Goals and Aspirations – Life Off Headset

Weekly recap + what we ate: Snack conundrum, February aspirations, and listening to

This week – work, family, federal chaos. I don’t know if I have the bandwidth to unpack all of that. Or even if I should/want to/etc.

So here are some less consequential things on my mind lately….

The snack situation at our house is pissing me off. It seems like the kids are constantly snacking. Okay, I’m going to be honest – what pisses me off the most is that they are taking my snacks. Specifically my peanut M&Ms. One of my snacks of choice to pack for work is a trail mix of pretzels, peanut M&Ms, and dried cherries. I bought a big bag of M&Ms to do this. (Rather, the Husband bought me a bag when he was at the grocery store.) The kids found it and the bag was nearly gone within the week. Ooooh the rage I felt. Anyhow – my options as I see it are:
1)stop buying Peanut M&Ms. This would make me sad.
2) Hide the peanut M&Ms better. But where? The kids are very persistent.
3) Give them better alternatives. Would this work? Would they eat the bowl of carrots I put out for them? Really they just want M&Ms.
4) have a no snacking rule. HAHAHAHAHA. Nope.
5) get over myself and let them eat the peanut M&Ms.

I realize this is completely irrational. Peanut M&Ms aren’t like beer – it’s not something I can pass off as a “Mommy snack.” I’m trying to think of why my kids can’t have Peanut M&Ms whenever they want in a way that doesn’t make me feel petty. (ie. they can’t have peanut M&Ms because the M&M are MINE!!!!!) Sigh. It’s really hard to be the bigger person in this parenting thing.

So anyhow I’m trying to think of better snacks.

Listening to lately – Despite my musing in my 2024 media diet post about my lack of music listening, I’ve been trying to rectify it somewhat. Some things I’m listening to:
–All Songs Considered. I am so not hip, but I like this podcast because they play music I’ve never heard of (honestly that’s not that difficult. My musical rolodex is quite limited) by artists I’ve never heard of (but probably should know about), and they tell you why they like the pieces.

-Our Tainan playlist. On the bus in Taiwan, I made a playlist by asking everyone in the family (my parents, my brother’s family’ the Husband and kids) to choose one song to add to the list. It’s a little all over the place, but I love listening it because it reminds me of my family:

-Okay you know what is unassumingly charming music? The soundtrack to Bluey. There is even a poppy version of Pachelbel’s Canon that doesn’t drive me batty. I’ve been playing this album when I want something cheerful in the background. The music embodies the happiness I want my kids to remember when they are grown,.

(Note – Pachelbel’s Canon is one of those pieces of music that makes me roll my eyes. Funny story – It was the one piece of music that I was adament would not be played at my wedding. The organist suggested it and was shut down rather quickly. But then, my parents arranged a wedding banquet in Taiwan for all their relatives. And what did the DJ play when the Husband and I entered? Pachelbel’s Canon. What could the Husband and I do but laugh?)

Some light aspirations for February:

-Register the 5 year old for kindergarten. This is one of two big “To Do” of February. She is for sure going to Kindergarten this fall. No one is stopping her.

– Start organizing forms for our tax person. This is the other big “To Do” for us. I start back at rehearsal at the end of March, so I need this done before then. Also our tax guy wants tax documents submitted two weeks before

-Schedule an appointment for window treatments. Now that I’ve donated the 20 year old car, this is the looming-perpetually-put-off item at the top of my to do list.

-Schedule an eye appointment. The situation is sad, friends. I haven’t had my eyes checked in four or five years and things just don’t look crisp anymore. I really need to fix this before I have to spend more time standing in the dark backstage trying to read music by the light of a tiny book light.

-Paint and send some cards.

-Work – clean out the office, organize the laptop situation, order spike tape. I have two supertitle gigs, so I want to make sure I get ahead of that work and not leave it to the last minute.

-home – 30 day declutter challenge. I found a Thirty Day Declutter Challenge online. I like that it’s in ten minute increments.

-write Taiwan/Kuala Lumpur trip recaps.

-Schedule time to see friends.

-Family game night.

-Make it to one of the 13 year old’s middle school basketball games.

-Valentine’s Day. Help the kids write their cards.

-Routine and Habit goals:
* yoga daily
* journal/ track habits daily
*1 vegan dinner a week. Trying to eat more vegetables.
*Go to bed before midnight.
*Read every day.

Grateful For – It’s been so uplifting to read read everyone’s FIGs via Elisabeth’s gratitude challenge. Here are some of my FIGS for the past week:
– The Husband showing me a beautiful sunset. He was on his way out the door to pick up one of the kids and he came back, saying, “Look at this sunset!” It was stunning, all orange-y pink incandescence.

-Hoodies with zippered pockets. Good for when I just stuff my keys in my pocket.

-Our gas grill and the tenant who left it for us. I was a charcoal grill person for the longest time, but then our tenant left behind a gas grill when she moved out. It’s not the same flavor, but it sure as hell is faster.

-Wifi at kids’ activities. Lets me get work done. Or blogging. Like right now at the Agility Center.

-Fresh baked muffins. And a batter that is sturdy enough to sit in the fridge for a few days so that I can make more on a whim.

-A commute home when I hit all the green lights. Makes me feel unstoppable.

-Parks and playgrounds nearby. I feel so lucky that we live somewhere that there’s usually a park or playground within a 10-15 minute radius of wherever we are, so if we have some awkward time to kill between activities, we can find a playground.

-Movie night and cuddles from the kids on the couch.

-The cherry tree in the living room isn’t dead after all. The Husband on a whim bought a cherry tree last year. It’s been living in our living room and for a while it was just sad and bare. But slowly, so slowly that I hadn’t even noticed, there has been green emerging from the brown branches. And this week, there was even a blossom.

Looking Forward To:
– Contra Dancing! There is a Thursday night contra dance this week near us. Looking forward to going with the family.

-Vanilla. So we ran out of vanilla this week. Or rather we ran out of vanilla at some point before this week and no one clocked it to put it on the grocery list before I wanted to make a big batch of muffins. I had some vanilla beans that my mother in law had bought me for Christmas one year. (Note, my mother in law passed away in 2016, so these have been in the pantry for a looooong time.) I’d been too intimidated to use the vanilla bean, but desparate times….

I scraped a vanilla pod into the muffins. then I read that you could make your own vanilla extract by sticking a vanilla pod in vodka and leaving it for six months. Well…. Last show, a singer had given me a tiny bottle of vodka for opening night. Alcohol is a common opening night present, but I don’t drink, so it’s often a conundrum of what to do with it. Well, this was perfect. I stuck a vanilla bean in that tiny bottle of vodka. And now I wait. For six months. I’m so excited. I also hope I remember it’s there in August.

Open in six months. I guess I have to remember where I put it in six months.

-Another snow day. Looking forward to hunkering, maybe baking. I have some meetings that I’ll take from home. Shhhhh… don’t tell the kids, but there might be movie marathon at some point so I can read. See next point.

-Reading this book:

This book was all the rage last year. It finally came off my holds as a seven day loan, so I’m madly trying to read it this week because if I don’t finish it, the waitlist for this book is like 2000 people long. It’s proving funny and sharp. Also makes me wonder if my wardrobe is boring and normal.

What We Ate:
Monday: Greek Salad and Zucchini Fritters. Vegan. (I used a flax egg for the fitters.)

Tuesday: Taco Tuesday. We had a friend over this time. I made grilled chicken, black beans, shrimp, mango-cabbage slaw. We had also pickled onions, guac, sour cream, avocados. Corn tortillas and wheat tortillas.

Wednesday: Random dinner – I used up the rest of the sunchokes by making another batch of sunchoke chips, and also steamed green beans. The Husband was out running and errand and came home with kung pao chicken and garlic pork.

Thursday: Waffles and tofu scramble (The Husband Cooked). This was our attempt at breakfast for dinner in an age of $10 eggs.

Friday: Pizza (The Husband made it) and Avengers: Civil War. A very unsatisfying movie.

Saturday: DogFish Head Brewery for the Husband’s birthday

Super Bowl Sunday: We had several friends over and there was so. much. food: we made cheeseteaks, dumplings, and snickerdoodles. Our friends brought: smoked turkey, chicken wings, white bean buffalo dip, brownies. There was also a lot of chips, Doritos (Cool Ranch and Regular), and cucumbers and carrots. Also, these Pringles:

I am pretty notorious in my circles for eating anything, but these were… not good. They were meaty with a green pepper aftertaste that tasted both surprisingly accurate and completely artificial.

Hope you have a lovely week!

What are you currently snacking on? What’s one song you would add to my playlist? Any big to do list items for February?

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?

Weekly recap + what we ate: September 2024 aspirations and Declutter-palooza update

First weekend of Declutter-palooza happened!

Here is the Attic BEFORE:

No attic is complete with out a naked Cabbage Patch Doll!

