Soledad's Journal

... how deep cleaning half the flat (which I absolutely hate to do) seems to have cured my neck and shoulder pain - again. My theory is that the repetitive movements with the vacuum cleaner and the floor mop must have loosened the nerve that keeps getting pinched time and again. Which doesn't mean that I'm planning to scrub the dratted flat more frequently in the future, which I told Mum in no uncertain terms. She laughed her head off.

Aside from the cleaning frenzy I gave Mum her weekly shower, washed my hair, cooked lunch and fed Louise (= the washing machine), so I was properly housewife-y all day. And that on less than four hours of uninterrupted sleep - for some reason I hadn't slept well last night.

Accordingly, I sneaked in a nap after having emptied Louise; then I gave two of my friends/colleagues/choirmates phone calls, and that was basically it. At least I had some semblance of social life.

I had plans for this day, since we postponed Mum's birthday for tomorrow. Since I didn't have to cook, either - long live leftovers! - I planned to do a few things for myself. Like a bit of crafting, a bit of writing, a bit of resting. Well, the last one actually happened, but the first two...

I started with cutting out the basic parts of an elephant plushie - only to discover that I didn't have any grey thread with which to sew them together. After having spent a small fortune on red and white thread yesterday, I'm no facing the necessity to do the same with grey thread. Why is it that one can have entire boxes of thread in various colours (which I do!) but never the only one needed at any given moment?

As for the writing part, I intended to add another scene to Chapter 18 of "Alternate Caretaker" and/or write the opening scene to Chapter 19 (the story has actually 22 written parts at the moment but 4 of them are so-called interludes, so I'm still at Chapter 18). Well... neither of those things happened. I'm brain-dead, totally unmotivated and couldn't think of a single thing that would work.:((

So we watched some crap telly, Mum happily accepted congratulatory phone calls (and one video call from H. and her immediate family), and then we took extended naps. And now I'm mourning all the time I've wasted today. *sigh*

I made them. They are yummy - but not worth the four(!) hours of labour I had to put into them, including the preparations. I've never been this exhausted after baking, not even on days when I baked four to five sorts of Christmas cookies on a single day. So yeah, I'll stick to Black Forest Cake next time we get an appetite something in this flavour.

At least Mum loved them, so there's that.

That's what I was today. First, I did the major part of the grocery shopping at Aldi. They had Alpenfest days, so I bought Apfelstrudel, pork knuckles, fresh Spätzleteig and Almdudler. Mum's going to have her birthday, soon, after all. Besides, the apple strudel and the pork knuckles are ready-made, I just have to put them into the oven and spare myself the cooking. WIN!

Then I had to wait for the guys who installed our security front door 13 years ago. Said door has become a bit wacky from its own weight, and since the guys were installing a similar door by one of our neighbours I wanted to ask them to take a look. Which they did and solved the problem in about 6 seconds. But I had to wait until they were done at the neighbour's (the same one the PT lady had to save me from last week), and she had questions. Lots of questions.

When this was all done, I went to the Savoy Park shopping centre. Mum asked me to take her church support money (or whatever it's called in English) to the post office, and I wanted to buy some upholsterer's needles. The upholstery of the stuffed armchair I use for watching crap telly (since that's the only telly available) is coming apart, and I want to fix it. It's just the sewing, fortunately, and just a small section of it, but I never used such a semi-circular needle before, so it's gonna be a real adventure.

Speaking of sewing, I've attached the tail to the teddy bear plushie. That's all the crafting I got to do today. But tomorrow I'll sew the little guy together and stuff it, so that it'll be nice and chubby. *g*

As of no outside visitors (save for one talkative neighbour but she didn't stay long) and only laundry and cooking inside to do.

So I did have a bit of time for more crafting. I've finished the first plushie. Originally aimed for the Easter Bunny but ended up with Aromo, the Rabbit of the Unstoppable Brain (Hungarian children's tale by Ervin Lázár). As I said, just a tiny bit menacing-looking, but again, Aromo was always ready to protect his friends, so it's okay. I've also cut out the main panels for the next plushie, a teddy bear. Tomorrow there will be little details, like nose, eyes, palms and the likes.

In the afternoon we watched a bit of crap telly, then I managed to write a bit before resting my eyes (no actual sleeping, alas), then I called H. and my friend Evie. Evie wasn't near her phone but called me back later - right during the finals of the GBBO. Fortunately, I've already seen this particular season at least twice, so it wasn't a big deal.

