and a bar of chocolate.

I wanted to do the dishes right away after lunch but my husband had put drain cleaner in the kitchen sink’s drain and so I had to do something else. I read a little of the second book in the current series, „A Restless Truth“. And played my video game. And forgot to plan the week ahead.

I did manage to finally vacuum the old part of the house later than I wanted and cleaned the toilet and washbasin there as well, so I’m declaring the cleaning for the week done.

Then I ate dinner just in time to meet for my monthly Zoom chat with a writer friend. The conversation meandered from topic to topic and was interesting as always. We talked a lot about teaching, now that I think about it. Their spouse is a teacher and so am I.

Afterwards I talked briefly to the rest of the family, started writing this post, saw that it was rather late already and went to bed as quickly as I could which was not very quickly.

I should really retrain myself to an earlier bedtime, I feel so much better if I do.

Oh, and just so you know, I will probably not update this blog for a bit starting on Tuesday because of my cataract surgery, so don’t be alarmed if you don’t hear from me for a while.

I did not get enough sleep, again, and did the usual morning pages, yoga and meditation. Breakfast with my husband who was starting to stress a bit because the new bass guitar he had ordered might be coming right when both of us would be out.

In the end it didn’t, actually checking the tracking information helped.

We were both rather slow all morning, I did the dishes, husband started a load of laundry and then we both went out to run. He did his usual 10 k on a Saturday and I decided it was too hot and I was not feeling it and opted for just 30 minutes total:

I came back home, took a shower, sliced a few zucchini and chopped some basil and parsley. Lunch was pretty late and we ate on the porch because there had been intermittent rain in the morning and so it was a little cooler:

Afterwards I decided to not sit down first but instead do the dishes right away. Win!

Then there was reading and playing Genshin Impact (I’m leveling two characters right now and ran out of resources quickly). I did set myself a timer so I wouldn’t play all afternoon and had planned to do some cleaning, right when my husband started making noises about vacuuming the annex.

So I folded two loads of laundry, touched most surfaces with a feather duster and cleaned the mirrors. I waited for my husband to finish vacuuming so I could do the same in the other part of the house but he kept getting distracted so that didn’t happen.

I set up my bullet journal for August, I decided to do my usual habit tracker, monthly overview, tasks and reading tally. If I end up not filling anything in because my eyesight is too bad or something I’ll deal.

I am a bit sad that my daily reading of „War and Peace“ and listening to a piece of classical music following the „Year of Wonder“-book has fallen by the wayside. A part of me hopes to catch up again, another thinks I’ll just skip half a month of music-listening. That won’t work for the novel, though.

Right now my time is shorter than usual and that means I have to choose between „War and Peace“ and reading „A Marvellous Light“. The second book is clearly winning. It is really good.

I ate dinner while waiting for the rest of the family to show up to watch TV, hung another load of laundry up and we watched an interesting episode of ‚Columbo‘ together. I almost finished turning the heel as well, only one more round left.

Then the boy and I warmed up for bodyweight training, swung by my mother-in-law’s apartment, found her sitting around in the dark peering at newspapers, and the boy helped her make some soup before we continued.

We finished around ten, I started writing this post, spent ten minutes in the manuscript and ten minutes with my spinning wheel and went to bed with a book.

I went to bed a little earlier but also had to get up earlier. Because I had a gynecologist appointment.

I wrote morning pages but did not have time for yoga or meditation. I did eat breakfast but had to put most of my morning tea in a thermos for later. I have not reached the point yet where I take that thermos on the train with me and sip on it all the way.

I went for my annual check-up but I also had a few other things to discuss.

I went back on the train and realized that I had neglected to stamp my ticket on the way there. Oops.

Since I was already in the vicinity I went and bought vaseline, mint chocolate, a TV guide and yogurt. (I wrote „TB guide“ first, not what I wanted to talk about.) And then I went to the pharmacy for my meds.

I dropped everything off and went right back outside in the baking oven-like heat. I picked up some stuff from my mother-in-law’s doctor and went to another pharmacy because that’s the one my mother-in-law prefers.

I sent an email to my brother-in-law with the paperwork needed for that second care home application.

Husband was busy cooking but lunch was almost readay. Even though he had gone running and swimming after breakfast.

Lunch was god. My mother-in-law liked it very much, for once.

And then I finallly could eat:

I only had a short break and then tere was teaching. I had a few breaks between students but I did not manage to actually use that free time.

Anyway. A long discussion of all things „Snezhaya,

the new life stream, and the fact that my husband bought himself a new bass guiatar,

Yesterday I did most of my morning routine, the dishes, walked to my mother-in-law’s doctor’s office where it turned out he hadn’t filled out the form I gave him on Tuesday. I’ll pick that up tomorrow, I hope, and the renewed prescription.

then I biked to the bigger supermarket and got all the groceries, came back and lunch was almost ready:

My husband made peas and carrots in addition to the black beans because his mother doesn’t like them.

I only had a very short break and then I tackled my mother-in-law’s taxes again. I used every break I had and finished them half an hour after my last student of the day.

The boy was going out anyway at that point and offered to mail it. Woot!

We did a very short round of bodyweight training because it was so hot, I finally ate dinner, and some pastry and the rest of the big box of chocolate, read for a while and bought the other two books in the Freya Marske series, took a shower, wrote this post, did the dishes with the boy, played some Genshin and went to bed too late.

Oh, and all through the day I set my new phone up. It’s actually even a little smaller than my old one, I’m not sure I like that. On the other hand, my old phone barely fit in my jeans pocket. The setup was pretty painless which is always a relief.

Today will be busy, busy, busy again, and then we’re on summer break.

Since I didn’t get enough sleep and also didn’t sleep well (I blame the chocolate overdose the night before) I was not the most focused or fast person in the morning. No writing again, meh.

I kept being pulled off-task all day and at one point I spontaneously decided to pull the trigger on getting a new cellphone, something I had been thinking about for months. I did a quick round of research (again) and ordered a refurbished phone. I decided to get an older model because I don’t really wanted to spend more than a thousand euros on a phone. I definitely did want this phone to have more storage than my current one because that’s one of my biggest frustrations. Every time I want to install a system update I have to delete and reinstall apps.

Of course, I only realized that this means I will have to find a new running app after the fact but that’s not reason enough to keep using the old one. I will give my current one to my husband so he has something slightly bigger with a better screen.

I’m using my birthday money and some of the „device replacement“-fund. I did talk with my husband beforehand which is pretty rare because I tend to make buying decisions on impulse and he told me to go and do it.

I did the dishes and I went running/walking for half an hour in the heat:

Yes, I do look tired. No wonder.

When I came back home my husband was right in the middle of being way too late for cooking while the boy was stressing out about getting lunch before he needed to leave for an exam. He also had to go to a lecture hall he had never been in before, one that is right in the main building in Munich. To make matters slightly worse he had to find a bus station at the main train station. The one that is undergoing major construction right now. Every time I approach the station from any angle I am very confused because there is just a pile of rubble and some stuff underground. Or at least that’s what it feels like, there is still a working train station above ground.

So we chopped and cooked and minced at speed and managed to get food on the table just in time that we could all eat:

We did not eat outside, my patience was wearing thin at this point and it was very hot outside. This is eggplant from our yard, the nicest my husband has ever grown and parts of it could have used a little more cooking but most of it was delicious.

There was barely any time between lunch and my first student but at least I had taken a shower while the food was in the oven.

I taught one student. Then I waited for the next one. I had scheduled a lesson with a potential new student last week. They had to cancel and so I offered them two other time slots. They never got back to me but that doesn’t necessarily mean anything.

After ten minutes I went back to the kitchen, ate some chocolate and read. I started „A Marvellous Light“ by Freya Marske and so far I am liking it. I haven’t been able to immerse myself fully and it feels like it has barely started but that might be because it’s a series and the romance part of the story is supposed to be very slow burn.

I had quite some time after that but just sat around reading and playing and forgetting that I had started a load of laundry.

I taught another student. Then waited for the next one after that. Another reschedule so I didn’t know if I’d teach the mother, the kid or both that day. I texted the mother at one point and it turned out she had completely forgotten because of a health emergency.

I answered a text from another student’s mother about her lesson (another rescheduled one) and the one on Friday. I taught said student and then I knew I had the rest of the day officially off.

I finally remembered the laundry, found that it hadn’t tumbled properly and set the machine to remedy that. Afterwards I unplugged the machine for a minute or so, maybe that will restart it and it will work again.

I hung the laundry up while watching a video, then the boy showed up and told me all about his exam and how they had buried important information at the bottom of an email. I started doing the dishes. Since the boy was still talking at me I asked him to dry them, so he did.

Meanwhile my husband went upstairs to his mother and then went on a little walk with her.

And then I started on my mother-in-law’s taxes. Around 10 pm after an unsuccessful attempt to print four forms out I decided to stop for the day. I did try another method of getting the forms to the printer and that one at least worked.

Today I will need to tally all the receipts, fill out some more forms, print it all out and get it in the mail. I also need to go to the doctor’s office and get another report and renew a prescription. All of that while doing the grocery shopping and staying home to receive my new phone.

Simple.

I went to bed past midnight again, not good, but I did sleep a little longer at least. Actually, the first ‚happy birthday‘ I got was from my smartwatch at midnight. It’s silly but also rather nice.

I wrote morning pages and then decided to skip yoga in favaor of eating breakfast with my husband. The plan was to do the yoga after but that never happened. But we had cake for breakfast:

To be honest there also was cake for breakfast today because we had so much left over. And there was enough time that I pulled my knitting out and did a few rounds on the sock-in-progress. Finally.

While I was in the bathroom after breakfast my brother-in-law called me on my cell to tell me that he had sent some forms for another care home to my husband’s email. My first thought had been, „Weird, he never calls me on my birthday“. And yeah, he actually doesn’t.

I briefly talked with the boy, did the breakfast dishes and went running/walking in the (intermittent) rain:

Husband had decided to go on a longer run that day and then became extremely stressed because he was late and exhausted. Lunch was nothing special, we were having way too many eggs because we tend to get the same number every week from a farmer who delivers them to our door but we didn’t really eat any eggs. So there was omelet with some extra rice.

Looks like I didn’t take a picture. Which is understandable because on top of everything else the thing had also been frying a little too long because my husband left the kitchen while I was at the table grating cheese. He didn’t understand that I didn’t smell that something was burning but I was rather absorbed in trying to grate cheese, chop tomatoes and basil at the same time and also I think maybe it takes a while for the smell to travel from the stove to where I sit in a corner.

As dessert I ate some more cake and then played Genshin for a bit before using some time before my first student for prepping the taxes some more. Turns out tallying all the receipts takes less than an hour. I had another break between students because someone canceled (or maybe rescheduled, we’ll see, they still need to get back to me) and I used that time as well.

I stopped teaching relatively early and then sat down to do the taxes proper. Like, putting all the numbers in all the forms. And then I sent them off.

And I have to say that this was the least painful tax filing ever. Doing it bit by bit over more than a week turned out to work great.

I then decided that I did not want a sandwich for dinner, preheated the oven and went upstairs to say hello to my mother-in-law. Both she and my mother had initially forgotten it was my birthday. But at some point the birthday wishes came in and that was very nice. One of my aunts even wrote an actual card and sent it in the mail. I should make sure to send her one for her birthday the next time as well.

So there was a birthday pizza:

And then my husband was finished with teaching and we opened a bottle of champagne. The boy also came downstairs but left again right away, he is in a study panic, fingers crossed for him today and tomorrow.

My husband offered to do the dishes. When we were setting the table for lunch we were all rather surprised that there were only two clean forks left in the drawer. That sent the boy upstairs to see what dirty dishes he still had and that was quite the stack. Husband washed them all.

He also gave me a pot of echinaceae in the morning. He had bought it ten days before and they were not quite looking as bright and orange as he had imagined. Still, I love getting flowers, and getting live ones is even better. He’ll put them somewhere near the porch so that I can see them without having to venture out in the garden.

So I started writing this post while he was in the kitchen, then played some more Genshin way too late and made a nice list for today.

A list that does not involve figuring out where to find paper forms for my mother-in-law’s taxes because I found those online already. Phew.

I went to bed past midnight again, not good, but I did sleep a little longer at least. Actually, the first ‚happy birthday‘ I got was from my smartwatch at midnight. It’s silly but also rather nice.

I wrote morning pages and then decided to skip yoga in favaor of eating breakfast with my husband. The plan was to do the yoga after but that never happened. But we had cake for breakfast:

To be honest there also was cake for breakfast today because we had so much left over. And there was enough time that I pulled my knitting out and did a few rounds on the sock-in-progress. Finally.

While I was in the bathroom after breakfast my brother-in-law called me on my cell to tell me that he had sent some forms for another care home to my husband’s email. My first thought had been, „Weird, he never calls me on my birthday“. And yeah, he actually doesn’t.

I briefly talked with the boy, did the breakfast dishes and went running/walking in the (intermittent) rain:

Husband had decided to go on a longer run that day and then became extremely stressed because he was late and exhausted. Lunch was nothing special, we were having way too many eggs because we tend to get the same number every week from a farmer who delivers them to our door but we didn’t really eat any eggs. So there was omelet with some extra rice.

Looks like I didn’t take a picture. Which is understandable because on top of everything else the thing had also been frying a little too long because my husband left the kitchen while I was at the table grating cheese. He didn’t understand that I didn’t smell that something was burning but I was rather absorbed in trying to grate cheese, chop tomatoes and basil at the same time and also I think maybe it takes a while for the smell to travel from the stove to where I sit in a corner.

As dessert I ate some more cake and then played Genshin for a bit before using some time before my first student for prepping the taxes some more. Turns out tallying all the receipts takes less than an hour. I had another break between students because someone canceled (or maybe rescheduled, we’ll see, they still need to get back to me) and I used that time as well.

I stopped teaching relatively early and then sat down to do the taxes proper. Like, putting all the numbers in all the forms. And then I sent them off.

And I have to say that this was the least painful tax filing ever. Doing it bit by bit over more than a week turned out to work great.

I then decided that I did not want a sandwich for dinner, preheated the oven and went upstairs to say hello to my mother-in-law. Both she and my mother had initially forgotten it was my birthday. But at some point the birthday wishes came in and that was very nice. One of my aunts even wrote an actual card and sent it in the mail. I should make sure to send her one for her birthday the next time as well.

So there was a birthday pizza:

And then my husband was finished with teaching and we opened a bottle of champagne. The boy also came downstairs but left again right away, he is in a study panic, fingers crossed for him today and tomorrow.

My husband offered to do the dishes. When we were setting the table for lunch we were all rather surprised that there were only two clean forks left in the drawer. That sent the boy upstairs to see what dirty dishes he still had and that was quite the stack. Husband washed them all.

He also gave me a pot of echinaceae in the morning. He had bought it ten days before and they were not quite looking as bright and orange as he had imagined. Still, I love getting flowers, and getting live ones is even better. He’ll put them somewhere near the porch so that I can see them without having to venture out in the garden.

So I started writing this post while he was in the kitchen, then played some more Genshin way too late and made a nice list for today.

A list that does not involve figuring out where to find paper forms for my mother-in-law’s taxes because I found those online already. Phew.

We ate the rest of the cake for breakfast, all three of us, the boy had to get up early for an exam about renewable energies.

Since the whole care home application (the second one) was bugging me I spent some time on that, found out that I don’t seem to have made a copy of the medical assessment and went over to my mother-in-law’s doctor to ask for another one. That will cost us another 25 €, naturally.

I texted back and forth with friends, my sister and my brother-in-law, did the dishes and then looked through my mother-in-law’s tax stuff and the paperwork for the care grade assessment. I also washed the new pillbox I got for her, it is one of those colorful things that has separate containers for every day divided into morning and evening, so we can put her pills in there. The hope is that it will help her remember better what she is supposed to take, and that we can see of she actually did it. It would also mean we could potentially take the rest of her meds away, so less chance of overdosing.

Then I walked to the pharmacy and to the health food store. When I came back husband was super stressed again (who am I kidding, we are all super stressed right now but it waxes and wanes) and lunch was almost ready.

The boy came back from uni at the same time and my husband decided he’d rather eat alone outside because he needed some quiet and he is the only one who enjoys eating outside.

So the boy and I ate together and talked non-stop. We brought my mother-in-law some of the food, stressing that this was nice and fresh cherry tomatoes and cucumber from our backyard:

After that I only had a few minutes for chocolate, reading and playing Genshin before a pretty long day of teaching.

After I finished teaching I met my writer friend to be coached. I thought meeting up this time would be useless because I hadn’t even looked at what we had talked about before but it turned out to be very nice and sort of cathartic. I keep thinking I’m doing rather badly when in fact it is pretty much alright.

After that I finally ate some dinner including more chocolate, I got a huge box of chocolate from a student. then I went outside to say hello to my mother-in-law who had taken a walk with my husband and was sitting in the garden while he was watering the plants.

I talked briefly with my husband who was toast at this point and figured out that he spends about two hours each day with his mother right now. We both agreed that we are lucky it isn’t more but that is a sizable portion of the day. My guess is that the boy will be the one going on walks with her again either today or tomorrow, though.

I did the dishes while watching a video, then watched some more while winding a plying ball for the sock yarn sample, talked at length with the boy, started this post, ate some more chocolate and made a list for today and procrastinated my way too bed.

Today will be another slightly too long teaching day and I should really fit in my mother-in-law’s taxes as well. And laundry. And exercise.

Oh, and I saw some revised guidelines for after cataract surgery and it seems to be less restrictive than I thought which would be good.

I did most of my morning routine but didn’t write at all. Thinking forward to this week I have to say that chances for creative writing will be very slim.

Husband and I had breakfast, and talked about what things to do next about his mother and what else is on the horizon.

Then it was time to call my own mother who is making very, very slow progress. She is dealing with her own stuff and is much more savvy than my mother-in-law, which also meant talking to her about the whole mother-in-law admin was extremely helpful. She could tell me how to go about the whole care grade thing, yeah! And she suggested a weekly pill box so that everyone can see at a glance which pills she is supposed to take when. And if she has already taken them because she is very forgetful.

Husband and I decided to go out to lunch for Greek food. The boy didn’t want to spent that much time but ended up spending way more because his grandma did not want to eat the ready meal he had planned to make but wanted oat soup (she still feels she is sick) and that meant him staying for an hour, helping her cook and doing her dishes. Also rescuing a few of our dishes from her cupboards. We bring her food, she rinses the plates and then she puts them away because she doesn’t remember they’re ours.

Meanwhile my husband and I ate excellent food:

This is just so good! And the main course was a revelation, I don’t think I’ve ever had better gyros and souvlaki:

We walked back home, wrote a list about everything that happened with his mother the last few weeks, and looked up the last time she had a crisis before. My bullet journal and electronic (and searchable) calendar came in very handy. Because I had notes.

Then I spent some time playing Genshin again, a little too much time to be honest, did the dishes and then finally started the taxes. I had already done quite a bit of prep before but I needed to print out invoices (I really should do that right away every time, duh), sort them (ditto) and start putting the numbers into the forms.

I interrupted the taxes by eating dinner, then went on for some more time. I had hoped to finish the same day but around 10 it because clear that wouldn’t happen.

I made a plan for the week and for today, started writing this post, freed the cake from its packaging (my husband had brought it upstairs from the freezer), spun for a few minutes and went to bed.

I did get eight hours of sleep, hurray! We did write a letter and finish all the paperwork for the care home and I biked there and dropped it off. I also managed to take a wrong turn despite having been there just a few days ago. I am very grateful for having a map on my phone.

It was pretty hot but I still went out for a short run/walk, less than 30 minutes:

Yes, I do look a bit tired and exhausted and I still don’t like the heat.

Husband was just starting to cook as I came back, so I took a shower. Then I went to my mother-in-law and while I was sitting with her my husband’s brother showed up. He wanted to say hello, drop off more paperwork, and told us what he had done about a care home on his end.

Husband and I ate lunch outside, and my brother-in-law joined us at one point so we could talk some more.

And then I felt like I could finally rest. So that’s what I did. All afternoon and when my husband came into the kitchen at 5.30 I hadn’t even put the leftover meat in the fridge. Oops. Husband was not amused, tackled all the dishes and told me to go do something else. so I folded some laundry.

And then I played some more Genshin, ate crackers for dinner, played some more, went upstairs to my mother-in-law who was sitting on a chair looking outside her balcony door in the dark, made her take her meds and gave her some food and water.

The boy showed up and we decided to finally buy a train ticket for him to see my mother, I started writing this post, was interrupted by everybody several times and I got to bed too late again.

The plan for today involves both going out for lunch and doing taxes so I’d say it’s a mixed bag.

So I managed to go to bed at a reasonable time and sleep for eight hours. We’re not talking about the fact that I woke up often.

In the morning I tried speeding myself up a little and I did but not enough. So I only wrote two morning pages, then skipped yoga and meditation and breakfast. I did take a shower, though, for the doctor’s appointment. And I talked briefly with my husband.

There is a lot of making plans and assigning tasks to each other these days.

