October 2024 – Life Off Headset

Weekly recap + what we ate: September Review/October Aspirations

I was feeling kind of “meh” about September. We had a big goal of doing a lot of decluttering, but we had one major win (the attic), and one kind of fail (the toy room.) We have a plan for the foyer to manage our shoes and socks and drop zones, but it requires ordering new shoe storage. I’m excited about the shoe storage that we have picked out, but it is pricy, so I’m not sure when we’ll order it. And then on top of it all, the start of school and activities just feels overwhelming – totally my own doing, of course, but it’s stressful.

But when I went to journal about my September, I found there were some highlights tucked in there.

September Highlights:
– My parents came to visit.
-The youngest kid turned five!!! We had cake at home and also a birthday party for her with friends at the small local aquarium.
-The kids and I went to the Renaissance Faire. It was so much fun. I’m glad we went early because it’s been sold out for the rest of the season since mid September.
-Going through the attic and throwing out/donating/ passing along so much stuff. The space that this has opened up is amazing.
-Family Game Night. A wonderful, quieter alternative to big adventures.
-Discovered some tasty food near us – a Balkan restaurant and an Indonesian one.
-The County’s Friendship picnic – tasty falafel and bounce houses.
-On the work front – working a corporate gig (a new to me experience), and doing super titles for a Vocal Recital (familiar gig, nice to return to).
-We found out that the 12 year old got into the children’s chorus for the holiday opera that I’m working on. She was so excited. I took this picture of her reading the offer:

September Lowlights – funny how many of these lowlights are tied to the highlights:
-Trying to figure out the logistics of getting the 12 year old to opera rehearsals. Rehearsals start at 4pm, and that’s kind of a logistical nightmare. She doesn’t start until November, but it’s causing a lot of stress.
-My parents came to visit, but I barely saw them because I was working most nights that they were here.
– Not managing to work through the toy room declutter.
-Not having a chance to go on any hikes or visit any museums all month. This might be the first month all year where I didn’t fit in either a hike or a museum visit.

October Aspirations:
Okay, I had written a big long list for October aspirations, but I think I’ll just whittle it down to a few essentials:
– Survive our schedule, making sure everyone stays fed, rested, and gets where they are scheduled to be. In addition to the kids’ usual activities, the 7 year old is going to be a supernumerary (non-speaking extra) in the opera I’m working on. I might regret signing him up – it will be several late nights and will take thoughtful logistics, but he’s excited to do it, and I’m excited to have him in the show.
-Hallowe’en. I think we have costumes sorted out. I need to make them, but I’ve penciled costume work days into my calendar.
– Another effort on the toy room purge.
-VOTE. This is a big one. Early voting starts in ten days. If I don’t do anything else, I need to do this.
-Remember to hug the Husband and children every day.
-Daily time outside. Even the low bar of the Cool Bloggers Walking Club seems high to me right now, but here’s a reminder to step outside and breath the fall air every day.
-I had a bunch of other aspirations written down – the perpetual “get rid of car” project, planning for our Asia Trip, hike, museum, exercise, no-spend month, social plans… I think those are going on the “really, maybe, probably not this month” list. I’m setting expectations low here.

Other Things This Week:
-Contra-dancing! The Husband suggested we go contra-dancing this week. There is a new-ish contra dance about two miles down the road from us on the second Thursday of the month. The Husband and I met contra-dancing and we used to go several times a month. In our area you used to be able to go to a contra dance on Friday Nights and Sunday nights, and if you were willing to drive to Baltimore, you could also go to one on Saturday nights as well. It’s a pretty popular activity here. The Sunday night dance no longer runs now, thanks COVID. And we also haven’t been for a while, thanks, kids. I don’t think we’ve been since before the 7 year old could walk. Anyhow, the Husband told me about this Thursday night dance and we went, taking all the kids, and we all had such a great time. The music was amazing, the people friendly. There were several people that remembered us from when we used to attend the dance regularly. I laughed, I spun really fast, I moved my feet to the music, I swung my kids around, I made small talk with nice people. It was a really great time.

Blurry screen capture from video the 12 year old took of the Husband and me.

-Good talk with a teacher – One of the kids has been struggling in school so we set up a meeting with the teacher to talk about strategies. I’ve always been a little hands off with my kids’ schools, but this year, I’m realizing that there is a an element of collaboration that is needed – teachers and administrators want to know when kids are struggling, and it’s better to ask the questions rather than assume things will work out. I’ve always felt bad about emailing teachers about issues, and taking their time, but I’m seeing that there is a time and a tone for these communications, especially in the elementary/middle school years. I’m sure high school is a whole different ball game.

-Matching Overalls! We went to Duluth Trading Company on Saturday – the Husband needed some new shirts and pants. I’m doing a casual, no-pressure Buy Nothing month (inspired by Stephany!), so I didn’t buy anything for myself, but I did try on some jeans and they weren’t terrible. I might buy myself a pair in November. I haven’t worn jeans in two years and it’s hard to go back, but they are a really versatile piece of clothing and good for running around backstage. So I will marinate on that. But in the mean time, I couldn’t resist picking up a pair of overalls for the 5 year old. They have a super cute fox print pattern on them. And… the overalls come in adult sizes as well. The 12 year old and I both tried them on together. I was sooooo tempted to buy us all matching overalls, but they are on the pricy side and the 12 year old found a pair of ivory corduroy overalls she liked better, and I decided to resist the temptation and stick to my “no buy” intentions. But look how cute we all are!

