April 2023 – Life Off Headset

Weekly recap + what we ate: big ticket items and small pleasures

Another full week, but not as packed as the week before, thank goodness- On Monday we started rehearsals for a my next show, and that evening I had my last titles gig of the season. I worked 5 evening during the week, so I’m feeling really behind on the home front. Laundry, general house picking up, spaces that need to be organized, the living room still needs curtains. I also still need to register the two older kids for summer camp and I’m starting to have a little bit of anxiety about that. And we still have to renew our pool membership for the summer.

And all of it is big ticket items. I think in my mind we got through the expensive part of the year with our spring break trip and I’m waiting for a less expensive month, but really it doesn’t come.

Some highlights of my week:
– Slowly getting back into running. I did one pre-rehearsal run and one dinner break run, both less than 1.5 miles, but it’s something. I attempted another run on Saturday on the dinner break. The weather looked iffy, but I thought I could beat the rain. I was wrong. About 3/4 of a mile out it started to sprinkle. Then it turned into a deluge. Like one of those “I stood under a restaurant awning for 10 minutes hoping it would pass but eventually gave up and ran the four blocks back to work” kind of deluge. I was quite the sad soddened mess. And the dumb thing is I didn’t check the weather before hand that day; the morning was gorgeous so I didn’t even bring a raincoat. wump wump.

– Balloons in rehearsal. There are balloons in rehearsal. Bright colourful balloons. I got to use the helium tank and blow them up. It made me happy. One of my co-workers offered to take them down to the rehearsal hall for me, and I was like, “No way! I blew them up, I want to carry them down the hallway!” Of course they were sad and droopy by the next day, but that’s okay.

– The voice recital that I did supertitles for. Most of the songs were new to me, but there were two I absolutely loved. The first is called A Soft Day. It’s by a English composer C.V. Stanford, based on a poem by Winifred Letts. The poem describes a day that is damp and quiet and full of nature.

A soft day, thank God!
A wind from the south
With a honeyed mouth;
A scent of drenching leaves,
Briar and beech and lime,
White elder-flower and thyme
And the soaking grass smells sweet,
Crushed by my two bare feet,
While the rain drips,
Drips, drips, drips from the eaves.

A soft day, thank God!
The hills wear a shroud
Of silver cloud;
The web the spider weaves
Is a glittering net;
The woodland path is wet,
And the soaking earth smells sweet
Under my two bare feet,
And the rain drips,
Drips, drips, drips from the leaves.

I love poems that are able to capture a moment so precisely in words that I can almost feel the misty air around me. The song setting of this poem has that same relaxed and pensive feeling to it. And the way the notes “drip” like the rain…

British contralto Kathleen Ferrier. Pianist Frederick Stone. Such elegant singing.

My second favorite song in the recital was a beautifully sweet lullaby by Puccini. Puccini wrote lots of operas, big, grand affairs. I guess he also wrote lots of songs too, and I thought this one, Sogno d’or (Golden Dreams) was lovely. In it a parents sings to a child about how the angels will come to them as they sleep. You can listen to it here.

Soprano Krassimira Stoyanova. I worked with her years ago – she was a lovely person. We managed to communicate despite her not speaking English and me not speaking Italian.

Sunday was my day off, and even though there is not skating lessons this week since it is between sessions, I still took the kids skating. Actually the whole family went, though the Husband only sat and watched. It’s been so fun to see the kids get more and more confident on their skates. The three year old can skate by herself now, even though she insists on holding my hand while we skate.

In the afternoon we went downtown to meet my cousin who was in town for work. One thing I like about living near D.C. is that people often come to town for work, so we get to see them. We met my cousin at the National Postal Museum, which is one of my favorite of all the Smithsonian Museums. They have lots of informative and interactive exhibits which I find appeals to both me and the kids. Kids can learn how to sort mail, and design their own stamps and collect stamps too.

After the Postal Museum we walked down to Chinatown and had dinner at Jaleo, a tapas restaurant that is quite well known here. We decided to order the shrimp and squid paella in addition to a variety of tapas. I’ve been to Jaleo several times, but never ordered the paella; I think in my mind, a dish that’s mostly rice sounds unexciting. Well. I was proven wrong. The paella was heavenly. We also ordered dessert and there was a rice pudding with a lemon cream. Rice pudding, also something that is a very pedestrian desert in my mind, but which was divine in this iteration. I might have to reconsider my prejudice against rice.

Something that makes me smile: my pen holder from Muji and my red pencil. Years ago a colleague introduced me to 0.9 lead and it’s been my lead thickness of choice ever since. Of course everyone at work now used 0.9 lead pencils and we were constantly mixing up pencils since the barbells were all the same color. Eventually I stuck a piece of tape on mine so I knew which one was mine. When I found that Amazon sells my favorite pencils in my favorite color red, and not only that, in packs of 12, I immediately got a box and now I always know which 0.9 lead pencil is mine.

