31-Day Challenge 2018: Day 20

The morning after I wrote a bit about our high school football team, I woke up freaking out due to a very common dream I have. There are sometimes different scenarios, but the core is always the same. I need to finish something for a class, otherwise I won’t officially graduate.

This time it was about college, and I’d say that’s the usual version. Occasionally it’s got something to do with high school, or one class specifically. It seems a lot of people have some version of this dream, and it makes no difference if you left school a minute ago or 20 years ago.

I’d venture a guess that this popped up for two reasons. 1) that night I wrote about high school to some extent; and 2) I’d been thinking about it a lot in general. A friend of mine has a stepdaughter who’s about to graduate, and she had posted on Facebook about her mixed emotions. Uncertainty about what to do next year, sadness at the prospect of missing her friends, and the odd strangeness that is the feeling that you’re going to miss people that you don’t even like, but at least you’re used to seeing them every day. I wanted to drop her a “you’re going to be okay” message, but it felt odd because it’s not like we’re super close and I don’t want to be one of those adults saying all those trite things.

That’s what blogs are for, right?

The truth is, that time and those people never completely leave you. You can go as far away as possible from where you grew up, but a smell, a song, a person on the subway who looks like your locker neighbor, and you’re right back there. I’ve kept in touch with a few people from the high school days (her stepmom for one), but some people who I spent tons of time with fell off almost immediately. Was that just because we were friends by proximity? “Hey, you’re here, let’s hang out?” Probably. Do I regret losing any of those friendships? Not really.

There are a few others who have dropped off over the years. There’s more contact with some than others. Time, family, distance, all those things got in the way, and some of those I can feel sad over. When I do get home, which is admittedly not often enough to keep up an in-person friendship, I try to reach out, but it doesn’t always come back. That can be hard, but life goes on.

And others, often people who I was not close with in any way, still hang around. Maybe it’s just seeing their name on social media, though I’ve gotten more selective there. Others pop up in those dreams, quite randomly most of the time. Those few people I’m still in touch with are not usually involved, often it’s people that I literally have not seen since the summer after we graduated. I don’t know why. But at least in my case, it goes to show that those people never really leave you.

There’s a reason that this is a popular genre in books or movies. You know the one… person leaves town never to return, only to A) get super-successful and return in a blaze of glory only to find themselves falling for that girl-next-door who’s still there or B) fall on their face and end up moving back home with their parents to go on a self-discovery trip by reconnecting with their roots. It’s because you can’t escape where you’re from. It’s always at least some part of who you are. I’ve been out of Wisconsin for nine years and I still say “bag” like a weirdo and get intense cravings for cheese curds that CANNOT BE SATISFIED. On a related note: I will be trying to schedule my next trip back for when the Cheese Curd Festival is on, because apparently that’s a thing.

The only way to avoid your life changing is to stay exactly where you are and do exactly the same thing you’ve been doing. Thankfully that’s not an option for someone leaving high school, but being punted out of the door in a funny hat with a motivational speech about following your dreams is not much of a directional. What to do next can be scary. And expensive, if you’re in the States. But a decision must be made.

There’s no one-size-fits-all answer to that decision. Should people go to college? Umm… sometimes? Or not now but later? Or go now because otherwise you’ll get sucked into the grind and never do it? Or join the military and they’ll pay for part of it but p.s. you might end up in a war zone? Should you go right to work? But in what job? Should you say fuckitall and join the traveling circus? Also, do those still exist?

Basically it doesn’t matter which way you go. Your life will march on, unless of course you get hit by a bus, and you will have to make decisions based on what comes your way. And no matter what, those damn people will still pop up in your dreams.

*****

Editor’s Note: This is part of a 31-day challenge series for the month of May, which will possibly now extend into June to compensate for the vacation gap, in which I aim to spend at least 15 minutes writing about whatever strikes my fancy. Results may vary.

