Holidays – Life Off Headset

Weekly recap + what we ate: Hallowe’en, Good-bye, October/Hello, November

And like that we are in November! The first week or so of November have been a blur as we got ready to move into the theatre. And I blink and look up and we’re almost half way through November by now! I’m trying not to think about it because I’m feeling very behind in life.

October Highlights:
-family hiking and contra-dancing in Shepherdstown WV.
-biking to work and biking with the 8 year old.
-family trip to the opera.
-It’s prime apple season. Going to farmers markets and getting apples. My favorite right now are Crimson Crisp and Arkansas Black. I like apples that are crunchy and the right blend of tart and sweet.
-Soup party at work.
-finished union negotiations finally.
– Starting rehearsal for my favorite opera.
-Some slow evenings at home with the kids – playing board games, reading, doing art.
-Lenten Women’s group meeting. We discussed a few verses in Esther about uncertainty and what to worry about and what God tells us not to worry about. (And is he telling us that it’s not worth the worry or is he telling us to trust him that all will be well?)
-tap dance classes with the 6 year old.
-Hallwe’en. Details on that below.

October Lowlights:
-The government shut down. UGH ugh ugh ugh. I know it’s now over, but the whole thing just dragged on and on and on. On the one hand I was happy that my friends had time to get together for random weekday lunches, on the other hand, it was such a time of uncertainty, not knowing what our elected officials were doing and when things were going to end. Incidentally, I don’t know if this is related, but I’ve been seeing a lot of For Sale signs on houses in my area lately. Late fall isn’t typically the prime time in our area for home sales, so I find it alarming that so many people are putting their houses on the market right now. I don’t know if that’s a sign of the current federal upheaval or what, but I can’t help but wonder.

-General uncertainty at work and some beloved colleagues leaving. I can’t write about it, but ugh ugh ugh.

-Getting back into the rhythm of working every day full time and in the evenings was hard. I think it’s always hard, though. I need to brainstorm ways to make it easier. Or just embrace the suck?

October Insights:
-“Don’t quit today.” One of my favorite October read/listens was Stephen Starring Grant’s Mailman: My Wild Ride Delivering the Mail in Appalachia and Finally Finding Home. There is one section where he finds himself on a really hard route and he’s messed up and doesn’t think he can finish and he calls a colleague and says he’s not cut out for the job and is going to quit. And his colleague says to him – and I’m paraphrasing badly – , “Don’t quit today. Finish your route, but don’t quit today.” That really stuck with me, the idea that when things are hard, just focus on what is in front of you. You can always quit tomorrow.

-People not things. I had written last month some reflections on where I am in my career, pondering if it’s okay that I’m not right now jumping for the chance to work on big complicated new productions. There were some really wise comments on that post. I think what I realized after writing that post and reading the comments is that for me, my job is about giving people the space and information they need to tell stories on stage. Shepherding a huge, technically complicated project through rehearsals to opening – that sounds really cool and I know if I did that, I would be so proud and exhausted. But you know, what I get the most satisfaction out of on the daily basis? It’s making sure the singers feel taken care of; keeping the director moving forward in their process; making sure my team is working together and communicating well. And these things I can do regardless of how technically complicated a show is. So every time I get sad that I’m not working on a fancy new production, I need to remind myself that I’m here for the people and the stories, not the machinery.

Hallowe’en recap:

The two nights before Hallowe’en:

All done just in the nick of time:

Costume details/ summary: I love making Hallowe’en costumes. My kids would probably be fine with store bought costumes, but they indulge my hankering to be creative. The two younger kids have wanted to be KPop Demon Hunter characters since they first saw the movie. I did briefly look for costumes online, but found it hard to find licensed Demon Hunter costumes, so it’s just as well that I was okay with making them. I wanted to write down the costume details because I think I made some fun discoveries as I made these costumes.

Flower fairy (13 year old): I didn’t actually make this costume, but I did help with the hot glue gun. Also I only had one stick of glue, so it was kind of a baited breath process, hoping that we had enough glue to attach everything that the 13 year old wanted. This costume featured a dress that the 13 year old already owned, a ridiculously expensive amount of fake flowers (dude, fake flowers are not cheap!), hot glue, gold ribbon, wings from last year, and the 6 year old’s flower crown from the Ren Faire.

Jinu (8 year old)– Thrifted ladies’ black button up shirt, with the arms trimmed to the right length. I crocheted the belt from yarn I had sitting around. The hat is ordered from Amazon. I thought for a minute of making the hat out of poster board, but I figured this would last longer and be less frustrating. Side note, while trying to figure out how to buy a gat hat- which was surprisingly difficult for something I eventually ordered of Amazon – I went down this deep youTube hole about how a genuine gat hat is made, and it is FASCINATING. The hat is hand woven from bamboo threads. If you are into in depth craft videos, check it out.

Zooey (6 year old)– this one took the most work of the three costumes. The shirt, skirt and sparkly shoes are thrifted. I went to four different thrift stores to find it all, but each thing was perfect for what I needed, so it all felt so satisfying. The glitter hightops actually light up, and the 6 year old LOVES them. I had to tell her she couldn’t wear them until Hallowe’en because I was afraid the batteries would run out. The skirt is a tennis skirt with built in shorts, so I’m sure we’ll get more use out of that too. Once I had all the base pieces, the 6 year old and I went to Michael’s and pick up almost every gold thing we could find so I could play with options for the embellishments.

The shoulder pieces were made from felt. I sized the felt with regular white glue to shape them. To do that, I cut the felt into the right shape. Then I covered both sides with diluted white glue and I sandwiched each piece of felt between wax paper. Next I molded the felt/wax paper sandwich over mason jars, using elastic bands to hold the pieces in place until the glue dried leaving the felt in its curved shape. After the glue dried, I sewed the shoulder pieces onto the white shirt.

The gold turned out to be a bit of an ordeal. I had ordered gold duct tape, but when I got it out to start using it, something was off and the duct tape was not sticky. In fact, it felt really oily. I had a moment of panic because I was going to use the duck tape for all the embellishments so that I would not have to sew anything. I ended up gluing the duct tape to the shoulder pieces and then looking for another solution for everything else. I had bought some heat transfer vinyl, the kind you’d use in a Cricut machine. It turns out, the stuff is just as easy to use without a Cricut machine – I just cut what I needed with scissors and then ironed it on to the shirt.
Friends – I have never used this stuff before, and it was like ANGELS SANG when I first applied it. It is SO easy to use and it looks amazing. And it’s better than duct tape because it will stretch with the clothes. Next time I have a project that involves putting designs on clothes, I’m going to use this stuff again. It was a game changer for me.

The rest of the embellishments: the tassels and the chain on the skirt were made from gold metallic braided trim. The gold studs on the shoulder pieces are gold stickers.

Striped tights – of the 6 year old’s choosing, something she already owned.

And luckily Zooey is the one Huntrx member without outrageous coloured hair, so I just put the 6 year old’s hair into Zooey buns to complete the look.

Hallowe’en Night – Our own neighborhood is very quiet on Hallowe’en, so we usually just put out a bowl of candy and go over to our friend’s neighborhood to trick or treat. Their neighborhood has an annual neighborhood decorating contest, so the houses are always so fun to see. This was one of my favorite houses – every year they have some kind of statement tombstones:

In case you can’t read them, the tombstone read, from left to right:
“Here lies America’s Reputation Abroad. Can’t get any lower than this!”
“Here lies the Federal Workforce. Death by 200, 000 cuts.”
“Here lies Co-Equal Government. It was a nice idea.”
“Here lies Freedom of Speech. Last Words: …..”

It seems like a very DC type display…

We ended up trick or treating from about 6:30p – 8:30pm. I loved seeing all the kids out in their costumes. Funny story, when we pulled out the Hallowe’en buckets, the 13 year old took the one that the 6 year old usually uses and wouldn’t give it back.
“Fine,” I said to the 13 year old. “you can keep the little tiny bucket. Your sister will trick or treat with a pillow case.”
Of course being reminded that she usually uses a pillow case, which could hold much more candy than the little monster bucket, immediately led the 13 year old to give the bucket back to her sister. Of course by then the 6 year old had figured out that, yeah really the pillowcase is the better option. So she went trick or treating for the first time with a pillowcase. Later hat evening, she discovered one of the perks of having a pillowcase to collect candy in was being able to stick one’s whole torso into the pillow case and inhale the candy. Literally, figuratively…

“It smells so good in there!” she said.

When we got tired of trick or treating, we went back to our friend’s house where the Husband had brought pizza for dinner. We then sat in the front yard around a fire pit and drank mulled cider (some folks added an extra something special in their cider). The kids stayed inside sorting and swapping candy. Our friends have tween/teens as well, but they always make sure the 8 and 6 year old are included when they hang out, which is nice. I might have fallen asleep in my camp chair as everyone talked around me. It was such a cozy way to end the evening. We’ve decided with our friends that we need more evenings around the firepit with mulled (spiked) cider.

Grateful For:
-The later bell time. In our school system there are two bell times – half the elementary schools start at 9am and the other half start at 9:25am. We are the later bell time, which is good because we need all the time we can get to get out of the house in the mornings.

-warm fall weather. And the morning light, though it does get darker earlier.

-Not having to work on Hallowe’en. I happened to have the day off work, and the elementary school was having it’s fundraiser run that morning so I was able to go cheer my kids on. I ran into a friend whose kids are in the same class as mine and we ended up having lunch between the kindergarten run and the 3rd grade run. Then I went home and had still had time to prepare for Hallowe’en. It was nice not to have to rush directly from work to trick or treating and to also show up for a school event.

-Also grateful that Hallowe’en was on a Friday night so that we didn’t have to get anyone to school the next morning. That was pretty awesome.

-Return policies. I spent a lot of money at Michaels last month – see Hallowe’en costumes. Thankfully they have a 60 day return policy, so I was able to return all the gold trim and embellishments that I didn’t end up using. So grateful that I could get that money back.

-That the 6 year old finally figured out how to ride her bike! I’m grateful for her siblings for giving her lots of advice, especially the 13 year old, whom I think did most of the coaching.

Looking forward to (the November edition):
-Visit from my parents.
-Opening my current show. Tech week has been going very smoothly, but the hours have been long.
-Then closing the show and moving on tot he next show. I’m excited because originally the 13 year old didn’t get a spot in the children’s chorus, but two days before rehearsal started, they had someone drop out and the spot was offered to the 13 year old. She was SO excited. She’s loved this show since she was really little and always wanted to be in the children’s chorus. It will be exhausting, but I’m looking forward to working on a show with her again.
-The staging staff coming in for this next show, all of whom are people I’ve worked with before and I’m really excited to work with them again.
-Thanksgiving. No idea what we are doing for Thanksgiving yet. Should think on that.

What We Ate – two weeks worth of meals here, because I’ve gotten behind in posting. The Husband was responsible for 95% of the dinners the past two weeks while I’ve been rehearsing late.

Monday: Cauliflower shawarma, Melissa Clark recipe from NY Times Cooking. I added red peppers and chick peas to this. I actually prepped the veggies snd tahini sauce in the morning before I went to work and the Husband put it in the oven when he got home. Apparently the kids had fun with this one:

Tuesday: Dinner out. The Husband and kids went to meet a friend for dinner. I had leftovers at work.

Wednesday: Chicken stir fry.

Thursday: Ramen with shrimp. I was working, so I’m not sure if the Husband or the 13 year old made dinner this night.

Friday: Hallowe’en – candy, pizza, brie, crackers. Maybe some fruit was eaten in there.

Saturday: leftover pizza and movie. I think they watched Lego Movie 2. I was at work.

Sunday: Sausage pasta for the family. I ate lefotvers out of the fridge when I came home

Monday: Lemony turkey white bean soup with greens. Pulled from the freezer. Note to self: this recipe freezes very well.

Tuesday: Taco Tuesday. I think the family had beef tacos. Not quite sure.

Wednesday: Udon noodles and stir fried chicken.