Here is the Attic currently:

We (I) tried to use the “No Mess Declutter method” which is, honestly one of those things like “time blocking” where I think… well isn’t that just how people do things anyway? (How is “dedicate blocks of time to work on each task” revolutionary? It totally seems like a productivity bro trying to sell something people (women) have been doing for years…) Anyhow the method is – pick up one thing. Decide if it goes in trash, donate, or has another home in the house. If it’s the two former choices, put it in the correct pile. If it’s the last choice, go put it in that better place. Come back. Pick up another object. Rinse. Repeat. I kind of wanted to avoid taking everything out of the attic and then having it take over the house while we dealt with it. So this method seemed to make sense. It wasn’t perfect – there are definitely meandering piles of things around the house that we are still thinking about – but at least you can walk from one end of the attic to another now.

A lot of our stuff just got moved to a better space in the house, but a lot of it legit left the house. I took five bags of clothes to Goodwill, we put a bunch of stuff out for bulk trash pick up, I took the toddler bed, a stroller, and some more clothes to an organization (A Wider Circle) that helps people furnish their homes. They also have started taking baby supplies and clothes, so any clothes smaller than a size 3 went to Wider Circle. I learned that they also take car seats so three of our four car seats are going there next week too.

Things we got rid of that I’m sad about:
-The stroller. We had a fancy stroller – an UppaBaby Vista which we got on super discount because it was the floor model at Buy Buy Baby. The Husband really loved this stroller. It got us through three kids and lasted ten years before the frame broke. It’s been to England. It’s been all over the country. It’s been pushed down stairs. One summer, in the middle of a trip to Dutch Wonderland, the frame just broke. The youngest was almost three at the time and that was when we stopped using strollers.
-The twin mattress. It was a crappy mattress, but I feel like maybe I should have tried to take it to Wider Circle rather than leave it for bulk pick up.
– And I can’t think of anything else really. Maybe a couple items of baby clothes? Of course there are things that we kept for sentimental reasons that we aren’t quite ready to move out of the house yet. But it’s a process, right?

One thing that felt really cathartic to toss:
-breastmilk containers. I had an entire 18 gallon bin full of breastmilk containers and bottles. Why???? I haven’t pumped in three years. I think in my mind I’d find some use for all those teeny tiny bottles. Hah. I put them all in recycling. Bonus: I got an 18 gallon bin back!

Things I’m a little perplexed about, but which will probably just get thrown in the trash:
-The stroller attachments – so we put the broken stroller out on the curbe, but we still have all the attachments – the car seat frame, the rumble seat, the scooter board, the bassinet. Most of the this stuff I scoured craigslist (remember that… does anyone use craigslist anymore?) to get. Only we have a Vista v. 1, which they don’t make anymore so our attachments won’t fit current Vista stroller. I’m going to email UppaBaby and see if there is any way these attachments are still useful. I makes me a little sad to just junk it because the attachments weren’t actually used all that much.
-Baby bottles. What to do with all these? Do they even sell nipples for these anymore? I might put them on Freecycle to see if anyone wants them. Also this process has hammered home to me how much plastic is involved in having a baby.

One thing that was destined for the trash until a child found it:
-my father in law’s briefcase. The 7 year old found it and loves it. He keeps his nerf gun and light saber in it, like some kind of toy mafia gangster or something.

Next stop – the Toy Room….

The toy room will definitely be harder because everything in it has some kind of sentimental value for someone. We had thought about doing it without the kids, but I feel like that would some kind of betrayal of the kids’ trust. So we will do it together. Or try.

In other musings – turn of the calendar page to a new month, brings reflection and aspirations.

Side note – I really liked this article about the three types of “ritual days” one should incorporate into their month:
-“Get your ducks in a row” day to take care of life admin tasks
-“Idle Hands” day without any plans or commitments to unplug and rest and refresh.
-“Monthly Recap of the Mind” day to reflect on the last month and plan for anything upcoming. I feel like I take time to do this already, but I could be more mindful about it.
I feel like I have moments of each of those days, sometimes all in one day. But I like the idea of purposefully setting dates for each of those things in the calendar and letting each task take the focus for one day (or even 4-8 hours of one day.)

August highlights:
– Working on a wonderful show. I’m terrible at lying and when people ask me how a show went, sometimes I give a half grin and say, “It was fiiiiiiiine….” And then you know it was kind of a shit show. BUT – people have been asking me about this last show I worked on and I immediately light up and say, “It was great, really, really great.” And I mean it.
– Camping with the two younger kids.
-Solo weekend when I went hiking with a friend and to the Cassatt exhibit at the Philadelphia Museum of Art.
-meeting up with a friend whom I haven’t seen for five or six years at that Cassatt exhibit.
-First day of School!
-Visit from my mom and my aunt.
-Booking medical check ups and finding out that my uterii are fine.
-Peach Truck and other trips to the farmers market for fresh produce. (note to self – do more of this next summer)

August Low Lights:
-The 4 year old not getting into kindergarten. Made especially tough to swallow by the tuition increase at her daycare.
-Not having time to exercise – I only ran 7 times the whole month.
-hemorrhaging money a little bit for back to school things and activities.

September Aspirations – I realize looking back on August’s list that many of these things were on August’s list as well.
Home/Family Life:
-Declutter-palooza. See above.
– Settle into new patterns for the school year. Try to establish some good habits and routines.
– Get rid of my car. Clearly I’m making no progress on this since it shows up on this list every month. Micro goal – fill our the paperwork to donate the car to the high school trade program.
-Window treatments for the living room. Ditto above. Micro goal: Schedule appointment with the window people.
– Do some planning for a day trip to take while in Kuala Lumpur. (I’m feeling a little like we chose Kuala Lumpur too hastily because the parts of Malaysia that people say are worth visiting are outside of Kuala Lumpur, but with only four days, it might be too much for us to try to arrange to visit those places and get in the relaxing time that we want. But then part of me feels like any foreign country is worth seeing, right? I don’t really understand when people say “such and such place isn’t worth visiting.” It sounds so snobbish. The world is bigger than just the top ten sights, right?)
-Plan the 4 year old’s birthday party. (The Husband actually has booked the place already – I just have to make the invite and plan the food.)
-Make Cheesy bread. When we were visiting my friend in August, she made these really easy gluten-free cheesy buns, which she had learned about on her trip to Brazil. They were delicious. Fall is coming – I want to do more baking!
– make 2 vegan dinners a week.
-Figure out Hallowe’en costumes. October will be super busy for me, so I want to get this settled as soon as possible. So far, the 7 year old wants to wear his Darth Vader costume again and the 4 year old wants to be a fairy. Not sure about the 12 year old. Is 12 too old to go trick or treating?
-Schedule dentist appointments for the kids.
-Hike now that the weather is starting to cool off a little maybe I can convince the family to go for a hike. If not, maybe I can go on my own.
-Ride the Metro! Our metro station has re-opened after being closed all summer.

Me:
– 10 minutes of yoga or strength exercises 5/7 days a week.
– run 3/7 days a week
– Paint and send two cards.
– Blog – goal for 8 posts this month.
– Make time to journal and read in the morning.
-Schedule eye doctor appointment.
-To buy – purse (still), running/sports bras (I currently have three, but I only do laundry every two weeks, so I need more sports bras if I’m to run 3X a week.), a Fall jacket that isn’t my raincoat.
-see my friend K.
-Museum – maybe not this month, but writing it down so I don’t forget – there’s an exhibit on Impressionism at the National Gallery of Art until January. I want to make sure to go see it. There’s also a couple exhibits at the Freer and Sackler Museums (The Smithsonian’s Asian Art Collections) that look interesting too. There’s also a Lego exhibit at the Building Museum that would be fun with the kids.

Work:
-move desks at work.
-put all my contracted work dates into the calendar.
-update the production assistant guidebook.

Amazing Food Combination Discovery:
A little while ago, I wrote about discovering these chocolate quinoa crisps at Costco. Well, last week, I just made them better but spreading peanut butter on them. AMAZING. You’re welcome.

Grateful For:
-Cooler weather. Of course I wrote that then we got a row of 80 degree days. The mornings have been cooler at least. I’m excited for fall weather!

-Co-worker M who retired last week. She’s been at the Opera twice as longa s I’ve been there and has been so inspirational to me. She can be firm and gracious at the same time, and always makes sure that everyone is doing okay. There was a farewell party for her at work last week. I hate saying good-bye to people, but I had to tell her how amazing she has been. And she said the kindest thing to me – “You are proof that if you do consistent good work, you can get to the top of your department.” That almost made me cry. She also said she feels like the stage management department is a lot calmer since I took over. I don’t know that that is my doing, but I was so touched that she said that. I made her a card, because I thought she deserved a bouquet of flowers:

I’m really happy with how that purple ribbon turned out. That dark green Venus fly trap-ish leaf at the top, though… what even is that?