31-Day Challenge 2018: Day 18

Greetings from my phone. I spent part of the afternoon sitting outside and drafting a post for today that I’ve wanted to write for ages. That post is about our hike last summer in Norway up the mountain Galdhøpiggen.

The good news is that it’s typed. The bad news is that as soon as I finished typing and tried to open the file with the photos to narrow down, my computer decided that it didn’t feel like doing anything else useful today. Photos wouldn’t even open, the browser froze repeatedly, and the airplane sounds of the fan returned. That was the end of it for today.

Hopefully after it cools down overnight, I’ll at least be able to get the photos open. But that step will have to wait for tomorrow, as I’m done. Trust that I did in fact, write today, and this brief post will just have to suffice. Grumble.

*****

Editor’s Note: This is part of a 31-day challenge series for the month of May, which will possibly now extend into June to compensate for the vacation gap, in which I aim to spend at least 15 minutes writing about whatever strikes my fancy. Results may vary.

31-Day Challenge 2018: Day 17

What with the World Cup right around the corner, today I’d like to talk about a real sport: American Football, aka, football.

Today BV asked me if we had anything planned for a weekend in the summer. I checked the calendar and said that it was clear as far as I knew, and asked why? He tried to tell me it was a surprise but that lasted all of about two minutes before he caved in.

We’ve talked nearly every year about going to a game for Nürnberg’s local football team, the Nbg Rams, but so far we haven’t made it. Since we’ve dated, BV had watched A LOT of Green Bay Packer games with me, and we are both very curious about what the experience might be like over on this end. I daresay it’s a far cry from the NFL to the Nbg.

It was fresh in his mind as he’d talked football a few times this week. He was accosted by a colleague who spotted him in a Packer t-shirt as he was leaving to bike home in the evening. The colleague wanted to know if he was a real fan, or just wearing the t-shirt to be trendy. The idea of BV doing anything with the express goal of being trendy is pretty damn funny, but I did respect the directness of this colleague, considering I wonder the same thing every time I see a teenager in an Oakland Raiders hat.

So this morning BV checked out the schedule and we picked out a date to possible hit up a game. This was a fairly funny coincidence though, because I had just been talking about the Rams with one of my groups this week.

One of my students had recently been to a game, and wondered if I had ever gone. She said that she had never gone to a high school football game in the U.S. (being German and all), but she imagined that the professionalism level might be higher. When I asked her to elaborate, she gave us some details.

There were probably two or three thousand people at the game, which surprised me a bit. I went to a pretty small high school so they’ve likely got us beat on attendance, but for a big high school, that would probably be reasonable. Then she talked cheerleaders. There were four girls on the squad, and it sounded like one of them ran out of steam after about thirty minutes. They only knew two cheers, or at least she only heard two different ones. I was most definitely not on our high school squad (shocking, I know), but there were a dozen or so girls that were. Despite never having been on the team, I am fairly confident that I could come up with at least three or four cheers that they used to do, even now, 17 years later. What can I say? There was nothing else to do on Friday nights where we lived. Unless of course, you enjoyed drugs. That was also an option.

The scoreboard was another point she brought up. The Rams don’t have an electronic version, instead someone has to change the numbers manually. Apparently if that person wasn’t fast enough, they’d get heckled by spectators. I hope they were just scoring points and not changing the numbers to reflect downs/yardage. That seems like a lot of work. Again, I had to admit that our piddly little high school had an electronic scoreboard. We could get into the politics of school districts throwing more money into the sports programs rather than teaching supplies, updating materials, etc., but let’s not. Keeping it light here.

Note: no disrespect is meant to the Nbg Rams here. My student had only seen pro games on TV before, so this was her first experience live and obviously the production value of the NFL is not an every day thing. As for me, until that game rolls around, I’ll be looking forward to it. The World Cup excitement is always a good time, but this will be a whole new experience. Plus, all tickets come with a drink so win win!

