Fall – Life Off Headset

Weekend report

We didn’t have huge plans for the weekend, but it still felt pretty full. I did not order a new planner, but I did do pretty much everything else on my aspirations list.

Saturday morning I took the two girls to Drag Queen Story Hour at the local Botanical Gardens. The Drag Queen reading the books was D’Amanda Martini and she read a couple books about Fall and Thanksgiving and Holidays. At one point, one little girl said, “You don’t dress up for Thanksgiving – you dress up for Halloween!” and D’Amanda Martini says, “That’s very true. Although, I like to get dressed up all of the time!”

The past few times the Gardens hosted Drag Queen Story Hour, there were people protesting against Drag Queens and holding up signs that had all sorts of hateful, fear-mongering messages. This time there were just four or five people holding up banners and praying on one side of the parking lot. The people with the anti-LGBTQ signs were vastly outnumbered by the crowds of supporters with rainbow flags and umbrellas that lined the other side of the parking lot, cheering and offering people who chose to attend story time an escort to their car. I found the whole thing flabbergasting and kind of sad, to be honest. I think it’s wonderful to have the courage of one’s convictions, but at the same time I think there is something very very misinformed about the people who would give up their Saturday morning to protest a child friendly, inclusive event.

That afternoon, we went to a birthday party at a bowling alley for a child in the 5 year old’s class. I hadn’t been bowling in years, and this reminded me of how I always found bowling a fun social activity. Years ago, the best/cheapest place to go bowling was on a nearby military base. You had to show ID and they would inspect your car in order to get past the gate, but it was something like $3/ game and $3 for shoes. This weekend’s bowling party was at a super fancy bowling place with a bar (obviously not for the 6 year olds), and waiters and a roof top terrace. I commented to the Husband that I wouldn’t mind having a bowling party for my birthday this year. I hate celebrating my birthday, but I do love doing fun things with friends.

I stayed for half the bowling party, then the Husband came and relieved me at the birthday party, and I zipped down to work. I was a little stressed because I was running late to work; it probably would have been best if I had just had the Husband bring the five year old to the party from the start, but he had to bring the three year old, and I was a little unsure of the etiquette of showing up to a party with an additional sibling. Turns out it would have been fine, but I feel like I’m never quite sure how to navigate these things.

It was the last performance of our show – always a bittersweet day. Though in these COVID times, I feel like it’s just a relief to get through the run without any COVID cancellations. We were still testing twice a week and masking backstage, so caution abounds.

I also think it’s fun to track my movement for each show I do:
Length of show: 100 mins.
Number of steps taken on average for each show: 2083
Number of flights of stairs each night: 4
So not a super active show, but does involve a fair bit of stair climbing.

I also have a post show ritual where I write down all the things that I want to remember about a show. I find that the rehearsal and tech process are so mind consuming that I don’t always have time to enjoy what we are putting onstage. Usually by opening, things have fallen into a routine and I try to find those moments that will stay with me. I once asked an Assistant Director friend of mine if she ever got tired of watching the same show every night. She said that sometimes yes, but then she really forces herself to watch mindfully and intensely and learned to concentrate her attention on things that she might have missed before – like a certain musical passage or the way a singer might move while singing a certain line. So when I get to a point in a show when I don’t feel busy, I try to really watch and listen to what is happening onstage and savor that moment because either it will never happen again, or the singer will do it exactly the same way every single night – and I think both things – the once in a life time, and the consistently repetitive – are fascinating to me.

Sunday was a morning at home to tackle yardwork and house puttering. I did get a little run in. The Husband cleaned up the yard and I picked up around the house. We finally tackled a project that I had been putting off, but which I knew I had to do – the kids and I dismantled the 10 year olds’ iPod Halloween costume, and we also took apart our carboard UPS Truck. Two years ago we got a new stove and we asked the delivery people to leave us the box. The box eventually became, at the then three year old’s request, a UPS Truck. (I wrote a post about our cardboard creations here.)

Well, after two years and repeated patching, the UPS truck was on its last legs. The kids still loved sitting in it, and it is their favorite hideout, but some weeks, it seemed to mostly be used as a catchall for clutter in the living room. The sliding door no longer slid, the rear door had fallen off, as had the steering wheel. If you had told me in Fall of 2020 that this cardboard box would still be in our living room two years later, I would not have believed you. Indeed, the Husband, whenever I bring something large and disposable into the house always asks, “How long is that going to be in our lives?”

“Not too long,” I always say vaguely. I think to myself, “There’s no way that this huge chunk of cardboard is going to last.” And here we are two years later.

But Christmas is coming and we have to make room for the Christmas tree, so this past weekend, I faced the inevitable and agreed to dismantle the box and begin the process of sending it to recycling. The kids were a little sad to have their living room play space taken down, but then I gave them the screwdriver to take out all the Makedo cardboard screws and they eagerly jumped on that assignment. The ten year old needed a large piece of cardboard for a school project so her eyes lit up at the prospect of taking part of the UPS truck. I’m sad the UPS truck is gone … it certainly took me a while to get to a point where I felt okay letting go of it. Part of me feels silly to be so attached to something that I always knew would not be permanent. But there are a lot of memories wrapped up in the box, particularly from early in the pandemic – which was such an insular and resourceful time. I have to remember the legacy of the box is not the physical thing, but the memories we have of it and the knowledge that we could have great adventures with something that otherwise would be meant for the trash.

Throwback to the Glory Days of the UPS Truck…

The baby – what a little things she was! – trying to work the trunk of the UPS truck.

So after tackling those house projects, I insisted that we get some fresh air by going for a hike. I dragged the family on a one hour drive up county on a hunt for one of the Selfie Stands that the County Parks Department has set up. This Selfie Stand was a view overlooking the Potomac; this far upstream the Potomac is quiet and wide, very different from Great Falls. I will say, it wasn’t the most picturesque spot – this part of the county is perhaps a little neglected. Maybe it’s nicer in the summer? At any rate, I always do love seeing the Potomac, and we managed to find the selfie stand and snap a poorly lit family picture. Ultimately, though, it was very cold and we didn’t last long, maybe just thirty minutes. We took our selfie then tromped back to the parking lot and got back in the car.

On the way home we stopped by a local brewery, one of those places on acres and acres of land with tents and string lights and tables made from old sewing machine legs and things like “Ricotta Toast” on the menu. Which was tasty, by the way. Craft breweries on farms seem to be a very popular thing in our County. If it hadn’t been so cold, it would have been a wonderful spacious place to hang out and have a beer with the kids. Not that the kids drink beer. The Husband drinks beer. The rest of us watch and eat foot and maybe drink a soda. We ordered burgers and sandwiches and shrimp and enjoyed the pink sky and golden light of sunset while plotting fun holiday aspirations and making our Christmas movie list (more on that later!). And then it was suddenly dark and we felt the need to go home, but of course it was only 5:30pm. Splendid, I thought! We can have half an hour of tidying the living room and then watch two episodes of Golden Girls.

Of course there was great reluctance to clean so it ended up being one hour of cleaning and one episode of Golden Girls, but that was still a fine way to cap off a Sunday night.

Weekly recap + What we ate: Fall Camping

The kids had two days off school this week. Monday was end of quarter grading, and Tuesday was election day. Schools close here on election day because a lot of schools are used as polling locations. So I did get my act together and took the two younger kids on a camping overnight. The oldest had been invited to a birthday party, so she did that.

