Life Off Headset

Weekly Recap + what we ate: Morning routines

This was supposed to be one of the few weeks this fall where everyone had a five full days of school. But… there was the unfortunate incident of the plane in the electrical tower which caused a huge power outage and resulted in school being cancelled on Monday. Then Tuesday and Wednesday, the baby was sick so she stayed home. So it was a lot of unexpected child care this week.

On Monday, I decided to take advantage of the no school day to take the five year old and the neighbor’s kid down to the Botanical Gardens to see the model trains. It actually worked out well – when we have gone to see the Botanical Garden trains in the past, we’ve had to go on the weekend and it’s always been really crowded. This time, the crowds were very light so we could easily see all the displays. I’m glad we went during the week because the train display was smaller than in the past, and probably would not have been as relaxed an experience if I had to fight the crowds to see it.

Model of Union Station, all built of plant matter.

Also – there were baby pineapple plants in the bathroom at the Botanical Gardens. I was so charmed by it, I had to snap a picture:

Monday night the baby started running fever, so I kept her home on Tuesday. She spent a lot of time sleeping, thank goodness, and I got some work done. Other than one incident of vomiting in my bed, she was a pretty low maintenance patient. Even still, she ran a fever again on Tuesday night so we kept her home on Wednesday too. Of course she was more her normal, curious, active self on Wednesday, so I didn’t get as much work done. I actually didn’t mind, though – I was reminded of how during the pandemic I was home and it was just me and the kids and we just kind of hung out and went on walks and baked and read books while cuddling on the couch. And while there was a voice in my head that said, “You really should be working on those supertitle slides!” I think hanging out with my kid is important too – for both of us.

Fun new thing – I’m working on supertitle slides for a concert next week, and one of the songs is in Arabic. I’ve never had to work in Arabic before, so it’s been interesting for sure to match up the translation I was given with the text of the song. Thank goodness for Google and Google translate. At first I was so daunted by the whole things and I kept putting off working on this one song, and I had to remind myself that it’s good to have new work challenges.

Moment to savor: One nice thing about earlier winter sunsets is that when I’m waiting for the school bus in the afternoon I get to see beautiful pink and gold skies. Even as I shiver in the cold there some something breathtaking to see.

I’ve been thinking about my morning routine lately, mostly because there’s been no morning routine this past week and a half. And when there’s no morning routine, habits fall through the cracks.

I’ve been reading B.J. Fogg’s Tiny Habits, and he has developed a method for building habits that can be summed up as:
1) finding the smallest things you can do,
2) finding a prompt to do that small thing,
3) celebrate doing that small thing to make yourself feel good for doing it.

The part I’ve found most helpful is 2), finding a prompt and I’ve been trying to incorporate more prompts in my daily life. There are lots of good behaviours I want to encourage, but I struggle with finding a routine. So I’ve latched on to the idea of finding prompts for things as a reminder to do (or not do) something. For example:
1) The five year old used to wet the bed at night at least once a week. This was mostly because we forget to tell him to go the the bathroom before bed. Also- the ten year old was always leaving things in her pockets, causing havoc on laundry day. So now, after we brush our teeth (prompt – more specifically, after we put our toothbrushes back), the five year old goes to the bathroom and the ten year old empties her pockets.
2) I have a terrible habit of checking my phone at stop lights, and I decided I needed an alternative activity. So now every time I get to a stoplight (prompt), I do kegels until the light turns green to keep me off my phone.

Anyhow, I had set up a series of prompts in my head for the morning, and for a variety of reasons (holidays, the oldest has a morning writing club, just being tired), I hadn’t been doing these things. Rather I was just relying on memory and instinct to do them. My ideal morning prompt/habits would be:

– The Husband leaves for work. The moment the door shuts behind him, we all go do our morning teeth brushing.
-The ten year old leaves to walk the baby to the neighbor’s so they can take her to school. The moment she leaves, I do a ten minute yoga video. (In Fogg’s world, the tiny habit would be – the moment the door closes (prompt), I lay out my yoga mat (tiny action.)) I particularly liked this one because the five year old would do it with me.
-I take the kids to the school bus. When I pull in wherever I need to go after (work or home), as soon as I turn off the car, I do my daily Wordle and Duolingo.