*****

Editor’s Note: This is part of a 31-day challenge series for the month of May, which will possibly now extend into June to compensate for the vacation gap, in which I aim to spend at least 15 minutes writing about whatever strikes my fancy. Results may vary.

31-Day Challenge 2018: Day 16

How are you doing on your goals for the year?

Since I’m crap at follow-through and also at blogging more of the daily-life sorts of things these days, I don’t think I ever wrote about my goals for the year. Of course, if you’ve seen the Amateur Hour Baking posts, you maybe already have an idea about one of them.

That goal was to try 50 new recipes, though I’m really only trying to blog about the ones related to German baking because… time. With June just around the corner, I realized that I’m a bit behind on where I would like to be at this stage of the game, as I’m currently sitting at 18 new recipes tried. I did a bit of baking today; I made this pudding cake with rhubarb and raspberries, which were actually strawberries because seasons. Shout out to Tessa at Tessa Approves, who posted on ze old social media about making it a few weeks ago. I’ve now made four, yes, four, rhubarb cakes this year, which with any luck will hold BV over until the next rhubarb season rolls around.

Another goal for the year was to do 300 days of yoga. That can be 10 minutes or 100, as long as it involves at least a bit of stretching on my part. I thought 300 days was reasonable, as it gives me at least four or five days per month to be too tired, too sore, or just plain lazy. And for the most part, that has worked. There was a month or two (looking at you, shorty February), where I missed more like six or seven days though, so again I’m behind. If I can manage to get on the mat the rest of this month, and every day but three in June, I’ll be at 150 at the end of next month. Let’s see how this goes.

That leads me into the last goal, which I only decided on in the last few days. Last year I managed to drop about 10kg, and I’ve kept it off since then, barring the horrors of water weight fluctuation and the holiday season. I’ve wanted to get down a few more though, which will put me smack in the middle of the acceptable BMI range for my height.

Now, I know… a lot of people think that BMI is bullshit, and I know that it doesn’t take everything into account. BUT, I’m not The Rock, I don’t have an insane amount of muscle, and the fact is that it is one of the only metrics that my health insurance provider looked at here when I got signed up. At that time I was “overweight” according to BMI (and pictures, good lord), and guess who got to pay more for her insurance? Yep, that was fun.*

So though I’ve now been in the “healthy” BMI range for about a year, I’d like to get these last few kilograms off. Then prove that I can maintain it, and quite frankly, see if I can get that stupid insurance rate down.

My completely arbitrary deadline for this latest goal is my 35th birthday, which gives me just under three months to lose about four kilograms. That is very doable, minus the fact that it’s summer, and grilling requires beer. Sweet, frosty, caloric beer. I’m going to have to amp up my attempts at jogging… it’s all about balance here people.

*That whole fiasco recounted here, if you need a headache.

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Editor’s Note: This is part of a 31-day challenge series for the month of May, which will possibly now extend into June to compensate for the vacation gap, in which I aim to spend at least 15 minutes writing about whatever strikes my fancy. Results may vary.

31-Day Challenge 2018: Day 15

Thanks to the beauty of Facebook (sometimes), I recently reconnected with my old boss at the museum in Wisconsin. We exchanged a few messages and she referred to me as “such a gypsy.” It’s been rolling around in my head for a few days now, and it seems strange to me. I mean, I’m not. At all.

She was there when this whole thing kicked off, giving me a little going-away party in her house, where the ladies that I worked with wished me well on my big adventure. And it was an adventure. In many ways, it still is. But am I now a gypsy? Not even a bit.

So what happened? I moved to Prague. When I arrived, I planned on a month for my TEFL course, and then it was a big old question mark. I opted to stay, and remained there for more than two years. Not settled, by any means, in our transient apartment of Lost Boys and Girls, but not exactly roaming.

Then I came to Germany. In less than a month, I’ll celebrate my seventh German anniversary, in which time I lived on my own for about two years, and then with BV. Two apartments, one boyfriend, one cat (SHEEP CAT), and kilometers upon kilometers of train travel. That’s as gypsy as it’s gotten here.