-We finally finished watching a TV series! This is very rare for us – we often peter out of energy when watching something together, or if I’m watching something on my own, I am often reluctant to watch the series finale because I don’t want the show to end (I’m looking at you, This is Us). We watched the last episode of Ted Lasso over the weekend. (Though there are rumors of a Season 4…?). The last episode was predictably sentimental and heart-tugging to the point of manipulative, but I kind of loved it. I feel like it’s not “cool” to wear your emotions on your sleeve anymore – there is so much television about people being mean to each other, or being irrevocably lonely, or trying to get ahead, or having terrible things happen, and blood and sex and gore and ironic wise assery. And Ted Lasso’s big hearted optimism is the antidote to that. This last season – sure it was predictable and it seemed like they were box checking plot points, but dammit if there weren’t some genuinely touching moments and I might have been a little teary eyed.

-Bored and Brilliant Challenge. As I mentioned in the last post, I’m trying to work my way through the Bored and Brilliant Challenge – six challenges put together by the podcast New Tech City/ Note to Self in 2015 to help one re-set phone habits. The first challenge was to keep your phone in your pocket (or your bag) when you are in transit. As part of the episode, the host sat on a New York City street and counted how many people walking by were interacting with their phone. Of the 1000 people she counted, 30% of people were interacting with their phones, which actually seems low to me – but the episode was from 2015, so maybe people were less attached to their phones nine years ago? At any rate, one of the main points of this first challenge is how even when you don’t look at your phone, even having it out is a distraction and keeps you from truly connecting – with others, with your surroundings, with yourself.
I’ve been doing this “phone in pocket” challenge, and at the beginning I noticed that I would, out of habit, pull my phone out after work as I walked to my car. This wasn’t great, especially since I often left work late at night when it was dark out. But it was also something that I wasn’t even thinking about. What was interesting to me about this challenge, too, is that one would think that a behavior that requires effort (pulling out one’s phone) comes against more friction than something that requires no effort (leaving the phone in my bag). But that itch to check my phone – the discomfort of being bored – clearly was winning out over the inertia of leaving the phone in my bag. So when I started finding myself reaching for my phone while walking or in the car or wanting to take it with me when I walked down the hall to talk to someone at work, I tried to acknowledge the discomfort of being bored, the urge of wanting to be entertained, and sat with that a little bit. Like seriously, what is so boring about walking to the car that I feel like I need to be looking at my phone? I’m sure there are scientific studies that look at how the brain processes content from the phone vs. other inputs. Maybe this “challenge” will just become a habit.

Challenge #2 is to have a Photo Free Day, where you don’t use your phone yo take any pictures for a whole day. I do like to take pictures to remember things, and capture moments. Will report back on how this challenge goes.

Grateful For:
-Walking trails to school. Twice last week, I drove the 7 year old and his friend to school. The first time, was because we missed the bus, so I drove and parked along the trail that goes to the school and we walked the rest of the way – I kind of loathe sitting in the carpool line and thought this would be nicer. The 7 year old said to me, “It’s nice to start the day with a walk!” So on Friday, I asked if he wanted to walk to school again, and he did, so we once again parked on the trail and walked up to the school. I’m grateful that for living in a pretty urban suburb, there are still lots of ways to walk.

-Being home for dinner. Opera season is starting for me, which means a lot of nights and weekends. I’m grateful when I get the evening off and can be home for dinner. I love family dinners.

-Parks and playgrounds. On Saturday, the 12 year old had a birthday party. It was about 25-30 minutes away from home, and we didn’t think it would be efficient to drop off then return, so we took the opportunity to go grocery shopping and to take the two little kids to a playground. I feel so lucky that there are so many parks and playgrounds in our area. You can often find one (or two or three) within a 10 or 15 minute drive of wherever you are in our part of our county. So if ever we need to kill some time, going to a playground is usually a good solution. I’m also grateful that the kids still like playgrounds.

-Not quite getting rid of my car yet. Our van had to go into the shop and we were down one car for a week, so I ended up driving my 20 year old car while my husband drove the Impreza until the van was fixed. I know we are lucky to have three cars for situations like this – even if one car is 12 years old and the other car is 20 years old. Part of me thinks, maybe we don’t need to get rid of my car – it’s good to have an extra car for instances like this. But it is silly and expensive and hard to justify keeping a third car for emergencies when we live a 10 minute walk to public transportation.

Looking forward to:
-Hallowe’en. I’m not working on Hallowe’en this year, so I get to take the kids trick or treating. The costumes have all been chosen. There were some last minute changes, but I stuck firm that I wasn’t making different Hallowe’en costumes, so any changes had to be able to be sourced/purchased.

-Starting rehearsals. We’ve been prepping for the start of rehearsals. It’s always exciting to learn a new score and wrap my brain around new sets and costumes (well, new to me – the costumes are rented and the set takes parts of previous shows and uses them together). At a certain point, however, I am itching to move from the show being in my head to see how it is going to get up on its feet, to see what the singers and creative team is like, to hear the music sung by real live people.

-Soup Party! I’ve organized a soup party for my department at work. I’m excited – and the weather is just starting to turn chilly enough for soup weather. I think I’ll make Chinese corn soup – it’s easy to put together and very tasty. Not sure if I’ll make it vegan (tofu instead of eggs).

