Tag: anticipation

Weekly Recap + what we ate: Hello November, Good-bye October

It was a gorgeous fall weekend here. The skies blue and bright, the trees decked out in their best autumn colours. Unfortunately I spent most of the weekend indoors working. I had surtitles to prep for an upcoming recital and then we had opening night. And then I spent all of Sunday prepping more titles, and a good chunk of Monday too.

As opening nights go, it was a wowzer doozy of an opening night. I can’t share any of the details because what made it so memorable were some personal stories of those around me. Rest assured, all is well, everyone is healthy, the show went smoothly (except for an incident where two singers couldn’t agree on what to use for the fake whiskey onstage… Yes, these are the things I have to navigate – do you want iced tea? apple juice? coloured water? And EVERYONE HAS TO AGREE because you all have to drink it onstage. They couldn’t agree). Suffice to say, the season opening of our 2026-2027 opera season will go down in memory, but not for what happened onstage.

Afterwards there was a reception with speeches and drinks. I chatted with some folks then decided to go back to the office and do some work. There were artist meals left out for those of us who were performing or working the show, which was nice because I was HUNGRY by the end of the night.

I didn’t get home until after 1am and then slept til 10am Sunday morning. Which is unheard of. I’ve never slept that late before. The house was quiet when I got up, the Husband having taken the 7 year old to Faith Formation. My cousin and her boyfriend were visiting for an overnight. When they got up, we chatted for a little bit then it was off to the usual weekend barrage of lessons an birthday parties.

We are almost halfway through November, but I wanted to write my October recap so here were go….

October Highlights:
-Rehearsing/ tech-ing a new show in a new venue with an old friend. The director of this opera is someone I’ve known for over twenty years. We first worked together in San Diego when I was a baby Assistant Stage Manager and she was a baby Assistant Director. And now she is the Artistic Director of her own opera company and I’m the head of the stage management department of my home opera company. I knew from the first time I worked with her that she was going to do amazing things – she is just such a talented director, but also very practical and hard working. I work in an industry where the attrition rate is pretty high, so I really treasure when I am reunited with colleagues from my early opera years.

-Seeing Come From Away with the Husband.

-Contra dancing with the family.

-Hallowe’en and making the kids’ costumes. I’m really proud of how the costumes turned out.

-bike rides to school with the kids.

-Cool Blogger’s Walking Club (Thanks, Elisabeth for hosting! I still have one recap to do…) and Cool Blogger’s Book Club (Thanks, Engie for hosting! What a quirky book Convenience Store Woman was.)

-Beautiful autumn skies and sruprisingly warm weather.

-Not having to take the kids to piano lessons in the morning during tech week.

-Voting early.

-My cousin J came to visit.

-Did titles for a lovely recital which was a mix of popular songs and American art songs. This singer is singing with us next spring and I’m looking forward to working with him – he just seemed so down to earth and creative.

-checking my annual exam off my to do list.

-A bowl of Mushroom soup from the Thai place when I was feeling a little run down at work.

-A kid who I met when he and the 7 year old were in mommy-baby group together was cast in my show and it was so fun to see his mom/my friend and share a little of what I do with her.

-Soup Party at work. I was reading something today in my latest non-fiction read about how teams benefit from time together that is empty and not task-oriented. I thought the soup party was a great opportunity for that.

-Going to the local indoor pool with friends on a rainy Sunday afternoon. What a lovely gem. They need more family restrooms, though.

-Favorite Dinner Cooked: The Marry Me Chickpea Gnocchi Soup for the Work Soup Party. October was honestly a lot of dinners pulled from the freezer out of our asses.

-Favorite thing watched: Bridgerton Season 4. I didn’t love Season One, so I was on the fence about continuing, but An Offer from a Gentleman (the book season 4 is based on) is my second favorite book of the series (When He was Wicked is my favorite. Honestly, aside from those two books, I find the whole book series kind of meh – entertaining, but not particularly memorable.) I loved Season 4 – I thought Sophie and Benedict were so well cast and the romantic tension between the two of them was pitch perfect.