Occasionally I feel like I should be wandering more. Isn’t that what I left the U.S. to do, after all? And I do feel like I (with BV now in tow), do a fair amount of traveling when we can. I’m no digital nomad, but nor do I think I really want to be. Clearly I’ve enjoyed having my own space, a kitchen full of appliances, a catio for Marry to hang out on… these are all good things. And I don’t plan on going anywhere anytime soon. The German government was kind enough to let me stay for another three years, so I’m clear through 2020 with no worries.

But part of me still thinks of myself as the person who moved abroad with two suitcases. As I wrote yesterday, I moved in with a fully-functioning adult who came with a whole house full of his personal history. And I may have started with two suitcases back in January of 2009, but thanks to care packages from home, and the need to sometimes NOT wear something that I’ve owned for more than ten years, I now have… kind of a lot of shit. I need to start realizing that I don’t need to keep holding onto this stuff because it’s just for now and it’s all I have.

It’s been years, and I have too much shit… again. I’ve got boots that were fairly trendy when I was hitting the Milwaukee bars before I left. They are no longer fairly trendy, and they’re worn to shit. Yet they’re in the cabinet. I’ve got piles of things that no longer fit, maybe never fit, now that I look back at pictures. Ideally I’d like to list things online to sell, but how much time and energy will that take versus how much will I realistically make from it? Debatable.

The bottom line is that BV and I now have piles of things that are not functional in our lives. We are not gypsies by any means, but even the thought of packing up all this nonsense and moving it once makes me tired.

I may have moved abroad for an adventure, and I’ve had a few. At this point though, I’m more settled, and sometimes settled people need to do things like purge their closets. And offices, and ancient shoe collection, and and and. I’m a normal human here. My German may still be shit and I may be a freelancing lone wolf, but I can at least have a clean closet.

By the end of this summer, it shall be done.

*****

Editor’s Note: This is part of a 31-day challenge series for the month of May, which will possibly now extend into June to compensate for the vacation gap, in which I aim to spend at least 15 minutes writing about whatever strikes my fancy. Results may vary.

31-Day Challenge 2018: Day 14

What is the messiest room or area of your home?

I’m pretty sure that during this challenge last year I wrote about my quest to move all of my work stuff out of our bedroom and into the office. I’m happy to report that I was successful in doing so. I am less happy to say that our “office” remains an unholy disaster area.

I used to have piles of books that migrated around the house. It’s an unfortunate side effect of teaching 15-20 classes a week, most of which use at least two books, some the same, some not. Those are now mostly housed on a bookshelf in semi-chronological order of their class times. Sometimes though, they wind up on a pile on the floor by Friday, as I’m tossing things in and out of my bag all week.

I also used to have piles of papers that I’ve photocopied and “might need again at some point.” Many of these copies were slightly askew from hurried copying, or had their edges nommed off, as Marry d.K. enjoys chewing on paper at random times. Do those piles still exist? Yep.

They don’t live in the bedroom anymore, but there are at least two piles that migrate on and around the desk, waiting for that fateful day when they’ll be filed. Since some of them haven’t been touched in well over a year, as I’ve made a concerted effort to copy less unnecessary shit, I think it’s safe to say that I could just burn them at this point. I foresee a lot of grilling this summer, and I think we’ve got the paper aspect of firestarting covered.

Besides the book chaos and the migrating paper stacks, the office is kind of a scary place. Since moving in with a normal person who hadn’t been living out of suitcases like I had, BV has his entire life in this house. His parents don’t have random boxes of his shit like most people’s do… it’s all here. All his old school papers are housed in binders and boxes, many of which are filling up those bookcases in the office. Apparently there are more up in the attic, as well.

Bins and binders are joined by random boxes of jumbled electronic equipment. A soldering iron moves around the house, but it often lives under the desk where I trip on it regularly.