The pen holder, I found of the Japanese houseware store Muji. I was always putting my pencil down and forgetting where it was. Now, I have this clip on my binder and my pencil – and the green Frixion pen that I use to mark entrances – live there and I always know where it is. That adage “A place for everything” – I feel like this pen clip embraces that for me, at least in this small area of life. It’s not just about my writing utensils’ location but about containment and security. It makes me happy and feels so satisfying knowing where to put my pencil after I jot a notes, and to be able to find it when I need it.

A link I loved: I always enjoy the New York Times “By the Book” column where they interview noted people about their favorite books, not so favorite books, reading habits, etc. This week’s column features Judy Blume, and it is excellent. I put a lot of the books she mentioned in my TBR list, and have already started Sherman Alexie’s The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian and two chapters in it is already by turns hilarious and hesrtbreaking. I think of Judy Blume mostly as the author of “Superfudge”. I do remember reading “Are You There, God? It’s Me Margaret” but not really relating to it as much as I thought I would. Maybe it’s time for a re-read?

Grateful for:
– a morning walk with a friend. Several days I had afternoon and evening rehearsals, so I had the morning off. One morning, my friend from the bus stop asked if I wanted to go for a walk, so we did. The weather was nice, sunny, spring time weather. Afterwards we made plans to meet up at the park on Friday when the kids’ were off school. This friend is moving at the end of the summer – her husband is in the foreign service – and it makes me a sad that they are moving because I feel like I don’t make friends’ easily. I’m really glad she started talking to me at the bus stop one morning. They’ll be back in a couple years, though – I’ll just have to keep in touch.
– Having a car and being able to drive the kids to school. Another school bus related thing. One day, the morning school bus did not come at all. After half an hour of waiting, the parents who were at the stop took all the kids that were still waiting for the bus to school – whomever had a free seat in their car took a kid. I’m grateful that this is a community where this generosity is not weird and people are just willing to give another kid a ride to school without a second thought.
– Getting to listen to really talented people make music. For this show, I’m running the stage left side of stage. In rehearsal it means that from where I sit I get a prime view of the rehearsal pianist. I am in awe of how their hands dance over the keyboards, up and down, fast and slow. Sometimes they even sing the parts of the chorus or other characters who aren’t in rehearsal while their hands sprint across the notes. I try to find moments to savor every day and last week, many of those moments were watching the rehearsal pianists.

Looking forward to:
– Finalizing summer camp plans. As in looking forward to it being done, much the same way I was looking forward to our taxes being done.

– Happy Hour with moms from my mom’s group.

– reading this book. I love a good Jane Austen retelling and this one is proving pretty fun and thoughtful.

What we ate: (a lot more eating out than normal this week. I feel like we’re kind of in a meal planning slump)

Monday- I had my titles gig so I got take out from Beefsteak – tofu kimchi bowl. I am not sure what everyone else ate.

Tuesday- Pasta salad with the leftover grilled veggies from the Sunday before. vegan. I was working, so I made this in the morning before I went to work.

Wednesday – The Family had take out wings to celebrate a good report card. I was at work and brought leftover pasta salad.

Thursday – vegetarian tortilla soup in the Instant Pot. From this recipe from Two Sleevers website (aka the Butter Chicken Lady). Made in the morning before I went to work.

Friday – The Husband took the kids out to eat because they were off school and the 11 year old had a basketball game upcountry. I probably lay had leftovers.

Saturday- Pizza and movie night. The family watched Might Ducks. I went out for a drink with colleagues after work and missed the movie.

Sunday – Jaleo with my cousin.

Amsterdam- Arrival and Day 1

For Spring Break, we went to Amsterdam and here are the start of trip recaps! It was our first time on a plane since January of 2019. Also our first time on a plane as a family of five, which the calculus of sitting on an airplane with five people is a lot more complicated than as a family of four. Like do we sit 4+1? or 3+2? Do we split the family across the aisle? or front seats and back seats? Decisions!

We chose Amsterdam because the Husband’s sister lives there and we hadn’t seen her and her family since they came to the States in August of 2019. The Husband and I aren’t great at vacation planning and tend to do things a month or two out. I think because I sometimes book work at the last minute, I’ve always been wary of booking vacations too far in advance, trying to keep my calendar open for work. This trip, we had been talking about for a while, and I think we booked the Air BnB last fall because I was pretty certain by then that I wouldn’t be working during Spring Break. The flights were booked in January which my mind screamed, “TOO SOON!!!” But in reality we probably would have gotten cheaper tickets if we had booked sooner. Oh well, as it was, I think each step gave us considerable sticker shock and we had to recover before we could take the next step.

