I occasionally write about ways that aspects of my job intersects with my life. People often expect me to be some kind of organizational guru because I’m a stage manager, but truth… I don’t think I am. It’s a little chicken and egg for me. Am I a good stage manager because I have good organizational skills or did I learn good organizational skills because I became a stage manager. I think a lot of it is the latter. I have to work really hard to not seem like a professional mess, and occasionally those skills in the workplace are useful in the rest of life.
Anyhow, this one isn’t actually a stage management skill, but more a mind blowing tip turned life advice I got once while on the job.
I mentioned a few weeks ago about attending a retirement party of a dear dear colleague who was retiring after thirty plus years at my company. She has taught me so much in the twenty years I’ve known her. One of my favorite turns of phrases comes from her, “Managing expectations.” I’d never heard anyone else say that until she came into rehearsal one days and said to the director, “I need to manage you expectations on what will be ready the first time you rehearse onstage.” What a gentle, level headed, non-panic inducing way of saying, “We’re behind in our work and there are things that won’t be ready.”
But this tidbit came from seven or eight years ago, we were working on a production of The Marriage of Figaro. There was a scene where the maid Susanna had to take her apron off. She starts the scene with her apron on, so at the top of every rehearsal, I would help her into her rehearsal skirt then tie the apron on her since the bow was in the back. Some days, during the scene, the apron would come right off, and some days it would be a tangled mess and the singer would get frustrated as she tried to sing and fumble with apron strings.
One day, my colleague M was watching rehearsal, and saw the singer struggle with untying the apron strings. At a pause in rehearsal she came up to me and the singer and suggested to the singer, “Why don’t you tie the apron on yourself. “
The singer did so.
Then M said, “Reach around and untie it.”
And then magically, the singer was able to reach around an with one tug smoothly untie the apron.
Afterwards, M said to me, “If you let them tie their own apron strings, they’ll know which tail to grab to untie it. When you tie it for them, the strings sit differently from what they expect and they’ll get tangled.”
It was such a clear and simple thing, but I had never thought about it before. Trust the lady who has spent forty years tying apron strings to point this out to me. By letting someone get into something themselves, they will be able to see (or feel) more clearly how to get out of it. (I mean there are exceptions, of course. Corsets, for one.) It’s similar to another piece of advice from a mentor early in my stage management days, “Never hand a singer their prop. teach them where the prop table is, otherwise you’ll spend all your time handing people props.”
It was hard advice for me to internalize – as a stage manager, I feel like I should help people. I want to make life as easy for them as possible, remove obstacles, give them as little to do so they can just concentrate on the work they do onstage. But I’m realizing it’s more work and potentially frustration- for me, for the crew, for the singer themselves – when they get everything handed to them without learning the ropes (apron strings?) themselves. They need to be able to find the prop table back stage and the correct apron string when it comes time to take the apron off.
I think about M’s words often in my non-work life, too – particularly with my kids. I turn around in my head the difference between doing something for my kids and letting them discover something for themselves. Of letting them climb to the top of the play structure, discovering where each foothold is, rather than giving them a boost and bypassing those footholds. Because those are the same foothold that they need to know to climb back down. If they don’t find them going up, will they be able to find them coming back down? Or so many other things – if they put away the dishes, they’ll know where to find them later; same thing with backpacks and bike helmets and homework and friendships – though, we are still working on all these ones, truth be told. But you know, you can’t rescue everyone. And sometimes inserting yourself just mucks things up even more.
So as as a tribute to the wonderful M on her retirement, I am passing along her wise wise words to the world – “Let people tie their own apron strings.”
Have you ever received advice from a work colleague that’s stuck with you?
Declutter-palooza continues. This past weekend it was the toy/play room. Toy room before:
After:
It’s still pretty bad, but at least you can see the floor!
Decluttering the toy room felt a lot harder than the attic. I think partly because the toy room needs to become a hybrid toy room/guest room/office/ craft room, we’re going to have to really think about functionality and efficiency of space. Also a lot of the toys have sentimental value. The tabletop kitchen was something the prop crew head at one of my summer gigs helped me make one summer when the oldest kid was two or three. A lot of the trucks were from the Husband’s childhood. The Barbie apartment was a much beloved toy and even though it’s missing the balcony and is probably a safety hazard of exposed screws, the 12 year old does not want to get rid of it.
The black bin is full of toys to donate or Freecycle, so that will get moved out. We threw out two bags of toys but it was mostly small plastic trinkets and things that were broken or missing pieces. A lot of the bigger items and sets still remain. This is my struggle with the toy room – most of the stuff is the bigger things. We can throw out all the small plastic party favors and fidget toys and broken Barbies, but that barely makes a dent.
What I think is still in the “keep pile”: -Wooden Train Track set – Magnaformers -Wooden blocks -A box of matchbox cars and similar small vehicles -Trucks, School bus, recycle truck, Jumbo jet, space ship, remote control car -box of puzzles. -Domino set – where you can set up dominos to topple. -A box of stuffed animals -Play shopping cart and dolls -Play grocery stand -Two doll houses and furniture (why two?? They’re both from the Husband’s childhood) -a container of figurines -the aforementioned play kitchen, food, pots and pans -Nugget play cushions -Dress up clothes. So many dress up clothes. -Lincoln Logs. Genuine wooden ones from the Husband’s childhood. -Lego set and Barbie paraphernalia, but this will go into the 12 year old’s room eventually so I don’t have to decide what to do with it. -Four stomp cars.
On the “TBD” pile: -Fort play cushions. These are huge cushions you can use to build forts. We bought it as part of a Kickstarter. Only the thing got recalled because there are magnets that hold the cushions together and the magnets can fall out. But I figure if I can take the magnets out, we can still use the cushions. But I can’t find my seam ripper. So TBD on that.
All in all, I’m finding this decluttering process rather stressful. Not just the decluttering, but also the figuring out of new systems, trying to set a baseline clean level that can be easily achieved. It’s the kind of thing where I can’t really see right now where the solutions are. So even though I think we’ve whittled down the toys by a lot, the room still looks really cluttered and messy.
I felt a lot of latent stressors percolating last week. Just a general feeling of overwhelm and restlessness. I wouldn’t necessarily call myself an anxious person, but I did have some moments of feeling absolutely swamped. Things that were simmering in my stress cauldron last week:
-Mom guilt – signing my kids up for too many extracurriculars. Originally we had Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday without activities, but then opportunities came up and now we have activities on Wednesday and later in October Tuesday too. Each kid is doing at least three activities. Is it too much?
-Mom guilt – signing my kids up for not enough extra extracurriculars. And on the flip side, I’m getting notices of other things the kids could take part in, and I know that they are things that the kids would enjoy and I wonder, are they missing out?
– Not keeping track of all the different sign ups and what not. This is sort of related to the above, but there are a couple of things that we missed out on because I just couldn’t get my head together to do the sign ups or submit medical forms. And I keep double booking things and missing meetings. And it just makes me feel like things are falling through the cracks.
-Starting back at work and not quite knowing everything that’s going on. I have this feeling in the back of my mind that I’m missing something. I’m just going to have to fake it until I figure out what’s going on.