(I still would love to figure out a prompt for journaling… maybe I need to put the journal by my bed and do it as soon as I wake up? I think this is also where routines and habits blend into each other.)

Anyhow, the morning brushing, yoga, Wordle, and Duolingo weren’t getting done this past week. Partly because not having to catch a school bus sucks the urgency out of the morning, and also a couple days, the ten year old’s before school writing club meant that there was no prompt for #2. Wordle and Duolingo usually got done at some point in the day, but I did have to use a couple streak freezes for the Duolingo because I would just forget. And granted none of this stuff was IMPERITIVE, but the morning feels better when I just automatically do things. I feel like when I know that these things will automatically happen after a prompt, I don’t spend mental energy on trying to figure when or if they will happen. (Contrast that with exercise/running – I don’t have a prompt for that because what with the weather and darker days and my current more flexible schedule, exercise doesn’t always happen at the same time and I like to look at my whole day in order to decide where it will happen. )

So I’ve been contemplating the difference between having a morning routine, where the morning is time blocked (ie. 7:00a teeth, 7:15 breakfast, 7:45 get dressed, etc…), versus just having prompts and habits and knowing the rest of the morning activities (pack lunch, get dressed, prep dinner, make breakfast – the essentials) will fall in place around it. I will say we have a luxuriously long morning – the kids are usually up by 6:30/6:45a and the baby goes to the neighbors’ at 8:10pm and the rest of us leave for the school bus at 8:50a. So nothing feels rushed, really. I just think I feel like the morning gets off to a better start when I do more than just the essential survival tasks of food and clothing. Anyhow, here’s hoping the next few weeks I can get back to my tiny habit mornings.

One the List This Weekend:
– Birthday Party (adult)
-Birthday Party x2 (kids)
-Decorate for Christmas/ go get our tree
– Tidy/ Pick up since cleaners are coming on Monday.
-Order Christmas Cards
-Christmas movie
-Bake Cookies (hopefully)
-World Cup Watching.
-Meal Plan for next week.

Grateful for This Week:
– That the pilot and passenger who flew into the electrical tower were able to be rescued safely. I don’t know them, but it must have been horrifically scary. I’m really glad that there were people who knew how to get them down safely.
-All the bloggers who participated in NnBloPoMo – I’ve really enjoyed reading all the thoughts they put into the world this month, such honesty, realness and humor. And now I feel like I have new blogs to pop in and read and the (virtual) world has opened up a little.
-That I’m not working right now and can just roll with the school cancellations and sick days. This week would have been difficult if I had been working because before/after care, which I usually would have used for school closures, was also closed due to the plane/power outage issue. I know so many parents that had to majorly scramble for coverage on Monday.
– Hoopla and my library card. The kids have been listening to Dear Evan Hansen a lot these days. (Also Taylor Swift.) I thought it might be fun to get some music from the show so we can sing it, so rather than buying the sheet music, I put a bunch of music books on hold at the library. When I was loading up my holds list, I noticed that a bunch of these music books were also available as eBooks via Hoopla, so I downloaded those and have been trying to learn Waving Through the Window. There was a lot of music available and I’m eager to dip into more!

Looking forward to:
– Helping my friend celebrate her birthday tonight.
– Supertitle gig next week.
– Getting my teeth cleaned. I know going to the dentist isn’t something people look forward to but, 1) next week is relatively quiet for adventures, and 2) I really like my dentist and hygienist – they are so nice, make me feel taken care of, and make me laugh even while suctioning spit out of my mouth.

What We Ate – This managed to be an eat-from-the-pantry/fridge/freezer week, which is always good the week after Thanksgiving:

Monday: Broccoli Pasta from Bad Manners cookbook. Vegan. This is really tasty for how simple it is. Boil pasta, drain. Sear broccoli in a pan, add garlic and red pepper flakes. Mix pasta in with broccoli. At the table, top with panko parmesan (Panko, nutritional yeast, garlic powder, paprika.) Yes, it’s essentially carbs topped on carbs, but the crunchy savory topping is what really makes this dish for me.

Tuesday: Spicy Salmon Tacos – I used the Korean Pork Taco recipe from Dinners Illustrated but subbed in Salmon and Shrimp for the pork.