We went to Burke Lake, about an hour away in Virginia. The main reason I chose this campground was that it was close and also one could book a single night stay. Most of our usual campgrounds require a two night stay. I hadn’t been to Burke Lake before, and found it is a pretty suburban campsite; I could hear the traffic from where we were. As expected, the place was pretty quiet. I imagine it’s a very popular destination in the summer – there is a lake for boating, with a nice trail around the perimeter, and there is also a carousel and ice cream stand and a train ride, none of which was open. I was a little nervous at how empty it was at first. We were the only ones at the campground when we arrived at 1pm, and I do sometimes wonder if camping by myself as a woman is the most prudent thing. But another group arrived late in the afternoon so I felt better.

It was a pretty relaxed camping trip, as these things go. I had thought that we could hike the trail around the lake, but once I had set the tent and the hammock up, the kids were happy just to swing in the hammock and play with their toy cars. We did go for a little woodsy stroll along the part of the lake trail that came past our campground. The weather was lovely – almost 80 degrees – and the afternoon sun was golden. The trees were almost all bare, leaving such a thick carpet of leaves for us to swish through.

This time of year, it gets dark so early, so I started dinner at 4pm. I also made a fire – that’s one of the kids’ favorite parts of camping. I made mac n cheese and we roasted hot dogs over the fire to put in our mac n cheese. We had ‘smores.

The sunset around 5:15pm, and it was dark. I remember looking at my watch as the sun was going down and thinking, “What am I going to do – there’ still three hours til bedtime.” Well, turns out, with my kids, once the sun went down, they were ready to turn in. I’m not sure if it was the lack of sunlight, the big day, or the end of daylights savings, but they were pretty tuckered out by 6:30pm. Maybe it was all three factors. We went to the bathhouse to brush our teeth, returned to the tent to put on our pjs, and I read them two chapters from Winnie the Pooh under the light of the lantern and they snuggled into their sleeping bags – Cocoons, they called them. I stayed up to read for a little bit, and then was asleep by 10:30pm – so early for me!

I was woken up by bright bright light streaming into the tent. I hadn’t set up the rainfly on the tent this time because the weather looked to be dry and I thought it would be nice to get some air into the tent and to be able to see the sky. In the middle of the night, this incandescent light pushed past my eyelids, and I opened my eyes, thinking I had forgotten to turn off the lantern. I hadn’t forgotten – it was the moon. The moon was practically full that night. I remembered seeing it during dinner as it came over the horizon, a huge glowing white disk. Now it was directly over the tent, bright as bright can be. When I’m at home in a house, it’s easy to forget how much light the moon can produce. I could see everything in the tent in the moonlight that came through the mesh roof of our tent.

Eventually I went back to bed and woke up around 6:00am. The kids were already up – I’m not sure how long they were up, or what they were doing, but the sounds of them chattering away to each other penetrated my sleep fog. That and the fall morning chill. Even though I objectively knew the second day was going to be colder (in the mid-50s according to the weather report), I was still unprepared for the reality of it. I hunkered in my sleeping bag as long as possible, but finally faced the reality that kids had to pee and forced myself to emerge.

We had bacon and eggs for breakfast. Then I slowly packed up the campsite with a pause for some hammock time. As I was driving in the day before, my sister-in-law called and we chatted, and I said to her, “What I really want to do is laze in the hammock and read my book.” I almost didn’t get a chance what with setting up the camp, and taking the kids on a walk and then making dinner and cleaning up dinner… but this morning, I decided that I was going to be sad if I didn’t find some hammock time. So after breakfast, and before I packed the car, I took half an hour and lazed in the hammock with a book. It was quite chilly so I packed the sleeping bags in the hammock and it was a super cozy thirty minutes.

After the car was packed up, we spent some time playing at the playground and wandering along another stretch of the lake trail, then we went home around 1pm since I didn’t want to get stuck in traffic. All in all a very relaxing 24 hours.

The rest of the week was pretty uneventful. I buckled down and got some errands done off my to do list. Finally mailed those sweaters off. Processed more returns – the leggings I ordered from Pact did not fit. Bummer. I liked that they were of a thicker material, but I think the thicker material make them less stretchy.

I did a tie dye experiment with some old sweaters. The experiment wasn’t entirely successful – I tried a technique called ice dying where you put ice over the clothes and sprinkle the tie dye powder over it, and as the ice melts, it saturates the dye into the clothes. I had ice left in the cooler from camping, which is what inspired the project. I sprinkled the dye unevenly, so the grey sweater just looks like it was in a laundry accident – also I think I should have chosen a different colour for the grey sweater – the blue didn’t really show up. Even so, I always love the look of tie dye and I think I’ll try it again since ice dying was a pretty hands off way of doing it.

I had one very frustrating day where on the way to work, there was construction and a poorly marked detour and I spent a half hour driving around trying to get to our parking garage. Driving downtown is always super confusing – the streets change direction at rush hour and if you miss a fork, you’re suddenly in Virginia and you can’t just pull a u-turn to get back on track. (I mean I guess you could – I’ve seen people do it – but I’m not that brave.) I felt particularly defeated because I had planned to get to work 45 minutes early so I could get a run in before starting my show duties, but the detour/getting lost in Virginia ate up all that time. This wrench in my plan almost had me in tears. But got to work and decided to salvage it by running ten minutes to the Wednesday farmer’s market and getting empanadas for dinner and kimchi from one of my favorite vendors. So I guess it wasn’t a frustrating day, just a frustrating, despair ridden 45 minutes.

Yesterday, being Veteran’s Day, the Husband had it off, so we went to Glenstone Museum. It was a rainy, drizzly day, but lovely nonetheless. I had been a few months ago with my mom and cousin, and we didn’t get to see all of the grounds on that visit, so I was glad to go back. We didn’t see everything this time either, but we were moving at a slow pace. We meandered the walkways, stopped for lunch at the cafe (where we also started planning our spring break trip!) and took in some of the galleries. I don’t always understand contemporary art, but the docents at Glenstone are always willing to talk to patrons about it in thoughtful ways, which I appreciate.

Not art, just the view through a drizzly window.

Grateful this week for:
-Our friends, avid campers, who loan us camp chairs and coolers.
– The nice person at FedEx who helped me sort out all the various forms for shipping back to Ireland the Irish sweaters that the Husband had bought me last Christmas. Finally checked that off the to-do list.
– The three year old’s teachers. We had a parent teacher conference for her today and she’s doing really well. I’m impressed by how many letters and numbers she knows. Apparently she needs to work on sharing and letting other kids be the line leader once in a while. I’m not surprised.
-My car, which just just crossed 180, 000 miles and still takes us where we need to go. I probably wouldn’t drive it across the country, all the same.
-A phone call from an old friend and colleague whom I worked with years ago in Colorado. She is a costume person, and had made the ten year old the cutest outfits when she was a baby. Anyhow, after we both left that company, we lost touch except a Christmas card. It was wonderful to catch up.

Hard things this week: Screen time struggles/strategies with the ten year old. We are generally pretty restrictive about screen time, but the ten year old has joined a writing club at school for National Novel Writing Month, which she seems to be enjoying. However, the school has issued Chromebooks to the students in writing club so they can work on their novels at home. There has been a lot of surreptitious screen time for non-novel writing things, and precious little actual novel writing, and I just don’t have the bandwidth to constantly monitor what she is doing. We’ve caught her with her Chromebook in bed a couple of nights too and so we’ve had blanket and dictatorial confiscation of the Chromebook – which I’m on the fence as to whether it’s the best strategy since it leads to a lot of tantrums and generally unpleasant behavior (on both our parts), but it’s the easiest tactic to implement. I think there just needs to be some kind of joint discussion about screen time and Chromebook use and expectations. Also maybe have her show us what she’s using the Chromebook for. I think right now, the parents are the enemy in the screen time battle, and I don’t like that dynamic.

