Category: Recap and Menu

Weekly recap + what we ate: sick week and random FIGS

It was a massively unproductive week. I was laid up sick for much of the week. What started as a throat tickle on Monday, devolved into me in bed for most of Wednesday. Wednesday also happened to be the snow day. Fortunate or unfortunate timing? Well, fortunate in that the kids didn’t have to go to school. Unfortunate in that it was a snow day and everyone really wanted to go sledding… There were disappointed kids for sure. In the end I spent three days in bed with periodic excursions to take the kids to the bus or to activities. Luckily on Friday the Husband took care of the school bus pick up and drop off so I could continue to rest.

I am a terrible sick person. I don’t like to stay in bed, I get bored easily, I always think I feel better way before I actually do. But I will say there is always one point when I feel like being in bed is doing me no good and I have to get outside. By the third day of being in the house resting, I was convinced that I wasn’t going to get any better staying in bed and went for a walk. My body just craved sunshine and fresh air and some movement. I walked towards the 13 year old’s school and met her as shew as on her way home, and he face lit up when she saw me. I don’t know if it’s scientifically backed, but I did feel better for having gotten out of bed and out of the house. Or maybe it was seeing my kid’s face all lit up with cold and joy. I’m reminded of something I read once (maybe it was Oprah) that said, “Make sure your face lights up when you see your child.” Realizing how much it made my day to see my kid’s face light up made me remember that it works both ways and I need to have that same joy when I see her too.

(note: it was Oprah. Rather Toni Morrison via Oprah. Okay -funny story – Toni Morrison taught at my alma mater. I once sat next to her at a lecture, and fell asleep. I hope I didn’t lean on her or drool or anything…)

Anyhow, whatever illness I had is now making it’s way through the house. The Husband had a tickle and I immediately sent him to bed, bought a humidifier, Cold-Eeeze, and Ricola. I’ve been obsessed with the idea that stress is one of the things that can exacerbate illness, so I’ve demanded everyone be as stress-free as possible. No yelling, screaming, or tantrums. Please. He seemed to have escaped the worst of it, though now the 13 year old is laid up in bed. Oh well, the bug will cycle through the family and we’ll all move on. Hunkering and reducing stress seems like an okay way to spend what is shaping up to be a very very cold February.

Fun thing, though – the 13 year old finally had her birthday party sleepover over the weekend. She’s been doing this formula for three years now and I kind of love that. She has friends over on a Saturday night – they watch movies, YouTube videos, eat pizza, chips, rainbow cake, and stay up way too late. Sunday morning we have waffles and bacon and the kids all go see a movie. Even though her birthday was in January, it took us until February to find a good weekend, due to activities and my work schedule. (It seemed downright cruel to make the Husband be the only parent at home during a tween sleepover…) This weekend was perfect because they kids didn’t have Faith Formation classes on Sunday morning and Monday is a day off from school so we can all recuperate.

I’m really proud that the 13 year old did a lot of the planning herself for the first time. Granted the planning wasn’t terribly timely, but she did take on a lot of the mental load, so I’m calling it a win. Being a new phone owner, she sent all the invites herself, as in she texted her friends with the details and tracked who was going to come. I feel like we’re entering new territory where she can make plans with her friends on her own. No more mom-enabled play dates. There was still a little coordination to be done with other parents to coordinate drop offs and pick ups, but all in all, it feels like we are slowly taking baby steps towards the oldest being an independent being. Some days I stop and realize that she will be driving in THREE YEARS and I try not to freak out too much.

The set up – fruit, chips, chips, chips, cookies, and face masks!

Grateful for: I’m trying to be more mindful of big and little gratitudes this month, in honour of Elisabeth’s FIG (Finding Joy in Gratitude) Collective this month. Thank you Elisabeth for gathering people and thoughts! (There’s my first FIG right there!)

-YouTubers who share their expertise – There was a cushion on our basement couch that had lost a button and as a result was going all shapeless. After years of the Husband asking me if it was fixable, I finally decided that the misshapen pillow would not be worthy of our Super Bowl guests so I went to the craft store and bought upholstery needles. I still didn’t have much of an idea of how to fix this, so I turned the experts – YouTube to the rescue. I found a clear and simple tutorial on how to retuft a cushion and in less than twenty minutes, I had fixed the pillow and it was once again standing upright. I felt so accomplished. In the back of my 5 year journal I keep a list of new skills I learn each year. Button tufting is going on the list.

Sad shapeless cushion.
All fixed!

-Early release days for weather and being able to pick up my kid. I know not everyone can accommodate a last minute early release, so I’m really grateful that I’m in a slow period at work and that I could pick up the kid early when the school decided to close at 1pm for weather. We went to Trader Joe’s and even such a simple thing as running an errand, made for some great mommy-daughter time.

-Non-latex dishwashing gloves for my unfortunate combination of latex allergy and eczema.

-Remote start – I will be the first to tell you that I did not want an mini van. I still find it kind of scary to drive – it’s huge and I have no sense of where the rear end is. The thing is like driving around in a living room, seriously. BUT I am discovering many nice features, and this bitterly cold week, the remote start feature was amazing.

-International grocery stores and international communities. I wanted to make tikil goman (Ethopian cabbage, carrots, and potatoes) since we had cabbage and potatoes to use up. Meera Sodha’s recipe had instructions for a faux injera to eat alongside, and I was totally going to make that. But then I realized, “Wait, there is a a sizable Ethiopian population in our county. I should just get the real thing.” So I found an Ethiopian grocery store on the way home from Soccer Clinic and we picked up two packages of pillowy soft injera made fresh on the premises. It was delicious. We might have eaten half a package right out of the bag. How amazing it is to have so many international grocery stores in our area. (Also – I went down a rabbit hole reading Sodha’s column in the Guardian, The New Vegan. I want to make every recipe.)

The injera was still warm!

-The Kids’ Skating instructor. She is amazing and kind and works so well with the kids.

-The track at the 8 year old’s school. I haven’t been running, because of the cold, but there is a track at the elementary school, and one day after drop off I walked four laps while listening to my audiobook. I’m so grateful that these things are open to the public. I remember when I was little, my parents would take us to the high school and make us run laps, and I hated it, but you know… the older I get, the more I see that my parents were really on to something.

-That the car is okay. I went over a curb funny and suddenly there was this horrible scraping noise when I drove. I pulled over seriously panicking that I had done some serious damage and wondering when I was going to have time to take the car in. After looking under the hood and around the tires, and not finding anything I got down on my hands and knees and reached under the car to see if I could feel anything. Like a detached muffler. (Not even sure if that’s a thing or if I was looking in the right area for such a thing.). Then my hand felt a twig and I gave a large tug and out came a four foot long branch. Oh thank goodness. Problem solved.

-Carpooling to work with my friend and picking up Starbucks (her) and cheesy buns (me) on the way home. Letting her convince me to buy a jelly donut, which I immediately eat in three bites, covering myself with powdered sugar in the process. I don’t regret it at all.

Also this bumper sticker we saw on the way:

There was quite an eclectic collection of bumper stickers on this truck.

And Some Sick Week FIGS:
-Windows. Three days sick in bed can make one tired of staring at the the walls of one’s bedroom. Except there are windows in those walls. And through those windows I could still see sunlight and clouds and sunsets and beautiful skies.

-Mucinex – I don’t usually take drugs when I’m sick, but boy did I need it this time; I was so congested I couldn’t breath or sleep.

-Kleenex.

-Rice cakes, ramen, and soup. Making lunch seemed like an impossible task when i was sick, but I also don’t like being hungry, so I did manage to make some simple soups. One day it was ramen with a cabbage, and an egg mixed in. Another day, it was a riff of this (Rice Cake Soup with Bok Coy and Edamame), though instead of chicken broth I made a “broth” by using water with kimchi tossed in. And I added dandelion greens and ginger because that’s what I had. The hot spicy filling goodness what just what I needed.

-Audiobooks – I mentioned above that I’m a terrible sick person because I get bored easily in bed. I did watch Bridget Jones’s Baby, but too much tv made my head hurt. Audiobooks to the rescue. I checked out a few rom coms from the library and listened to them. I only half paid attention to them, but the soothing voices and just enough plot was enough to calm my brain.

-The thirteen year old – who took care of the kids on the snow days when I was sick. I’m pretty sure she made them lunch and hot chocolate and let them watch inane YouTube videos all day. I know she did make them go outside for a little bit and play in the snow. But the important thing is she kept them out of the bedroom where I was sleeping.

-The Husband – who made dinner and put the kids to bed and basically solo parented while I was in bed.

-That I’m healing. The second day of being sick, I thought some yoga might heal my congestion, so I went on YouTube and searched “Yoga when sick” and a 15 minute gentle yoga video came up. It was just the easy practice that I needed to stretch a little and breathe. At the end of the video, Sara Beth said something that really stuck with me:
“Instead of telling yourself ‘I’m sick, I’m stuffy, I’m exhausted, I’m miserable’, tell yourself ‘I’m healing.’”
What a wonderful, gratitude-filled way to frame being sick. Rather than focus on how awful I’m feeling, reminding myself that the fever and mucus are all signs that my body is well enough to fight whatever it is that has me down, and that I’m healing.

Looking Forward To – so ironically two of my “Looking forward to” things from last week did not happen because I was sick – I didn’t go contra dancing and we didn’t enjoy a cozy snow day – but I think there is still great value in giving ourselves things to look forward to:

-Getting back into a routine after being sick.

-Voice recital that I’m doing supertitles for this week. There’s some really great music on the program and I always have a really long dinner break when I do this gig, so I’m looking forward to a nice evening walk.

-Finishing this book on audio. This was one of the books I started when I was sick and it’s pretty cute – a bit gimmicky, but not annoyingly so. (I also started another book that wasn’t as interesting, but perfectly soothing in the moment. I probably wont’ finish that one.)

What We Ate:
Monday: Cheesesteak sandwiches, leftover from the Super Bowl

Tuesday: Taco Tuesday. It’s getting to be a tradition. Chicken, shrimp, black beans, mango cabbage slaw, guacamole, salsa, pickled onions.

Wednesday: Sheet pan gnocchi with broccoli and cherry tomatoes. Vegan. (I think, though come to think of it, I’m not sure if we bought vegan gnocchi.)

Thursday: Noodles w/ tofu and mushrooms. The Husband made this. I couldn’t get out of bed to eat it that night, but I had leftovers on Saturday night and they were so delicious.

Friday: Pizza (Take out) and Skeleton Crew – the latest (I think) series in the Star Wars Franchise. This one stars a bunch of kids who seem to be very far from home. And Jude Law.

Saturday: The 13 year old’s sleepover. There was a lot of pizza (from Dominos), and chips. And Rainbow cake. We get this cake every year from our local deli/diner, which in turn get them from David’s Cookies. I ate leftovers from the fridge.

Sunday: Fend for yourself. I’m pretty sure the kids ate leftover movie popcorn and injera for dinner.

Hope you have a healthy week!

What are your go to comforts and cures when you’re sick? Who makes your face light up? Whose face do you make light up?