Thursday: Coconut curry chickpeas with pumpkin and lime Melissa Clark’s recipe from NY Times Cooking. This was really tasty. And good for many dinners after. I made this in the morning before going to work so that the family could have something fast to eat for dinner since they were going to see the 13 year old in the school play that night.

Friday: I think the family had pizza and watched the Lego Flash movie.

Saturday: This was tech week, I was at the theatre all day – no idea what the family ate for dinner.

Sunday: One of the ladies from the Mom’s group I joined when the 6 year old was born hosted a get together. It was such a fun reunion to see how our kids and families have grown in the past six years. It was a potluck affair. We brought soft pretzels and fruit salad. Afterwards we went over to firepit with our Hallowe’en friends and had chili around the firepit. It was a very social day for my one day off. Usually if I have a free day during tech week, I want to just hide and sleep, and my inner introvert was screaming a little to have to be so social, but I did really love seeing everyone. Plus life does not stop life-ing just because one has been at the theatre all week.

Well that’s life lately here. This weekend I’ll work all weekend – we have a show Friday, Saturday, and Sunday, so it will be a lot of time at the theatre for me. The family will come to the opening night performance. The opera is almost 3.5 hour long, so I’d put money on the 6 year old falling asleep before the end of the show. (Note to self: remember to tell her the story before she goes since she can’t read the supertitles.) Otherwise, the weather looks to be beautiful, so hopefully I’ll remember to get out for a walk or two to enjoy the sunshine.

Hope you have a wonderful weekend! How was your Hallowe’en? Is a pillowcase an appropriate candy catcher where you are? How was your October? Looking forward to anything in November?

Weekly recap + what we ate: Checking things off the list, and looking towards the fourth quarter

Last week was my last week of true flexibility, so I had a bunch of things scheduled – picked up my new glasses (hooray! I can read again), flu shots for the kids, oil change (and then discovered the car also needed a new battery), annual check up for the 6 year old. I also got my hair cut. I like to get my hair cut before I start rehearsals because a) I feel more confident going into rehearsals if my hair looks put together and not over grown, and 2) I just won’t want to spend the time to get my hair cut once rehearsals start. This was the fastest cut I’ve ever had – even with the shampoo, I think I was in and out in less than 2o minutes. At first, I thought the bob looked a little more boxy than I usually have it cut, but I decided to live with it for a while because I’ve found that what I like in the chair often doesn’t grow out well. Anyhow, a few hours later, I decided I actually really liked my new hair cut – it’s long enough to tuck behind my ears, but short enough to look sleek and efficient.

The weekend, was also my last two day weekend until mid December, and we went on a little adventure to Shepherdstown, West Virginia. (As mentioned in my Cool Bloggers Walking Club post). I had said a few weeks ago to the Husband that I hadn’t been hiking in a while. Then the last time we were at a contra dance, there was a lady from Shepherdstown who said we should come to their dance. So the Husband planned a little half day trip for the family with hiking and dancing.. We left after lunch and drove to the Yankeur Nature Preserve, about twenty minutes outside of Shepherdstown. The Nature Preserve was farmland in the 1800s and then in the 1960s was given to the Nature Conservancy to be returned to it’s original forested state. The hike wasn’t a very ambitious, more of a nature walk through a forest via a trail. The loop peaked at a bench overlooking the Potomac where we sat and had snacks before getting back to the car.

After the hike we went to dinner at the Blue Moon Cafe, chosen because there had been a request for burgers. We sat in the outdoor garden, and ordered fried pickles for an appetizer. The two kids who had burgers said that the burgers were amazing. I had the crabcake dinner – the homemade crabcakes were really good too. From the restaurant we walked the couple blocks to the dance which was at the Community Club. The walk was really cute – Shepherdstown is a historic town – I think the oldest in West Virginia – and the downtown area is full of colonial architecture and little shops. Apparently it’s also the most haunted town in America and we passed by a group going on ghost tour.

The dance itself was very welcoming. The caller knew the Husband from back when he used to dance every week (sometimes twice) and go to contra dance weekends. When we walked in, she gave him a big hug and was so happy to see us all. The dance we pretty small and there were several people I recognized from the DC area there. Everyone was very forgiving of the kids being there, even when they kept going the wrong way during the dance. I was actually surprised that they danced as much as they did. Usually when we go dancing, they’ll do two or three dances and spend the rest of the time just running around chasing each other. Also this dance had snacks, which always helps. We danced til about 9:45pm and then piled back in the car and drove home. We got home around 11:30pm, but the nice thing about having a two day weekend is that you get to sleep in a little the next day. Or take a mid-Sunday nap. I have to be honest, Sunday was a little rough because everyone was very tired, but I do think it’s worth a day of being tired in order to have a nice adventure.

October Plans and Goals… or not. So I had originally titled this post “Fourth Quarter Goals and Plans” and I was going to write about my fall fun list/ goals for the rest of the year/ lofty plans of achievement. It seems early to be thinking about the holiday season already – I’m not trying to induce panic or anything in anyone, so sorry if you are having a bad reaction to my mention of the holidays. Though I’m sure many of you are on top of things and already planning holiday festivities. I don’t usually even think about the holidays until after Hallowe’en at the earliest. Sometimes after Thanksgiving when it’s too late and I do indeed panic. But I will say, I was a little taken aback when I got home and the kids were poring over a little something that arrived in the mail last week:

I was thinking about goals for October, but then the way my work schedule is, October rolls right into November into December and it doesn’t let up. It’s a downhill slide to the end of the year from here. After kicking around October/fourth Quarter goals for a few days, I thought, “Who am I kidding?” I start rehearsals in two weeks for a show and do two operas back to back. I don’t think I will be aiming for anything loftier than get through to the new year with kindness, grace, and patience. Because here is what is already in the calendar for the rest of the year:

-Two operas back to back. (Meaning two times through the prep week/ rehearsal weeks/ tech weeks/ performance cycles). Between October 12th and December 15th, I just have one day off a week. I haven’t double checked the calendar, but that is just nine days off – one of which is Hallowe’en, and one of which is Thanksgiving.

-Start prepping for hiring next year, all while in rehearsals/ performance.

-Parent Teacher conferences.

-a Supertitle gig – I can’t work the actual recital because of opera rehearsal, but I’ll be creating the power point slides.

-the 13 year old’s school play

-family photos

-Well woman appointment and mammogram

-usual slate of activities for the kids – soccer, piano, agility class, skating, basketball.

-The holiday trifecta of Hallowe’en/ Thanksgiving/ Christmas and all the joys and expectations those involve. I think my parents might be coming for Thanksgiving.

-Lenten book club (Though I guess we are easing into advent.)

-a few random days off school and half days for the kids

-Trip to Taiwan for my Grandfather’s birthday celebration.

All to say, I don’t know that I have it in me to make a ambitious fun list because I think I will need to maintain some blank spaces for me and for family time. Here’s the thing, though – I think I (we) can have a low key fall/ winter and still lean into the season; I don’t need to have big adventures on my one day off in order to feel like I’m enjoying the season. It’s about paying attention to the every day things that make October, November, and December different from the rest of the year, to give the things that I do daily a special holiday sprinkle. Some ideas for low key seasonal things that can fold into the regular rhythms of the life while still allowing restorative space:
-eat lots of apples
-spend time outdoors and savor the trees in all their fall splendor. Take time to notice holiday decorations as I see them – I might not have the space in me to rally a trip to one of the huge light displays, but I can take time to marvel at the Christmas lights I see on my commute.
-Tuba Christmas. The one tradition I’ll always make time for.
-change the clocks and savor the shift in light (It was pitch dark at 6:30am this morning and I felt like I didn’t know what was happening.)
-make and enjoy soups and baked goods. Or just buy and eat lots of baked goods. Trader Joe’s Candy Cane Joe Joes or Peppermint Stars?
-drink lots of tea.
-dress in seasonal colours and fabrics – warm oranges, yellows, reds, cozy sweaters and hats, and booties, and scarves. I love fall and cool weather dressing.
-pull out/ borrow Christmas picture books to have casually around the house. Maybe find a Christmas themed read aloud to read with the kids. Any suggestions? The Best Christmas Pageant Ever is well loved in our house.
-board games and hot chocolate (with candy cane stir sticks).
-watch Hallmark Holiday movies, even if it’s while I do the dishes at night. (The Hallmark Holiday Movie schedule is out! I’m am VERY excited for #26 – checks so many of my Hallmark Holiday Movie catnip boxes. Also there’s a time travel one, which I always love; and there’s a new installment of the Three Wise Men series! So excited. Also the movies start this weekend!!)
-read a big book. I’m thinking I might finally get to reading East of Eden. Though I’m also kicking around Anna Karenina ever since I listened to Nilo Cruz’s play Anna in the Tropics.
-eat my kids’ Hallowe’en candy
-write and send the holiday card. (If you want to exchange holiday cards – email me or leave a comment and I’ll email you!) And display the cards that come to us.
-journal reflections on the year that was and the year ahead.
-be grateful for the year that was and is, and ask the kids what they are grateful for.
-seasonal music during church services. Singing Christmas carols loudly in the car.

Notably not on my list is NaBloWriMo – Look, last year I really relished the challenge of participating, and also I really loved reading all the content that people created. But I am not a fast writer and I don’t like the pressure of cranking out content without being able to ponder and edit and edit again. I like the sense of flow that I get from writing, but that flow sometimes means that I can sit at my computer to write and two hours will go by in a blink of an eye. November is just not the time for me to be cranking out a daily blog post in that immersive way. I look forward to reading and commenting on other people’s posts and I will hopefully continue to post at my usual once or twice a week rate.

I may be over-estimating how tapped I will be this last quarter of the year, but fall last year was miserable with how packed our lives were – we had two kids in operas, and I was working on a really challenging show that just sucked everything from me. That was for sure a “never again” experience. I’m glad my kids got to be in the opera and experience being on stage, but it just about killed us to make it work. This fall/winter, I want more space so I can savor and give attention to what is important.

Things to prioritize in a busy season:
-Sleep.
-Breathing.
-yoga and other exercise
-sunlight and fresh air
-nutritious food and comfort food.
-family
-kindness and grace and gratitude
-hugs and kisses.

I might need to write that out and put it on a Post It somewhere to remind myself, especially when I feel like I’m not keeping up with everyone around me who are holiday-ing to the fullest.

Grateful For:

-Our mechanic. I’m grateful that we have a mechanic we trust to bring out car to. Funny story – when I took the car in, he asked me which car I was bringing and I said the red Subaru Impreza.
“Oh! The manual one?” he asked, his eyes lighting up.
“Yes,” I said.
“Fun!”

-Fast Internet. I went down a YouTube rabbit hole one night last week and at one point, I thought, “Man, isn’t it nice that I can watch this whole video on the making of Sense and Sensibility without waiting for it to buffer?”

-The Husband for driving when we go places. I don’t really like driving, so I’m always grateful that he gets behind the wheel.

-Time in the evening with the family. We’ve had a few nights without plans so after dinner we’ve been just hanging out. One night we did puzzles. One night we painted. One night we played Skyjo. By “we” I do mean me and the 6 and 8 year old. The 13 year old would rather watch YouTube shorts in her room. I’m trying to be okay with this, but I feel my self being all judgmental parent about it. The funny thing is she will email me links to funny videos, which is sweet, but I’m like, “DUDE! I’m sitting in the next room, just come show me!” She says it’s more fun just to email me. Sigh.

-A shady spot at the soccer game on an 80 degree day. What the heck, Fall???

-but on that note- the otherwise gorgeous fall weather. The cool breezes that help cut through the autumn heat.

-my bike.

-Thrift Stores. I’ve been on the hunt at thrift stores for things with which I can piece together the kids’ Hallowe’en costumes. The two little kids want to be K-Pop Demon Hunter characters. I found some clothes that I can use as a base, spending less than $10 per kid so far. And then I went and spent $50 on bling at Michael’s. I think most of that $50 of bling is going to get returned. Our thrift stores here are huge and not really curated, so it’s exhausting to go. But I did find some gems, including this puzzle which made me think of Elisabeth!:

Looking Forward To:
-Starting work on my next show.