Wednesday: Comedy night with my friend – I had a vegan mushroom risotto. The Husband stayed home with the kids and they had breakfast sandwiches and hash browns

Thursday: Butternut Squash Soup from Weeknight Vegetarian. Vegan version that used coconut milk to make it creamy. This was simple and tasty.

Friday: Meatball subs from the deli, wolfed down before the 10 year old’s piano recital. No movie this night – the piano recital was followed immediately by basketball practice.

Christmas Movie List 2022

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

The false dichotomy of strengths and weaknesses

I was having a conversation with a friend a couple of months ago and she was lamenting how her children don’t let things go and are constantly saying how things are fair because of this small thing or that small thing that happened ages ago. “They hold on to every detail,” she lamented. Then she said, “And I think they get it from me. I remember everything and keep revisiting and bringing it back up.”

I turned to her and said, “But you know what? That memory for detail… that’s what makes you amazing at your job!” I wasn’t just making that up to make her feel good – she has a job that requires her to hold lots of dates and times and rules and protocols in her head and she has to make these details fit together so that everyone can get what they want without violating any rules or incurring unnecessary expenses. This characteristic that she saw as a weakness was also a great strength of hers.

It reminded me of one time when a director gave me a compliment by calling me a very “nurturing” stage manager. (Let’s forget for a minute how sexist that compliment might have been.) She went on to say, “You really go out of your way to make sure all the singers feel comfortable and are able to do their best work.” I was really not sure whether or not I thought of “nurturing” as a good trait – in my mind, that instinct to be nurturing was also the same instinct that made me seek consensus, which would often lead to indecision. And I’ve always felt like indecisiveness was one of my weaknesses. I am always full of admiration of stage managers who just know the exact right thing to do.

Here’s a thought, though – what if our greatest weaknesses are also our greatest strengths? I don’t mean it in a falsely modest way – like how in job interviews you say something like, “My greatest weakness is that I’m a perfectionist.” Rather, it seems to me that framing personality traits as strengths vs. weaknesses creates a false dichotomy. In so many instances the things that makes us strong or successful can also be the things that blind us to other things and set us up to fail. Confidence and hubris, for example. Being kind and being overaccommodating. Or here’s a doozy – loving someone and being vulnerable.

Our characteristics are all two sides of the proverbial coin. They are who we are, how we solve problems, how we interact with other humans, how we place ourselves in the world, how we pace ourselves in the world. Simply… how our brain just works. Rather than thinking of these traits as a weakness or strength, maybe we can just think of our traits as how we translate personality into action, into who we are.

These traits – they aren’t “strengths” or “weaknesses” but rather the unique ways that we are human.

What “weaknesses” can you re-frame today?

Weekly recap + what we ate: Thanksgiving 2022

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

What We Ate:

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Low Key Weekend – why am I still tired?

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Not crying at naptime.

The three year old has been going to daycare since September, so three months now. She had been home since she was born with my parents or an occasional sitter coming to watch her when I was working. Understandably, I was a little nervous about her starting daycare; she’d never really spent an extended amount of time in a classroom setting. How would she deal with other children? With teachers? With mandatory nap time?

Well, the first day, she walked right into the classroom, without nary a backward glance. A friend of mine, a former preschool teacher, said to me afterwards, “It means that she was ready to be out in the world.”

Of course, there have been a handful of teary drop-offs since then. Inexplicable mornings when she clings and cries and doesn’t want me to leave. Or at least they are mysterious to me. I’m sure she has her reasons for feeling vulnerable and clingy those mornings.

It is a little bit of an adjustments to go from being with a child all the time to only seeing her in the mornings and evenings. There is so much to her day that I don’t get to witness, so many lightbulb moments that I miss. She can now count and recognize shapes and letters. I certainly didn’t teach her that. But I’m grateful that someone else is.

Every day when she comes home from school, I give her a big hug, and I ask her, “How was your day today?” (I know such a vague open ended question is exactly the kind of thing parenting articles tell us not to ask, but it slips out before I can think of anything else.)

And every day she says with excited pride, “I didn’t cry at nap time!”

I don’t know what goes on at school that not crying at nap time is the highlight of her day, but it always makes me laugh when she says it.