Speaking of the desk, it is a behemoth. I honestly do NOT understand how it got into the house. It’s one of those huge, old, metal desks that you only see now in movies set in the 1970s. The interior is actually relatively well-organized, but the top is a moving, living creature. Even more so when the cat leaps up on it while I’m trying to do invoices, and sends a few things flying. She’s helpful.

As it stands, the office is really not a functional space for either of us. We go in there to get things, but rarely do much actual work in it. It actually stresses me out to try to do any work in there. Or it just makes me think about things like taxes, and who wants to think about that? I’d probably save both of us a lot of time and stress if we just went in together and reorganized it, but it’s one of those things that neither of us can seem to make ourselves do. Those tasks that you put off and off and off, and then they are inevitably so much easier than you thought they’d be (not like taxes, this time), are the worst.

 

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Editor’s Note: This is part of a 31-day challenge series for the month of May, which will possibly now extend into June to compensate for the vacation gap, in which I aim to spend at least 15 minutes writing about whatever strikes my fancy. Results may vary.

31-Day Challenge 2018: Day 13

Everything begins with…

an idea. Sometimes it’s a good idea, sometimes not so much. This writing challenge began with an okay idea. I did have full intentions of carrying on with it while we were in South Tyrol, but that ended up not happening, clearly.

Though the weather was a mixed bag, we were out most of every day hiking, and evenings were spent cooking or eating out, reading, and going to bed relatively early every night due to all that fresh air and activity. Also, we’re now old.

The best day to do any writing would have been the first full day we were there. It rained most of the day so we only ventured out to the village store and back, and then I spent the rest of the day so wrapped up in A Little Life (the book I mentioned back on day 7) that I was incapable of doing anything else. Poor BV had to cook us dinner and everything. I didn’t finish it that day but the next, because at 12:30am I still had the last part to go, had been through several tissues, and was emotionally wrecked. Read it, is basically what I’m saying.

The rest of the days were much less teary, but all well-spent. I thought about writing some, but to be honest, right after finishing that book writing about anything in my silly world felt absurdly trite. I needed a refractory period before resuming this challenge, or something. Mountain air and movement was helpful to the recovery, exhausting or not.

It was a really excellent week, and coming home was legitimately rough. As much as I do love Nürnberg, it’s pretty hard to compare my usual village walking route with what could be possible living in the mountains. And I know, I know… when you LIVE in a place, it’s different. You don’t go out all the time, we wouldn’t hike every day, you still have to you know, earn some money and all that kind of thing. It’s not all fun and games. But no matter how far I walk around here, it doesn’t get me anywhere that’s this gorgeous, even on a rainy day. Maybe someday it will.

*****

Editor’s Note: This is part of a 31-day challenge series for the month of May, which will possibly now extend into June to compensate for the vacation gap, in which I aim to spend at least 15 minutes writing about whatever strikes my fancy. Results may vary.

31-Day Challenge 2018: Day 11

Me: What should I write about?

BV *flipping through local magazines and generally procrastinating instead of putting another coat of varnish on the hallway floor*: Write about spring in ‘Schland.

Me: That’s general and I’ve kind of done a lot of that. What else?

BV: Write about *insert several other suggestions here*

Me: You are not helpful right now. Weren’t you going to varnish that hallway again tonight?

BV: … *flips through more pages*

… *several minutes pass* …

BV: Aww!

Me: Ooooh, is it a dog? (There are often dogs up for adoption at the local Tierheim in the magazines.)

BV: Nope… look!

He handed me the magazine and at the bottom of the page was a picture of a woman seated in a chair with an accordion. Next to her, stood a goat.

Me: What’s with the goat?

BV: No idea. Didn’t read the whole thing, but there’s some culture program.

Me: I have questions. Does the goat figure into her act?

BV: *flips through more pages*

… *several more minutes pass* …

BV: Alright, I’m going. Write about goats.