-Free dances and a lovely Sunday afternoon. We took the family to a Barn Dance last weekend at Glen Echo park. These are family friendly dances put on by the same group that organizes contra dances. (The Husband and I met at a contra dance at this same park.) Glen Echo is a former amusement park that is now kind of an arts/theatre/music/social dance venue. The Barn Dance takes place in the former Bumper Car Pavilion and it was free. There was a caller, live music and easy social dances. The kids all danced at least two dances and afterwards we went for a carousel ride ($2/ride or $5 to ride all day – one of the best deals in town!). Afterwards we went for ice cream at a new-to-me creamery. I had a scoop of the Guava ice cream and a scoop of the Old Bay Caramel. They were both really really really good. I was skeptical about the Old Bay Caramel, but if you like spice, savory, and sweet all in one – and I do – this might be right up your alley.

Looking Forward To:

-Public transportation. Like I mentioned above, our metro stop was closed all summer, and it has now re-opened. I’m looking forward to taking it places. I even took it to work once last week.

-Getting back to work. I’m feeling a little fractured right now – I’m starting to go to work meetings even though rehearsals don’t start for two weeks, so I know enough to know just how much I don’t know. But I’m looking forward to getting back in the swing of things and setting a more regular schedule.

-Watching this documentary:

It’s been out for a while, but I haven’t gotten a chance to watch it yet, so I’m putting it on the list. Drama and backstage machinations at a Ren Faire!!!! I’m there for it.

What We Ate:
Monday: Grilled Cheese and Apples. This was the day from the last post, when we went to the Renaissance Festival. We got home so late that no one felt like cooking, so we just had something super simple for dinner.

Tuesday: Cheesy Green Chili Bean Bake, from NY Times Cooking. I was looking for a way to used up some poblano peppers I had. This was really tasty. I used black beans instead of pinto because that’s what I had. The 7 year old, when I told him we were having Cheesy beans for dinner opted to make himself a peanut butter and jelly sandwich. But then half way through dinner, he said, “I think I’ll try the cheesy beans.” and he did and he said, “These are good! You didn’t tell me they would be good!” Sigh. (I made cornbread to go with it, but it wasn’t done in time so we just ate it with tortillas)

Wednesday – Eggplant and pork stir fry – the Husband cooked.

Thursday: Spiced Chickpea Stew with Coconut and Turmeric, though it’s more of a curry. This was also very tasty and it used a bunch of kale. Would make again. Vegan.

Friday: Pizza (take out – tasty but the restaurant is slow) and Glee.

Saturday: Eggs/Leftovers. This was Declutter-palooza day. I kind of forgot to feed the kids this day -the Husband threw together some eggs for them. Thank goodness.

Sunday: Kale pesto and gnocchi (from frozen) and leftover sausage. This was another day where we didn’t have anything planned but I had a little bit of kale leftover from Thursday’s chickpea stew. I’d never made kale pesto before, and was skeptical that the kids would like it, but they did!

How is your week? What have you thrown out lately? How old is too old for Trick or Treating?

Weekly recap + what we ate: July highlights/August Aspirations, 2024

Prop table. I love me a well-labelled prop table. I did something a little different this time and labelled the prop table by character rather than by object.

I’m enjoying the tail end of another weekend alone. The Husband has again taken the kids away on a road trip, this time to Indiana. They are going to visit friends, go to the Indiana State Fair, visit my in-law’s grave sites, and go to the Indianapolis Children’s Museum. Is he an awesome dad or what?

I am at home by myself because I have to work so I couldn’t go along. I’ve had a nice few days, though. Even though the husband is the one who went away, I’m pretty sure I had the more restorative few days. Things I’ve done:

-Dinner with some friends whom I haven’t seen in ages.

– Drove up to Philadelphia to see the Mary Cassatt exhibit at the Philadelphia Art Museum. I had really wanted to see this exhibit, and sort of vaguely thought about going, but never made plans. When I saw the exhibit was closing in September, I was a little sad that I was going to miss it, but then I thought, “Why can’t I go see it?” No reason whatsoever! So I bought tickets and drove up. I think I would have taken the kids if I had had them this weekend, but being able to go by myself felt super indulgent. It was a beautiful exhibit, featuring a variety of Cassatt’s works – paintings, prints, pastels, sketches. I particularly loved seeing the sketches, and getting a sense of Cassatt’s process, how she captures a scene with a certain economy of line, and then whittles the scene down even further to the final painting.

I loved this series of paintings of women reading.

I also took in the Asian art exhibits. How intricate and practical many of the items were. It made me think of how skillfully beautiful every day objects were in centuries past. The amount of craftsmanship that it takes to paint a vase or carve figurines on a column is jaw dropping.

As an added bonus, I met up with a friend in Philadelphia whom I hadn’t seen in seven or eight years. We had both been baby stage managers together, learnin the trade from the same stage manager before going off to our respective careers. It was great to catch up and reflect on where life has taken us and what we’ve learned along the way.

-Watched some feel good rom coms – Finding You (struggling violinist goes to Ireland to find herself, meets cute movie star. Pretty Irish scenery, accents, Irish music, Vanessa Redgrave!) and About Fate (Girl needs a date for her sister’s wedding, coincidences throw a very nice boy in her way). Sweet and predictable and just what I wanted. Though, About Fate really annoyed me because it had the trope of sweet and capable guy meeting failure to launch girl. I get annoyed when protagonists are terrible at adulting. I mean a little bit of struggle is fine, but when they’re just incompetent at being decent humans I just feel uninvested in them getting a happy ending.

-Read. I finished three books and made good progress in two others, including I Capture the Castle for Cool Blogger’s Book Club. I might even get this weeks reading assignment done on time!

-Laundry lots of laundry. I had thought to get some other decluttering projects done, but that didn’t happen. I did purge a bunch of paper, though. The 7 year old insists on keeping every scarp of paper that comes home from school, so I took this opportunity to weed that out a little bit. I’m a little disappointed in myself to not declutter more, but on the other hand, we are at laundry basket zero, which never happens. Just in time for the rest of the family to come back with four days worth of laundry.

-Baked brownies. This recipe. It’s a super fudgy brownie, maybe too fudgy for my tastes. I have to say, my perfect brownie is the Ghirardelli mix from Costco. Maybe I should stop trying to find a perfect “from scratch” brownie recipe and just accept that what I want is the Ghirardelli. I also made peach muffins, since I picked up three boxes of peaches from this weekend’s Peach Truck run, the last of the season.

-Went on a hike with a friend K and her friend W. (I’ve managed to get a hike and a museum in this month after all!). We went on a short hike up to a spectacular view of the Potomac River and sat among rocks and talked about life while birds swooped around us. It’s so nice to talk with people who offer thoughtful conversation. I totally have a girl crush on W now and want to hang out with her again.

Afterwards we went to the nearby cute small town, got refreshing beverages – mine was a Sakura Lychee drink – and had lunch. What a nice ladies’ afternoon.

– Had my closing performance on Saturday. How I will miss this show. I like to make a list of the indelible moments of shows that I work on – live performance is so ephemeral and I think it is sometimes easy to let the experience flit away. Yet, I don’t want to take for granted how lucky I am to be part of a creative process, so even while running around backstage and checking props and people, I want to make sure I take time to savor moments, these singular fleeting moments that is live theatre. So here are some from this show:
– The tenor singing to the body of his dead brother, as he cradles it. Breaks my heart every night. Actually everything this singer does.
-The baritone who sings the priest, with his beautiful velvet voice. Wrap me in his voice forever, please.
-The baritone, who always shows me his handkerchief before he goes onstage because he knows I will ask to make sure he has it. (Because it would make for an awkward truce scene if he goes onstage without his white handkerchief)
-The bag pipes. Did I mention there are bagpipes in this show? How awesome is that? Definitely one to savor because how often will I get to hear bagpipes in such close proximity.
-The harp, which is directly behind me for most of the show. The harp part in this show is so delicate yet steady, each pluck of the strings resonates in me.
-The Sleep Chorus, a moment in the first act when the soldiers are singing about how they long for sleep and home. So beautiful it gives me chills every night.
-The percussion, timpani, and brass section, also behind me – those moments where they play so loud that I cover my ears yet still can feel the music through my soles, vibrating the floor.
-The baritone (there are a lot of baritones in this show) who plays the Aide-de-campe – his thoughtful, endearing, funny performance while he juggles a million props, and his ad libs in French. (That section on prop table with the white crate- that’s all him.)
-The insanity of the battle sequence, the backstage traffic of which felt like utter chaos until the third performance, when suddenly, magically, it began to run like clockwork and we could all just pretend that it’s utter chaos.
All in all I loved the past six weeks working on this show – one of the top career highlights, I would say.

Other Fun things this week:
-I make “clean out the produce drawer” muffins. I found this muffin recipe, and it seemed pretty versatile, so I looked in my produce drawer and found lots of languishing produce to put into a muffin. I added – apples, pears (that I had forgotten/didn’t realize we had), two wrinkled beets, a huge pattypan squash that had been given to use by our neighbors, but which confounded me so has been languishing in the produce drawer. I might have also added carrots too, but I can’t keep track. I reduced the sugar and used whole wheat flour. I think they turned out great. They were moist and just the right sweetness. The kids were decidedly lukewarm – no raves, but they did each eat several muffins so they couldn’t have been that bad. It was so satisfying to finally find a use for those two sad wrinkled beets in our produce fridge.