-Are we going to have a good time in Malaysia this winter? It’s an awful lot of money to spend to not have a good trip.
-WhatsApp group insecurities. So there’s a WhatsApp group for the 4 year old’s pre-school class. When my friend first added me, I thought it would be a nice way to get to know other parents. I even thought I’d reach out and invite people over for a happy hour since we live very close to the school. BUT then people started posting pictures and “Thanks for having us!” and “What a great time!” and “Thanks for coming!” messages for a party that my kid was not invited to. And I got really upset about it. I mean if you are going to a party that not every kid in the class was invited to, then maybe don’t mention it on the WhatsApp group? And then someone mentioned getting drinks on another person’s porch and I just started to feel very – well I’d say “high school” but I didn’t go through this in high school, so not sure what to call this feeling of being left out. And really, I’m probably reading too much into it – no one is being malicious or mean or anything. Just a little exclusive and insensitive about who all might be on the group. What I really want to do is to drop a message introducing myself, and ask if other people could do the same since most of the phone numbers in the group are unfamiliar to me. But… there are 40 names on the chain, so asking for introductions seems a little impractical. I was also reading an article last week about how people are more likely to connect during the beginning stages of an activity, and it’s made me realized that I feel like I’ve missed the boat on making friends within this WhatsApp group. Anyhow, I kind of need to get over my feelings about this list. This is not something that I need to spend mental energy on.
And then there is the things that are perpetually on my list of stressors – namely my ancient car and the window treatments for the living room. I feel like around last year at this time I wrote a post about things making me stressed- so maybe it’s just September that brings it on? I have to remind myself either I will fix some of these issues and they will stop stressing me out, or I will just decide they aren’t worth the real estate they are taking up in my head and leave things to resolve themselves.
Well, on the other hand – some fun things that happened last week. -I had one of my supertitle gigs (more on that below!), and on my dinner break got to walk around the performing arts center and see some beautiful evening sky and listen to some music.
-We started weekend activities. One child had a soccer game on Saturday. On Sunday there was the usual Agility class for the 4 year old, and then skating for the the 4 and 7 year old. Since the skating lessons are back to back time slots, I will take the kid who is not in a lesson to public skate and then switch. Skating is so much fun!
-Friendship Picnic. After skating on Sunday, we had to have lunch, and I remembered that the County was having a Friendship Picnic at a nearby park where they would be serving free lunch. The shuttle to the picnic left from the ice rink parking lot, so I figured we could go check out the picnic. I was so impressed by the whole affair! The Friendship Picnic has been going on for ten years and I never went because I always thought it would be a madhouse. Surely, anything that promised free food and bounce houses was going to be chaotic, and I don’t like being in chaotic crowds. But the whole thing was actually really well organized. When you arrived, if you wanted lunch, you picked up a wristband for a lunch option – the choices were vegetarian/kosher, Halal, and vegan, and there were wristbands for ice cream. There were also multiple coolers full of bottled water all over for people to grab. I picked the vegetarian/kosher option and we went to the tent that matched our wristband and got falafel in pita with fries. It was so delicious – the pita in particular was fluffy and not dry. The kids (I only had the two younger ones with me) didn’t eat much of their falafel, but they ate the fries. Oh well. We sat in the shade and ate our lunch while listening to some county officials give speeches and when that was over, a band started playing music. When the kids were done eating, we went to the bounce houses. The 7 year old in particular loved this basketball connect four game and spent a while at it. When the kids got tired of the bounce houses, they went to the playground. All in all it was a lovely event. I’ll have to remember to mark my calendar for the Friendship Picnic next year.
-An interesting comment – I had posted a few weeks ago about how my biracial kids were the norm not the exception at school these days. I often think, with my kids, how important it is to see themselves reflected in mainstream media. I remember growing up in a small city in Canada where there were only a handful of Asian families. In my K-8 elementary school, our family and one other family from India were the only non-white families. There were no Black families. I remember wanting to be blond when I was a child; I thought you had to be blond to be pretty because that was what was around me and what I saw in the mainstream media. Anyhow, I was musing in that post about how long we’ve come – how my kids don’t have to be the only half-Asian kids in their class and how they see so much more diversity in their lives than I did growing up. And then we were watching a trailer for the first Transformers movie and the 12 year old sees Megan Fox on the screen and suddenly exclaims, “She’s really hot. And she’s not blond! Mom, she has dark hair like me and she’s so pretty!” And I didn’t know whether to feel thankful/happy that my 12 year old realizes that she didn’t have to be blond to be pretty, or to be sad that she ever even felt that way.
-Fun contrasting picture – I feel like this is the modern day equivalent to throwing everything in the dishwasher to hide the mess when guests come over – I had to jump on a work call one day while at home and I frantically pushed everything to one end of the dining room table to make room for my computer at the other end. This is what you saw on my screen:
This is what was behind the computer:
I’m not one to have a super curated zoom background for sure, but I’m going to at least pretend that my house is not a disaster.
Grateful For: -Middle School Administrators. The 12 year old had an incident in school – not my story to tell, but even though I’m a pretty hands off parent, it was something I felt had to be addressed by the teacher. So I wrote an email to the teacher and the next morning, the Assistant Principal called me and told me the matter had been forwarded to him and the issue had been addressed. He was patient and told me what he did on his end and answered all my questions. I’m so grateful for the quick and compassionate response. I feel like middle schoolers can be so mercurial and confusing to deal with as they try to figure out how to navigate independence and making good choices – I’m so thankful for the administrators and teachers who are there to support tweens and their parents.
-Being able to print at the Library. We don’t have a printer at home. Usually when I need to print something the Husband or I will do it at work, but neither of us were at work the day I needed to submit medical forms for the 12 year old to join the cross country team at school. So I went to the library, loaded money on my library card and printed the forms off there. It was $1.50 for ten pages and very easy to do. while at the library, I looked at all the people working at the four rows of public computers and I thought of all the people who don’t have internet access at home and who need to go online for whatever reason – it seems like so many things have to be done online these days. What a wonderful thing the library is!
-My dentist and having dental insurance. I had a dentist appointment for a cleaning. It’s been over a year since my last cleaning, but I had to cancel my last appointment and the next availability was three months away, so it got away from me. I love my dentist and hygienist. They are nice, funny, they remember me. The aren’t in my insurance network, but they submit the paperwork to get everything reimbursed. And now my teeth feel smooth and clean!