At her parent teacher conference two weeks ago, I asked the teacher about this, wondering, “Does she usually cry at naptime?”

“Well,” they answered, “The first week, she did. She found naptime hard. But now she does really well at naptime.”

I thought about it in the days afterwards, and and, really… not crying at naptime – it actually seems like a pretty good barometer for how one’s day is going. When the things that used to be a struggle are almost mundane, it is easy for these previous challenges to fade into the mist and for our minds to adapt to a new, higher bar for a “good day”. Things like remembering to pay the bills on time, or making the bed in the morning morph into bigger tasks like estate planning and having the house spotless and it’s easy to feel daunted. Sometimes, though, it is good to remember when those low bars once seemed really high, and to celebrate one’s continued ability to hurdle them.

Here’s wishing you a wonderful (American) Thanksgiving week, where there is no crying at naptime.

Weekly Recap + What we ate: Cold, Sick, and Social

I think the chill has finally come to stay. This week was cold and little rainy. I’ve started making hot chocolate for the kids to sip after school, with one big marshmallow floating in their cup. No big adventures this week, and the week was also kind of “meh” for getting things done, but there was lots of time with friends, which fills lots of my buckets too.

Monday the Husband took the day off and we took the Metro into DC to see a movie. We saw a 9:50am showing of The Woman King. There is something really fun about seeing a morning movie and being the only people in the theatre. The movie itself was entertaining, though a little more violent than I liked.

Afterwards, we had dumplings and noodles at a restaurant that we used to go to all the time when we lived in DC – they make their own noodles and if you come at the right time, you can see the chef in the window pulling, stretching, and cutting the dough – it’s actually quite neat. I had duck noodle soup. Noodle soup needs to go on my list of cozy things!

plus… all my favorite condiments – pickled garlic, scallion ginger sauce, and chili flakes in oil.

Afterwards we decided to walk the mile or so to Union Station because there is a Blue Bottle Coffee there and we can also catch the Metro home from there. Union Station is special to us because that is where the Husband proposed and where he bought my wedding ring. It’s a little sad to see that a lot of the shops have closed there – it used to have a whole level of nice shopping, but now all the storefronts are empty, including the jewelers where that wedding ring was purchased.

That afternoon, my friend invited us over so the kids could jump on their trampoline. After I picked up the five year old from the bus, I headed over. The Husband followed with the other two kids and also brought beer and made a charcuterie plate and we had happy hour from 4:30p- 5:45p. It was such a nice afternoon visit and we agreed we should do this more.

It’s been a surprisingly Social Week. Aside from impromptu happy hour, I also had a planned happy hour with some moms from my mom’s group. The temperatures were in the mid thirties, but at the bar we went to we snagged a table with a firepit so we were able to sit outside without been too uncomfortable. I didn’t realize how much warmth the fire pit threw off until we got up to leave and I was shivering all the way to the car. It was nice to catch up with friends and talk about life, work, and family.

Then Friday I went over to my friend’s house for a lunch walk and date. We went on a walk and met a very friendly cat who rubbed against us for petting and then lept to the top of a chicken coop and basked in the sun.

We found our way to one of those restaurants that are perfectly curated to look imperfect, with exposed brick, crumbling plaster and mismatched china (see above). Also a beautiful mural across the outside wall. The food was amazing, though – my friend and I split friend green tomatoes, a vegan pot pie (soooooo good! huge fluffy biscuit, smoky mushrooms, edamame, potatoes, carrots, oatmilk béchamel.) and also a chocolate terrine. I also had a Virgin Bloody Mary which was spicy and tangy and came with two olives and a cherry pepper. I don’t love going out to eat because I find the food often to be unexceptional, but I would go back to this place.

The definite low point of the week was when the two older kids were home sick. It was the kind of thing where the five year old had a fever the night before but was fine the next morning, and the ten year old threw up about an hour before she was to go to school. On the one hand, they seemed fine by the time it was actually time to go to school, but I thought I’d be cautious and keep them home. I come from a tradition of “perfect attendance” and “always go to school” so this was a bit of a mind shift for me – the thought that a day at home was okay and might actually be a good thing. I told the kids they had to stay in their rooms and rest until lunchtime at least and the ten year old got out the “sick bell”, the bell that we give sick kids so they can summon a parent if they need.