Goals and Habits:
-Painting: 0. I spent all my creative energy in October sewing Hallowe’en costumes.
-Crossword puzzle completed: 0
-Live Performances: 1 – Come From Away. There was also live music at the contra-dance. Does that count?
-Museums: 1. Ford’s Theatre, where Come From Away was playing is the theatre where Lincoln was shot, so the lower level is a museum all about Lincoln.
-Hike: 0. I’m doing terribly on hiking this year.
-Yoga: 26/31. Saturdays seem to be the hardest days for me to fit in a yoga routine. I think it’s because we have a family meeting at 7:45am, and I like to sleep in a little on Saturdays. I need to make a point to do an evening winddown on Saturday.
-Run: 4x (+4 bike rides )
-Strength: Hah! apparently 0 (My goal is 8x a month, but I’m finding it really hard to motivate myself for this one…i just need to find a consistent way to work it in)
-Vegan Dinners:4 (Goal is 4x a month, so yay!)

Quote of the Month:
“Gravity works 100% of the time.” – David Younts Train Engineer in the book Gig, on having to be careful and think ahead when guiding a train over mountainous terrain.

“Safe. Functional. Complete. Detailed.”
– I’m not sure who said this originally, but on of my Assistants said this as the stages of creating theatre; I think we were specifically taking about props. What they are saying is that, for example, you can’t obsess about the decorations on a prop knife if it is still too sharp for the singer to safely use in rehearsal. Or, a scenic unit needs to be secure and people need to be able to walk on it before you start giving notes about the facing needing to be attached, and even further down the line is the paint treatment. Hopefully by the time we move into the theatre things are at the complete stage, ready for the detailed stage.

October Lowlights:
-working a lot of evenings and not seeing the family much. I rarely saw the 14 year old – she leaves for the bus at 6:35am and is in bed by the time I got home. She’s also in a phase where her favorite place is her bed with her screen, so even when I am home I don’t see her too much out in the wild.

-The 14 year old not getting a part in the Children’s Chorus of the holiday opera I’m working on. She’s been in the children’s chorus two years in a row so she’s really disappointed that she didn’t get cast this year. I think it’s hard because she’s a good kid who does everything right – she goes to school, is generally kind and positive, she goes to her piano and voice lessons, she’s engaging onstage, and directors always have good things to say about her…. it’s hard when you do all the right things but you’re still not chosen. And you see other kids who were, honestly, kind of a pain in the ass to work with on past shows get a part. She is a soprano and I’m sure there were lots of sopranos who auditioned so it was going to be more competitive for her voice type. But still, it’s kind of a bummer.

-My mom crush bus driver got put on a different route. I’m going to miss his sweet smile every morning. (The new driver is very nice an friendly, but he’s just not the same. Also the new guy does not pull three point turns with the bus like the first driver does.)

-I had a lot of anxiety about the show and the new venue all through rehearsal process. Now that I’m on the other side of it, I see that the whole things came together beautifully, but the lead up, the unknown factors of being in a new venue – I spent three weeks doubting myself and that was pretty stressful.

Looking forward to in November:

-Doing titles for a recital (this happened last night and it was … well was memorable – more next week)

-Opening my show (this happened – see above).

-Sleep. I am so mentally and physically exhausted right now.

-reading books – I haven’t had a lot of time to read books yet this month, so want to make time to read more.

-the challenge of National Blog Posting Month. Thanks, San! I missed November 1st, but I’ve been doing okay for the first week. It’s been fun having new visitors here and also exploring new to me blogs to read.

-Running in crisp sunny fall weather. I don’t really like running, but fall is my favorite time to run if I have to run.

-Thanksgiving. Need to figure out where to find a duck and then how to roast it.

-Starting rehearsals for the Holiday opera at work.

-Happy Hour with my bus stop mom friends.

-It’s Hallmark Holiday movie season! There was one just released, part of their Holiday Touchdown series, that is set in Chicago and features the Bears. Think I can make my Bears-loving Husband watch it?

Greateful For – the Tech Week Edition:

-Snacks. The snack situation was intense this tech week. Usually people will bring some candy or chips or something to share during tech week.

And this was towards the end when the snack supply was depleted.

