077/2024 – “There Are Sunlight Uplands Around the River Bend”

Lyrics: “Glorious You” – Frank Turner, 2015

Let’s see if I’ll manage to finish and publish this week’s rambling thoughts in time, meaning before the last hours of Sunday night, which I’ll probably be spending watching TV on my sofa.

Even though work felt super busy in parts this week I also felt like I had a better handle on things: Tasks, meetings, project management, budgets. I felt less overwhelmed or snapped out of it quicker. Either way, it felt good. [Free insight into my mind: For a short moment I wondered if I should change ‘good’ into ‘okay’ or something less positive. Why? Probably because I’m so used to a negative view of the world and of me in it. I’m working on that].

I’m also getting a better handle on organizing my day-to-day-life (chores, errands, random things I want to do in my spare time) by getting back to using my favourite to-do-app more and more. Even for the smallest stuff. I still might switch timeslots or postpone tasks, but I definitely get more done this way. Always with the tiny dopamine hit of being able to check something off the list!

All in all seeing this when I drove home on Friday (not the best view of it, but the only possible spot for me to park my car) felt like a deserved reward:

Double rainbow over a two story office building, the street in front is slick from rain
Double rainbow

When I hear or rather more often see and read (mostly on social media) how ‘productive’ / diverse / active other people spend their weekends, I sometimes struggle to not feel like an uninteresting, boring sloth. But luckily in this instance as well I often also manage to snap out of it quickly. First all: It’s social media and we all know how eclectic the side of our lives we share on it usually is. And I also shouldn’t care what other people do. These days I need my downtime. Sleep. Rest. Read. Give my mind the chance to calm down as well.

I was brought out of my lie-in yesterday morning by the doorbell around 8:45. The postman had to deliver a package which wouldn’t fit into my mailbox. I knew it would be delivered on that day, but I had forgotten that it came by regular mail via the postman in the morning and not via the parcel service, which serves our route in the afternoon usually. Anyway reason enough to get up.

My latest book haul upright on a table in front of a white wallpaper: The Great Divide by Cristina Hernandez, Rise To The Sun by Leah Johnson, The Violin Conspiracy by Brendan Slocumb, American Panda by Gloria Chao, Mediation for fidgety sceptics and 10% Happier both by Dan Harris
Just a few of the books from my recent ‘book buying binge’, there are more to come

I’m on a bit of a crazy book buying binge these days. I would try to explain why, but I honestly couldn’t. My lack of impulse control when it comes to books clearly has something to do with it. Also the fact that I’ll get a bit of extra credit when I don’t cash-in the money I get for selling read/used books to the recommerce service I use for that. For instance instead of getting 10€ back into my bank account, I get a voucher for 12€ to buy more (used) books from them. I don’t sell my books to earn money, it’s mainly to make space on my shelves. Which I then fill with new and more books. Yes, this might constitute a problem in the long run, because I usually buy more books than I sell. I need to get rid off, e.g. throw away some of the stuff on my shelves. I do have books (non-fiction, travel guides etc.) which don’t have any commercial value anymore and as much as it pains me, I need to bin them. All the public bookcases in my area are already filled to the brim and I don’t want to add to the “throw away” books which I assume are quite a few of the ones in there.

The actual books I’m reading this week are the non-fiction “Unwell Women” by Elinor Cleghorn (still, as I haven’t made much progress there) and Maggie O’Farrell’s “This Must Be The Place” (on Kindle). I’m about 1/3 in and enjoy reading it, because I like the prose and I think the way the narrative is structured is interesting. This book actually was one I’ve owned and still haven’t read for the longest time. In a weird / wild (?) attempt to tackle the long list of unread books – which gets longer and longer with each book buying binge, I KNOW – I thought I should intersperse the newer and current books on to-read-next-list with the ones unread for the longest time. O’Farrell was the one that looked the most interesting and I honestly wonder why I never picked it before.


Back to how I also spend my weekend: besides reading fiction / non-fiction books, I also try to catch up with all the news articles I bookmarked during the week. I think, I mentioned that last week as well. I also try to listen to more news / politics / society podcasts. Mostly in the car, but maybe I should do that more at home as well instead of mindlessly watching vintage shows on Netflix. I don’t listen to most of them on a weekly basis, but pick an episode if the topic interests me. I listened to an informative German one on the International Humanitarian Law aspects of the war in Gaza. And I’m halfway through another German one on how the right-wing populist party AfD might change the education system if they manage to govern in a federal state in Germany. Another interesting new one in English is “A Muslim & a A Jew Go There”, hosted by politician Sayeeda Warsi and comedian David Baddiel.