Plans /Aspirations for this weekend:
– Drag Queen Story Hour at the Botanical Gardens. The three year old keeps calling it “Dragon Story Hour”. I hope she isn’t disappointed.
– Birthday Party at a bowling alley for a classmate of the five year old.
– Work. It’s closing night! I’m a little sad.
– Order a new planner for next year. I use a weekly planner and I just realize there are only six spreads left for this year. When I think of the rest of the year in terms of just six spreads, it seems like the year is fast disappearing.
– Run.
– Maybe a hike. Something outdoors for sure.
– Think/ Plan holiday/ end of year things.

Looking forward to:
-Happy Hour with my mom’s group next week. I think only one or two moms can make it this time, but it’s been a while since we had one, so I’m looking forward to it nonetheless.
– This is way in the future, but our Spring Break Trip!
– Another Date Day with the Husband. He took half a day off this week to work in his garden, and we spent half an hour watching Only Murders in the Building and eating chocolate bars. It felt very un-adult like. Looking forward to more like that.

What We Ate:
Saturday: I was solo with the kids, so we had snack dinner – Soy Sauce Eggs, Veggies, Fruit, Edemame, crackers and cheese. Eaten on the floor while watching Thundermans.

Sunday: I had a matinee show, so the Husband made dumplings and cut up some veggies for the kids. They saved me some dumplings, which I ate when I got home.

Monday: Camping. Trying to keep it super simple – boxed Mac n Cheese with hot dogs and broccoli mixed in. A tip I learned from my brother is to buy the Deluxe Mac N Cheese; it come with a cheese sauce rather than cheese powder, so it’s easier to make. And then of course ‘Smores for dessert.

Tuesday: The five year old requested veggie noodle soup, so I made Chickpea Noodle Soup from America’s Test Kitchen’s Vegan for Everyone Cookbook. It’s actually a great pantry soup.

Wednesday: I had to work so I had empanadas and dolmas from the Farmer’s Market by work. The Husband made some kind of hashbrown/peppers/egg skillet for the kids.

Thursday: This was the day that I kind of lost it and told the kids that if they didn’t empty the dishwasher, we’d have toast for dinner because I wasn’t going to dirty anymore dishes until I could put them in the dishwasher afterwards. Well, joke’s on me. The dishwasher did not get emptied in time so we had bagels and baba ghanoush, and carrots and cucumbers and hummus, and fruit. Everyone thought it was a great dinner. So much for natural consequences.

Friday: Pizza (take-out) and The Secret Lives of Super Pets, which was a pretty funny movie.

Weekly recap + what we ate: did/done/to do

This was a very light work week, so I tried to shake off my post tech malaise and get some life admin done. I liked Elisabeth’s comment earlier this week about only putting five things on the to do list, moreover some of those five things can be entirely routine things… I always had thought that the to do list was above and beyond the routine things I do, but putting the everyday things seem to sort of help kick start the list with some low hanging fruit. So this week, my low hanging fruit was “get outside or exercise for at least 15 minutes every day,” and “Make dinner for the family.”

On top of that, things that got checked off my list this week:
– Paid the bills. One of them quite late. I need a better system.
– Scheduled parent teacher conference for all three kids. I think we will have to do them online this year, which I don’t love, but I had to schedule them at times when I would have to find a sitter for the kids if we went in person. I’m grateful that we are offered both a virtual and in person option, though.
– Zappos return on shoes that I had been on the fence about.
-Zappos order on black shoes to try.
-ordered leggings, since the one pair I currently have won’t cut it for the whole winter.
-VOTED! Voting feels pretty perfunctory where I am because my county leans so heavily Democratic. Most of the tough decisions are during the primary. There were a few items that I had to do some reading up on – ballot measures (including legalizing cannabis) and Board of Education seats, which are non-partisan. Overall it took the better half of a day to read up on candidates and watch some forums, filled out my mail in ballot and dropped it off at a polling center. I used to just do early voting, but even then I would always leave it for the very last minute and on that last day the lines were always so long. I like the mail in ballot because I can take my time and fill it in while having the internet in front of me and do my research as I fill out my bubbles. Also – this time they sent and “I Voted” sticker with the mail in ballot. Not gonna lie, but for me, the sticker was a huge perk of voting in person and I was always sad not to get one when voted by mail.
-used this website to measure myself for a bra. Which is just step one to my bigger goal of actually getting new bras.
-Hosting a friend for dinner. I had forgotten how nice it is to have a friend over for dinner. Moreover, a friend that doesn’t judge your messy, post-Hallowe’en house that is never quite picked up, and who also engages with your kids in real conversations.

Things that weren’t on a list, but I’m glad I made time for:
-Getting my car an oil change, and then running part of the way home. I think I only ended up running 1.5 miles out of the 3 miles between home and the mechanics, but I did run all of that 1.5 miles in one go, which is the longest stretch I’ve run since I started running a year ago. The car was probably 900 miles overdue for an oil change, and when i went to pick it up my mechanic said, “You’re still driving that thing?”
“Yeah,” I said, “I hope I get to drive it for a while longer.”
And he said, “People love their Subarus. Well just keep bringing it in to me for oil changes regularly and it will last a while longer.”
The car is 179K and 19 years old. The Husband tells me that it is worse for the environment than getting a new car.
-Walk with friend to a cafe for lunch then walk home. Good conversations, an iced chai, lunch and fall colour. Seems like a pretty good fall morning.
-Trip to library. I initially went to pick up some holds, but then started browsing and before I knew it, I had an armful of books to bring home. I do a lot of reading via the Libby app, and I forget that there is something so wonderful about browsing the library, pulling books off the bookshelves, reading the jacket, flipping through them while inhaling the smell of paper and past readers. eBooks just don’t that that softly worn community feeling that hard copy books off a library bookshelf do.
– Post library trip to Botanical Gardens where I sat for an hour and scrolled and read two chapters of a freshly borrowed book in 70 degree weather. This felt very indulgent.

-Walk with Husband. One day, I suggested to the Husband we do something in the scant half hour between him getting off work and the school bus pick up. We decided to go for a walk at a nearby trail where we took our picture at the selfie stand there:

Things that didn’t get checked off my to do list:
– make/ formulate a plan for camping next week.
– sweater return from last year. Last Christmas, the Husband had bought me some Irish wool sweaters, but they were too small. There is a 365 day return window, but the customs forms to return them are so daunting that I haven’t done this yet.
-Mail thank you present to a friend.
– Some financial things that I just need to square away, but which is tedious and requires a bit of research and persistence and gathering of information. This is under the category of important but not urgent, so I procrastinate. But I know if I procrastinate too much it will fall under the category of “urgent” so I just need to get over that hump.