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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


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

Some light aspirations for February:

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

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

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

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

-Paint and send some cards.

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

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

-write Taiwan/Kuala Lumpur trip recaps.

-Schedule time to see friends.

-Family game night.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

-Reading this book:

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

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

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

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

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

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

Saturday: DogFish Head Brewery for the Husband’s birthday

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

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

Hope you have a lovely week!

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

Weekly recap + what we ate: Some adventures and January Highlights

Chesapeake Bay seen from Havre de Grace

I think this week was the first time I noticed that there is more and more sunlight in the evenings. I was driving home at 4:30pmd, after pick up one day, and I noticed that the sky was still light. It’s February! Spring is coming.

It was an eventful week at home. We started off kind of rough with our second visit to the emergency room with a child ever. I guess in 13 years of parenting, having to go to the emergency room twice is a pretty good go. (The first time was last year while we were in Berkeley with my brother.) What happened was the oldest child had fallen and hit her head during her Sunday basketball game and still wasn’t feeling great on Monday morning, so the Husband took her to the ER. (So I guess technically I didn’t go to the ER, just the Husband and the 13 year old.)

After five hours, they were seen with the diagonosis being “mild concussion.” She was told to take it easy and no basketball games for a week. Practice was okay, but no games because they didn’t want to risk another head injury. I’ve never had to deal with a concussion before, so this was new and worrisome to me. (Well I did have an incident once onstage where a singer ran into another singer too hard during a fight scene and got a concussion, but I didn’t have to deal with that other than to fill out the accident form and send the singer to management.)

The thing about a mild concussion is that there’s not a lot we could do except limit activity and stay vigilant. So it felt like we were hovering between being on high alert and not having to do anything about it. We did go back to the doctor on Friday when there was some vomiting and general sluggishness, but we were told that it can take up to two weeks to feel normal again. So wait and see, I guess.

Wednesday the kids were off school because it was a grading day, and I took the two older kids on our New York City adventure. The day deserves its own post, but here are some picture highlights:

Bagels!
Iconic buildings!
Theatre!

Wednesday night was when that awful plane and helicopter collision happened over the Potomac. I didn’t know about it until after we got home from New York. DCA is such an important airport in this area- we fly out of it all the time. At work, I often see planes headed that way or coming from DCA, and helicopters are constantly flying overhead. Some of the footage of the collision was taken from the rooftop camera on our building. It all feels very close. There is something really cruel to me about the Potomac these days. Just last month, a pick up truck went off the Memorial Bridge, plunging into the river and now this. I can’t help but to think that Potomac is angry about something. Which I know sounds crazy, but I think that’s just the way things feel in D.C. right now.

The rest of the week, I worked from home, and it was a week full of meetings, so I felt like I spent a lot of time on Zoom. I like the flexibility of working from home, but I feel like I sometimes get distracted. After getting off a call, I would need a brain break and I’d go do laundry or read a chapter of my book, or what not, and then it would be hard to sit back down at my computer. I might go into the office next week so that I can focus better.

Saturday we had a little adventure to Havre de Grace, MD. It’s a little town on the bay, at the mouth of the Susquehanna River, about 90 minutes drive from us. We picked Havre de Grace because we wanted to explore a new to us museum that was on the list of “Reciprocal Museums” that we could see with our Walker Art Museum membership. On that list was the Duck Decoy Museum in Havre de Grave. YES! A WHOLE museum devoted to duck decoys.

I thought it would be a quaint little one room affair. Friends, this museums was two stories – three huge rooms of duck decoys and duck decoy adjacent exhibits. The information was fascinatingly niche. There were certain craftsmen who got a whole exhibit case to themselves, complete with life sized mannequins. The museum reminded me a lot of the handicraft wing in the American Art Museum, and made me realize how readily accessible creative pursuits are to everyone. These were not men (and they were all men, mostly White) who went to school to learn how to carve duck decoys. Most of them did this as a hobby while holding down jobs – grocers, post masters, military me. It was inspiring in a lot of ways, reminding me that I should also take time to do creative things.

Did you know that Cecil County duck decoys are characterized by a flatter tail and rounder body?
Just one of the many walls of duck decoys.
The tools and process of making duck decoys.

We continued our day in Havre de Grace with a walk to a playground so the kids could run off energy:

Then we went to Mass at a beautiful little church there. I’m not Catholic, but it’s always interesting to me to go to Mass at different churches and see how even when the people are different, the rituals are all the same. Afterwards we went out to dinner at a tasty seafood restaurant. It was a lovely little half day trip, all in all.

Well, it’s already February. Hard to believe at the beginning of this month we were on another continent. Some January highlights:
-Making it home from our Asia trip.
-Yoga (almost) every day. I’ve been doing 10-20 minutes of yoga a day, and there were two days when it didn’t happen, both days that I was travelling. Though when I think of it, I could have probably fit in something on those days. I even did 15 minutes of standing yoga the day we were stuck in the Seattle Airport for nine hours.
-Snow Days, snow delays, and sledding.
-Celebrating birthdays for the 13 and 8 year olds.
-Candy cane beets and crunchy winter salads
-The start of basketball season for the 13 year old.
-our NYC trip to see Hadestown.
-Dumpling date with my friend K.
– A very smooth and enjoyable rehearsal process for the new works that I stage managed.
-A January that felt like a real winter, and just long enough to not feel endless.
-Ice skating. The two little kids are taking skating lessons. They are now in the same class, so I go skating while they are in lessons. I listen to an audiobook while I glide around the rink. I have a vague goal of learning how to do a backward crossover.
-A cozy MLK day at home with scones and cookies and reading and games.
-playing Skyjo.
-That Duck Decoy Museum.

Some January lowlights:
-the 13 year old’s minor concussion.
– not getting out and running – the weather has been so cold. I know last year I ran in 20 degree weather, but I couldn’t rally to do it this winter.
– WTF is going on with the new administration? I mean it’s very clear that there is a strategy of strewing confusion and panic wide in hopes that no one will know how to fight back. The stress and worry and confusion is palatable in the air everywhere here. I try to limit my intake of news, but it affects so many people here that I feel like I should have some idea a what is going on.

Grateful For – Elisabeth has a series going on this month (just this month?) Called FIG (Finding joy In Gratitude). I usually include at least three things I’m grateful for in these posts, but for February, I thought I’d aim for seven things:

– Glimmers of sunlight still lingering at 4:30pm.

-Reciprocal museum memberships. How else would we have discovered the Duck Decoy museum?

-The old Subaru. Welp I did it. I took my old car in and donated it to the technical program at the high school. It wasn’t as emotional as I thought I was, which I guess means that it was time, but I still felt sad about it. That car served its previous owner for nine years and then served us for almost another thirteen years. It drove me to Colorado and back four times and ferried all of our children around when they were babies. I’m really grateful for that car. And for the friend who sold it to us.

– Smiles and laughter and hugs from the 5 year old at pick up time.

– Pianos and music making and my parents for signing me up for piano and voice lessons when I was a child. I spent an hour noodling around on the piano one evening. I don’t do that enough.

-Medical insurance and living four blocks from the hospital.

-That we are no longer in a pandemic. We watched a documentary this week – “Cirque du Soleil: without a Net” about what happened the the Cirque show O when the pandemic hit and then how the show came back. It was a little surreal to think back on March of 2020. When we asked the two little kids (8 and 5) if they remembered the COVID pandemic, they said “no”, and the 13 year old tried to explain it to them. That was interesting to hear her account. But also she talked about parts of being stuck at home and not having to go to school that she enjoyed, and that is something that I don’t think about very often. But all in all, I am glad that we aren’t living in a pandemic any more. Not necessarily because we were forced to stay home, but rather because that time of uncertainty was so so so so stressful.

Looking Forward To:
–February! We had our family meeting on Saturday and in addition to looking at the week, we flipped our calendar pages and looked at the whole month. There’s a lot to look forward to in February – birthdays, Super Bowl, some interesting gigs for me. It’s going to be a full month, but I’m not in rehearsal, so it will be a good month for quite evenings at home too.
– Every day things. I was inspired by all the comments on last week’s post on routines and a “boring” life. I loved this comment from Melissa:
“I probably get a ridiculous amount of satisfaction from making the bead and opening the curtains so the sun streams in.”
The comments made me think about how I take these boring routines for granted sometimes. So this week, I’m going to make it a goal to look forward to doing these every day things the best I can. This week, I’m looking forward to:
-Making the bed every day, nice and neat.
-Wiping down the counters at the end of the night so that they are clean in the morning.
-Lining my shoes up in the boot tray when I come home.
-putting the window shades up to see the sun.

What We Ate:
Monday: Butternut Squash and Fennel Risotto. I always think risotto is a good idea, and then I make it and I remember that I don’t actually like eating rice as a main.

Tuesday: Taco Tuesday – We had a taco bar: Chipotle Chicken and Black Beans, Shrimp, mango cabbage slaw, pickled onions, guac, avocado, sour cream. The 8 year old wanted to try hard tacos, so that’s what we did, and they were tasty.

Wednesday: New York City – the kids and I had burgers after the show.

Thursday: Sunchokes and chicken. The Husband sliced the sunchokes thin and then baked them, so they were like chips.

Friday: Pizza (homemade by the Husband. He even make an Indian one with tikka masala sauce rather than tomato sauce. I think I liked that one more than other people.) for the movie, originally I had picked The Mummy, but the kids declared it was too scary after about 10 minutes, so we switched to we watched Cirque du Soleil: Without a Net.

Saturday: Dinner in Havre de Grace. I hade the Bouillabase. It was tasty

Sunday: Scrounge for yourself. The Husband made the kids egg sandwiches. I had an amazing loaded sweet potato – roasted chick peas, sour cream, cilantro, avocado, and green onions. I’ve never thought to load a sweet potato the way I load a baked potato and I have to say, I was missing out. This was so delicious. Or maybe that’s just the sour cream talking?

I don’t take pictures of everything I eat, but this was really tasty.

Hope everyone is having a lovely first week of February!

Weekly recap + what we ate: bitter and boring

Ice patterns on the creek, as seen on a winter walk.

It’s been a week, hasn’t it? My mind is spinning. When I think about this week, the word “bitter” comes to mind.

For one, bitter bitter cold. We had two days of delayed start to school because the cold caused morning freezes. Coming off the holiday weekend, it wasn’t the worse way to ease ourselves into the week, but I can say that since I have the luxury of being able to take my morning meetings from home. I’m sure the two hour delays were very disruptive to a lot of people. After two years of mild winters, I actually kind of love this bitterly cold January that we’ve been having. (Winter made my gratitude list last week…). It makes me more eager for spring in a way that I haven’t felt for a while. Who know if I will feel like this in another few weeks, but for now, I’m embracing the bitter cold.