-Good diction and imslp.com. Okay – this will be one of those “in the weeds” work type things, so apologies if it’s boring or if don’t explain it very well, but .. I had a supertitle gig for a voice recital last week. The first piece on the program was Franz Liszt’s Three Songs on Petrarch Sonnets. So the recital starts, the pianist starts playing and I’m following along in my music so that I can bring up the right translation slides at the right time to coincide with the singing. And suddenly I don’t quite know what is going on, because I can’t seem to follow the music. I think, maybe I can’t hear the pianist that well since I’m sitting in a booth at the back of the theatre? Maybe it’s because she’s playing too quietly? Maybe I’ve forgotten how to read music? Then the singer starts singing and it is definitely not what is on the page in front of me. The words are correct, but not the notes. At this point, I’m starting to panic a little bit because I’m realizing that I don’t have the right music in front of me. Which is concerning because I now don’t know when to advance the slides to the next bit of text since I don’t know when the next sung line is coming. So with one hand, I keep trying to keep the slides going to correspond to the words coming out of the singer’s mouth, with my other hand, I get out my phone and google “Liszt Petrarch songs”. And… Did you know that Franz Liszt wrote two sets of songs based on the sonnets of Petrarch? And I had the music for the wrong set in front of me. Luckily the words are the same, and the singer has very clear diction, so I could keep up with the titles, though they were each a half beat late so that I could figure out which line he was on at any given time. And on my phone, I was able to go to this amazing website IMSLP (International Music Score Library Project, where they have legions of scores that are in the public domain) and pull up the right score and by the middle of the second song I was back on track – looking at the right music on my phone, while looking at the slide translations and numbers on my computer and iPad as the singer sang the set. So… I am grateful that the singer had good diction so I could follow the words when I couldn’t follow the music, and I’m grateful for imslp that i could quickly find the music. Isn’t the internet amazing?
Looking Forward To:
-My parents are coming for a visit!
– Baking a cake! The 4 year old turns five next week and I’m going to bake her a cake. She has also requested dino chicken nuggets for dinner. I need to find those.
-I mentioned this book in my books post, and it’s so much fun I can’t wait to read it every day. Sometimes I feel like my life is a suburban mom cliche and this novel plays into those cliches hilariously. There is a line about Old Navy Pixie Pants that made me snort with laughter.
What We Ate:
Monday: Zucchini, tofu and udon by Hetty Lui McKinnon from New York Times Cooking. Super easy -stir fry crumbled tofu, add sliced zucchini and garlic, add cooked udon noodles and a miso butter sauce. Grind lots of pepper over it. The 7 year old really loved this. vegan because I used olive oil instead of butter for the sauce.
Tuesday: Chicken with Apples and Curry from Dinner a Love Story. The flavors were good, but I have never been able to cook chicken breasts without the bieng stringy and tough. Tips?
Wednesday: Sandwiches from the Deli. The 7 year old had soccer practice at 6pm and we’re still trying to figure out how best to handle dinner on those days.
Thursday: Mac n Cheese, Waffles, and green beans. The Husband cooked and he had leftover waffles which we could have for breakfast, which is one of my favorite parts about making waffles. I worked this night and had a salad from the work Canteen.
Friday: Pizza (Store bought, Detroit style), and Hotel Transylvania. This movie did not do anything for me.
Saturday: We had dinner at a friend’s house – he smoked some meat and made some amazing baked beans. Apple pie for dessert.
Sunday: Eggs and leftovers. There was a Bears game on this night which we were planning to watch. At some point I looked at the Husband and said, “What are we going to feed the kids for dinner?” And he said, “I was going to make popcorn.” I must have given him a disapproving wife look because he then said, “I’ll make some eggs.”
How was your week? Does your zoom background belie the true chaos of your home? What were your three favorite toys growing up?
I feel like I read a lot of books in the first few weeks of August and then really slowed down for the next little bit. Eight books read in August.
The Rakess by Scarlett Peckham – This novel was on a list by Alexis Hall of romance novels that he likes. The Rakess takes the trope of the rake who is saved by a virtuous and upstanding woman and gender flips it. The book opens with the female protagonist, Seraphina Arden, in bed with someone and wondering how long she has to cuddle before she can kick him out. Seraphina embodies all the stereotypical rake behavior that one finds in romance novels – drinking, late night carousing, easy affairs. She meets Adam, a fine upstanding, morally uncorrupt widower with kids. Romance novel type things ensue. I was really intrigued by this premise, but ultimately the characters still felt like romance novel cliches with romance novel cliche trauma to justify the way they behave, and the writing was somewhat stolid and awkward. There are some intriguing side characters and progressive ideas about social reform, but ultimately everything was just kind of flat for me.
I Capture the Castle by Dodie Smith – for Engie’s Cool Blogger’s Book Club. Thank you to Engie for organizing! I really liked a lot of this book, but I think the book kind of lost me with the whole “Lock Father in the Tower” bit and the resolution of the novel was kind of madcap. I also didn’t love the framing device of the journal – it seemed a little precious for my tastes. I did like the whimsy, the sense of time and young adulthood, the fantasy of being genteelly poor, Topaz – Topaz was great. So I put this book under, “Glad I read it, now can I watch the movie?”
Rebecca by Daphne du Maurier – When I was watching trailers for I Capture the Castle, youTube also brought up trailers for a 2020 movie version of Rebecca that came out on Netflix, and that sent me down a rabbit hole. You know, Rebecca, that novel about the young plain something who gets swept off her feet by a much older man and then goes to live in his manor estate and is haunted by the memory of his first wife. I don’t have Netflix so I couldn’t watch the movie, but I was transfixed by the clips I saw online. Then I decided to re-read the book. I remember reading Rebecca when I was in seventh grade and thinking it was the best book ever. I don’t know what it is with me thinking that lying manipulative men were romantic when I was a pre-teen/teen. (See: my obsession with Jane Eyre.) I thought it still held up as a creepy disturbing suspense novel, but I find it creepy and disturbing for different reasons now.
The Turnoutby Megan Abbott – This is a suspense/thriller about sisters Dara and Marie Duront who run a ballet school along side Dara’s husband Charlie, a former pupil of their mother’s. There is a fire and a burly contractor comes to fix the damage, inserting himself into their lives and throwing off the delicate balance of the trio’s dynamic. All this against the backdrop of the annual Nutcracker production, which in itself is a high pressure situation. The novel is twisty and twisted as plot elements get revealed and unraveled. It’s not a genre I read much, but stories set in the performing arts world always attract me and I thought the writing was really spare and direct. It’s a page-turner for sure, and I liked the backstage glimpses, but ultimately, I was reminded that I don’t usually read suspense novels because I don’t like being tense all the time, waiting for (pointe) shoes to drop.
So Late in the Day: Stories of Men and Women by Claire Keegan – This is a trio of short stories, each in their own way about loneliness and inability to connect with people. I’d read Keegan’s Foster, and like that book, the writing in these stories is neat and unfussy, but also a little hard for me to grasp – things dance on the surface and I don’t ever feel like I know what is going on. I kind of feel like this is why people like Keegan’s writing so much – there is something very simple about it, but also it hides untold depths. I think what I liked about Foster, more than these stories, was that Foster had moments of genuine connection – in the stories in So Late in the Day, everyone just seems to want to be alone.