-Just started these two books:

In busy seasons, I try to find books that are fun to read and engagingly written right off the bat, and these two books are that, in very different ways. One is about navigating puberty- it gives the science behind the changes that happen and also gives ideas on how to kids about the changes in a wonderfully non-judgmental way.. The other book is a love story that straddles two eras.

What We Ate:
Monday: Pasta Salad. Made before I went to work in the afternoon. Jenny Rosenstrach’s marinated beans, pasta, cucumbers, tomatoes, peppers. Vegan.

Tuesday: Soba and herb salad with roasted eggplants and plums. This was simpler than it sounds, but boy was it tasty. I ate it for leftovers the rest of the week. Vegan.

Wednesday: Leftover pizza from the 5 year old’s birthday party.

Thursday: Leftovers

Friday: pizza (take out) and Glee

Saturday: The 12 year old was at a birthday party. The husband and I weren’t terribly hungry after a big lunch, so we didn’t eat, but we did buy the two little kids a sandwich to split from the grocery store.

Sunday: Leftovers for me. Yogurt with berries and honey. Toast (again) – PB&J on English muffins for one kid, melted cheese on English muffins for the other kid. Cut up veggies on the side.

How is your October going so far?

(bi)Weekly recap + what we ate: Needs met, then unmet

Sometimes my writing schedule gets off and then I realize it’s been two weeks since and update even though my last post was just last week. Time can be funny like that…

I recently read this beautiful poem : I Remember the Carrots by Ada Limon. It starts with the lines:

I haven’t given up on trying to live a good life,
a really good one even, sitting in the kitchen
in Kentucky, imagining how agreeable I’ll be—
the advance of fulfillment, and of desire—
all these needs met, then unmet again.

Those words- “all these needs met, then unmet again.” has stuck with me. I’ve been thinking lately with regards to many things, work and life. In regards ot work, how there will never be a perfect system. We go through reorganizations and departmental changes, each time hoping that this is the optimal way to run things, but it is never a forever solution. People come and go and bring different talents, fill different holes with their different strengths. Different stressors come up, different duties, tasks to be done. You check the boxes then more things come up on the list. So there is no ultimate system, just a meeting today’s needs.

And in other parts of life – we adjust our lives and patterns to meet needs and then before we know it, things shift and once again there are unmet needs. Kids too. And oneself. Feed ourselves until we are no longer hungry, but then we will be hungry again. File the paperwork so that we get that insurance reimbursement then we have to go to the doctor again. But also things like, tell someone you love them, and then tell them again, because we can continue to meet that need of those around us to be loved. It is an exhausting cycle to think about. But also – there is some wonder in the thought that we can meet needs, that perhaps this is life’ work – to continue to meet needs – physical and emotional. Perhaps that’s the “good life” of the poem?

So along those lines –

It was a really busy few weeks for me. What week isn’t? (Side note – One of my favorite quotes is from an essay by Ursula Le Guin, who, when asked what she does in her spare time, says:
“In my case I still don’t know what spare time is because all my time is occupied. It always has been and it is now. It’s occupied by living.”
I never want to imply that the things that occupy my life and make my life feel frantic, this busyness of a hamster wheel that I feel stuck in sometimes – I would never want to imply that my personal busyness is morally superior than that which occupies anyone else’s time – we all of us occupy our time by living. When did being busy become a virtue? Or is that just the narrative I’ve internalized somewhere? )

Anyhow, the week before last, I took on an event gig, which required me to be at work at 8am. I know many people show up at work at 8am (or even earlier!), and props to them. 8am is a whole new world for me. I basically wake up at 6:00am, eat breakfast, pack lunches, get dressed and leave for work by 7:00am. It feels so much more efficient than my typical mornings which stretch longer (6:45am wake up to 8:50am leave for school bus) and where all those things seem to take up two hours rather than one. I mean, I do sometimes get a yoga stretch in, a bit or reading, a moment to journal. Or sometimes those stretches are occupied by looking for permission slips, or socks, or prepping dinner, or when I’m lucky a couch cuddle with a kid and a picture book. A 7am out the door, however, does not allow for those extra things, though.

The event was a two day affair, a symposium on mental health, and it went pretty smoothly. I was there mostly to help out the stage manager that the producing organization brought, facilitating communication with the crew. There was a lot of setting water glasses onstage and chairs and side tables for the different panels and speakers. Events are interesting to me because the stakes feel so high since you only get one go at it, but also at the same time you only get one try at it, often with minimal/no rehearsal, so the stakes somehow simultaneously feel oddly low. Like you just have to do the best you can to get people where they need to be when they need to be there and if it isn’t 100% smooth, it’s very rarely your fault. Event work is good money, to be honest, and I know many people who just do event work for a living.

But… I think I would miss rehearsal. I like going to rehearsal and creating something and being part of that process. I like taking a hundred people and stirring them all together to make a story onstage. I like watching artists discover how they tell stories and doing my part to make that story happen. And I like working somewhere where I know whom I’m working with and I don’t have to wonder if so and so is going to show up or if they have to cancel at the last minute to testify before congress. Or we have to re-arrange the PowerPoint last minute because the speaker cancelled. There is certainly a thrilling rush of adrenaline to work under the fast paced scenario of an event, but I think it would be exhausting to do that every. single. gig. Maybe I’m too comfortable where I am?