Looking forward to:
– The end of Daylights saving! My kids are naturally early risers so I hold no illusion that I will get another hour of sleep. What really excites me about the clocks falling back is that it will no longer be dark outside when I take the ten year old to her 7:15am piano lessons.
-Date day next week with the Husband. In September I went to Glenstone Museum with my mother and cousin and liked it so much that when tickets were released for this month, I immediately snagged two tickets for November 11th, which the Husband has off as it is Veteran’s Day. The kids will be in school, so we will have a child free date day!
– On the issue of dates- we are having a new sitter come this weekend to watch the kids while I’m at work since the Husband is going to be away. I’m excited for the potential of finding a regular sitter. We haven’t hired childcare help since the baby was six months old. I never know where to begin with hiring help, so I waffle and don’t do it. But I knew we would need a sitter for the kids this weekend so I asked the moms in my mom’s group and someone recommended this person. I hope it works out because the Husband and I need more date nights.
-Two days of no school. The kids have two days off school next week. One day is an end of quarter planning day for teachers and the next day is Election Day. I know it’s a strange thing to be excited for two days with the kids at home, but ever since they all started at school I’ve missed having adventures with them.

Something I read this week that made me think:
I found this blog post from 2009 by Arts Administrator Adam Thurman “An Open Letter to Arts Administrators” very inspiring (h/t to Butts in Seats, a very thoughtful blog about arts administration and how the arts fits into the lives of everyone.) Thurman presents some thoughts and advice on how arts administrators, often an invisible presence and often taken for granted, need to stand up for themselves.
Thurman’s post is from 2009, but it still feels really relevant, especially in the post COVID world when we are seeing a lot of attrition in the arts world (and I’m sure many industries). Now I’m not an arts administrator and I’m not really an artist, so I do feel like I straddle this line between creating the art and producing the art – that is to say developing an environment in which people can bring art to stage, and being part of the art itself. I think people on both sides of the equation are burnt out and need change, but change is hard in an industry drenched in tradition and convention. Yet, as Thurman writes:
“It doesn’t have to be like that. I know you’ve probably convinced yourself that all the garbage you deal with is just the cost of being in the field.
It isn’t.”
Also this thought:
“This thing you love, the arts . . . it is your world too. It’s your world just as much as it belongs to any poet, any dancer, any actor.“
This is a good reminder – I think, as a stage manager, I often feel like what I do is in service of the product onstage, but I need to remind myself that I am also “the talent”. I might not be a big opera star, but I am a person brought in to do a very specific thing and the “service” portion of my job does not negate the “arts” portion of my job. I do this because I believe that opera should be presented for an audience. I don’t do this just to be a cog in the opera machine.
I think what struck me the most about Thurman’s article is his insistence that you can love working in the arts, believe passionately in what you do, but also make a living wage and have a good work/life balance. He really challenges the idea of suffering for one’s art.

Something amazing: While grocery shopping the other day, I wandered into the “British aisle.” This is where I get my sub-par winegums. But also on the shelf was:

Now I have never seen a Coffee Crisp in a grocery store in the US so this was pretty special. I immediately texted the Husband. He asked if I bought some. I said no because the Coffee Crisp we brought back from Montreal two months ago was still sitting in our shelf. That was a bad move, though. When the Husband popped in after work, there were none left.

Something beautiful. The foggy weather continues, and this morning the fog was so thick I had to drive super slow. Fog is such a pain to drive through, but it is so fleetingly beautiful.

What We Ate:

Saturday: Opening night. I had a salad from the work Canteen. The family ordered sushi.

Sunday: I can’t remember, though I do think it involved scrounging through the fridge and a bit ingenuity.

Monday: Hallowe’en and I had to work. I think the kids had wings and candy at our friend’s house. I had leftover sushi.

Tuesday: Taco Tuesday. I made carnitas in the slow cooker, finished off under the broiler. We ate this with lots of toppings: red cabbage slaw, picked red onions, guacamole, salsa, cilantro. The carnitas recipe was adapted from the cookbook Taco Loco, even though the recipe called for roasting in the oven for four hours, I had to go to work, so I threw it in the slow cooker, and it turned out perfectly.

Wednesday: Warm Winter Vegetable Salad with Halloumi. From this Bon Appetit recipe. This was a really simple and tasty recipe. Good way to use up the squash. Basically toss squash, cabbage, onions together with olive oil and Aleppo pepper (I just used paprika and chipotle pepper). Roast on high heat for 20 mins. Add cubed Halloumi and torn up pieces of pita. Roast another 15 minutes util the pita is crispy. Garnish with mint and a drizzle of red wine vinegar. Enjoy.

Thursday: Curry Noodles and Terriyaki veggies from the Bad Manner Cookbook. Also some pan fried tofu alongside. Vegan.

Friday: Pizza and Movie, I’m guessing? I had to work so had leftover curry noodles for dinner.

Weekly Recap + What we ate: Tech week and Opening Night

This weekend was opening night! Yay! We made it. It’s actually been a pretty chill tech week, a gazillion flights of stairs, notwithstanding. It helps that the show is short (100 minutes!) and there is only one set look, so no complicated scene shifts to have to co-ordinate backstage. I’m sure the show it plenty challenging for our lead soprano who is onstage for practically the whole show, however.

I spent much of my time at work this week lightwalking – which is when someone (usually the assistant stage managers) stands onstage while the lighting designer sets the lighting looks. You can read about lightwalking in a previous post of mine here. Lightwalking can be tedious, but I got some good reading done while standing under the lights. Currently reading these two books:

I’m a little on the fence about Dava Shastri’s Last Day – the ideas behind it are touching, but the execution is a little clunky. Lindy West’s book, is hilarious – I’ve been reading bits of it out loud to the Husband and sometimes I can’t continue because I’m laughing too hard.

On the home front, however, things felt kind of like a mess… I stayed up super late while the kids were gone and never seemed to get back into a good sleep routine. Every morning seemed like a struggle. In addition to the great effort it’s been taking to even just get out of bed, the ten year old also has signed up for a Novel Writing Club at school, as part of National Novel Writing Month, and the club meets twice a week at 8:15am. I’m really excited that she’s undertaking the club, but an 8:15am drop off makes for very choppy mornings. I have to get all three kids in the car at 8:10am, to be able to take the ten year old to writing club. After I drop her, I come home with the younger two kids and we have about 25 minutes before I have to do the school bus run for the middle kid. I’d like to find a way to make those 25 minutes feel like well used time, but I’m not sure quite what that would be yet. Do I want it to be time where I try to fit in a short yoga session? Or is it time to snuggle and read with the littles? Or time to get ahead with house chores? I think ideally I would love to spend that 25 minutes journaling since I’ve gotten a little out of that habit, but I find journaling hard with the two little kids around since they like to hang out with me when we are at home.

As always happens after opening night, I’m feeling a little disoriented, and feel like I need to find a little bit of focus to put life back in order – both our physical space since the house is a mess, and our non-physical things like paying the bills and dealing with small house projects. Tech week is always so intense and all consuming that I feel like I need a week to just sleep for days, but I also feel like that’s so self indulgent – I mean plenty of people hold down very intense jobs all the time without the reprieve of opening night. I think what I really need is to focus and think through some systems and routines to put in place now that my schedule has opened up, so that I can balance rest and things that fill up my cups and the adulting things that have to get done.

Anyhow, other things from this week:

– Hallowe’en is around the corner! I’ve been feeling a little unprepared for Hallowe’en this year. I didn’t carve a pumpkin, which makes me a little sad, but I think I’m the only one who really cares. We don’t actually get very many (or actually any) trick or treaters, so the decorative aspects of Halloween tend to fall by the wayside unless I really make an effort. And being in the thick of tech week, it just didn’t feel like a priority this year. Plus, I’m working Hallowe’en night, so I’m not feeling as motivated to be as involved as I usually like to be. I did manage to finish the ten year old’s Hallowe’en costume this weekend. Here’s a sneak peek:

Any guesses? All will be revealed after trick or treating! I’m a little sad to miss trick or treating with the kids, but the Husband has promised to take pictures.