The other bitter thing about the week was the days following inauguration. Well, even inauguration day too, I guess. A bitter pill to swallow. All of it. And getting more terrifying as the days go on. There are so many people who work for the federal government around here – the air is decidedly grim. I have no new words to say about this all. I try not to read the news, and then worry that I’m uninformed. I have learned that ostriches don’t really bury their heads in the sand – they look like they are when really they are looking after their eggs which they lay in holes in the ground. (Since, you know, ostriches don’t nest in trees.) I feel like there is a metaphor here – I’m not burying my head in the sand, I’m tending to my young…

MLK day, we had a cozy day as planned. I baked scones, we read books, we went on a snowy walk, we watched Modern Family, we had dumplings. We even spent an hour cleaning the toy room, while listening to the inauguration. I tried not to swear out loud too much in front of the kids as I listened to the address, but really, maybe I didn’t need to restrain myself. I debated whether or not to stream the ceremony, but ultimately, politics aside, I thought it was important to witness that process and for the kids to understand how power passed in this country. I don’t think the younger kids completely understood it. But they all know for sure, that I am very disappointed in the results of the election.

I worked from home all week, save for one day when I went in for a 90 minute meeting. I got to ride in and back with my friend so I was actually happy to go in even for a brief time. This is how my friend and I hang out during opera season – carpools and schedule meetings. It’s kind of our version of running Target errands together, I guess. Anyhow, the rest of the week I worked form home. Sometimes when I work from home I forget to eat lunch, so I was really pleased with myself that I threw together this salad. Isn’t it pretty?

It’s chopped up cucumbers, candy cane beets, olive oil, salt, pepper, lemon juice, and fresh dill. I liked this so much I ate it again the next day, adding half a can of chickpeas for some protein. All the fresh vegetables were wonderful on a winter’s day. Highly recommend!

We’ve also been on an oatmeal kick in our house lately. Something about chilly mornings makes oatmeal seem like the perfect breakfast. The kids eat their oatmeal with milk, frozen blueberries, and copious amounts of brown sugar. I like to have my oatmeal savory, so I’ve been having my oatmeal with sweet potato, a boiled egg, and scallions, all of it toped with a sprinkle of sesame oil, rice wine vinegar, and soy sauce. It’s kind of like congee, but made with oatmeal instead of rice.

The oatmeal is not as pretty as the salad above, but it is just as tasty.

Thinking about:
I recently read two articles that had me thinking about how underrated the every day pedestrian life was. First there was this article in the Guardian, “I’ve Had the Same Supper for 10 Years.” It’s a profile of Wilf Davies, a sheep farmer in Wales who, as the title says, eats the same thing every day for supper. He’s only left his farm in Whales once, thirty years ago. At one point he says:

“People might think I’m not experiencing new things, but I think the secret to a good life is to enjoy your work. I could never stay indoors and watch TV. I hear London is a place best avoided. I think living in a city would be terrible – people living on top of one another in great tower blocks. I could never do it. Walking around the farm fills me with wonder. What makes my life is working outside, only going in if the weather is very bad.”

Then there was this article in the New York Times, “How a Driving Instructor Spends Her Sundays.” The NYTimes’ series “How ____ Spends their Sundays” usually features people who seem to me impossibly cool – local celebrities, entrepreneurs, athletes swanning around to brunch and coffee and workouts and dinner parties and Pilates class. This feature, though, this one was different. Shanti Gooljar, gets up at 5 am, and spends the day teaching people how to drive, goes home, has cream of wheat for dinner, watches Yellowstone, and goes to bed by 8:30pm. It’s not glamourous or hip, but it feels oh so real. After her husband died, she says, “my family wanted me to go to Florida — my mom is there, and my brothers and sisters. But I’m at the age where I like the same routine.”

I’m sure there are people who might read about Davies and Gooljar and dismiss their lives as boring and dull, but I was struck in these two articles by how content Davies and Gooljar were. And I know you can’t always get the full story in a newspaper article, but they did seem like they found great satisfaction in the unexceptional rhythms of their days. How different their lives and expectations were from the pressure I feel to fill my days with adventures and excitement. It got me thinking – what I do on an average, say, Thursday – the getting up, packing lunches, carpool, meetings, pick ups, dinners, cleaning up – is that just the tedious parts of existence, what I do to fill and enable the more exciting and exotic parts? Is that the boring part of life?

And then I think of Wilf Davies who sees the world of beauty in a cuckoo’s call or the view from the top of his valley, who sees all of humanity in his sheep. Or how Shanti Gooljar finds so much satisfaction in running her driving school and hiring the right people. And I envy how at peace they seem to be with their lives. Don’t get me wrong – I think there is so much to see and do in this world – and I for one would be sad if I never got to eat roti ever again. Yet at the same time, I wonder if the people who are the most content are the ones who are able to find as much joy and satisfaction in the every day routines and rhythms of life as they are to find it in new and novel experiences. I think there’s great satisfaction to be had in the consistency of pedestrian life – perhaps routine can kind of free your mind to see beauty in the things around you. And perhaps you can’t chase contentment abroad if you cannot find it at home?

Grateful for:

-Fleece Lined pants. I ordered these fleece lined pants form Duluth Trading Company when they were on sale at the beginning of the month, and they have been amazing! I wear them for walks in the cold, for standing outside waiting for the bus, even for hanging out at home because for some reason our thermostat is set at 66 degrees. (It’s a setting leftover from when I was working and there was no one at home during the day… I should shift it, but I always forget until I’m already cold.) These pants are so cozy and warm. What they say about “No bad weather, just bad clothing”, well I feel like these pants perfectly summed that up for me this week.

-The middle kid who turned eight. He is such a cerebral, goofy kid, bringing equal parts joy and frustration to my life. We celebrated with a special birthday dinner on the actual day and then he had a birthday party with a six friends at the duckpin bowling alley. It was a perfect size party, in my opinion. Also – he’s now old enough to stay home by himself legally in Maryland, but when I broached the subject with him, his eyes got really wide and he said, “I think I would be scared.” So I guess that’s not something that will happen soon. But it’s good to know that if I did storm out of the house in anger and left him by himself I would not have CPS knocking at my door.

-Trails for snowy walks. On Saturday, we had to run some errands in the morning before the bowling alley birthday party. We were so efficient that we got our errands done 30 minutes before we were due at the bowling alley. So we decided to stop at a trail on the way for a brief snowy ramble. (“This feels like a hike,” the five year old said. I can’t pull one over her, that’s for sure.) This particular trail is tucked next to the shopping Plaza with a Trader Joe’s, and you wouldn’t guess that it was there. But apparently this little creek gorge was a favorite place of Teddy Roosevelt’s – funny to think this little patch of nature about ten miles from the White House was once considered “getting out of town”. These days, it’s proximity to a major road makes it pretty popular and it’s far from pristine – I imagine it’s where kids go to make out, and there’s often discarded alcohol bottles around. But even still, I think it’s a beautiful little rocky corner of nature and I feel so lucky that it’s just right there.

From the placard at the trail. “Excepting Great Falls it is the most beautiful place around here.”

-For fresh baked cookies. On MLK Day, we wanted to make cookies, and since I had made chocolate/walnut scones, I wanted to make a non-chocolate cookie. I settled on Molasses cookies from the King Artur’s Baking Companion. The dough needed to be chilled overnight, so I didn’t actually make the cookies on MLK Day. The next day, I pulled the dough from the fridge, and instead of whipping up the whole batch of cookies, I just made six cookies and put the batter back in the fridge. And the next day, I just made a few more cookies, as many as we could eat in one go. And so on – the batter lasted all week. Indeed, I am inhaling the aroma right now as I sit typing next to the kitchen. I rather like this bake-as-you-go method of cookie baking – we always have fresh cookies and the house will always smell divine.

-That I live somewhere equipped for snow. Granted our schools had a two hour delay twice last week for the icy conditions, but I’m glad that the streets were clear so the the ice could be treated. I have a colleague who is currently in Houston and his rehearsals were cancelled because it snowed there and the city was not equipped to deal with the snow, shutting many things down.

-That I still get to work from home. So many people are getting summoned back to in person work, some with merely a weekend’s notice. How do the people who make these decisions think that people can accommodate this on such short notice?

Looking forward to:

-Our trip to NYC this week! The hardest thing will be getting the kids up early to get on the 5am metro to Union Station, but after that, I hope things will be pretty simple. (I realized that it probably would have been easier if I had gotten tickets out of the second stop on the train since that’s about a twenty minute drive from home and we could have left the house closer to 6am. Oh well. Next time.) I’ve bookmarked Kinokuniya, a Japanese Manga/Stationary store for us to visit, and it’s also next to the New York Public Library, which might be a fun place to duck into for a few minutes. I know I wrote up above about the joy of a boring life – clearly I don’t want my life to be too boring.

-Dumplings with my friend K, who I haven’t seen since the beginning of December. Looking forward to catching up. (This happened today. Dumplings were delicious and we’ve agreed to be better about scheduling time together – we have our date on the calendar already for March 1st since she’ll be travelling in February.)

– A family adventure day coming up next week. At our weekly family planning meeting, I realized that we had next Saturday completely open – no kids’ activities, I didn’t have to work, there were no plans of any kind. A free Saturday is very rare for us, so we’ve decided to have an adventure. It might be as simple as going on a hike. We might make it as far as going up to Longwood Gardens. Not sure what we’ll do yet, but a free day on the calendar is such a delicious thing.

What we ate:

Monday: Noodles and dumplings – we went out to eat.

Tuesday: Chicken sweet potato Thai inspired curry, recipe from Dinner Illustrated. This was hugely tasty and the kids loved it.

Wednesday: Cabbage Soup. Loosely based on this recipe from the New York Time. I used dill instead of parsley and Italian herbs because there was a comment that made me laugh: “Italian seasoning has no room in Eastern European cabbage soup. Use fresh dill instead.” So I did. Vegan.

Thursday: The 8 year old’s requested birthday dinner: soy sauce/honey chicken wings (my mother’s recipe), steamed broccoli and green beans, sesame brown butter udon noodles.

Friday: Pizzas (the Husband made these himself) and Bad Batch.

Saturday: pasta with yellow squash, mushrooms with tuna and steamed broccoli on the side. This was a kitchen sink kind of meal – basically sautéing whatever sad veggies we had to use up and then tossing it with tomato sauce. I served canned tuna on the side for protein.

Speaking of sad veggies – we have a bunch of sunchokes given to us by a friend and no clue what to do with them. – does anyone have ideas for how to eat sunchokes? (They aren’t actually sad quite yet – they seem to last a long time in the fridge.)

What other cookie batters should we make to keep in the fridge? What is it about your boring life that gives you the most satisfaction? I hope everyone has a heartfelt week, and wishing you warmth however you can find it.

Weekly recap + what we ate: thwarted plans

The Frozen Potomac

Last week’s pristine snow has turned soft and slushy, grey with dirt and continued living. Life going on. That’s okay. I hear there is more snow coming this weekend and next week.

I was down at the Mall on Friday (more on that below) and I saw rows and rows and rows and rows and rows of chairs set up for inauguration. I texted my friend/coworker and said “It makes setting up a room for a 65 person chorus rehearsal seem paltry.” The whole Mall was surrounded by temporary gates and to get from the Smithsonian metro stop to the National Gallery of Art was an exercise in finding the doorways. I walked down one football fields’ length of chairs to find worker scrambling at the other end to put the chairs away. I did not envy those workers, having to set up, then take down a mile’s worth of chairs. The whole experience was very much one of those, “Yep, you live in D.C.” type things. Every Inauguration is unique, I’m sure, but this one seems more unique than others. Here comes another era….