-Rides home at night (I think I mentioned this last week, but it’s still true)

-Lumch boxes so I can pack food to eat while at work.

-The travel cutlery set that I got this summer from my summer gig. It lives in my lunch box and I always have cutlery when I need it. No more hunting for a fork. No more disposable silverware. It is really satisfying to just pull out my own set of cutlery during my meal breaks.

-Chai – the perfect pick me up between the metro and work.

-The Husband, who drove kids around, cooked dinner, put the kids to bed, handled tantrums and logistics while I was working 12 hour days.

-My stage management team. We have a rotating staff of stage managers, and since I do the bulk of the staffing, I generally only hire people I want to work with. Even still, I loved the team I had for this show – everyone was super supportive of each other, we solved problems together, everyone stayed positive and didn’t let their stress influence their work or those around them, and everyone was rock solid and reliable. It’s great having a team that you know has your back. So much of the success of a show from the stage management stand point is having a team that gels. I’m so grateful that we did.

-The Technical director and the Lighting Supervisor and the stage crew for transforming the venue into an opera stage. They worked miracles. Very expensive miracles, but miracles nonetheless.

-Getting to work with a legendary lighting designer. When I was growing up, Chicago Lyric Opera would broadcast their opera on the radio. At the end when they read the credits, the same man would always be named as the lighting designer. I grew up with this guy’s name in my head. I had always thought that he was a wise avuncular man. Welp, thirty years later, I am now working with this lighting designer, and he is indeed a wise avuncular man. Was he a wise, avuncular man thirty years ago? Probably. I don’t know if he’s just ageless or what. I feel so lucky to have gotten to work with him. This is the show where I realized that when a show is called well, it is as much because the show is well designed and well lit, as it is because of my skills as a calling stage manager. You can call poorly lit shows well, but then you have to work a lot harder.

-That the 14 year old is able to navigate public transportation by herself. A couple times recently she took the metro somewhere with a friend. I was a little nervous about letting her do it by herself, especially since her friends aren’t frequent Metro riders. But the 14 year old did great and got everyone where they needed to be. I guess I don’t know why she seems too young to be riding public transportation by herself – in DC all kids middle school and up get free metro cards because that is how they get to school; there are no buses to take them. Often on the Metro you’ll see groups of kids going to and from school. I think riding public transportation is a really good life skill to have.

What We Ate: I’m going to be real honest it was a veritable hodge podge of dinners. For every comment I get that says, “You dinners always sound so good!” there are weeks like this where despite having meal plan we all end up eating whatever we can shove into our mouths. This is what we eat when we are in the thick of evening work and activities. Keeping it real here.

Monday: I think there was some kind of stir fry at home. At work, I missed dinner because someone on my team was out sick and I had to create the evening’s rehearsal running order (known as the trian schedule) on my dinner break -something that is usually done by this other person. I don’t mind doing it – it’s actually fun for me to to think through the evening and how long each section of rehearsal will take. But still – it does take a bit of time. I probably had a handful of kit kats and a mandarin orange for dinner.

Tuesday: I think they had leftover back beans on tortilla chips. I missed dinner because, again, someone on my team was out sick and I spent dinner making the train schedule.

Wednesday: Box dinner for the two younger kids because they had activities- sandwiches, apple slices and peppers. This is actually exactly what I pack them for school lunch. I was at work for a little bit in the evening so I ate food when I got home. Can’t remember what it was. Probably something eaten cold out of the fridge. Did the 14 year old eat? If she did it was probably ramen.

Thursday: The Husband made a curry gravy – I think it’s called pub curry gravy, which he and the two younger kids ate with chicken and broccoli. I was at work and ate a tuna onigiri that I had packed. The 14 year old came to see my dress rehearsal and grabbed McDonald’s on the way to the theatre.

Friday: Pizza and movie night. It was my turn to pick the movie and I chose His Girl Friday because I wanted a classic movie to watch and I love Cary Grant. This was a BIG FAIL with 2 out of 3 kids. One kid fell asleep and one kid started crying about half way through the movie because they thought the movie was so boring and wanted to watch something else. “They talk too fast and don’t move around enough!!!!!” the child bawled. Oooookay. I thought the fast talking was what made the movie fun.