Blankets by Craig Thompson – autobiographical graphic novel about Thompson’s abusive sad childhood growing up in an Evangelical church, his struggle with religion, and his relationships with his family and his first love. So my first thought on reading this book was, “What a lot of work it takes to write a graphic novel!” Seriously, this book was like three inches thick and took me so long to read because it was to heavy to take anywhere. So there’s always a bit of awe and respect for the process behind a graphic novel and the skill involved to write, draw, and pace a story. The actual book itself was fine. It was kind of hard for me to get over the fact that even though his parents are strict Christians, 16 year old Craig was allowed to go visit his “girlfriend” Raina (the relationship was a little undefined) a couple hours away, and stay with her family for a week. I don’t know – maybe I had a super sheltered childhood, but that definitely wouldn’t have been something I was allowed to do. This book is often billed as a great romance, and I didn’t find it particularly romantic because Raina didn’t seem like a fully fleshed out character. The parts that were most effective for me were the parts about family and looking out for each other and letting them go. And the artwork was beautiful – the kind of stuff where I felt like I would never really see all there is to see in one picture because there was so much detail.
Drive your Plows over the Bones of the Dead by Olga Tokarczuk, translated by Antonia Lloyd-Jones – I picked this book up from a Little Free Library, can’t remember why. Maybe I thought I should read some translated fiction by a Nobel Prize winner. I have to admit it took me while to get into this book, but then by the end, when it turned into a full fledged murder mystery, I was like, “Whoa, where did that come from??” It was like the book started out as something really cerebral and then in the last third switched genres on me. It took me several months to read this book, but I wish I had read this book in a more concentrated manner because by the time I got to the murder mystery reveal, I’d forgotten what had happened in the first half of the book and had to go back an re-read it. The main character, Janina, is a recluse in a Polish village who studies Blake and astronomy and teaches kids English and loves animals. She doesn’t use people’s names, instead referring to them by outstanding characteristics. People die. She gets involved in a meandering kind of way while interacting with other misfits. This book takes place in winter and the cold just comes off the page. All in all, I think this is book is way more accessible than I realized at first.
Funny Story by Emily Henry read by Julia Whelan: I hadn’t read any Emily Henry before, and I thought the premise of this one was cute – after Daphne’s fiancé runs aways with Miles’ girlfriend, Daphne and Miles move in together since she needs a place to live and he needs a new roommate. I listened to the audiobook. Also Julia Whelan. I really believe that Whelan can make any book absolutely riveting. So really, who knows if I liked this book or not! Actually I did like a lot of it – I thought the protagonists were adorable and liked the way female friendships developed in the book. There was some pretty typical romance novel BIG MISUNDERSTANDINGS and roadblocks, stuff that felt a little contrived, to be honest. Stuff of the, “Just pick up your phone!” nature. But I didn’t mind it. Over all there were several parts where I laughed out loud while driving, and both the leads were just so nice and earnest that I was totally rooting for them.
On my Nightstand – These books have all been in progress from my last book post – clearly September has been a slow month for reading.
The Brontes: Wild Genius on the Moors by Juliet Barker- Last chapter! Charlotte’s final book is published posthumously.
You Dream of Empires by Alvaro Enrigue – I really want to just sit down and read this book in one sitting because the chapters are short and I keep losing the narrative thread and forgetting who the characters are. But each chapter is really interesting – I just have no idea how the whole book is tied together.
The History of Women in 101 Objects by Annabell Hirsch- latest chapters: The dance card, Tupperware, the Bikini, Greta Garbo’s Ballpoint pen.
It’s Elementary by Elise Bryant – Overworked mom Mavis is guilted into heading the PTA’s new DEI committee. Then the principal goes missing. I’m only one chapter in, but this book is the lighthearted comedy I need right now.
No attic is complete with out a naked Cabbage Patch Doll!
Here is the Attic currently:
Still lots of stuff, but a lot less!
We (I) tried to use the “No Mess Declutter method” which is, honestly one of those things like “time blocking” where I think… well isn’t that just how people do things anyway? (How is “dedicate blocks of time to work on each task” revolutionary? It totally seems like a productivity bro trying to sell something people (women) have been doing for years…) Anyhow the method is – pick up one thing. Decide if it goes in trash, donate, or has another home in the house. If it’s the two former choices, put it in the correct pile. If it’s the last choice, go put it in that better place. Come back. Pick up another object. Rinse. Repeat. I kind of wanted to avoid taking everything out of the attic and then having it take over the house while we dealt with it. So this method seemed to make sense. It wasn’t perfect – there are definitely meandering piles of things around the house that we are still thinking about – but at least you can walk from one end of the attic to another now.
A lot of our stuff just got moved to a better space in the house, but a lot of it legit left the house. I took five bags of clothes to Goodwill, we put a bunch of stuff out for bulk trash pick up, I took the toddler bed, a stroller, and some more clothes to an organization (A Wider Circle) that helps people furnish their homes. They also have started taking baby supplies and clothes, so any clothes smaller than a size 3 went to Wider Circle. I learned that they also take car seats so three of our four car seats are going there next week too.
Things we got rid of that I’m sad about: -The stroller. We had a fancy stroller – an UppaBaby Vista which we got on super discount because it was the floor model at Buy Buy Baby. The Husband really loved this stroller. It got us through three kids and lasted ten years before the frame broke. It’s been to England. It’s been all over the country. It’s been pushed down stairs. One summer, in the middle of a trip to Dutch Wonderland, the frame just broke. The youngest was almost three at the time and that was when we stopped using strollers. -The twin mattress. It was a crappy mattress, but I feel like maybe I should have tried to take it to Wider Circle rather than leave it for bulk pick up. – And I can’t think of anything else really. Maybe a couple items of baby clothes? Of course there are things that we kept for sentimental reasons that we aren’t quite ready to move out of the house yet. But it’s a process, right?
One thing that felt really cathartic to toss: -breastmilk containers. I had an entire 18 gallon bin full of breastmilk containers and bottles. Why???? I haven’t pumped in three years. I think in my mind I’d find some use for all those teeny tiny bottles. Hah. I put them all in recycling. Bonus: I got an 18 gallon bin back!
Things I’m a little perplexed about, but which will probably just get thrown in the trash: -The stroller attachments – so we put the broken stroller out on the curbe, but we still have all the attachments – the car seat frame, the rumble seat, the scooter board, the bassinet. Most of the this stuff I scoured craigslist (remember that… does anyone use craigslist anymore?) to get. Only we have a Vista v. 1, which they don’t make anymore so our attachments won’t fit current Vista stroller. I’m going to email UppaBaby and see if there is any way these attachments are still useful. I makes me a little sad to just junk it because the attachments weren’t actually used all that much. -Baby bottles. What to do with all these? Do they even sell nipples for these anymore? I might put them on Freecycle to see if anyone wants them. Also this process has hammered home to me how much plastic is involved in having a baby.
One thing that was destined for the trash until a child found it: -my father in law’s briefcase. The 7 year old found it and loves it. He keeps his nerf gun and light saber in it, like some kind of toy mafia gangster or something.
Next stop – the Toy Room….
Picture for accountability
The toy room will definitely be harder because everything in it has some kind of sentimental value for someone. We had thought about doing it without the kids, but I feel like that would some kind of betrayal of the kids’ trust. So we will do it together. Or try.
In other musings – turn of the calendar page to a new month, brings reflection and aspirations.