We had a 5:30pm flight out on Thursday. At first, to save the cost of a cab, we considered taking the Metro to the airport since a new Metro line just opened that goes all the way there. That plan would have required us to leave at noon. My friend told me that many of the hotels by the airport offer long term parking and a shuttle to the airport, and that was way cheaper than the airport long term parking – <$10/ day vs. $14/ day

Why did I not know about this before?!?!?

So that’s what we did. Getting to the airport was super smooth, except we didn’t check and the six year old had a full water bottle going through security and had to go through again. I was surprised how things have changed and you no longer have to take your electronics and liquids out of your bag to go through the x ray machine, and you only have to remove boots, but not Crocs or running shoes.

Random thoughts on the flight:

-We had packed to be able to travel carry on only, but the flight was full, so when we checked in, the airline offered to check all our bags for free. I was fine with that. I don’t mind checking at all; I prefer to pack carry on only because I don’t like having to lug big suitcases.

-We ended up deciding to get the four seats in the middle + one single seat across the aisle. I sat with the three kids in the middle and the Husband sat in the lone seat across the aisle. I think this was the best way to go – I didn’t feel like we wanted to subject anyone else to sitting next to my kids. The 11 year old and I sat on the aisle seats of the middle section and the two little kids sat in the middle, which I think worked out well.

-I’m always worried about food and entertainment for the kids when we take trips. I had packed everyone their own snack bag and bought them all activity books and packed crayons and markers and books. I think we used one activity book while waiting for the flight and the three year old did about ten minutes of her sticker book at one point. But really all the kids just used the in flight entertainment, and the 11 year old also had her own tablet. They mostly watched movies and once in a while played games. The six year old really got into playing Angry Birds which I thought was hilarious. As for food, I definitely overpacked on that front because there were lots of snacks and drinks and meals on the flight, so a bunch of the food I packed actually ended up coming home with us a week later. I know I overpacked in the food and entertainment front, but I feel like if the in flight entertainment hadn’t worked or if the kids didn’t like the airplane food, I wanted to have a back up.

– I had forgotten that the in flight entertainment required wired headphones. I had packed them for the two little kids, but didn’t pack any for myselft. The airline did hand out earphones, but my set weren’t great. So I mostly read on the flight. I did watch about an hour of a Mrs. Harris goes to Paris, but didn’t finish it before getting to Amsterdam. I finished it on the way back – it’s a delightful movie, even when watched with bum earphones. For Christmas, I did buy the Husband this Airfly dongle that allows one to use bluetooth earphones with any earphone jack. Unfortunately I didn’t try it out until the return trip back.

-The flight itself was a direct overnight flight – we arrived in Amsterdam at 6:30am. I think I managed to get the kids to sleep for an hour or two, and so did I, but it wasn’t really high quality sleep. I don’t think the 11 year old slept at all, to be honest.

-Lesson learned – have the kids pee about an hour/45 mins before landing. I didn’t do this and just minutes after the fasten seatbelt sign went on, the 3 year old declared, “I have to go potty!!!!”
“You have to wait,” I told her. “We have to keep our seatbelt fastened, but the plane will land soon and then you can pee.”
“I HAVE TO GO POTTY!!! I HAVE TO GO POTTY!!!!” she started screaming. Over and over and over. For the twenty minutes it took us to land and taxi to the gate. If you were on our flight, I sincerely apologize.
At one point, she said, “I’M GOING TO PEE MY PANTS!!!” And I tried to get her to sit on a towel, but she refused. “I PEED MY PANTS!!!!” Loudly. Everything was said loudly. It was epic.
The moment the fasten seatbelt sign went off, the Husband took her to the bathroom with a change of clothes. Guess what? She lied. She did not pee her pants.

And so we arrived bright and early in Amsterdam. We took the bus to our Air BnB. There seem to be many options to get to and from the airport. We chose the 397 bus because it had a stop about a 15 minute walk from our AirBnB, but got off at the wrong stop and actually ended up wandering around a little bit. In my failure to plan, I did not get international data on our phone plans, so it was a bit of an aimless wander. With all of us toting our luggage. At one point, I just took the six year old’s rolling suitcase too. Everyone was a little cranky and a little tired and a little hungry, so it was kind of a drudgery of a walk. Even still, I was so excited to see my first glimpse of Amsterdam canals and bicycles. The morning was rather quiet – we discovered over the course of the week that Amsterdam is not a city that rises early.

The first picture I took after we got off the bus from the airport.

At one point, though, I did decide to stop and ask for directions and some very nice people pointed us in the right direction. We were staying in the Oud-West, which was about a fifteen minute walk from the Museumplein where all the famous art museums are and from Vondelpark, one of the major swaths of green space.