I walked to my doctor’s office, had a nice chat with him, got an ECG and had blood drawn and he wrote me a letter for the eye surgeon. He said that I probably don’t need all that hullaballoo for cataract surgery but that some doctors insist on it. He also took blood for my thyroid levels, so I can check that off my list.

Oh, and he measured my blood oxygen – which was great – and because of that I mentioned that my smartwatch keeps telling me that my blood oxygen is a little low when I sleep. So I’ll get that checked out at a later point but it’s not urgent.

Wouldn’t it be interesting if one of the reasons I am all tired all the time would be sleep apnea?

I walked back home, made myself breakfast, talked briefly with my husband who was in a tizzy because of all the things that need to be done and the sheer vastness of stuff that landed on our plates because of our mothers’ recent issues.

Eating breakfast while reading was very helpful.

I then walked to my mother-in-law’s doctor’s office to pick up the forms he filled in for us. Turns out that cost 25 €. I had not taken my wallet but that’s what paying with my smartwatch is for.

Then I set out for the grocery store on my bike. I was earlier than usual and that meant things were way less crowded. Who would have thought. I also usually go on Thursdays not Friday. I only realized that I had forgotten to put more cash in my wallet when I was about to pay but, hey, debit card.

I had almost forgotten the bike panniers again but did remember just in time.

I unpacked the groceries in a kitchen where my husband was dealing with a boatload of basil. He had an actual tub of it sitting right in the middle of the floor. At one point we were both busy with the picking and chopping. And I am very proud of myself for smelling that the pine nuts were toasted enough, and I pulled them off the heat about a minute before my husband came dashing back from the annex. I also grated a lot of parmesan. We made enough to fill some extra jars with pesto, always nice.

We ate outside again:

Afterwards I only had a little bit of time left and I spent most of it hanging up a load of laundry, and only a few minutes reading.

I taught my first student, had a break where I played Genshin, then two more students, and two cancellations. Which meant I had time to write all the messages and do the dishes while participating in a Zoom call. I even went on the call (after the dishes) and vented about the current chaos in public.

I really like that coach and she was helpful, as always, but there was one thing she said that stuck with me because I couldn’t relate, she said that it was normal to feel like having so much come at me at once was not fair.

And I’m like, fair? This isn’t about fairness. This is just what happens. This is life. And it is a normal part of life. You have aging parents or small kids or something like that there will be crises hitting you. And while it is all pretty overwhelming it is still not war or famine or anything. It is just a bit much and at one point it will become less. Or maybe more, who knows. Fairness in these situations is such a weird concept to me, as if there is a person who I could complain to.

Even if there were a god who did that to me on purpose, I’m still pretty sure what we’re dealing with is harder for our mothers by far. Finding yourself old and feeble and unable to care for yourself, relying on others. And then you don’t know if you’ll ever get back to be able to lead your life without help. And I guess at one point you’re also not quite sure if you’re up to trying to get up and moving again. And they don’t know if working for that will do them any good.

So, I’m not thinking about fairness at all. I’m thinking about my mother-in-law who was displaced from her home not once but twice, who had to take care first of her husband’s parents, then of her own husband, and then for her own aging parents, all while working a job and doing all the cooking, cleaning and gardening around the house.

Talking about fair.

Anyway, I then met the boy for bodyweight training, we ended up talking about the current situation with each other and my husband for too long so that I did not have time to eat dinner before meeting with my writer friend.

By that point I was so low on energy that I could only spend twenty minutes on writing but I did start this post, so that was good.

Then I finally are something, spun a bit, played Genshin and read a bit, and went to bed.

I had gone to bed too late again but not quite as late as the nights before. I overslept and did my morning routine very slowly.

Over breakfast we talked about what the day would bring and I decided to reschedule the grocery shopping for today. The big thing on the calendar was meeting with my mother-in-law’s doctor at 12.30.

We talked, we did the dishes and got ready, I looked through the care home paperwork and found a form that her doctor should fill out and around noon, when we were still drying dishes we heard a heavy thump from upstairs.

We both dashed up the stairs thinking that did not sound good.

My mother-in-law had fallen flat on her back for no apparent reason. Oh, and when my husband had went upstairs while I was doing yoga before breakfast she had told him that she had taken two of the emergency pills. Which she shouldn’t have done because those are only for when her blood pressure is sky-high and she feels bad. And we have never given her two of those before.

So, what happened seems to be that the pills made her blood pressure go down too much and that caused her to fall.

We got her up from the floor and onto her sofa and I went over to her doctor because we had an appointment twenty minutes later anyway.

I got to talk to him but he did not want to come to our house because he said, if she had been injured from the fall she’d need an x-ray, not him.

He also told me that she shouldn’t take those emergency meds anymore, that there is a new study out saying that people over 80 do much better without blood pressure medication because without it there are not more deaths but there are way fewer falls. Duh.

I got us some Chines takeout for lunch:

The boy had left the house early to write an exam. He seems to be pretty happy with how he did. Fingers crossed.

We gave my mother-in-law the soup she had wanted from the Chines place for lunch. She keeps saying that she doesn’t want to eat anything. She was in very low spirits all day.

The boy went and checked on her several times throughout the day. He was with her when her doctor called and told her to reduce her medication. We’re hoping that will make her feel better. It will be hard, though, because she thinks all her problems are due to her blood pressure being too high. Turns out those numbers are perfectly fine for someone her age. And we can see that she becomes livelier and more coherent when it is a little higher.

I taught two students. During a break I went to the office of her doctor again to ask him to fill out the form for the care home, then I taught two more students.

I made myself dinner and ate it before remembering that I still had half my lunch. I had planned to eat that instead. Well, it will keep in the fridge until tonight.

I then met with my writer friend for a writing sprint. After forty minutes I ran out of juice, but hey, forty minutes! And I started this post right after.

Today will be super busy as well, I have to go to my doctor to get my bloodwork done for eye-surgery, so I’ll only eat breakfast later today. And then it will be non-stop go, go, go until tonight. Phew.

I also managed to do my regular morning routine (Writing? In this economy?), then talked to my husband briefly. We decided to not divide the errands but do them together because neither of us was happy about doing them so we opted for moral support from each other.

Turns out, that weird piece of paper from my mother-in-law that was supposed to give me a mandate to do her banking stuff might actually have worked. Unfortunately, we couldn’t find it again. Prolonged contact with her means that the kitchen bench, always a point where my paperwork, books and other stuff accumulates, looks like an extension of her kitchen table, strewn with pieces of paper with handwritten notes clipped to it. I never know what to do with the paperclips, I should probably give them back because I detest them. They make weird indentations in the paper and then you have them everywhere and have to corral them.

We did go to the bank anyway, got the information that we should just bring a letter giving us the mandate, then their legal department would check it, call her on the phone (we told them that she is unable to get to the bank herself) and things would be done and ready.

Then we biked to the care home that she would like to go to. She probably won’t be able to afford it, and her dream of moving in next week or so is, um, not realistic.

We asked and got told it might take up to two years to get a place. On the bright side the receptionist is someone I’ve known for years because our kids went to pre-kindergarten and kindergarten together (she said I recommended that specific kindergarten to her, and I still like it and am hearing good things from a student of mine who works there), her kids had piano lessons with me and she took a few guitar lessons, so she said if we can get the paperwork to her until Saturday she’ll try to put in a good word for us. She also remembers my mother-in-law who used to pick up our son from kindergarten, and she remembers her social work and that she knows people at the home, is a nice person, and has ties to the home. All points in her favor.

Then she took a picture with me to send to her daughter who still plays piano for fun, always a joy to hear because that is exactly what I want my teaching to achieve. Not professional musicians who win competitions but just regular people enjoying music who have the skill and knowledge to continue playing on their own. That made me happy.

We went back via a doctor’s office to renew a prescription for my husband and the pharmacy. I had plans to buy chocolate bars and trail mix but didn’t in the end because I wanted to get back home.

At one point I added things to the list for my MIL’s doctor today. That is a long list.

Husband had planned to make homemade pesto but because we didn’t have all that much time we ended up with pasta and eggplant. Yummy! Which was unexpected because I used to dislike eggplant because it is so mushy and I didn’t like the taste but these days my husband uses the ones fresh from the vine and roasts them and that makes all the difference. I was also pretty hungry:

While he was cooking I went on a short 30-minute run/walk. My knee is feeling much better, I am suspecting that skipping squats the day before might have helped. I self-diagnosed runner’s knee. We’ll see. I should do exercises but I am pretty short on time.

I used the sneakers that used to be my good ones. I am waiting for a new pair. And yes, I looked stressed and tense in this picture, that is just my regular state right now. There will be different times again for sure. And maybe I will grow and be able to just sit in the middle of chaos all serene at one point.

That is a skill I really would like to have. I’ve been working towards it for a long time now. I am definitely not chill or serene or calm or relaxed by nature. But who knows, maybe I can free my inner Buddha at some point that would be awesome.

There was a shower and then lunch:

I did the dishes right away, had ten minutes for Genshin (I am busy leveling my new character up, I drew Columbina the day before which makes me super happy, I coveted her ever since she came out but had to be sensible. I hate that.

I did play her for the first time last night and it was just a dream. Much better than the free character I used in that team slot before.

I taught all the students but I was very fuzzy and distracted. At one point the boy texted me about my mother-in-law’s blood pressure and meds right in a student’s lesson and I had to interrupt the lesson to answer. I don’t like that but, well, family health has priority.

I popped upstairs at one point, I paid a bill that was overdue, I found the paperwork for my cataract surgery and looked at it again so I know what to talk about with my doctor tomorrow, I ordered more contact lenses for in between surgeries and decided to go with a mono-focal lens. I hope I won’t regret that. I might have to get myself a magnifying glass or something for reading, we’ll see. My phone has a Zoom mode that I find rather annoying in normal life but that might be helpful eventually.

I taught more students. My new toner cartridge has just been dispatched from the UK so I am very happy that I didn’t need to make any copies.

After my last student I went upstairs again, talked with my mother-in-law and then I had eight whole minutes to eat dinner before meeting for a writing sprint. I still ate at the beginning of my writing session but I was only reading, so that was okay.

I spent 45 minutes and ended up researching Turkish coffee and how to make it for a while. The whole thing is fascinating but unfortunately I don#t do coffee at all, my stomach does vehemently protest against it.

After researching I, of course, decided that my characters don’t really care and just throw some water and coffee grounds in to a regular pot, they care more about quantity than about texture and foam, and they only do it when the moka pot is in use and they need additional coffee quickly.

After that I played some more, I went upstairs to watch my mother-in-law take her blood pressure and went back downstairs to play some more.

And then we got the dreaded beep-beep-beep of the smoke alarm upstairs. Don’t turn on the heat under your jam and walk away. Especially not when you’re easily distracted, forgetful and take ages to do anything. (Might be a family trait, my husband does that as well, turns the heat on under something, gets impatient with the lack of progress, leaves the room real quick and is susprised when the food turns out too dark or burnt.

I then started writing this post until an hour past my (hypothetical bedtime), wrote a list for today (extremely necessary because this day needs to be planned meticulously and leaves a very low margin for error for execution, and then I decided to skip the spinning for once.

Today will be the supermarket run, visiting my mother-in-law’s doctor with a boatload of questions, looking at the paperwork for the nursing home before, then quite a bit of teaching including meeting a maybe new student and then quickly switch to fiction writing. And ordering takeout in between.

Tired. Very tired at this point.

also I procrastinated the dishes and the spinning. Maybe I should give up on the Tour de Fleece but I don’t want to. Here is my spindle right now, this is the third part of the fiber for the sock yarn sample:

I wrote morning pages, spent my writing time researching first-hand experience report of cataract surgery from a writer and a cartoonist. People whose lives are a bit more like mine.

I started doing yoga and eight minutes in my phone went off, my mother-in-law was calling.

She was feeling terrible, her blood pressure was super high and she wanted help. So I spent an hour with her, got her to take her emergency meds, got her to take her blood pressure a couple of times, made her drink something and eat breakfast and when she seemed a little better I finally ate breakfast.

No knitting, no meditation, no taking my own blood pressure. I did the dishes, went upstairs again and went out for errands and groceries.

First I went to my optician to talk about me test lens for in between cataract sugeries. Turns out my optician is on vacation until after my surgery. So I guess I’ll make do with that one test lens. Which is fine but it is mono-focal and I would lime to have something to read with. Should I order some other lenses online? Should I make do with this one because the new lens in the other eye will give me built-in reading glasses?

Not quite sure.

I walked to the supermarket for yogurt, cheese and bananas and to the health food store for just about everything and came back home. Went upstairs right again, then folded three loads of laundry while my husband made lunch. I was very hungry and the food was very good:

Yes, there are zucchini in there, right now there are zucchini in everything, you know how it is when they are ripe. I finished folding the laundry and tried rearranging the dirty dishes a bit so it would be easier to wash them later and then I had about ten minutes to play Genshin and have some chocolate and tea.

I taught two students.

I had a 30-minute break that I used to call two potential new students and arrange test lessons. I went upstairs again and asked my mother-in-law to take her blood pressure. The boy had talked to her before but she is now convinced that I am the only person who knows how to take her meds and when. She might also find me somewhat calming which is funny because I am not calm at all.

I try to make little jokes and be lighthearted and positive throughout, the boy and my husband are a little grumpier, maybe.

I taught another student. The student who often doesn’t show asked if we could reschedule her lesson. Because she had paracticed a lot that afternoon, and didn’t really want to go to my house to play guitar again.

My first impulse was to say that that was totally her problem, not mine, but since I was toast I agreed anyway. But I did make it clear that her time management is not my circus. I have enough stuff to juggle on my own.

Meanwhile I was texting with both my sister and mother. They are settling in but there might be a little friction. Sister is not used to be interrupted any other minutes, and my mother keeps seeing stuff that needs to be taken care of. And she can’t just get up and do it herself.

Oh, and another thing, when I came home from my errands I figured out why there are always so many pebbles in my showed when I go running. I wore the muddy and beat down sneakers for errands and such because I was too lazy to put the orthotics in the nice sneakers:

They are just over a year old. I threw the in the trash and ordered new ones. In the meantime my nice ones will be downgraded to the „running through mud“-pair.

So I had another break but I spent that answering email. I night have talked with the boy a little and watched my mother-in-law take her blood pressure but I can’t swear to it.

In the next to last lesson I wanted to print a new piece out that the student had brought. But the printer wouldn’t budge because it had run out of toner. So I spent ten minutes in a futile attempt to change the toner. Until I sent the student home without new sheet music.

Then I taught another student. I was not in the best shape for that. I’ve known him for very long and he is a patient man who works with small children.

I tried again with the printer because I wanted to print something for him as well, he helped but we couldn’t get the thing to click together. Careful comparison of the old toner thing and the new one showed that the new one has a part that is crooked. No way to bend it without breaking it.

So I ordered more toner.

The boy was looking for me again because my mother-in-law wanted me to hold her hand throught the next blood pressure measurent, we chose the right meds for her to take and I went to finally eat dinner.

My husband and the boy persuaded her to eat dinner. And later I went upstairs for her taking her blood-pressure again. And take her emergency meds. And try to cheer her up a little.

The other two also convinced her to watch some TV, she had been sitting on her couch unmoving doing nothing for most of the day.

While the boy and I were upstairs my husband had done all the dishes. Phew. Oh, and in the morning he had a friend come over to drive many, many things to the recycling place.

I played Genshin for a bit again, talked with both my husband and the boy, and pulled a character that I have been wanting for months with surprisingly little pulls. Yeah.

More talking, then I started this post, wrote a list for today while sipping some tea and went to bed too laet again.

Did I tell you that my husband and I went to my mother-in-law’s doctor in the morning to make an appointment to confer about her condition and our next steps? Anyway, we did that too.

I also started the process of maybe getting refund for the defective toner, fingers crossed.

At 11.30 pm I was still texting back and forth with the boy about matters blood pressure.

Not my own, though I’m pretty sure that one has been lower than it is right now.

Oh, and the boy and I skipped bodyweight training with all the hullabaloo. Plus he has an exam tomorrow and needs to study like crazy.

also I procrastinated the dishes and the spinning. Maybe I should give up on the Tour de Fleece but I don’t want to. Here is my spindle right now, this is the third part of the fiber for the sock yarn sample:

I wrote morning pages, spent my writing time researching first-hand experience report of cataract surgery from a writer and a cartoonist. People whose lives are a bit more like mine.

I started doing yoga and eight minutes in my phone went off, my mother-in-law was calling.

She was feeling terrible, her blood pressure was super high and she wanted help. So I spent an hour with her, got her to take her emergency meds, got her to take her blood pressure a couple of times, made her drink something and eat breakfast and when she seemed a little better I finally ate breakfast.

No knitting, no meditation, no taking my own blood pressure. I did the dishes, went upstairs again and went out for errands and groceries.

First I went to my optician to talk about me test lens for in between cataract sugeries. Turns out my optician is on vacation until after my surgery. So I guess I’ll make do with that one test lens. Which is fine but it is mono-focal and I would lime to have something to read with. Should I order some other lenses online? Should I make do with this one because the new lens in the other eye will give me built-in reading glasses?

Not quite sure.

I walked to the supermarket for yogurt, cheese and bananas and to the health food store for just about everything and came back home. Went upstairs right again, then folded three loads of laundry while my husband made lunch. I was very hungry and the food was very good:

Yes, there are zucchini in there, right now there are zucchini in everything, you know how it is when they are ripe. I finished folding the laundry and tried rearranging the dirty dishes a bit so it would be easier to wash them later and then I had about ten minutes to play Genshin and have some chocolate and tea.

I taught two students.

I had a 30-minute break that I used to call two potential new students and arrange test lessons. I went upstairs again and asked my mother-in-law to take her blood pressure. The boy had talked to her before but she is now convinced that I am the only person who knows how to take her meds and when. She might also find me somewhat calming which is funny because I am not calm at all.

I try to make little jokes and be lighthearted and positive throughout, the boy and my husband are a little grumpier, maybe.

I taught another student. The student who often doesn’t show asked if we could reschedule her lesson. Because she had paracticed a lot that afternoon, and didn’t really want to go to my house to play guitar again.

My first impulse was to say that that was totally her problem, not mine, but since I was toast I agreed anyway. But I did make it clear that her time management is not my circus. I have enough stuff to juggle on my own.

Meanwhile I was texting with both my sister and mother. They are settling in but there might be a little friction. Sister is not used to be interrupted any other minutes, and my mother keeps seeing stuff that needs to be taken care of. And she can’t just get up and do it herself.

Oh, and another thing, when I came home from my errands I figured out why there are always so many pebbles in my showed when I go running. I wore the muddy and beat down sneakers for errands and such because I was too lazy to put the orthotics in the nice sneakers:

They are just over a year old. I threw the in the trash and ordered new ones. In the meantime my nice ones will be downgraded to the „running through mud“-pair.

So I had another break but I spent that answering email. I night have talked with the boy a little and watched my mother-in-law take her blood pressure but I can’t swear to it.

In the next to last lesson I wanted to print a new piece out that the student had brought. But the printer wouldn’t budge because it had run out of toner. So I spent ten minutes in a futile attempt to change the toner. Until I sent the student home without new sheet music.

Then I taught another student. I was not in the best shape for that. I’ve known him for very long and he is a patient man who works with small children.

I tried again with the printer because I wanted to print something for him as well, he helped but we couldn’t get the thing to click together. Careful comparison of the old toner thing and the new one showed that the new one has a part that is crooked. No way to bend it without breaking it.

So I ordered more toner.

The boy was looking for me again because my mother-in-law wanted me to hold her hand throught the next blood pressure measurent, we chose the right meds for her to take and I went to finally eat dinner.

My husband and the boy persuaded her to eat dinner. And later I went upstairs for her taking her blood-pressure again. And take her emergency meds. And try to cheer her up a little.

The other two also convinced her to watch some TV, she had been sitting on her couch unmoving doing nothing for most of the day.

While the boy and I were upstairs my husband had done all the dishes. Phew. Oh, and in the morning he had a friend come over to drive many, many things to the recycling place.

I played Genshin for a bit again, talked with both my husband and the boy, and pulled a character that I have been wanting for months with surprisingly little pulls. Yeah.

More talking, then I started this post, wrote a list for today while sipping some tea and went to bed too laet again.

Did I tell you that my husband and I went to my mother-in-law’s doctor in the morning to make an appointment to confer about her condition and our next steps? Anyway, we did that too.

I also started the process of maybe getting refund for the defective toner, fingers crossed.

At 11.30 pm I was still texting back and forth with the boy about matters blood pressure.

Not my own, though I’m pretty sure that one has been lower than it is right now.

Oh, and the boy and I skipped bodyweight training with all the hullabaloo. Plus he has an exam tomorrow and needs to study like crazy.

I did my morning pages, yoga and meditation but no writing. Took ages to get ready in the morning and then left for my run/walk half an hour later than I wanted. There was still enough time, though.

I did find the crossing in the woods where I got lost the week before:

This is how it looks on my way out, and this is how it looks on the way back:

From this side it seems much less clear that the straight path is the smaller one forward. If I just keep to the right side I think I need to turn evry time, and I think that there’s no way I came along that small path that’s more like cart tracks.

Well.