Side note – I really liked this article about the three types of “ritual days” one should incorporate into their month: -“Get your ducks in a row” day to take care of life admin tasks -“Idle Hands” day without any plans or commitments to unplug and rest and refresh. -“Monthly Recap of the Mind” day to reflect on the last month and plan for anything upcoming. I feel like I take time to do this already, but I could be more mindful about it. I feel like I have moments of each of those days, sometimes all in one day. But I like the idea of purposefully setting dates for each of those things in the calendar and letting each task take the focus for one day (or even 4-8 hours of one day.)
August highlights: – Working on a wonderful show. I’m terrible at lying and when people ask me how a show went, sometimes I give a half grin and say, “It was fiiiiiiiine….” And then you know it was kind of a shit show. BUT – people have been asking me about this last show I worked on and I immediately light up and say, “It was great, really, really great.” And I mean it. – Camping with the two younger kids. -Solo weekend when I went hiking with a friend and to the Cassatt exhibit at the Philadelphia Museum of Art. -meeting up with a friend whom I haven’t seen for five or six years at that Cassatt exhibit. -First day of School! -Visit from my mom and my aunt. -Booking medical check ups and finding out that my uterii are fine. -Peach Truck and other trips to the farmers market for fresh produce. (note to self – do more of this next summer)
August Low Lights: -The 4 year old not getting into kindergarten. Made especially tough to swallow by the tuition increase at her daycare. -Not having time to exercise – I only ran 7 times the whole month. -hemorrhaging money a little bit for back to school things and activities.
September Aspirations – I realize looking back on August’s list that many of these things were on August’s list as well. Home/Family Life: -Declutter-palooza. See above. – Settle into new patterns for the school year. Try to establish some good habits and routines. – Get rid of my car. Clearly I’m making no progress on this since it shows up on this list every month. Micro goal – fill our the paperwork to donate the car to the high school trade program. -Window treatments for the living room. Ditto above. Micro goal: Schedule appointment with the window people. – Do some planning for a day trip to take while in Kuala Lumpur. (I’m feeling a little like we chose Kuala Lumpur too hastily because the parts of Malaysia that people say are worth visiting are outside of Kuala Lumpur, but with only four days, it might be too much for us to try to arrange to visit those places and get in the relaxing time that we want. But then part of me feels like any foreign country is worth seeing, right? I don’t really understand when people say “such and such place isn’t worth visiting.” It sounds so snobbish. The world is bigger than just the top ten sights, right?) -Plan the 4 year old’s birthday party. (The Husband actually has booked the place already – I just have to make the invite and plan the food.) -Make Cheesy bread. When we were visiting my friend in August, she made these really easy gluten-free cheesy buns, which she had learned about on her trip to Brazil. They were delicious. Fall is coming – I want to do more baking! – make 2 vegan dinners a week. -Figure out Hallowe’en costumes. October will be super busy for me, so I want to get this settled as soon as possible. So far, the 7 year old wants to wear his Darth Vader costume again and the 4 year old wants to be a fairy. Not sure about the 12 year old. Is 12 too old to go trick or treating? -Schedule dentist appointments for the kids. -Hike now that the weather is starting to cool off a little maybe I can convince the family to go for a hike. If not, maybe I can go on my own. -Ride the Metro! Our metro station has re-opened after being closed all summer.
Me: – 10 minutes of yoga or strength exercises 5/7 days a week. – run 3/7 days a week – Paint and send two cards. – Blog – goal for 8 posts this month. – Make time to journal and read in the morning. -Schedule eye doctor appointment. -To buy – purse (still), running/sports bras (I currently have three, but I only do laundry every two weeks, so I need more sports bras if I’m to run 3X a week.), a Fall jacket that isn’t my raincoat. -see my friend K. -Museum – maybe not this month, but writing it down so I don’t forget – there’s an exhibit on Impressionism at the National Gallery of Art until January. I want to make sure to go see it. There’s also a couple exhibits at the Freer and Sackler Museums (The Smithsonian’s Asian Art Collections) that look interesting too. There’s also a Lego exhibit at the Building Museum that would be fun with the kids.
Work: -move desks at work. -put all my contracted work dates into the calendar. -update the production assistant guidebook.
Amazing Food Combination Discovery: A little while ago, I wrote about discovering these chocolate quinoa crisps at Costco. Well, last week, I just made them better but spreading peanut butter on them. AMAZING. You’re welcome.
Grateful For: -Cooler weather. Of course I wrote that then we got a row of 80 degree days. The mornings have been cooler at least. I’m excited for fall weather!
-Co-worker M who retired last week. She’s been at the Opera twice as longa s I’ve been there and has been so inspirational to me. She can be firm and gracious at the same time, and always makes sure that everyone is doing okay. There was a farewell party for her at work last week. I hate saying good-bye to people, but I had to tell her how amazing she has been. And she said the kindest thing to me – “You are proof that if you do consistent good work, you can get to the top of your department.” That almost made me cry. She also said she feels like the stage management department is a lot calmer since I took over. I don’t know that that is my doing, but I was so touched that she said that. I made her a card, because I thought she deserved a bouquet of flowers:
I’m really happy with how that purple ribbon turned out. That dark green Venus fly trap-ish leaf at the top, though… what even is that?
-Free dances and a lovely Sunday afternoon. We took the family to a Barn Dance last weekend at Glen Echo park. These are family friendly dances put on by the same group that organizes contra dances. (The Husband and I met at a contra dance at this same park.) Glen Echo is a former amusement park that is now kind of an arts/theatre/music/social dance venue. The Barn Dance takes place in the former Bumper Car Pavilion and it was free. There was a caller, live music and easy social dances. The kids all danced at least two dances and afterwards we went for a carousel ride ($2/ride or $5 to ride all day – one of the best deals in town!). Afterwards we went for ice cream at a new-to-me creamery. I had a scoop of the Guava ice cream and a scoop of the Old Bay Caramel. They were both really really really good. I was skeptical about the Old Bay Caramel, but if you like spice, savory, and sweet all in one – and I do – this might be right up your alley.
Looking Forward To:
-Public transportation. Like I mentioned above, our metro stop was closed all summer, and it has now re-opened. I’m looking forward to taking it places. I even took it to work once last week.
Signs outside the metro station.
-Getting back to work. I’m feeling a little fractured right now – I’m starting to go to work meetings even though rehearsals don’t start for two weeks, so I know enough to know just how much I don’t know. But I’m looking forward to getting back in the swing of things and setting a more regular schedule.
It’s been out for a while, but I haven’t gotten a chance to watch it yet, so I’m putting it on the list. Drama and backstage machinations at a Ren Faire!!!! I’m there for it.
What We Ate: Monday: Grilled Cheese and Apples. This was the day from the last post, when we went to the Renaissance Festival. We got home so late that no one felt like cooking, so we just had something super simple for dinner.
Tuesday: Cheesy Green Chili Bean Bake, from NY Times Cooking. I was looking for a way to used up some poblano peppers I had. This was really tasty. I used black beans instead of pinto because that’s what I had. The 7 year old, when I told him we were having Cheesy beans for dinner opted to make himself a peanut butter and jelly sandwich. But then half way through dinner, he said, “I think I’ll try the cheesy beans.” and he did and he said, “These are good! You didn’t tell me they would be good!” Sigh. (I made cornbread to go with it, but it wasn’t done in time so we just ate it with tortillas)
Wednesday – Eggplant and pork stir fry – the Husband cooked.