Saturday: Opening night! I was too nervous/ busy to eat dinner, so I didn’t eat dinner. Thankfully the opera provided artist meals for post show. The 14 year old was babysitting – I hope she ate before going over. Not sure what the rest of the family ate. Maybe leftovers? I had a meltdown that morning about how no one eats leftovers yet at the same time people complain that the fridge and freezer are too full. I might have gone a little ballistic.

Sunday: The Husband had bought me injera on Friday when he went to pick up pizza, so I snacked on injera all night. I also reheated the curry gravy from the other night and ate that with potatoes and broccoli. I think the family, in a good faith effort, ate more leftovers.

As you can see, the dinner situation is a little dire right now. BUT…people aren’t going hungry, and everyone is figuring things out. I guess there will be plenty of opportunities to eat vegetables in their lives.

Welp that’s the news from here. It’s ticked past midnight so you’re technically going to get two posts today for NaBloPoMo.

Any other life skills I should make sure to teach my kids? What are your favorite snacks when you’re facing crunch time? What is your feeling on leftovers? What classic film should I torture my kids with next?

Weekly Recap + What we ate: Cool Blogger’s Walking Club, Week 3- Fall Foliage

I thought I’d again combine my post with my Week 3 Cool Blogger’s run down since clearly writing two posts in one week is too much for me right now between work, sleep, and sewing Hallowe’en costumes like a fiend.

First off the Hallowe’en Costume update – the kids are all dressing up as characters from Avatar The Last Airbender. (I always have to specify because otherwise people ask me if I’ve invested in blue body paint.)
Kid #1, going as Katara – Dress is finished, just need to hem it. Still needs a belt, but I have the materials for that.
Kid #2, going as Aang – Purchased yellow shirt and joggers, brown legwarmers. Today I made a capelet out of orange fleece (no sewing, just cutting a circle with a hole in the middle). I still need to sew the blue arrow to the pink hat I bought him.
Kid #3, going as Toph – top is done, just need to hem the collar (this is a bit of dilemma because I lost the pattern for the collar. I might just stick some white bias tape on it and be done.). pants are done, need hemming. Headband made. Belt ordered (if I have time, I’ll add the gold accents). Still need to make a tabard, but I have the material, so should be quick.
All of that seems doable on Hallowe’en morning, since that will be my next day off. And this coming week is tech.

Also – added to the mix was that last week, the 9 year old said to me, “I need a costume for the Fall Festival.” The Fall Festival was maybe ten days away. It’s an event at school where kids dress up and there’s a parade and then a party in the classroom.

“Well good,” I said, “you can go as Aang.”

“No. I need to go as a book character.”

“Oh.”

Because it would be too easy for parents to allow kids to just wear their Hallowe’en costumes to school. To be fair, in all previous grades, the students made their costumes in class. This was the first year my kid had to make one at home.

There was much angst because he didn’t know what book character he wanted to be and he was afraid that none of his favorite book characters were recognizable. And then he said, “I’ll go as Harry Potter.”

And I said, “Honey, you haven’t even read Harry Potter. I don’t think that is the spirit of the exercise. Why don’t you go as Dog Man.”

“Oh that’s good idea.”

So this morning I also helped him make a Dog Man costume. So that’s four costumes I had to make this year.

Anyhow, on to Cool Bloggers’ Walking Club.

Welcome to my week three Cool Blogger’s Walking Club recap. Thanks again to Elisabeth for leading the charge.

Week Three’s theme was Fall Foliage. It actually was a little early to be in peak fall foliage, so this theme was a little bit more of a scavenger hunt than I had thought it would be – a lot of trees were still fully green and leafy here. I think that’s good, though, because the walks became an exercise in noticing.

Thursday 10/15:

10 minute morning yoga

Walked kids to bus then took the long way home. Fall foliage is starting to peek out. (“peek”, not peak – that comes later…)

Friday 10/16:

20 mins yoga in the morning.

The kids were off school since it was a grading day for the teachers. Everyone was antsy by 8am so we went on a 30 minute walk down to the trail.