This time I ran on, thinking that I had gone rather far for half of the 57-minute workout I had planned. My smartwatch kept showing me that I was on interval 4 of 8. For more than five minutes, so there had to be something wrong. I finally looked on my phone that said „interval 6 of 8“. Oops. I was not happy:

I turned around immediately, gave up any pretense of running, walked back the whole way and ended up adding 20 minutes of unplanned exercise to my day.

I then went right back out and mailed two letters for my mother-in-law, and then it was too late to take a shower before lunch.

We ate outside again:

My husband showered first, I played a little and then had a whole 15 minutes to get showered and ready for teaching.

I taught non-stop from 2.30 until 7, then ate a quick dinner, met the boy for our weekly round of video game bosses, we talked, I played some more, started writing this post at the time I should have turned the lights out and then did the dishes.

My mother has safely returned home again and my sister is with her, so that is good. They both need to get settled, of course.

Today will be packed yet again, I think I’ll be running a ton of errands for both me and my mother-in-law, then teach quite a bit before doing bodyweight training. My head is a running list of doctor’s appointments, paperwork and phone calls.

Good thing I have a list. Or two.

As I was brushing my teeth after breakfast my cellphone rang. My mother-in-law.

She wanted to go to the hospital because she wasn’t feeling well. Since she had just been to the hospital not too long ago, had been thoroughly checked out and they didn’t find anything I was skeptical.

She said she was dizzy, her blood pressure was way too high, she wanted to call emergency services.

Husband and I talked to her, asked her if her doctor had given her anything in case her blood pressure sky-rocketed. Yes, he had. So we got her to take one of those pills.

Well, that turned out to be a mistake. She took the pill, we waited a while, I asked her to take her blood pressure again, so she shuffled over to her dining table, sat down, took her blood pressure which was 53/38 and then she just sat there, eyes closed, not reacting. Which is not surprising with a blood pressure like that.

So I called emergency services after all.

Husband helped me carry her over to the couch because I was afraid she would slump all the way off the chair but she hadn’t fainted. She was just very weak.

Emergency services came after a few minutes and were very nice. Apparently her blood pressure had not been too high before at all, and so taking that pill hadn’t done her any good. She kept repeating that she wanted to go to the hospital but it was pretty clear that she’d be alright again after the effects of the pill would wear off and while the doctor was talking to her her blood pressure climbed back up to normal levels.

Mother-in-law spent the rest of the day flopping around on the couch with us checking on her every hour or so. We took her some of our lasagna for lunch and in the afternoon my husband made her a cup of coffee which the doctor had recommended to bring her blood pressure back up.

By afternoon she was busy complaining that she wanted to move to a nursery home, that she didn’t have long to live and started sorting through her finances and giving me tasks to do this week.

Good thing we had cooked for two days the day before:

Doesn’t look all the photogenic but still tasted fabulous.

I spent the rest of the day alternating between playing Genshin Impact quests, talking with family members about care homes, finances and dementia diagnoses, I also phoned my mother at one point before lunch. She is lowly mending and will be released home today. My sister traveled up there to help and I am infinitely grateful for that.

The boy and I did bodyweight training in the evening and I can now do one more (very) assisted pull-up than before, yeah. He and I also finally installed the fly-screen on his window, he has been getting bitten by mosquitoes a lot lately.

And then my husband and I watched the World Cup final. It was a rather boring game. I knitted a bit, and I spun a little on my spindle, and I dozed off at times. The boy had done the dishes and came in to check on the game from time to time asking, „Has there been a goal yet?“ No.

Of course, when the goal fell all three of us had briefly left the room, which is rather funny. We watched all the way to the end and were happy that Spain won. And as much as I watched the game for BTS I am still thinking that there shouldn’t have been a half-time show. It was weird, and seemed artificial and it gives me the creeps that the sound you hear doesn’t match the surroundings you see. I get why they don’t do these songs live, of course, but still.

Anyway, went to bed after midnight again, and now for a new week.

I did almost get enough sleep the night before, did my morning routine sans writing and then went out for my run/walk:

I tested my new contact lens and it is working well.

Husband was in uber-stress because lasagna and so I helped a little:

He feels that the result isn’t worth the hassle and that making both kinds of tomato sauce the night before didn’t make a difference but I beg to differ.

The plan was to play Genshin Impact all afternoon and that’s what I did, we eatched an episode of Clumbo while eating spring rolls and then I played some more until midnight.

No writing, no spinning.

Shrug.

Well.

Husband and I had a short conversation over breakfast because he was raring to go do things. I knitted a bit, did the dishes, changed my mind about what to do with the rest of the morning twice and then got my bike out to ride to the next town over. I wanted to renew the prescription for both my orthotics and my painkillers.

The bike ride was okay if a little windy and sunny, and at the doctor’s office they told me I was to early to get new orthotics. My insurance only pays for them every six months, and I got the last pair in March. Oops.

My calendar reminder was set to the old date but I decided not to renew in December of all months, especially not when having covid. And in February or so I had bronchitis.

Anyway, at least I will have more of the strong pain meds. That I am taking right now because my fingers are acting up again.

I came back home covered in sweat and decided to take a shower before lunch. Husband made rice and dal:

I knew I had a light teaching day ahead of me and that I really wanted to get some housework done as well. So I made myself do the dishes right after lunch, before sitting down to eat some chocolate.

The I taught my first student. The second one rescheduled, the third one is switching between my husband and me when my husband has an open slot, so I had an hour of free time between students. And I used that to vacuum most of the house and clean the washbasins and toilets. Oh, and I changed the sheets on my bed and the towels. Ha!

I taught the next student, got an email canceling my last student of the day and played the piano for a bit. There were only two other major things I wanted to do that day, figure out how much money I made from my first book in 2025 (for taxes) and open the manuscript. Getting the numbers for the book had been not as easy as I thought (there is a tax overview Amazon gives you but it was confusing) but I consulted my budgeting app and that worked fine.

In case you’re interested, I made solid coffee money with my writing in 2025. Mind you, that is just gross income, not profit.

I ate an early dinner, then tried to make myself write with no success and then met the boy for bodyweight training. I have reached the stage again where it feels like I’m getting worse instead of better but I’m pretty sure that’s not true. Also, adding 45 minutes of bike riding to the day does make a difference.

I started writing this post while my husband was cooking ragu bolognese for today’s lasagne, managed to get myself writing at least a little, made a list for today, spun a bit and played my video game before going to bed.

Speaking of spinning, I forgot to add the picture I took of the spindle project to yesterday’s post, so you’re getting it now:

I am sampling for sock yarn. And yes, I want to spin the whole yarn on a spindle. It might take a while but I don’t care. Right now this project gets way more attention than the one on the wheel because I don’t have to get up from the kitchen bench for it.

For today I am unsure if I should do a huge push for the taxes, should just veg out and decompress, or spend all day writing. Experience tells us that this kind of choice leads to me sitting around staring blankly into space and/or doomscrolling, so maybe I should rethink this plan.

Even if I only wrote for 7 minutes. But I did most everything else I had set out to do, including grocery shopping and helping my mother-in-law a little, and even cleaning a bit.

We ate outside even though it was too hot for it. My husband had made the mistake of turning the heat on high under the frying pan and then leaving the room to answer a text. The first batch of eggplant was burnt so badly that we didn’t eat it but the rest was fine:

I picked up a test contact lens and then never even took it out of my purse.

I went to bed too late.

I went to bed only half an hour late, and did the usual morning things. I really didn’t want to do yoga, had to drag me through every minutes and then, of course, I felt better for it.

I even opened the manuscript for five minutes after breakfast.

I went on my run/walk a little later than I wanted but because it had been raining most of the morning it was nice and cool. Also super humid which made breathing pretty hard:

I did feel the kind of exhausted that makes you feel like lying down on the floor weeping for most of the day. So I did skip a few running intervals. And debated cutting my workout short but in the end I was happy I had did it anyway.

I helped chop a few herbs and grate the wrong cheese before taking a shower, and we had lunch on the porch:

Yes, it’s all zucchini all the time here right now, that’s what you get when you plant your own.

I took a bit of a break after lunch, the boy showed up to eat, and then tested if he could do a specific challenging domain with my characters. The answer was yes, by the way. Next up I need to up my game so I can do it myself as well.

It was time to teach after that. I had a few cancelations, reschedules, and all that stuff. In the end I had two breaks between students and I’m proud to say that I used both of them very productively to start the first task on my „how to do the taxes“-checklist. Though, that’s not quite true because the first point on that list is: „remember that the tyxes take approximately 5 hours“.

I used to cram them in at the last minute and so that information can be crucial. I do need to remember to also list my meager earnings from my books for the first time this year as well.

The day before when talking to my writer friend I suddenly realized that part of the reason why I’m so cranky and paralyzed right now is that I’m dreading doing the taxes. So I better tackle them soon.

I also finally opened the manuscript for a little longer in the evening, sepite the fact that my writer friend had to cancel our writing sprint because she had a plumbing emergency in her apartment. Fingers crossed that her plumbing gets fixed ASAP.

I spun for a bit, made a list for today, played some Genshin and went to bed. Oh, and the optician called but didn’t leave a message which always bugs me. When I called back they told me they couldn’t leave messages on everybody’s answering machines because that would take too much time?

More time than talking to the people the reach on the phone? More time than trying to reach someone several times? I really don’t get it. But hey, my new test contacts are apparently ready.

I also was slow all day. I did not open then manuscript but I did my usual yoga and such. It only took ages. Talked with my husband briefly, knitted a few rounds on the new pair of socks and finally figured out that I had not botched the sock again, it was looking exactly as it is supposed to.

My legs and feet hurt, and actually, everything hurt. Might have been the alcohol I drank two days in a row. Not that I got drunk, I had an ouzo and a beer on Sunday and another beer on Monday, but it does make a difference. My finger arthritis is also acting back up so I just took some pain meds. That’s what they’re for.

It started raining heavily in the morning and at one point I decided to move my errands and such to another day. But then it cleared up a little and I was dreading clogging the next few days with errands and I also saw that we’d run out of quite a few things very soon so I did get groceries as planned.

Came back home on time for lunch, and got some stuff for my mother-in-law as well. She is still not feeling super well and so we’re helping a little.

Because of the rain we ate lunch inside:

I then read a little, ate some chocolate and spent a nice 20 minutes finding kinds of woods I don’t have yet in Genshin Impact.

Then it was time for the first student of the day. The second one canceled. That pattern went all the way through the day until I ended up teaching only four students instead of the expected seven. I had a hard time using my breaks properly but I did eat dinner before meeting with my friend for coaching.

Then I started writing this post, did bodyweight training with the boy, we did our weekly boss fights and some other game stuff, I did the dishes, spun for ten minutes and went to bed.

Today is running/walking again, we’ll see if I can do the next training session in my app or if I have to scale back and do less. I’ll adjust as needed.

Yesterday went very well, even though I took a wrong turn on my morning run/walk that added an additional 30 minutes of walking to it. That was a lot.

Fortunately, I had left the house early because it was supposed to be so hot and still had enough time before teaching.

We finally had the spaghetti with shrimp and cherry tomatoes for lunch that my husband had been wanting to make for two weeks or so:

More than half my students canceled which gave me a bit of breathing room before I went to Munich to meet someone from the US who I met through a Ravelry forum.

.
We had a very enjoyable evening and ended up walking around for another hour so. Today I might take the bike for my grocery run.

I was back home at a reasonable time but then didn’t go to bed.

Today will be pretty full again, there will be some errands and the health food store, lots of teaching, I’m meeting with my writer friend/coach, do bodyweight training with the boy and then we’ll tackle our weekly video game bosses.

So I better run now!

And guess who didn*t really get anything done all day?

On the other hand it was a good day anyway.

There was the usual morning routine (Writing? What writing?) and breakfast and a rather slow morning and then my husband and I went out for lunch to the Greek restaurant we tried a few weeks ago. And they did not disappoint. We had really great appetizers (that I didn’t photograph) and this time I ordered oven-baked veggies with feta:

Very good, and I also had a glass of ouzo and a beer.

The boy did not join us, instead he made himself ramen after we had returned home because he wasn’t awake yet when we left.

I spent the afternoon playing Genshin and then tried to make myself do either some cleaning, or some writing, or some planning the week.

I gave up trying 15 minutes before bodyweight training and just ate dinner.

The boy and I exercised, I am actually getting a little better at pull-up like things and I have the sore muscles to prove it. In between the boy tried to make me remember all the things he had taught me about artifacts in Genshin. Well, I really have a hard time remembering. And thinking space in my mind is pretty hard to come by as well. I’ll try to not let the things I learned yesterday slide ride out my brain again this time but I promise nothing.

After that I went on a Zoom call that is monthly but I hadn’t seen it live in weeks. I took my new sock project to work on, botched the first two rounds and need to sort that out later today.

I started writing this post, planned the week, gave up on writing and went to bed.

Oh, and bonus picture of the socks I finished yesterday morning, before starting a new pair, as one does:

Today will be packed and hot, so super fun for sure.

I went to bed only half an hour late and slept for 8 1/2 hours. So no time for writing in the morning. I had firm plans to go running/walking early and I did but not quite early enough.

It was a little too hot, I was dizzy, not being able to see anything properly was bothering me and my legs felt super heavy. On top of that the running app that I use decided to not do what I wanted. After trudging along for 20 minutes or so I decided to cut my workout short and walked back home:

I came home, folded some laundry and chopped some parsley, also brought my mother-in-law some leftovers from the day before and then we ate rice salad from leftover chicken:

My husband wanted to shower first so I sat and read for a bit before playing Genshin Impact. And then I kept doing just one more thing until it was too late to clean or do the dishes before our weekly watching of ‚Columbo‘. I did take a shower, though.

Family TV-watching went well, then my husband decided to tackle the dishes and I sat down and started this post.

I decided to just spend a few minutes spinning, read some more and went to bed.

Oh, and I finished knitting the current sock right at the beginning of our TV episode and then had to sit there, idle for the rest. Ugh. And I’m all out of sock yarn but I had an idea and will try to make a pair of socks from leftover sock yarn. I want to try to combine two different sock patterns and I think this should work beautifully. At least I hope so.

The plan is also to go out for lunch today and I’m really looking forward to that.

I went to bed at 1.30 and that was definitely not enough sleep. I woke up from my alarm and saw messages that my mother-in-law had tried reaching me on the phone three times between 6 and 6.45 am. I was not awake at that time. I tried calling her back but it took two tries to actually reach her. She sounded calm and her usual self and said she’d be home either the same day or today.

I did most of my morning routine but did not open the manuscript and was pretty distracted overall.

When I was finished with yoga and meditation my husband was already finished with his breakfast and ready to go outside. He wanted to work in the garden, go for a run, and make fried chicken for lunch. So not a lot of time.

I finally ate breakfast, then somehow found myself taking a closer look at my misbehaving spinning wheel and testing all sorts of theories about what was going wrong.

Oh, and here’s a picture of the first bobbin that I plied the other day:

I ordered two new drive bands (I have a spinning wheel that has a lower and an upper drive band) and pulled the second spinning wheel out. I’ll just use that one instead until I can get the other one working again.

And then I sat down and spun for a bit. Which made me super late with dishes, the ones that I had not done the night before, and that were clogging the kitchen at that point. But the spinning went well:

The kitchen that my husband needed to put the chicken in the oven on time.

That was not a good move.

We dealt with the whole thing with just a little conflict (I am actually proud of how we handled that situation), husband helped to dry dishes and later I helped forming the dumplings. We buy the dimpling dough readymade but you have to make it into balls yourself.

We ate only half an hour late:

And then we talked a little, so I did not have time for my video game before my first student. I did read a bit, though.

Then there was teaching, one student after the other all afternoon. At one point a student’s mother showed up in my studio saying that my mother was outside, having come just from the hospital and had a problem with two taxi drivers who both wanted to be paid and she didn’t have enough money on her.

So, my mother-in-law was back. The hospital had called a taxi for her, she had also called one herself and had gotten into the one she could have sent home without consequences, or something. So I fetched some cash and paid the driver, carried her bag upstairs, texted the boy that she was back and started the next lesson a little late.

After teaching I played the piano for a few minutes and then got ready for bodyweight training with the boy.

He was a little late which was a bit of a problem because I had scheduled another writing sprint with my friend and had hoped there would be enough time between exercise and writing to eat dinner. But no, I set up my writing desk between sets and turned everything on just in time.

I thought I was stuck and started faffing around with formatting and wanted to write scene cards or something but then I had an idea and started writing new words. Quite a few, actually.

After that I started this post, finally ate dinner, made a list for today, offloaded the dirty dishes to the boy, played Genshin for a bit and went to bed.

This will be the first Saturday without my regular writers meeting in more than a year. Which is both weird and nice. I can use some free time.

Ate breakfast, knitted and talked with my husband, did the dishes and walked to the nearby supermarket. I went to that particular shop because I wanted to get a special cleaner and then they were out.

An older woman chided me for dropping my veggie wieners into my basket from up high. „You shouldn’t treat the food like that,“ she said and then she added a little giggle to show that she wasn’t serious.

Well, apparently I didn’t have a good day because I went all, „This is my food and I can do with it what I want“ at her. Which wasn’t very nice but then I really have it with people telling me what to do. I didn’t break anything, it wasn’t really loud or anything, I don’t know. The anger of a lifetime of being scolded by old people surfaced just like that. And I mean, I am an older woman myself. And I was just in the middle of looking at all the shelves in the dairy section to figure out where they keep the dumpling dough (in a completely different corner next to the butcher, by the way) and stressed and all.

When I returned home my husband was laughing in the kitchen. Huh.

„The faucet is dripping again,“ he said, „and it is worse than before.”

The faucet that had been repaired just two days before was spewing water everywhere. Not quite the result we had hoped for.

I unpacked the groceries, I chopped a mountain of basil and most of the salad ingredients and we ate outside, all three of us, talking about cow breeds, as one does, because I had seen some unfamiliar white bulls the day before on my run. It was a really enjoyable meal on all counts. Homemade pesto and a good salad:

Next up I tried reaching my mother and mother-in-law on the phone without success, and sent a text to the plumber because of the faucet that wasn’t working again.

I read, I played my video game and ate some chocolate. I taught my first student of the day and got a text that the plumber would squeeze us in in the afternoon.

I had had big plans but couldn’t really get started on anything.

I taught my second student of the day and a couple of minutes before the end of that lesson the plumber (not the one we saw the other day but the senior plumber who is of retirement age) showed up. I led him to the faucet and went back to my student.

He fixed the faucet (the younger plumber had only changed one o-ring, not two, and had not changed the sieve-thing on the end (sorry, I can’t remember how that is called right now).

Right now the faucet is working again, hurray!

I ate dinner, talked with the boy, mostly about his upcoming trip to my mother, about what stuff to take, how long he’d probably stay there, and how to make sure he can still study for the one exam still left in September. He will stay here until most of his exams are done, then go up North and come back before the last one.

And then it was time to meet my friend for a writing sprint. I was super scattered and actually wandered off to other parts of the internet in between but managed a few new words, at least.

I then did the dishes, spun for a bit, and went to bed.

Since we could not get hold of my husband’s mother yesterday that will be the first task for today, and then I might ride my bike to the hospital. If I stay home I will help with making fried chicken.

Meh.

I did go to bed only an hour late, slept well and woke up a little late, so was pretty okay on sleep.

I set the table and took my thyroid meds and was just sitting there writing morning pages when the boy showed up.

He just wanted to tell me that my mother-in-law had been feeling unwell that morning and was calling paramedics in to get her to the hospital.

Apparently she had tried calling my cellphone, had had the wrong number, left a message on our voicemail (that I somehow got hours later) and finally called the boy on his phone. He was surprisingly calm and coherent for someone who had had only 4 1/4 hours of sleep at that point.

So this time he got to get her bag ready and open the door and then stand around awkwardly while someone examined her and such. It seems that her blood pressure was suddenly extremely high after a week of being rather low, her heart was beating fast, she was dizzy and afraid, so she called.

They did take her, I gave them my cellphone number and the boy tried to get back to sleep for two more hours. I later learned that he didn’t succeed, poor thing.

I decided to get dressed right away, no yoga, no meditation, and then got to tell my husband the news over breakfast. None of us panicked, this was not our first rodeo but I have to say I am still feeling a little out of whack.

I did the dishes and went on my run/walk:

It was blessedly cool if rather humid and yes, I did get rained on. My legs felt heavier and heavier along the way but my cardio fitness is fine.

I came back home to lunch already on the table:

I couldn’t do the dishes then because my husband wanted to take a shower, and then I took a shower and then I ran out of time. Before I tried teaching both my mother and my mother-in-law on the phone with no success but my mother sent me a text. My mother-in-law had her phone turned off.

I taught many, many students. In my penultimate lesson the boy texted me six times because he had trouble finding the thing I had asked him to pick up on his way home from uni. In the end it turned out that he had been looking for something that looked like the container we have at home not knowing that we just refill that thing from a package that looks completely different.

And then my mother-in-law called and I had to let my poor student sit there while talking to her. They had been doing all the tests, she would be staying overnight but she didn’t know anything. Things sounded pretty low-key.
So I started the next lesson somewhat late, was completely mushy and managed to push the wrong button on my amp and my foggy brain meant it took me ages to figure out how to finally get sound out of the speakers.