So many chairs….

It has been a frustrating few days. Plans just… not working. Why do I make plans? Case in point:

1)First scuttled plans: I really really wanted to catch Paris 1974 Impressionist exhibit at the National Gallery of Art before it closed this weekend. (Okay, never mind that in typical fashion, I’ve left it to the last minute. I should have just gone in September when it opened). I had a morning off from work this week, so I thought, “I’ll just pop down to the museum and take and hour or so to see the exhibit.” One of the wonderful things about living in the suburbs of D.C. is that there are so many free museums and so going to see art doesn’t require a special trip; I can just stop in and see something and then be on my way.

Well, it didn’t exactly work out like that – the entire city is getting ready for a National Special Security Event – this is literally what it is called in the email about road closures they sent at work . All the blocks and blocks and blocks around the National Mall were EMERGENCY PARKING only, and have been since the beginning of the week. Typically if you go in the morning it’s actually not difficult to find street parking near the mall, but on Thursday there was no place to park. I probably should have known and just metro-ed to the NGA. I circled for ten minutes then gave up and went to work. On the bright side, I instead called my sister in law and took a walk outside and saw the beautifully frozen Potomac River.

I thought maybe I’d go on Saturday before my show, but when I checked the NGA website it turns out that the museum was closed on Saturday for security reasons. So that left Friday. After a frustrating Friday morning (frustration #2 this week, see below), I finally made it to the museum. (See above’s adventure of walking the Mall three days before Inauguration.) Only when I got to the museum, the line for the Impressionist exhibit was TWO HOURS long. At that point, I thought that maybe I wasn’t meant to this exhibit. So I took a little wander around the permanent collection instead, which is really lovely and I don’t go see it enough. I had forgotten that there were three Vermeers in the permanent collection. What a lovely surprise to be wandering the galleries and then suddenly see these delicate works of beauty and light. So the trip wasn’t a complete wash after all.

Vermeer… As beautiful as they say..

2) Second scuttled plan. I had earmarked Friday as the day to finally take my car in for donation. You might recall, I have a 20 year old Subaru Legacy Wagon that was clearly in need of more work than we were going to invest in it anymore. I think it has 190,000 miles on it. I had bought it off my boss eleven years ago when the oldest was born and I had resigned myself to needing a car to do daycare pick ups and drop offs and other emergency errands. (When the oldest was born, the Husband said to me, “We have a kid now. For everyone’s safety and security you need to get a car and a smartphone.”) I am unreasonably attched to theis car – it came from someone really iportant in my ife and has eeen me through so much. But it was time for the car to move on from us. Probably beyond time. I was going to take it to an Automotive Training program at a nearby high school, where they would either fix it up, or use it for parts. Friday morning, cleaned out the car – discovering many hidden things, and throwing out a lot of masks, and boy didn’t that take me back to a time – remember when we just kept packs and packs of masks in the car? The car had been sitting for at least a few months undriven in our driveway, so I turned it on to make sure it would start and then – and this was my big mistake – I turned it off to finish cleaning it out. I really should have driven it around to charge the battery a little bit. When I finished cleaning the car, I tried to start it again and IT WOULDN”T START! And then, I couldn’t shift it out of park or take my key out of the ignition. I spent half an hour trying to get the key out of the ignition and get the car to start. I googled, watched YouTube videos, searched Reddit. My friend even came over to help me jump the car. NOTHING WORKED. ARGH!!!! I finally get the courage up to donate my beloved car and… wump wump. I just felt so. very. defeated.

Anyhow, bright side – the Husband managed to get the car started while I was at the Museum. And we will re-schedule the car donation. Typical of me, I left this til the very last minute so there is now a sense of urgency about getting the car off our hands before it becomes inconvenient in terms of insurance and car registration. The whole thing made me feel so incompetent at adulting.

In other life things –
-I’m done working on shows for a few months. I had my last show for a while this past weekend, and I’m grateful to be on the other side of Fall/Winter opera season. I feel like things have been non-stop since September. The show went well and people were pleased. We performed a series of 20 minute newly commissioned operas. It’s always fun to do new pieces. These ones weren’t particularly tuneful, but there were snippets that lodged in my head anyway. I said to my ASM, “When these new works get stuck in my head, it’s clearly a sign that I’ve been spending a lot of time listening to them!

-Adult Lunchables! I bought these linch containers for our trip to Asia, filing them with snacks for the plane. This past week, there was one day when the contents of our fridge looked dire – not quite enought to pack a full lunch. And I had the idea to pack a snack lunch with these containers. I packed: carrots, candy cane beets, hummus, blueberries, and a soy marinated egg. It was a surprisingly satisfying lunch.

-A good morning – I feel like I’m constantly trying to find the ideal morning routine. I think one of my biggest hurdles is that a good morning routine starts the night before with a consistent bedtime and my bedtime routine is crap. Partly this is working in the evenings so not being home consistently, but also a lot of it is Revenge Bedtime Procrastination. I’m trying to nail down a better evening routine for the nights that I am home. And for the nights that I work, I’m trying to stick to just going straight to bed when I get home. If I’m in bed before midnight then I can be up earlier. A couple times this past week, I was up by 6:15a, had a really great morning rhythm. I wanted to write it down so I can come back to remember how it’s done:
6:10am – wake up.
6:15am – 6:40 – 20 minute yoga (I’ve been loosely following Charlie Follow’s thirty day yoga challenge – I like it because it is gentle – maybe a little too gentle, but I add in an extra down dog if I need to – and also there is no music. On days when I can’t do the whole 20 minutes, I just choose another, or do a few sun salutations.) Yes, this 20 minute yoga takes 25 minutes because… kids. If I have time, I also do 10 minutes of strength.
6:40-7:10 – Read. (Current morning book is The Love Songs of W.E.B. DuBois)
7:10 – 8:10 – Breakfast/pack lunch. (Sometimes the Husband gets the kids breakfast when they get up at 6:15a. Often times they are hungry again by 7a. Or just bored and want more food.)
8:10-8:30 – putter/pick up/ get the 5 year old out the door (The neighbor takes her to daycare and I take their 2nd grader to the bus)
8:30-8:45 – journal.
8:45 – school bus alarm goes off and we head out the door.
Things to think about:
-I didn’t prep dinner these days, which I sometimes do and that usually takes 20 minutes of the morning.
– When I don’t go to bed before midnight, I usually sleep til 7am and then the morning is just about packing lunches and getting kids out the door. Of course, when I’m up by 6:15am, I am so so so so tired by 9:45pm. It’s a trade off. I can’t be tired at 9;45pm when I’m working an evening rehearsal.
-My two younger kids are early risers. They usually are downstairs the minute they realize the Husband is up (He gets up at 5:30am). I’d would like to figure out how to give him more quiet/ child-free time in the morning because he likes to read in the morning. But the kids also like to cuddle and want breakfast. Maybe I need the kids to be more in charge of their own breakfast?
-I’m really glad we’re at a point in our lives when the kids can all get ready by themselves. I barely see the 13 year old in the morning. She wakes up just in time to shower, grab random food out of the fridge, and then head out the door for school. The two little will get dressed and pack their school bags by themselves. Mostly.
-I wouldn’t mind more time to journal/plan the day. Or doing it earlier. Maybe I should journal/plan earlier in the day and read in the slot right before the school bus alarm goes off?
We’ll see how this morning routine goes. As always, it’s easier to have a routine/rhythm when I’m not working inconsistent hours. It always goes out the window once I’m back in rehearsal. I’m trying to tell myself these next few months are the time to establish a routine until I’m back in rehearsal. But I think I also have to remind myself that having a sporadic routine does not make it any less of a routine – there are cycles to life, you know?

-My mother sent me a box of oranges and lemons from her trees in Southern California. The oranges are sweet and juicy, perfect taste of sunshine on a grey January day.

Grateful for:
– Free Museums: It felt almost guiltily indulgent, to be able to go through the National Gallery of Art slowly, spending five minutes on a single painting, looking a brush strokes, and colours and thinking about the people in the painting and the artist who created them. But such is the wonderful things about living in a city with free museums – you can afford to spend five minutes, or ten, or sixty, on one painting because you can always come back to see the others. Tax dollars at work here (and donors and philanthropists), and for that I’m grateful.
–Winter. I was thinking this week, as I moved through snow and cold and bracingly brisk air – How wonderful it is to live somewhere with four seasons! Yes snow and cold can be tedious and hard to navigate, but there is something extraordinary about nature telling us when it is time for a slower pace and to rest. (Or maybe this is something very ordinary?) There is something about feeling the wind on your face when you step out the door, to remind you that you are lucky to be alive to feel this bitter cold on your skin. I think about how, if you live somewhere where there aren’t four seasons, how you miss out on being forced to adapt and cycle your life routines and patterns.
–My Friend L – I know she makes this list a lot, but I feel so grateful to have a friend who will pick up nuts for me at Costco, or “Kosher Takis” at Trader Joe’s, who will come help me jump my car, and drive me home after work.
–The Husband who actually did manage to jump the car. And who was home with the kids all week while I was in tech.
–Romance novels – I’ve been tearing through Julie Anne Long’s Palace of Rogues series and I love the books so much (well, maybe not the third one…). I’m glad there are people out there writing these cozy, angsty, escapist reads, perfect for curling up with a cup of tea in chilly weather. They make me so happy.

Looking Forward To:
–Monday off with the kids. Sometimes when we have these days off, I think about taking the kids on an adventure to a museum or something. But going to the Mall on Monday will be… ill advised. We had thought about going up to Baltimore, but with the forecasted snow, we thought it best of we stayed home. So the family brainstormed a list of cozy things to do at home. MLK Day will involve:
-baking (scones AND cookies)
-reading. (the Husband is on Do NOT disturb reading time until 7am)
-sledding
-hot chocolate
-movie
-Soup or dumplings
-board/card games
-30 minutes of cleaning out the toy room (okay, I admit, I put this on the list)
-piano
-laundry. Maybe. Hopefully.
This all seems really aspirational, but if we even do a couple things on the list and don’t yell at each other (too much), I will count the day as a win.

–The middle child’s birthday party. It will be at the duck pin bowling place. Should be lots of fun and low key. I can’t believe the little guy will be eight!

–Hadestown! The kids have a random Wednesday off in a few weeks, and I on an impulse I checked train tickets to New York, and they were surprisingly not too expensive – $120 round trip, half that for the 7 year old. And then I thought, “What can we do there?” and it turns out the last week of January is Broadway Week and certain shows have 2-for-1 tickets. I managed to snag tickets for Hadestown for $80 each. I never do anything so impulsive (I think it says something that booking a day trip two weeks out is impulsive for me….), but I wanted to do something fun, so I did it. I’m not actually familiar with Hadestown, but everyone seems to love it, so we are listening to it in the car and brushing up on our Greek Mythology. I feel like “the fun mom” for once in my life.