I mentioned that these are rambling thoughts, so here is a work anecdote which just didn’t really fit into the few lines I wrote about work at the start. Ever since I’ve got my own work laptop to work with in the office AND at home (instead of logging into my desktop computer from home via remote service) about 6 weeks ago, I’ve got severe connection problems while I’m working from home. As usual – for me – I looked for the problem to happen on my side, as in I’m doing something wrong. After I’ve eliminated every possible error I wrote a mail with a detailed description of how and what and when (5 seconds every 30 minutes after I log on) is the problem. The issue doesn’t occur at the office, because there the laptop connects via a docking station and not an ethernet cable. I was at the office though when a guy from the IT desk called me, so he couldn’t right away talk me to changes in my router which he thinks might solve the problem.

HE praised my details report, which helped him to narrow it down to his estimation that it’s something in the router setup and in general was really nice. That was one of the reasons why I didn’t have a go at him when during our chat he matter-of-factly stated “Your husband takes care of the router setup, I assume?” I mean WTF?!?!? He wasn’t even condescending about it and I’m still on the fence if that is actually worse. That to him it seems to be an irrefutable fact, that a) I’m married to a man and b) said man is in charge of all the technical issues at home. What the actual fuck?!? The other reason I didn’t admonish him for it, was of course, that I’m too shy and averse to conflict. So I just replied with “I’m not married (Ugh! Too much information for him and in hindsight feels a bit as if I agree with his line of thinking) I handle the router setup on my own.”

We still have such a long way to go. And I include myself in this, because I know I still think in a lot of gender stereotypes. I hopefully check myself before I utter them to someone else, but you never know.


Back to how I spend my spare time: I finally was motivated to finish building the LEGO duck. I run out of good shelf space to put all my LEGO though. It’s a first world problems, I know.

Photo of the LEGO duck in front of books
A rare souvenir from Billund

072/2024 – “In My Head”

Lyrics: “Zombie” – The Cranberries, 1994

The past week has been a weird one. I was anxious a lot or to put it more correctly more anxious than usual. Which again led to more than usual unhealthy (mental more than physical) behaviour. Worrying. Ruminating. (Excessive) Daydreaming. Procrastinating. Luckily I seem to have manage to get back on track by the end of the week. Small steps and self-compassion and all that.

I had planned to publish a version of this post on Sunday evening, while I was watching my favourite TV show. I thought I could type and watch, but multi-tasking never really works, does it? And the commercial breaks weren’t long enough to finish it. Two days later I’m finally sitting down to give this another try.

I’m streaming old editions of the show on the side right now (because I found out that I can!), so I’m not sure how well this attempt to publish will go.

Screenshot of my desktop. On the left in a small window a stream of "Wer stiehlt mir die Show" S1E2 und links in einem größeren Fenster das Edit Fenster des Blog.
2nd attempt of writing this post

A few more thoughts on the past few days; in alphabetical order this time.

Books | One of the activities to get me out of my head and negative thoughts was and still is reading. The last few books I read were a bit of a let down, but my current reads are interesting enough. I usually try to read a fiction and non-fiction book at the same time, though sometimes the fiction wins, because it’s more interesting as a plot moves forward. My current reads:

Screenshot of my Storygraph Current Reads: Dances by Nicole Cuffy and Unwell Women by Elinor Cleghord
Stats from two days ago, I’m further in both books now

Caffeine | The weekend before last I noticed that my supply of coffee beans was running low. Some time ago I had re-read an article about caffeine’s negative effect on our bodies. I didn’t think I drank all that much coffee: Not more than 3 cups of not that strong coffee and always with a lot of (oat)milk. But I thought why not try decaf for a while. Do I really need the caffeine? Do I really like the taste of it? Short story short: I can’t really ultimately answer either question. I do like the smell of fresh coffee. I do like the routine of making it and sipping it in the morning.

That article and other sources recommended not going “cold turkey” but rather phase out. Of course I thought: “I don’t drink that much coffee, my body can’t be that dependent on it and I went “cold turkey” “. Which does sound as weird as the experience of going without any caffeine from one day to the next indeed felt like. I might be exaggerating, but I did feel a bit more sluggish and on the first and 2nd day actually had a headache. I very very rarely have headaches, so that must have definitely been a result of the lack of caffeine in my system.

Yesterday I bought regular coffee beans again and will now mix the ‘real’ and decaffeinated beans in my coffee grinder to find some middle ground.

Grace Petrie | Grace Petrie is an amazing folk singer, whom I got to know through Frank Turner, when she was one of his supports on the UK tour 2019. Her new album “Build Something Better” was released on Friday and it’s a proper banger. Three songs in I was up in arm to protest in Westminster. I’m a German in Germany, but who cares. Seriously. The album is a perfect bland of protest songs full of rage about what’s been going wrong in UK politics for so long and about misogyny world wide. But it also has a few sweet love songs and one rousing “We can still turn this around” anthem, which combines the rage wit hope and that’s a good mental state to be in these days in my eyes.

Frank produced the album and thus they did an Instagram Live together on Saturday which was fun to watch.