Fortunately, he had a little more time and so we extended the lesson for ten minutes.

After that I sat there just scrolling, unable to get the next thing started for half an hour.

I ate dinner, started writing this post, made a list for today, did the dishes, briefly opened the manuscript (I had planned for an hour, very funny) and plied for a few minutes.

In theory today should be less chaotic. I’m planning a short grocery trip and have a very light teaching day but who knows.

I overslept in the morning (lights out after midnight) and was woken by a message on my smartwatch that I had a phone call on my cell. Which was in the kitchen. So I got up, called that person back and found out that the plumber would be coming over between 10 and 11. Woot!

I managed some distracted morning pages, yoga and meditation, my husband showed up and was in a much better mood than the day before despite having slept badly and we ate breakfast.

I switched things around a bit at that point, brushed my teeth and did the dishes before I had even finished drinking my tea but I was done by ten and the plumber rang the doorbell at 10.15.

Very nice guy who diagnosed the dripping faucet in the bathroom (dripping down underneath the washbasin along the wall) as being beyond repair so we needed a new one and the dripping faucet in the kitchen as just needing a new o-ring. I should learn how to change that myself at one point. I should also remember that changing that ring does not require turning off the water. Actually, he didn’t turn the water off at all. Huh.

While that guy was there my husband also noticed a dripping pipe in the basement near the furnace. The plumber took some pictures to document it, showed me an impressive hole on the underside of the pipe (I also need to remember that I can use my phone to look into places I can’t easily reach otherwise) and told me he’d tell his boss and that they would get back to us. If they didn’t we should call them again because they are buried under work right now.

So that went very well.

Meanwhile my sister had asked me to phone her so we could talk about our mother’s impending release from the hospital. She would rather not have to move up to her for a couple of weeks, like all of us, but unfortunately my job and all the doctor’s appointments and my upcoming cataract surgery make it extremely hard for me to do so, and her job – unfortunately for her – doesn’t require her to be in a specific place at a specific time.

We talked for an hour or so, then her phone battery gave out, we picked up our conversation again over mobile and then my husband was super stressed because a) he had been dealing with glass recycling and had gone for a run (in the heat, after a short night of bad sleep), b) he had planned to work on his vegetable beds but had run out of time and c) he was not only trying to make a mixed salad, two kinds of sauce and mozzarella with tomatoes, had thawed another loaf of bread and had plans to pick arugula and parsley from the garden but he was also staring down a brutal teaching day on top of that.

And I was on the phone, talking and laughing. I tend to use dry humor a lot in crisis. Crying and panicking never helps.

Husband felt that I should have cut the phone call short so I could help with making lunch.

I did chop stuff for the salad, grated parmesan, listened to my husband venting and tried tidying the kitchen and setting the table while he was rushing through the kitchen like a tsunami.

He decided to skip the mozzarella, the arugula and the parsley and was very frustrated to be using frozen parsley instead of the fresh one that was just out the door.

We ate lunch. I was sure I had taken a picture but apparently I didn’t so imagine some spaghetti bolognese with a mixed salad.

After lunch I decided to go to the health food store real quick before it was time to teach. I did give in to the temptation of buying four different kinds of chocolate bar and I ate three of them. I gave the last one to the boy, at least.

Then I taught two students, thought I’d start the dishes in my 30-minute break but somehow didn’t really get anything done. My next student just didn’t show without saying anything which is rather unusual, and the one after that told me she couldn’t make it – 5 minutes before her lesson.

At that point I had already devolved into scrolling through social media. And reading which is quite a bit better. But I did go upstairs to my mother-in-law to give her the vacuum cleaner bags I had ordered for her (there was a point where she was convinced her bag was reusable which it definitely wasn’t and we ended up talking for half an hour. She tried to pay me for the bags three times or more (after having given me the money right away), and in the evening the boy came downstairs saying she was asking if she had already paid me.

I gave in at one point and ate dinner, then the boy and I did bodyweight training, Husband and the boy finally ate the mozzarella and tomatoes while I picked up my knitting for the first time that day, and then I spent too much time scrolling because I had ran out of decision energy.

I started this post, spun for a few minutes and went to bed.

Oh, and beside the vacuum cleaner bags there was also a nice big envelope holding the boy’s bachelor’s certificate. I haven’t even looked at it so far but will do so today.

Fingers crossed that today will be a little less packed. And that I’ll find more writing time, my writer friend already had to cancel our Zoom call.

Not that I did that yesterday.

I did all the usual morning things which means I have done yoga every day so far this month. I’m also experimenting with not taking my blood pressure medication because my blood pressure has been in the optimal range for weeks now. Chances are it’s still normal without the pills. We’ll see. I will be extra diligent in looking at the numbers every day.

I had another slow morning but it was refreshingly cool and so running/walking was rather pleasant. The only uncomfortable thing was that my legs felt, really really heavy:

My husband was in a rather bad mood, he had started to pull the weeds in his garden beds the day before and was very frustrated that he kept pulling the carrots out with the weeds. Those weeds are way taller than the things he sowed, so his frustration is understandable. And he has a pretty brutal teaching schedule overall, poor thing.

He still cooked a delicious meal and on time, even:

I had planned to take a shower right away but ran into my husband who wanted to do the same as I was picking up fresh underwear from the drying rack. So I folded the laundry and took a break reading and playing my game. I had to rush to finish my shower in time before my first student.

Then it was non-stop teaching, the last lesson was my writer friend who brought a delightful Bach piece and we had a refreshing conversation about classical music and such afterwards.

I finally ate dinner at 7.30, then met the boy for our weekly video game bosses, played some more and then it was rather late already. But I still hadn’t done the dishes, started this post, done my journal entry or my daily spinning, oops.

I helped the boy strategize a little, he has four exams coming up very close together. I started this post while he made himself fried potatoes. I spun some yarn and I did the dishes. Here’s my spindle:

So it was all quite a bit but it’s always hard to fit everything in when teaching ends that late. Today I’ll be done earlier, so I hope that will translate into more sleep.

I did all the usual morning things (without writing unfortunately), ate breakfast and called my mother at the hospital. She is feeling marginally better but recovery is very slow.

I planned the week before lunch which was a little late but pretty tasty. There might not have been salt in the lentils but with some added salt it was very good:

I spent the afternoon playing Genshin, starting to help the boy install a fly screen but we didn’t get far because there was some cleaning to do beforehand that he did without me.

At 5 I had another video call, this one happens monthly and it was a lot of fun.

Then I waited for the boy to come downstairs for bodyweight training, and I ate dinner before. Maybe not the best decision.

We did our exercise and I got a tiny bit better with my pull-ups and afterwards I looked at the spinning wheel. I had unpacked it again in the afternoon and had lubrucated the treadles and the flyer but it wasn’t working.

In the end I just put some oil on the flyer shaft and it finally started working:

Then I played too much Genshin (but almost finished building one character and started leaving up another one, and then it was too late again.

So, today: reading, writing, running, teaching. Oh, and some spinning, of course.

I’m giving you a very short account of the day because today is also pretty busy and I want to use my time for other things.

I did open the manuscript for twenty minutes which is an improvement over the days before but not really enough. If I write for three hours today I will be super happy but that is highly unlikely.

I almost finished the two gauge swatches and I’ll show them to you another time, I hope, I did the dishes and went on my run/walk half an hour late.

I’m calling it a run/walk now instead of a walk/run because I have flipped the ratio between running and walking intervals. By the time I went out it was past noon and pretty hot so there were a few stretches of way that were feeling to hot and I did walk part of the running intervals sometimes but not much. Oh, and no alt text today as well, sorry but here is my usual running selfie:

Yes, I’m looking a bit exhausted and hot. Also, I was feeling the harder strength training the night before but was sore in a good way. Mostly.

I came back home, helped a little with chopping things for lunch and we ate outside again:

That weird red thing is red beet risotto, made with red beets my husband grew. And we have too many eggs and not much protein.

Then I took a shower, read a bit and played my game. The plan was to either spin or write before my weekly writer Zoom but because the host had given me a heads up that she wanted to stop hosting I was too preoccupied with how that would go.

It went very well, by the way, she said that this would be the last meeting, and that she was sorry because she would miss seeing us all every week but that being host and doing it every Saturday was very draining for her and too much. The reaction was, oh, that is a little sad but understandable.

We still checked in but this time we talked about what we all want to achieve the rest of the year. Because we’re at the half-way mark already.

One of us had the idea of meeting again in three months to check in. Which is a good idea and we actually agreed on a date. I hope this will actually happen. I did put it in my calendar already. Of course I did.

These are the times when I think back to my mother calling me over-organized. I’m still pissed at that. There is no such thing as over-organized, there is only properly organized. There is a point where pending more time and energy on organization gives you diminishing returns and isn’t quite worth it but still.

Then my husband, the boy and I met to watch an episode of ‚Columbo‘ that was really unusual. Not bad but the pacing was a little too slow for my taste.

After that I folded some laundry, did a huge amount of dishes (took 45 minutes, I stopped the time), started writing this post, made a list for today, spun for ten minutes on my spindle because there was definitely no time to get the spinning wheel running but it also was the start of the Tour de Fleece and that was mostly it.

Phew.

And more of that today, hopefully with more writing.

On the bright side I only went to bed an hour late which is better than the days before. And I set my alarm back to 7 so I did get a little more sleep.

I was pretty cranky because I hadn’t written in two days and I was low-key stressed about everything but acutely about that day’s optician appointment.

But first I talked with my husband over breakfast, he decided to leave a little earlier than usual for his run, because he is still behind with the garden and he also wanted to go running.

So I finished my tea, read a little and started a gauge swatch with the purple yarn I spun:

The yarn looks nicer than I thought it would.

After that I went on my usual internet rounds, lamented that I didn’t have time to write, realized that I could either lament for ten minutes or just open the manuscript, even if I just stared at it for the whole time, opened the manuscript, stared at it for a couple of minutes and just as I was back into the story and knew what to write next – my husband showed up to put the vacuum back into the bedroom where I had left it for two weeks or so because I would be doing the apartment any moment now.

At first that was not a problem but then he told me something and after that started a discussion about the air in the bedroom being stale and I could feel the idea I had slipping from my fingers.

I was not in a good mood after that.

I got ready and then decided to do the breakfast dishes before leaving and risking being a few minutes late.

Which was not a problem. I made the way in record time and only arrived three minutes late.

The optician was nice and competent as always. He didn’t quite approve my surgeon’s plan but, well, it is decided already and there’s that. And I am not quite convinced he is right.

He was a little surprised that I went to him four weeks before surgery to discuss the permanent contact lens for my other eye to wear between surgeries. Well, I thought it would need time to order that thing and before that to get an appointment.

Which now means there will be time to experiment with test lenses. Or maybe just one test lens. That will be interesting. They also measured my eyes again and – as I thought – my vision has gotten significantly worse yet again since the last time I was there.

I came back home feeling somewhat better for having walked through the nice sunny day that was not too hot. I answered a text and wrote one to the plumber we had asked to come in, um, ten days ago, and then we ate lunch outside even though it was a little windy:

The original plan had been to make calamari, then for my husband to eat the calamari and me to eat the rest of the pasta salad and in the end it was (very little) pasta salad for all of us and some extras.

I had a bit of time before my first student and used that to play my video game.

My second student canceled in the middle of my first lesson via text. The next student was being taught by my husband that week (we move him back and forth depending on whether my husband has time) and I used that time to finally vacuum the apartment and do the lunch dishes. The vacuum is now back in the basement where it belongs.

The next student showed up and played nicely, and the student after that was one who had rescheduled from earlier in the week.

They did not show up at all.

I sat there waiting for a while, and I read and contemplated playing the piano but I didn’t want to.

Just before my last student of the day was due I opened my email and found that the last student had canceled half an hour before their lesson, so I sat around waiting and ready to teach for almost three hours for two measly lessons. Well, and I cleaned and did the dishes which is no nothing.

I then played the piano a bit and ate dinner.

I met the boy and we did strength training, this time the pull-up bar felt like it was mocking me. I’m just hoping I’ll get stronger eventually.

I read some more (have started the „Sugar and Vice“-trilogy over from the beginning), looked at my bullet journal briefly and then started writing this post.

I opened the manuscript for fifteen minutes and then went back to playing more Genshin before going to bed.

I’m just hoping I’ll make good use of the weekend. I mean, I finally have a plan for the month so everything will go smoothly, of course.

I had a generally scattered day, one where I opened social media first thing in the morning. Not good. There were a lot of very helpful conversations with my husband and then I set out to do the big grocery run on my bike.

Came back home a little late for lunch with all the cheese and all the bread and some other stuff as well. Unpacked while husband was talking at me at speed because he was so stressed from the cooking. I even helped a little at the end and we ate outside:

I had quite a bit of time because I only had very few students but I also was super tired so I did not get much done.

I used a break between students to do the dishes, at least. The fan we had ordered for my mother-in-law arrived and the boy tried it out and brought it upstairs. We had tried to make sure that it would be easy to use and it looked like it was. Only one switched that needs to be turned from off to three different settings. And the fan was nice and strong.

After my last student I sat down to eat a bag of potato chips and read. My husband was done at the exact same time so went in and out of the kitchen for his dinner, then decided he wanted to do something about the dripping faucet and clogged drains right away. I tried waiting until he was finished but the tiredness, exhaustion and hunger crashed over me. Then there was a misunderstanding (of course) which meant we had to have an argument on top of everything.

We did talk some and made up again later but that was a big waste of time.

I had settled in the living room at my writing desk to start this post and had the feeling that my external computer keyboard was behaving strangely. So I finally figured out that the app I had gotten warnings about (Intel-based, no longer useable in the future) was the keyboard’s driver. So I had to see if there was a new version (there was), install it, register, and try to figure the problem out. (I did not figure it out.) It’s not essential but it felt like the keyboard lights were flickering, weird. And I couldn’t remember how to turn them off. But then I remembered that I can just use a search engine, and voilà!

I started writing this post, spent some time looking at July because while I was way too tired last night, I also would not have any time for that today, played some more Genshin Impact and vowed to do better today.

I’m having that feeling of dragging myself towards the weekend. I really despise feeling like that, I think the whole week should be something to look forward to. But I didn’t do well with my energy management this week.

As I said, today I’ll be better.

I had gone to bed past midnight again and set my alarm for 6.30, so not quite enough sleep. I did my morning routine but couldn’t get myself to open the manuscript. I mean, I did open it, and then I promptly forgot about it until two hours later or so.

I did yoga and meditated, and talked with my husband over breakfast and wound the purple yarn I had plied:

Unfortunately I forgot to figure out how many meters of yarn I had, should have done that while it was still in the skein. But it is 44.8 grams. Some of it is either plied or spun in the wrong direction, weird.

And then I was rather reluctant to do anything. What I really wanted to do was a) start playing the new version of Genshin Impact and b) finish reading „Edge of Mercy“ but I did neither.

My husband came back from his run soaking wet but I got lucky and was barely wet:

I came back home and lunch was already on the table:

Afterwards I ate some chocolate but did not read because I couldn’t wait to play. Which I did before taking a quick shower before teaching.

Teaching was actually rather nice, then I ate dinner and played some more. I had a lot of fun but totally forgot time, oops. The boy saved me and did the dishes for me, I started writing this post and made a list for today.

A list that does include finally planning the month for sure.

I had gone to bed past midnight again and set my alarm for 6.30, so not quite enough sleep. I did my morning routine but couldn’t get myself to open the manuscript. I mean, I did open it, and then I promptly forgot about it until two hours later or so.

I did yoga and meditated, and talked with my husband over breakfast and wound the purple yarn I had plied:

Unfortunately I forgot to figure out how many meters of yarn I had, should have done that while it was still in the skein. But it is 44.8 grams. Some of it is either plied or spun in the wrong direction, weird.

And then I was rather reluctant to do anything. What I really wanted to do was a) start playing the new version of Genshin Impact and b) finish reading „Edge of Mercy“ but I did neither.

My husband came back from his run soaking wet but I got lucky and was barely wet:

I came back home and lunch was already on the table:

Afterwards I ate some chocolate but did not read because I couldn’t wait to play. Which I did before taking a quick shower before teaching.

Teaching was actually rather nice, then I ate dinner and played some more. I had a lot of fun but totally forgot time, oops. The boy saved me and did the dishes for me, I started writing this post and made a list for today.

A list that does include finally planning the month for sure.

Which translated into me getting some stuff done right away. I did my morning routine in a timely manner, even opened the manuscript, started my June review, made an appointment with my optician, walked to my regular doctor’s office and asked about the results of that urine sample and got an all clear, hurray!

Apparently, when everything is in order they don’t call you. I keep forgetting that. And what if they forgot to call?

I bought yogurt, went to the health food store, went back to another health food store because I had forgotten to get the boy’s vitamins but they were out again (third time going there in vain) and walked back home.

Unpacked everything and told my husband the good medical news, texted my mother (who then complained about the heat and humidity), ordered the vitamins online and ate lunch:

The boy even joined us after going to uni in the morning.

I had a bit of a break and started teaching.

The first two students came in as usual. The third one was excused by his brother who came in before him. the fourth student was a little later than usual but everything was fine. The next one canceled 3 minutes before her lesson asking for a reschedule and the one after that came in ten minutes early. The next one after that had canceled an hour before and the next one just didn’t show.

I had a hard time using my free time at all, I was constantly waiting and unsure what would happen next, something I am definitely not good with.

At least I used one of those breaks to eat dinner.

Then the boy and I did bodyweight training but interrupted that in order to fill out and print a form for him, and then put it in an envelope so he could send it to uni. I would have preferred to do that after training but he thought this way would be faster (it was not faster).

I fell into a social media rabbit hole at that point that I then left in order to write this post and make a list for today.

Since today is actually expected to be quite a bit cooler and raining all day I’m hoping my brain will work again.

I went to bed too late again and set my alarm for 6.30. Did dawdle a little but not too much but I only had time for ten minutes of writing. While staring at the manuscript I realized I was stuck again. I need to look at the timeline again and I needed to figure out what happens next.

I did yoga and meditated and talked with my husband a bit while knitting. We talked mostly about my feelings about my mother being in the hospital after her fall the day before and how I get especially thrown off by ot knowing what happens next but there’s nothing anyone can do about that.

I was super slow after that. Fortunately, it was a little cooler (which doesn’t mean it was cool, exactly), so the fact that I left for my walk/run a little late didn’t matter as much:

I have progressed to a program where I run a little longer than I walk now, if I can make myself do it. I was thinking a lot about building strength and especially strong bones while doing that (in the midday heat) and found that rather motivating. Running is better for osteoporosis prevention that walking but every bit helps, of course.

I came back home with time for a shower before lunch. Husband decided we’d eat outside and he has moved some cheap plastic chairs to our porch so we don’t have to carry chairs around every time we want to sit there. (We do have chairs that match the table but he uses those in his studio because he finds them comfier than our other chairs.)

We had spaghetti with meatballs because we still had some meatballs left over from a few days before.

I read a little and played my video game a little and then it was time to teach. I had hoped to be able to call my optician and maybe my doctor but the optician is closed on Mondays and the doctor was on lunch break while I would have had time.

There were many students and after that I met my writer friend for a coaching session (she is a certified Clifton Strengths coach). I had wanted to prep for that but all I could manage was to pull up my objectives from the time before that I hadn’t looked at at all in the meantime. I had also hoped to review June and plan July but nope.

It was very helpful, though, because it made me realize how packed July is (it always is but this one seems slightly overpacked) and all the questions I need answered about this month and the next. Very, very helpful.

I had called my mother in the morning and she mentioned that a) she was in a lot of pain and b) she would only stay at the hospital for a couple more days (because they can’t really do anything) and then she would go to another clinic that is specialized in acute geriatric care, hopefully until she could go back home. And in the evening I got a text from my aunt that my mother will probably go to that clinic on Thursday and stay there for four weeks for sure.

Which brought me relief because now I have a rough timeline and I know she will have care, help and cooked meals.

Then it was finally time for dinner after which I met the boy for our weekly Genshin bosses and then I played some more.

Oh, and somewhere in between breakfast and running I also sorted my mother-in-law’s fan order (did I tell you about that?), we had ordered a fan for her the evening before after lots of back-and-forth with the boy clomping up and down the stairs with my iPad to show her pictures and ask her opinion and coming back down with cash. We settled on a fan that then turned out to be out of stock at the big A, so I ordered it elsewhere for a little more plus shipping.

So, in the morning I got an email, they were very sorry but the sudden increased demand had overloaded their online shop system and they had sold more fans than they had, and here was my money back.

Which meant there was still no fan for my mother-in-law.

So I did a bit of cursory research and clicked ‚buy‘ really fast on something pretty cheap. I hope that thing will help but I’m guessing a fan is better than no fan and they are in high demand right now for obvious reasons.

Oh, and by the way the plumber still hasn’t called. Another thing for the mental load column but that’s why we have lists.