–Cool Blogger’s Book Club! L.M. Montgomery’s The Blue Castle is the pick for the latest go round of Engie’s bookclub. I’m so excited. Now I just have to located a copy of the book – there are none available in my library system!

–Just started this audiobook. Grisly, but fascinating. I don’t know that I’ll finish it because I have a bit of a weak stomach, but I can’t stop listening to it.

What We Ate: The Husband was in charge of dinners this week, as I worked most nights.
Monday: Tortellini and red sauce.

Tuesday: The family had dinner out. I had rehearsal in the afternoon then a supertitle job in the evening. I had yogurt for dinner.

Wednesday: Pork chops. I think I had yogurt for dinner again.

Thursday: I had leftover chicken soup from last week. The Husband made tofu zucchini boats at home.

Friday: Pizza and Skeleton Crew. The 13 year old has basketball practice again on Fridays so we are back to having pizza and tv rather than pizza and movie. Skeleton Crew is the latest Star Wars series on Disney plus.

Saturday: I’m not quite sure what the rest of the family ate, to be honest. I worked this evening and ordered from a new to me place called Seoul Spice since folks at work were putting in a group order. Everyone at work raves about this place and it was indeed very tasty. It’s kind of like Korean Chipotle – a bowl with lots of things and then sauce. There was kimchi! Which is always a winner in my book.

Sunday: Our friend came over to watch football and brought chili.

What would you put in your adult lunchable/snack box? I’m obsessed with this idea now! What are your top cozy day activities? Are you bracing for more winter?
Hope you have a restful week!

Weekly recap + what we ate: hello 2025! Snow! Jet lag!

I feel like this past week was truly the first week of 2025 for me since we were still in Asia until the 4th. Coming back was rough – our connection in Seattle was delayed by 2.5 hours, so we were at SEA for seven hours total. Here’s the math – we left our hotel in Kuala Lumpur at 9am local time on Friday January 3rd, which is 8pm on Thursday January 2nd in Maryland. We pulled into the driveway at home at 8:3oam on Saturday January 4th. That’s a freakin’ long time to travel. 36 hours – hotel to taxi to plane to plane to plane to car to home. The world is big, friends. (Although, Earth is the third smallest planet – I can’t imagine what travel would be like on Jupiter…)

When we got home, we unpacked and zombied our way through the rest of the day. I was determined to battle jetlag and keep the kids awake until 8pm, which would be close to their regular bedtime. I lost that battle badly. We did an okay job of staying up on Saturday – there was a brief nap Saturday afternoon and we went to bed around 10pm – I was hoping the late bedtimes would help the kids stay in bed later. Nope. Sunday morning the kids were up at 4am. Sunday afternoon, I tried to keep everyone awake and we were all passed out in the living room by 4pm. I was seriously worried about whether or not the kids would survive school the next day.

But guess what? I didn’t have to worry about that. Because … SNOW DAY!

There was one point the week before, when we were in Kuala Lumpur and it was 90 degrees outside and I said to my Husband, “Let’s remember this feeling because next week we will be COLD.” Sure enough late Sunday night it started to snow and before we went to bed, the schools had declared a snow day. Both the Husband and I were supposed to work on Monday. His work ended up being closed. I worked from home. (Thanks to the Husband who wisely told me to go get my laptop from my office on Sunday night.). Even though I was very much looking forward to sending the kids to school, – after all we were at Day 16 s of togetherness – I saw the snow day as a blessing in that the kids had one more day to get back on schedule.

It was a cozy day of puttering. Is there anything more cozy than a blanket of snow outside and warm tea and wool slippers inside? We shoveled some snow. The neighbors invited the kids over to play in their yard. I did some work, had a few meetings. In mid afternoon, I logged off work and we all went sledding with our neighbors. Sledding was super fun. I was at first a little nervous about the hill they chose because there are several trees on this hill and – well have you ever read Ethan Frome? I read it in high school and (spoiler alert) there is a gruesome accident that involves a sled a tree and the loss of hope and happiness. As one does in an Edith Wharton book. So I wasn’t terribly eager to go sledding on this hill.

But turns out, a hill full of trees is a great opportunity for kids to learn how to steer a sled. We did manage to put a hole in our sled, but I think it still works great. And there were several face plants into the snow and tears. Afterwards, the seven year old notes that “Stumps are worse than trees. If you hit stumps you’ll fly off. If you hit a tree, you’ll just fall over.” But all in all, nothing that couldn’t be solved by hot chocolate afterwards.

Tuesday – another snow day. Crisp and clear. Both the Husband and I worked from home. Around three, I took the kids out for a snowy walk. The house was starting to become a bit of a pit. Kids fell asleep around 4:30pm. We woke them up for dinner, which was kind of a sad lethargic affair.

Wednesday – yet ANOTHER snow day. It was no longer snowing, but I guess there were schools up county that were still treacherously icy, so all the schools remained closed. The kids had piano lessons – fortunately moved to 9:45am rather than the normal 7:15am. Though honestly the kids were already up at 5:30am, so we could have made a 7:15 lesson with bells on. I took the metro into work in the afternoon, since that seemed more relaxed an option than driving. Home in time for dinner. Kids and I passed out at the dinner table at 6:00pm.

The kids finally went to school on Thursday and Friday. THANK GOODNESS.

This weekend we’ve been back into the swing of kids’ activities. Basketball season has started for the oldest kid – she’s playing in the rec league as well as on her middle school team. The little kids have skating lessons, and then there’s agility class for the 5 year old and the 8 year old will be doing a goal tending clinic with his soccer league. It’s also football playoff season and college basketball season, so I think we’ll have a combination of out and about and home on the couch this winter.

Other news: We have a teenager! The oldest turned 13. Every year we get through the new year and I realize that I haven’t done anything to prepare for the oldest child’s birthday. Every year, I vow to do better. I did not do better this year. I did exactly nothing for her birthday. We sang happy birthday, we had a very long family scheduling meeting and then I went to work. The two little kids made her a card and the Husband bought her a cake which we ate later in the evening. On the one hand, I don’t love celebrating my own birthday, so other people’s birthdays don’t always register for me. On the other hand, I need to recognize that birthdays are special to some people and honour that. (Okay, typing that out, I’m realizing that maybe the day that I gave birth and we became parents for the first time should hold more significance for everyone. I know!)

The oldest actually got invited to another kids’ birthday party on her birthday. Our former neighbor’s kid was having a party and they invited our kid along, so she spent the day running errands with the Husband and then our former neighbors picked her up and took her to their kid’s party. When the other family found out it was her birthday too, they bought her a special dessert and then took her to Dave and Busters. How awesome is that?

I can’t believe that we have entered into teenage years! Okay, one thing now, though, I can legally leave all the kids at home. In Maryland, kids have to be 13 in order to stay home with other kids. (They have to 8 to stay home alone). I don’t want to take advantage of the now-13 year old, so I want to think through whether or not she should get paid if we ever do leave her at home with the other two kids.

Grateful For:

-Neighbors to spend snow days and birthdays. It was nice to hang out with our neighbors while sledding this week. They let us take a run down the hill on their toboggan and it was a wild ride. And I’m also grateful for our former neighbors who made sure the 13 year old had a good birthday even though they weren’t originally celebrating her.


-Base layers. I took the metro to work a couple of days last week so that I wouldn’t have to deal with driving in snow and slush. It’s about a ten minute walk on either end. I’m really grateful for wool/silk base layers to keep me warm.

-Hand me down winter coats and snow pants. While we’re on the topic of winter gear – I don’t think I’ve purchased a winter coat or pair of snow pants for the two little kids in four years because I have a friend with twins who passes down her winter coats and snow pants to us once her kids outgrow them.

-That my mom is okay still. My mother lives about 10 miles south of the Eaton fire in the LA Area. She is not concerned about having to evacuate because she isn’t in the mountains, but even still I’m worried. I also have an aunt and two uncles in the same area. I texted my mom to ask her how the air was and she said, “Bad.” The mass of humanity that the fires are affecting is heartbreaking.

Looking forward to:

-Filling out reflection workbooks. I was looking for a more concrete way to reflect on my 2024, and look forward to 2025, and I found two (free!) reflection work books online that looked interesting, so I’ve printed them up and want to work through them. One is Year Compass and one is by Susanna Conway called “Unravel Your Year“.

-A busy week at work – I have a recital that I’m doing titles for, and then a little semi-staged evening of newly commissioned 20 minute operas. It’s going to be a busy week, but I’m working with some great people, so I’m looking forward to being at the theatre.

-And then work downtime for a while – after this week, I don’t have another show to work on until the end of March. I do have to do some work for next opera season and there’s some paperwork I want to update, but it won’t be evenings and weekends. I’m looking forward to two months of working at a quieter pace.

-Library book stack – on the Sunday we got back, in an attempt to get out of the house and keep kids awake, we went to the library where I checked out this stack of books to start my 2025 reading. (Actually The Riddle of the Sphinx and This is So Awkward were renewals that I haven’t finished yet.) I love browsing books and just picking up what looks good:

What We Ate:
Saturday: Pizza and This Means War. We’re moving away from animated features for movie night. This 2012 movie stars Reese Witherspoon as a market researcher caught between two rival CIA partners/rivals, played by Chris Pine, and Tom Hardy. It was a lot of fun, perhaps a little risque for the littles – good popcorn entertainment.

Sunday: Sandwiches. I think we were all still really jetlagged and this was what the Husband fed the kids when we realized that even though everyone was falling asleep standing up, we should probably still make an effort to feed them. Thank goodness ehs’ here.

Monday: InstantPot Coq au Vin. Disappointingly more soup than stew, but still tasty. Though I think only 1 of the 3 kids stayed awake long enough to eat this.

Tuesday: Brussel Sprout Nasi Goreng, pan fried tofu on the side. We had a bunch of Brussel sprouts in the fridge from before we left on vacation so I made this -it’s my go to recipe for Brussel sprouts. I love this recipe from Meera Sodha. It’s really tasty and also a great way to get everyone to eat Brussel Sprouts. Vegan.

Wednesday; Coq au vin from Monday, reheated. Not what I originally planned, but quick easy meal on a busy snowy day. I think I’m going to lean into the cook once, eat twice meal this year. Although, we don’t have a microwave, so I need to figure out best methods of reheating food.

Thursday: Breakfast sandwiches. The Husband made dinner since I didn’t get home from work til 8pm.

Friday: Pizza take out. I worked, came home, and fell asleep before the Husband got back with the pizza.

Saturday: Pizza take out (take two) and Mr. and Mrs. Smith, the 2005 movie with Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie as assassins unknowingly married to each other. I got home when the family was half way through this movie and made the family watch it again from the beginning after we got to the end. I was hoping there would be some kind of plot if I watched it from the beginning. There is not plot. Just a premise. And lots of action sequences. The kids really loved this movie.

Closing another show, and panic buying for the next adventure.