We finally made it into our AirBnB, which featured the first of many steep steep staircases we would traverse. I was originally a little nervous about the kids going up and down the stair, but over the course of the week they got really good at walking up the stairs sideways, one slow and steady step at a time.

The AirBnB was rather spartan – one big room that had a eating area, living room/tv and two beds, and one little room with another bed. There was no kitchen, which I don’t know why I hadn’t realized that when we booked the place. But what the place lacked in amenities, the hosts more than made up for with their kindness and generosity and attentiveness. They took our dishes and washed them, and also did our laundry a couple times during the week; and – the kids’ favorite thing – the hosts gave us two huge bins of toys – duplos, trucks, picture books, activity books, pencil crayons. The kids would be well entertained.

What with it being 3am back home when we arrived, I immediately took a little nap. I knew we would battle jet lag, but I hadn’t slept much on the flight, so I needed to catch up a little bit. Mean while the kids played with their duplos and with my phone, taking some snapshots to keep things real:

Random slice of life shot of our Air Bnb.

Kid’s always take the most flattering pictures. Hah!

While I napped, the Husband ventured out and came home with sandwiches, which we ate, and then we set out for our first adventure. (well, not counting getting lost.) I had booked us a canal boat ride for 2pm the day we arrived, figuring that it would be a nice easy activity for the first day when we might be tired. Only we couldn’t quite find the place where we were to meet our boat and missed the tour. The company was very nice and re-booked us for Sunday. At first they offered to walk us down to another part of the canal and try to get on the boat, but it was turning into a drizzly, rainy day and they said that we would have a better time on Sunday when the weather was nice.

So now we had a few hours suddenly free before we had to meet my sister in law for dinner. We decided to take a wandering route back to our AirBnB. We somehow ended up wandering down Pieter Cornelisz Hooftstraat, where all the high fashion stores were – Gucci, Hermes, Dior. It was fun to peer in the windows at all the fancy clothes. And the Cybex stroller store. So fancy.

We got back to the AirBnB and rested for an hour or so then walked to my SIL’s place. On the way, I was really obsessed with the architecture of the buildings around us – the houses all so tall and skinny had such a distinctive profile. the Husband pointed out how all the houses have these pully hooks up top to help with moving furniture in since the stairways are too narrow to bring anything in through the front door. Later on my sister in law told us that no one uses the pulleys anymore – when they want to bring in furniture, they have to hire a special lift and take out a permit because the lift will block a big chunk of the sidewalk/ road.

Also on the way, I wanted to find some kind of dessert to bring and we ended up stopping at a bakery and wine shop with the cutest name: Levain et Le vin. All of their bread is sourdough bread and I picked up a loaf for breakfast the next day as well as some pastries for dinner while the Husband got himself a coffee.

Then it was off to my SIL’s house. It was really interesting to see their place – so different from our home back in the States – much more compact and economical space-wise. They also had the steep steep stairs. My SIL had ordered pizza, so we had that and the grown ups chatted while the kids played – she has two young kids too and it was so heartwarming to see the cousins play together even though they hadn’t seen each other since 2019, and the three year old not at all. But I guess Hot Wheels is a universal language.

Around 7pm, we headed back to our AirBnb. It was really drizzling hard, and I had forgotten to pack a raincoat for the 3 year old. However, before we left, my neighbor had given us one of those ponchos that fold up super small and I had thrown it into my purse. I pulled it out and put it on the three year old. Obviously it was waaaaay too big, but it kept her relatively dry!

When we got home, we changed into our pjs and just hung out watching some American tv with Dutch subtitles. I can’t remember what it was – something on the Discovery channel, I think. Pretty soon, though, the littles fell asleep:

Around 9pm we packed everyone to bed. We were all so exhausted from not having really slept on the flight that bedtime was easier than I thought it was going to be.

So that was our flight and first day on the ground in Amsterdam. It was a little strange being in a foreign country, but also there was a lot that didn’t feel foreign. On the one hand, visually we were clearly in a different country – the architecture, the canals, the bikes. So many bikes, whizzing by. I was really envious of the speed and ease with which I saw people getting around by bike. On the other hand, everyone spoke English and we could just use our credit cards everywhere. The Husband noted that “It just doesn’t feel like I’m in a foreign country.” I agree with him. I completely see why a lot of English speakers who want to move abroad chose Amsterdam.

More recaps to come! Tell me, haver you ever been these Amsterdam?

Weekly recap + what we ate: A Week in the Life edition- prep week

Last week was positively summer, with weather hitting 80 degrees. We’ve come home from spring break to the find the Yoshino cherry blossoms gone and replaced by branches of green, but the area has been replaced by Kwanzan cherry blossoms, apple blossoms, and redbuds. And the azaleas. Pink and purple and white bushes everywhere. Oh and the lilacs – the heavenly floral scent of lilacs!