-Rides home with my friend. I have a very good friend at work who lives two miles from me. She doesn’t always work the same hours as me, but lately, she’s texted me before work and asked if I wanted a ride home after work since she was working the same shift as me. So on those days I take the Metro in to work and then my friend gives me a ride home. I love this arrangement for two reasons: 1) Metro ride means time to read on my commute. Also it’s much cheaper to ride the Metro in to work than to pay for parking. and 2) Rides home are almost like date night with my friend. Since we both work for the opera, during the busy season we never get to have friend dates. Getting to ride home together has been so much fun – we chat and gossip and trade parenting stories and ideas. It’s been a highlight of my week.

– Trying to soak in the fall colours:

-More fall delights:

We don’t have trees in our backyard, so a big pile of fall leaves is quite a novelty to the kids. We were walking around our neighborhood this weekend, when the kids spotted a big pile of leaves, and instinctively they knew just what to do. After we moved into our current treeless house, I realized I don’t miss having to do leaf clean up every year – or rather the Husband is the one who does it – but I do miss having big pile of leaves to play in.

– One day this week – the serendipity of having the Wordle match the World:

-Office essentials for tech week:

The note, left for us by the stage managers of the opera that is performing on opposite nights as us, says “No Trains – but something calming and fun” and is in reference to the train set that we had set up in our rehearsal space office. And this little puzzle has indeed provided a nice brain shift in the midst of a very busy week. And of course, all the snacks – so essential.

– One day the afternoon bus was an hour late. Turns out the shortage of bus drivers is creating a situation where bus drivers have to drive more than one route, often returning to school to pick up kids between routes. There were definitely some very frustrated parents at the bus stop because there was a lack of forthcoming information. While waiting, I snapped this picture of the trees across the street, thinking, “Well at least I have pretty trees to look at!”

– Something touching:

On the nights when I don’t make it home until bedtime, there has been lately a toothbrush prepped for me when I get home. Apparently the baby insists on prepping me a toothbrush as she is doing toothbrushes for the other kids. I find it so sweet. Of course by the time I get home, the toothpaste has dried out and hardened a little bit, but I still use it anyway and feel immensely loved. Also it makes it so much harder to get mad at the toothpaste art all over the counter.

What we ate: I wasn’t home a lot this week for dinner, but we still managed a few good home-cooked meals.

Saturday: This was part of child free weekend, so I didn’t really have real meals. Funny how keeping the kids fed is the main motivation for regular meal times at out house. I cleaned out the fridge and at some probably questionable leftovers. Then supplemented with popcorn and a cherry coke at the movies

Sunday: I worked this night so I’m pretty sure I brought leftovers.

Monday: the Husband and kids came home while I was at work. The ten year old made mac n cheese from the blue box, and the Husband steamed some broccoli. I had leftovers at work.

Tuesday: Taco Tuesday… I prepped Butternut squash and poblanos for the Husband. When he got home, he roasted them and mixed it with a can of black beans. They ate that with tortillas and guacamole. It’s the Sweet Potato Taco recipe from Dinner Illustrated, with butternut squash subbed for Sweet potatoe

Wednesday: i was home and we had Indonesian fried rice with Brussel Sprouts, steamed edamame and shrimp on the side. The fried rice is something that everyone groans when I tell them that’s for dinner, but then love it, Brussel sprouts and all. Along with the fried rice, I steamed some edamame and we also ate some leftover shrimp that the Husband had brought home from a fancy restaurant from Queens:

Shrimp in Queens. This is the picture from the restaurant where the Husband and the kids had dinner one night.

Thursday: the Husband brought the ten year old to the opera to see the final dress rehearsal of my show. They ate at the cafe at the theater. I made turkey meatballs in the Instant Pot for my dad to feed the two little kids that evening. These were the same meatballs that I had made last week, and at that time, I had also made a batch to put in the freezer for Future Me, which proved fortuitous.

Friday: Pizza and Hocus Pocus. I had never seen Hocus Pocus, and being as how Halloween is around the corner, I thought that it would be a good option for movie night. It was not at all what I expected; there wasn’t as much plot as I thought there would be.

Weekly recap + what we ate: Boba weekend and not judging

My go-to Boba order – Oolong milk tea, no sugar, regular ice, half boba, half lychee jelly. Bliss.

This weekend started with a rough night of sleep -the highlight of which was a three year old getting into bed with me and taking her “not poopy” diaper off in bed around 3am. And of course, the diaper was indeed poopy. So was her bottom. I suppose a bleary eyed 3am diaper change these days is a good, almost nostalgic, reminder of those newborn days. Then there was the 5am insistence that she wanted breakfast. And even though I could hear the Husband awake and moving around in the kitchen, the three year old insisted that it had be be “Mommy breakfast, not daddy breakfast!” All my good intentions for better sleep hygiene are being sabotaged by a pint sized toddler.

The rest of the weekend felt very indulgent. We went to try out a new Hot Pot place for Saturday dinner. We haven’t been to Hot Pot since before the pandemic, and I feel like going to Hot Pot is kind of a barometer of our comfort level with COVID times. (For those who haven’t been – hot pot is an Asian dining format where you get a pot with a pot of broth over a burner at your table – either individual pots or one pot for the table – and the diners add meats and sea food, and veggies and noodles to their own preference. It is a great social meal and usually takes a couple hours to really do it right.) Not quite sure if Hot Pot is a rational barometer or not, to be honest. We didn’t go to one of those places with a conveyor belt that brought your food, but rather our Hot Pot foods were brought by waiters after we ordered it via iPad, so it wasn’t like other people in the restaurant were breathing on it. There was also a charming robot that delivered boba tea, though we didn’t get to try that out because it seemed to get stuck a lot. We just went to the tea shop next to the restaurant and got boba after dinner. Then there was a band playing out on the plaza outside the restaurant so we hung out and drank our boba and listened to music for a little bit while the kids ran around on the grass. We probably over did it a little as the three year old vomited on the sidewalk at one point. “Don’t step in my vomit!” she yelled to us cheerily afterwards. So I guess she was okay.

Sunday, the eating tour continued because we decided to go to the Taiwanese breakfast place. Taiwanese breakfast features bowls of steaming soy milk – either sweetened with sugar, or savory with scallions and sesame oil – which we eat with large sticks of fried dough (“yo tiao”). Along with that we have scallion pancakes, dumplings, noodles, seaweed salads, edamame and mustard green salad, “dan bing” (egg pancakes)… So much food, but all of it is super tasty and comforting. And afterwards, because there was a tea shop just next door, I had my second boba tea of the weekend. Boba is definitely a treat for me and to have it twice in one weekend was extra special. The tea shop next to Taiwanese breakfast also happens to serve Taiwanese shaved ice which is softer and fluffier than the Western version, and is topped with different jellies and red bean and fruit. My dad had been wondering if there was a shaved ice place in our area, so I was glad to have found this place and have mentally bookmarked it for later.

After breakfast and boba, we went to buy new shoes and boots for the kids. Our favorite shoe place has a policy that if you buy snow boots in September or October, if it doesn’t snow more than an inch all winter, they will take the shoes back in April. It is definitely pricier to buy shoes at Shoe Train, but the service is really great. The shocker this time around is that the ten year old now wears the same size shoe as me! I wasn’t ready for that yet…

Once everyone had new shoes, I took the two little kids to the park since the weather was beautiful and I wanted to spend some time outside. Then in the evening, we went over to a friend’s house for dinner. We got take out Chipotle and pizza and just sat around and talked all evening. I also baked a pie. The Husband had been wanting to make a pie with some of the apples he had gotten from the market a few weeks ago, so I was determined to make it happen, but then forgot we were hanging out with friends that night. So I asked if we could bake the pie at their place and they said sure! I made the filling and dough at home – the kids helped – and then assembled the pie and baked it in my friend’s oven and we had pie for dessert.