-Going to the park with the 7 year old to read. He didn’t have camp this week since it’s a lighter week for me, and he said he wanted to sit outside and read, so we brought our books to the park and read on a park bench together. He’s reading one of the Wings of Fire graphic novels. I’m reading I Capture the Castle.

-Going shoe shopping and school supply shopping. It was tax-free week in Maryland, so I figured it was a good week to get things done. The 12 year old didn’t have a school supply list, per se. I asked her what school supplies she needed and shed said, “I don’t need school supplies, I just use the Chromebook.” Well that made me a little sad. We bought her a binder and some paper and pencils and folders anyway. And then the two little kids got new shoes. They wanted the exact same shoes as they had last year, so that made for a quick and easy trip to the shoe store!

-Making lemonade. I’ve been craving lemonade lately, so I bought a bag of lemons and the 12 year old and I made mint lemonade base one afternoon. Perfect for drinking mixed with fizzy water. I had so much lemonade base that I stuck some in the blender with some strawberries that were a touch past their prime and poured the result into popsicle molds, making strawberry lemonade popsicles.

-When the kids steal my phone and take group selfies when I’m not looking. I get annoyed that they take my phone, but who can stay irked forever at these faces:

Reflections and Aspirations: I finally had a moment to write down my July reflections and August Aspirations. Why do I always seem to get to this when the month is already half over? Anyhow, here they are:
July 2024 Highlights:
-Writing guest blog posts for Elisabeth and Engie. So flattered to have been asked. Those posts were so fun to write.
-Swim Team Season. Summer Swim Team is exhausting, but I loved watching the 12 year old swim and seeing her have fun being on swim team. Also the 7 year old sort of figuring out how to swim. And taking showers on his own. Those felt like milestones.
– Going skating and duckpin bowling with the family. Small adventures.
-The 12 year old going to NYC with her theatre camp and her end of camp showcase.
– Watching the Olympics.
-Getting a new haircut. Also well woman exam, and mammogram. Still have not scheduled that eye appointment yet.
-Visit from my cousin and her daughter. So good to see them and hang out.

July Lowlights:
-The oppressively hot weather. Ick. So much ick. It made me not want to run or leave the house or do anything.
-The circus that is American politics. I try not to let the news get to me, but July 2024 was a lot and it made me just feel so angry and annoyed.
-Having to manage three drop offs and pick ups since all three kids were at different camps/schools. I felt like our mornings were a constant scramble. The moment we got in the car, someone would always ask, “Are we late?” and the answer was always, “No one is on time until Mom is on time to work.”
-Some hard parenting moments. Makes me want to throw up my hands and give up some days. When does it become less of a struggle to get kids to be responsible humans?

August Aspirations:
LIFE/FAMILY/FUN:
-Start school! Buy school supplies [DONE!], double check if the kids need any new clothes.
-Activity sign ups for the fall. I think I know what these are – pretty much the same as last year, but I just have to spend a few hours at my computer and knock it all out. (I’m really thankful that these things can be done online now. I think when I was a child it all involved postage and physical forms and writing checks. Some activities I still write checks for, though.)
– Planning a trip for the long weekend in September where there is no school. Perhaps. Need to really think about this and book things.
-Plan the Malaysia leg of our Asia trip. This has been on the list for several months now, but I think it really needs to be done this month or next.
-Renaissance Faire!!! Figure out when to go.
-Plan birthday party for 4 year old in September.

HOME:
-Window treatments (Still.) Make an appointment with the company that my friend recommended for them to come out and do a consult.
-Declutter one area. Desk? Sewing corner? Pantry?
-Get rid of my car. (Still.)
-Get the front door painted. Choose a paint colour. Paint colours are hard – I thought I’d make it easy on myself and only give myself two options, but what looks good in the morning always looks meh at night and vice versa. So which do I pick?

On the left – No more Drama. on the right, Morocco Red. Which would you pick for a front door?

ME/SOCIAL/FUN:
– Mom’s group lunch (already planned)
-Seeing my friend K. (Already did this)
-Mom and aunt’s visit. Reminder to myself to not revert to teen bratty-ness with my mom.
– Eye Doctor Appointment.
-Paint more pictures. For the sake of having a concrete goal: paint and send two cards.
-Do the NYTimes 9 minute strength workout at least four times a week.
-recommit to journaling daily.
-buy a new purse. My purse is literally in tatters. I’ve been thinking of this one from Quince, or this Sportsac one? I’ve usually had Sportsac purses, but my last one was a little on the small size, so I could stand to get something a little bigger.

WORK:
-Titles for September vocal recital.
-Update stage management handbook for work. (This can spill over into September)
-Finish/archive paperwork from my summer show.

Some of these will probably rollover to be September Aspirations, though, given that it’s almost the end of August.

Grateful for:
-Cooler weather. The weather has been glorious this week! The muggy humidity has left the air, the heat is not as oppressive as it has been, and there is a breeze in the air.

-Getting to dog sit. Every so often, I think, “Maybe I want a dog.” Then I think, “No, actually I don’t think I can fit that in my life.” So I’m grateful when my friends go out of town and I get to dog sit this cutie for them:

A couple weeks with Max is the perfect amount of time to scratch my dog itch (while I scratch his), and make me realize, that I don’t really want a dog 24/7. But I have been enjoying long walks and doggie snuggles and licks these past few weeks.

-My uterus is fine. Or more specifically my uteri are fine. This week started with an ultrasound that involved squirting water into my uterus to get a better look at things. Fun times. No, not at all – it was deeply uncomfortable. But in the spirit of “let’s all acknowledge how different yet normal everyone’s body is”, I’m reporting it here. So I’d been having really wacked periods – like unending light bleeding for months and then really long (like 3 week long) periods, and then weeks of nothing. At my last well woman visit, my doctor said, let’s check that out. When I was pregnant with my first kid, they thought I had a fibroid that was pushing the fetus and would interfere with a vaginal birth. So I had a c-section with her. (A whole other story – maybe I’ll write it here some day.) Then somewhere along the way they said, you have two uteruses. (I think this was after my second miscarriage after that first kid, it came up when they were trying to figure out why the miscarriages.) Anyhow, we tucked that information somewhere and people seemed generally unconcerned because I got pregnant again. I had two more kids, managed to VBAC them (because the babies seemed like they weren’t going to wait for that scheduled c-section.) Then went on with life and maybe still having a fibroid and two uteri, but not really doing anything about it. So fast forward to a couple weeks ago – odd periods, let’s get that checked out, vaginal ultrasound, squirt with water. Guess what? No fibroid! Yay! Just two perfectly healthy uteri. (And just one cervix. The real term they used bicornuate uterus – it’s pretty normal, though rare.) The inconsistent periods? “Well,” my doctor said, “Your uterus is fine, so it’s just you being in your mid forties. I can put you on hormones or birth control pills if you want to try to regulate your periods more.” I don’t really need another thing to keep track of, so I said, “Thank you, but I’ll just make sure to always travel with a back-up pad in my purse.” So that is the story of my uteri. After years of thinking I had a fibroid that I would have to deal with, it’s a huge relief to know that I don’t. Also grateful for my gynecologist because she is pretty awesome and I hope she never retires.

Looking Forward To:
– More peaches from the peach truck! I got three boxes this time since last time I got two and the kids went through them in four days.

-The last week before school starts. I’m contemplating taking the kids camping this coming week. On the one hand, I haven’t been camping yet this summer and could really use the extended time in nature. On the other hand, it seems a lot to cram into the last week before school starts, and maybe I want a more low-key week. We’ll see.

-Time with friends – I have a visit with a friend planned and also lunch with my mom’s group this coming week. Sometimes I feel like there isn’t a lot of interest from the moms in my mom’s group to get together, but I figure I don’t actually like hanging out in big groups, so even if it’s just one or two people coming to lunch, that feels pretty satisfying and makes it worth asking if anyone wants to gather.

What We Ate – I’m not feeling great about our dinner game these past few weeks. There hasn’t been a lot of meal planning, and I’ve just been eating whatever I can scrounge up or throw together. But at least, I’m eating down the fridge…:
Saturday: Pizza leftovers and Newsies (The proshot of the Broadway musical. Loved the dance numbers, the new musical numbers were pretty meh, though. Not sure if I feel the urge to see this in the theatre.)

Sunday: Pizza leftovers (again.)

Monday: Pork and Eggplant stir fry, eaten with noodles.

Tuesday: Salmon and potatoes, cooked on the grill. On the side we had cut up veggies, and I also made a pico de gallo and a mango salsa to eat with the salmon.

Wednesday: Chicken salad sandwiches

Thursday: The family was gone. I had dinner out with friends. I had a tomato, corn, burrata salad with shrimp and French fries.