Me: *starts typing furiously*

We need a goat. I think this would be a much better choice than even those robot lawnmower things. I would also accept a duck or goose, as those eat bugs and function as guard dogs, but I think a goat would be the preferable choice. I also have aspirations of one day learning how to make cheese, and this would save us a small fortune because we buy A LOT of goat’s cheese. We’ll also need a cow, and possibly a sheep. All of these animals will fit very well in the small mountain house that we someday acquire for Euro pennies, and we shall grow geraniums and make cheese. It will be excellent.

I already know that we’re both very good with goats, as last summer a goat tried its best to befriend us. BV won’t let me post the pictures where the goat tried to make out with him, but he definitely got licked. A lot. Running back down to the car when he realized that he had forgotten his jacket a few kilometers below, and then back up again, had apparently made him extra salty. But here you can see the goat in question checking out our gear when we stopped for a break.

Nomnomnom

It was a good thing BV had gone back for his jacket though, as our return trip was decidedly misty. But the goats still emerged from the fog to join our pack. We are natural herders, it seems.

Closer to home, there is a garden patch nearby here that is also home to a goat. Sometimes.

What does that mean? I don’t know exactly, but I have questions.

It’s a little garden plot in the forest, with two small structures on it. One is more garden-house style, but extremely *ahem* rustic. The other looks a bit like a chicken coop.

On my usual walking route, I pass by at least a few times a week this time of year. There is almost always an elderly man there on Sundays, with a small hatchback car. When he is there, there is also a goat.

The chicken coop-looking structure is certainly large enough to fit this goat, which is a decent sized animal. Much bigger than those little guys above. However, it’s nowhere near big enough for him to live in there full-time. Additionally, I’ve never heard a peep of noise when walking past and the man isn’t there. And you bet I have paused, tried to make some noises, just to determine if anything might be in the coop besides chickens (which are sometimes knocking about when the man is present, too).

So where does this goat live? Does he live in the coop? Does he live in the rustic house and just not get out much? Does he travel with the man in the car on Sundays to this garden plot? Does he travel in the car generally speaking?

In which case…

Where does this man live the rest of the time? Does he have a house with enough space to afford a goat to live with him? In which case, why this little garden plot? Does he live in a flat with a goat? What does the goat do all day? Do they travel around and have adventures? Is he some sort of emotional support animal? Does he detect if the man’s blood sugar is too high or low like those diabetes-detecting dogs? Does he do tricks? Do they perhaps go to children’s birthday parties?

WHAT IS HAPPENING HERE?

I’ve been walking past this… situation for quite awhile now, in case you couldn’t tell. I’ve given this a lot of thought. But the mystery remains.

Well now. Goats, sheep, and yes, CATS. What other animals should I tackle during the May writing challenge which is unintentionally becoming animal-themed?

*****

Editor’s Note: This is part of a 31-day challenge series for the month of May, in which I aim to spend at least 15 minutes writing about whatever strikes my fancy. Results may vary.

31-Day Challenge 2018: Day 9

*Sweet sigh of relief*

I love May. Tomorrow is yet another public holiday, in this case Ascension Day/Father’s Day, and officially my first day of a 12-day break. We started the party this evening, with an assortment of Italian meats and cheeses for dinner, with a hefty bottle of Teroldego to get us ready for next week in South Tyrol.

BV has got a day up on me though, as he had today off too. Since we finally had all the cats (CATS) out of the way, he got started on a couple of things that we need to do which are basically impossible with a pet. Before my parents visited several years ago, we laid down some pressed wood in the hallway, after we had a water incident and had to toss the laminate. However, we put it down just a day or two before they arrived, and didn’t have time to properly seal it. And with the cat, we nearly never had more than a day or two with her out of the house to take care of it. So that was step one. BV sanded the wood, and sealed one half of the length. Hopefully tomorrow it’ll be ready to seal the other side, as we do need to able to walk on at least half of it to get around the house.