-Stage Management Soup Party! For the past few years the stage management department has had a soup party in the fall and it’s a lot of fun. We have quite a few vegetarians, so I’m thinking of either making the Chickpea noodle soup from America’s Test Kitchen’s Vegan for Everyone, or this Chickpea Gnocchi Soup. Or maybe a lentil soup? So many options!

-Walk with furloughed friend. The government shutdown pretty much sucks, but it does mean that some of my friends are available for mid day walks and lunches. Silver linings.

-Kabocha squash. It’s squash season! Kabocha squash was one of my grandmother’s favorite vegetables. I got one from the farm stand the other day and I can’t decide what to do with it – curry? fried rice (there is a recipe in Meera Sodha’s new cookbook that looks really good)? This squash, kimchi, and chickpea dish looks divine, but might be too spicy for the family.

-Just started this on audio – it’s cute, and fun and set in Baltimore – always a kick to read a book set somewhere close.

Also the author has a book coming out this week Grace and Henry’s Holiday Movie Marathon, which lead to this text exchange with my friend who loves Hallmark movies as much as I do:

-And tearing through this book as well. (partly because it’s a three week loan. I’m still on the fence as to whether I like it or not. It’s very well written, but some of it just seems like too much every day life things.)

What we ate:

Monday: Tofu and Tomato Stir Fry with Sesame Rice from Meera Sodha’s new cookbook Dinner. You can also find the recipe here in Sodha’s column in the Guardian that features vegan recipes. This dish was basically a vegan take on eggs with tomatoes which is a very common dish in Taiwan. The rice was drizzled with sesame oil to give it a bit of a pop. I thought this was very tasty and it was quick – ready in less than 30 minutes. I made this because I had a bunch of tomatoes to use up. Sodha’s recipes are always full of flavor and pretty simple, but I have to say this cookbook isn’t speaking to me as much as her other cookbooks: East and Made in India and Fresh India – this book seems more fussy somehow. Even still, there are a few more dishes I want to try before I return this book to the library. Vegan.

Tuesday: Pulled pork tacos for Taco Tuesday. The Husband made the pork in the crockpot and we had our usual accompaniment of cabbage, pickled onions, sour cream, cheese, and hard and soft tortilla shells. The kids like the hard shells. I guess it’s a good vehicle for sour cream and cheese.

Wednesday: Breakfast sandwiches. The Husband cooked.

Thursday: Spaghetti and meatballs with salad (bagged) and garlic bread. The 13 year old cooked. She also somehow made two whole boxes of spaghetti even though it was just four of us for dinner, so now we have a lot of plain pasta leftover. I froze it, but I’m not quite sure what to do with it.

Friday: Pizza (take out) and Freaky Friday, the 2003 Jamie Lee Curtis and Lindsey Lohan version. It was my turn to choose the movie, and I picked Freaky Friday because I wanted to watch the sequel that came out this summer, but of course the kids had to see the first one first. Curtis and Lohan are brilliant in this movie. I will say, the romantic aspects didn’t seem as funny to me on re-watching. Mark Harmon (whom I have a huge celebrity crush on) trying to kiss Jamie Lee Curtis who is inhabited by her teenager’s mind- it just seemed icky. Was it funny twenty years ago?

Saturday: Dinner out at Blue Moon Cafe in Shepherdstown before the dance.

Sunday: Pasta (store bought ravioli) with red sauce. The 13 year old had leftovers because she had to eat earlier since she had swim clinic.

That’s the news from last week. This weekend looks to be rainy and I have to work, so it’ll probably be a good weekend to hunker and catch up on things. The house is due for a good “put back together” session. Hope you’re week went well, and you have good plans ahead.
Any suggestions for what to do with leftover (cooked) plain spaghetti noodles? Are you thinking/planning for the holidays yet? What’s your favorite soup?

Thanksgiving 2024 + more gratitudes – NaBloPoMo 2024, #21

It was a quiet, low key Thanksgiving – which suited me just fine, as it was the one day off sandwiched between days of rehearsals. Wednesday night I took the 12 year old and her friend to see Wicked. I don’t go to see many movies and we almost didn’t get to go because I didn’t realize that these days you have to buy movie tickets in advance. Where are the days when you just went up to the ticket window and said, “Three please for the 5:30 showing of Wicked.”? Anyhow, there were no good seats left at our first choice movie theatre and time, so we ended up at a different theatre, but it was fine.

I ate lots of popcorn and drank lots of Sprite – probably too much because I ended up having to go pee right before the end of the movie and I missed the last minute of “Defying Gravity.” Wump Wump. The movie was gorgeous and very entertaining, but also quite long. I think there’s something in movies that demands more detail in story-telling. I was wondering how they make a 2.5 hour musical into a five hour movie, and I think it’s all about drawing out the story-telling into minute details and gestures that you don’t need in the theatre. It’s such a different method of story-telling.

Thanksgiving day, the Husband set up a TV in the kitchen so that we could watch the Macy’s Day Parade while making sausage balls. It’s our Thanksgiving Day tradition to watch the Macy’s Day Parade and the Husband noticed that I sometimes missed the Parade because I was in the kitchen cooking, so he set up the TV in the kitchen so we could all be together.

I had already done a lot of prep, but I still had to finish the buns, the turkey, masked potatoes, and steam the broccoli. It was feeling like a lot, so I made a little spreadsheet so that I could map out the rest of the day. At work we call this making a train schedule, and it helps me feel less panicked about the rest of the day when I see it mapped out:

After the Parade, we watched the Westminster Dog Show, as we always do. For the first time, a pug won best in show – how awesome is that? By the end of the dog show, everyone was getting a little stir crazy, so I took the two little kids out for a bike ride. We always need a bit of outdoor time at some point before we eat on Thanksgiving day – sometimes I forget and everyone goes bonkers by the time the food is ready, so we need to remember to plan this outdoor time into the day.

We got home and I started to carry out the cooking plan. One thing I forgot to figure into the plan was time to carve the turkey, so we didn’t actually sit down until 3:45pm. We had one guest for dinner – a work colleague who was new to town and wasn’t able to go home for Thanksgiving. He was a good sport to come over to the chaos of dinner at our house. Our kids can be super social and ask lots of questions and have a lack of table manners. After dinner we played Castle Panic, a fun cooperative board game which involves protecting your castle from trolls and goblins and orcs. We managed to win with one castle tower standing. I highly recommend Castle Panic as a fun family board game that doesn’t get competitive. After our guest left, the kids got into pjs and we watched a Charlie Brown Thanksgiving.

Thanksgiving menu 2024:
-Our traditional Thanksgiving morning project – Sausage balls, a tasty combination of sausage, cheddar cheese and Bisquick. We snack on these all day and they become breakfast and lunch on Thanksgiving day.
-Because we were having a guest, I put out some snacky appetizers: cheese and crackers and crudité with homemade blue cheese sauce (Greek yogurt, lemon, grated garlic, and blue cheese crumbles)
The main meal:
-Turkey – spatchocked, buttermilk brined, recipe from the New York Times. I think I will always spatchcock my turkey. The 12 lb turkey cooked in 75 minutes and I don’t need to stuff it.
-Steamed broccoli – a little plain, but this is how the kids like it.
-Cranberry sauce – made from the recipe off the bag, with some orange zest thrown in.
–Sweet Potato Buttermilk Rolls , also from the New York Times – I don’t think I love these/didn’t make them quite right. In an attempt to make them ahead of time, I did two slow rises in the fridge and they tasted a little fermented. I also think I should have left them in the oven a bit longer because they were almost too soft.
-Spring Mix Salad – salad green, apples, pecans, parmesan, cherry tomatoes. Just a basic salad because I didn’t think there was enough green in the meal.
-Mashed Potatoes – basic – potatoes, olive oil, butter, half and half, and sour cream. I wasn’t originally going to make these, but then I made a huge batch of gravy and we had a guest coming over, and I thought, “It doesn’t feel like a proper Thanksgiving dinner without potatoes.” So the Husband went out that afternoon and got some potatoes.
-Gravy – I made this ahead of time. It was a little bland. Need to figure out how to pump up the “meaty” taste.
-Rainbow Jello “Salad” – Recipe from my mother in law’s recipe box – we make it every holiday meal. A layer of Jello mixed with sour cream to make it pastel colour and then a layer of Jello made as normal. It makes for a really pretty dessert. Or a salad, depending on where you’re from.
-Pumpkin Pie- recipe from the Tartine cookbook, with an extra egg yolk for a firmer custard.
–Pecan Slab Pie – (another NYTimes recipe) – This ended up more like a bar cookie than a pie. It was still tasty, just not what I expected. Also – I miss having an apple pie. Now I know – I’ll always want and apple pie.

It was a lovely spread – I didn’t take any photos, though, so you’ll just have to believe me!

I already wrote an entire post about how I’m grateful for the Husband, and I thought I’d write about a few more people for whom I’m so thankful, to round out this month:

-Everyone who participated in NaBloPoMo 2024, by reading, by posting, by commenting here and around the interwebs. Thanks to San for organizing this. NaBloPoMo came at a really busy time for me, and I wasn’t sure if I should participate, but I’m glad I did. Ultimately, I only wrote 21 posts (I’m counting this one because it’s still November somewhere…) , but I think that’s actually pretty good for how full my month was. What I really loved was how people shared their lives in both their posts and in their comments and the sense of connection that comes across the screen.

– My grandparents, for so many things, but I think one of the biggest things is that they worked with my parents to set aside enough money that I graduated debt-free from college. The way they think about the future and the next generations was such a gift.

-My parents, who left home, emigrated to another country and have always been supportive of me.

– All the stage managers who worked with me, taught me, and mentored me through the years. Even though one can go to school to get a degree in stage management, I mostly figured out how to do my job through many internship, and just by watching other people do it, and by doing it myself, making mistakes, and figuring it out. When I first started out, I did a couple of internships and I was lucky to work under some really amazing stage managers – they were precise and detailed and had really high standards. I see now, after twenty years, that they were also wonderfully human people with insecurities and quirks. I think about these mentors every day I’m working.

-My kids. They are maddening and wonderful all at the same time. They help me think about what it means to be a good human – both in terms of who I want them to be and who I want to be for them. They have such capacities for joy and thoughtfulness. I know it’s a cliche, but seeing the world through them has made me a better person.

Well that’s the end of NaBloPoMo 2024- I didn’t get to all the posts that I had planned to write; I also wrote a couple posts I hadn’t planned on writing. I didn’t get around to answering the Ask Me Anything questions this month, but I still plan to do that in December for sure. If anyone still wants to submit Ask Me Anything questions via this link, I’m happy to answer them!

I hope you all had a great Thanksgiving and here is wishing everyone a joyful December.

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Thanksgiving meal prep and Thankful for…- NaBloPoMo #19

I thought I’d keep Thanksgiving dinner simple this year since it’s just us, but even still there are several dishes with multiple steps and degrees of prep so it still feels like a project meal. Last night I made the pie filling for the pecan pie, made the pie dough, turned the turkey in the brine, roasted the turkey bones for gravy, and made the cranberry sauce.

Today I had to go to rehearsal from 10am – 2pm. Right now I’m triaging the rainbow Jell-O situation, I shaped the rolls and they are doing a slow rise in the fridge, and I’m making turkey stock (step two in gravy). We’re going to go see Wicked this evening, and hopefully I’ll make the two pies tonight. It seems like a lot when I write it out, but I like project recipes that I can break down into steps where I do one step every so often – it makes thing seem more doable.

Because it’s Thanksgiving week, I thought I’d give a big shout out to one of the biggest things I’m grateful for – the Husband.

Reasons that I’m thankful for the Husband:

He’s always thinking of how to make things better.
He always finds time to cuddle with the kids and listen to them when they are sad.
He buys me wasabi peas and dill pickle chips.
He is really nice to my parents, even when they make life complicated.
He talks to contractors.
He handles buying the technology items for the family.
He grows beautiful plants in our garden.
He returns my library books for me.
He puts up with my crazy opera/work schedule.
He is the lead parent when I’m on that crazy opera/work schedule.
He takes time off work to take care of things when I can’t.
He does the laundry 97% of the time.
He thinks about logistics and the reality of a situation when I am being impractical.
He is not squeamish about buying period products.
He is a great father and goes to all the parent teacher conferences that he can.
He tucks the covers back around me when he gets up in the morning before me.