Friday: Family still gone. I had congee with kimchi and two fried eggs.

Saturday: I had a late lunch, so I didn’t have dinner. When I got home after my show, I had left over Peruvian chicken with black beans, rice, plantains and the leftover salsa from Tuesday.

How is your August going? Is your summer winding down too?

Weekly Recap + what we ate: Good-bye February 2024!

Our last weekend in February was delightfully filled by a visit from my high school friend. She arrived on Saturday mid afternoon and was with us until Monday when I drove her to her hotel where she would be staying for her conference. She’s the only friend from high school that I still keep in touch with, and even though we only see each other every couple of years, we always pick up where we left off. She has children a few years older than mine, and she has such a chill approach to parenting that it’s so soothing talking to her about kids and life and how things turn out. She also used to date my brother so there are things that she just gets about me, even when she doesn’t know the details of my life ant any given moment.

Before my friend came in on Saturday, the 12 year old had a voice lesson, and since the voice lesson was closer to the airport than our house, we decided to have a little adventure in the two hours between voice lesson and my friend’s arrival. (The 12 year old had a hang out with a friend, so she didn’t come along). I remembered that the Gardens at Dumbarton Oaks are free during the winter months, and I had always wanted to visit. It was about 15 minutes from where we were, so we drove down to Georgetown, parked our car, stopped for some coffee, and walked down Wisconsin Ave to Dumbarton Oaks.

So funny story – the only reason I know that Dumbarton Oaks exists is because Igor Stravinsky wrote a chamber symphony called Dumbarton Oaks, which was commissioned by Robert and Mildred Bliss, who used to own the estate. The estate is now a research institute, library, museum, and gardens. Ever since I heard the chamber symphony in college, I’ve wanted to visit Dumbarton Oaks. So finally, twenty plus years later, we went. It’s so funny what random bits of information I know because it has a connection to music.

The gardens were quite extensive and there was lots to see, even though it was still pretty dormant. We played our “Find the Rainbow Colors” game. Though we didn’t really find blue because the sky, which is often our default blue, was pretty grey and cloudy. But there were these cool green-ish blue rocks in the pebble garden, so I took a picture of those. And I can never find indigo…

The purple and yellow flowers always remind me of the passage in Braiding Sweetgrass where Robin Wall Kimmerer said she wanted to study botany to know why purple and yellow flowers always look so nice together. Turns out there is a scientific explanation for that – I can’t remember what, to be honest – but it’s always struck me, this idea of wanting to understand beauty.

We wandered the gardens until it was time to go pick up my friend. The rest of the weekend was pretty chill. I loved having a friend visit who didn’t feel the need to be a tourist, so we could hang out and not traipse all over the city. She just tagged along with us on our normal life things and we had great conversations and connections. Looking back, Sunday was a great day – it checked a lot of soul satisfying boxes:
-Connection – hanging out for 48 hours with my friend, including dinner at my favorite hot pot place.
-Exercise – we went skating together while the kids were in lessons. So not super strenuous, but we got our bodies moving for a good two hours.
-Creative – I had to finish my watercolour homework, so in the afternoon, I worked on that while my friend hung out and hemmed her pants. How wonderfully domestic does that sound?
-Outside time – We took the two little kids outside after I was done my homework and watched them while they rode their bikes around the block for an hour. Again, not as active as a hike, but still some quality sunshine and fresh air time.

I think the only box that didn’t get checked was some knocking some big household organization project off my list. But… you can’t do everything and the day overall had a nice leisurely pace. The Husband did do a lot of work in the garden, though, so maybe I can have him check off the “household task” box for us?

March is my last month at a reduced work schedule before I go back into opera mode. I feel like February wasn’t super focused. I was on an 8 hr a week contract at work so I could do some admin and stage management department duties, but I couldn’t get into a good rhythm of when to be at work. I wanted to be available for at least 30-60 mind a day to handle email and tasks, so then the questions became how to spend the other hours a week. I did take the weekends completely off, like didn’t-even-check-email-off, which was really nice. I did periodically have a sense of panic that I was shirking my job responsibilities, but then I had to remind myself that an 8 hour a week contract means I only have to work 8 hours a week. I wasn’t being paid to be constantly available, and there were certainly enough people at work that nothing depended on me alone. I ended up mostly working two three hour days – usually Wednesday and Thursday – and then splitting the other two hours between the other three days, working from home. But even though a three hour day sounds short, it breaks up the entire day in such a way that I felt like unless I was super focused – which I rarely was – I lost a lot of time in commuting and transitioning. I find transitioning between activities is when I loose the most time – it’s when I’m most likely to get distracted, start scrolling and then loose and hour or so. So then little tasks – especially little computer tasks – got dropped because the last thing I wanted to do after being on my computer for 3 hours at the office was to turn on the computer at home and pay the bills and do the kid sign ups, research how to get rid of my car, etc.

This week’s work from watercolor class:
First the homework from last week – the assignment was “sunsets”

Then the lesson was painting poppies. I didn’t love this one – I felt like it was a little un-refined. The lady who sits next to me in class makes such delicate paintings.

Anyhow, February 2024 is now past and we are onto March. I don’t always do a monthly reflection, but I did for February:
February highs:
– Starting water color classes.
-Getting back on my bike.
– Seeing the kids thrive in the activities we had signed them up for. I worried that it was going to be too much, but they truly love what they are doing – except piano, no one really loves to practice, though they say they want to learn to play…
– Hosting Super Bowl Sunday gathering with friends.
– Visit from my high school friend
– joining a women’s Lenten reading group. Having that connection, but also the daily readings, which somehow give me much to ponder even though I’m not Catholic like the others in the group.
-Making baozi. I want more cooking adventures!
-As a family, we made it to a museum, a hike and some gardens in February.
-The wonderful weather. Mostly.
-Watching Galavant with the kids. Only three more episodes to go! What should we watch next???
-The vocal recital that I did titles for. Such a beautiful program, beautifully sung.
-Lunches with the Husband. A good use of my lighter schedule.

February not so highs. (aka lows, but really, life is pretty good, so I don’t feel right calling them “lows” – they’re just life, the tedious, repetitive, papercut stresses of life. Or maybe I need a re-frame. Or more sleep.)
-Tantrums and chore cajoling. Ugh. When will this phase end? Though I ask that and my kids are all at different phases, so…. I guess never? When they move out? Also I realize chore cajoling could also refer to the pep talks I give to myself to stop scrolling and fold the laundry.
-Making little progress on some house chores, losing momentum and focus.
– The first grader and some communication issues with his teacher. Essentially he’s having accidents at school at least once or twice a month, either because his teacher wants him to finish his work first, or the teacher doesn’t realize he’s asking to go. I’m a little stumped by the whole thing. Also frustrated. Also trying to decide if it’s a problem because he doesn’t seem to mind…
-New duties at work that are surprisingly harder than I had thought they would be and not yet knowing how to make things better.
– Not finding/making time to journal and then not remembering or savoring the memories of what I’ve been doing with my days.
-Laundry. So much laundry.

Some aspirations for March:
-TAXES. This is the big one. If I do only one thing in March, it will be to assemble everything for our tax preparer. This is not an aspiration, but a MUST DO!!!!
– Figure out what to do with my car.
-Sort through summer camp sign ups. We registered for some second choice camps, but then first camp choice had slots open up, so I just have to take a minute to look at everything and sort it all out.
-Spring break adventures – getting through them.
-At work – some desk organization. I need to move desks – to the cubicle where the head of the stage management department usually sits, but I’ve been in my desk for over 15 years and I’m partial to it so this is proving psychologically difficult. Kind of like the car. Maybe I don’t need to move desks?
– Organizing a) my sewing corner, and b) the toy room.
– Lunch with my mom’s group.
-maintaining life habits – reading, yoga and exercise, journaling, writing here regularly, making 2 vegan dinners a week.
– sort out my county rec center pass, and actually using it. The County is once again giving all residents free passes to the rec centers this year. I want to get my pass so I can start using the gym and introduce some strength work to my life.
-continuing to find time for lunches with the Husband.
-Listening to more musicals. This is a fun one. I’ve been on a binge lately of those unironic big hearted musicals from the 90s – those musicals that were huge spectacles of stage and emotion. I’m currently obsessed with Frank Wildhorn and Nan Knighton’s The Scarlet Pimpernel. Up next, I think might be Titanic.
– Going to bed at a decent time. ie. before 11:30pm. Constant struggle.
-make some dentist and doctor appointments.
–maybe get a hair cut. I was realizing as I was writing in my 5 year journal that the last time I got my hair cut was this time last year. What?!?! I think I had a bit of sticker shock last time since my hairdresser had raised his prices. I’ve been with him for over ten years so I don’t know if I have it in me to find a new person. (Like my car and my desk at work….)

Grateful For:
-Sunny, warm weather. There have been some rainy days too, but the weather has been really mild. The hyacinths have come up along our front walk, and when I walk to the front door, their sweet peppery smell reminds me that it is early spring.