Somewhere along the way I also tried to find the green Corriedale that I was sure I had started spinning but then I went through my Ravelry posts and nope, I haven’t start yet. Now I just need to figure out where I put my heavier Bosworth spindle because I had a project on there that I can’t seem to find.

And yeah, all of that took a little longer than I had hoped, phew.

Today there will be the June review, I hope, and the July plan and also errands, a pharmacy order and the health food store. Oh, and calling the optician for an appointment.

As I said, I barely go anything done.

I went to bed at 1 am, bad move like always. Then I overslept even though I had set my alarm for 6.30 which was not all that surprising.

I did my morning pages, yoga and meditation and thought I’d do manuscript time later.

I did not open the manuscript.

There was breakfast with my husband and some talking about my health stuff an all the maybe doctor’s appointments and such. But the most helpful conversation of all was about the Weaver B. sweater.

I don’t seem to have a picture of it after washing and „blocking“ (which for me means just laying it flat to dry). The other day I tried it on and it grew immensely. It is now too long, a little too wide and the armholes are way too big. I had wanted to wear it with skirts and wide-legged pants and that would make me look like a broad column of fabric.

Husband thought it was okay, and fit well but no.

So the options were to wear it as is (or rather not wear it) or rip it back and re-knit. That would mean a very fiddly ripping back project with lots and lots of short lengths of yarn. No fun to work with that.

I could also give it to someone else who likes it the way it is.

Or, and that is the solution I’m leaning towarids (though it’s more an and than an or solution), I could find someone who wants the sweater, order more yarn and – reknit it in the right size.

Ha!

I think that’s what I’ll do. Eventually.

That cleared up my mood immediately lightened up.

I talked some more with my husband and then it was time for the weekly phone call with my mother.

I was a little earlier than usual. When I called her landline she did not pick up. I was equal parts worried and annoyed. There have been days in the past where she forgot to tell meshe wouldn’t be home that day.

I tried again ten minutes later. I left  voicemail. I texted her, nothing.

Finally I tried calling her cell and she answered with, „Susanne, how did you know I’m at the hospital?”

Um, what?

So. Turns out when she went to the bathroom in the night she fell and then she couldn’t get back up from the floor. She tried for two hours, apparently, before using her emergency button that calls a service. They then try to get hold of her through the intercom in her apartment and when she doesn’t answer they send someone over who has a key to her apartment. She specifically looked for a service that had people nearby, like, 5 kilometers away.

She was brought to a hospital in a nearby town (no hospital in town anymore), then examined and looked at .

When I called around noon she was finally in a bed in hospital and looking forward to finally get painkillers soon. Which arrived as we were speaking. She needed those because, wait for it, she broke her pelvis. Again.

I’m told that is very painful. And it is basically the set of bones that enable standing, sitting and walking. It all literally hinges on your pelvic bones.

She was pretty out of it which was understandable and we talked only briefly but I’l call her again soon.

So my next step was to text both my aunt (my mother’s sister who lives in town and has a key to her apartment) and also my sister, og course. They usually phone on Mondays and she didn’t need to go through the same kind of panic I did.

I found it interesting that I started my phone call with, „Hi, it’s me (yes for caller ID), don’t panic. Mom is in the hospital because she fell in the night and broke her pelvis.“ Her first reaction? „Again?”

Yep, that wsa exactly what I thought.

We still don’t know much and she is in good hands, so I’m not too worried but booking a trip to visit her in August might have been a bad idea. Or maybe not, we’ll see. We already talked about who could maybe get away from their home and help her for a while, even the boy said he would get up there if he is needed.

But not right now because she’s at the hospital for now.

And then we ate lunch- I helped a little with chopping and processing herbs. Yes, we are having zucchini season:

After lunch I started playing Genshin Impact and I didn’t really stop until it was time for dinner. The boy helped me with some endgae stuff and even played several levels for me but at that point I didn’t really care anymore. I was also told, emphatically and repeatedly, that the way I play my team rotation is severely lacking.

Well, I’ll try my best.

I ate dinner, talked with the boy about Genshin for an hour or so, then he came back downstairs after talking with his other grandma about getting her a fan because it was still so hot and supposed to be so again soon, so we spent an hour choosing one only to find the shop ran out. I did find it elsewhere, for a little more money but, well, ordered that, played some more, finally did the dishes, brushed my teeth, started writing this post, gave up on any and all lists for today the month and the week, and also about the writing and the June review but I’ll guess that will keep.

I still went to bed too late but whatever. Back to teaching but it should be a little less hot today at least.

Oh, and we skipped bodyweight training because of the heat. The vote was unanimously.

I went to bed only half an hour late but then set my alarm half an hour early as well because the plan was to go on my walk/run earlier than usual so I would only partially melt.

I was pretty good, husband was rather surprised at seeing me ready for yoga at the time he came over to make breakfast. I had even opened the manuscript!

We had a slightly quicker breakfast than usual and I set out without dealing with the dishes beforehand.

It was already very, very warm. It was bearable in the shade in the woods but the sunny bits on asphalt were, um, uncomfortable.

I met an older woman on the path who told me I was daring. Which I found confusing and asked why. Because I dared to run in the heat. Um, I met at least four more people doing the same. I actually went out earlier than usual to avoid the worst of the heat. I don’t get it.

And then there was a part of me that thought I was doing something wrong because of that exchange which is just ridiculous. I knew from the outset that I could go on a 73-minute walk/run in the heat, I drank extra water before leaving the house and I was certain I would be able to at least walk back very slowly in case running was too hard. It’s not like that was my first time doing this.

Meanwhile my husband ran 10k. I just did 7.3 but that was definitely enough for me.

It took ages until my face was no longer beet-red, I really don’t like the heat.

I did the dishes, I took a shower and then there was lunch:

After that I read, and ate chocolate, and went online, and played my video game badly until I was almost late for the weekly writer Zoom. Meeting these people was nice, as always, but I should have logged off a little earlier because then I was too late for the weekly watching of ‚Columbo‘.

That episode was pretty good with William Shatner playing the murderer. (It was actually the second episode of ‚Columbo‘ where Shatner was playing the murderer, I almost forgot.)

And then there wasn’t much time left in the day. I did the dishes while listening to yet another packing video, started writing this post, talked with the boy for a while, made a list for today and went to bed too late.

Today will be another too hot day but then it should cool down a little, phew.

At least I went to bed on time, and I slept well and for long enough. Cue the confetti.

My husband showed up half an hour earlier than usual which threw me off, I wrote my morning pages, and then we had a misunderstanding that resulted in a long, long conversation about it, and that was basically it for the day.

I was also out of sorts because not only was it time to deliver a urine sample to my doctor’s office again, I had also noticed that I had soreness in that area for a while now, and I only put things together the day before. So I walked to the doctor’s office through the blazing sun to pee in a cup. I had hoped the doctor would get back to me the same day, as he usually does, but the office closed at 1, and I did not get a call.

When I came back from that (and buying toothpaste) my husband was right in the middle of making pizza from scratch and a salad from fried zucchini. I chopped stuff, folded a load of laundry, chopped some more and helped with the pizza and then there was lunch:

By then the kitchen was like a sauna. Using the stovetop and the oven was not the best idea on a day that was extra hot.

I took a short break and then started teaching. I had three students, then a break because a student canceled. The plan was to use the break to clean the house but instead I idly thought about writing a newsletter, did some book cover research (aka making fun of other author’s covers, I even found one in a designer’s portfolio that had a typo in the title), marked more video as „watch later“ and then waited for my last student of the day.

And waited.

And waited.

They never showed.

After that I ate some more pizza for dinner and read a bit. I started a new book and have a hard time getting into it because I’m only reading a page here or there. the book is good, that’s not the problem. I also started a list for this year’s Tour de Fleece. That is the hand-spinning event where you spin along the Tour de France. This year we also spin during the Tour de Femmes which is good.

I have way too many spinning projects that are theoretically in progress but now I also have a nice list with what I want to do next, how to decide which projects to focus on and everything. My official goal is to spin for 10-30 minutes every day, my ideal outcome would be to spin all the yarn for a new sweater, either for me or for my husband.

I will knint a sample from the purple yarn I plied the other day, then get the Majacraft wheel in working order again, and ply the rest of that. I will also look at the Louet spinning wheel and decide whether I want to work on that project (probably not). Then I will figure out where I put the sample of the green Corriedale I spun, wash that (no idea if I already plied that, ahem) and knit a sample of that as well.

And then I’ll decide whether I’ll spin the purple or the green. I definitely need to ply the purple singles because I need to free the bobbins they are on.

No idea if I’ll manage to work on any of that before the Tour starts or not but at least I have a plan.

After dinner I met with my writing friend, and even though we both didn’t work as hard as we had planned to do I got a very sizable chunk written, so that was good. I also made a tentative plan for next week, always nice to get that out of the way early.

After that I started writing this post, met the boy for bodyweight training, set the kitchen to order again, played my video game and went to bed.

And now the weekend. It’s supposed to be even hotter here, so I better go for my walk/run a little earlier than usual.

Bad.

And I didn’t even sleep well.

I then decided to skip yoga and meditation, also not my best moment.

But. I walked to the nearby supermarket (very slowly) and got groceries, I hung up a load of laundry, I did dishes twice, oh no, three times, and I finally made red currant jelly. Only 4 1/2 jars, though.

But first there was lunch:

Then I met a student and her mother who wanted to stop lessons. She is still in kindergarten and ukulele is very hard at that age.

Then dishes, then one student, and then I made the jelly and tidied the kitchen afterwards:

I taught another student, my last student canceled and I ate junk for dinner and almost immediately regretted it. I keep thinking that I want something crunchy and salty as a treat and most of the time afterwards I feel as if I ate cardboard. Cardboard that is poking me in the stomach. Meh.

I played some Genshin Impact and then met with my writer friend for writing.

We did not write a lot. I told her about the very exciting scam email I had gotten from someone pretending to be from a noticeable bug publishing house. The editor they claimed to be actually exists but are acquiring math and science books. There was a very detailed and flattering review of my first book and they pretended to want to work with me in the future.

Yeah, no. Because editors of major publishing houses write to indie authors who don’t really sell all the time and offer them some vague business opportunity. Sure.

She in turn told me about a webinar she had just watched about AI critique for one’s manuscript. Nah.

Anyway, I did write for half an hour and it went well but a whole hour would have been better. I was somewhat tired at this point, though.

So I started writing this post, read a little, wrote a list and went to bed.

Oh, and regarding the question whether readers remember book titles or author names or whatever, I’d say it totally depends. There are things like „the latest Stephen King“ or whatever where the author name is most important.

There are also series where the series title is the most important and I have to say I often buy books because I find the title promising, especially if I have no idea who the author is.

Now I do get where the ‚only the author name is important‘-thought is coming from. Eventually you want to get readers who buy everything you write. Like, K J Charles is an auto-buy for me. As is Ilona Andrews.

But I’m pretty sure if you ask my mother about any of the books she read this year she probably won’t remember the title or the author but she could tell you part of the plot because that’s what stuck with her.

She, by the way, is a completely different reader from me. Where I go and buy basically everything some people recommend on the internet, or as I said, some authors are auto-buy for me, so every time I stumble over a new title from them I just click buy, my mother only reads what friends and family recommend. She doesn’t really buy books either, she just borrows them from her friends.

My parents were both voracious readers and they basically only read what they got as presents or borrowed from friends and family. Buying a book was rare. Like, my father might be at an airport and be bored and buy one book, maybe two. He’d ask for the next book in a series he liked for Christmas and for his birthday, so that would be – two books, maybe three.

They (and we) read every book in the house and all that we could lay our fingers on. Discovering the library when I was around 9 was a revelation.

And then, when I moved to Munich for university, and I realized that even if I didn’t have much money I could just walk into a bookstore and buy a book or two, just like that? Mind blown!

And that, right there, growing up as someone who read sometimes 10 or more books a week (I read fast, I had about two hours per day on public transport and I hated watching TV and didn’t really meet friends much, and also books meant for teenagers tend to be very short, I could read one in about two hours.), that is the reason I have a pile of books I really want to read that would be miles high if I would still buy physical books.

Fortunately, I remembered that I can turn right at one point and instead of going round the field I had more trees and bushes which was quite a bit cooler.

Came back home, took a shower and helped with the salad:

That is spaghetti aglio e olio. My husband also did the peperoncini part but I passed.

We also had some very nice steak with bread:

Then a short break, one student, change the sheets on my bed, three more students, dinner, one more student, and then I procrastinated dealing with the red currants my husband had picked in the morning.

Prepping the fruit for making juice took more than two hours.

Then I started writing this post while the red currants were simmering away in the pressure cooker, I made a list for today, and went to bed too late again.

Oh, and my studio was at 30°C/86°F all afternoon. Today I’ll try to not open the window between students but using the door for fresh air, that should be a little cooler.

I actually opened the manuscript before breakfast but I did skip meditation for it. Meh, but also priorities.

Speking of priorities, with everything else I am still spending quite a bit of time each day reading „Rules for Ghosting“ by Shelly Jay Shore. So far I am loving it. (And I had to laugh because I had to look the author’s name up twice, and that made me think about a blog post by Dean Wesley Smith that basically said titles don’t sell books, just author names do. Well, with this one I found the title much more memorable than the author’s name, but okay.)

Husband and I had a long conversation over breakfast and beyond. While talking I finished a sock:

And then I started the next one and decided (for the second time) that I really don’t care for alternate cable cast-on, I think I actually like doing tubular cast-on better. It might be more fiddly but I am also better used to it.

I did the breakfast dishes and then went to two health food stores. Came back home, unpacked the groceries, folded all the laundry and put it all away and chopped a few herbs:

Then I only had time for a short break before it was time to teach. What was nice was that the boy joined us for lunch, he had already returned by the time we started eating. No eating outdoors yesterday, it was just too hot.

There was a lot of teaching, all students showed up and I even had one that only comes in once a month after.

After that the plan was to do bodyweight training, then eat dinner, write and go to bed early.

Well. the boy asked if he could eat dinner before training. I was in favor because I was very hungry at this point. My husband did the dishes (yay!) while I was eating right next to him (not ideal). Then, just as we were about to start our strength training the boy came back downstairs saying that he had a huge problem, his graphics card might be broken.

So figuring out what was wrong took priority. Then we did our warm-up, walked upstairs to start exercising and he looked at his computer again.

Long story short, his computer installed a driver update for his graphics card this afternoon, and after that the card stopped working.

He tried redownlioading, restarting, all kinds of things and then he found something on Reddit saying that was a problem several people had. He managed to install an older version of the driver and – voilà. Phew.

But that made strength training take a little longer than usual.

After that I brushed my teeth, opened the manuscript and wrote a few more words, started writing this post, made a list for today, opened my video game again for a short bit and went to bed.

My hope for today is that there will be a bit more breathing rom. It does look likely, two students have already either canceled or rescheduled, so I don’t have a big, fat block of uninterrupted lessons back to back.

Oh, and go and get yourself „Rules for Ghosting“ and read it, it really excellent.

I was very determined to write all the words all day long, right until past my bedtime.

So I gave up.

I did do yoga and the usual morning things, my husband and I discussed calling the plumber, I found the right phone number and he called. Then I started a list of things we needed repaired and talked about.

I was super late with my walk/run, and though I did do a shorter workout I was home late for lunch. Running in the midday sun was not that much fun:

I still was very happy that I had done it.

Meanwhile my husband had made a 2-course lunch, fried zucchini blossoms:

And pasta with fresh zucchini:

Then I did not have much time because I needed to take a shower before an early student.

The afternoon was supposed to be teaching and teaching and teaching but in the end two students canceled and I used that break to fold laundry and to read.

I finished teaching pretty late, ate dinner while reading, played a bit of Genshin and then met with the boy for weekly bosses.

Since it was so super hot we also carried a mattress downstairs from the third floor and put it in the living room so that the boy could sleep there that night. Since he had to get up around the same time as me today that was a better idea than him cooking under the roof.

I started writing this post, made a list for today and got ready for bed.

I’m still hoping for better luck today. Maybe I will actually get some stuff done but I have to say that almost 30°C/86°F in my studio are making me rather lethargic. The nice new fan doesn’t really cut it a few hours in.

Well, I better get used to it.

Or at least that’s what it feels like.

Since I only went to bed at 1.30 I was pretty low on energy. Also sore everywhere from the bike ride the day before. I’m assuming that three minutes of swimming don’t make much of a difference.

So I was very, very slow all day.

I wrote morning pages, did yoga and meditated, then ate breakfast with my husband and we talked a little longer.

I called my mother and told her all about my exciting two weeks. I did the breakfast dishes, cut my fingernails, and read „Rules for Ghosting“ while waiting for the boy. Since my husband was meeting a friend for lunch the boy and I decided to go to the nearby pizza place.

Very yummy:

And I’d say the fact that everybody else in the restaurant spoke Italian was a good sign. All the Germans were probably at the lakes, or something.

We resisted the temptation to eat dessert or walk a little further for ice cream and then I read some more, played my video game and somehow the whole afternoon was gone.

There was a little break when I heard thunder outside, and since my husband wasn’t home I closed the greenhouse, pulled the tomato pots under cover and got the drying laundry inside.

The boy and I did bodyweight training. I was not at my best with the soreness all over but I did it.

The plan was to clean some, deal with laundry, plan the week, write for at least an hour and all that but in the end I sat there and watched one YouTube video after the other.

Oh, I also resubscribed to YouTube Premium, my subscription had gone up in price by 5 € and it turned out subscribing in my browser made the whole thing much cheaper than subscribing through the app. That often happens when doing subscriptions through the Apple store, meh.

And I booked a hotel room for our trip to my mother in August, talked briefly with my husband when he came back, tried to make myself get up from the kitchen bench so I could write at my desk in the living room while the boy made himself ramen, realized the soy milk had gone off and he had to through everything away and start over, and all through that I was watching more and more videos.

At least I gave up at some point, started writing this post, planned the week ahead, played my video game some more but not for long and went to bed.

Weirdly enough I slept through my alarm and got – eight hours of sleep.

Did all the morning things (apart from writing) and was very determined to do everything very efficiently so that we could leave the house at 11.

We did not leave the house at 11.

I did force myself to open the manuscript after breakfast and then didn’t want to stop writing. I had such a cool idea!

And then my husband and I took our bikes and rode them all the way to Wörthsee. It took us roughly 75 minutes to get there. We were both very happy that the biking itself felt easier than we remembered. Since we haven’t biked much lately that must be a result of generally better cardio fitness, exercise works.

It was very, very hot. But quite a bit of the way went through the woods which was much cooler and nicer.

We decided to eat lunch first:

Husband always takes the pork roast (which was excellent) but I decided to try the Kasspatzn. I stuck to alcohol-free beer, I didn’t want to drink alcohol in the heat while thirsty.

Afterwards we got ourselves some ice cream on our way to the beach where we wanted to go swimming. Note to self: next time we should totally get the ice cream at the kiosk near the other part of the beach because that one is much better.

This is the spot where we sat on the jetty:

It looks more idyllic than it actually was because I tried to get as few people in the picture as possible. You have to imagine many, many people on all sides of this, their towels on the grass so close to one another that there was just enough space to walk between them.

And then it was time for swimming and we walked a few minutes along the lake to spread our towels in the grass as well, change into bathing suits and go into the water.

Speaking of bathing suits, my husband had actually forgotten his. He had done preparations in two stages, I had fetched the bike pannier from the shed and that threw him off. He ended up taking three shirts and no bathing shorts. So he went swimming in his regular shorts and it was warm enough that biking back in wet shorts was not a problem.

I had originally thought that getting back home in time for my weekly writer Zoom would not be a problem.

I mean, I did make it and I also had enough time to take a shower beforehand, but just barely.

Writer Zoom was very nice and we actually talked about writing. I also had a lot to tell about last week where I was away and this week with the lake adventure.

Then I ate dinner, I played too much Genshin, decided to skip my second writing session of the day, and decided with the boy to go out together for lunch today.

In the morning I kept being tired and hot and slow, so while I did force myself to do the usual morning pages, yoga (10 minutes) and meditation (5 minutes), that was it.

Talked with my husband over breakfast, found out that I had forgotten I had promised to make gnocchi from scratch and became even more cranky than before.

I did find my bathing suit and new bathing shoes, though, so that’s good. It might also be a good idea to try the suit on before venturing outside with it but if it is too big I’m screwed because the other one I own is much smaller. I would need to lose at least 10 kilos (22 pounds) to fit into it.

Anyway. I had big plans to vacuum and clean washbasins and toilets but ended up not doing that.

I did finish weaving the ends in on my new sweater and washed it and a skein of yarn I had plied a while ago.

While doing that I found that the washbasin I used was leaking profoundly. Some time in the afternoon I removed the cupboard underneath the sink and put a bucket there. And I have to tell you, I really should clean under that cupboard more often, it was filthy under there and, of course, wet.

On the bright side, this warrants calling a plumber which means we could also ask him to fix the leaking faucet in the kitchen and when I looked at the company’s website I saw that they are doing heating as well and install heat pumps and solar. So the plan is to ask them to fix our faucets and then talk to them about other possibilities.