Everyone was up and restless well before noon. There might have been some scootering inside. There might have been some scootering that ran over my foot which resulted in some yelling and me locking myself in my room for twenty minutes. Then I emerged and decided that they were all well enough to go on a walk, so we went for a cold walk to the park, played for fifteen minutes and then came home. There was some tv and some hot chocolate and I felt like a better person for those indulgences. (I did make the kids watch the cartoons in French, though. I feel like I have a lot of feelings about tv and kids that I need to unpack and work through.)

Grateful for This Week:
– A friend who invites us over to bounce on their trampoline, sends me coupon codes for period underwear, and picks up groceries for me when I’m home with sick kids.
– Having good rain gear.
– The Husband cleaning the frost off my car while I sipped my tea inside. The first car frost of the year!
– The Metro so we don’t have to drive downtown.

Weekend plans and aspirations:
– Clean/ pick up/ tidy since the cleaners are coming on Monday. This will inevitably take more time than I want, but I will play music and dance and hopefully involve minimal yelling.
– Two birthday parties for the baby to attend, both outside park parties. We will bundle well.
– Dinner out with friends tonight
– Write Christmas Letter
-Meal Plan.

Looking Forward To:
– Thanksgiving? Maybe? I haven’t planned anything yet. There will be pie. Everything else I’m a little agnostic about. There has been talk about duck, which might be a fun adventure.
– Hallmark Holiday Movies! We subscribe to a hodge-podge of streaming services… mostly ones that that are “free” with something else. We also are currently subscribed to Peacock so the Husband can watch football and basketball these next few months. Anyhow I just learned that the Hallmark Holiday movies will be on Peacock. So excited!
-Parent Teacher Conference for the ten year old. She’s been so much happier at her new school so I’m excited to talk to her new teacher, who I think is fantastic.

Recipe of the Week: I made Chocolate Banana Muffins from Rise and Run by Shalane Flanagan and Elyse Kopecky who wrote Run Fast. Eat Slow. They turned out great – they were tender and not too sweet, and used oat flour and almond meal instead of regular flour, and bananas and honey instead of white sugar, so I can pretend it’s healthy. No link, but I highly recommend their cookbooks.

Something that made me think this week:
I love the website Grown and Flown because it has a lot of parenting articles for older kids. This week, there was this article “Parents Regret Doing or Not Doing these Ten Things.” Anything with the word “regret” is click-bait for me – I’m always fascinated by lessons learned and attempts to do better. On the other hand I do feel like regret in and of itself is a useless emotion because the world is so full of variables and unpredictability that one can never really say for sure if things would have been better one way or the other. At any rate, I thought there was a lot for me to ponder and digest in this article. #2 “Use Your Words Carefully” particularly hit close to home, especially this parent comment:
“Understand how vulnerable to your comments your children are and how much damage you can create while thinking that you’re just helping.”
I think this goes back to my struggle to parent without judgement. It’s not about not having opinions, but really about how those opinions are expressed. And when.

One thing that made me sad: I read last night about the passing of composer Ned Rorem. When I was in college I sang several of his songs and I’ve always loved his music. Here is one of my favorite songs to sing: “Early in the Morning”. The poem is by Robert Hillyer and tells of a young person in Paris, in love, and the song is so simple in the memory it recalls .. because when you are in Paris and in love, life can be very simple. This video features the very talented tenor Nicholas Phan. I’ve never worked with him but I’ve always loved how he sings arts songs. His rendition of this song isn’t buried in regret like some interpretations that I’ve heard.

Nicholas Phan, tenor and Kuang-Hao Huan, piano

What We Ate: I’ve gotten out of the habit of meal planning and then doing one big grocery shop, but even still I thought this was a pretty good week of dinners for having to scrounge from the pantry and fridge.

Saturday: I was at work, but I’m pretty sure people just loaded up on apps from the bowling birthday party they were at.

Sunday: Smashburgers, Shrimp, and Ricotta Toast at Landmade Brewery after our shortened hike.

Monday: Breakfast sandwiches.