-Impulsive playdates and kids who can run free at the park without being watched. The kids had a half day of school on Friday, so I texted the mom of two of the 7 year old’s friends (they’re twins), and asked if they wanted to meet up at a park. They did and she invited two other kids from her bus stop to meet us there. We ended up spending two hours at the park. The kids ran around and did I don’t know what and I got to chat with the other moms. I don’t always find it easy to talk to other parents, but that wasn’t the case this time. We chatted about all sorts of things, and not just our kids, which is always nice.

-My friend at our bus stop who invited me to the Lenten Women’s Group. I think it’s always awkward to invite someone to something new, but especially something that is based in religion. So I’m glad my friend had the courage to ask me to join. It was nice to get out of the house and talk to other moms about their spiritual background and how they try to incorporate it into their lives. I kind of feel like a fraud since I wouldn’t call myself religious – Lent wasn’t a thing when I was growing up. But religion is important to the Husband and two of the three kids are Catholic, so I do want to understand how it makes up the fabric of our life and support that. I also really like thinking about the group readings. The book looks at Lent through the lens of the Seven Deadly Sins. We’ve covered gluttony and lust so far. The readings have made me really think about what it means to have enough and what to do with my energy rather constantly accumulating/wanting more.

-That I don’t have to be in tech. I stopped by the theatre a couple days last week since the show that we’re currently producing, but which I’m not working on, is in tech. I love my job. I love making the magic of theatre and music happen. But once in a while, it’s nice to just sit and watch tech happen and not have the pressure of having to be the one to make it all happen. I find it also good to sit and watch tech from the house sometimes, just to remind myself what it’s like out front. When I’m in tech, I have a headset on and I’m communicating with all the other stage managers and I’m talking to the crew, so I usually know what’s going on. Sometimes, I forget, though, that the people out front don’t necessarily have the same voices in their ear as I do and might not know what is happening backstage. So what to me backstage might seem like a frantic scramble to get, say, a prop ready to come out onstage while the singer onstage waits for it, is, to the people sitting in the house, sometimes… nothing happening. Watching the process without a headset is always a good reminder to make sure that the people without headsets know what is going on. Anyhow, as much as I love my job, I’m grateful that sometimes I don’t have to be part of that stress. (and also jealous because the show is super cute and fun.)

Looking Forward To:
-We booked a trip to Maine/Acadia for this summer. We got a National Parks Pass and I very much want to make sure we use it this year. We’ve had passes the past couple years (including a free one given to all 4th graders when the 12 year old was in 4th grade – it’s a great program!), but I don’t think I use it to it’s full capacity. We go to Great Falls and Shenandoah regularly because those are all close, but I’ve always felt like I want to do more. So this year we are going to Acadia. I’m looking forward to sunsets and hikes and lobster. (I don’t think we’ll be doing sunrise at Cadillac Mountain because of where our airbnb is located, but I think it would have been a hard sell for the kids. Another time…)

-Theatre trips! I have tickets to a couple shows coming up! Yay. The Husband and I are going to see Company, and the dress rehearsal/ Opening night for the next opera (which I’m not working on, so I’ll get to see it! Yay!). And then the local high school is putting on Beauty and the Beast and I think that will be fun to see too. I feel like it’s good to see the professional shows and the high school ones – for a sense of perspective.

-I have a contract for my summer gig and I am SO EXCITED! It’s an opera I worked on six year ago, an opera written in 2017 about the Christmas Eve truce of 1914 during World War I. The opera is just. so. beautiful – in my top 5 opera jobs ever. And it’s very rare one gets to do a contemporary opera more than once, so I’m super thrilled.

-Listening to this audiobook:

I saw this audiobook recommended on the site Five Books, and I really enjoyed Alexis Hall’s book Boyfriend Material, so I thought I’d give this one a try. I’m very much loving it – it’s an amnesia romance novel where the amnesia victim doesn’t really have amnesia. How’s that for flipping a trope on it’s head? Amnesia romances usually aren’t my thing, but this one’s pretty great. And the audiobook is pitch perfect; it’s like an audio version of my favorite British rom com in the vein of Notting Hill or Four Weddings and a Funeral. Fluffy and and warm and hilarious. I’ve laughed out loud so many times.

What We Ate:
Saturday: Chicken Ginger Scallion soup from Deb Perelmans’ Smitten Kitchen Keepers cookbook. This was a super easy soup, and I even make it with frozen chicken, just cooking it a bit longer. Nice pantry type meal. Everyone loved it. We didn’t watch a movie because my friend was visiting, but we did watch and episode of the new season of Bad Batch.

Sunday: We went out to Hot Pot with my friend. Our favorite place with a conveyor belt and a robot that delivers the food for you.

Monday: Chickpeas braised in tomatoes. This was leftover from the week before. I added some water and it was more of a soup than stew, but still tasty. We had it with bread. Vegan.

Tuesday: Beet burgers and tater tots. The beet burgers were this recipe from Post Punk Kitchen. We had beets to use up, so I tried this recipe. The burgers were really tasty, and pretty easy to assemble, though grating the beets did take a while and then because my food processor is small and only does 1.5 cups at a time chopping all the ingredients together took a couple of batches. If you had a bigger capacity food processor then these would be much faster to whip up. I highly recommend this as a veggie burger. The burgers also heat up really well, so I had them for lunches the rest of the week. vegan.

Wednesday: Take out Vietnamese – buns and noodle bowls. We had an afterschool playdate with a friend and her father brought dinner over afterwards. Tasty.

Thursday: Pork and tofu stir fry with udon noodles. The Husband cooked.

Friday: Pizza and Galavant.

Low Key Weekend – why am I still tired?

The second pie is in the oven, so what am I to do while I wait, but send some hodge podge thoughts out into the world.

Also – I just checked the pie and 1) The edge of the crust is doing some kind of sad droopy thing – I had too much overhang and rather than trim it off, I thought I’d just leave it because really the crust is the best part, so why not have more. I had fluted the excess edge, but I think there was too much excess and it has kind of drooped like Dali’s clocks. It does not look good. But it will be tasty. and 2) I tried to peek to see if the rest of the crust was baking since soggy crust has been an issue of mine lately. And I thought, “That’s strange… why is the crust still so pale? It’s very white for having been in the oven for twenty minutes” And I panicked a little bit. But then I remembered that I didn’t use the clear Pyrex pie plate, but the white pie plate and all that white I was seeing was just the pie plate. So who knows if the pie crust is baking in there. I guess we’ll find out tomorrow/ today.

Anyhow, it’s been a really packed week so far. The two older kids have had very minimal school this week. Monday and Tuesday half days and today (Wednesday) completely off. Then of course tomorrow is Thanksgiving and Friday is off.

I think we all realize that the holidays are coming and we try to pack so much into the time between Thanksgiving and Christmas, so we kept things low key last weekend. There was house puttering on Saturday, then dinner out with friends. We went to the same brewery that I had gone to earlier that week with my Mom’s Group. I don’t drink, but the brewery has firepits, so that was a plus. There were only two other groups sitting outside, which made me feel less awful about our combined six kids running around the patio.

Sunday the three year old had two birthday parties to go to, both of them outdoors in 40 degree weather. One party had chicken fingers, French fries, and mac and cheese, which I thought was brilliant for a toddler party. It was probably on the cold side to be having an outdoor party, but I figured at least it would be an opportunity to to check more boxes off my 1000 Hours Outside goal. Two birthday parties in one day might not seem low key, but they were both park parties nearby, so they were pretty easy to get to.

Then there is the issue of sleep. Or rather being tired. I’ve been feeling pretty tired lately even though I’ve been getting 6-7 hours of sleep a night. Thoughts on this:

– Maybe I’m still catching up from daylights savings having ended? And the shorter spans of sunlight certainly don’t help my lethargy.

– It’s not because I’m staying up til 2am or 3am like I tend to when I’m working. I’ve actually been really good about mindfully going to bed, as opposed to falling asleep on the couch and stumbling to my room at 3am. So yay me.

-It is partly because the three year old is not proving to be a great sleeper. I mean she sleeps like a rock for three hours at a time – you can roll her over without waking her when she is asleep. But inevitably at some point between 1am and 3am, she gets out of bed and comes to our room and climbs into our bed. Then it’s an internal battle of whether I should take her back to her own bed and spend another half an hour getting her to sleep, or if I should just give up and let her sleep in my bed. Usually the latter wins out. But she also will be up sometime around 5am yelling for breakfast. Or Milk. Full confession, the three year old still nurses to sleep. Which I have mixed feelings about, but also some degree of apathy because it seems like my feelings on the matter do not even compare to her feelings.

-Also, related to the not going to bed late … part of going to bed early is that I get up earlier. And when I’m awake earlier, I then get tired earlier and then fall asleep earlier. It’s kind of a viscous cycle. I do like the idea of being a morning person, but I can’t really be a morning lark and a night owl.

