Daily Diaries/Friday letters

There were no Friday letters last week because I was ill all week and had nothing to say. In fact, the only reason there were any posts at all on Confuzzledom last week is because I had written and scheduled a few while Jan’s choir was practising at our place. This is how last week looked for me: Monday I left work early with a stomach ache, Tuesday morning I went to the doctors, was told I “probably” had gastritis and given a prescription and a sick note. I spent the rest of the day in bed reading and cross stitching. Wednsday and Thursday I worked from home with a hot water bottle. Friday I went to work in the morning (I had to do something that would have been difficult from home), then left at midday and worked from home. Saturday I was feeling quite a lot better so Jan and I went to Weinheim, which means I have now completed the take 12 trips challenge! In the evening we went to see a performance of Mozart pieces at a local church. A member of his choir’s wife was singing in the church choir. Soo cultural 😉 Sunday I had a pyjama day and managed to get a few items cross stitched ready to be made into Christmas cards. I showed you some in Wednesday’s post.

robin cross stitch

This week started with me booking another doctor’s appointment on Monday morning then sitting in the waiting room for 2.5 hours because they were so behind! Not my idea of fun. My stomach is basically okay now (it’s nice being able to eat again, although I’m still sticking to plain-ish foods) but as I was still having pain in the gallbladder area over the weekend, I went back to the docs. She reckoned could still be gastritis/referred pain from the stomach but she at least agreed to let me have a blood test! I worked from home for the rest of the day as there was no point in going in after my long wait. Tuesday I was at work. Our current intern is leaving soon, so we got a takeaway for lunch for her leaving meal. I didn’t want to risk pizza so I ordered Pizzabrötchen – little bread rolls made with the pizza dough. I chose the spinach and sheep’s cheese variety. Wednesday morning I had my blood test appointment, so I was at the doctors bright and early, then worked from home again because, again, there was no point in going in. And by the way, my arm then ached all the way until last night! Nobody told me that about blood tests! Yesterday was a normal day in the office. I phoned the doctor’s in the afternoon and was told my blood tests results had come back clear, which is nice.  Then Jan’s choir were practicing at our place again in the evening (and will be next Thursday also as the person who’s place they normal practice at is away for work), which meant I had to clean my flat like a mad woman. Between me being ill and Jan having a paper to write, it wasn’t exactly in a fit state to let people see it! I also had to go shopping so we can actually eat today it’s a holiday here in Germany, for Tag der Deutschen Einheit (German Reunification Day), and over here “public holiday” means all shops remain closed all day. So far today I’ve washed the dishes and done some cross stitch… all while still in my pyjamas 😉 Later,  we’re off to Baden-Baden for an evening of A Capella music, including a Taiwanese group we saw in Sweden a few years back. I spotted it in a local magazine and immediately pointed it out to Jan. Some other people from his choir are going too. And that’s us up to date. My life is fascinating 😉

And now for a few Friday letters:

Letters

Dear stomach/abdomen. Please stop being annoying and let me eat normally again. I’m tired of  plain foods!

Dear work. Thank you for being so understanding and allowing me to constantly work from home over the past few weeks.

Dear blood test. I’m glad you cam eout negative (although I feel like I’ve confirmed the nasty doctor’s opinion that I’m some kind of hypochondriac!)

Dear colleague. Thanks for the “get well” chocolate. I’m looking forward to being able to eat it 🙂

Dear fellow bloggers. I’ve been trying to catch up with everything I missed while I was ill, but if I haven’t been to your blog yet I promise to try and make it over soon!

This post is part of the Daily Diaries link up with Kate from The Lotus Collective. Click on over there to see what the rest of the blogosphere have been up to this week. Have a great weekend everyone!

Friday Letters & Daily Diaries: 28 April – 1 May 2014

Yesterday was a bank holiday here in Germany thanks to May Day, but today I’m back at work… unlike my boyfriend, whose work is closed on most bridge days without them even having to take holiday! (It’s the same with Christmas… he gets the time off for free, while my work is actually closed but I have to hand in a holiday form anyway… in theory we both get 30 days holiday a year, but in reality he gets about 7 extra that that he just can’t chose the days for). But at least I’m only back in the office for one day, then it’s the weekend again… And now, Friday letters.