At work, I biked to take my bike to the bike shop for tune up and then walked back to work.

Saturday 10/17:

10 minute. Yoga in the morning

30 minute run walk along the trail while the 14 year old was at her voice lesson. It was a little grey and chilly, so the fall colours were rather muted, like this res vine:

Sunday 10/18:

20 minute yoga in the morning

10 minute walk during half time of the 9 year old’a flag football game. I walked the track around the field and then a loop of the parking lot where I saw this gorgeous tree.

Monday 10/19:

14 minute yoga.

Walked the long way home after the bus drop off. I was very amused by the pruning of this tree:

Then I took a loop through the park before heading home:

Tuesday 10/20:

15 minute yoga

30 minute walk taking the kids to the bus stop and then choosing the long way home. There was some beautiful yellows:

Wednesday 10/21:
10 minutes of yoga in the morning.

I had to be downtown for a site visit this day. Parking around the venue is not easy and I ended up parking about 10 minutes away. Which was a little annoying, but then I realized that this was a good way to get my CBWC steps in. No foliage picture from this urban stroll because I didn’t pass any foliage in the city.

Then on my dinner break I walked to pick up my bike from the shop and then biked back to work. There was fall colour on my bike, but I haven’t mastered the art of biking and taking photos :).

That’s Week #3! Next week’s theme is Hallowe’en, and I think it will take me to the end of the month since next week is also tech so I don’t know that I’ll post before Sunday. Which is November.

Speaking of November- would it be bonkers for me to participate in National Blog Post Month? I’ve started it a few times, but never manage to pull it off. But this year, I should be done the hardest part of tech by November 1st so I think it might be doable….

Grateful For:
-The other parents at our bus stop. One day last week, the bus was super late, so one mom put my kids in her car to take them to school. The bus actually pulled up as they were leaving, but it was so nice of her to be willing to do that. And then on Wednesday, when I had to be downtown by 10am, I was able to drop the kids with another parent at the bus stop. I mean, I guess the kids are old enough that they could just wait on their own, but it was nice to know there was another parent looking out for them.

-Clear blue skies and crisp autumn air for the last flag football game of the season. Also grateful for the 9 year old’s coach. The team lost every single game this fall, but they were playing against teams that had been together for two or three years, while the 9 year old’s team was new this season. Anyhow, I’m grateful the 9 year old had a chance to try things out – he came away with some nice NFL swag and has decided that he’s going to go back to playing soccer.

-Spare laptop at work. One day, I forgot my laptop at home and when I got to work, I had that sinking feeling. Luckily we had a spare lap top at work, so I didn’t have to go home to get my own lap top.

-Our Technical Director at work who is such a bad ass and is doing some amazing work transforming the venue space into an opera stage. She is responsible for so much planning and coordinating and balancing to make things happen safely and smoothly. What she is leading is a huge undertaking and I’m sure she is fielding demands left and right. So much respect for her. Also so grateful that she is at the helm..

-Dogs who stick their heads out the windows of cars. They look like they are living their best live and it makes me so happy to see. Last week I passed a car with a dog in the back seat, head out the window, tongue out. It just made my day.

-TMI, but I’m grateful I got my period this week because next week is tech and of course I can still do my job while on my period, but it is always easier to not be on my period during the most intense week of a show.

-An afternoon contra dance. We went dancing today and it’s nice that the dance is in the afternoon because we can take the whole family and not worry about the kids staying up way past their bedtimes. I’m also really grateful that everyone was super kind the the kids while they were dancing – the 7 and 9 year olds still don’t quite get how to do a hey for four, but no one got annoyed at them, instead they just gently pushed them along. We were on the fence about going, but I’m grateful that we did go to the dance, and I got to dance with the Husband.

-Also – grateful for a bounty of apples. One of my favorite parts of fall is the abundance and variety of apples.

Looking Forward To:
-Tech. I mean I’m not looking forward to it. I’m looking forward to being on the other side of it. I really am trying to be excited about tech and the show – we are in a new venue in a huge new way and it is, honestly, a little intimidating. I’m trying to not be toxically positive about the situation (“I’m so excited for this challenge!!”) but also trying not to be just toxic and catty, which is sometimes a defensive mechanism.