Tuesday: Instant Pot White Beans with Spicy Potatoes. I just got Jenny Rosenstarch’s newest cookbook Weekday Vegetarian from the library and am excited to cook from it. The recipe said to top the beans with pesto, but I wanted this to be our vegan meal, so I made a thrifty vegan pesto with garlic, cashews, olive oil, and leftover basil, cilantro, and parsley that was kind of just wilting in the vegetable drawer. I’m always excited when I can salvage sad veggie drawer contents into something tasty.

Wednesday: Pesto pasta with marinated beans, also from Weekday Vegetarian. I had so much pesto leftover from Tuesday that this meal was easy to mix up. The marinated beans are my new favorite thing – two cans of cannellini beans marinated in red wine vinegar, olive oil, dried Italian Herb Mix (the recipe called for fresh, but I didn’t have any), and garlic. Kae wrote a post this week on a meal hack of just eating protein, and that inspired me to eat the leftover marinated beans all week for lunch the rest of the week, and it was such an easy tasty no-brainer way to eat something filling.

Thursday: I had Truffle Fries and Buffalo Cauliflower nuggets at Happy Hour. The Husband made stir fry with some chicken and bok choy that had to be used up, adding some broccoli to the mix. Bok choy is a hard sell with the little kids.

Friday: Pizza (Husband made) and movie – Men In Black, which I don’t think I’d ever seen. I remember seeing the second one – I was working summer stock theatre at an operetta company in Ohio and the set designer used to work at a movie theatre so he worked something out where the entire company went over one evening and watched Men In Black II and I remember thinking it was so decadent to be able to have the entire movie theatre to ourselves. Anyhow… Men in Black, the first one – very funny though the little kids didn’t quite know whether to be scared or not. Also – Will Smith and Tommy Lee Jones of the 90s – how fun are they to watch on screen? I know they both do pretty serious dramas now, but there is such a beautiful effortless ease to their comedies.

Musings on Things in Translation

The five year old, I think I’ve mentioned, is in a French immersion program at school. The teacher does not speak English to the children at all, and all the signage, and lessons, and what not are in French. Their specials are in English, but otherwise it’s full immersion. It’s been really interesting to see what bits of language he comes home with. They have learned numbers and and letters and colours. “Red” is “rouge”, as it should be, but “blue” is … “blue”, the difference between “blue” and “bleu” subtle enough not to register with him, especially when spoken. Interesting too, is when he comes home and asks me what certain phrases mean. Of course, to him, they are not separate words, but just a long string of syllables.

“What is ‘luvaylama’?” he asked me the other day.

“I’m not quite sure,” I say. And I ask him to say it more slowly. After several times, I finally get it: “Levez la main.” Raise your hand. I’m not a linguistic researcher, but I do find it fascinating that our brains must at some point learn to break down strings of syllables into separate components. When the baby was younger, I enrolled her in all sorts of language studies at the University, and one of them centered around when children started to differentiate forms of speech. They would play videos of various nonsense syllables and at some point, apparently, kids, even though they don’t know what a word specifically means, will recognize if something is an action word or a “thing” word.

And then there is the wonder of seeing how the five year old’s brain comes to understand things based on context.

Last week, he asks me, “Does ‘Pas maintenent’ mean ‘I don’t want to answer that question?'”

“Pas maintenant“, literally means “not now“, but in a way, the five year old’s understanding, if not literally correct, probably captured the spirit of the way he heard it. And in his interpretation, I could suddenly see clearly how the teacher might have used that phrase – I could picture her trying to get twenty-five kindergarteners to line up for lunch and one child trying doggedly to ask something, and the teacher telling that child, “Pas maintenant!”

Seeing the little guy grapple with language and puzzle it out in his brain really hits home the idea that language doesn’t operate in a vacuum.

Switching gears – Four Haikus for Thursday:

Chaotic morning
Multitasking results in
Scraping off burnt toast.

The hours are long
from 4pm til lights out,
Interminable.

This sick day, restful.
The invalid now restless
Clearly recovered.

The view was lovely
And briefly seen. Shivering.
Should have worn more clothes.

A view from our verrrry cold hike attempt.

Goals and Aspirations – Fall review and now til 2023

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Watch Holiday Movies – we’ve made a list!

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Weekend report

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Throwback to the Glory Days of the UPS Truck…

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

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

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

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