So it felt like a very full weekend. I did not get to the ten year old’s Halloween costume, so I need to make that a priority for the next few weeks, for sure.

Other fun/ interesting/ thought-provoking things from last week:

-Monday was Indigenous People Day, but the kids still had school. Traditionally this day is an open house at school for the parents to come an observe the classroom. My dad has been in town visiting, so he came with. Having two kids in two different schools meant a bit of travel to see both kids’ classes, but the open house was all morning and we ended up spending forty-five minutes at each school.

I was interested to see the five year old’s French Immersion class, and I was impressed that it was truly full immersion. Even still, the kids all managed to behave and learn and follow directions. The teacher repeated herself a lot and did a lot of pointing and demonstrating. It’s only been two months of school, and the five year old can already count to ten in French, do some basic math, and he can introduce himself. He also used random French words at home – things like “sac à dos” (backpack) and “poubelle” (trash can). It kind of takes me back to when I learned French in elementary school. When I was I was growing up in Ontario, in my school district, everyone started learning French in Grade Three.

We then went to the five year old’s class where all the students were really well behaved and quiet. Not that these attributes should be the pinnacle of student behavior, but rather everyone seemed really engaged. The ten year old did say afterwards that people were on really good behaviour and sometimes the teacher has to ask more than once for students to do things.

-This week, I had a supertitle gig for a Vocal Recital. I procrastinated a little on getting the titles done so the morning of the concert, after the open houses, I went to a cafe and worked for several hours. Being able to sit and sip my chai and work seemed so indulgent. The concert itself was lovely. There was an interesting set of songs by Franz Liszt that I was unfamiliar with, but which were dramatic and sweeping and made me wonder what it would have been like if Liszt wrote an opera. And the nicest thing, is on my dinner break, I went to the Roof Terrace of the building and the sky was beautiful and the golden light bathed the Washington Monument in pink light.

-Something that made me think this week: This podcast episode from the Puberty Podcast titled “How To Parent without Judgement”. I listened to this episode at a good time this week – it had come to my attention that that the ten year old feels like I judge her too much. Which is probably true. I have a lot of opinions, and I sometimes have a hard time hiding said opinions, even if it’s just the way my eyes widen and my eye brows go up when I hear or see something. Some musings from this podcast:
– There is a great point about how we need to stop judging ourselves. There is a fine line between being self aware and self-flagellating ourselves.
– Parenting without judging also encompasses judging other people. The hosts point out that when you express opinions on other people’s choices, your child will pick up on that and that will influence how they feel and talk about their own choices.
-There was some great tips and box text for managing moments without judgement. One things they mentioned was not making it about making the child feel bad for their negative behaviour, but rather present it as a bigger picture. For examples, if a child is constantly snacking out of the package, instead of condemning that specific action, you can say, “Hey, I bought the snacks for the whole family to share. Why don’t we pour some in the bowl for you.” Also – they recommend giving kids (and yourself) time before you make suggestions or share thoughts. ie. don’t re-hash the game on the way home from the soccer field. (If at all, to be honest)
– One issue that this episode brought up for me was about positive judgements. Often when we talk about juding someone, we are talking about having negative thoughts about them – but is having positive or complimentary thoughts also considered “judging”?
I’ve saved this episode because I think I will need to often remind myself of the many wise points.
Speaking of which, this made me laugh this week:

from Em&Friends line of parenting support cards.

-The baby was involved in a video shoot at work this week. We are putting up two shows right now, and the show that I’m not working on needed a little kid for some projection videos in the show. The opera Il Trovatore is one of those Italian blockbusters that feature all the opera clichés – love, revenge, war, class divides – and is famous for having a plot point that involves a baby getting thrown in a fire. Oh and also the Anvil Chorus. It’s full throated loud singing and melodrama. Great stuff. Anyhow I guess they needed a baby to throw into the fire, so we were asked if ours would be willing. I said sure! Baby’s first pay check!
From all accounts, she did really well at the video shoot. Took direction, didn’t fuss and was super friendly and cute. I’m sure it had something to do with the gazillion lollipops they gave her. I peeked in at one point and was so proud to see her serious little face paying attention to the director, but I didn’t stay because I didn’t want to distract her. Afterwards, she came and sat in on my rehearsal for a little bit, though I can’t imagine what she thought of it. My show is a lot of loud declarative singing in German. My friend snapped a little picture of the baby in costume of the video shoot:

– I bought more masks this week. As I hovered on the webpage, I was struck with the dilemma of how many masks to buy. It is cheaper to buy more, but will the we still need masks in two months? Three months? I still have to wear a mask at work. The three year old still wears a mask at daycare. Masks are optional for the two kids in elementary school, but the five year old still prefers to wear a mask (“I don’t want to get sick,” he says.) The ten year old prefers to go without. Plus, the masks we found that work best for the kids just started releasing kids masks in fun bold colours…
Spring of 2020 and the start of COVID impacting our lives sometimes seems very distant to me. Yet here I am two and a half year later and buying face masks is just another part of the life maintenance routine. At the beginning, I didn’t know what kind of masks to get and spent so much time sewing masks trying to find the perfect fit. Now I know what masks I like to get for the kids, and from which website. If they had a subscribe and save feature, I’d be all signed up. Funny how we adapt and adjust.

-I managed to bike to work three times. And by the end of the week, I biked all the way up the hill that I had walked up last week. Progress. Going uphill is still hard as f***, though.

-We head into tech at the end of this week. As always, my life goals for tech week:
*eat healthy nourishing food. (Mostly. I mean there is a lot of unhealthy snacking that goes on too, but as long as I’m also eating the healthy stuff, I’m okay with this.)
*Run on my dinner breaks.
*Sleep when I get home late at night instead of scrollling
*Help the Husband fold a basket or two of laundry whenever I can.
Work goals: Stay calm, stay organized, stay on top of things, and be nice.

And as a last note – Angela Lansbury passed away last week. When I was a child we watched Murder She Wrote every Sunday night. And then as I got older, I grew to love her satirical edge in musicals like Sweeney Todd and Anyone Can Whistle. I love this quote from her Washington Post obituary.

The lady knew her priorities lay in her strengths.
Or maybe her strengths lay in her priorities?

What We Ate:
Saturday: I worked, the Husband made something that involved green beans and stir fry, I believe.

Sunday: We had been planning on eating out, but we had gone hiking so the Husband made tortellini, salad and garlic bread.

Monday: Mac and Cheese (from the blue box) and sausages. The Husband cooked because I was working.

Tuesday: Not sure – I was working.

Wednesday: Red Lentil Soup in the Instant Pot. Continuing my attempts to clean out the pantry. Vegan.

Thursday: The Husband cooked – Fried Tofu Sandwiches. This was an interesting recipe because it involved marinating the tofu in pickle juice. We had tofu to use up and the Husband googled “Tofu Recipes” and specifically looked for one that did not involve stir frying or Asian cuisine.

Friday: Pizza (Take out) and The Force Awakens.