-Okay, one thing I am looking forward to is our new venue is by the Mall, so I’m looking forward to running on my dinner breaks near some iconic DC architecture.

-Thanksgiving… At our family meeting yesterday, we discussed what folks wanted to eat for Thanksgiving. The 14 year old would like to make the pie this year. And I guess the 9 year old is going to take on the mantle of rainbow Jell-O.

-Kabocha squash. On a whim I asked the Husband to pick me up two kabocha squash from the Farmer’s market. This was one of my grandmother’s favorite foods. Not sure what I’ll do with them yet – my Ama liked to just steam them and eat them plain. I love their sweet nutty flavor – and the texture isn’t as stringy as other winter squash.

-Voting. Early voting started last week in Maryland. Most of it is fairly predictable given where, but still, I like going and I like going early.

-Soup Party! Our annual departmental soup party is this coming week. I was debating between cream of mushroom, hot and sour soup, or chickpea gnocchi soup. I think I’m going with the chickpea gnocchi soup because I can make a double batch and the kids will eat it. I’m not sure if they will go for cream of mushroom or hot and sour soup.

-Gilded Age – Season Four is coming November 1st!! The trailers show some very fun scenery chewing. Can’t wait.

-Fluffy happy reads (or I hope…) to get me through tech week. Just borrowed this on Libby:

What We Ate:
Monday: Gumbo’s Daddy from NY Times Cooking. This is a sort of simpler version of gumbo that I made because we had five lbs of chicken wings to use up. I also added okra to this because I like okra. I did the cooking step in the InstantPot so I could make it the night before, after I got home from work. Next time I would add the okra later because it kind of melted into the soup. Tasty. We ate it with rice and I had it for dinner later the week and froze two containers of it for leftovers. I was at work and had the leftover quinoa salad from the week before.

Taco Tuesday: We pulled some smoked pork out of the freezer and the Husband ate that with the kids as nachos. I had the leftover quinoa salad from the week before.

Wednesday: Sweet potato and black bean soup from the freezer. “From the freezer” is a theme of our dinners this month. Still more quinoa salad for me.

Thursday: The kids had mac and cheese out of a box – the 14 year old cooked because the Husband was out with a friend and I was at work. I had some leftover take-out Thai for dinner.

Friday: The family had take out pizza and watched K-Pop Demon Hunters for Family movie night. I had the faux gumbo from Monday night for dinner.

Saturday: The family went out for dumplings and noodles. I had their leftovers when I got home.

Sunday: We’re trying a new thing for Sunday dinners. We used to have pasta and red sauce on Sundays because it was fast and easy. Well, now we’re going to try “fend for yourself” – aka Leftovers or cereal. The leftover situation in the fridge and freezer was getting out of hand. And also, I don’t want to have to cook on Sundays. Maybe it’s just this slew of Sundays when I’ve already worked all Saturday…? Anyhow – the 7 and 9 year old made themselves eggs. I think they each ate five eggs a piece. They’re obsessed with frying eggs and eating them. They’ve practically made it a competitive sport, seeing who can make the prettiest, unblemished egg with a fully in tact yolk.

That’s the week. I’m girding my loins for this upcoming week of tech, and reminding myself of the important things – sleep, food, and kindness. I have to remember to pack good snacks and healthy meals (thank goodness for the freezer full of soup), go to sleep at a decent hour, and hug the family when I can. I do think tech week is harder for the Husband because he has to essentially single parent while doing his paying job and I mostly just concentrate on my job and come home late at night.

I hope you have a wonderful week!

Are there any Hallowe’en costumes in your future? Any bad-asses at work? In a good way :).

Weekly recap + what we ate: a week of outfits!

The weather has been so bonkers lately! One day it is 80 degrees and then the next it is 55 degrees and spitting rain. It was a busy week last week. Often when I have a busy week, I do a “Week of Outfits” post because it’s something I can do a little at a time. Of course, I really should have saved “Week of Outfits” for next week when I’m in tech, but I think the first week of rehearsal is more interesting sartorially.

Monday – First Day of Rehearsal!