... but at least the cleaning lady showed up on time, as promised. I hope we'll be able to keep this one. *fingers crossed*

Cleaning was brutal today, despite the fact that I didn't even manage to do the whole flat. But I did the balcony (which is always time-consuming, as one has to put the thousand-and-one things back in place afterwards - emptying it took every bit as long yesterday), the living room (sans the stuffed chairs, but even so, the living room is probably the worst in the entire flat), the carpet in the anteroom, wiped the corridor and the bathroom.

The cleaning lady washed every single door in the flat, including the built-in wardrobes, every single lamp and chandelier, dusted the tops of every cupboard and bookshelf and a few additional small tasks. I'll eventually have to vacuum the two small bedrooms and clean the kitchen, but that will have to wait until next week.

Tomorrow we'll have the talkative chiropodist lady in the house. Joy, joy. But I can't do Mum's feet (too sensitive) and can't reach my own ones well enough to do such delicate work (too much body fat in the way), so we'll have to endure.

This was a day filled with small (but time-consuming tasks).

( ... and it's boring like hell, so feel free to skip the details )
Mum had a visit from the PT lady, during which I dismantled the artificial tree and wrestled it back into its paper box. It gets harder every year. Or I'm getting clumsier. One of the two, certainly.

The only truly positive aspect of the day is that I actually got a tiny bit of writing done. Just a few paragraphs, but every little bit counts.

1) I've put away all the felt Christmas tree ornaments.
2) I removed the lolly stick ones and the folded paper stars. Now only the garlands are left.
3) I've transcribed some of the creative jam recipes into a small notebook I had selected for this very purpose.
4) We did the weekly laundry.
5) I cooked lunch - fruit soup with apples and raisins, some frozen potato croquets that I bought ready-made, filled with spinach and mozzarella and a mixed salad. Mum approved.
6) I did some minor crafting: finished the shelf for laundry room #2. Now both laundry dooms are on the same level of readiness. On to the ironing boards and the laundry baskets.
7) I'm about to type up the already written parts of the next chapter of my alternate Caretaker (ST: Voyager pilot) story.
8) I had a nice, long phone chat with H. I tried to call my friend Evie, too, but she was likely overrun with kids and grandkids as always during the weekend, so she couldn't answer the phone.

I'd say that's enough for one day. In other news, my back is still acting up; but again, it's been less than a week. Usually it needs two to four weeks to right itself. *double sigh*

Meaning peace and quiet. A real blessing, especially as my back has slowed me down considerably. I need twice as much time for doing things as usually because I have to be more careful. It's just certain moves that set off the pain... but those are never the same moves, so that I could just avoid them. *sigh*

Anyway, I was lazy today. Did a bit of writing, a bit of crafting, removing some more felt ornaments from the Christmas tree... and that was basically it. To be honest, it felt wonderful to be lazy. Especially the not having to cook part.

The next chapter of "Alternate Caretaker" is taking shape. I've found, to my pleasant surprise, that there were actually almost five hand-written pages for it (which translate into about six typed-up pages), they just hadn't been transcribed yet. So that's what I'm doing right now. I also added another hand-written page and figured out (at least in my head), what should be happening in this chapter. I hope it will work out. *fingers crossed*

Neck and shoulders are all but healed - now it's my back that's acting up again. But that's nothing new. Ever since a bad move 30 years ago, when I had to reposition my bedridden grandmother quite frequently, this little problem pops up at irregular intervals. Slept in the wrong position again, apparently. Ah, well, it needs time to right itself, but it usually does.

Other than that, it was an eventful day. I did a tiny bit of sewing in the morning, then made lunch. Then Mum had a visit from the physiotherapist lady, in the middle of which our neighbour - a different one, but every bit as talkative as the one from last week - came over to discuss with me the guy who's made our secure front door 13 years ago. (It turns out, he's still in business.) This mutated into her long-winded report (which she delivered without actually breathing!) about her most recent visit to ER that apparently led to no-where. I lost track after 20 minutes.

A colleague of me used to call such people energy vampires.

Fortunately, the PT lady read my body language (she's known me for 6 years, after all) and came to my rescue, asking for a drink of water from the living room (the verbal steamrolling took place in our front door). Neighbour realized we weren't alone and left. I thanked the PT lady most profoundly, but my brain needed at least another hour to recover.

After lunch I called H. who's still quite ill; only that Little Emma has also caught her bug, so they are suffering together at home. I also talked to my friend Elise, who was very glad to postpone snow-shoveling duty for those five minutes because yes, a ton of snow has fallen during the night again.

As for the rest of the day, I did some more research and even wrote half a scene for a further story that might or might not take shape in the foreseeable future. But it was writing, which always makes me happy.