Friday: Pizza (take out – tasty but the restaurant is slow) and Glee.
Saturday: Eggs/Leftovers. This was Declutter-palooza day. I kind of forgot to feed the kids this day -the Husband threw together some eggs for them. Thank goodness.
Sunday: Kale pesto and gnocchi (from frozen) and leftover sausage. This was another day where we didn’t have anything planned but I had a little bit of kale leftover from Thursday’s chickpea stew. I’d never made kale pesto before, and was skeptical that the kids would like it, but they did!
How is your week? What have you thrown out lately? How old is too old for Trick or Treating?
A few months ago, when Engie asked me to write a guest post for her blog to help celebrate her twenty years as a blogger, I had so many ideas. Ultimately I chose to write about opera because it’s something I know very well, but this other idea kept knocking around in my head, percolating. So I thought, during this her blogiversary month, what better way to pay tribute to Engie than to write one more post in her honor – a post all about HATS!
I am an unabashed hat person. I love wearing hats. I am not particularly stylish in most of my wardrobe, but I do like the whimsy of wearing a hat. I used to be a scarf person, but those tend to get in the way when I’m working. These days, I don’t feel like my outfit is complete unless I have a hat on. I like how it can complete a basic or spare look. I like how a hat can cover up my hair when I’m having a bad hair day. I like how a hat can protect me from the sun in the summer and the cold in the winter. I like how hats are slightly out of fashion, so it’s a pretty easy way for me to have a unique fashion quirk. Often my hats are what people remember about me. I once was working with a director for the umpteenth time, and on the first day of rehearsal, I ran into them as we were walking down the hall to rehearsal, and they looked at me blankly at first then they got a light of “aha!” in their eyes. “I didn’t recognize you without a hat!” they said. Seriously – I’ve worked with director at least once every year or two for fifteen years.
Then there was the director who forbade me to wear hats in rehearsal. “It makes me feel as if you are ready to pick up and leave,” he said. He was a horrid troll of a man and believe me, I was tempted to many many times.
Imagine how delighted it makes me that Engie looks for hats everywhere – in the wild of life and in the books she reads. So to celebrate her, I’m going to send her an internet flood of hats. Here are twenty hats I’ve worn. (Literally.) I don’t have pictures for all the hats, so you’ll just have to imagine some of them. (Maybe if I get back to my parent’s house I can scan some pictures and update this post). I also had to dig deep into my own shoe boxes of photos to find some of these pictures. I can’t believe I’m about to post college-era photos of me on the internet… Also – how on earth did people take photos and post them on personal blogs (or really any blog) before smartphones? I don’t have a scanner so many of these older pictures are a picture I snapped of the photo. Sorry for the glare. Also- I feel like these pictures make it seem like I’m some kind of international globe trotter, but really it’s just that the majority of pictures I have of myself were taken on vacation over the course of twenty years. I’m pretty sure the Husband has more pictures of me than I do.
Anyhow, here’s the list – 20 (literal) hats I have worn:
1. My dad’s olive green winter toque. I don’t remember this hat, but there are pictures of me as a baby wearing it and it’s freakin’ adorable.
2. White kitty cat hat. When I was a kid, my grandmother (I think) knitted me an adorable winter hat that had cat ears on it. I would always get comments when I wore this hat. Also freakin’ adorable.
3. Blue corduroy cap. When I was in fifth or sixth grade or so, our school participated in a fundraiser for the Canadian Heart Foundation called Jump Rope for Heart. One of the lower level prizes was a blue cap with the Jump Rope for Heart logo on it. I thought this hat was VERY stylish. It might have elevated my baggy sweatshirt and comfy pants look of my pre-teen years.
4. Straw hat with red flowers. One of the first hats I had as a “grown up”, this hat came with me on many adventures. I got this hat in college and wore it until it was in shreds.
My dad and I hiking in Taiwan. You can see a hole already in the brim of the hat.
5. Straw hat with lace band. I bought this hat in Taiwan, when I went after graduating from college. I bought it at a very fancy Taiwanese department store and it felt very grown up to have bought it. I once left this hat in a college dorm while on a Glee Club tour in Puerto Rico. I arrived at the airport, realized I didn’t have the hat, and all on my own took a cab back to the campus to get this hat back. I had never taken a cab on my own before in my life, and I didn’t have enough money to give the driver a tip. Oh I felt so very very un-adult at in that moment. But I got my hat back.
With my friend on that Puerto Rico Glee Club tour.
6. Dark blue Scala cotton sun hat. I bought this hat twenty years ago before going on vacation somewhere. I don’t remember where. This hat is still in rotation and now so faded that it is almost grey. It’s actually a very popular hat – I still see it on people all the time – so I could replace it, even though it’s been at least 15 years since I originally bought it.
Hiking.At Kenilworth Aquatic Gardens which has an amazing water lily display.
7. Electric Blue Sun hat. I got this hat in college. It has also been with me on many adventures and I still wear it. One of the best features of this hat is that it is packable, so I can just squish it up and stuff it in a suitcase.
In my senior year dorm room with my first boyfriend.At the beach when my oldest was five. Check out the ketchup chips!
8. White floppy hat. I don’t have much memory of this hat, but I do have a picture of it. I do remember that I picked it because I wanted a plain hat that I could add my own ribbon to. In this picture I added a green ribbon.
At the Sutro Baths in San Francisco. Circa early 2000s.
9. Red beret with plaid band. I bought this hat from a hat stand in D.C. when I was in college. When I had one of my first internships out of college, I would wear it every single day, and it became somewhat of a signature item for me. I think at the time I thought it was cool to have a signature item that I wore every day. I think now it might be thought of as quirky, even odd and maybe unhygienic. Also unfortunately about the time I was wearing this red beret every day, was a certain incident with a certain intern who was captured in a famous picture hugging a certain U.S. President while she wore a beret. The beret became kind of a loaded item, but I didn’t quite realize that at the time. I lost this hat on a bus home from New York City, and I’ve been sad about it’s loss ever since.
No clue what’s going on here. That time I went to Italy on my own for four weeks to try to learn Italian.
10. Green knit beanie. This hat was given to me by a lady who sang in the chorus of a production of Romeo et Juliette on which I was the Assistant Director in 2004. At the time I didn’t love it because it was so obviously a winter hat, but I kept it and twenty years later it’s one of my favorite hats. I love it because it is easy to wear and adds a splash of color to my outfit. I’ve had people I’ve worked with randomly give me hats – some of them are more practical than others. This green knit cap is very practical. The black 1950s hat that requires a lot of hair and hat pins is not.
When the middle child was just a baby!Herring in Amsterdam.
That little baby a couple years later! One of the more impractical hats I’ve been gifted. People often give me their, “I’m cleaning out my mother’s closet and thought of you” hats. I love them as works of art, but they are not practical to wear.