Which, on that note, I did finally move my cubicle at work, so I guess that’s a step towards discomfort. I’d been putting this off since I don’t like change and have been sitting at my original desk for almost twenty years. But someone pointed out that the desk of my predecessor in the Production Stage Manager role was probably better suited for, well, being the PSM since it was in a corner and was bigger and had a couch for sitting and chatting, which is something that happens more now that I have more work responsibilities. I’d delayed and delayed but then we were all getting new computers at work, so I figured it was as good a time as any to move cubicles. I don’t love it – I can’t see when people are in the office because of the way the cubicle walls are set up, but maybe I can move the cubicle walls.

Other fun things:
– Family game night. We often have pizza and movie on Fridays, and sometimes also on Saturdays as well. One week, though, the 7 year old demanded game night. So we had a Saturday game night. Everyone had different ideas for what they wanted to do, so we did all of it – we started by playing King of Tokyo, then we spent some time playing with the marble run and building domino topplings (is that a word?), and then we ended the evening by playing Uno. It was a great time – even with some sore losing and sore winning antics. I’m hopeful we’ll do more game nights.

You can sort of see the 12 year old in the chair at the top of the picture – she’s listening to an audiobook with her earphones on. But hey, she’s in the same room as the rest of us, so it’s still family time, right?

-FIVE! The youngest officially turned five. (Despite the unicorn cake of the last post, her birthday wasn’t until the next day.) They don’t get any younger, I suppose. This past weekend we had her birthday party at a nearby aquarium. It’s a small aquarium mostly focused on local marine life, with one room of tanks and then a huge play space outside. The kids got a tour of all the fish, and got to feed some of them, and also touch some of the animals in the touch tank. Then there was pizza and snacks and cupcakes and play time. I feel like 90% of the reason the 5 year old wanted to have the party at the aquarium was that the outdoor play space is in the shape of a pirate ship.

-No School Day/ Car Free Day. The two older kids had last Thursday off school for Rosh Hashanah. (I mean the calendar doesn’t say that – it just says Non-Instructional Day, but the school calendar doesn’t call it Christmas Break either…) It’s my last no school day with the kids for a while, and I wanted to have an adventure, but the 12 year old was reluctant to visit a museum or go on a hike (the two things I would have done), so we stayed close to home and it ended up being mostly a lovely day. In the morning we “ran” to a cafe and had special drinks and pastries. The run was the 7 year old’s idea. It was a very slow run, punctuated by much walking, but I think both kids felt good about it. At one point, the 7 year old was losing steam and the 12 year old grabbed his hand to encourage him along, telling him we just needed to make it to the next light.

We shared earbuds and listened to musical theatre soundtracks, singing along at the top of our lungs, which got a lot of smiles from other people on the path. After our special drinks and pastries, we walked home (still singing loudly) and had lunch. At some point during the walk home, I had it in my head that I wanted to have a car-free day. So after lunch, we took the metro to my work as an exercise for the 12 year old on how to take the metro on her own. I mean we were with her, but I had her lead the way. Then we went to the library near work, got some books – including Dogman books in French (Super-Chien!) – and then came home. The rest of the day, I baked Brazilian Cheesy Bread and brownies and we watched some tv as a family. It was a pretty low key day, but it was nice to spend time with the two big kids.

Side note: the library we went to was a DC Library, which we don’t often go to since we live in Maryland. I snapped this photo for their Busy Person’s Book Club- I love that idea.

-a new Costco snack. I went to Costco to pick up food for the 5 year old’s birthday party, hoping to also grab another bag of those Chocolate Quinoa Crisps, but they were no where to be found!!!!! Typical of Costco to lure me in with a fabulous snack and then not carry it any more. No worries! Costco does not lack for snacks, and I found a new one – These crunchy savory rice cakes – all my favorite Thai food flavor profiles in a bite sized morsel!

One Not Fun Thing:
-The decluttering has kind of hit a roadblock. I gave away the kids’ play tent on Freecycle. Several mistakes here – I should have double triple checked that they were okay with my giving it away, even though they said okay initially – but the biggest one was giving it away while the youngest was at home. There were tear. So many tears. Heart-wrenching sobs. Our youngest kid is perhaps our most pragmatic child and is the least likely to get upset or feed into melodrama. So when she does get upset, it feels so so heart-breaking. Anyhow, I feel terrible about giving away the tent now and am kind of petrified of giving away anymore toys from the toy room. So much for the toy room purge progress. This definitely needs to get back on track, though.

Two OMG things that I’m probably the last person on earth to have discovered:
– Shaking out the floor mats. Every Wednesday morning, I take the kids to piano lessons. While the 12 year old has lessons, I go get gas. I’ve gotten in the habit of throwing out the trash while I pump gas, and it’s such a simple way to keep the car tidy. Well lately, I’ve also been shaking out the floor mats as well, and what a difference that makes! Vacuuming the car seems like a lot of work, but shaking out the floor mats? With a quick flick, i get rid off all the grass and dirt and what not and the car looks almost like I vacuumed, even though under the floor mat is still covered in grass and dirt and whatnot. I guess this isn’t earth shattering, and I don’t know why it had never occurred to me before to do this, but it makes a huge difference.