It was also a good opportunity to open up all the windows and get some air circulating in here. I plan on some fairly intense vacuuming, which is easier without cats flying in every which direction. In a perfect world, I’d drag out the piles of stuff that I want to put up for sale online, but I feel like that’s a multi-day, preferably BV out of the house task. I’ll settle for a decent deep clean of the pantry and some bathroom tile scrubbing, in the meantime.

Then it’ll be the usual ritual of pre-trip laundry, and the packing of stuff. The forecast for our week isn’t looking too hot, so it’s going to be a lot of layered hiking gear, and a pile of books in case it really does rain all day every day. Cross fingers and press thumbs, if you don’t mind.

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Editor’s Note: This is part of a 31-day challenge series for the month of May, in which I aim to spend at least 15 minutes writing about whatever strikes my fancy. Results may vary.

31-Day Writing Challenge 2018: Day 8

Prompt: The perfect writing conditions

For starters, not this.

This post is coming a bit earlier today as we’re leaving shortly for a rare midweek evening out. Normally I would have hunted for the end of the internet in full procrastination mode as I’ve done on the previous days, and hit publish shortly before midnight, but today we’ve got things to do.

First problem with the current writing conditions is that I’m bushed. I slept for crap because (sorry, again with the CATS) the Three Thundercats of the Apocalypse made the all-night party last night. Tuesdays are a 6:30 am wake up time for both of us, as we drive to work together, making sure to leave by 7:35 at the latest or risk the horror of the daily Stau on the Südwesttangente.

I teach three classes in this company every Tuesday. Today’s crowning achievement was being so tired that I grabbed the thick, dark blue folder for my Monday class instead of today’s groups, so I got to do fun things like have everyone sign a random sheet of paper for attendance instead of the official form. With any luck, everyone will be present the last two weeks of the month so I can correct it then. If not, *shit happens.*

Normally I’m then finished, but instead today I had managed to squeeze in an individual student who normally meets Wednesdays but has been super busy. That meant hopping a bus to a subway, then running to shove a Korean beef bowl in my face because I was famished, before grabbing another subway to a train and finally to her company.

We had our lesson and then it was back on the train, to another subway, to another subway, to  my train home. I. Am. Tired.

But.

Our friend S. is back from his travels, and since our Marry will be hanging out with him while we’re gone, we’re taking the party over to this place tonight. That means as soon as I finish typing this, it’ll be time to wrangle all of them into their respective boxes and hope for the best. Currently BV is running around collecting errant toys, scooping litter boxes, and readying everything for transit. He’s a good egg, but it’s not the best environment for concentration.

S. invited us to hang out and watch the Eurovision semi-final tonight, and I am looking forward to that. I was somewhat brokenhearted when I realized that the finale was this Saturday (I thought it was at the end of the month for some reason), and we’re invited to friends for dinner. She’s a great cook, but EUROVISION! Oh well, I suppose I can get the highlights on YouTube afterwards.

I’ve been thinking a lot about taking some time off one of these days to try to do some more serious writing. In my mind I know the exact place that I’d want to go. I *think* it would be pretty ideal, as I can get there by public transport, we’ve stayed there before and I know it has everything I’d need to function for a few days. Plus, nature, hiking and mountains right out front. However, he’s almost always booked up, and I’d need to find a decent week (or so) that I could get away without sacrificing too much work. The joys of freelance life, my friends. But this has been bouncing around my head for months now, so maybe it’s worth actually trying. Can the ideal situation really make a difference? Or do I need the chaos of flying furry creatures, BV wandering through with watering cans, and the rooster next door being permanently confused about what time it is? Guess I’d have to try it to find out.

Now, to round up the herd.

*****

Editor’s Note: This is part of a 31-day challenge series for the month of May, in which I aim to spend at least 15 minutes writing about whatever strikes my fancy. Results may vary.