My husband had started cooking the potatoes right after breakfast, so after washing my sweater and doing the dishes (At least that faucet is only constantly dripping into the sink. Much easier to deal with.) I started making the gnocchi dough and formed the gnocchi.

Husband came back when I was almost done with that.

He had ran to the local small lake, then gone swimming, and ran all the way back. In the midday heat.

He made the sauce and I made the gnocchi and we had a lovely lunch that was actually almost on time:

We talked a little longer, then I sat and played my video game and felt bad about not doing the dishes.

I had intermittent teaching all afternoon, two students, then a break because my husband was teaching my next student, then another student, another break, another student and that was it.

With that student he is good enough on guitar that he really should get lessons from my husband but my husband doesn’t really have any time for additional students. So we are trying something new, when the other student my husband teaches in that time-slot can’t make it, he teaches my student.

I did not use my time well that afternoon, the only thing I did get done was folding the laundry. Meh. Oh, and I refilled two fountain pens.

After my last student I sat around some more, talked with my husband a little, then did bodyweight training with the boy, ate a quick dinner with too much chocolate, and met my writer friend for another writing sprint.

I had to drag myself to the manuscript kicking and screaming but I ended up with some new words, at least.

Husband offered to do the dishes this time,

Then there was reading and playing Genshin and not much else, and then bed.

And today is the day where we bike to Wörthsee, go for a swim and bike back. My friend from New York was a bit flabberghasted that we were planning to bike for a total of 3 hours (I’m actually not quite sure how long it will take) but then we used to do that in the evenings after dinner all the time.

Anyways, I guess you’ll hear all about it tomorrow.

I have to say, though, my new fan is really helping, now that I moved it further away from where I sit while teaching, it makes the room feel cooler.

I went to bed so late, it was terrible. I got hyperfocused on playing my video game and kept doing just one more thing over and over.

I did sleep very well, though, more sleep pressure makes for better sleep. Jmpf.

In the morning I was in a bad mood and very slow again, husband keeps having FOMO and I keep resenting it because I don’t have FOMO at all. Also, if I want to travel somewhere or do something I might just do it on my own whereas my husband is the kind of person who’d rather do it with someone else.

In the end we decided to bike to a lake on Sunday and go swimming. Which means I will have to unearth my (new) bathing suit. I lost a little weight since I bought it but it should still be fine. (I am wearing my jeans a size smaller but I think bathing suits are more forgiving.)

I am dreading the whole thing because it will be hot and full of people and loud but I also am looking forward to teating my new bathing shoes and use that bathing suit for the second or third time since I bought it.

I had many plans for yesterday (of course, and yes, the trip to the lake tomorrow is replacing other plans that I had before) but things did not quite go as I wished.

Husband and I talked longer than expected, which was fine, and then he did the dishes instead of me, I started a load of laundry with all the cleaning cloths that had gotten wet under the sink, and walked to the nearby supermarket.

Came back home, unpacked, the boy came back from uni right when lunch was ready and the three of us ate outside together which is a rare event:

I did forget to finish the sweater I worked on the day before but I’m hoping to remember later today.

After lunch I played a bit, my first student canceled, so I hung the laundry up and contemplated the dishes but I didn’t do them. I did eat the bag of coated peanuts I bought and had meant to be my dinner, and some gummy bears, though. Meh.

I dusted the house, talked with my husband some more, taught three more students, briefly talked with my husband some more and went to my online writing meeting with my friend right away.

There I started this post first, then switched to the manuscript. I’m fighting the current scene, it is one that is in book one but needs to be in book two as well, only from a different viewpoint. And I definitely don’t want to repeat every line of dialogue but also all the important bits need to be there.

I did as best as I could while being exhausted and tired.

After that I did the dishes, then drank a beer and ate some extra cheese, made a list for today, played some more and went to bed.

It felt like I had not gotten enough sleep and what I got was not the best but my smartwatch claims I got a little over eight hours. Okay?

I was slow again and decided to shunt writing after breakfast.

Over breakfast my husband aired a few complaints. Because I was away all weekend I feel like not seeing anyone at all whereas he feels like he needs more social interaction and those are competing needs. While we were talking I started weaving the ends in on a sweater I finished knitting 14 months ago. It still needs a bit of work but not all that much.

I did the usual morning things but talking with my husband a little longer than usual had not left any time for writing. no problem, I had a later than usual start to my teaching day so I’d just write a little after lunch.

I did the dishes and such and then went outside for my walk/run. The plan was to do a 58-minute workout. The same one I did on Monday.

I left the house, I listened to music, I started the app on my phone. Ten minutes in I looked at the screen and it told me I had 68 more minutes to go.

Oops.

My phone decided to not let me repeat the workout, it decided I should do the harder one that I had planned to do on Saturday.

I am very proud of me. I just stopped the app, chose a shorter workout more or less randomly and followed that until an arbitrary point and then just turned around until I was back home.

But I had looked forward to that run and walk and had wanted to compare it to the one before but I didn’t get to.

At home husband was in turbo-stress mode but told me to go ahead and take a shower first.

I later learned that he would have preferred for me to help him first and shower later but I didn’t know that.

I showered, then I helped with salad and herbs in a hurry:

Lunch was pretty late. Late enough that when I decided to do the dishes first before taking a break the break that was left was a 5-minute one. Oops.

When I was getting ready to teach my husband showed up, saying that he couldn’t unlock his basement computer because the keyboard wasn’t working. And that the same had happened the day before.

I have no idea why but plugging the keyboard into another socket helped. Maybe the keyboard is broken, I don’t know.

Then I taught all my students and that went well.

Only at one point there was a beep and afterwards I couldn’t get a wifi connection.

Husband again, saying that the power was out for a short time and now he couldn’t load YouTube.

Well, the router was restarting. Phew.

When I was packing my stuff up after work my laptop’s screen was black and the computer wouldn’t react to anything. I tried to restart, I made sure it was plugged in, no dice.

In my head I was already rearranging my week to include a trip to Munich to get my laptop repaired but then I decided to try a different charger.

The computer had only 1% batter left. No idea what happened and that is another thing I need to check out today.

Afterwards I cleaned the mirrors and then wanted to dust the house. Superficially.

I opened the cabinet under the bathroom sink to get a dust rag out and – every single rag in that bucket was dripping wet. Also, a few other things I had stored under the sink had been wet.

The days before I had scolded the boy for washing his hands to sloppily because there had been things getting wet under the sink.

Seems it was not the boy’s handwashing technique. And no, I have no idea what it was, we’ll probably look at it some time today.

Maybe mercury is in retrograde or something.

So I made a list for today, I started writing this post, and then I opened my manuscript and stared at it for ten minutes before playing Genshin for the first time that day.

And then I fell into bed.

Oh, and along the way, yesterday I somehow bought three new novels. Two are part of the series I am currently reading and the last one is „Rules for Ghosting“ that a friend recommended online.

But. Despite going to bed too late yet again (and how I hate that fact) I did do my complete morning routine including a little manuscript time.

I started turning the heel on the sock-in-progress and after doing the dishes I only left fifteen minutes late for an epic grocery run.

First I went to the drugstore for interdental brushes and something for my mother-in-law, swung by a supermarket for yogurt, frozen mushrooms and some fake meat, and then all the way to the tea shop to pick up the two pounds of Darjeeling/Chinese mix that I ordered the day before plus two pounds of my husband’s everyday Darjeeling and some green tea for the boy.

When you buy two pounds at once there is a 10% discount, so that can be worth it for the tea that we drink every day. We did not buy two pounds of green tea, though.

Carrying all of that I went to the health food store and got the usual food plus a big bag of muesli and some other heavy stuff.

It’s a good thing I have a sturdy backpack.

At home husband was surprised I was back so early, so I had to unpack while he was in the most stressful phase of cooking. Again. Sometimes I think that phase of cooking wouldn’t be as stressful if I wasn’t unpacking at that point which is understandable. Having a second person in the kitchen walking back and forth and cluttering the whole table with stuff that needs to be put away is stressful and distracting.

Anyway, we had potatoes, fish, peas and carrots:

Then I only had a little time for reading and gaming before it was time to teach.

I had more breaks bettween students than usual, one didn’t show at all, and two canceled at the last minute, so I was finished an hour earlier than expected.

The boy and I moved our strength training to an earlier time slot but I still spent the time between teaching and training and the time between training and my evening routine mostly on social media.

I did eat dinner early, though, before working out which was good, and I also brushed my teeth pretty early but then my willpower left the building.

So I ended the day with a less completed task list than I had hoped but on the other hand the most important things got done and that is what counts.

Today should bring quite a bit more teaching and a little more exercise. Hopefully a better working executive function as well, we’ll see.

At least I stopped myself with 50 motes pages and decided to read those the next day. Which I did. Before lunch.

I did my morning routine sans manuscript time but at least spent a few minutes on that after breakfast.

It was really nice to be back home, in my own bed, with my husband and good food.

I finished the gusset on the socj-in-progress but neglected to take a picture, I did dishes and went out for my walk/run:

I have now reached a point where I am running almost as much as I’m walking, minus the warm-up and cool-down. It was very hot and I had a hard time but I managed. Seeing all those people my age looking rather old over the weekend was great for my motivation.

This time there was no time to shower before lunch because lunch was ready on time, hurray! We ate outside which was nice:

My husband said that he always makes rice and beans after being away from home (not that he was away) because that’s something you don’t usually get on the road.

After lunch there was more reading and chocolate and playing my video game and then I had to hurry with my shower. I am happy to say that I managed to get clean with fresh clothes with almost ten minutes to spare before my first student.

Then there was teaching, and after that meeting with my coach friend online. Since we basically agreed I should continue doing what I have been doing the week before we were free to recommend each other C.dramas, as one does.

Then I could finally eat dinner, meet the boy for my weekly bosses, open the manuscript for a short while and go to bed.

I’d like to continue getting stuff done, it’s just so satisfying, so wish me luck!

I still did yoga and got dressed and packed my stuff up (that is another bonus of packing light, both the packing and unpacking go rather fast).

I ate a hotel breakfast that was exceptionally blah and then set off to walk through town for an hour or so.

There was a flea market going on, there was also rain and wind and cold, two things that don*t go well together.

I walked by the bus station where I spent many, many hours of my teenage years waiting for the bus:

After school was out there was one at 2.39, one at 4.39, 5.39 and the last one each day went at 6.39 and took ages to get you home because that one went a sort of combined route all the way through all the little villages. And you had to take care to remind the driver that you wanted to that one bus stop further north that they don’t liked because they went there and back and nobody ever got on the bus there. Well, I wouldn’t have either, not at that time, because you wouldn’t be able to get back the same day.

So, if you wanted to go to the movies or something you were on your own and perfectly free to use your bike or walk. Which I sometimes did when I missed the bus.

The town does have nice spots as well, here is my life saver, the library:

Well, that’s where the library used to be, looks like they put it somewhere else since then.

My sister and I spent so much time there and borrowed so many books that the librarians didn’t even ask for our library cards anymore.

Then I went back to the train station and stood in the wind and rain for half an hour waiting for the train. I almost got nostalgic but I have to say I am very, very grateful that these days I have music and all the books in my pocket with my phone.

The train was on time and the woman who I had to ask to free my reserved seat complimented my shoes. I went to Hannover where I was a little worried if there would be enough time to get myself the lunch I wanted.

But, not only was there enough time, I also could get some more licorice and mint chocolate. I even had to wait long enough that I started eating standing on yet another train platform:

That is fried noodles with teriyaki chicken, and yes, I am aware you’re not supposed to stick the chopsticks into your food but I didn’t think the Germans around me would mind.

I got on another train for a few more hours, wrote my morning pages, went online (very slowly), watched an episode of C-drama and read a lot, I am now two thirds through „Father Material“ by Alexis Hall and it is extremely good.

The whole trip went very well, I only got very bored towards the end. Even the whole, take a train from the main station to this other station, then walk around the corner for this bus because there is construction on the train lines and then take the train again-bit. Thought I didn’t take the train at the end, I just walked the twenty minutes.

And then I was home and could talk with my husband and son, the boy and I did bodyweight training, then the boy made grilled cheese sandwiches:

I ate more chocolate, started writing this post, made a list for today, and the usual.

And now back to normal. Or some approximation of it.

And today I will step on a train again and go back home. And then I‘ll tell you about my weekend, I hope.

I still had a little less energy than the rest of the week, I’d say that’s the cumulative effect of a full week of work.

I did most of my morning routine again, all the while thinking about packing and going so far as to get up in the middle of morning pages and adding deodorant to my toiletry bag.

Husband and I talked a little more while I knitted and then I did the rest of my morning things, including writing for 15 minutes. I then did the dishes, sorted the recycling, emptied all the wastepapare baskets in the house and cleaned washbasins and toilets. With that my weekly housecleaning list was officially done for the week. And then I went out side in the rain to walk/run for half an hour:

I only did half an hour because I wanted to do other things as well.

Came back, took a shower, put some more things on the packing pile and had lunch:

That was the first cucumber from our garden this year, by the way. It was delicious.

After that I had a short break that I used to read and play my video game and then it was time to teach.

I had a short break between students were I tried shaving my favorite handspun cardigan but I lost patience and gave up after twenty minutes. I’ll just take it fuzzy as it is.

Then I taught my last student, played the piano for a while, folded a load of wool socks, did bodyweight training with the boy (my thighs were not keen on doing more exercise at this point), ate dinner, talked with the boy while he made himself dinner and scrolled through social media until I realized what I was doing, then went to the living room to spend 15 more minutes on my novel, started writing this post, made a list for today, finally actually packed everything for today, played a little more and quickly planned out next week.

I’d say that’s enough.

Blogging will be spotty tomorrow, I guess because I’ll be out and about all day and I don’t know how much time I’ll have in a place with decent wifi, so we’ll see.

Anyway, I’m hopping on a train next, will report back later.

I was starting to get that very familiar feeling of total exhaustion the night before, complete with feeling cold and a little shaky but then I just went to bed early, allowing myself to skip spinning and my second session of Chinese for the day.

So, I went to bed on time and slept for a little over eight hours. For the third night in a row. Cazy.

In the morning I was rather slow and I did not open the manuscript first thing but I knew I’d be writing in the evening so it was all good.

It was super cold and my husband made fire in the wood stove while I was finishing my morning pages and yoga and then we had a rather leisurely breakfast together. We talked at length, which was nice, then I did the dishes while listening to a beautiful Richard Strauss song, read my chapter of „War & Peace“ and did my two minutes of Chinese.

The weather was a bit weird, super cold and it was raining like crazy one minute and nice and sunny the next.

I got lucky and got only dry bits while biking to the supermarket. I had a very, very long list but went through it in record time. The supermarket wasn’t very full and there were lots of open checkout lanes. My cart was so full that The cashier was almost halfway through my stuff before I had even finished putting everything on. The woman behind me just started putting her groceries on the belt without leaving enough space for me. That was stressing me. I was already in a bit of panic mode because I had visions of all my frozen good falling off at the other end before I could even finish putting everything on. So I pushed the other person’s groceries back to make space for mine and said something. And then again. Still super stressed and then she said, „Are you stupid? Politeness, eh?“ And she used the informal form of address which in and of itself is rather impolite when you’re speaking with another adult.

Anyway, I did not let that bug me. Much.

I also had forgotten to weigh my bananas, so the cashier had to go and do it for me. Which at least gave me time to dump all my stuff back in my cart. Then it took ages for me to fish out all my bills and coins, and after I was finished and had put my wallet away he was still sitting there expectantly. Well, I had given him 50 fewer Euros than I needed. Oops. So I had to get my wallet out yet again and get another bill.

I’m pretty sure I wouldn’t have made that mistake if the person behind me hadn’t rattled me, so in the end it was her who had to wait longer because she was impatient.

Then I drove back home on my bike, a full backpack, two full panniers and a pack of toilet paper in the basket in the front. I timed it so that there were only a few stragglers getting out of the high school this time. No navigating through throngs of teenagers this time.

At home my husband was a little late with lunch again and the boy was just getting home. I unpacked and then there was a delicious lunch:

By then it was too late to do the dishes right away, or if I had done them I wouldn’t have had a break. So I talked with the boy for a bit, then played my video game briefly and started teaching.

I had planned to use my one-hour break between students for packing but in the end I ran the vacuum through the annex, folded two loads of laundry and hung up another one. Now I only need to fold a load of wool socks and such and I’ll be done with laundry for now.

I did manage to fetch cables and my bluetooth keyboard and water bottle and such for tomorrow’s trip but did not put everything together just yet. I also decided to move de-pilling the sweater to today because after teaching, a quick dinner, a one-hour writing session with my friend and the dishes I was just not feeling up to it.

I did start writing this post, made a list for today, did my foot exercises, played some more Genshin and went to bed.

And – today will be busy again, no surprise there. And I will have to get my packing together because I need all that stuff tomorrow.

My husband was very patient waiting for me with breakfast. I mean, he did eat before me while reading (best breakfast ever in my opinion but not in his). We did get to talk, I was mostly about the „Big Time“-book and about how much better I fell now that school break is over and I have less time.

The day was very productive again, I cut my husband’s hair and did the breakfast dishes while listening to „Isolde’s Liebestod“ which was actually nicer than I remembered. I found a version with Waltraud Meier and was reminded about the fact that a friend’s friend in uni worked as Ms. Meier’s assistant which meant that sometimes my friend would take over. I found the idea of having an assistant very strange. They had to do things like clean her flat, do phone calls for her, run errands, and all kinds of things. From time to time they also would get a card to the opera, if she had an extra, and so I got to see most of a Wagner opera that I unfortunately don’t remember. Ms. Meier played a role that was only in the first act, and her boyfriend watched her. The two of them both left after that to go on vacation or something, and so my friend got to sit in the boyfriend’s good seat while I got to see the rest of the opera from the gallery, standing in a place where you can’t see part of the stage but can look right into the orchestra.

Anyway, after that I got the vacuum upstairs and ran it through the apartment which was sorely needed before going on my walk/run. I was a little late at this point but that was okay because I had thought my run would be 68 minutes when in fact it was 58.

It was drizzling a bit but not raining very hard. My legs felt very heavy, I think the combination of a harder walk/run on Monday followed by pushing myself a little in strength training the night before was quite a bit. Good thing I won’t be exercising today. Much.

I was a little late for lunch but so was the food so I got my shower in before eating. Husband had to downgrade the meal because we were out of red lentils and he didn’t have time to make the saffron rice he wanted. It was still delicious:

Since my first lesson started a little later than the days before I had time to do the dishes before playing my video game for twenty minutes before dashing off to teach.

Then it was one student after the other until the evening, I had a 20-minute dinner break and then I met my writer friend for a writing session over Zoom.

I wrote many words. Which was extremely surprising, I would have thought I was too tired for that at that point.

Afterwards I started this post, wrote my list for today and brushed my teeth, then played some more video game, read a bit and went to bed.

Today I think I’ll start packing in earnest. Though I added the rest of the clothes that I want to take yesterday. I should maybe charge my ebook reader and the power bank. And I need to figure out where I put the notebook I want to take. And watch the makeup tutorial again, you know how it is.

I can’t praise „Big Time“ by Laura Vanderkam enough, by the way, she has a way of making me feel much better about my time. Looks like there is enough time after all.

So, I went to bed only 15 minutes late and slept for more than eight hours, woohoo!

I woke up and felt – tired and blah. My smartwatch was convinced I needed to rest for the rest of the day. Um, no.

I did my morning routine a little slower than I would have liked but still made the time to work on the manuscript for 15 minutes. I also wrote morning pages, did yoga and meditated.

Just as I was about to get out of bed my „wake the boy up“-timer went off. I didn’t have to, though, because he had woken up on his own. I saw him very briefly as he was getting his water bottle and then I heard him leave the house in a hurry. There are train shenanigans going on this week, again, and so he decided to instead take the bus to the subway.

Well. The bus to the subway was overflowing and he couldn’t squeeze himself in. Since he thought the next one would be equally full he just turned around and went back home.

He got himself breakfast while I was still doing morning routine stuff and I didn’t see him after he told me what happened.

I was very determined to have another good day. And I had, only I also had a morning where everything takes longer than expected. But I did listen to my piece of classical music, and did my internet rounds, and looked at my list, and wrote messages right and left and did some admin stuff.

And then I went out to buy yogurt and go to the health food store.

The weather had been dreary and cold all morning with intermittent rain. I had looked outside before leaving and thought it a good idea to pack an umbrella but there was only a little rain, so I made do with my rain jacket. I wanted to do a trial run for the weekend and see how the jacket would be doing in the rain. I was also wearing the new pair of shoes I want to take with me on my trip to see if I’ll could walk in those for a while.

And then it started pouring down like crazy. I still didn’t want to get the umbrella out and then carry it around the rest of the way and I’m happy to report that the raincoat was sufficient and the shoes were only mildly uncomfortable.

I got everything I wanted apart from radicchio or any kind of salad, and made my way back home in time for lunch.

Lunch was a little late, though, so I had time to unpack groceries and fold two loads of laundry. Well, the parts of the laundry that were still on the drying racks, because the clothes had been hanging there for a while and had been picked off in part.

And then we ate lunch. Not outside this time:

I had a little over half an hour after that, that I used to read a bit and play my video game for twenty minutes.