-USB plugs! Despite using a computer almost every day of my life for the past thirty years, and having to plug in and unplug USB plugs, and often plugging them in upside down and getting frustrated and wondering if I was missing something – well, you know what? I was missing something. USB plugs are marked! The marked part of the plug is the top. What???? I feel like such an idiot not to have known this. I’ll never try to plug in a mouse upside down again.

Grateful For:

-Flowers in the front walk- a splash of colour during a grey week. The sun has come out now, but last week was so grey and drizzly. Coming home in the rain, I just wanted to rush into the house, but the purple flowers that line our front walk, poking their heads out reminded me to take a moment and savor beautiful things.

-The Husband booking the 5 year olds’ birthday party venue. I will admit I am not a birthday person. Witness the 7 year old not getting a party last year because I just couldn’t get it together. So this year for the youngest kid’s birthday, the Husband took it up on himself to research venues, run the options by the 5 year old, and then book the venue she picked. Done. Once a venue is booked, I’m good at food and other logistics. It’s that first push of the boulder that I’m not good at.

-The guy (D) who comes and fixes things for us. I am not a DIY/ Fix it myself kind of person. I might paint a room, and I have changed a light switch, and I did tile the basement of our first house. But in general, while I like the idea of doing my own DIY projects, I wouldn’t work on a timeline that is acceptable to other people in the house. Enter D, who comes in and will do both small and large jobs for us. He is careful and also honest – if something isn’t in his wheelhouse, he’ll tell us rather than try to figure it out. Anyhow, he was here to paint our new front door, and he’s done such a smooth job that every time I close the front door, I give it door an extra stroke because it’s just so glossy and pretty. He also replaced a light fixture in the kids’ room – I had always hated the fixture that was in the room when we moved it – everything was always so dark. Oh also installed a new medicine cabinet. Now the room is full of light. I’m grateful to D for making out home nicer bit by bit.

Looking Forward To:
-Starting a new opera. This week I’ll start prep for my next show. I’m excited to get back to a rehearsal room, but also kind of dreading it. The calendar is very full these next few months and I get overwhelmed thinking about it. One week, one day, one hour at a time, I suppose.

-Going contra dancing! The Husband sent me a link to a contradance that is ten minutes away and suggested that we go. It’s on a Thursday night and there are a million reasons we shouldn’t go – we haven’t been contra-dancing in years, and it might be a disastrously late night for everyone, the kids might hate it – but I’m looking forward to going. The Husband and I met at a contradance, so there’s a special place in my heart for dancing.

-re-setting my phone habits. I was listening to this 2015 episode of Note To Self with Sherry Turkle where she talks about how the mere presence of one’s phone is a huge distraction and I do find that it’s true for me. There are for sure things that I find valuable from having my phone, but also lots that just makes me fell sluggish. I want to be more thoughtful about how my phone plays in my life, so I’m trying this Bored and Brilliant challenge to re-set some habits. It’s supposed to be a 7 day challenge, but some of the challenges I think I’ll do more more than one day. The first challenge was to put one’s phone away while in transit – while driving, walking, on public transportation – and I’m trying to make that a longer habit. I think my goal is not necessarily to reduce time on my phone, but to reduce the number of times I pick up my phone.

– We started this tv show:

It’s sharply hilarious and skewers everyone on the political spectrum, as one might expect of a show about a gay public high school teacher in a school in Austin, TX. As I have a kid who is spitting distance to high school, this show fills me with dread and hope.

What We Ate (two weeks’ worth): I’m going to be real honest. I don’t know what the family ate while I worked the event. Upshot they were fed. Thank you to the Husband and my mother. We’re going into full on opera season, so I want to start thinking through more meals that can be made ahead or that the husband can make quickly.

Monday: Chicken wings and green beans. These are my mother’s chicken wings that the kids always ask her to make. It involves marinating the wings in garlic and soy sauce, pan frying and then baking with honey and more garlic. I could eat a whole panful by myself. Here’s the recipe:

Tuesday: no clue

Wednesday: no idea.

Thursday: Zucchini boats. The Husband cooked. Zucchini stuffed with ground turkey and topped with cheese. I told the seven year old to label the leftovers:

Friday: Pizza (take out) and Glee

Saturday: Toast. We had a lot going on this weekend and we wanted to make sure we had time for game night, so we had the ultimate simple supper. Toast. Some of us had toast and peanut butter, some had toast and jam. There was probably fruit and cut up veggies to go with, but I can’t be sure.

Sunday: Toast again. It was that kind of weekend.

Monday: Sandwiches (grilled cheese) and leftovers. Monday is very activity heavy so we usually have soup or sandwiches on Monday.

Tuesday: Eggplant Dan Dan Noodles, a Hetty Lui McKinnon recipe from the New York Times. Tasty and surprisingly fast, using Japanese eggplant from the farmer’s market. I added tofu, just fried it the same as the eggplant. VEgan.

Wednesday: Lemony White Bean Soup with Turkey and Greens from the NY Times Cooking site. This was really tasty – I started it on teh stove and the finished it in the InstantPot so it would be ready to eat when we got back from gymnastics. I didn’t have ground turkey, but in an effort to clean out our freezer, I took some chicken breasts and chopped it in the food processor. I also chopped up the chayote squash that came in our Hungry Harvest box and which had been confounding me, and threw that in too. After dinner, there was only two or three servings left, so I added another can of beans, a quart of chicken broth and the leftover ground turkey from the zucchini boats, cooked it in the InstantPot for another 15 minutes and then presto! had soup to go into the freezer for a quick leftover meal later this month.