I like to get a little bit dressed up for the first day of rehearsal. I went with an all red theme because red is one of my favorite colours and I feel good in red. (Afterwards the executive director of the company said that red was the official company colour…) The hat was purchased this summer from the hat shop in Niagara-on-the-Lake. The red sweater is from Uniqlo. The Dress is from Wool& and the shoes are Geisswein.

Tuesday – Forgot to take a picture til 11pm after I got home from work:

Theme of the day was Orange! It was also 80 degrees this day. Hat another NOTL purchase. The button down used to belong to the Husband, but it no longer fits him so it’s mine now. Duluth tank (with built in bra). Cotton gauze pants from Old Navy (a last minute purchase two summers ago, grabbed as I headed to check out. They are one of my favorite summer pants). Black Allbirds – my father saw them on sale at REI, purchased them for the oldest kid, but they aren’t her thing, so they are now mine.

Wednesday:

Same hat and shoes as Monday. The dress is from a Japanese brand, a hand me down from my cousin. You’ve probably seen it on past “what I wore” recaps because I love this dress; it is so easy to wear because it is stretchy cotton, and also has interesting details so it feels like an effortless way to look like I tried.

Thursday:

Yet another hat from NOTL (I bought four!). Wool& dress with floral Uniqlo top worn over it. (I’m sure I’ve worn this a lot too.) Shoes are also Geisswein. I need to replace my Geisswein shoes; they are two years old and the treads are all worn out on this pair and the red pair. But it’s nearly winter, so I think I might wait until spring.

Friday:

No hat this day because I took my bike in for maintenance so I had to wear my helmet. I actually came to work in shorts and a t-shirt, rode the bike to the shop then came back to work and changed into this outfit. The top is Uniqlo, the skirt is from JC Penny, off the discount rack.

Saturday: My day off. I have no picture from this day – I put on my running clothes in the morning to go for a run while the oldest was at her voice lesson and then just never changed out of them.

Sunday: Flag football and rehearsals.

Photo taken by the 14 year old…

It was cool but sunny this day, which was a relief after having terrible weather so far for flag football season. After flag football, I went to work and was there til 10:30pm. The red knit cap is from (you guess it) that shop in Niagara on the Lake. I wore my fox overalls. I like to wear my fox overalls when work on the weekends. It’s a bit of dopamine dressing for having to be at work. The quarter zip is another hand me down that the Husband out grew. I think it’s from Joseph A. Banks.

That’s a week of outfits!

What other “Week of…” posts can I do…?

Grateful For:
-Boone. My friend L’s dog passed away last week. I only met him once and he was such a sweet presence. I’m so glad L shared Boone with all of us.

-A smooth first day of rehearsal. Shhh … here’s a secret… I don’t actually like being the stage manager. It really stresses me out to be in charge. I much rather be the assistant stage manager. The first day of rehearsal stresses me out because there are so many new elements descending on me at once. But last week’s first day was very smooth and mostly routine and I felt like I knew what I was doing.

-on that note – I’m grateful for people of a higher pay grade than me to whom I can kick problems up the chain.

-My bed. I’m so grateful for my bed and being able to slide in between the sheets after a long day at work.

-Sally’s sewing machine. I am sewing Hallowe’en costumes on a sewing machine that was gifted to me by my late mother in law. It is a Spartan Singer sewing machine from the 1950s and only does straight stiches, and I’m so grateful to have it.

-Sewing tutorials on the internet. I don’t have a serger, but the patterns I’m looking at has all these serging instructions. The internet suggested I do a French seam instead. I’m so glad that there are a plethora of videos online that will tell me how to do that.

-Clear blue skies after days of rain.

Looking Forward to:
-contra Dancing! Next Sunday, one of the Husband’s favorite callers is calling an afternoon contra dance and it’s on our calendar to go. Sometimes we loose steam and don’t end up going, but I’m putting this into the world and saying that we are going.

-Seeing a friend from my mom’s group. Her kid got cast in my show, which means that she’ll be bringing him to rehearsals. I’m excited because her kid is pretty awesome and is so excited to be in the show.

