in the blue glow of the laptop (244/365a)

lit only by a laptop

Oh my the difference a little free program can make. Having given up my daily use of the internet I went through the typical addict's withdrawal symptoms, and I know at any time I could get sucked in again. But now that the first few weeks are through I find I am less inspired to wearily pull out my computer a single time for all the same reasons I used to use to voraciously pull it out several times a day. there's a big distinction. i've gone days and weeks without a computer in the woods, in time of travel, in times of extreme business. i don't have internet on my phone. i don't reach for it when it's not available. i don't need it and i know that. the newness lies in it being available and being able to choose not to use it. Read instead. Practice. do jumping jacks. I did those things before anyways, but my go-to time-waster was one that is extremely bad for physical, mental and emotional health. now my go-to time-waster is at worst talking to real people, fixing something, reading something dumber than usual, or just being by myself listening to music. 

it was fun today, spending the whole day with felix (i kept him home from kindergarten) ... cooking out of a cookbook (everyone helped, kids chopped veggies, got herbs from the garden, made salad) ... memorizing poems ... walking to the playground .... looking at stars. the best of the best. maybe we'll go on a hike tomorrow. :)

a non-recording session (243/365a)

More headache, and sickness this morning. I was glad I didn't *have* to go anywhere this morning, although I had promised to go out and meet a cat I would actually like (Nina's cat-sitting the world's nicest cat apparently, and I have to go be converted ;) ) ...... Instead I just flopped on the couch and we talked me into a nostalgic delirium before the kids came home from school.

I had to really motivate myself to move and leave to get to Centa's improv that she was doing at the departmental christmas party. i got to meet the cat! i wish i had taken a picture of her, she's a big ball of dark fluff, who responds to her name when called. nina and i walked together to the party, it was a long walk with my 7ton viola and my 8inch heels on miles of cobblestone sidewalks (that's what it felt like!) i left the party early to catch a bus to get there in time to record my percussion part with the quintett only to find they had finished recording as planned, but obviously we would have to wait till we were done editing before layering any sleighbell sounds on top. i could have thought of that too. none of us had considered that. instead we took 5 takes of taking cookies off a plate, and 0 takes of us eating them. the brand new silver tablecloth smelled like toxic chemicals and we had to throw it outside before we could have a single cookie.

setting up to grab cookies

we laughed so hard our abs hurt, and then drove home. i called brian to let me in just so i could grab this:

:)

st.nick's eve (242/365a)

st. nicks' eve. which is not to say that st nick is adam. "eve" means something different in this case.

nikolaus, komm geschwind! hier nur brave kinder sind!

everyone was dressed up as st.nick when i got home tonight. this is not traditional, but i kind of think it may become our personal tradition. three years in a row one of the kids was enamored of the fullsized red costume and wore it rolled up on the ankles and wrists. suddenly they wanted to clean their room and practice and have their pajamas on by 7pm. magically the advent wreath got lit and the stockings got full of peanuts and clementines. they even "heard" the sleigh as it left. :) they were so excited they stayed up till 9:30 sharing peanuts with each other and singing nikolaus songs

.....

the morning started differently. more headache. i drove up to kindergarten despite the pounding in my brain. and also did a little mini rehearsal with a violinist for a mass next weekend. standing next to a violin with your head about to fall off is no easy task. downstairs centa was running a rather loud improv rehearsal for tomorrow night's english departmental christmas party. i got a phone call from pauli reminding us that we were having dinner with him and his dad... pretty much right now. i took two ibuprofens while centa called a taxi. dinner was lovely. pauli is fun company. manfred was sleepy but they were both proud of the new kitchen in pauli's apartment. pauli is a great cook, everything was so yummy, and cured my headache for a while. glad i went, though i wasn't glad when i was leaving. that's all that counts, right?

the show must go on even if youre sick and tired on a monday (241/365a)

making more train cards

Dear oh dear! I was so tired today! I had held onto my headache from yesterday, unfortunately. I biked Theodore and Henry to school because I had promised, but I didn't get ready to go until they were downstairs getting their gloves and shoes on. I had a lesson at 10:40. I fell asleep on the floor in front of the fire in the middle of a chapter of Name of the Wind. Went to my lesson, carrying all Theodore's and my stuff with me somehow. The lesson was somehow fantasic. I owe it to lovely Elke giving me a compliment on "doing so much stuff, bewundernswert" ... did homework with Henry, who was mostly excited about the automatic coffee machine which he was convinced "made the paper cup" before it made the coffee.

at home i went back to sleep. three more hours of sleep. kids somehow left for choir on time on their own, and felix came to sleep with me. woke up in time to sing bedtime songs by candlelight.

awful picture, beautiful wreath

didn't go dancing tonight. i was a bit cranky and tantrum throwing myself, and not at all reasonable, nor could i decide what to wear. brian's suggestion of "pajamas" was rather unwelcome.

sugar fat salt (240/365a)

a bowl of late night ramen with an egg

the day was split into nutritive parts:

SUGAR

a 6am leaving time (extra padding room to get lost in which we used up taking the wrong exit on the highway) to arrive in Gaishorn in time for a giant breakfast of basically pure sugar - with coffee... so many kinds of pastries. we needed the calories. the church was unheated and very cold. we looked like we were on fire since we were all breathing white vapor. we played the bruckner mass with exceptionally cold fingers. manfred sang his solo, the Benedictus, especially nicely. It took us a long time to tune - it was so cold, the pegs didn't want to stay, and the organ was at 436....