There’s lists and lists more that I could say on the topic, of course, but that’s a start.

Happy Thanksgiving, Friends. Even if you don’t celebrate Thanksgiving, here’s wishing you many things to be thankful for.

Who are you grateful for?

I’m writing this post as part of NaBloPoMo – click on the icon below to see who else if participating. You can also leave me questions for an upcoming “Ask me Anything” post via this link. Happy reading and writing everyone!

Christmas Movies 2023 – Hallmark and such.

I will say, I think they are getting more inventive and less predictable with these movie posters.

A snowy weekend! What better time to recap my 2023 Hallmark Holiday movie binge. As I was out shoveling the front walk yesterday, I thought, “This is one part of winter that never makes it into the Hallmark movies- the backbreaking tedium of shoveling the front walk over and over and over again. Why do I never see anyone shoveling the front walk in a Hallmark movie?” Well probably because the movies are all filmed in July and no one can convincingly shovel snow in July in Vancouver. Also on that note – where are the piles next to door of wet boots and winter coats and hats and mittens?!?!?!

The New York Times had a really fun article (gift link) about Christmas rom coms in which their reporters analyzed 424 Hallmark and Lifetime movies to see how formulaic they really were. No surprises here. We all know the answer is “extremely formulaic.” But really, the article is full of fun tidbits – like did you know that the most popular name for a Hallmark/Lifetime female lead is Emma and male lead is Jack? If you’ve never watched a Hallmark holiday movie, just read this article and you’ll be covered. But then you wouldn’t get to see all the cozy sweaters and fake snow for yourself! Also the comments on this article are GOLD.

Here are two of my favorites:
“My wife and I both enjoy these movies, but she has one of the most interesting aspects of it: how many coats can each actress wear given they arrived in their small town with a small carry-on bag. It’s hilarious. Usually 7 to 9 coats. Don’t get us wrong. We love the coats. It’s just hilarious to watch.” I WONDER THIS TOOOO!!!!

“Good research. One datapoint you seemed to have missed is those most popular male lead actors are exclusively Canadian. All of them. Sometimes in an effort to find the most “all American” person you can, you end up with a Canadian.” HAHAHAHAH

Before we get to the Hallmark – our non-Hallmark Holiday viewings this year:
-Spirited, which I think has now become a family “must see”. And the kids play the soundtrack on repeat for much of December.
-Noelle, our first time watching this Anna Kendrick movie about Santa’s daughter who leaves the North Pole in attempt to right some wrongs. I thought this was fun, girl power version of Elf.
-Elf. Classic which we watch every year. Though, to be honest, this was the first time I didn’t fall asleep before the end and whoa… it was so interesting to see the ending with Santa in New York and all that – I’d never seen that bit.
-The Man Who Invented Christmas – about Charles Dickens and writing A Christmas Carol. Surprisingly funny.
– It’s a Wonderful Life. Another of our must see classics.
-Meet Me in St. Louis. Ditto.
The family also watched Candy Cane Lane, the new Eddie Murphy movie, but I was at work that night. Apparently it was fine.

On to the Hallmark stuff. As I was drafting this, I realized I saw twenty movies this year, too many this year to go into one post – so this is post #1 of Hallmark movies.

Ice sculpture Christmas (2015): An aspiring chef teams up with a childhood acquaintance to enter an ice sculpture contest.
My catnip: This was recommended by Elisabeth and I love movies about super niche things like ice sculpting.
My take: This movie had the formula down pat – all the right rom com beats at all the right times. It’s definitely a product of early Hallmark movies in it’s blindingly white casting.
The ridiculous: Okay, any time there’s a movie where two people first meet as kids and then recognize each other years later is going to get an eye roll from me.
My favorite bits: The lady who plays the head chef, Chef Gloria, was pretty great, I thought.

A Timeless Christmas (2020) – 1903 business man travels forward in time to present day, is confused, causes confusion, and meets a lady who is in charge of the historical preservation of his estate.
My catnip: Time travel romance.
My take: I thought this one was fine – not the best time travel movie; the period parts looked a little… unconvincing.
The ridiculous: Well, time travel…
My favorite bit: This is a bit of a spoiler, but there’s actually a poignant part when the business man is angry at his 1903 fiancée for eventually marrying someone else, and then realizes that she found a man to love an have a family with after all and that he couldn’t begrudge her that. It was super sweet.

Mistletoe and Menorahs (2019) – Recommended to my by a Jewish friend as a pretty good Hannukah-ish movie. Christmas celebrating girl (is she Christian? Unclear…) needs to learn about Hannukah to impress her boss and get a big raise. Jewish boy needs to learn about Christmas to impress his girlfriend’s father.
My catnip: anything that expands the diversity of the Hallmark/Lifetime Holiday movie scope.
My take: This was cute. The leads were engaging – I especially liked the male lead because he wasn’t as slick and perfect as a typical Hallmark romantic lead.
The ridiculous: I don’t know, but letting the non-Jewish girl light the menorah at a company holiday party seems… well let’s just say I don’t imagine that’s really something I see happening. I could be wrong, though.
Favorite part: making latkes. It definitely made me want to try to make latkes.

Laughing All the Way (2023) – Comedy club faces closure if they can’t raise money so they decide to put on a variety show/gala. One of their employees, an aspiring comedian, gets a now-famous comedian who got his start at the club to headline.
My catnip: Let’s put on a show!
My take: Okay, this might be horrible of me because I did genuinely think this was a cute charming movie, but… the lead was played by the same actor who played the Jewish guy in Mistletoe and Menorahs, which I had just watched the day before. And I just kept thinking, “He doesn’t celebrate Christmas!!!” I feel like that was kind of an unreasonable reaction, but there you go…
The ridiculous: The big show is going to be presented on Christmas eve. Who goes to shows on Christmas eve? Also – it’s a comedy club, but the jokes aren’t funny.
My favorite bit: The chemistry between the two leads was adorable.

A Paris Christmas Waltz (2023): Lady quits her job to become an amateur ballroom dancer and goes to Paris with her Pro-dancer partner. Romance ensues.
My catnip: Ballroom dancing, stars of the musical theatre stage (Matthew Morrison of Glee, but also of The Light in the Piazza which I listened to constantly this summer on my commute), European locale
My take: This one was pretty bad, to be honest – the pacing and plotting was clunky, and the acting was pretty wooden – like you know how some actors just seem like they know they’re in a cliched cheesy rom-com? This was one of those movies. There was one moment when Matthew Morrison started singing and dancing with so much charm and heart, and I thought things would get better, but then they didn’t.
The ridiculous: I don’t know a lot about ballroom dancing, but some of her rehearsal outfits didn’t look practical.
My favorite bit: the aforementioned singing and dancing by Matthew Morrison.

A Biltmore Christmas (2023) – aspiring screenwriter is tasked with re-writing a classic 1950s holiday movie. While doing research she is transported back in time to the filming of the original film and encounters one of the film’s stars.
My catnip: time travel, period piece, Star Trek alumni (Jonathan Frakes from The Next Generation!!!!)
My take: I LOOOOVED this movie. I think this is right up there with last year’s Ghost of Christmas Always as my favorite Hallmark movie. Okay, where to begin – time travel movies always have that nice note of impossible yearning, which I love, the settings and costume were beautiful, the leads had so much chemistry, and the plotting and pacing were so well done. And I so very much want to see the real version of “His Merry Wife”, the film that is getting remade.
The ridiculous: Well, again, it’s a time travel movie, so there’s that. Also – I always think with these movies when a person from the past ends up in present day – “How is he going to get a social security number?”
My favorite bit: The opening, which is played as a trailer for His Merry wife. And of course the end. I might have gone a little misty-eyed at the end.

Christmas in Notting Hill (2023) – American woman goes to England to visit her sister and meets soccer super star who is in the midst of a career crisis. Well, the American is also in the midst of a career crisis too.
My cat nip: foreign local, men with accents, stars of 1990s television (Sarah Ramos from Parenthood – does anyone remember what a lovely show that was?)
My take: This was fine, but there was no real conflict in the relationship. The American and the English soccer star liked each other from the beginning and there was nothing really standing in the way of them, so there was a real lack of tension in this movie. On the other hand, if you’re looking for all the standard cozy Hallmark Christmas tropes, this movie has them in spades. I would say this is a great movie for having on in the background to infuse the air with Christmas spirit.
The ridiculous: Soccer star’s mom makes a living selling swag with her son’s face on it. Seems a little unethical?
My favorite bits: okay, to be honest, I watched this really late at night and might have fallen asleep through parts of it. The two leads are charming, though.

Holiday Hotline (2023) – After a career crisis, British chef goes to Chicago for a break and ends up working at a holiday turkey hotline. She fields a call from a single dad trying to recreate his late wife’s Christmas turkey for his daughter. Simultaneously, she keeps running into a friend of her neighbor and sparks fly. Guess what? It’s not really a spoiler to say that the single dad and the neighbor’s friend are the same guy!
My cat nip: Single fathers, cute British accents, pseudo- Shop Around the Corner vibes, niche activity (Holiday cooking hotlines!)
My take: I thought this one was really cute, maybe my second favorite holiday movie this past year. I’ve always loved listening to the radio program Turkey Confidential and it makes a great premise for a meet cute rom com. I liked the way the story unfolded, predictably, but also with some nuance.
The ridiculous: Okay, some of the questions that callers called in with about their turkeys were hilarious and I hope no one ever asked in real life.
My favorite bits: The way that the movie handled the “hotline” scenes were, I thought, really well done. It wasn’t just a split screen effect – it was something cozier and quite skillful.

Christmas Island (2023) -Career driven private pilot is forced to land her clients – Los Angeles based toy manufacturers and their kids – at small Nova Scotia Island when she hits severe weather. She verbally spars with the air traffic controller, but then gets to know him in real life when she and her clients are stranded for several days.
My Catnip: A Hallmark movie set in Canada! Also Andrew Walker is one of my favorite Hallmark actors – I’ll watch any holiday movie he’s in. Also Rachel Skarsten, who plays the pilot was in The Royal Nanny last year, and I liked her too.
My take: The Nova Scotia location was kind of refreshing in a Hallmark movie, and I liked the storylines of how the various members of the family find their way to something fulfilling.
The ridiculous: No one seemed terribly Canadian in this movie. I can’t quite put my finger on what made me say this, since I’m sure there were a lot of Canadians in the movie. (Both the leads are Canadian.) But there was nary a ketchup chip in sight!
My favorite bit: The part with the Christmas Eve tribute to loved ones that had been lost, featuring a Christmas tree made from lobster traps. I might have shed a tear.

Mystic Christmas (2023) – Globe-trotting animal behavioral specialist goes to work for her best friend at her marine animal rehab center in Mystic, CT. She reunites with a one night stand/best friend’s brother, a homebody if there ever was one.
My catnip: Stars of musical theatre (Patti Murin, who plays the best friend, starred in Frozen the Musical.)
My take: This movie was pretty enjoyable, though low on external conflict, having, instead a lot of existential soul searching while enjoying Christmas settings. I liked that there were several different minor plotlines, to help keep things moving along. And the seals were pretty cute.
The ridiculous: What is it in the world of Hallmark that people have big exciting job offers that always start the day after Christmas? I get that not everyone runs on the same calendar as I do, but… it seems a little unbelievably inconvenient.
My favorite bit: There is one scene in which Patti Murin wears the most amazingly snuggly sweater. I loved that sweater. Also there is a book flood in the movie. Seems very hip and trendy, but it was fun to see a series of scenes where they go to the book store, buy books and then sit around and read. I don’t know what it was about the sound design, but the sound of those pages turning was just so perfectly cozy. Weird thing to love?

Well, that’s half the Hallmark/Lifetime movies I watched during 2023 holiday season! I’ll be back with a recap of the rest of them next week!