Weekly recap + what we ate: rituals and whimsy

This was the first week where I’ve really noticed the trees donning their Autumn colours. First a faint swipe of colour here and there, like blush among the green and then towards the end of the week, brilliant red and gold trees. Some trees I saw while out on my lunch time walk:

This past weekend on my day off, I took the kids and my father on a hike to Weverton Cliffs. The five year old had requested, “A hike to a view” as his weekend activity, and Weverton Cliffs came up in my search as very kid friendly. The hike was about two miles out and back hike, and though there was a bit of an elevation gain, the switchbacks made it all very manageable; all three kids walked the whole way – I didn’t have to carry anyone! I feel like 3 miles is the limit for the baby these days. And indeed at the top, we were rewarded with a view. And also some hot chocolate, as one child said that they would not go hiking unless there was hot chocolate. The weather was actually a little warm for hot chocolate, but I think we enjoyed the decadence of having hot chocolate while gazing out on this:

There wasn’t quite enough fall colour to make it seem like this was our “Fall Folliage” hike, but the view was breathtaking nonetheless.

Something I read that made me think this week:
– This article from Barking Up the Wrong Tree, about the power of rituals. There seems to be a fine line between rituals, routines, and habits, but one distinction that the article makes is that rituals are not necessarily practical actions – that is to say a morning exercise routine has a tangible function, but crossing yourself and praying before every meal does not. The interesting point of the article makes, though, is that rituals, even if they don’t have tangible outcomes, do have a huge psychological function. Rituals help anchor chaotic times; they can provide concrete actions in times of anxiety.

There is a great example of how the tennis player Rafael Nadal has all these rituals during a tennis match – from only stepping over lines with his right foot, to making sure his game ID is face up on the bench to squeezing his energy gel exactly four times before he consumes it. These rituals may seem like ticks, but really they are ways for him to create order in his environment. He is quoted from his memoir:
“Some call it superstition, but it’s not. If it were superstition, why would I keep doing the same thing over and over whether I win or lose? It’s a way of placing myself in a match, ordering my surroundings to match the order I seek in my head.“

I was thinking about my life currently, and I don’t think there are many rituals in my day to day. We do say grace before dinner. When I’m stage managing a performance, I have certain things I like to write in my notebook during the half hour before a performance… Aside from that, I can’t think of any rituals that don’t feel like they have a practical purpose. For example, I put my work ID in the exact same spot in my bag the minute I leave work – it is a routine action, but is it a ritual? The practical aspect is that it keeps me from losing my keys. On the other hand, it is a transitional gesture, to signal the end of the work day, so there is indeed an air of ritual about it.

Anyhow, the article made me think about what times in my day would a ritual be helpful for me to create an inner calm amidst chaos – mornings. evenings. before big chorus rehearsals. Tech. Holidays. Travel. In one of the studies the article cited, researchers had subjects perform a ritual involving sprinkling salt and crumpling up paper before they had to sing a big solo. They found that subjects who did this seemingly pointless gesture performed more accurately. So maybe I need to find my own version of salt sprinkle/paper crumple to incorporate into my mornings? I am intrigued by the idea.

Fun things:
-I rode my bike to work. Friday morning, I was going to try to fit in a run before work since we started at 10:30a, then I realized that I could instead get on my bike, get my exercise and commute at the same time and it seemed like that best idea I’d had all week. It’s a 4.9 mile bike ride and takes about half an hour, which is ten minutes longer than taking the metro, but much more fun in the crisp autumn air, especially after having several dreary rainy days. I will admit there is a couple blocks that go uphill and I did get off and walk the bike; hopefully if I ride my bike more I’ll be able to ride up that block soon. After work, I biked to the park and met up with my friend who had picked up the two little kids from school and we played in the playground until it was time to go home for dinner.

-We did not go apple picking last weekend, but we did stop at a farm stand that had many many many different kinds of apples. We bought one of every variety, but didn’t keep straight which was what so I can’t go back and stock up on the varieties that I like the best. For the record, I like crisp apples that are a combination of sweet and sour – apples that crunch when I bite into them. Turns out the apples from Spicknall’s stand are the same price as they would be if we had indeed gone apple picking. I might have to re-evaluate the value of apple picking. Of course our favorite apple picking place has a goats and chickens and a playground, so I guess it is probably more about the event than the fruit.

-We’ve started rehearsal for our next show. One day, mid week, our director emailed me, saying she was cleaning out her son’s closet and did I want some toys that he had outgrown. “Sure!” I said. The next day she brought in a bin full of train tracks and a Lego robot. Now, I have always had an adverse reaction to train tracks and Legos. I know everyone sees creative open ended toys that are fabulous for the imagination. I see tiny pieces that I will have to pick up, or (in the case of Legos) that I will step on, causing excruciating pain. In my ideal world, all toys would be formed to be one single piece, preferably larger than my fist, and with no bits or bobs that will fall off. At any rate, I do fully recognize that these train tracks and robots will send my kids into toy heaven, so I am grateful for the hand me downs.
I put the bin of train tracks in the Stage Management office, and when I came back at the end of rehearsal, this is what I found:

Apparently a box of train tracks could not be resisted by the other stage managers. Over the week, the train set us has grown and morphed, been disassembled and reassembled. We are playing. Seeing the joy people are finding in assembling wooden paths has made me realize that we don’t play enough. We come in and work with great intensity, yet I think there is something that could be incredibly useful in having a trainset in the office. It invites us to shift our brains to something else for a little while and work together. I mean we always work together – I think that’s one of my favorite things about my colleagues is that there is no one I don’t work well with – but building train routes together is a whole other way of working together – kind of whimsical and relaxed. It is a shame our office at the theatre is too small for train tracks. Maybe I need to find something whimsical and fun but compact. A jigsaw puzzle, perhaps?

What we ate: Two soup nights this week – it’s the easiest thing to make ahead in the InstantPot when there is a lot going on in the evenings. In trying to stick to making two vegan dinners a week, I was trying to branch out from the usual bean soups, and I found two soups that were pretty tasty.

Saturday: Take out from one of our favorite restaurants, a Burmese place that had closed briefly during the pandemic but is now open again for take out. Hooray!

Sunday: The Husband and I had date night – that is to say we went grocery shopping together while my mom watched the kids, then had early dinner at a deli. The ten year old made frozen tortellini with red sauce for her siblings.

Monday: Wild Rice Mushroom soup in the InstantPot – It’s a basketball night, so I needed to make something that would be ready to eat when the Husband and kids got home. Vegan.

Tuesday: The Husband cooked. Something involving eggplant. I worked late and had leftover Burmese take out for dinner.

Wednesday: Zucchini pancakes from Bare Minimum Dinners. Such a simple idea – grate two zucchinis, mix up a batch of pancakes from mix (I used Kodiak), add the zucchini and onion powder and some chopped herbs ( cilantro, mint, parsley was what I had on hand) to the mix. I also made some tzatziki on the side and we ate it with chopped up carrots.

Thursday: Pumpkin Lasagna Soup in the Instant Pot. Another activity heavy evening, so I made dinner ahead of time to be ready when folks got home. I was a little skeptical of the recipe, but it sounded interesting – a pumpkin soup with half a cup of tomato sauce and coconut milk and chickpeas and lasagna noodles. It turned out to be really really tasty. vegan.

Friday: Pizza (takeout) and Cool Runnings. I had never seen this 1993 movie about the Jamaican Bobsled team, and it came up in a list of family friendly movies under 100 mins, the time limit being important because we were having a late start to movie night. The movie is highly fictionalized but even still, it is delightful, funny, and inspiring – kind of a perfect family movie night film.