Eye'm watching you...

Dear weather. Please could you pick a season and stick to it? I’m sick of all this hot/cold, sunny/rainy, I have no idea what I want stuff!

Dear next week. How on Earth am I going to cope with working a whole 5 days? Between Easter and yesterday’s May Day holiday, I’ve forgotten what a full working week feels like 😉

Dear skirt I love. If Jan can’t fix your zip, I will be extremely unimpressed!

Dear Welcome to Night Vale. I can’t believe it took me this long to actually get round to listening to you! I’ve really been missing out! (And thanks K for the introduction… I might never have actually got around to it otherwise).

Dear boyfriend. Thank you for taking the time to go out for the day with me yesterday even though you probably should have been working on your dissertation.

And now I’m sure you’re all dying to read about what I got up to last week 😉

Daily Diaries

Saturday/Sunday. Lumping the weekend all in together here because there’s not much to say. On Saturday morning, I got up bright and early to bake biscuits before heading out to Heidelberg. I actually ended up making Jan put the last 2 batches in the oven because I had to dash off for my train. The afternoon was spent having a wonderful time with some fellow expats, before I headed home only to almost immediately leave the flat again for a friend’s birthday party… which explains why I was making biscuits at 8:30 a.m.! It was a pizza party, which is always fun. After getting in pretty late, I had a bit of a lie in on Sunday then spent the rest of the day doing not much. I did manage to put on a load of washing though.

Monday. An ex-colleague who recently left came by to pick up some documents and brought apple crumble with her. There was also walnut icecream… on the day that I had vowed I was going to go back to healthy eating after my weekend of birthday parties (plus a leaving party with cake and wine on Friday night). Alas, it was not to be. But apple crumble contains fruit, so it’s practically healthy… right? We watched the Newcastle match in the evening, but I wish we hadn’t bothered! I expected Arsenal to beat us, but my team could at least have bothered to show up! The only person worthy of being called a footballer is Tim Krul! (And possibly Tiote… he did manage to get a nice shot off).

Tuesday. I ended up staying at work for an extra hour because a customer insisted he absolutely must have a translation back that day and not the following morning, as had originally been arranged. I then finally went home to find that Jan had actually arrived before me, meaning I could start cooking earlier than usual… once I had washed all the dishes from the night before. Unfortunately, there was a bit of a disaster with the tinned tomatoes, so I had to cook tea a second time. So much for for the early night I had wanted!

Wednesday. Work was pretty much as usual, then I came home to find my dad had added me on Facebook… causing me to choke on my cuppa! I never thought I would live to see the day my dad joined the dreaded FB! (And neither did anybody else judging by all the comments on his wall). For tea, we had tinned soup (which I gave a good sniffing before pouring it into the pan!) and cheese sandwiches. Afterwards, we read to each other from Terry Pratchett’s Snuff. Nearly finished now!

Thursday. As I said above, 1st May is a holiday here in Germany (unlike the UK where the bank holiday is on the following Monday). Jan had asked me the evening before whether I would like to go anywhere, and because the weather forecast was looking pretty grim, I chose a museum in Speyer where there was an exhibition that I’d wanted to see for ages (more on that in a separate post). We arrived home at 6 p.m. and I quickly made some food and we watched an episode of Fawlty Towers before Jan had to dash out again for choir practice. I spent the evening sorting out photos and looking for books to for the missing categories in the Summer 2014 Reading Challenge.