I know we’re over halfway though January, but did you enjoy any Hallmark rom coms this year?

Weekly Recap + What We Ate: Being Thankful and Straight on to Christmas

The kids love any occasion to make a sign. Notice the handprint turkeys!

In a lot of ways, while Hallowe’en feels to me like the start of the end of the year, Thanksgiving kicks off the the true, inevitable, unstoppable slide. I mean I can’t stop time either way, but Hallowe’en feels full no on of possibilities and plans while Thanksgiving fills me with “Oh shit! I’m not going to be ready!” I’m working full time until mid December, but there are things that can’t be put off until then – Christmas cards, tickets for events we want to attend, Christmas shopping, the tree. I mean I guess we could delay the tree until I’m done my current spate of shows and recitals, but then it would only be up for ten days, and where’s the joy in that? I think the Husband has a plan, though. I came home from work on Sunday night to this:

A couple years ago, I decided that we needed to up our exterior Christmas light game and so we got this from Home Depot. It makes me ridiculously happy, even though it might be though of as just this side of tacky. There are a variety of slides that the projector can display, so after Christmas, we can switch to just snowflakes and enjoy the festive lights into the New Year. (It also comes with a Hallowe’en slide, but I don’t know that we’ve ever used that.)

Thanksgiving itself was quiet and cozy. I was up late the night before baking pies. In the morning, the 11 year old made waffles, and let me sleep until 8:30am before telling me I needed to come down for waffles. We then watched the Macy’s Day Parade while the Husband and kids made sausage balls – this is one of our Thanksgiving traditions. Followed by watching the dog show, also tradition here. I went for a run around noon, then came home and popped the turkey in the oven. One of my friends, in town to work on the show with me, came over for Thanksgiving Dinner. She essentially played with the kids for 5 hours while I got everything ready. What an absolutely wonderful friend she is!

Thanksgiving dinner. Missing is the Rainbow Jello and the rolls. And of course the pies.

For dinner we had:
-Turkey – buttermilk brined and spatchcocked. I had spatchcocked a chicken before, never a turkey. The main appeal was that the recipe said a spatchcocked turkey would cook in 80-100 mins. Yes please. I actually took it out at 90 mins and it was a little dry .
-Stuffing, made separately. The sausage dressing from A Year of Miracles. I’m not usually a stuffing person, and particularly since I was spatchcocking the turkey, hadn’t originally planned it on the menu. But then I wanted to make something from Ella Risbridger’s cookbook, and there was a recipe for sausage stuffing with apples and chestnuts and I immediately wanted to try it. I’m not sorry at all.
-Grilled zucchini with gremolata, also from The Year of Miracles. This was a last minute add as well. I didn’t think there were enough green things on the menu and I had some zucchini in the fridge.
-Green beans – the Husband’s specialty. He steams them then sautes them with garlic and soy sauce. So tasty.
-cranberry sauce – the cooked kind. Pretty basic recipe with some fresh ginger added.
-Rainbow Jello aka Ribbon Salad. The 11 year old made this from a recipe card from my late Mother-in-Law’s recipe box. Also another thing we have every holiday dinner. Also the only thing the two little kids wanted to eat. I used the Rainbow Jello to bribe them to eat the other things.

-gravy made from dippings
-German Potato Salad – my friend brought this. When we were at her house this summer, she made this for us and it was so good that I requested it for Thanksgiving dinner
-cranberry relish – my friend also brought this. I’d never had cranberry relish before, and I really liked it, especially sprinkled with pecans.
-rolls. Last year I didn’t have rolls and we all agreed that was a mistake. This year we had the Pillsbury crescent rolls and Hawaiian rolls.
-Apple Pie – when I made it the night before, I couldn’t tell if the bottom cooked through. Last year’s pie had a bit of a soggy bottom, so I was a little paranoid that I’d repeated the mistakes. So the next morning, I covered the pie in foil and popped it back in the oven for 20 minutes. Not sure if that was the reason, but the crust was in much better shape this year. I use the apple recipe from Serious Eats and the crust recipe from King Arthur’s Flour Baking Companion.
-Pumpkin pie. I use the recipe from Tartine, with an extra egg yolk added. (I’m glad I noted that in the blog because I always think I’m going to remember and I never do.) Only, I didn’t have pumpkin. I don’t know where I think a pumpkin was going to magically appear from, but I didn’t have pumpkin. But… I did have a plethora of butternut squash from the Hungry Harvest box. So I roasted that up, and in a fit of panic that it wasn’t going to be enough, threw in a sweet potato as well. The verdict from the Husband, “It’s good, but it’s not pumpkin pie.” So for those of you who think that pumpkin has no taste and pumpkin pie is merely a vessel for sugar, cream and pumpkin pie spice … well, I guess you’re wrong. The pumpkin does matter.

It was a lovely day. We watched some dog show, then ate some (lots) of food. Then after dinner, we played Codenames – which was kind of hilarious becasue the 6 year old insists on being the Codemaster and he’s … well, he’s six. There was a minor meltdown when his team (consisting of him, the 4 year old, and the Husband) kept losing to my team (me, my friend, and the 11 year old). “You NEVER give me a chance to win!!!!” he yelled.

“Um…” I said, trying not to laugh, “every time you play is a chance to win, honey.”

That did not go over well. So we declared it was time for pie, and that seemed to mollify him.

After my friend went home, we put on our pjs and watched the Charlie Brown Thanksgiving special, though I don’t guarantee that I stayed awake. We were all full and exhausted and agreed to leave the dishes for the next day.

(Also – update on our broken dishwasher. It does need replacing because it is old and all its parts don’t really talk to each other anymore. But the repair guy said that if we turn the machine off at the breaker and back on again, it will re-set itself and we can run it. So I did not have to handwash Thanksgiving after all. Frugal me thinks, “Great! The dishwasher still is going strong! We’ll get another ten years out of it!” But the Husband thinks that having to turn it on and off at the breaker is not an ideal solution, so we have taken advantage of the Black Friday sales and ordered a new one.)

The day after Thanksgiving, the Husband took the kids away on an overnight. I so wish I could have gone with them – they went to the Please Touch Museum in Philadelphia. We hadn’t been to this museum in several years. We used to go several times a year – combining it with a trip to Longwood Gardens. But the 11 year old sort of aged out of it before the other two kids were really into it and then 2020 happened. Anyhow, the Husband decided that this weekend was a good time to go back with the kids so he took them on an a great little trip: Please Touch, then Hotel (with pool!, which I take it was a key component of any hotel stay) and hotel breakfast bar (also important.) The Please Touch Museum apparently was a great hit, and parts of it had been redone since we last went. We were a little unsure whether the 11 year old would be an active participant in a visit to the children’s museum, but she apparently really had a good time too.

Then the next day, the Husband took the kids to the Brandywine Museum. Back in September, when he went to the Minnesota State Fair, he and his friends had also gone to the Walker Art Museum. Well, it turns out it was cheaper for all of them to go if he bought a membership, so he did. And it turns out the Walker is part of the North American Reciprocal Museums Association so that his Walker membership gets us into many many many other museums too. One of which is the Brandywine Museum. I had suggested that it would be a good museum to take the kids to because they had their Holiday Trains up, but also they had an exhibit of art from children’s books and a dollhouse, which is always a draw for the oldest. I think children’s book illustrations are a hugely underrated slice of the art world and there should be more art exhibits devoted to that. I’m kind of sad I didn’t get to go along because it sounds like it was a really nice exhibit. The Husband did send some pictures, though:

This is a picture from Sophie Blackall’s most recent book Farmhouse. Can’t wait to read it! I wish I could have seen it in real life.

The Husband reported that the kids seemed to enjoy the art and that the museum had a reading nook set up so you could read all the books featured in the exhibit. He also said that he wrote down the names of almost all the books that were showcased – I’m excited to check them out from the library.

I’m determined to make the most of our reciprocal museum membership in the next 10 months. There are so many art and history museums that we could visit. There is a Duck Decoy museum in Havre de Grace, MD, which is probably about 90 minutes from us!

As for me, I had rehearsal from 12:00p-7:00p Friday, Saturday, and Sunday so I wasn’t home to enjoy the quiet house. Friday, I carpooled with my friend to work, and we went to Trader Joe’s after work, so that kind of felt like a fun friend date. There are a lot of things I love getting at Trader Joe’s (Everything Bagel Seasoning! Pound Plus Dark Chocolate! Chocolate Peanut Butter Cups! Nuts! Dried Fruit! Rice cracker snack mx!). I don’t go very often, however, because I can’t do all my shopping there, and it’s a little out of the way. So it always feels like a treat to go.

Saturday I got to bike to work, which is always exhilarating. When I first stepped out of the house in the morning, though, the sun was shining warmly so even though it was 45 degrees out side, I decided I didn’t need my windbreaker or gloves. About a half mile into my ride, I realized that was a mistake. I was very cold. I leaned into the brisk weather and tried to savor the chill and made it to work. I did, however, walk the bike up that last hill – I wasn’t going to make it up that hill.

Fun things this week:

-In the Fall of 2020, deep in the thick of being home with kids all the time, I decided to do something I’d always wanted to do and signed up for an art class the local community college. I’d always wanted to take a class, but it never worked out with my work schedule. Well, during the pandemic, all the classes moved to be online, and I was unemployed, so I figured it would be a good time to take a class. It turns out to be one of the best things I’ve ever done. (You can see posts with pictures of my work here.) Having that weekly drawing assignment gave me something to do that wasn’t changing diapers or feeding the family or supervising online learning and there was a sweet group of people to interact with every week. Anyhow, at the end of the second class I took, the instructor suggested I submit a drawing to be included in the course catalogue. This was two years ago, and I didn’t think anything of it, knowing that they must get many submissions and my picture was no where as polished at the stuff usually featured in the catalogue. Last week, the latest course catalogue came to our door, and to my surprise, I opened it up, and there was my picture!

It’s not quite like being published or anything, but it tickles me to have a picture of my art out there.

-The six year olds’ classroom had a “Classgiving” potluck. The week before sign ups were sent out for each child to contribute a dish if they wished. I asked the six year old what he wanted to bring. “A turkey,” he said.

Whoa what? No. Try again.

“Rainbow Jello!” That sounds more reasonable. Except when I looked at the food sign ups, it was like six or seven different kinds of baked goods. This was supposed to be the kids’ lunch on the last day of school before the break, and I was a little wary of adding yet another sugary dish to the mix. So we thought about it for a few days. This was the dilemma – do I send what the kid wants to send, or do I send something that will balance the rest of what is on the sign up? Given that it was meant to be a lunch potluck, I was leaning towards the latter. “What about your dad’s sausage balls?” I suggested, thinking a protein option might be a good thing to add. He heaved a sigh, “Okay…”

Which was a win for me on two counts: 1) savory protein (albeit wrapped in carbs), and 2) the Husband got to make them. He’s such a trooper.

On the day of the Classgiving party, parents were allowed to join, so I dutifully went to his classroom, even though I find these things terribly awkward as I am not good at small talk with other parents. Participating in classroom activities solidly falls into the “Will make my kid happy” category for me. When I got there the kids were watching Inspector Gadget and the six year old barely registered my presence. Oh well.

Oh the best part, though – after all my over thinking the potluck sign up of carbs and sugar – I didn’t have to worry that lunch would be unbalanced … someone brought in a paella. Like in a pan, beautifully presented with asparagus and peppers and chicken. It was awesome. It’s now one of my goals for 2024 to make a paella. Also, as I was leaving someone brought in this delicious looking meat stew with couscous. Only by that point the kids were so full of baked goods that I’m sure they didn’t give the meat stew a second glance. Sad. Oh well, I’m sure the other parents got to enjoy it.

-Also highly recommend this poem, by Clint Smith, which I heard on an episode of On Being from earlier this month. It’s entitled “Ode to Those First Fifteen Minutes After the Kids Are Finally Asleep.” Here are the first few lines, but you must click the link and read (or listen) to the whole thing:

Praise the couch that welcomes you back into its embrace
as it does every night around this time. Praise the loose
cereal that crunches beneath your weight, the whole‐grain
golden dust that now shimmers on the backside of your pants.
Praise the cushion, the one in the middle that sinks like a lifeboat
leaking air, and the ottoman covered in crayon stains that you
have now accepted as aesthetic.