– There is a possibility that I’m coming down with something. I did have a cold sore this week that was so painful I woke up a few times. I get cold sores maybe once or twice a year – usually a combination of hormones, weather, and stress makes them appear. But they’ve always been mild. This time was pretty painful. And there’s general nasal congestion and everyone else is getting sick – we seem to be in a perpetual state of snot and cough. Makes these next five days with no school or work seem like an ideal time to attempt to keep ourselves germ free.

Two months ago I wrote about my attempts to get more sleep, which is admittedly not the same issue exactly as just feeling run down and tired. But revisiting those ideas – Some of the goals I’ve managed to do – I now brush my teeth and get into pjs when the kids do. I got a lamp for next to my bed so I’m reading more hard copy books before bed, though the occasional e-book does make it too. So now it is much easier to stumble straight into bed at 9pm after the baby falls asleep.

I have not established any kind of bedtime routine – mostly because of having to lie down with the baby until she falls asleep. So my ideal evening wind down of 20 mins yoga, 20 mins journaling and 20 mins reading hasn’t come to fruition. I have been doing 10-15 minutes of yoga in the morning, so at least I’m stretching that way. Maybe I should concentrate on 20 mins journaling and 20 mins reading in the evening.

Welp the pie is done (I hope) and I can hear the baby crying. So off to tend to that.

Goals and Aspirations – Fall review and now til 2023

I thought I might review how I did on my Fall Goals and Aspirations before diving into goals and aspirations for the rest of the year:

Hallowe’en Costumes – done and I was quite happy with the results. The two littles had their store bought Star Wars Costumes, and we made the ten year old her iPod costumes (which is now in the recycling bin…). I did not make myself a costume for backstage. I had thought about going as RBG, but then I felt super self-conscious about it so abandoned the idea.

Jack o’ Lanterns – did not do this. Oh well. I’m a little sad, but with me working most nights up til Hallowe’en and us not having trick or treaters, it just didn’t seem like a priority this year.

Attic Clean Out – Nope. But I did get rid of the Cardboard UPS truck and bundle a bunch of baby clothes to be given away. So incremental progress on ridding the house of stuff.

Apple Picking – Nope. But we did buy lots and lots of apples from the farm stand, and we made apple pie and apple sauce. Which is where it’s at for me, really.

Fall Camping – yay! Did manage an overnight to Lake Burke. I’m so glad I managed to squeeze this one in.

Hiking in Fall Colour – I hiked the Billy Goat Trail with my friend. I did a few small woodsy walks throughout the Fall.

Celebrate the Baby’s Birthday – just a small family celebration. But there was cake, and a sombrero and free ice cream.

Go to the Theatre – Yes! We saw Hamilton in September, and we also had a family trip to the opera, and saw a small show by a local Children’s Theatre in October.

Survive Tech Week – The show I was working on was a nice small opera – only 110 minutes long, no big chorus scenes, only one set look. This definitely contributed to one of the most balanced tech weeks I’ve had in a long time. I got to run, I packed healthy lunches (to offset the massive amounts of Sour Patch Kids that I consumed), and I even read a book while lightwalking. Not sure if The Husband felt like it was balanced, though… tech week is always hard on him, I think

Fix the Storm Door – Not quite yet. The Husband ordered a new door and it will be installed when it gets here.

Window Treatments for the Living Room – Nope. Such a daunting thing.

Ziplining with the Ten Year Old – Nope. I had thought to do it next week, but the weather has gotten cold, and I think the place is closing for the season soon.

Cozy Kitchen Adventures – well I made a pie. And then three weeks later with the leftover pie dough and filling I made a galette. There needs to be more of this.

Watch some recent movies – I have been home for something like two movie nights this fall, so I haven’t watched as many as I wanted. Oh well, I guess it’s good to have a list of things I want to see so that I don’t spend my time scrolling through trailers when I do sit down on the couch.

Happy Hour with Mom’s Group – Nope, but I have one planned for tomorrow!

Happy Hour with Stage Managers – sort of. I had one colleague over for dinner and we had an after work happy hour with the other stage managers on the show I was working with. I kind of wish I had been more social work-wise because I’m feeling out of the loop in my industry. Oh well. Need to do some deep thinking about this issue.

Free Days that are Restorative and Fulfilling -how is that for a very vague unquantifiable goal? not quite sure what grade I would give myself on this one.

Okay – that was fall. Now goals and aspirations from now til the end of the year. It’s a mix of “to do” and “for fun”. I feel like there is definitely lots more things on the “to do” portion list than I am putting below, but it’s a start.

Holiday Cards – I’d like to get them out by the second week of December. Let’s say December 10th. Which means I should probably order them by December 1st. I have a design picked out, I just have to write our letter and pick the photos.

Plan Birthday Parties – the two older kids have January birthdays and I know if I don’t plan them in December, they will get lost in the holiday madness and I will be scrambling come January. I think we’re going to actually have some kind of party for them, with friends, the first since 2020. The last birthday party we had was at the local fire station for the 5 year old (then turning three), in January of 2020. The oldest wants a sleepover/ movie theatre gathering and the middle kid wants a Chuck E. Cheese party.

Read a Lengthy Book – Something to immerse myself in during winter. I’ve started reading The Weight of Ink, which is 560 pages long, so it will for sure last me a while – particularly since I always read 3 or 4 books at a time. If I get through that, I’m thinking of picking up Juliet Barker’s biography of the Bronte sisters or Robert Massie’s biography on Catherine the Great.

Make Sure Kids have Winter Gear – We got out hats and mittens for the kids this week. I need to make sure they have snowpants/ snow suits. Who knows what the snow will be like this year, but best to be prepared.

Go Sledding – since I finally bought a sled this year. Of course this is very weather dependent.

Barring that, go ice skating – I love skating. We have indoor ice rinks and outdoor ice rinks here – I prefer the indoor rinks for the amount of space, and the outdoor rinks for the festive atmosphere.

Cook at least two vegan dinners a week – I tend to overindulge with the Holiday food, so I’m hoping to balance that with some vegan meals. Not that vegan necessarily means healthy, to be honest. But vegan usually means more vegetables.

Watch Holiday Movies – we’ve made a list!

TubaChristmas! – Tubas playing Christmas carols. What else could one ask for? The Husband and I have gone to the concert almost every year since we met.

Put up Christmas Lights on the House – I’m not a huge decorator of interior spaces, but I do love seeing our house adorned with Christmas lights.

Widow Treatments for the Living Room – Setting a micro goal of ordering samples at least.

Find the perfect leggings – The leggings I ordered from Pact did not fit, so back they went. Ugh. This is what I want: cotton leggings (with a bit of stretch) with a tech pocket, in a colour not black. I have a pair of cotton leggings from Jockey that I actually love, but they don’t make them in other colours. I’m thinking of trying Duluth Trading Company leggings, but they are an investment.

See a Christmas Light Display – there are many options for this around us. We might try Zoo Lights since it is back for the first time since the pandemic. Or we might do a drive through one so we can play Christmas music in the car and sip our hot cocoa as we drive.

Finish my 1000 hours outside – In September of last year, I started tracking my outdoor time with the goal of getting to 1000 hours in one year. I didn’t make it, and now I have maybe 75 hours to go. (I probably have less than that since I gave up tracking last month so there’s about three weeks’ worth of outdoor time that I didn’t track.) It’s ambitious, but if I can get to 1000 by the end of the year, I will be able to start fresh in 2023.

Take the kids to the theatre – I’m thinking either Beauty and the Beast or Into the Woods.

Read Christmas Books with the kids – I don’t know that we’ll do advent picture books like in years past, but I do plan on checking out books from the library about winter and the holiday season. Also- definitely plan to have a road trip and listen to Elaine Stritch’s read The Best Christmas Pageant Ever. Funniest Christmas story ever.

See a Christmas Train Display – There are a couple options for this – the U.S. Botanical Gardens and our local Botanical Gardens. And of course we could always make the trip to Longwood Gardens.

Do More Laundry – The Husband does almost all the Laundry, and I want to help out more with that since I’ll be home more the next couple of weeks.

Christmas Shopping mindfully – I feel as if I’m still trying to figure out the balance of how to gift give with intent and without going overboard. Also there are teacher gifts and holiday tips to have to decide upon so it’s easy to lose track of where the money is going during the end of the year. This is clearly a wonderfully vague goal that I need to break down into actionable steps. It will probably involve lists.

Weekly recap + what we ate: Authenticity and THREE!!!

Glenstone Museum. One of this week’s bright spots.

This week was one of those “between jobs” weeks.

I did not knock out as much of my “To do” list as I wanted – partly because the week after a gig is always a slow re-entry for me, partly too because my cousin came to visit. I do want to be better at picking up life after I’m done a gig. Too often, the aftermath of a gig feels like … well, you know that scene in the Drew Barrymore Cinderella movie Ever After (such a good movie!!!) when Drew is supposed to meet the Prince, but she’s in her servant clothes so she races back to the house, goes in through the back door, and then emerges out of the front door in a gorgeous gown and pearl circlet, just in time to meet the Prince, and then the shot changes to behind the front door, where the servants are collapsed on the floor in exhaustion from having transformed her so quickly….