Thursday: Chickpea Sweet Potato Stew when I read this recipe on Suzanne’s site, I immediately screenshot it to make since I had some sweet potatoes to use up. The twelve year old and I thought this was delicious. The rest of the family didn’t love it. The Husband doesn’t like too much coconut milk in his food. Maybe if I had made it with chicken they would have liked it more.

Friday: Pizza (take out) and Rush Hour. I had never seen this movie before, and it was very entertaining. For those who are unfamiliar, Rush Hour is a buddy cop movie featuring Jackie Chan as a police officer from China who comes to China when his bosses daughter is kidnapped, and gets paired with a Black LAPD officer played by Chris Tucker to solve the case. I was kind of afraid before we watched that there would be cringe-y Asian stereotypes in it, something that I’m kind of sensitive to the kids seeing. (I had to turn off All Dogs Go To Heaven within the first ten minutes because my kids really don’t need to see a buck toothed slanty eyed dog from “Siam”. Same reason I’ll probably not show my kids Breakfast at Tiffany’s any time soon, even though Audrey Hepburn is sublime in that movie. I wouldn’t say “never” but there would have to be some conversations first.) But Rush Hour was surprisingly free of bad Asian stereotypes and racist jokes. There were definitely “race” jokes, but I do think there’s a fine line between jokes about race and jokes that are racist. And the whole Black Cop/ Asian Cop thing – I don’t know if my kids will ever get how really cool and revolutionary that pairing of Chris Tucker and Jackie Chan was. Also -now I want to show them Shaolin Soccer.

Saturday: Leftovers and Bahn mi sandwiches. (I worked this evening)

Sunday: Pizza leftover from the 5 year old’s birthday party. I brought way too much food to the party, but it’s not a bad thing because now I have fruit salad and cut up veggies and chip and guac to last all week. And pizza. I froze one whole pizza for later – I’ve never done this, so I’m excited to try it out.

And now we are into October. Fall and Hallowe’en and all the things! And then the slide into the end of the year. Hope you are having a lovely week, that you are staying safe and dry where you are.

Weekly recap + what we ate: Where I went

First off – I hope people who were in Hurricane Helene’s path are doing okay. My friend’s parents are in North Carolina and luckily they are fine, but there are so many around them who are facing enormous challenges. The devastation is huge and heartbreaking.

We did not do any decluttering last week (though now two weeks ago – you know when you write a post and it kind of sits in your folder because you don’t have time to finish it? Yeah… that was the past couple of days. Which means there will probably be another weekly recap post less than a week after this one) Anyhow, decluttering took a backseat because my parents came into town and I had to work most of Sunday. But for the upcoming week, things on my list:

-List toys on freecycle that we are going to get rid of.
-Take car seats to Wider Circle [note – this is done!]
-Find seam ripper and deal with purple Fort cushions
-Sit in the toy room and imagine what it would take to make it functional
-Maybe tackle the mess under the console table in my bedroom.

We did clean out a large chunk of the fridge- the jars of random condiments, dressings, pickles, kimchi…. It was a little concerning some of the things I found. It seems as if somethings never go bad- I’m looking at you, cranberry relish from Thanksgiving. Though I feel like there was some fermentation happening. Also I have a lot of jars of sourdough starter. Maybe I need to see if there is still life there. I think I need to also do a freezer clean out soon too and eat it down a little.

While I contemplate those things, I thought I’d write another account of where I went this past week. I did this once last Spring, when I was prepping for a show. It’s an interesting journaling technique I read about, which is exactly what it sounds like – recording where I went – and I thought it would be interesting to see what I’m doing now in one of my slower work periods- I’m on a 20 hour per week contract right now.

Monday
8:55am home –> School bus drop off (4 mins)
9:15am school bus drop –> friends’ house. Their kids were sick and I went over to hang out for a little bit with their kids since my friends had to be at work. (5 mins)
2:00pm friends’ house –> trail for a run (3 min drive + 25 min run)
2:30apm trail –> Library to drop off books (10 mins)
3:00pm library –> home (10 mins)
4:00pm home –> pick up 4 year old from daycare –> home again (10 minute walk x 2)
6:45pm home –>12 year old’s basketball clinic the –> home. The gym is walking distance, so I like to have her walk when possible. When she is reluctant, I offer the inducement of going with her and listening to our audiobook together. Right now we’re listening to Permanent Record by Mary H. K. Choi. (15 mins x2)

Tuesday
8:55am home –> school bus drop off (4 mins)
9:3oam school bus drop off –> Target (pick up deodorant and shaving cream) (10 mins)
10:15am Target –> Library –> home (yes! Twice in one week! I had an exciting hold come in, see below) (5 mins/ 15 mins)
11:30am home –> work (15 mins)
7:30pm work –> home (15 mins)

Wednesday
7:05am home —> piano lessons (7 mins)
7:15am piano lessons —> gas station —> bagels shop —> back to piano lessons (25 mins)
7:45am piano lessons —> middle school —> piano lessons (20 mins)
8:20am piano lessons —> home (7 mins)
9:00am home —> bus stop (4 mins)
9:30 am bus stop –> trail –> run/walk (3 mins drive/ 25 min run/ 20 min walk)
10:30am trail –> Hmart to pick up groceries for dinner (10 mins)
11:30am Hmart –> home (10 mins)
12:30pm home –> work (15 mins)
3:00pm work –> pick up 4 year old –> gymnastics class (30 mins)
4:30pm gymnastics –> home (10 mins)
5:30pm home –> work (15 mins)
10:30pm work –> home (15 mins)
THAT WAS A LONG DAY!