The “emergency car chocolate” I keep in my car for… well, emergencies and late night commutes home has melted and I need to replace it with another car snack that can withstand the extreme heat.

I always enjoy reading “Week in the Life” posts, so I thought I’d capture a week in my life. I find that I have a lot of different versions of a “typical” week – there’s working and not working. But also within working, there’s prep week, rehearsal week, tech week, and performance week. So this is prep week, the week we have before rehearsal starts to get everything ready. It is supposed to be a pretty easy 40 hour week, but I’m prepping a pretty big show, so I ended up working more like 45 hours this week. Also, I don’t usually do the afternoon pick up when I’m working, but since prep week is a little more flexible, I like to do it when I can to give the Husband a break.

Monday: We just got back from Amsterdam the day before. Kids are off school, and the Husband has taken the day off to be with them since I have to work. If one of us can’t be home with the kids, we put the two older kids in the After care program at school.
5:00am – I never get up this early, but I’m a little jet lagged, so I’m awake. I get up, putter, try to put some stuff away. Make breakfast. Meal plan for the week and make a shopping list for the Husband who will do a grocery shop and Costco run.
10:15am – I leave for work
10:45am – 6:30pm – Work. It’s the first day of a prep week for a new show, so it’s a lot of onboarding of new people, showing people around, meetings. I do take a 30 minute walk at lunch time and talk to my sister in law on the phone. Our union mandates meal breaks have to be at least 1 hour long, but I don’t need the whole time to eat, so I always try to take a walk during lunch.
6:30-7:00p – Leave work. Pick up 11 year old from basketball. Drop her at home and then go get gas. (Often if I can’t be home for dinner, I’ll pick up the 11 year old from basketball so the Husband only has to schlep the other two kids along just once.)
7:00p – 8:00p – When I get home, the kids and the Husband are watching Golden Girls. I eat Dinner. The Husband had bought Bahn mi sandwiches for dinner since we didn’t really have any food at home post trip. I eat whatever is leftover.
8:00p – I help put the kids into bed. I fall asleep in the 3 year old’s bed while cuddling.

Tuesday:
5:00am – awake again, much earlier than normal. Putter, continue to try to put things away from our vacation. I have to pull some sheet music from online for my supertitle gig – I’m working a recital the following week. Usually the pianist will send me the music, but this pianist is on vacation, so I have to find the music myself. Not a big deal since it’s all in the public domain and therefore easy to track down online for free. There’s one set of songs that I couldn’t find, so I ask the pianist to scan it to me when he gets a chance.
6:45am – Husband leaves for work, so I get started with breakfast, and packing lunches for the kids and myself. At 8:10am, we do a kid exchange with the neighbors – we have kids the same ages and at the same schools, so they take the three year old to school and I take their 6 year old to the school bus with us. While the 11 year old take the 3.5 year old to the neighbors for kid exchange, I squeeze in 10 minutes of yoga. Then I get dressed for the day.
9:00am – Take the kids to the school bus, then drive to work.
9:45am – 3:45p – Work. I spend much of the day pulling paperwork from the last time we did this show.
3:45p – I pick up 6 year old and neighbors’ kid from school bus and take them home. While home I get the kids a snack then I putter and scroll until the Husband gets home with the 11 year old. She has math tutoring at school on Tuesdays and Wednesdays.
5:45p – Head back to work to cover an evening music rehearsal.
6:00pm – 10:30pm – Work. Covering a music rehearsal with the chorus. Basically these are the rehearsals where the chorus learns their music. It’s pretty low key and I continue to read and review the paperwork for the show and get myself organized.
10:30p – Back home.
12:00 midnight – ish? Go to bed I’m a little unclear. I think I worked on titles and scrolled a little bit before going to bed. This was not a good weak for mindful sleep habits.

Wednesday:
6:00am – wake up. The 3.5 year old is in our bed somehow.
6:45am – wake up the other kids.
7:10am – Take 11 year old to piano lessons. Then take the other two kids to pick up breakfast sandwiches, as is our Wednesday morning routine. Usually I also get gas but I had filled up on Monday because my gas light had come on. The place we go to get sandwiches from is run by the super nice Korean man who always gives us free chips.
8:00am – home from piano lessons. Quickly pack lunch and eat breakfast sandwiches before the kid exchange happens. 10 minutes exercise video while kid exchange happens.
9:00am – Take kids to school bus then head to work.
9:30am – 10:15am – Run. I haven’t run in over a week because of being on vacation, so I do just 1.5 miles and also have a nice walk. I often run at work because it’s some of my only child free time and we don’t usually start work before 10am, so I can get a run in.
10:15am – 3:45pm – Work. I spend the day measuring the groundplans for the set so we can mark it out with tape in the rehearsal room the next day.
3:45pm – leave work to pick up kids from bus. Take kids home. Feed them a snack and make dinner (Chinese Corn and Egg Drop Soup – this was a huge hit, I’ll have to make it again).
6:00p – When the Husband comes home with the 11 year old, I head back to work to finish up some stuff – there’s another chorus music rehearsal, which I’m not covering, but my colleague who is covering it is doing it for the first time, so I want to be around just in case. I also spend some time chatting to my work BFF.
9:30pm – wrap up at work and head home. I work on some titles til pretty late at night. Liberally sprinkled with bouts of random internet blackholes.
1:30am – brain is fried, go to bed.