It’s been a really long week of tech and performances. Eight days straight without a day off. But even though it’s been a little bit of a grind and there’s been some really special and amazing things going on. Things I want to remember:

-The make-up artist – One of our singers got sick and when I went to tell the make-up crew, the make-up artist A, who does that singer’s make up said jokingly, “Well I guess I’ll just be bored.”
And I said, also jokingly, “You could put me into the Tiger make-up.”
And she said, “I’ll totally do that. Come back in five minutes.” Which is kind of hilarious because I don’t think I’ve worn make-up since before the pandemic, maybe even longer. So I came back in five minutes, and A gave me Tiger eyes:

I’ll never look this cool ever again. Also notice how those eyes make my unwashed hair look great?

-The stage crew – We had something come up, and I went to the crew and said, “Can you do X so that Y can happen?” And they said, “Why don’t we do W instead so that Y can happen?” And W was a much better solution for Y than I would have ever thought. I mean X was a petty crappy solution for Y in the first place, but it was the simplest option. And just the fact that the crew thought of this more complicated, but better solution to the problem, and went to another theatre to get the parts to make it happen, and they did it without being grumpy about it… The whole things just made me really grateful to be working with them.

Also- when one of the performers forgot to go onstage with their prop thorn, and then told the director that they didn’t know where to find it, the crew helpfully did some labelling to help the singer:

-The crew member who showed up for a show in a full on bear costume. I have no words to describe the delight I felt when I saw him. I have to say the stage crew at this theater is my absolutely favorite crew to work with.

-The visit from Secret Service. There was a VIP at one of our shows, and the number of secret service people everywhere was surreal. I’ve never experienced anything like this before. It blows my mind that being surrounded by this many security people is just life for some people. Also – the very ordinary-ness of the security detail. I guess that’s kind of the point. This was also the night that the singer called in sick, and we had to call in someone to sing the role. This isn’t the kind of role where there are lots of people who knew it – the guy we brought in literally looked at the music for the first time at 11am that morning. That whole day was just bonkers all around.

-Having the 12 year old in my show. Riding home in the evenings with her, blasting show tunes in the car and singing along.

-The after party on the last night. A parent had reserved a local pizza restaurant after hours so we could go there. It was everything you’d think an after party with 30 kids would be – loud, raucous, lots of singing, and love flowing like the wine.

-Just the energy and positivity of everyone who worked on this show. There is something in the air, I think, when you do a show with kids for kids because the experience is just as much for the kids onstage as for the kids in the audience. And everyone realizes what a special and potentially life-changing week this could be. Making opera is my job. It’s what I (incredibly) get paid to do. And when it’s your job, sometimes you forget to savor the joy of it – it’s just another night at work. But when you do it with kids, many of whom had never done anything on this level, you realize that you can’t phone it in. The performers and the audience don’t deserve that.

Now that I’m done opera-ing for a few weeks, I can catch my breath, have some time to relax and prep for our winter break trip.

There was an article in the Washington Post last week about panic buying before a vacation or trip. THIS IS ME! Even though we are going to a country where I could literally show up with my passport and a credit card and be fine, I feel like there are THINGS I need for my trip. To be honest, though, most of my panic buying has been as a result of my two big travel fears – that the kids will be bored or hungry on the plane ride. Okay, so far, I’ve panic bought:
– A new purse. Or rather three new purses to try. Is this a panic buy or rather a procrastination buy? My purse is literally in tatters, so I needed a new one anyway.

-New shoes. Or rather four new pairs to try on.

-Crocs for the 5 year old because the strap fell off hers this summer, so she needed a new pair anyway.

-Princess sticker book. Also a few other activity books for the flight. I don’t know why because let’s be honest, the kids are just going to watch 20 hours of tv on the plane.

-Mad libs. The kids seem to really take a liking to these this year.

-Card games. I bought a mini Uno to carry in my purse, and Skyjo, a new to me card game. We’ve already opened the latter and it seems like it will be a good game for us because it’s numbers based. The seven year old picked up on it rather quickly. I’m always on the lookout for good games that aren’t language based because we’re not always playing with English speakers.

-This activity book. Which the kids have already started on, so I’m not sure that it will come on our trip:

-Small four compartment snack containers, because snacks need to be organized.

-Some books to read on the way. I like to read books written by authors from the place I’m visiting.

-plug adaptors, which I think the Husband has ordered.

Still to panic buy:
-Snacks. All the snacks.

-Trader Joe’s tote bags. Because we’ll be seeing lots of relatives and it’s such a gift-giving culture, I want to bring some small, simple gifts with me just in case. I read somewhere that Trader Joe’s tote bags are much coveted in Asia, so I’m going to pick up a few and some TJ’s snacks to gift.

-Soft pants for the 7 year old. I think I’m going with the philosophy that comfy clothes = pjs for the flight, so I need to get some more soft pants for the kid.

-water colour postcard pad. I like being able to do some water colour paintings when I travel, and I’m out of the small size paper. Of course I could just cut up the larger size paper that I have….

-Travel keyboard so I can write and do some work on my iPad while gone.

-eSim card. Does anyone have experience with these? Particularly in Asia? Is it a better option than just getting the day to day international coverage from my carrier?

Grateful for:
-all the above things about the show and the people who made it happen.

-The Husband for holding down the fort at home.

-The myriad of boba shops near the theatre. The 12 year old and I had a lot of boba last weekend; it was fun having the choice of places to go to.

-A new traffic light on the way home. There is one way to get home that requires making an unprotected left hand turn onto a very busy street. It’s actually marginally shorter than the other way I go home. I used to avoid going home this way, because I didn’t want to have to make that left hand turn. They have recently put a stop light there and it is now not so scary and I drive that way all the time now.

-Our friend for giving us his CSA share from this week while he was away on vacation. Free vegetables!!! Although, there was a kholrabi the size of a baby’s head. I’m at a loss what to do with it, but the 12 year old figured it out:

Looking forward to:
-weeknights at home this week. So far in December I’ve had one evening at home with the family. There were a couple free days, but we spent those out and about. This week, I have three nights at home to cook dinner, eat dinner, squabble, and referee sibling disputes. (or to ignore them.)

-Our anniversary. Last year our sitter cancelled and we ended up staying home for our anniversary, but the oldest kid rallied her siblings to make a sign and then she told the Husband and I that she would watch the kids while we had a movie date night in the basement. It worked so well that we decided to put the kids in charge of our anniversary again. We’ll see what happens!

-Our trip and seeing family and new places and eating good food. The 5 year old woke me up at 6am this morning, asking, “Mom, when are we going to pack our suitcases?”

-Sleeping and exercising. There’s been precious little of that these past six weeks.

-Reading in a chair with a cup of tea. Or on a plane. Regardless – uninterrupted reading time. I’ve been an a romance novel kick lately – Julie Anne Long’s Palace of Rogues series and Courtney Milan’s Wedgeford Trials series.

-This audiobook – I love a good Jane Austen inspired book, and this one is quirky and creative. I almost wish I were still commuting to the theatre so that I can listen to it more. Almost.


One more week until Christmas! How is your week going? Do you ever panic buy anything?

Tech week is coming!, Christmas-ish, + gratitudes

Another tech week approaches – the last one for 2024! I feel like I just went through tech week, and here we are again. I’m actually pretty excited for this one because the 12 year old is in the show that I’m working on. The logistics of the rehearsal carpool have been complex. We are carpooling with two other families, and it’s taken six adults and a spreadsheet to get these kids to rehearsals and performances.

Things I’ve done these past few days to prep for tech week:
– pick out my outfits for the week
– make a big batch of something to eat all week (the red lentil soup that J blogged about). Hopefully there will be enough for the 12 year old to eat too. Which reminds me I’ll have to pack snacks for her as well. She gets to the theatre at 4:30p and rehearses until 9:30p – I’m not sure when theatre kids eat dinner.
-paid bills. Inevitably during tech week, I forget to pay a bill or two, so I made a point to find the utility bills and pay them.
– made a batch of hard boiled eggs in the InstantPot for breakfast.
-bought the big container of yogurt. Actually I had my friend who was going to Costco pick it up for me. During tech week, yogurt is a complete meal.
-Take a shower. I feel silly putting this on the list, but sometimes I forget.

I still need to stock up on fruits and veggies and healthy snacks.

Tech week reminders for me:

  • Eat well
  • Sleep. No revenge bedtime procrastinating
  • Limit the scroll cycle.
  • Don’t drop the ball on life admin things. Find time for them.
  • Hug the family whenever I can.
  • Find time to go outside every day.

On not Christmas-ing. I haven’t been feeling the Holiday Spirit this December. It’s barely registering for me that Christmas is in two and a half weeks. Some of it is because the weather has been really warm lately. Some of it is because I’ve been really busy at work. And also because we’ll be travelling, we haven’t decorated or gotten a tree or put up Christmas lights. We’re taking a “The trip is the present” approach and not really doing Christmas presents. The little kids have been writing sad Santa letters: “Dear Santa, Don’t come to our house because we won’t be here.” Literally.

I think more than in past years, I’m realizing that Christmas is what we make it to be. If we don’t buy the presents, there will be no presents. If we don’t set up the mantel, the mantel will stay bare. It’s kind of interesting to opt out of all the Christmas things to see what we really hold meaningful, and what is just stress-ladened expectations.

What we have done, though:
-Tuba Christmas! Luckily this year Tuba Christmas coincided with the free day, so I was able to go with the whole family. As a lovely bonus, my cousin and my friend K came along too. My cousin was in town for work, and I didn’t think I would get to see her, but she came in a day early to spend Tuba Christmas with us. Afterwards we went for dumplings.

-Listened to Christmas music. The Husband has one play list that is 12 different versions of “We Need a Little Christmas.” That always makes me laugh. I’ve also been listening to choral Christmas music when I need something quiet and calming.

-Watched A Charlie Brown Christmas and Spirited. Spirited is becoming one of our “must watch” Christmas movies every year.

-Went to Longwood Gardens to see the Christmas displays. We didn’t stay long enough to see the lights, but we see trees and the trains. We also saw the new conservatory, which was beautifully bright.

What I’ve been missing:
-Going to church. I’m not the Catholic one in the family, but I do still like going to church with the family. Lately I’ve had to work on Saturdays (the Husband likes to go to Saturday evening mass), so I haven’t been to Mass with them. I’m missing the carols and the Gospel reading and the time to sit and think about what Christmas means.

-Hallmark movie binges. I’ve watched maybe two Hallmark Holiday movies this year, which if you remember my posts from last year, is pitiful. I did re-watch Biltmore Christmas, which might be my most favorite Hallmark holiday movie ever. SOOOOOO good and sweet and romantic and just the right tone of angst and longing.

-The house smelling like Christmas greenery. I don’t know if I miss having to get the tree and get out all the ornaments and decorate it, but I do miss walking into the house and being greeted by the smell of fresh pine.

-Advent candles. When we do find time to do advent candles, we aren’t super consistent with them, but I do like the ritual.

-Christmas picture books. I used to borrow 24 Christmas books from the library and we would read one each night in lieu of having an advent calendar. The Husband did borrow a stack of books and there are a few we can pull out from our own collection to read, but it hasn’t been the book flood it has been in the past.