As for today, I’m at work (or will be soon, anyway… this post is scheduled to appear while I’m still on the train ;-)) and so far don’t have any plans for this evening. We’ll just have to wait and see what happens…

(The button doesn’t seem to be working, but you can join in with the Daily Diaries linkup on Kate’s blog)

Friday Letters and Daily Diaries

Ugh… it has been another long and exceedingly crazy week where work is concerned. In fact, even crazier than last week if that’s possible. On Wednesday, I worked over 9 hours. Ok, that’s only an hour and a bit of overtime, which to some of you probably doesn’t sound like much (my boyfriend regularly works for more than 10 hours a day), but for me it’s exhausting! And next week my plan is looking just as full.
Anyway, here are some Friday letters for you, and I’m also linking up with Kate at Diaries of an Essex Girl for Daily Diaries again,  so after the letters there’ll be a bit more about what I’ve been up to.

letters

Dear work. Apparantly you’re not understanding the whole “less crazy” thing. It means I would prefer not to do any more overtime, okay?

Dear weekend. You have no idea how glad I am to see you! Let’s just hang out and have a nice, relaxing time, okay?

Dear stomach. Please stop randomly aching. It is annoying!

Dear shower/oven. Sorry, but you’re not getting cleaned this weekend. It’s been a long week and I need to relax! Soon though, I promise.

Dear Easter weekend. Please hurry up! I need a break from all this craziness.

And now a recap of my week from Saturday 29 March – Friday, 4 April

Saturday – I already told you about my trip to the market on Gottesauer Platz. And that’s basically all I did on Saturday. I was sick in the morning for reasons unknown (not much fun when you haven’t eaten anything… I basically threw up a cup of tea and a load of bile. Sorry, TMI ;-)), so I ended up spending the day on the couch with the TV on and a blanket. I felt better towards the afternoon/evening and decided to risk anything, but cancelled the friend’s birthday party I was supposed to attend in the evening. Jan arrived back from Turkey late on Friday night to find me already in bed!

Sunday – Before Jan went away, he had offered to get a car so we could go somewhere on this day. It was meant to be for Take 12 Trips, but even though I said I’d done something for it, he decided to still get a car. We went to Colmar… but I won’t tell you any more about it now because it will be getting its own post (the one I’ve been wanting to write all week!)

Monday – The only interesting thing about Monday was that my colleague came in to work to show off  her 8 week old baby. Other than that, I worked. Then I came home and worked some more to make up for having an extra long break while my colleague was there.

Tuesday/Wednesday/Thursday – More work. I left early on Tuesday to go by the doctors and pick up a pill prescription/make an appointment for my next smear test before doing work from home again. I was in bed by 9:30 so I could get an early start the next day. On Wednesday, I was up at 5:30 a.m. My stomach randomly started aching after lunch – not badly enough for me to go home, but enough to be annoying. For once, I did not work in the evening, having already put in over 9 hours thanks to going in early and barely having a lunch break. On Thursday, my stomach hurt for most of the morning but was fine again by lunch time. I went in to work early again (another 5 a.m. wakeup call!), but then left at 3 for an appointment at the bank (finance check… I have to go back in May to talk about insurance. Ugh… grown up stuff!!). I then went home and ate dinner in front of the computer while doing yet more work. Too many deadlines! Once I’d shut the computer down, my stomach started annoying me again, so I went to bed. Jan was at choir practice – not at our place for a change – and when he came home, I woke up and noticed I had a horrible salty taste in my mouth. Weird!

Friday – That would be today. I woke up without a stomach ache (yay!), but still with the weird taste in my mouth… and it didn’t go away after brushing my teeth. Grrr! By the time I got to work, my stomach felt weird again (not sore, just weird) so I didn’t eat my yoghurt. An hour later, we all had a cup of tea and after drinking it I felt really hungry, so I ate my yoghurt. And worked… a lot. Which brings us to now. I’m currently on my lunch break, eating rice crackers  (I have a chickpea curry thing with me, but I don’t want to eat it in case my stomach rebels again). Soon, I’ll be getting back to work for the rest of the afternoon. Then I shall go home (hopefully on time), switch on the TV and proceed to do absolutely nothing until it’s time to make some food.

Phew… that was a lot of writing for a week where I essentially did nothing!  If you would also like to share what you’ve been doing all week, come and join the linkup and Kate’s blog. And no excuses about your week being too uninteresting – I mean,  just look at what I wrote about…
Daily Diaries with Diaries of an Essex Girl