Thursday:
6:30am – wake to a 3.5 year old in my bed again. Go back to sleep, tired from being up late the night before.
7:15am – out of bed. I think the 11 year old got the little kids breakfast, so I just have to pack the lunches. 8:10am – kid exchange and I get in my 10 minutes of yoga.
9:00am – school bus run then to work.
9:45am – 6:30pm – Work. Today we tape the rehearsal room – laying down the tape outline of the set so the singers get a sense of where things are (hopefully. I mean some people don’t quite understand that a tape line is a wall and will keep walking through it, but I always figure they’re not going to walk through it when we get onstage and the wall is real.) Taping takes all day, but I do squeeze in a 15 minute walk at lunch time.
6:30pm- Home, I eat dinner – the Husband made something that involved chicken and broccoli and yummy siracha honey sauce. I wanted to be home before 6:45pm so that the Husband could take the 11 year old to basketball without having to schlep the younger kids. Then because the weather is so nice and it feels like summer, I take the two younger kids to play in the backyard for a little bit.
8:00pm – Come back inside and prep for bed. The Husband goes to pick up the 11 year old from basketball and then he and I quickly sign off on our taxes – we owe money this year, mostly because I took several 1099 gigs in 2022, more than I have in a long long time. A little bit of sticker shock on that one, especially on the heels of our Spring Break Trip, we feel a little like we’re hemorrhaging money.
9:00pm – Kids to bed (finally!), and once again, I fall asleep in bed with the 3.5 year old.

Friday:
4:00am – The 6 year old climbs into bed with the 3.5 year old and me. Then tells me to stop breathing on him. I take this as a sign and get up and work on titles for the next two hours.
6:00am – The 3.5 year old is up so I start the morning routine. (Is it really a routine? It doesn’t feel calming as a routine should. I guess maybe the morning tasks/chores?) Pack kids’ lunch (x3), and my lunch, get kids breakfast. I make potato leek soup (vegan) in the Instant Pot, so that there is something ready for dinner tonight since there is a basketball game in the evening.
8:10am – kid exchange. 10 minutes yoga. Then get dressed.
9:00am – bus drop off, chat with a friend at bus stop, then go to work.
9:45am – 6:00pm – Work. Today I work on helping the Prop Coordinator unpack all the props in the show. There are a lot of props; the prop list is 8 pages long. Four pages of those are for Act 2, which, while only 20 minutes long, features so. many. props. and. people. I take a 30 minute walk at lunch.
6:00pm – leave work and drive to 11 year old’s basketball game.
7:15pm – 8:15pm – basketball game. When I arrive the score is 22-1. The 11 year old scored that 1 point on a free throw. So yay? They did not make a spectacular comeback or anything, but they played hard. I think the final score was 35-7. They had won almost all their games in the winter league, so I think it’s hard for them to play against teams that are more polished and competitive then them. I mean there were players making legit 3 pointers on the other team. But she still loves to play, so I think that’s what’s important.
8:30pm – arrive home, put kids to bed. I do some titles work.
not quite sure – I didn’t log when I actually went to bed this night.

Saturday:
6:30am – awake. putter. journal, read, write.
7:00am – Make waffles for breakfast. Then clean up and putter.
10:00am – Go for another short run, then shower.
11:00am – outside in the backyard with the 3.5 year old while the Husband takes the 6 year old and 11 year old to a family dance class. One of the local theatres has a dance class for grown ups and kids, and I thought it would be a fun activity for the Husband and kids to do together. I would have enrolled the 3.5 year old, but she is too little. I work on titles out on the back patio while the 3.5 year old plays. Every so often I take a break to kick a ball with her. Around noon we go back inside and have dinner.
1:00pm – I head to work.
1:30pm – 6:30pm – Work. I spend the day organizing the props and then setting up the rooms for rehearsal next week.
6:30p – head home. The family is having pizza and movie night. They are watching Pirates of the Caribbean, which is such a fun movie. I arrive half way through and after the movie ends, I make the family start again at the beginning so I can watch the first twenty minutes or so because I always like seeing how things begin.
9:00pm – Kids to bed. Once again, I fall asleep in the 3.5 year old’s bed. Around midnight I wake up and move to my own bed.