Clint Smith’s poem “Dance Party” is also pretty great too. Smith perfectly captures the energy sapping joy of caring for other beings.

-One of the nice things about working on Sunday is that there is a Sunday farmer’s market next to work. So I stopped by before rehearsal to pick up some apples and vegetables (arugula, cucumber, onions, and carrots) as well as lunch (a berry smoothie and chicken empanadas). On my way out, I passed a stall that had a sign that said, “Pickled mushrooms! Try one! It will change your life!” Well, who am I to turn that down, so I did. They were pretty tasty, maybe not life-changingly tasty, but very tasty all the same. The pickled mushroom stand was one that specialized in fermented food and before I knew it, I was walking away with their kimchi, pickles, sauerkraut and, yes, a jar of pickled mushrooms. The ironic thing is that morning the Husband and I had just cleared out the fridge, getting rid of all manner of science experiments and eating up other things, including a bucket of pickles. I was a little abashed to fill that pickle vacuum so soon, but I’ve always been a sucker for fermented food…

Oksana’s Produce Farm. Why make space in the fridge if you can’t fill it with more pickles???

Outfit of the week: Last week was also the first day of rehearsal for the holiday show I’m working on. For the past few years, I almost always wear the same thing for the first day of rehearsal. The outfit is a little more polished than what I usually wear because I like to look relatively put together the first time I meet the singers and the conductor and director. Wearing this outfit is a bit like putting a a uniform- it gets me in the right mindset to start rehearsals.

The grey dress is actually a nursing dress from Latched Mama. If you look closely, there are slits in the side for nursing access. I bought it when the 4 year old was born and it turns out it is such a versatile dress that I wear it all the time even though I’m not nursing anymore. And it has pockets!! The jacket is Eileen Fisher which I picked up at Nordstrom Rack five or six years ago. I like how it looks a little vintage-y and I love the colour. It’s also a jacket that can elevate any outfit. I’ve worn it with sweats and a t-shirt and ended up looking cooler than I have any business looking. The boots need a serious polish, but I also have had them for ages and even had them re-soled a few years ago. They have a wingtip look and feel fancy but are really comfy. The tights are Uniqlo HeatTech because it suddenly got cold last week. And the scarf is super cool – the little circles are actually the digits of pi, written in a spiral. My sister in law got the scarf for me from a company that specializes in STEM based prints. I always get lots of compliments on that scarf. The hat is from my other sister in law (I think it has appeared before in other posts.)

Grateful for:
-Thanksgiving and friends and food and family. Not just on this one day, but all the days.

-Finding my gloves! Several years ago, the Husband gave me some lovely red gloves for Christmas. They were warm, leather Isotoners, and they had touch fingertips so I could use my phone while wearing them. But last year I couldn’t find them. I was distraught. They were not inexpensive so I was hesitant to replace them. Well, this week, I lost my raincoat (sad!), so I had to grab a spare coat from our closet one rainy day. It was a windbreaker that had belonged to my late mother-in-law, which we had kept just for this kind of back up need. Well, I put it on and reached into the lump in the pocket and there were my red gloves!! I was even better than that feeling you get when you find a $20 bill in your pocket!

– Leftovers! One of the most wonderful things about Thanksgiving is having leftovers for easy lunches for days afterwards.

Looking forward to:
-Errands getting done. because I don’t have to be at work until 11:30 most days, I have booked morning appointments this week for driver’s license renewal (mine), and then on my free day, I’ve booked a passport renewal (the 11 year old), and a pediatric dentist visit (the 4 year old.) Boy will it feel good to get some of the stuff off my plate. (spoiler alert – the 4 year old has a stomach bug so the license renewal has to be rescheduled since I have to stay home with her. Let’s hope the rest of the things will happen, though.)

-The two older kids’ piano recital. It’s the six year old’s first piano recital. He will be playing Jolly Old St. Nicholas. As you do when you’ve only been taking lessons for four months. The 11 year old is playing a more complicated piece called Sleighride. She’s been working really hard. At first her teacher was going to make some cuts to the piece because she hadn’t been really practicing and the whole piece wasn’t going to be ready, but then 11 year old buckled down and learned the whole piece. I’m going to be honest – piano, specifically practicing piano, has been a huge struggle. I vacillate between not caring and caring very (too) much.

– Christmas books! I love reading holiday and winter theme picture books in December. I used to make it an Advent calendar type event and wrap them all individually to read one per night. But that was a lot of work, and one year the Grinch was due back at the library, but it was still wrapped so I didn’t know which book it was and that was annoying. So now I just bring them home in a big reusable shopping bag and leave them out and we just grab what we want.

What We Ate: It feels like we ate out more than usual last week. Partly the lead busyness around Thanksgiving, also partly me working until 8pm most nights and the Husband and I not sitting down to meal plan. I don’t love eating out all the time, but I guess it’s just that season for us right now.
Monday: Bahn mi sandwiches (take-out)

Tuesday: Tofu stir fry with noodles (the Husband cooked)

Wednesday: We had tacos out after the six year old and Husband got haircuts. I had shrimp ceviche and a really tasty fish taco from Fish Taco, a local chain.

Thursday: Thanksgiving – see above.

Friday, Saturday, Sunday – leftovers from Thanksgiving. The Husband hot the kids pizza on their road trip. Sunday was dumplings and broccoli.

I don’t really see myself getting back into the dinner cooking groove anytime soon, which makes me a little sad. I miss having that time to putter in the kitchen and then producing something nourishing for everyone to eat. I had thought that I might be able to do more morning meal prep with my later morning starts, but to meal prep, I have to meal plan, and I haven’t had a lot of time for that lately either. I’m instead focusing on having good basics – fruits, veggies, eggs, kimchi, cheese – in the fridge so that even if I’m not cooking, there are options for solid snack meals for me. The Husband actually does really well for getting everyone fed. Honestly, the kids like his cooking more than mine.

Hope you all had a wonderful Thanksgiving! How is the rest of the year looking? Is it frenetic or calm? Or somewhere in between?

Christmas 2022

It was a quiet Christmas at home. This past year, whenever we mention travelling for Christmas, the ten year old says, “No, no, no! I want to be home for Christmas!” She has this whole plan of how Christmas should go:

1) Wake Up.
2) Wait for mom and dad to wake up.
3) Stockings.
4) Cinnamon Buns
5) Presents
6) Play with presents, and laze around the house.
7) Eat Dinner.
8) Watch Meet Me in St. Louis and dessert.

That was more or less what we did.

I was up until about 3am on Christmas eve (I guess technically Christmas Day) prepping dinner. I marinated the lamb leg, chopped all the vegetables, made the batter for the sticky toffee pudding, made the dough for the cinnamon rolls and sweet rolls. I like to make the yeasted things the night before and then put them in the sunroom to rise overnight – it’s cold enough in there that the dough can do a slow rise. Also wrapping presents, and filling the stockings. I was so afraid that the kids would wake up while I was still working in the kitchen and they would ask me if I had seen Santa since the presents were all under the tree and the Husband had eaten Santa’s cookies before he went to bed. Luckily, no one woke up.

Anyhow, because I was up so late the night before, I slept in til about 8am the next morning. The kids were really great about not waking us up when they got up, but I could definitely hear their footsteps and whispers. When I finally did get up, I went downstairs and popped the cinnamon buns in the oven. Then we got down to the business of stockings and presents. I like to go around opening one present at a time, and savoring the opening and the looks of surprise and everyone getting to see what was gifted. I think this usually lasts for about three rounds and then it disintegrates into a frenzy of paper, boxes, and exclamations.

The Husband he said he chose presents for me because he wanted to support my hobbies – In one box I got a variety of safety lights to use while running. Like four or five different kinds. He said he didn’t know what I would like so he just bought a variety. That’s kind of his modus operandi – give Wife lots of options. He also got me some cooking utensils specifically for camping – which I appreciated because I have been just taking things from the kitchen on our camping trip, and then leaving them in the camp box when I get home, and forgetting that I took them, and then spending months afterwards wondering where the grill tongs were. Now I have lightweight tongs just for camping. Also two different kinds of running socks – he actually went to a running store and talked to someone, which is, I think, the real present for me. And then some magnetic cable managers because the kids had gotten into my previous set and pulled the magnets out of them and it made me so mad. This is actually another standard gifting strategy of the Husband’s. Find what makes Wife mad, and fix it. And I guess the biggest present is he got me a National Parks Pass. I’m really excited to use it – I guess I should start planning some ideas! I’ve been told I need to use it four or five times to make it worth it… so challenge accepted!

The kids handed me this Shoe box:

This is the lid – i never got a picture of the whole thing together.

And inside:

Which is hilarious because all week I’ve been seeing them put things in this shoe box and I figured it was just them playing. But they were collecting a present for me. I don’t know if it’s visible, but there is a half eaten peanut butter pretzel in there. The whole thing made me laugh really hard.

After presents, there was lazing around playing with new toys, and reading of new books. Much sugar and carbs were consumed. We FaceTimed with my parents. We had meant to video chat with the Husband’s sister, but she was in England so the timing didn’t work out. I did some packing for our overnight the next day. The Husband and the two littles and I did squeeze in a walk early in the afternoon, which was lovely since the weather was so mild.

The ten year old did not come with us for our walk, as getting out of her pjs is not part of her perfect Christmas plan. I love this picture because it shows her enjoying three of her presents at once, (well, four if you count the pjs): 1) Books, which I had the person at the local bookstore help me choose – something for a ten year old who likes books with “just kissing”, I said, 2) these funny hats my cousin sent from Taiwan – she had a friend bring them back to the US and mail them to us. The hats have ears that flop when you squeeze the long tails, and 3) travel pillow – all the kids got travel pillows in anticipation of our Spring Break Trip.

After our walk, we came home and I made dinner while the Husband and kids watched Elf. I had never made a whole roast lamb leg before, so that was exciting. It turned out really well, and was surprisingly easy. I’ve decided that meat is pretty easy – season/marinade, stick it in oven. Wait. Pull it out when it’s the right temperature. Any success I have with roasting meat I credit to the Thermapen. When we bought it I thought it was a lot of money to spend on a cooking thermometer, but it’s amazing – accurate, fast and easy to use. It’s my secret weapon for never overcooking meat.

Christmas Dinner: Roast Lamb Leg, pan fried broccoli, sweet rolls, scalloped potatoes, butternut squash salad (not the best), and rainbow Jello (aka Salad to my Midwestern Husband). The ten year old made the Jello, and she might not have stirred it all the way til the powder dissolved, which is why it kind of looks like a tsunami. But I figure she will make it at least twice a year (Thanksgiving and Christmas) so she’ll eventually get the hang of it. I love the rainbow Jello more than I let on, though I refuse to call it salad. This Christmas, I was really excited to find blue and purple Jello at the store so we could really have all the rainbow colours in it.

After dinner, we cleaned up, and I made the sauce of the sticky toffee pudding and we went downstairs and watched Meet Me in St. Louis and ate dessert. Which I might have slept through. As I do every year. Probably I’ve seen the whole move by this point, just not all at once. I think staying up late Christmas Eve just makes me ready to crash after Christmas dinner. Everyone else really loves this movie, though – they like to sing, “Meet me in St. Louis, Louis!” while skipping around.

Then it was promptly to bed since we were getting up early and going on a mini road trip the next morning. All in all a lovely quiet day with just the five of us.

Random Notes/Thoughts:

One thing we usually do that we skipped this year was is set up the computer in the dining room so we could track Santa on the NORAD website. We’ve done this the past two years, but this year we went to Christmas Eve service and it felt like we didn’t have time to set up the computer when we got home. I kind of missed doing that. Oh well, next year. (I should put this on my Christmas spreadsheet now!)