“Monkey Mind” | When I’m as underlying anxious as I have been this past week, my mind also goes off track much more often than usual. Hopping from thought to thought and activity to activity without really finishing either. It took me a few days to realize that this was what was going on and I started to pay more attention to my flittering mind and reign it in a bit more. But also using paper and post its on various spots in my home to be able to jot thoughts down to come back to them later instead of acting on them right away. It seems to have helped. Also using a ToDoList App to organize my day a bit more. Trying to establish a few more healthy routines. Again: small steps and self-compassion.

News | To keep my mind busy and keep it from wandering off into anxious loops too much I also tried to read more news articles. Newspaper. Proper articles and not just tweets and Instagram slides. A bit more background and more in-depth analysis. Unfortunately I bookmark articles to read quicker than I manage to catch up with reading them, but that’s okay.

Always remember: A lot of the world is not binary. Not just black and white. Not just pro and con. Sometimes I struggle with the ambiguity and also with all the grief and atrocities and catastrophes, so I try to also read “good” news, because those are out there as well. Maybe less in the current day-to-day global politics at the moment, but in other fields.

Photo of a few sections of last week's edition of the weekly newspaper "DIE ZEIT"
Last week’s “DIE ZEIT”

Olivier Awards / Operation Mincemeat | This section wasn’t part of the post on Sunday. I won’t bore you again with how much I love “Operation Mincemeat”. The Olivier Awards are one of the biggest Theatre awards in the world. The biggest in the UK anyway. Like the “Oscars” basically. This show, my favourite show, my happy place, written by four friends who have never ever before written a musical together, is nominated for SIX awards.

  • Outstanding musical contribution (Orchestration and Musical Direction)
  • ALL FOUR ‘acting in musical’ categories (male/female in each main and support)
  • Best musical!

I’m sooo sooo happy for them and can’t wait to see the show again in April. The night AFTER the Olivier Awards, which might be an interesting night to be there.

Teeth | Over the years I’ve probably mentioned that I have kind of crappy teeth. Not diligent enough dental hygiene, when I was younger? Maybe? Too much sugar. Probably. Last year one of my teeth which already had a filling sort of broke off. It already had a root canal, so it didn’t hurt and was no bother but all in all it’s still useless and thus was better pulled. Which happened today. It wasn’t too bad, small tooth and all and it was quickly done. I felt a bit woozy afterwards and from experience knew that I better take some ibu before the local anaesthesia wears off. So far I’m feeling ok.

#WSMDS | “Wer stiehlt mir die Show?” is my favourite TV shows these days. The only TV show I actually watch, when I know it’s on, which I somehow missed these past few weeks. I guess, because I’m not on Twitter as much anymore where there used to be sort of live tweeting back in the day. I only heard about it, when it was already week 4 of the 6 weeks the show is aired. Nerd and viewing for comfort person that I am, I decided to spend some of my free time last week to catch up with the episodes on the station’s streaming service. Which worked much more seamlessly than I thought.

I’m now rewatching old episodes, because… Nerd. Viewing for comfort person. I didn’t even watch the show regularly in the first few seasons I realized, so it’s also fun to see what changed over the years.

Work | Has been busy last week and I too often felt a bit overwhelmed, which made me anxious. Rinse and repeat. With a bit of hindsight by the end of the week I also noticed how even with all this anxiety I’m still handling it so much better than I used to. Noticing it. Reigning it in. As mentioned above.

Zen | One of the many things that do help to reign the anxiety in a bit quicker is doing my Calm mediation in the morning. I missed a few of them at the middle of the previous week and I noticed the negative effect of that right away. So weird. At least I believe I felt how it helped and if I feel it it must be true. Right? For me anyway. Getting enough sleep also helps and that is something I still struggle a bit with. Again: Small steps and self-compassion.

063/2024 – Uneventful Weekend

And just like that it’s the end of the weekend already. How did that happen? I’m asking this especially as I feel like I haven’t really done anything. Which is not quite right, but the ingrained idea of doing things – either getting all your chores done or be active and go out and experience stuff – is hard to ignore when it comes to judging if the weekend was a good one.

So I didn’t do much, neither chores nor experiences, but that’s okay. The more I tell myself, so more I will believe it. But it’s so hard to let go of the notions of what I think my (everyday) life should be like. What I think other lives are like and that I’m somehow doing it wrong.

I caught up on sleep and recharged after a (mentally) busy week at work. I read a lot. I went out for a run today. (After I spent way too much time yesterday thinking about where I want to do that). I got some ice-cream after. While I was in the admittedly long queue I had been drafting a short paragraph in my mind about the entitlement of customers these days. I’m now too knackered to actually write it all. Summed up: customers sometimes suck!

A mug of coffee and and an icecream sundae

Th 5K run went okay, which in fact was kind of awesome. I hadn’t been on a run in way too long and now my legs feel a bit tired, but that’s to be expected. I’m glad spring seems to finally be here or at least be here soon, which means I hopefully feel more motivated to go out and be active. With more daylight to be active in as well.