-Planning a big Christmas meal. Though I did just do Thanksgiving…

What I haven’t been missing:
-The anxiety of Christmas shopping. I actually like thinking about and buying gifts for people, but it takes a lot of mental and financial resources to do it. I do feel a little bit guilty that I’m not making an effort to buy gifts, but I don’t have the bandwidth right now. Maybe after my show closes, I might run out and get a few things, or do some baking, but I’ve passed the window for ordering things online, and I think it actually makes gift giving simpler when there isn’t the infinite world of the internet available. We have talked about maybe having a few surprise gifts waiting at the house for when the kids get back, but it’s nothing like the four or five + stocking stuffers we usually do.

– Drive through Christmas light displays. We always tried to go to these on a weeknight and it always seemed like a bit of a mad rush. I do like Christmas lights; the other day I drove the long way home through a neighborhood with lots of lights, and that was nice.

-Trying to Christmas plan while in tech.

-Secret Santa or White Elephant gift exchanges.

I’m sure there are more things I’m forgetting happened during this season, but I clearly don’t remember them enough to miss them…

Some Bummer news– I don’t think I’ll be working this summer. I have a trip planned with the 12 year old that is in the middle of the opera season with the company I work for during the summer, and the one show that I was available to work has already been staffed. The lack of contract has hit me harder than I want to. It always is a little sad when I don’t get contracts, and it fills me with self-doubt (Did they not like me enough? Will I ever work with them again? Is there someone younger and cooler and better than me who got the contract?) Also often one gets work by returning to a place season after season, and if you miss a season, there’s not guarantee that there will be a slot for you the following season. (I had a really horrible experience with this at one company where I decided to take a summer off after I had my second child and they never asked me back again – the person who hired me literally told me that it wouldn’t be fair to my replacement if they couldn’t come back the following seasons.) I know I make the choice to be a freelancer but it makes me realize how little job stability there is with this job that I love. Because I can’t take PTO or leave to do things that I want, there are long term repercussions to not being available for work. Oh well, I’m reminding myself that my job is not more important than my family, and that this trip with my 12 year old is cooler than any job. I guess I’m just petulant that I can’t have it all.

Grateful for:
-My friend/college roommate K who I haven’t seen at all this fall, despite the fact that she lives in this area. But I texted her and asked if she wanted to come see the final rehearsal room run through of our show and she said “Yes!” I knew the 12 year old really wanted someone she knew to be there, and the Husband couldn’t make it since it was the same time as the 7 year old’s piano recital. K has a very full life – in addition to her full time job, she plays in a string quartet – but I’m grateful that she makes the effort to show up when she can.

-Not having to deal with car seats anymore. I’ve been having to drive carpool to rehearsals, which means putting four pre-teens in my car – three in back and one in front. The two little kids are still in booster seats, so I have to pull out the boosters every time I’m driving opera carpool. I’m very grateful that I’m just pulling out booster seats (which don’t have to be latched in), and not pulling out full on car seats which are kind of like wrestling damp ten ton octopuses. Also grateful that I can put one kid up front so that I don’t have to drive the van since my parking lot at work is the size of a postage stamp.

-Kind words and ketchup chips. One of the directors of our show is from Canada. She actually directed the first show I did the fall too. And before she left after the first show she asked if she could bring me anything when she came back for the second show. “Ketchup chips!” I said half jokingly. Well, she showed up for the second show with a bag of ketchup chips for me. How awesome was that? But also, this past week, both the directors of the show have each pulled me aside at one point to tell me how good the 12 year old is onstage. One of them even said, “I’m not saying this because you’re a staff member. She’s really very smart onstage.” I feel like one of those super critical stage moms because sometimes when I watch the 12 year old in rehearsal (and I try not to watch her too much) all I can see is when she’s not paying attention or goofing off or not coming in on the right beat of music. I’ve always struggled a little because I want the people I love to be perfect because I believe in them, and I tend to be more forgiving of the people whom I’m not as close to. Being told that my kid was doing well, was kind of an eye opening; someone was telling me that my kid was enough and that they saw good work happening- it made me realize that I should also be seeing her strengths this way as well.

Well, that’s the news from here. Hope everyone has a lovely week!

If you celebrate Christmas, how Christmas-y are you feeling right now? Have you ever had to install a car seat? What is your favorite Canadian snack?

Weekly recap and other gratitudes- NaBloPoMo #18

It’s been a wild weekend in my opera world. I’m still processing, so perhaps I’ll give the run down next week. I’ve fallen off the NaBloPoMo routine this weekend because it’s been busy, so here’s kind of a catch all post. I haven’t had a proper weekly recap post in a while, so I thought I’d write some of the random things that have gone on this week:

– I did the supertitles for a voice recital last week. It was a really fun program, though the second song set was not performed in the order I was given, so that caused a bit of panic, but I was able to catch up and get the right translation slides in place. Also – fun story – the artists added a song the day before the recital and the pianist sent me the music and text so I could make slides.
“Sure, no problem. I’ll do it tonight.” I wrote in response.
“Thank you!” he replied. “Do you drink wine? :)”
“I don’t actually,” I wrote, “But I do eat chocolate.” Which, normally, I don’t make gratuitous grabs for chocolate, but I figured, why not?
Well the pianist brought me three bags of those Lindt chocolate balls. I thought that was super kind.
The coda to that story. A few days later, I noticed the five year old had chocolate peppermint breath. I didn’t think anything about it until I saw an empty bag of Lindt peppermint truffles on the kitchen floor. The sneaky kid had eaten an entire bag by herself. There were tears and sad faces. I can’t tell if I was more upset that she snuck chocolate, or that I didn’t get to eat my peppermint chocolates.
Oh, also during the recital, the singer sang a John Denver song, Perhaps Love, which was a little unusual, but this line made my heart contract every time he got to it:

-Friday I had the day off, and it coincided with the Thankgiving party at the 7 year old’s class. I was on the fence about going – there seems to be many demands on a parent’s time from the school, and it was my one day off. I will admit I am not the most involved parent – I don’t PTA, I don’t Room Parent, I didn’t make it to Parent-Teacher conferences this fall. But I figured it makes the 7 year old happy when I show up, so I can do it a couple times a year. I signed up to bring an activity. After some late night googling, I decided to bring in decorative gourd bowling. I bought several decorative gourds and 12 bottles of water. I put food colouring in the water bottles – red, orange, and yellow, for some fall flavor. And that was it. I think the whole thing cost $15. At the school, I set up the water bottle like bowling pins and let the kids bowl with the decorative gourds. It was surprisingly popular for the amount of effort I put into it. Maybe not so surprising, though. I mean what kid wouldn’t want to throw produce at things? The fun thing, then, was when the bowling started getting a little out of hand, I took the 7 year old and sprung him out of school early and we went home. It just feels fun to be able to leave school early on a Friday afternoon.

=And then that night we went to a middle school production of Charlie and the Chocolate Factory. It was a lot of fun. The weekend before we had gone to see A Year with Frog and Toad at the high school. Between those two productions, I’m realizing what an awesome thing school drama productions are. First of all, it’s a low key way to take my own kids to the theatre and that form of story-telling. And also, I love the sense of community- we had friends who were involved in both productions and it’s great to be able to support them.

-I haven’t written a dinner post lately, and that’s because I haven’t been home for dinner very much these past few weeks. One morning, I was packing all the snacks and food for everyone for the day and I think I packed more food to be eaten on the go than at home. I packed:

  • Three lunches (me, the seven year old, the four year old)
  • Two dinners (me and the seven year old since we both ahd a show that night)
  • Four snacks – two for the seven year old (one for school and one for the evening at the theatre), one for me, one for the 12 year old who had rehearsal that evening.

It seemed like a lot of portable food to pack for one day. Anyhow, the Husband has been making the majority of dinners this month. A few good dinners that I made, which I want to remember for the future:

  • Cornmeal waffles from the King Arthur Baking cookbook. These were savory and slightly spicy. The recipe suggested we top it with queso, which I might try next time. I actually mixed the dry ingredients ahead of time and the Husband did the rest when he got home.
  • Instant pot shrimp biryani from NYTimes Cooking. This was a pantry meal that I managed to make in thirty minutes one day when I had no plans for dinner.
  • Honey glazed mushrooms and udon noodles also from NYTimes Cooking – I had a head of cabbage to use up.
  • Happy hour dinner- crackers and charcuterie and I made a batch of Brazilian cheesy bread. Cut up veggies and fruit as well. The kids really love this kind of meal.
  • Not dinner, but my go-to lunch has been massaged kale salad. I prepped and washed a large container of kale ahead of time, and then in the morning, I massage a few handfuls with olive oil, sesame oil, and salt. Then I throw together with whatever I have on hand – roasted sweet potato, walnuts, daikon radish, avocado, apples… It’s sturdy so will keep in my lunchbox all day, and packed with vegetables so that it feels energizing to eat during long days at the theatre.

-I’ve been thinking lately about being nice. We have feedback sessions at the end of the each show with the stage management team. There was a comment at one point about someone not being very nice, having a very direct edge to their tone when they spoke to other people. I struggle with whether or not to pass this feedback along to that person. On the one hand, not someone being nice can have an effect on morale if you aren’t used to working with them. At the same time, I don’t believe that we all need to homogenous in our way of speaking or acting, and I do think we all need to learn to interact with people who have different styles of communication. And maybe it’s because I’ve worked with this person for many many years, that I have blinders as to whether the reports about them not being “nice” is a problem. Because they are one of the kindest people that I know. And to me, being kind is much more important than being nice. So I’ve been turning these ideas over in my head – about what place does personality have in work place culture and how to value different personalities as part of the whole package that someone is.

Things I’m grateful for this week: We’re going into Thanksgiving week – there are so many things to be grateful for and I was going to write a whole week of gratitude posts. Here are some small ones to start off:

Handles – this feels kind of silly, but my laptop sleeve has a handle and it makes it super easy to carry when I also have four other bags to bring to work. Every time I pick up the laptop, I think, “Boy am I glad there’s a handle!” I mean think about all the handles in your life! Doors, boxes, coffee cups… Handles make life better.

My apple box, and the prop guy who gets it for me – The stage management console at the theatre was clearly designed for someone taller than me. When I stand at it, my score is chest height, which makes it uncomfortable to turn pages and turn my cue lights on and off. (The cue lights are the colored lights that I use to tell the crew when to execute a cue. They are at the back of my console.) So I stand on an apple box. It’s not literally an apple box – it’s a wooden box about the size of an apple crate, which is why it’s called an apple box. Every time I call in this theatre, I ask the prop head for my apple box and he finds it, only giving me a little bit of grief for being short.

The seven year old and me backstage – he’s standing on my apple box.

Rock Creek Parkway – This is the road I take to the theatre. The thing is, though, the traffic goes into the city in the morning and out of the city in the evening. I, however, go into the city in the evening, so I can’t use it. So I end up having to drive through D.C. during rush hour to get to an evening performance call. Driving through the city is tedious in normal times; during rush hours it is soul sucking. I’m grateful for whenever I can take the parkway and not have to drive through Dupont Circle.