11. Burgundy velvet bucket hat. I wish I had a picture of this hat. I wore it a lot in my 20s. It was very stylish – I liked a hat with a bit of a brim. But it was also a very hot hat to wear since the lining was made of polyester.
11. Red cap. The Husband bought me this cap early in our relationship. I love the look of it, but it does not stay on my head very well, so I don’t wear it as much as I would like. But I’ve worn it for many family photos and I wore this hat to my wedding.
Our snowy snowy wedding dayFamily Photo with my mom – 2012Family Photo – 2017
12. Red Beret. I don’t think it’s technically a beret, though. This hat was a gift from a friend/ co-worker after I lost the red beret with the plaid band. I still have this one, and wear it frequently since it works well in all seasons. This is the hat that I’m wearing in my headshot. I like red hats.
The youngest when she was just a barely born little squirt.2016- Japan, at a conveyor belt sushi place in Tokyo.
13. Purple knit hat. My aunt in Taiwan mad this hat for me. There is a matching scarf. It is very warm in the winter.
My grandmother and me at a Taipei food court. She was one of the most elegant ladies I’ve ever known.
14. Checked cap. When I got married in 2019, my friend had a bachelorette party in my honor that she called, “Hats off to Diane!” It involved a bar crawl and everyone bringing me a hat. This checked cap is one that still wear a lot. My friend, L, who gave it for me said, “I figured with the red, white, and black pattern it will go with everything.” She was so right.
The oldest took this picture at the Kogod Courtyard.Cherry blossom season! I’m including this picture because it also features another of my favorite hats- the middle kid’s White balls hat.
15. Blue cap with plaid lining. This was one of my first caps that I incorporated into my wardrobe. I liked that it’s brim was tilted up to reveal a blue and yellow plaid lining. A costume lady I once worked with loved this hat so much that she made a pattern of it and made one for herself. It was kind of magical to me that someone could just look at an article of clothing and draft a pattern.
16. Azure blue cap. This is another hat that I wear frequently these days. I can’t remember where or when I got this cap, but I was looking for a hat to replace the above mentioned blue cap with plaid lining. I like wearing this hat these days because it matches my shoes. It was kind of a cheap purchase and the brim’s wire tends to bend and warp out of place, so I do have to periodically straighten it.
Another picture of me dining out with the baby middle kid.
17. Tuba Christmas hat. Almost every year since the Husband and I started dating, we go to MerryTuba Christmas. A couple years ago, we decided that Tuba Christmas would be more fun if we wore swag so we got matching Tuba Christmas hats.. I love this hat so much- it’s slightly ridiculous and keeps my head warm.
Me and the youngest at a selfie stand in the park.
18. My bike helmet. One of the most important hats that I wear.
19. My father in law’s sun hat. My father-in-law was a very practical man. Everything he had was for a purpose and served that purpose very very well. He was also a very prudent and frugal man, so if he bought something you knew it was a quality object. This sun hat of his is definitely that.
The middle kid, hiking during COVID times.At Smithsonian Folklife Festival.
20. Red floppy sun hat. This is my latest addition to my hat collection. I bought it last year on a day to Annapolis with my friend E. I was looking for a new sunhat and my favorite colour is red so this one was perfect.
Trying the hat on in the store. Riding roller coasters at the County Fair last summer.
Well that’s twenty hats. There certainly are more hats I’ve worn in my life, but those were some of the highlights. Also- I don’t know that I ever need to make another post with so many pictures of myself on it ever again…
Now…. Here’s a challenge for you, friends! Do you have a hat in your life? In honor of Engie’s 20th blog anniversary month, find time in September to post about a hat that you’ve also worn so that Engie can continue to find hats in the world!
Well we’re off to the races with the 2024-2025 school year. And a new month. Whew. It was a pretty uneventful first week. The kids went to school. They came home. Extracurricular activities haven’t yet started, and I’m not yet working on a show, so it does feel like we are easing into the new school year.
First day of school celebratory boba run coupled with an Hmart trip.
Right out of the gate, though, the 7th grader’s middle school had their Back to School Night on Thursday. It felt a little soon to have a Back To School Night the fourth day of school, but oh well. I was glad of a chance to go – aside from the school plays and some early pick ups in the office, I haven’t really seen her middle school yet; last year it seemed as if every school event was on an evening when I had to work. At Back to School Night, the majority of the evening had the parents/guardians going to their student’s classes in order, with six minutes in each class and four minutes to get from one period to the other. Each student has seven classes a day, plus advisory and homeroom- down hallways, up stairs, from one end of school to another. I don’t know how the 12 year old manages this every day. I was exhausted by the end of the evening, but it was nice to put faces to the teachers and get a sense of what school is like for her. Last year I found middle school to be a huge black hole – the kid went to school. There were weekly newsletters that came home – all good things though. Once in a while a message from the Principal about an incident, or a form for me to sign. A few times a year, I saw grades. I suppose middle school is just one more step to independence and not knowing what my kid is up to.
My mother and my aunt were still in town most of last week. They had gone to New York City, but came back mid week. We did some less obvious touristy things. One day we went downtown to the Kennedy Center. We didn’t see a show or anything, but it’s just a beautiful building to walk around, and we had lunch at the Cafe on the roof, where there is a wonderful view of DC. There is an exhibit on JFK and his role in the arts. On that day, since we were already in the city, we went to the Portrait Gallery. I mainly picked the Portrait Gallery because it’s an easy metro ride and also I love sitting in its courtyard. There was an exhibit on Hollywood portraits, what I really liked seeing.
One of the portraits was of Merle Oberon, which I found fascinating because I didn’t realize that she was half South Asian. The blurb next to her portrait talked about how she had to hide her mixed race identity because of discrimination. I think of how I have half Asian kids and how it’s kind of no big deal because being mixed race a) is kind of a meaningless term – what is “race” anyhow? and b) is so common these days. I once read a statistic that the majority of kids will be of mixed race in the next ten years. (Or something like that – don’t quote me – it’s one of those statistics that’s stuck in my head, but I don’t remember where I heard it.) So thinking about being a mixed race person when it wasn’t so common and even considered scandalous is one of those things that I find really interesting to read about.
The day after that, we went to The National Museum of Health and Medicine, which is just a mile from my house. It’s a collection of body parts and medical equipment and photos and artifacts and such things related to the human body and how it can fall apart. The collection was started during the Civil War when doctors were encouraged to keep specimens of body parts and what not for research purposes. The most famous thing about it is that it has the bullet that killed Lincoln, along with some of his hair and the bloody cuffs of the doctor who operated on him. I didn’t realize this, but it also has a piece of President Garfield’s spine as well, from when he was shot. I kind of feel like you need to have a very strong stomach and sense of curiosity to go to this museum. It was especially interesting to go to the museum with my aunt who is a physician. She reminisced about her medical school days and pointed out the body parts and organs that were on display and told me all about what they did. The lady is amazing – she is 77 years old and still sees patients three days a week.
How did they even know to save it???
The last day of my Aunt’s visit, we took a trip to Longwood Gardens. What a beautiful riot of summer colour! I’m always glad for a visit to Longwood Gardens.