Winning presents. I think all the presents were big hits, but there were some stand outs:
– Speak and Spell. The Husband ordered this for the five year old, but all the kids really loved playing with it. I remember my friend had one when we were growing up, but I hadn’t thought about it until the Husband mentioned that he had bought it. The kids loved it. I realized that this is the kind of toy that is probably now replaced by an app on a personal device, so it was kind of nice that they had an analog version to play with. (Interestingly, because the five year old is in a French immersion program, we are told not to teach him how to spell as French letters and sounds are different from English ones. So I was on the fence about whether or not I should let him play with the Speak and Spell. But then I told myself to get over myself and stop overthinking things.)
– Fashion sketchpad for the 10 year old. I’m trying to really lean into the 10 year old’s interests, and lately she has been sketching a lot of dresses. This sketchpad is cool because at the front there are pictures of different styles of sleeves, necklines, skirts, pants, etc. And on the pages are predrawn bodies that you can draw clothes onto. And then, if you photocopy or scan the images, the pre-drawn bodies don’t show up, just what you’ve drawn. I did have a moment where I wondered if I really liked getting the ten year old something that had a limited palette of body types, but then I told myself, again, to stop overthinking things.
–Succulent Subscription (3 months) for the Husband. I saw this on the Modern Mrs. Darcy blog and when the ten year old said she wanted to get the Husband plants for his office, this seemed perfect. Every month he will recieve three succuents in the mail. I had hoped the first shipment would arrive in time for Christmas, but they didn’t so I just printed out a certificate for him.
– Mini packs of Cereal. This was the stocking stuffer win. I got each person a different mini pack of that sugary cereal that we only buy for birthday week – Froot Loops, Cinnamon Toast Crunch, Lucky Charms, Apple Jacks. The baby did not understand that her cereal was the one in her stocking and proceeded to open and eat all the cereal.

Oddest gift – The Husband gave the three year old a box of weather stripping. I don’t know what was up with that. I think he had ordered it on Amazon and then realized that she had the least number of presents so wrapped the box. He does like to give “house” presents, which I think is funny and sweet. Of course the three year old didn’t care – she just liked ripping wrapping paper off boxes.

An excerpt from my journal entry from Christmas 2021, an interesting snapshot:
“Good things: Sleeping Queens, Ansel’s Hat, Lawn Mower” [These are presents that we still use/play with, though the plastic bubble blowing lawn mower is falling a part a little]
“Sticky Toffee Pudding. Cornish Game hens. Fine once I cooked them enough.” [And shortly after we bought the Therma pen]
“Buns not rising in time for dinner” [This was actually quite tragic for me, which is why I made the buns early this year]
“Sixty degree weather” [Same as this year]
“Saying Hello to Elsa” [Our neighbor. This year, I sent the kids over with some Asian Pears and cookies – the gift of choice from my Taiwanese soul.]

I love seeing how things stay the same – it makes it feel like we are finding our Christmas family rhythm. For now.

Weekly recap + What we ate: World Cup watching

Last week was a quiet week; between a sick kid and a supertitle gig I spend most of last week at home. Trying to work, getting distracted, cuddling, and reading.

The week started with yet another sick child. The five year old had been running a fever all weekend. He’s a good patient and just lay on the couch all weekend, moving to his bed when he got tired of that. We had had plans to get the Christmas tree, and when he still wasn’t feeling better on Sunday, I sent the Husband and other two kids out to get the tree from our local fire station, where we always get our tree. They came home with a nice tall tree, the bifurcated top led the tree to be dubbed Maleficent by the ten year old.

While they were gone, I strung the outdoor lights. We have a motley assortment of lights and every year I try to remember how I strung them up the year before so that things don’t look too patchwork. We have red and white lights – those go on the front stoop. We have multi coloured lights – those go on the hedge. But those come in two sizes, so I have to be strategic on how those go on. Plus one set actually has a white light setting which we use after Christmas. Then we have one set of white lights that go on the witch hazel tree. Every year it seems like we have too many or not enough but then push, prod, and re-adjust and things work out. I need to just take a picture for posterity.

The lights for the tree were also kind of a saga. The Husband bought a new set of lights for our tree because one of our string of lights had that cliched section that didn’t light up. Unfortunately, the new strand was not the right quality of white light to match our existing strand, even though both were “warm white” light. The nuances of “warm white” baffles me. So I took our old light strand and swapped out light bulbs until I figured out the problem and managed to move the non-light up section to the end of the strand. Fine, we wadded up the non-light up section and pushed it into the middle of the tree. Lights went up on the tree. Not an hour after we put all the lights on the tree, the middle section of one strand went out. Argh!!!! By this point we were kind of over it and decided to leave everything. There is a swath of unlit tree in the middle of our tree, but we have decided just to live with it. I’m putting a reminder in my phone to buy new lights for next year.

Ignore that black hole in the middle of the Christmas tree.

Anyhow the rest of the week: Two days at home with a sick kid, with a trip to the pediatrician whose verdict was some kind of virus. We watched a lot of Snoopy. I tried to convince him to watch Steven Universe, but he was reluctant. I did watch one holiday movie as I worked – Steppin’ into the Holidays.

The the five year old got better just in time to go back to school for the scheduled half day. (I’m a little baffled by all the random half days and days off that the kids get…) With the half day, I took the five year old and his friend on a walk on a trail nearby that I’m sure is lovely in the spring, but in the winter, it is pretty clear that the trail is mostly a cover for a sewage pipe that runs the length of the creek. While it was nice to be out an stretching our legs it wasn’t the most picturesque winter stroll. But we went to Sweetfrog after, and that was a nice treat. My favorite Sweetfrog combination is: plain yogurt, mochi, fresh fruit.

Thursday night I had a super title gig. The featured singer was someone I had worked with before so that was fun to hear her sing. I’m always unsure if singers I work with remember me because I feel like a lot of my job is to be in the background, but this singer gave me a huge hug and was really happy to see me, so that was nice. It was a lovely program, the theme of which was “nomads” so a lot of the pieces had some kind of mystic/Orient flavor to them. Beautiful music, but also some of the translations/texts were definitely a little cringey in how they exoticize women of eastern cultures.

World cup + Laundry. A good combination.

Random thoughts on watching the World Cup. I wouldn’t call myself a sports fan, but I am a “big event” fan, and the World Cup certainly is that. Despite playing soccer for much of my youth, I am definitely not up on any of the soccer language or subtleties. I don’t have a favorite team and usually root for the underdog. This week, I watched most of the quarter final games and it was harrowing. Talk about underdog stories. What I’ve discovered about me and soccer:
– Seeing athletes cry gets me every time. Not in an “they shouldn’t be crying” kind of way, but more like a “That’s so sad” kind of way. Disappointment is I think the one emotion that I find the saddest.
-Athletes are really good looking. There’s youth on their side, of course. But they all have a certain glow about them. Maybe it’s that light of determination in their eyes, or the glint of optimism. Maybe it’s just sweat. Anyhow. Gah. I feel so agist to have said it, but I do feel like I spend a good amount of my soccer viewing time just marveling at how beautiful these players are.
-Soccer is a game of instants. It’s not a million instants like basketball or glacial instants like baseball or football. It’s fast but sometimes it takes a while to score so you have to stay glued to the set, or you will miss a goal. After missing one goal by going to the bathroom, I did not move off the couch again while play was still going on. And when a team does score, it’s always breath taking. Every single goal was deemed beautiful and amazing and perfect by the commentators.
-Watching soccer is really stressful for me! Especially having to decide the game in penalty shoot out. Soccer is such a team sport, and the penalty shoot out- where it’s down to two people – just seems the wrong way to decide things. It’s nail-biting and I hate nail-biting.

Grateful for this week:
– That my friend decided to throw herself a birthday gathering and I got to see some friends that I’d fallen out of touch with. It was so nice to see everyone.
-Hulu. Or rather being able to afford Hulu so I can watch the World Cup.
– The Husband for putting the kids to bed while I worked in the evenings.
– my food mill. I had bought at bushel of seconds at the farm stand at the five year old’s request for apple sauce. The Husband bought a food mill for me for Christmas one year when the ten year old was a baby and I wanted to make my own baby food. These days I only use it to make apple sauce, but oh how easy it is to make apple sauce with it. All I have to do is remove the stemps, quarter the apples, cook them down with about 1/2 cup water until they are soft, then run them through the mill. No peeling or coring.

Half of the bushel left after the first batch of apple sauce made.

Looking Forward to:
-Tuba Christmas! I really hope we can get tickets. This year they have a system where you can reserve your free tickets, which is different from in the past when you just showed up and tickets were just handed out. (We did this last night and it was awesome.)
-The ten year old’s school choral concert.
– Christmas baking. I’m starting to work on my list.
-World Cup semi-finals and finals.

And then Christmas is in less than two weeks. Eeep! Gotta to start thinking about what we are going to have for Christmas Dinner – I think it will be ham. And then finish with the Christmas shopping – I have the list, just need to buy everything, and also gifts for teachers. And do festive things and do cozy things.

What We Ate: Pretty much everything we ate came from Jenny Rosenstrach’s The Weekday Vegetarians. I didn’t think I would like this cook book a lot, but it’s proven to have some rock solid easy recipes.

Saturday: I went out to celebrate a friends’ birthday and I probably ate five plates of truffle fries.

Sunday: Cheese and cracker and snack dinner as we tried to put lights on the tree.

Monday: Quinoa and Roasted veggie salad. This was really tasty. The roasted veggies were carrots, cabbage, and beets.

Tuesday: Pinto Bean bowls. Pinto beans eaten over rice, topped with avocado, pickled onions, pickled jalapenos, sour cream, radishes.

Wednesday: Charred broccoli and tofu with spicy peanut sauce. Eaten over egg noodles. Simple and really tasty.

Thursday: I was working and got a grain bowl from Beefsteak, a vegetable heavy restaurant. I made up my own bowl combination today and liked it so much, I took a picture of the recipt so I could order it again.
For the record, it was: Quinoa, butter poached sweet potatoes, cooked cabbage, steamed kale, edamame, sauteed mushrooms, scallions, kimchi, pumpkin seeds, sesame seeds, toasted seaweed, miso dressing and garlic yogurt sauce.

Friday: Pizza (take out) and the Guardians of the Galaxy holiday special – which was hilarious and festive and touching.

Christmas Movie List 2022

We have a tradition in December of spending many evenings (and some lazy afternoons) watching Christmas movies. A couple weeks ago, we sat down and brainstormed all our favorite and “wanna watch” Christmas movies. Here’s what is on my list:

(Oh also – I would call this list very aspirational. It’s more like the menu so we remember what’s out there.)

Classic Films. As in TMC old.
– Meet Me in St. Louis
– It’s a Wonderful Life
– White Christmas
– Charlie Brown Christmas
– A Christmas Carol (pick a version.)

Classic Films. As in from our younger days.
– Elf
– Home Alone
– Polar Express
– Muppet Christmas Carol

Movies the Husband says aren’t Christmas Movies, but which I disagree
– Little Women (I like the 1996 version, but the 2019 one was very good too.)
– While You Were Sleeping
– The Holiday
-Bridget Jone’s Diary.
okay, maybe this category is mostly Christmas as an excuse to watch rom-coms.

The More Recent Stuff That We Loved
– 8 Bit Christmas (we watched this last year and we like it even better than the original Christmas Story)
– Spirited (We actually just watched this last weekend)
– Frozen (We saw this at the symphony already this year already so maybe not for home viewing this year)
– The Little Prince (Rachel Portman’s opera version. I worked on this opera twice and it’s one of my favorite operas. Here’s an excerpt from a music video that was made of the opera. Fun fact – we have a version of the rose costume in the video. The Opera where I work every so often has a costume sale where they get sell costumes they won’t use anymore, and they had an extra rose costume, so I bought it for my oldest kid.)
– Any Hallmark Christmas movie. I like ones where the hero and heroine like each other from the beginning so we don’t waste too much time being enemies and can just get to the romantic bits and holiday fun parts.