Thursday
9:00am home —> school bus stop (4 mins)
9:20am school bus stop -> home (4 mins)
11:30am Home —> work (bike, 25 mins)
3:30pm Work —> home (bike 30 mins)
6:50pm Home—> friend’s house to drop off the two little kids so we can go to —> back to school night at 7 year old’s school (20 mins)
8:30pm school —> friend to pick up littles —> home (20 mins)

Friday
9:00 am home —> school bus (4 mins)
9:20 am school bus —> work (15 mins)
3:50pm work —> 7 year old’s school – he missed his afternoon bus home (10 mins)
4:10 pm school —> home (10 mins)
5:45pm home —> grocery store, to pick up supplies to make a cake (meanwhile, the Husband and the 7 year old went to sewing class) (10 mins)
6:30pm grocery store —> home for the night. (10 mins)

Saturday
10:30a: home —> 7 year olds’s soccer game (15 mins)
12:15pm Soccer game —> home (15 mins)
5:30pm Home —> airport to pick up my parents, or rather cell phone lot. (40 mins)
6:15pm Cell phone lot —> arrivals —> silver diner for dinner (20 mins)
8:15pm Silver Diner —> home (30 mins)

Sunday –
8:55pm Home —> agility class for four year old (15 mins)
10:00am Agility class —> home (15 mins)
11:00a home —> work (15 mins)
11:15am- work —> farmer’s market nearby (5 minute walk)
11:45 am farmer’s market —> work (5 min walk)
3:00pm- work —> coffee run —> back to work (25 min walk)
6:00pm work —> home (20 min drive)

Thoughts from this week’s account of going places: Not a lot of driving this week for myself – just mostly to the bus stop and to work. I’m glad I live near our rehearsal studios and that my commute is usually 15-20 minutes. Proximity is also key for kids’ activities – no activity is more than 15/20 minutes away. My friend’s kid got placed on a soccer team that practices 30 minutes away on a weekday afternoon- getting on the beltway at rush hour would get tiresome really fast.
-That’s 3.5 hours in the car this week. Not bad. that’s 2% of my week. The less time I have to spend in my car, the better.
-I’m glad I got to get on my bike and did some walking.
-For a week on a reduced work schedule I went into work 4 out of 7 days, which feels like a lot. I’m still trying to figure out if I need to find a better rhythm when I have 20 hour weeks – like do I need to work from home more? Do I need to be more efficient with my hours? But each week is unique – different meetings and things to cover, so it’s hard to have a set consistent schedule. (Which reminds me, I need to remove my Out of Office message from this summer…)
-I find having to run errands irksome – Target, grocery store, etc. But I also don’t love constantly ordering from Amazon. Why do we always need stuff?
-We live pretty close to three airports, but I always prefer picking up people at BWI because it’s the simplest to get to. DCA is close to the city so the traffic patterns can be funky, and Dulles has waaaaaay too much traffic to get there. On paper it looks 30 minutes away, but in reality it can take up to an hour. I like picking people up/ dropping them off at the airport whenever we can – I love seeing them on the curb waiting, I love that first happy wave and hug, I love the sense of arrival. Though I’m always reminded of the scene in When Harry Met Sally… where Harry says he never takes people to the airport at the beginning of a relationship because he never wants to get to the stage where they say, “How come you never take me to the airport anymore?” Even in this age of Uber, Lyft, and public transportation, that sentiment still feels applicable today.

Creative project of the week: I baked a cake! I had to work on the youngest kids’ birthday, so we celebrated the night before. She wanted a unicorn cake. The Husband works next to a store that sells cake and cookie decorating supplies, so he popped over there to see if they had unicorn figurines or sprinkles or anything that we could put on a cake. The people who run the shop are very creative and helpful and love to give advice. From the store, the Husband texted me these pictures:

I’ve never done a shaped cake before, so I was a little skeptical, but I decided to give it a go anyway. The 4 (now 5!) year old helped to make the cake, and even though we lost a small chunk of cake as it came out of the pan, I just stuck the chunk back on and frosted away. I was going to pipe the decorations, but by the time I started it was late so I instead really leaned into using the sprinkles:

Interesting podcast episode that I listened to: This episode of House Calls where Surgeon General Vivek Murthy interviews Adam Grant, and organizational psychologist who specializes in work place culture. I listened to this book while mowing the lawn. There was one part that was a little off-putting where Grant talks about finding ways to admit mistakes and be vulnerable at work, and in a lot of ways, I think this is a luxury men are afforded more than women. Why can men admit mistakes and it comes across as being strong but when women do it, it’s perceived as flaky? Is it a tone thing? or an attitude thing? Or my own preconceptions? Not sure on that one…

But aside from that I thought it was was great episode. Grant talks about defining success as process and values based rather than product or achievement based – I thought that was a great point. And about half way through the episode, a really interesting conversation about parenting evolved. Grant talks a lot about getting your children’s buy in. I really liked his suggestion of asking your kids for advice as a way to make them feel important. I’ve started doing this sometimes and I’m surprised by how direct their solutions can be. Usually they say something like, “Do something else.” Inspired by that episode, though, I talked to the Husband and I think we want to implement weekly family meetings. A time for everyone to look at the week ahead and know where everyone is going and see if anyone has any larger family topics to bring up.