FAT

Dropped off Nadja first to let Henry have a lesson. Got home in time to grab a snack for the road and hurry theodore and henry to get ready. chopped an apple, grabbed some nuts, and a (very dark) chocolate bar. The chocolate counts as the fat in this story. We got to the opera in time to watch the Marriage of Figaro which made me cry and laugh and I loved every second of the first time. Manfred stood in the back with us too. We four had the Stehplätze all to ourselves, which was quite wonderful. We had our snacks at intermission and I gave the boys the option to go home, but they didn't want to. We got seats in the front instead (where we actually saw less than before, but we didn't have to stand) and finished watching. Brian came to get them and I had about 1000 melodies stuck in my head. I found Barbara and Sophia and we went to catch the tram.

SALT

The tram said it would come in another 35minutes! So we called taxis. Both of us called, and neither of got through. We waited and called again. No taxi. We called Irmtraud, no answer. We called Klaus - he was on his way. Surprised to find all three of us there waiting for him, I think. Rehearsal for our soon to be recording stuff. Headachey. I was tired by the end. At home, I got myself all the salt I could find, and basically just tired but happy.

friends who deliver (239/365a)

once upon a time it was advent wreath making time. there were branches to be found. there were strings to be found. beeswax candles to be rolled. decorations to be added. ribbons to be tied. once upon a time, i didn't find the time. i made cookies with the kids. we sang songs. we played music. he had rehearsals. and dinner.

henry had the most fun making cookies. they were yummy too!

i took a bath.

least favorite sound in the bath: "ding dong" ........
.....
..........it was jackie.
she brought us an advent wreath - we could keep it, or we could regift it, as we wanted. she guessed we already had one. she was wrong about that.

it was just absolutely gorgeous, exactly what i would have wanted to make myself but i wouldn't have come close. fresh green branches, and homemade candles of different lengths.

we went to theodore and henry's advent-wreath blessing service that they were singing with the choir. felix saw the lights in town for the first time and SKIPPED FOR JOY that it was almost christmas...

felix: when it's christmas, i am going to fight with nikolaus.
me: why are you going to fight?
felix: because i'm going to be dressed up like nikolaus and he is going to tell me that he is nikolaus and i will say i'm nikolaus.

we took the advent tram, which is a very decorated tram that doesn't stop at most stops and they give you chocolate and play jazzy christmas songs. there were some drunkish teenagers on there, but we attracted more attention by dancing in the aisles. the kids, and us stayed up LAAAATE tonight.

remember remember the first of december (238/365a)

remember remember the first of december... because i forgot today....
i remembered last week because i saw a do-it-yourself wall advent calendar at spektral and brought it back with me. but frantically i wrote up a single verse of "twas the night before christmas" and let felix open it, and then i spent the next 2 hours after they were asleep writing other things (the rest of the poem, songs, recipes) for them to find in the next 23 days. ....

complete with some random unused velcro.... what should i put there?

theodore and i had a looong rehearsal with thomas' orchestra. during half-time break (only 20 minutes before the official end of rehearsal) we switched locations to the chapel we are supposed to play in next week and couldn't find the lights.... on the way there we were late because theodore reminded me had had broken a string. usually we buy those on amazon, but amazon prime isn't that good yet....

and i picked them up early from school to take them to a kids-concert at the kug. henry had gone to enough concerts of the series last year that he earned a prize... and last year they ran out of prizes. this year, brian asked them to give henry one retroactively, and they said "sure!" and took our name and number but we got nothing more from them. now i waited around until the lady was free, and told her we would wait until henry got his silly swag water bottle. it's totally silly, i know, but ... i really feel that henry is justified being disappointed - it's not like he goes to the concerts for the prize, but if you promise a five year old (last year) something, and they keep track and get stamped etc. you should reward them appropriately blah blah blah. 

i got my siegl flyers printed, but forgot to bring them to the rehearsal with thomas, which was really stupid. 

....also made some really cool paper airplanes and had tea - not coffee - with nina.

the airplanes was a long time coming, because i had been promising for a week to show them something i had found somewhere about the world-record-breaking paper airplane the "suzanne" and finally did so, although we didn't get it to really fly THAT far....

the tea -not coffee... came about because i really really wanted coffee, but thought it was a bad idea. and when i asked "tea or coffee" nina told me "anything you want" ... so i started making coffee while explaining it was a bad idea. she reminded me that she would have coffee later in the afternoon anyways, so maybe she should have tea.... so we did that instead. probably a good idea, since it is 10:30 and i am tired, and maybe will actually go to sleep now.