Seasonal Fun lists, regrets, and Fall Aspirations

My first glimpse of Fall colour this year – at Mont Royal in Montreal in AUGUST!!!

Today is officially Fall!

Earlier this month, I was thinking about all the “Summer Fun Lists” I see around the internet and, conversely this article “Our Biggest Regrets from this Summer “ on Slate. I certainly did not do all the activities on my summer fun list, but I did a lot of them. As I watch the last rays of summer fade, I realized that while there are certainly things I did not get to, I don’t really regret not doing them. I think of my Summer List as a brain dump of all the possible fun things to do between mid-June and September, and I don’t have to do them all; I can chose things off the list that suit my mood and situation at any given time. There is no Bingo prize for checking all the boxes. Certainly there are things on the summer list that do require advance planning – travel, seeing friends, activities that require tickets – but many things do not. And being a planning resistant person, I find that it really helps me clarify my priorities to see what I’m willing to put in the effort to plan for or even do on a whim.

Take, for example, my monthly mom’s group happy hour. I’m the one who plans these for my mom’s group, and it usually goes on the calendar three weeks out. I very rarely plan things that far in advance. Of course there are things that go on the calendar that far out, but these are the immovable things that are set by others – swim meets, rehearsal and performance dates, summer camp, etc. My mom’s group happy hour is one of the rare things that I will actively make plans for – I send out a doodle poll for dates and venue suggestions, pick the date and venue, make reservations, tell my Husband so he can plan to be home with the kids that night. It seems like a lot of work, but I feel like mom’s group happy hour is a priority – I love seeing these moms and swapping stories about poop.

The things on my list that I decide to do last minute or the day before – it’s not really a question of priority – it’s just that I think the priority during the summer is to get out and enjoy the sunshine, so any one of a variety of activities will do. I feel so lucky that there are so many wonderful adventures to have near me that can be pulled off impulsively, so there will always be worthwhile and beautiful things to do. As Oliver Burkeman notes in 4000 Weeks – once one realizes the finite nature of life, one can let go of the infinite possibilities and focus on those things that one actually chooses to do.

Last year, we tried to complete the Maryland Ice Cream Trail, and were a little bummed not to get to all ten creameries on the list and vowed to complete it this year. But you know what? We only made it to two of the ten this year, and I’m fine with that. We still had tasty ice cream. Last year we went to three creameries in one day in our quest and that was arguably not a great move. A great memory, but still… regrettable in other ways.

Alright, now that I think of it, I do have one summer regret – I regret signing the ten year old up for County camp. She didn’t love it (apparently the kids were mean) and it was a bit of a schlep for me. Of course hindsight is 20/20 because she loved the camp last year – but this year, I guess it was a different group of kids. At any rate, now I know and I think next year, we will do fewer weeks of camp. Perhaps over winter break I will have her come up with a list of all the possible things she might be interested in doing and then.

I’m not saying there aren’t other things that I wish I had done more of or less of this summer, but I don’t think I had a summer to regret.

Having said all that, Here are some thoughts and aspirations for Fall, roughly (if not technically) between now and Thanksgiving.

Hallowe’en Costumes. I love making Hallowe’en costumes. Last year’s Millenium Falcon was certainly epic for me. This year, however, the two littles wanted to be something that was going to be far simpler to just buy. The ten year old, however, has a more creative idea in mind. I think she was a little disappointed that she couldn’t top her brother’s Millenium Falcon last year (but honestly, what could?). So this year she has an idea that will be a lot of fun and involves cardboard. Or maybe foam core. We’ll see.

Carve a Jack-o’-Lantern, or two or three. I love pumpkin carving. I’m actually working on Hallowe’en this year, so I’ll have to pre-game. Maybe I should also come up with an appropriate costume to wear backstge?

Another round of attic clean out. Finally work up the heart to get rid of the baby stuff.

Apple Picking. If not apple picking then at least apple sauce and apple pie.

Fall Camping. Given my lack of two day weekends this one is very very aspirational.

Hiking in fall colour. Hopefully once a month. By the looks of this fall foliage predicator, it seems like peak colour with happen in our area around the end of October. The Husband is taking the kids to New York to meet up with my parents that weekend, and since that is tech week, I won’t be going. However…. that means that I will have a day off my myself, so I think I will plan a hike on that free day. Or maybe even a bike ride. There are also lots of hikes and activities that our County Parks department sponsors. They always look really interesting and informative, so I want to see if any will fit in our schedule.

Celebrate the baby’s birthday. This is actually this weekend. I didn’t get it together to plan a party, but we have family in town and we will have cake and balloons (shhh… this last will be a surprise). And she got to pick her breakfast cereal at the grocery store this week, a tradition in our household. She picked Fruity Pebbles.

Go to the Theatre. This one is practically done. I have tickets for Hamilton this weekend, purchased four months ago. I never plan theatre (or anything, really) that far out in advance, but last spring I decided that I wanted to take the two older kids so I went ahead and bought the tickets. I did kick myself later because I didn’t double check my dates – it’s the baby’s birthday weekend plus the kids have Monday off school, so maybe we could have taken a bigger family adventure. Oh well.
Hamilton aside, there’s a lot of other really interesting theatre happening near us – this production of Beauty and the Beast looks to be unconventional and awesome.

Survive Tech Week. Keep practicing good habits and making sure I stay human and don’t become a theatre zombie during a tech process that I might be dreading a teeny tiny bit.

Fix the Storm Door. The glass on the storm door got broken by a child a few weeks ago. It’s a pretty old door so will need to be replaced, I think.

Make progress towards ordering window treatments for the living room. We’ve had a stop gap solution in place for a while since our curtain rod broke. It involves sheers and some too-small black panels. I would like to take a step or two towards having proper window treatments in place again.

Ziplining with the ten year old. I had planned on taking her this summer, but it was just too hot, so we put it off until Fall.

Cozy Kitchen Adventures. Who says Fall Adventures have to mean leaving the house? Fall is the start of “hunker and carbs” season. I do want to make something in my Bundt pan since my last attempt was such a wet goopy fail.

Watch some recent movies. Cooler weather means hunkering and watching movies is a good way to hunker. I’m not always able to stay awake for a full movie these days, but there are some that I really want to stay awake for. I am super excited by this adaptation of on of my favorite books as a child, Catherine Called Birdy. AND the ten year old has read this book, so we can watch it together. Also Fire Island has been on my Watchlist all summer. It’s a gay Asian re-telling of Pride and Prejudice, and all of that is just my catnip.

Happy Hour with my mom’s group. A lot of the parents in this group prefer outdoor meet ups so I definitely want to get a few more Happy Hours in before the weather gets too chilly.

Happy Hour with fellow Stage Managers. There has been a seismic shift in the stage management staff at work this past year and it’s made me realize that I really value the my co-workers as human beings, not just as people I work with. The thought of not seeing them at all this opera season makes me a little sad, so I would love to arrange something.

Free Days that are restorative and fulfilling. Given that I’m working every weekend between next week and the middle of November, I don’t know how many of the Fall weekend specific things I’ll manage to get to – things such as Fall Festivals and Special Fall Events. Since I generally only have one day off a week, I really want to guard that time and spend it on what matters. I’ve been thinking about this lately – how to spend my one precious free day. When I have chaotic and hectic free days, I don’t feel at all ready to go back to work. A good free day needs to be a good combination of life tasks and family tasks and personal tasks and leisure tasks and social time and rest. Which seems like a lot to ask of just one day. So maybe I need to pick three of those categories each free day, with rest always being one of the choices.