Yeah, aftermath of a job feels like the servants on the ground in a heap. I’ve spent so much time keeping the job related parts of life afloat, that the non-job parts of life, the parts that actually allow me to function, get somewhat neglected and left in a heap (by me, not by the Husband… he does a magnificent job of holding down the fort!). And when the gig is over, I have to pull the servants up off the floor and put everything back in order, but it takes a while for me to get in the right headspace for it. I fully realize it’s a privilege not to have to figure out how to balance work and life all fifty-two weeks of the year – big props to people who do it – so I want to get better at tackling the life stuff efficiently when I don’t have work stuff on my plate.

I’m pretty good at doing the things I want to do but don’t really get to do when I’m working – I went running three times, had lunch with a friend, made muffins, got to write in this space. It’s the life admin stuff that I struggle to find the discipline to attack – laundry, big organizational projects, paperwork that needs to be done – the adulting stuff, I guess. And now I’m about to go back to work and some of it still looms. I might just have to dedicate time for it when I am working so it doesn’t pile up for when I’m not working on a show.

Some thoughts and things this week:

– The ten year old has started piano lessons again, after a break for much of August. Her lessons are at 7:15am and I particularly notice the shifting of the seasonal light on those mornings when I take her (and the other kids) to these early morning lessons. We’ve passed into the season when the sun is just starting to rise as we pack into the car, and this week, at a stop light, I glanced into the side view mirror and couldn’t resist taking a picture of sunrise behind me. Even though the traffic ahead of me sat in misty morning grey, the cars behind me were bathed in a golden red glow. Soon, I know, it will still be quite dark when we go to piano lessons, but it was a good reminder to savor the beautiful golden moments when I can.

– I’ve been listening to the podcast Under the Influence with Jo Piazza. (Not to be confused, now that I’ve Googled it, with Under the Influence from the CBC with Tim O’Reilly, which also looks interesting).

It’s a series that takes a look at the world of social media influencers, particularly mothers. I’m only six episodes in, and it’s been fascinating and though provoking. Even though I have social media accounts, I had to quit them cold turkey a few years ago because they had become a time suck and just made me feel bad about my life and career. Still, the idea of being able to make a living through gathering a social media following is really intriguing. The podcast really dissects the cultural implications of how women, who would otherwise be home-makers or stay-at-home mothers – that is to say unpaid labour – have parlayed domestic life with children into a commodity that they can be paid for. The episode on Authenticity, particularly was pretty engrossing, and made me think about how the term “authentic” is often bandied around when describing influencers.
Being authentic is valued. But so is being happy and shiny. Yet there is this paradox where when one only posts happy and shiny content, one is labelled as not authentic. I don’t think not posting the rough and hard and ugly parts of life makes a person less authentic. There is something, to me, inauthentic about reaching for a camera and generating content when your child is having a meltdown, rather than putting your camera down and comforting that child. The hard moments aren’t splashed across the happy shiny Instagram, perhaps because people are trying to navigate them rather than share them. I’m all for sharing hard moments – and I really appreciate it when people are brave enough to share them – but I don’t think sharing the hard moments makes a certain person or post more “authentic” than any other. The thing is, any one social media posts can lack context and doesn’t really reflect anything beyond that moment. Even look at our annual Christmas card – I pick the cutest picture of my kids to send to people. Am I being inauthentic because I don’t also include a picture of me washing up a poop accident? It seems like demanding authenticity just sets people – women – up for failure.
They make an interesting point on the podcast about how Hillary Clinton was mocked for wearing a scrunchie when that was probably the most true to herself thing that she could wear. While Obama or Trump or any man could probably wake up, take a shower, put on a suit and be ready for a press conference in thirty minutes, Clinton probably has to go through an hour or so of hair an make-up before appearing in public. The degree to which we demand authenticity from women yet at the same time shame her if she doesn’t put on a face, really speaks to a double standard.
The conversations on the podcast also has made me think of how I present on this little corner of the internet. I don’t want to be an influencer by any means, and it’s made me realize that while I’m grateful for the handful of people who read, I really just want to write what I want to write and brain dump the things that are interesting to me. Like this podcast, which I highly recommend.

– My mother also came to visit while my cousin was here and I managed to get tickets to the Glenstone Museum, a private museum that specializes in contemporary art, mostly installation pieces from Post WWII. A big part of the collection are sculptures throughout it’s outdoor campus, which makes for a really wonderful afternoon of meandering through trails and sitting and enjoying nature and art. The tickets are released on the first of each month are are usually booked three months out, so I was really surprised when I looked on the website earlier this week and saw that there were tickets available for later in the week. Another things I loved about the museum is they don’t have the usual placards in place giving information and thoughts about the pieces. Rather there are very knowledgeable docents who will talk to you about the artwork and the museum if you want, otherwise they leave you to contemplate the pieces for yourself. I sometimes find contemporary art hard to understand, and being able to talk to a docent and ask questions made the artwork so much more accessible. Definitely worth a trip back.

Koons. We ran out of time so didn’t make it all the way to this one.

The buildings and gardens are also works of art.

– This piece of advice from the blog Ask A Manager:

I sometimes run into this situation with interns and I admit I don’t always have the patience to be gracious about coaching someone through steps that they already have documented in paperwork. “What have you tried so far?” seems to me a great way to help distill where the trainee might be getting hung up, rather than me just telling them how to solve things.

– The big thing this week, was that the baby turned THREE!!! I’m feeling all the feels on this one. The night before her birthday, the Husband says to me, “This is our last day of ever having a two year old.” And it just about slayed me. It’s been hard, certainly, to know that she is our last baby. I love babies – the sweet, cuddly, exploratory, needs-to-be-protected, blind faith, little personalities – they are just such great companions. I’m excited to see who the baby grows up to be, but at the same time nervous because I know I can’t control that. But who she is right now is an adorable, mischievous, intrepid, dexterous, opportunistic, happy, clever, and cheeky little child. She’s the most independent of the three kids and finds such joy in everything around her. Having a baby as the world shut down was not something that I could ever had imagined happening, but she was certainly one of the bright marvels that helped keep things interesting.

skating last weekend. I used to think skate helpers were silly, but I realized that for her, keeping up with her siblings was more important than learning to skate properly. So skate helper it was.

What We Ate: I was home all week and all three dinners I cooked were vegan. We’ll see how it goes when I go back to work next week – I feel like vegan meals aren’t as easy to make ahead of time.

Saturday: I was working the evening show. I was running late to work, so I just shoved two half eaten meatball sandwiches from the night before into a container and ate them at my desk. I might have also had an apple.

Sunday: I was working a matinee, so I had bubbly water and cake for dinner at the reception following the performance.

Monday: Orange Cauliflower with Fried Tofu and Rice. The cauliflower recipe was from the Bad Manners Brave New World Cookbook and was their vegan take on orange chicken. Aside from being made from cauliflower rather than chicken, this was healthier because the cauliflower was baked, not fried. Of course then I fried the tofu to go with.

Tuesday: Tacos with meatless meaty filling from Bare Minimum Dinners, with cabbage mango slaw and avocados. I’m really liking Bare Minimum Dinners. There aren’t a lot of vegetarian recipes in it, but this meatless taco filling was pretty great. It’s a combination of mushrooms, walnuts, and pinto beans with the sauce from an adobo pepper in chipotle sauce. It was actually on the spicy side, so I just heated up a can of black beans with cumin and a clove of garlic for the two little kids

Wednesday: We went to meet a friend at a local Biergarten. They have the best wings – they smoke them then fry them so they are so full of flavor. I feel like this evening definitely offset all the vegan dinners we ate this week.

Thursday: Curry Udon Noodles with Teriyaki Jackfruit from Bad Manners Cookbook. This was my first attempt cooking with jackfruit, which I hear touted as a substitute for pork. My verdict – Jackfruit is pretty tasteless, so good sauce is needed. It did mimic the texture of fplled pork, though. But also, I added a bunch of mushrooms in with the Teriyaki sauce, and I think I would be just as happy to eat this dish with mushrooms instead of Jackfruit.

Friday: Pizza (made by The Husband) and movie – Minions: The Rise of Gru. This movie was pretty hilarious in parts, but kind of lost steam towards the end. (Or maybe we lost steam?) And then to round things out…. we had cake. I made a cake for the baby’s birthday and we zoomed the rest of the family to sing happy birthday. (Also sent some store bought cupcakes to school, because I guess this is the times right now where we can only send store bought treats. I understand the reasoning what with allergies and COVID, but it still makes me a little sad.) My cousin helped with the cake – we made this chocolate cake recipe with vanilla frosting and then sort of followed the instructions for a pinata cake. I don’t think the cake was high enough to have the desired effect of m&m spillage. But maybe it’s one of those things that’s only perfect on Instagram?

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.