When my aunt was visiting a few weeks ago, she made the comment about how nice it was that everyone has a chance to speak at our dinner table. She was referencing how we go around at most dinners and everyone says their Rose, Buds, and Thorns. (ie something good, something they’re looking forward to, and something hard.) My aunt said when her kids were little, they weren’t allowed to speak at the dinner table – they lived with her in laws and dinner was a time for the matriarch of the family to pontificate on what a good family they are and tell the kids how important it was for them to do well in school and activities. So I guess the idea of my kids all getting a turn to speak was novel to my aunt. Dinner is certainly a loud and unchecked affair at our house. There is talking and shouting and getting up and sitting in laps (still)… I don’t know… I kind of love it, this communal chaos. I mean maybe not 100% of the time – sometimes I do just want them to sit down and eat dinner – that’s when we have silent eating time – but I miss out on so many dinners because of my work schedule that I feel like when I can be home for dinner, I want it to feel like a time where we can share and bond. With everyone’s different activities and stresses, I think we will only feel more fractured as a family as the kids get older, so I want to put in structures and routines now – dinner rituals, family meetings, pizza and movie nights – that can feel grounding.

Grateful For
– My parents coming to visit. They are so good about entertaining the kids.

-School adjacent activities. The 12 year old joined the cross country team and the 7 year old is taking programming classes after school. I love that they get to fit in extracurriculars that they can go to straight after school, and I don’t have to drive them. I feel lucky that we live somewhere where they have these opportunities.

– All of you who validated my high school feelings about the preschool WhatsApp group last week. I’m glad I have a place to vent these stressors. So it turns out that the invite to the party went to the whole Whatsapp group the week before I joined, so I guess if I had joined the group earlier, my child would have been invited to the party. So it wasn’t purposefully excluding my kids. I think I’m still trying to figure out if there is anything of value in staying in the group. I do believe in parenting as a community and that we can all support each other, but is being in this group the way to do it?

Looking forward to:
-A new month! It’s October! I feel like after Hallowe’en begins the slow slide towards the end of the year, so October is my one month to enjoy fall. It’s also a really buys time work-wise. I’ve seen some trees with leaves tipped in red and gold already, and on the one hand I feel like it’s too soon, but on the other hand I can’t wait to see all the beautiful fall colour.

-The (now) 5 year old’s birthday party. By the time we got around to booking a place, the only time slots were two weeks after her birthday. Oh well. I’m hoping to keep it super simple – pizza, cake, snacks, fruit, applesauce pouches, juice, and water. Maybe something for the grown ups to snack on too? The party is from 3p-5pm, so hearty snacks are definitely in order. The venue doesn’t allow balloons, so I’m taking this as an opportunity to eschew decor.

-Reading this book, the sequel to The House in The Cerulean Sea.

I loved The House in The Cerulean Sea so much. Some might accuse it of being a slight bit twee, but it was one of my favorite reads the year that it came out. I got a notification from the library that my hold for this book, its sequel, had come in. I had put a hold on this book the moment I could, even before it was released, but even still, I was surprised that my copy had come in so quickly. I went to the library to pick it up, only to discover that I had accidentally put the audiobook on hold, not the paper book. There was a case of CDs waiting for me on my holds shelf. Oh no. I knew the waitlist for this book would be on the longer side, so I sighed sadly and took the book back to the check out desk and asked if they could take the CDs back and put me on the holds list for the book. The librarian looked up the book.
“You know,” he said, pointing behind me, “This book might be over there on the Lucky Day shelf.” The Lucky Day shelf is for books that you can borrow for just three weeks, with no renewal period.
I walked over, and yes, indeed! There was a brand new shiny copy of the book. I might have squealed with delight as I went to check it out. Next to me at the self check out, a man looked at me knowingly and said, “Isn’t it the best feeling when the exact book you want is on the shelf?”
Yes, yes, it is.

What we ate:
Monday: Olive Garden Vegan Gnocchi Soup. This is one of my favorite soups to make – it’s super easy and vegan! Made ahead since I wasn’t home that night.

Tuesday: Fried fish and green beans. The Husband cooked.

Wednesday: Quinoa Black Bean and Mango Salad from America’s Test Kitchen’s Vegan for Everyone. I should get this cookbook out from the library again – it has lots of easy vegan recipes. I made this ahead of time since again, I had to work that night.

Thursday: Baked chicken breasts and steamed green beans. The 12 year old had wanted to make dinner (Cornflake chicken), but she ended up being sick, so I threw this meal together.

Friday: Pizza (ordered from a new to us place that does Detroit style pizza. It was tasty, but apparently getting there is tricky because it involved going into a residential complex.) and movie (Hotel Transylvania. Not one that I need to watch again.)

Saturday: Silver Diner on the way home from the airport. I got the liver and onions.

Sunday: We celebrated the 4–> 5 year old’s birthday early because I had to work on her actual birthday. She got to pick the dinner and she chose Dino chicken nuggets, green beans, and tater tots. And of course the cake.