Ten extra minutes in the morning – Because of the late nights, I’ve been sleeping in a little later than normal and the mornings have seemed a little more breathless than usual. One day we left the house a few minutes late and I realized that we were going to miss the bus, so I drove the kids straight to school, parking on the trail and walking up to the school. Turns out, if we choose to drive them walk to school, I can leave a little later, buying me an extra ten minutes in the morning and I also get a little walk in up to the school and back to the parking lot on the trail. Those ten extra minutes give me the space to breathe and think through everything that I need for the day.

How was your weekend? Who is the kindest person you know? What quotidian thing are you grateful for this week?

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!

Weekly recap + what we ate: filling time

Bored and Brilliant Challenge #3 was to delete one app from your phone. I deleted Feedly. I’m trying to figure out what value different apps bring me, and I thought Feedly was one that I could delete because it’s a bit of a time suck and also doesn’t have any essential functions in my life. Interestingly, though, my screen time actually went UP last week. I think the main reason is that I started rehearsal and have been doing a lot more messaging via Teams on my phone for work communications. I could just bring my laptop to rehearsal and communicate that way, but the phone takes up less space. Also, I don’t have notifications turned on on my phone, so I have to pick up my phone and look at it to see if there are any new messages. Maybe I should just turn my notifications on? But also, I’m very much feeling the point that was mentioned in the first Bored and Brilliant Challenge about how a phone is a distraction even just sitting on a table. I don’t want distractions during rehearsals or I’ll miss something. I think this goes back to thinking about how my phone can add value to my life.

Here’s another thing I noticed when I deleted Feedly – if I’m mindlessly scrolling, it doesn’t matter how many apps I delete, I will find a way to mindlessly scroll. I stopped checking Facebook about three years ago because I felt like it was becoming a toxic time suck for me. But you know what I realized? There will always be other sites that are a toxic time suck for me. Two big time sucks for me currently are askamanager.org, and corporette.com. They have very active comment sections and when I’m bored, I often find myself there. It’s not as bottomless as reddit, but it does have the same appeal, I think, of people posting questions or comments, and other anonymous internet strangers weighing in. Why am I so obsessed with other people’s problems or questions? This is actually one of the reasons I quit Facebook is that there was generally a lot of anxiety on the various groups I was in. I get it – life is huge and confusing and hard and people want/need support and to know they’re doing the right thing. I definitely have looked things up or posted questions when grappling with something and on the flip side, I think there is something in me that likes to solve problems, so when I read posts where people are looking for advice, I find myself wanting to help them solve their problems. And in various FB groups, I just started finding anonymous internet venting to be an overwhelming input for me. I think reading and responding to internet comments becomes toxic for me when I find myself reading about other people’s problems and thinking more about their problems than my own. And then it gets to a point other people’s problems just seem so overwhelming that I no longer have empathy for a commenter/poster and just get disgusted with humanity.

Which is all to say, I’m not sure what deleting Feedly has accomplished. Maybe I’m more thoughtful about my mindless scrolling – I have to choose to go to a website rather than it just popping up on my feed. Deleting Feedly was a good experiment in figuring out what kind of internet consumption I find enriching rather than deflating. I’m finding that I’m not missing the influencer type blogs that I mostly read in Feedly. Those blogs always made me feel like I wasn’t doing a good job of wringing the full potential out of life. I think I’d much rather just use my internet browser and go visit blogs where I feel a sense of kinship – likely if you are reading this and have a blog, I’m talking about you. I do miss getting my daily dose of poetry show up in my Feedly. But I can just go to that website on my own every day. I might even set up a widget that just opens that website.

The other thing I’ve noticed this week about my phone usage is that I’ve been catching myself looking at my phone as I walk to/from the car this week. Breaking that habit was the whole point of Challenge #1! I think there have been some stressors at work, and I want the slight distraction of easy media consumption the minute I walk out the door in order to decompress a little. But checking the phone doesn’t make me feel less stressed, I’ve noticed. Checking my phone is just a way to distract myself from the discomfort of feeling unsettled and agitated at work and thinking about what is really bothering me. So I’ve been trying to think of things I can do to help clear my head and re-set while keeping my phone in my bag. Some ideas:
-hard copies of books. I’ve started putting a book in my lunchbox so that I read on my lunch break rather than scroll.
-write haikus in my head (or on paper)
-Listen to more music. I guess this technically is phone usage, although a couple of times while driving to work, I was feeling really stressed thinking about the day ahead, so I put on the classical music station and that helped calm me down a little. I think when I am feeling overwhelmed, I need to be in a wordless environment for a while. Chatter tends to interfere with my ability to think, even if it’s just the radio. I like classical music because I can think about the musical lines and instruments, in a more abstract way than if I were to listen to something with a lot of lyrics.
-walking meditations. I’ve never really gotten into meditation, but sometimes being ultra-mindful of each step I’m taking helps me feel more grounded.
-jigsaw puzzles. We have a 1500 piece jigsaw puzzle going on in our office. I’ve never done a puzzle with so many pieces before, and it’s certainly a challenge. I used to be of the school that one doesn’t look at the box when doing a jigsaw puzzle, but then someone brought in the 1500 piece puzzle and I’ve changed my stance.

Bored and Brilliant Challenge #4 is to take a faux-cation. Meaning dedicate a chunk o f time to be away from your phone. They even suggest setting an out of office message. That seems a little performative for me, so I don’t know if I’ll do that part. I’m not sure when I’ll take my faux-cation. I have friends visiting on my next free day and then I don’t have another day off for over a week. Maybe I can take a faux-cation morning before rehearsal? It’s a hard time in the work period to not be connected. Of course, it’s also the perfect time to be distraction free for a while since I have a lot of paperwork to get through. Maybe my faux-cation is just a couple hours to put my head down and plough through my paperwork?

A very nice free Day.
I had a great free day last Thursday! I got so much done. After dropping the kids at the bus, I took my car in for an oil change. I was going to run home while they changed my oil, but they said the car would be done in an hour so I went for a run by the mechanics instead, which was actually better because the mechanic is about a 1/4 mile from a trail and the fall leaves and crisp air made for a lovely run. I had forgotten my earphones, so I had to run i silence, which I thought was going to boring, but it wasn’t at all.

After I got my car back, I went to a consignment sale at a local pre-school (it’s their big fund raiser). I went to get pants for the 7 year old, but I also found this super cute t-Shirt for the 5 year old too:

Then I had lunch with the Husband at a really nice Mexican place by his work. The place had just gotten a nice write up in the paper, though the Husband has been coming since they were open. At the end of our meal, the owner offered us some grasshoppers! They were crunchy and spicy- like chips!

Then I went to the library because I had a hold come in and I also picked up a few other books:

The library is in the same building as the Rec center where early voting was taking place, so I also went to vote. It was the first day of early voting! The room was busy, but not crowded. I was in and out within ten minutes.

Then I picked up the 5 year old for gymnastics. I drafted a blog post while waiting for her class, which always feels super productive to me. Then we went home.

Next, I took the 7 year old for his costume fitting. I’ve never actually been in a costume fitting before, despite all these years of working in a theatre. It was fascinating. Costume people are amazing! The way they could look at a garment and know what seams to add or remove or take apart and put back together to make a garment fit was mesmerizing. It’s kind of surgical, the way they talk about clothes. Like you would never guess that this shirt was made for someone twice the size of the 7 year old, and since it was a rental shirt, they couldn’t cut it. So they just tuck and make a false cuff.

He looks a little like Fievel from An American Tail.

After we got home, though it all went downhill from there. The Husband was out with a friend, so I was solo parenting. No one wanted to help pick up or set the table or do homework. I was annoyed that I was making tasty pasta that no one seemed to care about. People yelled at me. I yelled at people. Then I told them not to yell at me, and I shut myself in my room until bedtime. On the bright side… when I was shut into my room the 12 year old dished up the pasta and fed the 2 younger kids. In front of the tv. I can’t decide if that’s a win or not.

But in an effort not to let one horrible hour torpedo the rest of a lovely productive and restful day, I cling to all the nice things and productive things that happened that day. And I did end the day by making a plum torte, so that was nice. Baking always helps, and this recipe (from New York Timing Cooking) was super easy to whip up. Apparently the recipe is run every fall. It’s legendary and people got mad when the Times didn’t publish it one year. It’s not the best thing I ever made, but the taste to effort ratio is pretty high.

Grateful For:
-Getting two runs in this week, on my dinner break and on my free day. Perfect cool fall weather for running. I can still wear shorts, but the sun isn’t torturous.

– My work BFF who is so so so smart and I can bounce thoughts off her when I’m trying to navigate a thorny issue. (She’s also a great friend not just at work, and our kids hang out together all the time. I joked with her the other day that one day one of us should go work somewhere else because between the two of us we have so many work-branded tote bags that we’re always getting our stuff mixed up when we hang out.)

-Leftovers. So glad to have leftovers for quick easy lunch and dinner packing last week.

-On that same note – grateful for past me for making a double batch of soup and freezing it for easy dinners last week.

-Wifi at activities. I’m really grateful that there is wifi in the waiting room at gymnastics so I can get some work or blogging done while I wait for them to get done activities. Maybe I should be watching them bounce on trampolines, but… the gym isn’t really set up to always be watching the kids.

Looking Forward To:
-A visit from a mentor, now friend.

-Hallowe’en. I think everyone’s costume is set. I actually have most of the day off, so I think I’ll get to go trick or treating from the beginning. I had originally been scheduled to work until 6:00pm or so, but now I’m going to try to get home by 5:00pm. I’ve been squeezing some costume sewing in when I can.

-Listening to this audio book – I wanted a cozy audiobook to get me through the next few weeks. The combination of an Alexis Hall novel read by Will Watt for 10 Things that Never Happened was the epitome of cozy romance for me (still disagree with you, Engie!), so I chose another Alexis Hall novel read by Will Watt, and it’s been the perfect, swoony and sweet audiobook for me right now:

What We Ate:

Monday: Turkey white bean soup from freezer

Tuesday: Fried perch and tater tots. The Husband cooked while I was at work. I ight have eaten the whole bowl of leftover Tater Tots when I got home at 11pm. It was just an excuse to use Trader Joe’s Dill Pickle seasoning.

Wednesday: Skillet pasta and sausage. The Husband cooked.

Thursday: Cheesy pumpkin pasta bake with kale. From NY Times Cooking. This was really tasty. I wanted leftovers, but the kids took them all for lunch. I actually froze half of it before baking because it only requires 15 mins at 500 degrees to bake so it will make an easy dinner. I added a can of cannellini beans for more protein, and made it with silken tofu instead of cream, so it would not be as rich.

Friday: leftover soup and pizza

Saturday: Dumplings and the Pokemon movie (for those at home), kale salad (for me at work)

Sunday: leftovers

How is your week going? Is there one app you would like to delete? What is your favorite way – your most bucket filling way – to spend time on your phone?