Not Child Friendly (aka, watch when kids are in bed)
-Die Hard
-Love Actually
-National Lampoon’s Christmas Vacation (I haven’t seen this, but the Husband assures me the kids aren’t ready for this yet.)
-Joyeaux Noel (Not child friendly because it isn’t in English. It’s about a Christmas Day truce during WWI. I worked on a great opera based on this movie.)
-Twas the Fight Before Christmas (Documentary about a man whose Christmas light display gets out of hand…)

Films we haven’t seen yet, but which are on all the Christmas Movie Lists
– The Santa Clause
– The Shop around the Corner/ You’ve Got Mail (I love the musical She Loves Me which has the same story)
– Nightmare before Christmas (Yes… I really have yet to see this movie)
– The Man Who Invented Christmas (Dan Stevens as Charles Dickens!)
– Gremlins (I haven’t seen this, but the Husband has)
– The Preacher’s Wife/ The Bishop’s Wife
– Bad Santa (this might be a “after the kids are in bed” one)
– Noelle (Looks cute – Anna Kendrick as Santa’s daughter, itching for a chance to prove herself)
-Last Christmas (Henry Golding! Enough said.)
-Jingle Jangle: A Christmas Journey (It’s billed as a musical fantasy. I’m all about musical Christmas movies.)
-Arthur Christmas (Animated movie – looks really cute.)
-Christmas in Connecticut (1945 Barbara Stanwyck movie.)

2022 Movies that Look Fun!
-Hip Hop Nutcracker
-The Royal Nanny (Hallmark – Royal and Nanny usually piques my interest.)
-Christmas With You (Freddie Prinze Jr is now playing the hot dad. Of course.)
– Santa Camp (Documentary)
– Christmas at the Golden Dragon and A Big Fat Family Christmas (Christmas movies centered on stories of Asian families/characters. Wow. Yay for representation. My brother once made a comment about how Crazy Rich Asians was a very mediocre move (he’s wrong), but I said to him, “I feel like Asian people deserve to be in bad cliched rom coms as much as white people do.” Wish fulfilled.)
– A Christmas Spark (OMG!!!! Dr. Quinn Medicine Woman reunion – this one features Jane Seymour and Joe Lando as a widow ans the town’s hottest dad. Must watch!!!!)
-Violent Night (Santa as a bad ass crime fighting hero. This one actually looks a bit violent for me, but I looooove the premise.)

What else should I put on my list????

Weekly recap + what we ate: Thanksgiving 2022

Well we’ve emerged at the other end of Thanksgiving weekend. HOWEVER…. the kids were supposed to go back to school Monday, but there was a massive power outage last night and the schools were closed. Apparently a small plane flew into a electrical tower. No one is hurt, and the power has actually been restored to schools, but the schools need to do some damage assessment before they let the kids come back. So that makes day six of no school.

Given that last week consisted only of two half days of school, it certainly feels as if there’s been a lot of time at home and with the kids the past week and a half. I don’t feel like I have to be the children’s cruise director, but I do acknowledge that life is smoother if on days without school we get out of the house for a large chunk of time. With that in mind, one half day, I had the kids accompany me on my HMart grocery run – I bribed them by letting them pick out their own packs of Pocky as a snack- then took them to the park. It was chilly so I packed some hot chocolate in a Thermos.

The other half day the kids and I went to the library and the park next to the library. I love our library and park because it’s a low key one stop kids destination – there is a big open grassy area that the kids can run around in, there is a playground, and then when we get tired of that, we can go to the library and read book, or, more likely, play on the computers. I ran into a colleague that I hadn’t seen in two years but who just moved to the area, which always perks me up. I picked up another thick tome – Juliet Barker’s biography on the Brontës. I think January might be a Jane Eyre redux month – I want to read “My Plain Jane“, having just read the first book in the series, a retelling of the story of Lady Jane Grey, and found it hilarious. This second book in the series is a retelling of Jane Eyre, which is my favorite book.

Wednesday, was a full day off and I was offered tickets to a dress rehearsal of The Nutcracker, so I took the two older kids. I haven’t been to see The Nutcracker since probably high school. This was a nice traditional Nutcracker with all the expected bit – children, mice, Sugar Plum Fairy, a growing tree, lots of snow, and rows of tutus dancing in perfect unison. The kids were more engaged with the first half, which was where the main narrative arc of the story was. The second half, left them a little restless. My favorite part, though, was getting to hear the orchestra play Tchaikovsky’s score.

We did not go anywhere for Thanksgiving – at one point we had contemplated visiting a friend in New Jersey, but the thought of packing and travelling with the kids seemed so daunting and a nice quiet weekend at home much more appealing. We even made plans to clean out the attic, which did not happen. Thanksgiving Day itself was pretty quiet. As is our tradition, we watched the Macy’s Day Parade starting at 9am. I was a little confused at first because all the musical theatre numbers were shown at the beginning of the broadcast, and I was used to them being spaced throughout the parade, so I initially thought that they weren’t going to show the balloons and floats this year, just the musical numbers. But fear not. They balloons and floats started at 10am. My favorite bit was the cast of the Pitch Perfect spin off performing a mashup of 99 Luftbaloons + Take On Me. It was pretty awesome. Also the excerpt from Lion King – once you’ve seen stilt walkers as giraffes all the other performers seem kind of landbound. I had seen the musical years ago and the puppetry is just as brilliant and thrilling twenty years later seen on tv.

After dinner, we watched Planes, Trains, and Automobiles – I hadn’t seen it before, and the Husband has been waiting YEARS for us to watch this as a family. In years past we’ve watched Scent of a Woman, but this year I guess the kids are at that phase where they’re too young for Scent of a Woman and just old enough for Planes, Trains, and Automobiles. Another holiday tradition that shifts.

The rest of the weekend felt pretty full for a quiet holiday at home. I guess when we stay home, adventure comes to us. We ended up having two park play dates – one at our local park and one at a farther away park that I’d never been to, but which was huge and fun and had a carousel. I might have lost the three year old there and might have been that mother whose child was picked up sobbing by another mother on the playground. Ugh.

In addition to that, I went through the kids’ snow gear and made a note of what I needed to stock up on for this year, we watched football (American) and football (soccer), and tidied and cleaned and I went through the fruit bowl and decided to toss some really old apples, but then decided that I shouldn’t waste food like that so I made applesauce. I took the ten year old to buy some clothes and we found a dress for her upcoming piano recital. There was also church, a visit to the Farmer’s Market and the local co-op to stock up on snacks, a new to us coffee shop, and lighting of Advent candles. And we’ve started playing Christmas music at our house and watching Christmas movies.

Oh and before that, on Saturday night my friend called and said that she was sick but she had tickets for Frozen with the Symphony that night and did I want to go and take her kids? It’s one of those shows where they show the movie and the orchestra is onstage playing the music. So I said sure why not and took the ten year old, the three year old and my friend’s two kids. It was kind of an ordeal getting there – three preteens and a three year old in a car is not for the faint of heart, but we made it and mostly enjoyed the movie (I mean who doesn’t like Frozen?!?). And they blew fake snow over the audience during the closing credits – that was kind of magical.

The three year old wore her big sister’s hand me down Anna dress to the concert/movie, and it was interesting to me how many kids came dressed up. But also interesting is that most of the kids came in costumes from Frozen 2 – it made me feel the passage of time that my three year old’s Anna dress was kind of vintage Anna now.

Lessons learned this Thanksgiving:
– Find a better time to go to Costco. Or maybe there is no good time to go to Costco? I went Tuesday morning before Thanksgiving then I went to Giant to do the grocery shop. It was all so exhausting and crowded. Also- on Wednesday night, I discovered we were out of dish soap and I seriously started contemplating the it wouldn’t be terrible if I didn’t do any dishes for the next few days rather than going to to the store again. Thankfully, the Husband prevailed and went to the store and got dish soap.
– I tried a new fat ratio for pie crust this time and I really liked it. I used to do all butter or half butter/half shortening. This time I did 2/3 butter and 1/3 shortening and it’s not as tasty as a full butter crust, but the texture was perfect. Despite the droopy pie crust, the pies were really tasty.
– Make/ buy the rolls. I decided to skip the rolls this year because it was just us and I didn’t want to have a lot of food, but you know what? I miss having rolls at the table. So next year – don’t skip the rolls.
– Do better at trading off alone time with the Husband. Five days at home with the kids is a lot of togetherness and we all had moments of burnout. We need to be better at making sure there is child-free time for each parent on these stretches.

Grateful For This week: Of course it was Thanksgiving week, so my gratitude list was very long, but some specific things from this week:
– The opportunity to go see live performances. It’s a nice perk of my job that periodically I get tickets to things and get to take my kids. I’m also grateful that I can take my kids and they will usually sit through things, or if they get restless they will sit on my lap and cuddle.
– Neighbors and strangers who help. I had an odd incident on Thanksgiving Day while out on my run; I came across a lady walking up the sidewalk with three suitcases who clearly needed help, but I was so far out of my depths and didn’t know how to help her. I felt so thankful that my neighbor was able to offer some resources and then a random stranger pulled his car over and took the lady to a shelter.
– My kids’ teachers. We had parent teacher conferences last week and I am so grateful to the teachers who help my kids learn – not just book learning, but also learning life skills. I’m especially grateful for the ten year old’s teacher. Our conference was only supposed to be fifteen minutes but she spent over half an hour with us answering questions and talking us through strategies to help the ten year old in areas where she was struggling.

Looking Forward To
– Buckling down and getting the translation slides done for this supertitle gig I have next week. It seems weird to be looking forward to that, but I feel like I’ve spend so much time this past week thinking, and planning, and executing family and children adventures, that being able to do something that is work and not kid related is going to be a nice chance for flow and focus.
– Night out at a comedy show with my friend. I’ve never been to a comedy show, so I’m excited to see what it is like. This one is by a local comedy troupe and is called “Mother of all Comedy Show” and supposed to be about family and the holidays. Hopefully it will be funny.
– The ten year old’s piano recital this week.

One Fun Thing I Read:
I really liked this article about Japanese fans cleaning up after World Cup games. I’ve always been really fascinated by how Japanese children are expected to help tidy their classrooms and the how the expectations are pretty high for independence and stewardship in children. It was really cool to see those traits manifest on an international stage. (Related listening – I loved this episode of 99% Invisible talks about Japanese toddlers going on their first errands and how Japanese cities and culture supports that.)

What We Ate:

Monday: Crispy Chickpeas with homemade Flatbread from Weekday Vegetarian. We had some leftover yogurt sauce from when the husband make chicken schwarma last week, so I thought this would be a good use.

Tuesday: Butternut Squash Curry from Budget Bytes. This was simple and tasty and used up a squash that had been sitting around . We ate it with flatbread rather than rice. Vegan.

Wednesday: Kitchen sink fried rice, recipe loosely based off of Weekday Vegetarian’s Mushroom and Bok Choy fried rice. We had a lot of leftover rice in the fridge so this was a good way to use that up. Because I wanted this to be our second vegan meal this week, I made it with fried tofu rather than eggs. This recipe called for the vegetables to be sautéed then removed from the pan, then the rice cooked in a layer to make it crispy then the veggies added back in – it made for a fried rice that was very veggie heavy, which I liked.

Thursday: THANKSGIVING!!! Duck with orange sauce, roasted potatoes, cranberry sauce, broccoli salad, ribbon jello (which the ten year old made ann which the Midwestern Husband insists on calling “Ribbon Salad”.) Pumpkin and Apple pie for dinner.

Friday: Pizza and the Paw Patrol Movie. My first experience with the Paw Patrol Phenomenon. It was fine… though I was a little annoyed that there was only one female Paw Patrol. Or maybe obviously female. Maybe more of them are females and I just don’t know because I have preconceived gender associations and only the pink dog can be a girl…?

Saturday: Sandwiches at the theatre before Frozen. I think the Husband and the five year old had take out at home.

Sunday: Dumplings and Spirited, a new movie on AppleTV, a Christmas Carol inspired story featuring Will Ferrell and Ryan Reynolds. I mostly enjoyed this movie – it had singing and dancing and was funny and irreverent. And Octavia Butler as the romantic lead – how awesome is that? There was one moment that I found a little cringe-y that almost ruined the movie for me – there are two things things that I personally don’t like being used as plot points and this had one of them.