Sunday:
7:30am – Awake. We spend the morning cleaning (we have cleaners coming the next day – yes, we clean for the cleaners…), putting away the things from our vacation (it never ends, it seems…), and working on some titles. I’m sure there was some reading and internet scrolling in there as well.
10:30am – The 6 year old and the 3.5 year old have skating lessons. Let me tell you, going to a nice cool ice rink when it is 80 degrees outside feels heavenly! It’s the last lesson of the session – the 3.5 year old gets to move up to the next level, but the 6 year old has to repeat his level. After lessons, we stay for free skate. I register the kids for the next session before we leave.
1:00pm – Take the kids to HMart for a weekly grocery shop. I don’t usually do the weekly shop at HMart, but it is close to the rink, and I needed mostly produce and fruit, so HMart made sense. Also fun – there was a person in the Hmart parking lot selling fresh coconut – the kind where he cuts the top off for you and drains it into a container and cuts out the flesh. I bought us one to share and it was so tasty!

2:30p – Home. We’re having friends over to grill for dinner, so I prep veggies and chicken for the grill and put away the groceries. I bought a lot of veggies so that I could grill up extra for the week ahead.
4:30p – take a nap, I’m exhausted.
5:00p – start the grill. Friends come over. We have kielbasa, hotdogs, chicken and grilled veggies (eggplant, zucchini, peppers). Also two different kinds of bagged salad. Super simple.
8:00pm – Friends head home and our kids get ready for bed. They’re in bed by 9:15pm – I told them I couldn’t stay and cuddle tonight because I had to get my titles done for the concert the next day. I finish formatting the text of the titles (in word, which is exported to Excel) and the Husband does some database magic and imports the titles directly from the Excel into the Powerpoint. I stay up to finish adjusting the titles and marking title placement in my music.
1:00am – brain is fried. Fall asleep on the couch, with the 3.5 year old who woke up at midnight and came to find me.

And that’s seven days in my life! It felt very work heavy because I had to work on the titles gig also. I can often tell how busy a week was when there are not a lot of pictures in my phone roll, and this week’s photos seemed to be mainly (unflattering) pictures the kids took of me while I was puttering around the house or working at the computer. Typically, I also might have spent more time doing cleaning/laundry/household chores, but let’s be honest, the Husband does most of the cleaning and laundry. I might have folded one basket of laundry all week. I’m really grateful for him.

Weekly recap + what we ate: pre-trip version

We are home from our spring break trip! Where we went:

Recaps to come. I hope. I still think I want to write recaps from our Montreal Trip too, so clearly I am behind.

But a quick rundown of the week before, since I selfishly like having these accounting of my days…

It was a week off of work, which was great because I could get some last minute errands and pre-trip things done.

some Highlights:
– Going for a cherry blossom run. I had always heard that the Kenwood neighborhood also has beautiful cherry blossoms, and it was less crowded than going to the Tidal Basin, so I thought I’d check it out. When I looked it up, I saw that there is a trail next to it, so I decided to combine my run with a cherry blossom wander. I parked at one of the lots off the trail that lead to the Kenwood neighborhood and had a little run then spent the rest of the morning wandering the streets. It was not as crowded as the Tidal Basin, so I felt like I was able to amble and savor at my own pace, though the blossoms in Kenwood are not the panoply of colors one sees downtown. It’s so interesting that this little neighborhood becomes such a cherry blossom hot spot. It was at the tail end of cherry blossom peak bloom and there was a light breeze, which sent cherry blossom petals drifting through the air and scattered on the roads.

-The six year old had a concert. The French Immersion students put on a concert every year, though apparently it hasn’t happened in a while because of the pandemic. Each class presents some kind of musical performance in French. The kindergartener show involved singing and dancing to a song about chocolate. I know I put on shows for a living, but I am seriously impressed by the coordination that it takes to organize 200+ kids to sing and dance in French. It’s always funny for me to go see school shows because there is a certain level of chaos that I would never see at my work, and yet… things always work out and people get onstage and offstage. I mean I just have to stage manage, but the teachers have to direct, choreograph, child wrangle, cajole, cheerlead… what full jobs they have… on top of the every day teaching.

The black light and fluorescent vests made me laugh.

– I got a discount on a book! I went to Barnes and Nobles to pick up a book for my flight. I usually like to read a book by someone from the country that I was visiting, so this is the one I chose:

Anyhow, as I was leafing through it, I noticed that the inside blurb page was upside down – you can see in the picture how the strip of the stepback is white and it should be red. I would have bought the book anyway because I wanted to read it and this gaffe wouldn’t have affected reading the book. But I took it to the front desk, pointed out the flaw, and they gave me 20% discount!