Then there were many, many students. The student who often doesn’t show didn’t show up again (sick this time, poor thing), I did some more admin while I waited and after 15 minutes of that I decided to play the piano until it was time for the next student. That was fun.

Then more teaching until 6.30. I knew I still had a little time until the boy and I were supposed to do bodyweight training, so I refilled a fountain pen, cleaned the mirrors, touched everything with the feather duster and then I saw that my husband had started the dishes and had to stop right in the middle, so I finished those as well.

The boy was a little late but I didn’t mind. We did our exercise and then I could finally eat dinner.

After dinner I opened the manuscript for another 15 minutes, started writing this post, made a list for today, brushed my teeth, played some more video game and then went to bed with a book, well, ebook reader.

Oh, and at some point in the day I also filled some shampoo in a small travel container and packed my makeup into the toiletry bag.

Why yes, I was pretty tired last night but I felt soo good.

And now we just do it all again. Minus the grocery shopping and strength training plus cardio and writing sprints.

I went to bed only half an hour late but didn’t sleep well, no idea why.

I was very determined to use the day wisely, with all the teaching and my upcoming trip it’s better not to procrastinate. Also, I did not do any housework the week before, some parts of the house are looking a bit dingy already.

So I dawdled a little less than usual and managed 15 minutes of writing time in addition to all the other morning things. Husband and I talked and I started the new pair of socks for real. I finally got to try the alternate cable cast-on and that looks good, is stretchy and fairly easy to do.

Since I wanted to be on time for things I did look at the clock throughout the morning and was rewarded with being only ten minutes later in leaving the house for my walk/run. I realized that my 68-minute walk/run actually takes me 90 minutes when you count changing clothes, getting ready and putting my contacts in.

The weather was marvelous but very warm:

I have progressed to 2 1/2-minute running intervals and I did better than expected. Also, the whole thing was rather exhausting.

I came back home, took my contacts out and took a shower. I was so sweaty and hot that my glasses fogged over, and when I took them off in the shower I still couldn’t see properly. So I thought my vision was blurry because there was sweat in my eyes. I also felt pretty dehydrated which could also be contributing.

I got dried myself and got dressed and put my glasses back on. In the shower the sight in my right eye had been blurry but with the glasses it was my left eye. Weird.

I started having thoughts of retina tears, of course, but there was not much time for contemplation, husband was making salad and very stressed. So I helped chop things, all the while unable to use my left eye.

We ate lunch outside:

After lunch I had only 15 minutes where I read and ate chocolate before my first student. They were coming in 45 minutes earlier than usual.

Not being able to see out of your left eye is very distracting while teaching piano. Thinking you might be going blind and should go see your eye doctor for emergency laser surgery is even more distracting.

After the first student I had a 45-minute break, of course, until the next student. I was still determined to get stuff done but something about the way my sight was only blurry in one eye bugged me. Was there something in my eye? If so, what was it? I tried looking at it properly but for that I have to take my glasses off and then I can’t see anything.

And then I had the right idea: what if the thing that was in my left eye was the contact lens? I mean, I remembered taking lenses out of both eyes and putting them in the case.

Right.

I looked at the contact lens case and found that there was no lens in the right side, only in the left.

What must have happened was this: I took the right lens out but because I was sweating so hard and the lenses are not the newest I fumbled, the lens stuck to my finger and I had a hard time getting it into the case (that’s what I remember). I also remember that taking the second one out was weirdly hard as well, and that one also stuck to my finger and I finally put it back in the case.

Apparently, it was the right lens stuck to my finger and I didn’t see that I hadn’t put it in the case. And when I tried taking out the left one I still had the right one stuck to my finger and thought that was the left one.

And when you walk around with your contact lens and your glasses at the same time that makes your vision rather blurry.

After taking that lens finally out I then changed the sheets on my bed and all the towels, then went looking for the wool shaver in a chest of drawers that I never open. Shaver in hand I looked at the other stuff in there and wondered what was in that big plastic bag:

Well, it seems to be about 400 grams of purple Corriedale. The purple Corriedale that I thought I had all spun up. I had been wondering about how small the quantity of yarn was that I got when I remembered buying 500 grams and the other big bump of fiber is huge but I couldn’t find more of the fiber.

So instead of vacuuming the apartment like I had planned (but I had run out of time for that anyway) I fetched a niddy-noddy and another lazy kate to pull the plied yarn of the bobbin.

The other lazy kate hadn’t been used in years. It was stored in a plastic bag on a shelf in my studio. When I tried taking it out I couldn’t because it was fused to he bag.

The plastic feet of the lazy kate had dissolved completely.

I pried it out and used it anyway but the next step will be to get the remains of the plastic feet off the bottom and put new feet on it.

I then taught the rest of my students, one student canceled so I used that time to refill the humidifier in the piano and play some piano exercises, and the last student of the day was my writer friend from New York, so we did a piano lesson and the talked for half an hour.

I had asked the boy to do the dishes which he did, so all I needed to do there was to put some things away. I ate dinner while reading (I started reading „Big Time“ by Laura Vanderkam yesterday, and I find it very uplifting.) and then opened the manuscript for 15 minutes.

Right in the middle of that my husband showed up after being done with teaching and we talked a bit. He was very tired and exhausted. I then wrote some more, started writing this post, fought some video game bosses with my son’s help, brushed my teeth, wrote a list for today, played some more video game and went to bed.

This whole day just shows how much better I do when I don’t have a day with all the time in the world. On the other hand, having days with nothing to do is also good for recharging but still, full days with a lot to do suit me better.

Nice conversation with my husband while I finished knitting a pair of socks for him, and afterwards I wove in all the ends:

More conversation with my husband, then the weekly phone call with my mother who finally got. new cell phone. And then promptly had trouble with her TV receivers but that got resolved as well.

After the phone call it was time to go out for lunch. The boy had originally said he didn’t want to come but then changed his mind after looking at the menu. Thre are actually two vegetarian main dishes on there.

It was a new-to-us Greek restaurant not far away. We really liked it, it is set back between the indoor pool, the high school and a sports club. Everything was outdoors and very cozy and green. Here’s our appetizers:

And here are the main dishes:

The food was excellent. We particularly liked the red beet salad and decided right away to try and put walnuts and feta cheese on ours the next time. My husband was very happy with the portion size (I had to leave half my meat uneaten, I was so stuffed) and we’re sure we’ll be coming back.

After coming back home I took a little break and then started playing Genshin real quick.

The boy helped me with a pesky mini-game that I just couldn’t get, I tried a few other things, washed a few of the breakfast things and then it was time for my monthly Zoom with a writer friend.

We talked for an hour and had a lot of fun. We had the kind of conversation where you think you’re going to talk about something specific beforehand and then you end up somewhere completely different.

After that the boy and I did bodyweight training, I ate dinner, my husband showed me some more of his old paintings and drawings that are rather impressive. He had a phase as a teenager where he wrote and painted in addition to his music and he is currently going through boxes of his old stuff.

I talked with him and then with the boy and played a little more, started writing this post, helped the boy write another email, spent a little time on the manuscript and then planned out the week.

And now for the first real teaching day this month.

On the other hand I have done yoga and meditation every single day this month so far, so that’s good.

My husband went for his long 10k run, so left early and assigned me the task of turning the beans off at a certain point. I was done with dishes and such fifteen minutes before that time and instead of just getting ready to leave the house for running right away and then maybe waiting for five minutes I went online and reinstalled the Instagram app on my tablet. Great move.

Somehow after that I was late for my own walk/run.

The weather was gorgeous and I did pretty well. It’s very funny, I run along on my endless 2-minute running intervals, feel like I’m close to keeling over, then look at my smartwatch and see that my heart rate is 134. Ahem. I’m not that unfit, I should be able to train at 145 to 155 for a while before it’s too much. So my perceived effort is very different from the actual one:

I came back home half an hour late but I had left a note, and I could even shower before lunch.

We had pasta e fagioli, a family favorite:

After lunch I read a bit, ate some chocolate (a little more than my (almost) no sugar challenge allows) and then I started playing Genshin Impact. The plan was to play for an hour or so, then do the dishes and open the manuscript.

Well. The quest I was playing was rather nice and also very, very long and I kept thinking „just a little more“ until I had to rush off to my weekly writer Zoom call. That call was lovely even if I never quite got to check in but I already knew that I was not super happy with the amount I got done.

After Zoom I met the rest of the family for our weekly session of ‚Columbo‘. The episode was great, it was the one that Peter Falk wrote himself thta features a wonderful Faye Dunaway. It was very good, though I have to say, the fact that there is never any blood anywhere (after shooting someone in the chest in front of a white door on a beige carpet, ahem) is starting to get to me but then that’s just what they used to do on TV. The other main character was played by Claudia Christian and I was very proud that I recognized her as the actress who played Commander Ivanova in ‚Babylon Five‘.

After watching TV I ate some more chocolate (again, twice the amount I had planned to eat) and went on to play just a little more until I finished the quest right after my bedtime.

I started writing this post, took care of the leftover food and tidied the dirty dishes so that we could make breakfast this morning, brushed my teeth and went to bed.

Today I really should get some housework done but we also want to go out for lunch, so we’ll see what actually fits.

And then it will be back to teaching and regular life.

First I dawdled until I didn’t have time for writing before breakfast anymore, then I did the usual morning routine, talked with my husband, and started turning the heel on my sock.

I read a bit, then we talked some more, and then he went out to meet a friend for lunch.

I read even more and then set out to buy frozen pizza and ice cream. Because as we were eating out with family on Wednesday, when everybody else ordered huge desserts and I didn’t really have time, I had promised myself to buy ice cream the next time I went to the supermarket.

I made the pizza for lunch:

I liked the book very much and finished it in two days. And that was only partially due to it being rather short. I then bought the next in the series, and an unrelated T. Kingfisher book that I saw on a friend’s blog.

After finishing lunch I went into waiting mode quite a bit. I waited for the boy to come downstairs for lunch and for my husband to come back, and all of that took some time. Time that I spent first reading and then playing.

At six I met my writer friend for a co-writing session. This time I let myself get very distracted and ended up reading forum posts and ordering postcards but in the end I still made great progress on my manuscript. Though I have the feeling something really should be happening by now.

Next on the list was bodyweight training with the boy. I forgot to wear compression gloves during the (pseudo)-pushup part of the training, we’ll see how that feel later today.

The boy and I then shared a pint of ice cream as dinner. I got lucky, the one time I went and bought ice cream my favorite brand was on sale, hurray!

Then it was time to do all the dishes and brush my teeth, I started this post, made a list for today, played some more and went to bed.

And now for a pretty busy weekend.

And then I had another morning where time ceased to exist, so no manuscript time and I was very late for breakfast. I did force myself to do yoga, though, and meditated for five minutes.

Breakfast was nice but then I found I had made a mistake in the sock-in-progress, I had one gusset stitch too many, so I had to count all the stitches several times, then tried to find out where I went wrong and had to decide whether that meant pulling the past 34 rounds out.

In the end I decided to fudge it. It might mean the second sock has two more rounds than the first one but I doubt that is actually noticeable. I just decreased a stitch in a place that will probably not stick out.

But all of that took some time.

Husband and I talked at length about my dumb problem with school breaks and how unhappy and cranky I get when I have free time which is rather embarrassing. Also, about how that affects him. Fun!

Then I did the dishes and went on a very short walk/run (because I was even more late at that point):

The weather was gorgeous at that point which I found confusing because I had expected rain but I was not. complaining. The rain can storm came later, in the evening.

Husband and I ate lunch which was delicious:

All the Greek food brought to you by way of leftover burgers.

After lunch I took a shower right away and then did the lunch dishes. The boy showed up after I had just finished those and produced – more dirty dishes. I decided I didn’t mind, doing dishes – like any kind of housework – is just an ongoing process. The kitchen still looks better with just a few plates in the sink than with two dirty pots, a frying pan and all the plates and cutlery we used for lunch.

After that I took a break, started playing my video game and then just went on and on. In between I talked with my husband again and he decided to run to the town lake and take a dip for a bit of spontaneous summer feeling. He is meeting a friend of his tomorrow for lunch and was also afraid he wouldn’t have the time to go running beforehand.

At six I met my writer friend for a co-writing session and I finally got the timeline-thing sorted. I also did a bit of research for book 3 about art colleges in Berlin and Münster, as one does.

Then I stayed at the computer a bit longer to start writing this post, then finally ate dinner, made a list for today, played just a little bit and went to bed somewhat earlier.

And now I need to figure out what to make for lunch today.

Because we were going to a memorial service for my sister-in-law’s mother.

So we all had taken showers the night before (one reason for the late bedtime because only one person can have hot water at the same time in this house), and after breakfast my husband and I dressed in our funeral clothes. Unfortunately, I do not own a black raincoat and my winer coat was definitely too warm, so I went in a dress with a cotton cardigan on top, light pantyhose (because I didn’t have a black one) and black Mary Janes.

I also did my makeup for the first time in a year or so. No picture, sorry.

One of my husband’s nephews and his wife came to pick my mother-in-law and us up. The boy needed to be at uni so he did not join us.

Everything went well, the service was very moving (for everyone but me, as usual).

Since my husband didn’t have any students that day and since I still had 3 1/2 hours before my one student of the day was due we decided to join the family for lunch. We don’t see each other often and thought it would be nice. Which it was.

The restaurant was very Bavarian up to the point where they wrote the menu in transcribed Bavarian which was a bit surreal. I got pork roast with creamed mushrooms and rosemary potatoes:

It was very good.

When we were all finished with eating and no one was ordering dessert I thought we’d be home soon. Husband and I sat around waiting while the small talk went over us in waves.

At the point where the first guests were leaving because they still needed to drive all the way to Nuremberg some of the other guests started talking about dessert.

I had to tell our designated driver that I needed to be home by 4. Foolish me had thought three hours would certainly be ample time to eat, talk and finish the 15-minute drive back home.

Well. We did make it. Just barely. I texted my student that I would probably be on time, not to worry, just open the garden gate and wait inside, and when I rushed to the annex door she was pushing her bike in.

I had to teach in my black dress and cardigan and – most annoyingly – in the pair of glasses that are for looking in the distance. The glasses do have a small part for reading but deciphering sheet music with them was no joke.

So all went well but being very dependent on other people at times is one of the drawbacks of not having a car.

After my lesson my husband and I finally did all the dishes from the day before and breakfast together, we talked briefly with the boy, and then I sat down to dinner, played Genshin and procrastinated taking my makeup off.

I was very foggy after coming home and could not make myself write, so I might do some extra writing today. I also did not go for my usual Wednesday run, maybe I’ll find time to do it today. My husband actually went for a run after we did the dishes to clear his head.

Today is a public holiday, so no grocery shopping, which means there might be time for it.

After the usual morning routine and a short conversation with my husband over breakfast I again lost about an hour and I can’t even say to what.

Did the dishes and then realized that I needed to hurry if I wanted to get to the cobbler before they close for lunch.

I did make it, then went to a nearby supermarket, and after that to the health food store. Unpacked the groceries and folded a few clothes before eating lunch:

That was delicious. What was extra nice was that my husband specifically asked me to bring zucchini for lunch but I had already bought some the day before, ha!

I tried to make myself do the dishes but failed, read a little (I finally started the „No Baggage“-book by Clara Bensen and so far I really like it. Since I finished „A Taste of Poison“ by M.Kato in the morning I also started reading the newest Alexis Hall „Father Material“.)

I did play some Genshin and then it was time for my one student of the week. I changed into real pants and got all ready and then I waited.

Well.

Turns out that lesson is supposed to be today, not yesterday, oops.

I played some more Genshin, ate dinner, met a friend for a writing sprint over Zoom that I spent sorting out that timeline for book 1, then met the boy for bodyweight training, took a shower, squeezed those dishes in real quick, and went to bed.

Today will be notably different but I’ll tell you about that tomorrow.

First, I went to bed on time (which is pretty much unheard of) and then went on to sleep through my alarm. After almost nine hours of sleep I felt like half my brain was offline for most of the day.

I did my complete morning routine including restarting the 30-day morning yoga playlist and opening the manuscript for 15 minutes.

In case you’re thinking that all of this sounds super productive and focused I have to tell you that I also lost almost an hour to faffing around on the internet before breakfast and also another thirty minutes to opening Instagram right after breakfast. In my defense I was a bit tense after a conversation with my husband about my tendency to a) jump to conclusions and b) be tense and stressed because of my conclusions which then radiates out to him.

He basically started with „since we don’t have pork cutlets“ as an intro to discussing the two other options we had, and I took that as a hint that my grocery shopping was sub-par, and that I should rush to the grocery store that same morning to get all the stuff we didn’t have in the house.

That discussion took us beyond our new cutoff time for breakfast conversations. That cutoff time is a crucial ingredient in reducing lunchtime stress.

We’re good, we both said we’re sorry and meant it.

So then I did the breakfast dishes while listening to classical music and read „War and Peace“ while brushing my teeth, and went out for my walk/run almost an hour later than I had wanted.

It had been gray and wet in the morning but when I was out it looked like this:

All dry and sunny:

I came back home just in time for lunch:

I took a break, read quite a bit, and then went out to do some grocery shopping. Thre stores later I had yogurt (had bought the wrong kind and do not want to eat that one for breakfast), potato chips and chocolate bars (emotional necessity) and also zucchini, pork cutlets, ground beef and sugo.

I played my video game and then finally took a shower just in time for my bi-weekly coaching session. My friend also told me about the two BTS concerts she had visited last week. Very exciting. But not going was probably the right decision for me, the many, many screaming people would probably drive me crazy.

Then I ate potato chips and a chocolate bar for dinner, talked with my husband, read, and then met the boy for our weekly boss-fighting together.

I started writing this post, opened the manuscript for fifteen more minutes (coach’s homework), made a list for today and finally did the dishes before going to bed a little late.

I spent quite some time yesterday thinking about what I want to wear to my high-school reunion. Both my husband and my mother think I should wear the red dress instead of skirt and t-shirt and they’re probably right. A part of me thinks looking good is not as important as having pockets but I can survive with just a purse, probably.

More pondering soon.

The day went well anyway, with all the usual things including talking to my mother on the phone, knitting, helping with lunch a little, folding laundry, starting laundry and hanging up fresh laundry, and in the afternoon my husband and I pulled together and cleaned the house so that it is livable again.

We had a grocery shopping fail, none of the things he wanted to cook were in the house but we ate excellent rice and lentils:

I spent most of the afternoon playin my video game, then did some cleaning and then did bodyweight training with the boy. Dinner while reading, then I started writing this post, and then I finally turned to the thing that was the most important on my list: reviewing May and making plans for June.

Things I wanted to do in May:

1. Turn the lights out at 10.30 or earlier: I managed that exactly 4 times, ahem.
2. Continue regular exercise: done. 
3. Continue writing the current novel: done. I had the faint hope of finishing it this month, that did not work out.
4. Write an author newsletter: done.
5. Make an Amazon Author Central Page: nope
6. (Almost) no sugar challenge: okay. I ate more sugar than I wanted on two days but that was mostly it.
7. Ply purple Corriedale: not done. I still need to do spinning wheel maintenance. But I did start plying.
8. Make music for fun 3 times a week: got a total of 6 times, so no. But 6 times is better than none.
9. Read 5 books: yes! I even finished 6.
10. Continue Chinese, “War & Peace” and „Year of Wonder“: done (I did not listen to one piece of music but will do that today, so all is well.
11. Genshin Impact: I reached all my video game goals
12. Spend time with family: yes. Husband and I went to Vesakh and on a hike and biked to the beer garden. I did not spend extra time with the boy but that’s okay.

So, all in all I’d say the month went better than I thought it had. Bedtime procrastination continues to be a big problem. I did buy a course and short book about it, we’ll see if that results in better evening habits.

Anything marketing related continues to be a struggle, as does spinning and making music outside of teaching. Still, I am happy with the month as a whole.

And now I get to think about what I want June to be like.

My husband and I talked very briefly and I finished a sock:

I did go for my walk(run and got back in time to take a shower before a late lunch. It was so hot and humid, I felt like just lying down on the ground and falling asleep.

But I didn’t:

The running parts are continuing to feel somewhat better, so that’s nice. I still haven’t figured out how to take proper selfies.

Lunch was good but not all that exciting. We found out that we had run out of sugo when my husband wanted to get another bottle from the basement and there was none. So the boy got tomato puree in his sauce.

I played a bit of Genshin and then did the dishes just in time for writer Zoom.

That was really lovely this week, so I did have the feeling of time well spent. I also started the next sock.

Afterwards I folded laundry for a few minutes because I was the first one there for watching ‚Columbo‘. Excellent episode.

And after that I played some more and then went on YouTube and watched video after video about vocal coach reactions to BTS. Seems I’m music-starved. Also, geeking out about vocals is fun.

Unfortunately, that meant I went to bed too late.

Yawn.

Last day of the month today. I am playing with the thought of doing a plan for the whole quarter again. Hm. Not sure. I really would like to do some decluttering and then books for me aren’t really projects that only take a month. I’ll think about that later today.