Labor Day Monday I took the three kids to the Renaissance Festival. I hadn’t originally planned to go over Labor Day weekend, but on Sunday our friends told us they were planning on going the next day, so it seemed like as good a time as any to go. Plus our other weekends in September were going to be full of kids’ activities. We had a great time. We saw the jousting (twice!), fencing shows, acrobats, Shakespeare parodies. We listened to loud feet-stomping, heart expanding music, ate turkey legs, reveled in people watching. The weather was gorgeous – warm and sunny with a breeze at just the right moments. The kids got sticky with melted ice cream and dirty with playground mulch. We laughed and wandered and had an all around great time.
Dressed up in all the layers. You can’t see it, but she’s also wearing fairy wings.
I think I did really well pacing our day. Once I (like Oliver Burkeman says) get used to the idea that you can’t see everything, then I think I could enjoy the things I did see without the sense that I should be somewhere else. I had each of the kids pick one thing they really wanted to do, and then planned around that. The 12 year old wanted to eat fried food, the 7 year old wanted to see the jousting, the 4 year old wanted to ride the pony, I wanted to see shows and laugh. So I looked at the schedule and map and plotted it out as soon as I got there. I picked four shows to anchor our day – 12 noon jousting, 2:00pm Death Scenes from Shakespeare, 3:30p Vixes En Garde, 5pm Piper Jones show. Then in and around we ate turkey legs (side note – these have gotten really expensive! They are now $12 a pop. I guess I’m okay with it, but it’s a little alarming), went to the pirate playground, shopped, and went on the Pony ride. It also helped that we met up with our friends who had three kids, so the older kids could take off together while I stuck with the little kids.
Turkey legs!
Coordinating with my friends was a little difficult at first because with all the mass of humanity at the Ren Faire – and it was very crowded – my cell phone couldn’t find a way to make calls or send text messages. I think next time I need a better, more concrete plan ahead of time of where to meet people. One we met up with my friends, though, I really enjoyed Ren Fairing with friends.
Food on a stick- the 7 year old has sausage, the four year old has mac n cheese.
Oh, and the one thing I was the MOST excited about – they’ve put in water bottle fillers at our Ren Faire! For years, I’ve carted so four full Nalgenes with me to the Faire, because I’m too cheap to pay for water at the Faire. Well this year, there were three water bottle fillers (labelled “drinking water from the well”) Yay. Ren Faire gets better and better every year!
Inspirational Thought of the week: We are due for a huge decluttering effort at our house, so I’ve been listening to Decluttering and organizational podcasts for inspiration. Last week I was listening to A Slob Comes Clean’s episode called “How to Get Motivated” and she said
“There is no way to fail at better.”
Whoa. Her point is that even throwing away one piece of trash makes things better, and as long as you are moving towards “better” no matter how small the steps, you are not failing. I have to remember that when the prospect of decluttering (or anything large) feels overwhelming.
Kid Quote of the Moment: The 7 year old can be a bit of a stubborn grumpy bear. But when something goes the way he wants it too, his delight is unparalleled. His latest catch phrase when something goes well – “Perfection wins again!” I have no idea where he got that phrase from, but it makes me really happy every time he says it.
Grateful For: -School Buses and school bus drivers. Amazingly, the school bus was on time in both the morning and the afternoon last week. Well except for one day when the bus broke down and they had to get a replacement. Even so, the bus ended up only being thirty minutes late, which seems pretty efficient given that they had to go find a whole other bus and driver. So I’m grateful for the school bus and school bud driver that takes my kid to school safely.
-A nice visit with my mom and my aunt. I don’t get to see my aunt very often, so it was lovely to have her stay with us for five nights.
– The kids’ piano teacher. A few weeks ago, while out for a walk with my 12 year old, she said to me, “You know what? Piano is my favorite extracurricular activity!” This made me really happy to hear because she loves music so much but there were a couple of years where we fought a lot about lessons and practicing. I give a lot of credit for this to her piano teacher who is so patient and positive with her but also challenges her.
Looking Forward To:
-Lunch with a friend. I start working on a show in October, with some hours here and there the next couple of weeks, so I want to schedule some fun social weekday things in September before my schedule makes that difficult.
-Planning our trip to Malaysia. On the way to Longwood Gardens, we listened to some podcasts about travel to Malaysia. (I like listening to destination/ travel podcasts for trip inspiration.) It really got me eager to start researching and planning the activities we will do with our four days there. It seems like all the really beautiful beaches are a bit farther than we want to go with just four days, so we’ll probably just stay in Kuala Lumpur.
-September declutter-palooza! As I mentioned above, we’ve decided that September will be a big month for decluttering since I will have a lighter schedule and am home more. The main areas are the attic and the current toy room, which needs to be cleaned out so we can put the guest bed in there and make the guest bedroom into the 12 year old’s room. The 12 year old currently shares a room with her two younger siblings. It’s partly because I can’t wrap my brain around setting up a room for her (so many logistics! Need to buy new furniture!), also partly because I like having all the kids on the same floor as us and giving the 12 year old her own room would mean putting her downstairs. Anyhow – I know I need to just get over this because a 12 year old should not have to share a room with her 7 year old brother and 5 year old sister if she can help it. (Although part of me thinks – my father shared a room with 7 siblings. But he lived in rural Taiwan. Life was different… Everyone looks at me like I’m a horrible mother when I tell them my 12 year old still shares a room with her siblings.) Anyhow, I’m excited about/dreading declutter-palooza. I know our house will be a lot better once we go through things and purge and shift. But… so much work, and I get attached to things. Hence listening to decluttering podcasts for inspiration. Maybe I should document the efforts here for some accountability.
What We Ate:
Monday: Stir fried eggplant with black bean sauce and tofu.
Tuesday: Tortellini with sausage. Fruit on the side.
Wednesday: Grilled chicken drumsticks and cucumber and cabbage noodle salad with black bean sauce.
Thursday: Pasta Salad. This was a kitchen sink meal. We came home on the late side and I didn’t have anything planned, so I chopped a bunch of tomatoes, cucumbers and peppers, and threw them in a bowl with some cooked pasta and canned tuna. Added a red wine vinegar vinegrette. It was much tastier than I thought it would be.
Friday: Pizza (the Husband made) and Young Woman and the Sea, a recent film about Trudy Ederle, who in 1926 was the first woman to swim the English Channel, and she did it faster than any of the men before her. Disney sport movies are always predictably sentimental, and I am a sucker for that. I really liked this movie. I thought the story was inspiring and performances delightful to watch.
Saturday: Dinner out at The Olive Lounge after our trip to Longwood Gardens. I had a really delicious truffle pasta.
Sunday: Burgers and hot dogs and grilled zucchini. We had some friends over to grill- one of those super casual impromptu gatherings that you can have when you know your friends won’t judge you for not cleaning.
Monday: Grilled cheese and fruit. We didn’t get hime from the Ren Faire until almost 8pm so dinner was something quick and easy.
Onward to September!How was your holiday weekend? Have you ever had to share a room with a sibling? Pluses or minuses?