Giggle of the week –
This sign, seen in the neighborhood, which abounds with Little Free Libraries:

I feel like the six year old would take advantage of that too.

Grateful For:
– Public Transportation – I had lunch with a friend one day and I could take the metro there. It was just as fast as driving, but much more relaxing, and I could read my book a little.
– A friend for lending me a suitcase. I was going to buy a new suitcase since the wheels of my carry on rolling suitcase have come apart. I’ve had that suitcase for almost twenty years, so I guess it was about time to replace it. But when we went to look at suitcases, I was so overwhelmed by the options and couldn’t pick one. Relating my suitcase woes to my friend, she said, “I have one that you can borrow!” So I did. It saved me money and it saved me the mental energy of having to choose a suitcase. Sometimes having something just given to me is even more perfect than having to choose it myself.

-Time. Last week, I had more money than time, what with being unemployed and all. I think about this a lot. Sometimes when I’m unemployed I find my spending goes out of control because I finally have the time to browse/choose/buy those new shoes to replace the ones with holes that I have been making do with, or catch up on house projects, or refresh the kids’ wardrobes. I find when I’m thick in work, I don’t tend to throw money at things, rather I just decide to hobble through and replace things when I have time to think about it. But of course it means that I tend to have the time to spend money when I’m not making any money – which doesn’t even out as much as I would like. I suppose the answer, somewhat, is to increase my income. But also I think I should lean into thinking about how to spend time not money when I’m unemployed. Some things do need to be replaced, but maybe some things can be repaired? I sewed up a hole in a sweater that I wanted to take for vacation rather than buying a new one. And also – I went on the abovementioned run to see the cherry blossoms in Kenwood. It’s the kind of thing I wouldn’t have had time to do while working, but when I don’t have to be in at work, I can do these things. I can use time to buy moments of beauty. I can use time to buy moments of connection, like when I have lunch with friends. (Okay, also it took money to pay for lunch, but we could have just as easily gone for a walk and visit, or she could have come over for tea… the food wasn’t the important part.) Anyhow… when I’m feeling money poor and time rich, maybe I need to think about the things that time can buy me. On that note, I realize how lucky I am that I do have time – there are many people who have neither time nor money and that must be so stressful and hard.

What We Ate:

Monday: Chickpea noodle soup from Vegan for Everyone by America’s Test Kitchen. The six year old wanted veggie soup and I had celery to use up- I feel like I make this a lot when those two boxes need to be checked. Vegan.

Tuesday: Waffles. Quick dinner before the six year old’s school concert. I had heard a hack earlier this year of measuring two batches of dry ingredients when you make/bake something so that you just have to add the wet ingredients later on for a second batch. I thought this brilliant so last time I made waffles, I measured a second portion of the dry ingredients into a container and put it in the pantry. When I needed a quick dinner this night, I just tossed in the wet ingredients and everything was came together super quickly. I know measuring the dry ingredients doesn’t take that much time, but when you factor in finding things, hauling it out, measuring, and then putting it back away… to be able to just dump it in a bowl… pre-making the dry ingredients has the ease as if we were making our favorite waffle recipe from a box mix.

Wednesday: Dinner out with friends from out of town. I had pasta with mushrooms. There was parker house rolls with bacon jam involved.

Thursday: Off in an airplane!

Cute kid saying + some haikus

A couple of weeks ago, the kids had a half day of school. I was supposed to pick them up at the bus stop, but did the math wrong in my head and as I pulled into the bus stop, I got a sinking feeling in my stomach to see no other parents around. I called the school on the off chance that the bus hadn’t left yet- the bus is a little inconsistent- but was told that the bus had left on time. And my kid and his friend were sitting in the school office; when kids don’t get picked up at the bus stop, they are returned to the school. This was all horrifying and embarrassing for me.

Anyhow, I went to school and got the kids, feeling not so great about myself. I had one job and I messed it up.

I asked the six year old if he had been worried, and he said, “No. I just thought nice things. Like flowers, and cake and my family… things that make me happy.”

What wisdom there is in that… I suppose he knew that there wasn’t a lot he could do, so he decided to spend his time thinking about happy things.

There is something sweet and poetic about his happy things: flowers, cake, and family.

Speaking of which- some haikus from life lately:

Fingers in the pie
Imprints of her impatience
Craters from waiters.

Purple petals poke
Through the warm earth, early
Unexpected blooms

In his plush red vest
Hopping robin on my lawn.
A sentry for spring.

Petals drift like snow-
Fluffy flakes, not biting hail-
All the snow we’ll get.