But first the whole going to bed too late routine. I did set my alarm earlier and that meant I did have time for the manuscript before breakfast. I’m still reading what I read before and already found something that I need to mention again in the new chapter.

I did skip yoga for a change, I broke my streak after doing yoga every morning since the beginning of the month.

Husband and I had breakfast and I knitted a bit and then did the dishes before we left the house.

The weather was still hot and sunny but for the most part we biked through the woods so that was good. As usual my husband wanted us to ride next to each other so that we could talk on the way, something I really don’t like to do when biking. Riding my bike for me is not as mindless as walking, and I need to pay attention to the ground, is it sand, gravel, are there branches on the way, do we need to go back to single file because someone comes from the front, or worse, from behind?

My husband (like the boy) spent many years riding his bike to school with some of his schoolmates and riding his bike for fun with his friends in the afternoon. I did not.

Anyway, everything went fine and we did talk even when it was stressing me a bit at times. We got our usual beer garden fare, for me this time with alcohol-free beer:

Yes, I took the usual cheese spread, for the record, this version was much better than the one I had on Wednesday.

And then we rode out bikes back.

I read a bit and ate some chocolate, then played my video game for a while. I taught one student, then did bodyweight training with the boy, had dinner while reading, played some more, started writing this post, made a list for today and went to bed.

The first week of Pentecost break is almost over but I’d say we’re making good use of it.

I did do my usual yoga, five minutes of meditation and such in between I talked with the boy who had to leave early for uni. Husband and I talked quite a bit over breakfast and then I got a text from the boy that his train was canceled. He pressed on, took the next train but then had to change trains and the next train did not come. The train after that was on the station display as „arriving in 7 minutes“ for 15 minutes or so, and by then he would have been an hour late for a 90-minute lecture. And that was if everything went smooth after which it probably wouldn’t have.

So he turned around and came back home.

At that moment I told my husband that I was pretty sure my one afternoon student wouldn’t be able to come because she uses the trains as well and I was pretty sure the train chaos would not be sorted until the late afternoon.

Since I hadn’t been able to get my favorite chocolate in the first two tries I decided to walk to the other health food store and try my luck there.

Not only did they not have that chocolate, they also were out of the vitamins I buy for the boy. So, of course, I had to buy four chocolate bars as a consolation. I shared with the boy but still, more sugar than I had wanted to eat.

After that I walked to the nearby supermarket and things went pretty well. Came back home and helped briefly with making salad after putting the groceries away.

We ate lunch as a family which was nice. The boy looked up if Leibniz-Kekse get their name from the mathematician, and yes, they do. We did not eat cookies, we ate rice and beans:

After lunch I first read a bit (while eating two chocolate bars), then I played Genshin for a while and then did the dishes. I got ready for my student fifteen minutes before her lesson, and got a text from them that they couldn’t make it because of the train chaos ten minutes later.

I did updates on my websites and wrote a blog post on my poor, neglected author blog. Five minutes after hitting publish I got my first comment

It was spam.

I ate dinner and played some more Genshin Impact. I reached a few milestones, including getting the sword I wanted for my new character. Turns out I already did half the necessary subquests before, so it didn’t take all that long.

In between everything I also spent quite some time talking with the boy and he helped me with video game stuff. I am completely unable to put teams together for endgame content. Which isn’t easy with my limited roster, but well.

I started writing this post, made a list for today, and opened the manuscript again very briefly. I am currently rereading everything because I’m a little stuck. Rereading should be easier than writing new stuff but somehow I still procrastinate.

And today will go on another little excursion. Fun.

At least I hope so.

My husband also went swimming in the lake, I didn’t.

It was super hot. I think I’m somewhat fitter than the last time we did this, also probably fitter than most times. The hike from the train station to the monastery (and beer garden) is my annual test of how fit I am. And despite the awful heat I was doing pretty good.

We ate the usual, shared a big mug of strong beer and each had a small one without alcohol:

We also ate our usual dessert:

Well, we ate most of it but not all.

Went down the hill again and to the lake where I sat around while my husband went swimming.

And then the only other thing I did was shower and play Genshin (not at the same time), time got away from me and today I need to catch up.

My husband also went swimming in the lake, I didn’t.

It was super hot. I think I’m somewhat fitter than the last time we did this, also probably fitter than most times. The hike from the train station to the monastery (and beer garden) is my annual test of how fit I am. And despite the awful heat I was doing pretty good.

We ate the usual, shared a big mug of strong beer and each had a small one without alcohol:

We also ate our usual dessert:

Well, we ate most of it but not all.

Went down the hill again and to the lake where I sat around while my husband went swimming.

And then the only other thing I did was shower and play Genshin (not at the same time), time got away from me and today I need to catch up.

I did not, unsurprisingly.

What I did do was talk with my husband and knit and read and run errands. Since the weather is super hot and since I might want to wear my new red Mary Janes to the reunion I walked all the way to the cobbler to have them widened a bit. They should be ready by Friday.

I also ordered some more stuff for my husband and, also, after I read this month’s queer romance newsletter (highly recommend) I bought a handful of books.

I have to confess that I unsubscribed from that newsletter in the afternoon. As much as I love it it only leads to me buying books that I then don’t read.

The errands and grocery shopping went okay but it was way too hot. And then I got into an argument with my husband who said he can’t imagine being inside all the time seeing the same things all day instead of spending the nice weather outside.

Something in me snapped, I have been spending my whole life fending off people who told me I should come outside with them because the weather was so nice. Yes, I know about the weather, thank you. All the interesting things are right here inside. If I wanted to look at grass and trees I would go and do so. In fact, I do leave the house about six times a week, I do look at trees and clouds and fields and grass, I just find that roughly 45 minutes per day are perfectly adequate.

I really find the sun glaring, you can see it in every single photo of me that was taken outside, I am completely unable to keep my eyes open. I am super allergic to all kinds of pollen and mild up to the point where I itch all over as soon as I do any yardwork. And that is with the antihistamine. The outside is also much louder (there are two construction sites near our house at the moment and you can hear the cars, the highway and the people talking while walking by our house.

And yesterday (and today as well) it was so hot that I was drenched in sweat after walking to the supermarket and back.

Today, by the way, we are planning to do a little excursion to the Andechs monastery.

Lunch yesterday was rather early, which is always appreciated:

I started playing Genshin Impact pretty much right after lunch, the plan was to plan for an hour or so and then tackle my to-do list.

I played for two hours, then started a load of laundry after changing all the towels, I did the dishes, I talked with the boy who had gotten an email that he has now officially finished his Bachelor’s. He still needs to wait for the official certificate but hey, he does have a degree now.

(My mother-in-law actually gave him a card for the occasion. Did you know there are „congrats you finished your Bachelor’s“-cards? I didn’t.)

After doing all that housework I was super hungry so I ate dinner a little early, then the boy and I did bodyweight training, we talked for an hour, I played some more Genshin, then remembered the load of laundry that I hung up while watching YouTube and then I fell down a YouTube rabbit hole.

I did write this post but gave up on writing for the day because I was just too tired at that point.

I really need to find a way to make myself write without a body double. I mean, I know I can do it, it’s just very hard. I should try the  organized writing sprints in the Heart Breathings group again.

Not today, though. Today will be hiking, beer and bad food.

I was outside in the heat:

We ate Greek food that my husband made:

I really hope that I’ll also do other things today and so I better get myself going.

Oh, and I ordered fabric for another T-shirt or two because I decided I need to make a new one.

And off I go…

After waking up too early I then went straight to social media and such, not the best decision ever. And, no surprise there, I also did not open the manuscript. Weird.

The morning was very nice with my husband, then I talked with my mother on the phone and had to deal with her disappointment that I’ll be coming her way for the high-school reunion but won’t visit her. She lives a little over an hour away from where I need to go. Since I rely on public transportation that would mean leaving the reunion early to take the last train to her. Or traveling there and back the next day and adding 2 1/2 hours of travel time to a full day of sitting on trains.

She was also pretty upset because her cell phone broke, it was sent off for repair and now she hasn’t heard anything for three weeks. She relies heavily on texting her various friends and has no backup of her contacts.

I tried helping her over the phone, told her what to ask for when she gets her replacement phone (at least it was still under warranty) and I’m hoping she’ll be able to sort it out herself.

The whole morning I was super cranky, pretty typical for a school break. Which is absurd.

We had asparagus risotto for lunch:

The leftover asparagus we had is in there. The boy and I both had hoped for soup but, well. It was super hot, so not soup weather, probably.

I talked with my husband some more about why I am always getting so weird about school breaks but we are not sure yet. It definitely has something to do with wanting to use the time both for relaxation and for getting stuff done. Which can’t be done at the same time.

I spent the afternoon reading a little and then I threw myself into playing my video game for a couple of hours. The boy and I did a little bodyweight training, then ate dinner, and then I went right back to playing. I did reach several game milestones, so that was nice.

I also realized how much I try to be efficient most of the time, even when I’m relaxing and having fun, and how much I feel like I have to hold myself back to not run off in all directions at once. So I decided to make my project for the next two weeks to allow myself all the research time I want, even if it’s not connected to any current project.

That made me feel much better, almost giddy with excitement.

And then I bought myself two new books: „The Techniques of Painting“ by Brigid Marlin, recommended by KJ Charles in „How to Fake it in Society“, a book about the paints and techniques of the Dutch renaissance masters, and „Worn“ by Sofi Thanhauser about the history of clothes and the people who make them. I will probably learn more from the book about painting than from the one about clothes but I still started reading that one first.

Some time in between I also changed the sheets on my bed, so that was good. And I wrote for ten minutes at the time where I should have turned the lights out.

Today will be another weird in between day, Pentecost Monday.

I started the heel increases on the sock in progress and did some dishes, and then I went out for my walk/run. It was pretty hot already at that point:

It feels like I might be getting marginally fitter, even.

Back home I cut up all the veggies and salad ingredients before taking a shower. We ate lunch out on the porch:

The boy and I did the dishes right away, I read a bit and then sat down to play my video game. I finished „How to Fake it in Society“ by K.J. Charles which I greatly enjoyed. After that it was time for my weekly writer Zoom. It was nice to see them all again. After that we went out on the porch again for salmon on toast and alcohol-free champagne. The boy also had salmon-free salmon.

We watched the episode of ‚Columbo‘ where his nephew gets married, then the boy did the dinner dishes while I started writing this post.

I am really looking forward to planning the week out today, I don’t want to squander my week off.

But I did have a rather low energy day.

I spent the morning booking a hotel and train tickets for the upcoming high-school reunion that I only heard about two days ago. One of my former schoolmates actually tracked me down by searching for my name, music and Munich, I think.

So I did not change the sheets or clean anything. I did fold two loads of laundry, at least.

It was nice, warm and sunny and we ate outside:

I only had a few students scheduled in the afternoon. The first one texted a few minutes after the beginning of their lesson that they had forgotten (again). The second and third student both showed up as usual. The fourth one was another no-show with no explanation whatsoever and the last one canceled via email.

I tried using those breaks for something and I did work on the novel timeline, sort of, for a while but all in all I just sat around waiting. I also started doing a lesson in the new Chinese workbook that I bought last week, and I bought a course and ebook about bedtime procrastination after watching a video about why bedtime procrastination makes sense. Apparently I am the time of bedtime procrastinator who has the hardest time stopping it because it’s automatic. Oops.

And then I realized I had one of those days where trying to force myself to do something is no use so I ate dinner and read a little before doing bodyweight training with the boy. During which we talked about Genshin Impact (duh) and then he helped me with artifacts and I tried the new event (mostly unsuccessfully) and played and played until it was almost time to turn out the lights, and then I started writing this post, made a list for today and went to bed.

Phew.

I would revel in the feeling of having two weeks off but to be honest my days won’t look all that much different I guess.

Still. Sleep would have been a healthier idea.

Anyway, I did the complete morning routine including fifteen minutes of writing. And after breakfast I started doing a little research for the story as well.

I talked with my husband at length and then I went off to the supermarket on my bike. The sun was shining, the streets were pretty empty and all was good. Until I locked my bike at the store about to grab my bike panniers and realized that those panniers were actually still back home.

I think this has been the second time this happened ever. I did briefly think about going back home for them but I was too late already. So I did all the shopping, did not get frozen pizza (because those pizzas are huge and I had no idea how to get them home), paid for a big, sturdy paper bag, put all the heavy stuff in my big backpack and used the backup shopping bag that I carry in my backpack.

I managed to get everything home even though changing gears and getting off and on the bike with the huge bag hanging from the handle was a bit challenging.

I unpacked the groceries, helped quickly with the sauce, and then we had the asparagus my husband had bought at the farmer’s market the day before:

Then I talked with the boy, had a short break and went to work.

I had very few students that day, one just didn’t show up, I guess they won’t be coming anymore, but that’s not bad. I would have liked to know, though.

I did not use my breaks productively. I did play the piano, though, so that was good.

In the evening I had half a bag of potato chips before meeting with my writer friend over Zoom to write. By then I was already pretty done with the day, so writing was a bit of an uphill struggle but I still managed some new words.

Then I started this post, wrote my list for today, finally started the new video game quest and went to bed.

I opened the manuscript and then played some more Genshin Impact. I am very determined to finish the remaining quest as soon as possible. I also pulled on the new character banner first thing in the morning, as one does, and am very happy with the result.

I did the dishes, listened to a piano piece by Clara Schumann, and got ready to leave the house:

It had rained like crazy before but when I went out for my walk and run it was dry.

Back at home my husband was busy making lunch and I had time enough to take a shower before it was ready. We had capellini with a pesto he had made from wild oregano that grows in our garden. Most of the salad ingredients came fresh from the market, very yummy:

I only had a little time until my first student because I was starting lessons earlier than usual, and then taught all the way until late. I had a break between students that I used for research and to refill the water in my piano’s humidifier.

Then I finally got to eat dinner, started writing this post, wrote a list for today, brushed my teeth and made some more progress on the video game quest.

Today will bring a little less teaching so I’m hoping to get some other stuff done as well.

So. I did the complete morning routine including two sessions of writing (only for 30 minutes total but better than nothing), ran all the errands and went to the health food store, folded a load of laundry, and then there was lunch:

I ate a chocolate bar against my own rules, so no (almost) no sugar yesterday. The chocolate didn’t even taste as good as I had expected, seems after eating dark chocolate only for a while a milk chocolate bar feel too sweet. I didn’t know there was such a thing.

I read and played a little and then it was time to teach. I had very many students planned but the whole thing got a little easier when one of them asked if they could reschedule.

After teaching I ate dinner, then did bodyweight training with the boy and after that tackled my current Genshin Impact quest in earnest. For hours.

I am happy to say that I finished it, now there is only one more left before I’m completely up to date.

Oh, and I also had two wins, I got rid of the used toner that I had been wanting to send to recycling for months, and I finally found the PDF course about taking headshots that I had bought before. One of these days I will have a new author photo, yes.

Today there will be too much teaching again, not quite as much other stuff, I hope.

I almost got eight houts of sleep again, even though I went to bed too late. I opened the manuscript after morning pages if only for fifteen minutes. I had hight hopes of having some more time after breakfast but, well.

There was yoga and five minutes of meditation and then breakfast with my husband who had already finished eating. I still go to knit a few rounds. I went online briefly, then my husband was back asking me to order some stuff online, so I did that and it took me thirty minutes. And that was it for writing.

I did the breakfast dishes, sorted recycling and took all the paper for recycling outside to the bin because that will be picked up today.

I went out in the sun for my walk/run:

I have reached the point where I can actually run for 90 seconds without feeling I’ll drop dead, and I did it several time in the 45 minutes that I was out.

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

Because mowing the lawn had taken almost twice as long as usual he had not had the time to make a sauce or pick the arugula. Still, food, and the omelette was rather good.

Then I did the dishes, hung the load of laundry up that my husband had started in the morning. I had to start the spin cycle a second time because the laundry was still wet after the first time. Overloaded machine, ahem.

I had a whole ten minutes then before my first student of the day and I spent that eating chocolate and drinking tea while the boy talked with me. I asked him to go to the supermarket later to get bananas and parmesan. Which he did.

I taught very many students but also had a bit of a break because someone canceled. During that break I wrapped the toner recycling return package (you can send the empty cartridges back for recycling for free) and I played the piano for a bit.

Then more students until it was a little later than usual. I ate dinner and then met with the boy so he could help me with those tough bosses I can’t do on my own. Afterwards I spent quite a bit of time playing more Genshin with mixed results.

By the time I finished (and talked some more with the boy who was doing more dishes) it was already time to turn the lights out but I still started writing this post and made a list for today.

Unfortunately it looks like I won’t really have time for much today as well but hey, I am getting stuff done, so that’s good.

I also opened the manuscript before breakfast if only for ten minutes, did yoga (just like every single day this month) and talked with my mother on the phone.

Lunch was only medium exciting, both the boy and I were looking around for veggies. Well, this was it:

I did the dishes right after lunch and listened to my daily piece of classical music (and yesterday’s daily piece as well but it all evens out) and then I sat down to plan the week ahead.

And then I played my video game, actually stopped at some point, vacuumed the old part of the house after my husband had done the annex, he cleaned the toilets, I started a load of laundry and then I mopped the kitchen and bathroom floor.

It’s been a while. A very long while.

I then ate dinner, met the boy for bodyweight training where I opted to make quite a few of the exercises easier because I was not feeling up to it, and then came the moment when I had planned to open the manuscript for a second time.

When I found myself on Instagram I realized that I was not feeling up to it, and so I changed plans, started writing this post, made a list and hoped for a better day today.

Not that yesterday was in any way bad at all. I just had too many plans for just one day, it happens.

I still had a slow morning and didn’t write before breakfast. But I did start a new pair of socks:

Originally I had planned to learn a new stretchy cast-on but I found I was too distracted talking with my husband to focus on it, so I did a tubular cast-on. Which means that I finally have that cast-on down pat.

After breakfast I actually opened the laptop and worked on my manuscript for ten minutes. That’s my new goal, ten minutes in the manuscript every day. We’ll see how that goes.

And then we got ready to bike to Munich.

When we left it started to rain. The weather varied wildly, sometimes it was sunny and almost warm, sometimes it rained but it was very cold all throughout. We were going all in wearing long johns under our pants, wool sweaters, rain jackets and mittens. We also found some insulating seat cushions in the bike shed and took thermoses with hot tea.

We dig get lost on the way but eventually got there anyway. When we arrived in the park we decided to eat lunch first, before the first dragon dance in the amphitheater was finished. Which was a good idea. While looking for a free table we ran into some old friends of my husband’s and ended up eating with them.

I forgot to take a picture of my food, sorry, I had spring rolls and Pad Thai. It was very good.

And then we watched the dances and listened to the (pretty boring) moderator and the festival blessing in Tibetan. Here is a picture of some Thai dancers at the end of their performance:

And this is one of the Nepalese dancers:

You can’t see it in the picture but this woman was amazing. She also slipped and fell at some point, the rain had made the wooden stage very slippery.

We left shortly after we ran out of tea. It was all very nice but a little cold still.

And then we biked back home, much slower this time, one of the reasons was that the wind was against us.

I ate an early dinner, then played Genshin Impact, talked briefly with my husband and the boy, did my usual evening things and went to bed too late.

I might have to cull today’s list. Maybe.

But that made me slow again in the morning. I’m starting to waffle about morning phone use as well. That is a very hard habit to break and I’m not quite sure it will be worth it.

Of course I’ll only know after I try it out for a while.

Anyway, no writing before breakfast again. I did yoga (15 day streak!), morning pages, dishes, and spent some time looking into project management stuff again. I keep finding Notion templates that look promising and when I open them they are full of stuff I don’t need and I can’t seem to figure out how to modify them. Looks like I might have acquired yet another huge project, sigh.

I did finish a sock, though, and now I have a new pair:

My husband did all the things including running and making lunch:

I only had very little time before my first student and I read a little and played some Genshin. I managed to level a character up, yeah! I had been working towwards that for weeks at that point.

Then there was teaching. It all went pretty well, I even managed to do my lesson prep in the ten minutes before my first student, phew.

I had one student cancel but by that point I was so exhausted that I just read a little. Until my husband fetched me because something had gone wrong with the computer setup in the basement yet again.

Looks like the adapter was lost, so his keyboard wasn’t working and when he tried to fix it (he thought the ethernet cable had gotten pulled out by mistake but that cable is only still there because all the cables are nicely bound together for eternity), anyway, when he tried to fix it he turned the monitor off without realizing it.

So I wiggled on all the cables, turned the monitor back on, went upstairs and ordered a cable with a USB-C plug.

I had one more student and talked briefly to my husband who was super exhausted and out of sorts as well, on top of the whole computer thing that painfully reminded him of the past few weeks he also had to go out in the pouring rain to get his tomato plants under cover.

Then I got ready for bodyweight training, the boy even showed up right on time because he knew that I had another appointment after, we trained and talked, I hopped into the shower, got dressed again and met my friend over Zoom for a writing session.

We wrote for almost an hour but after forty minutes I was pretty done with the day. I still started this post, made a list for today, and then that was it for the week.

Fingers crossed that we can celebrate Vesakh today without getting drenches and frozen. I will report back, of course.