-The Hallowe’en costumes are coming together…. I can’t wait until they are finished! Both because I’m excited for how they turn out and also because I’ll be glad to be finished.

-Listening to more of this book:

I was really into this mystery(ish) series years ago, around when the oldest was born. It’s about an ex-Army helicopter pilot turned Episcopal Priest and a Police Chief of a small town in upstate New York who team up to solve crimes. (I call it mystery-ish because it’s not typical clues and red herrings, but then it’s also not twisty enough to be considered a thriller.) A few years back, the the author had a lull and the series fell off my radar. I just discovered that in the past few years she has published more books in this series, so I’m excited to catch up. I started listening to this one and realized that I did actually read it when it first came out, but it will be a nice way back into the series.

What We Ate:
Monday: Mexican rice. The Husband cooked. We had a lot of rice leftover from take-out Chinese the night before so we are trying to think of ways to use it up. I went to tap class after work so I got home late and had snack dinner.

Tuesday: Chili black beans and corn burritos. The black beans and corn were from the freezer. I had leftovers for dinner at work.

Wednesday: Broccoli Quinoa Salad – a variation of this recipe from the NY Times cooking. I added mango and red peppers and didn’t add cheese or pecans. The cheese really does elevate the salad, but I was aiming for a plant based meal. Though the dressing does have honey. So…. vegan-ish. This was a great way to eat lots of vegetables.
I had leftovers at work again.

Thursday: Any ground meat Bolognese. This is the meat sauce I made two weeks ago, pulled from the freezer. The Husband was going out so all the 14 year old had to do was warm the sauce and make pastas.
I had the Broccoli Quinoa Salad at work for dinner, adding a few handfuls of arugula to it.

Friday: Pizza (the Husband made) and the kids watched Asterix and the Secret of the Magic Potion. The 9 year old is really into Asterix – which is nice because it’s one of the things I can get in French that was originally written in French as opposed to other books her reads that are French translations of English books. They did watch the movies in English, though.

Saturday: Waffles and green beans. We made both Savory cornmeal waffles from the King Arthur’s Baking Cookbook as well as the Cinnamon Sugar Waffles that I had read about on Nicole’s Blog. Be warned! The Cinnamon Sugar Waffles says that it makes 5 waffles so I doubled the recipe. This recipe makes a butt ton of waffles. We had so many waffles left over. I guess breakfast for the week is taken care of.

These are the leftovers.

Sunday: I was at work and ordered out a tempeh panini because a friend was meeting me on my lunch break. At home the family went to play D&D at a friend’s house and they ordered pizza.

Well that’s the week here.

Tell me what’s your favorite accessory? Have you ever used a serger? They kind of scare me.

Weekly Recap + What We Ate: Good-bye August, Hello September!

Well school has started. We have a new morning bus stop this year that is walking distance from home. It’s actually where the afternoon bus dropped off last year, but for some reason last year there was no morning stop. Well they’ve added one. It’s been picking the kids up at 9:20am every day, which is slightly problematic because school starts at 9:25am. The kids are upset because they don’t get to have breakfast at school. My thought is boo hoo. They get breakfast at home. (Breaking news! The bus will now come at 9:04am! It has opened up my morning in amazing new ways!)

This weekend is Labor Day, and we are off to the Renaissance Festival. Labor Day is late this year, so it doesn’t quite feel like we are almost a week into September. But September it is. So how was August?

August Highlights:
-Tech-ing a show and the one single performance. My friend coming to see the show and riding home with him afterwards.
-Our Indiana/Sarnia/Niagara-on-the-Lake/ Corning Museum of Glass/ Harrisburg, PA road trip.
-Swimming laps at the pool. Not having to rush to get to swim practice, but rather going on our own schedule.
-Submitting passport applications for the two younger kids.
-Read some really good books. (Reading recap coming soon!)
-Peaches! I have some canned for January.
-Lunch and walk with a good friend A.
-Dinner and walk with good friend K and The Husband.
-Slipping in one last Happy Hour with my bus stop mom friends before school started.
-Purged the kids’ clothes and made sure they had clothes for the cooler weather.
-Decluttered our linen/medicine cabinet in the bathroom – things like bandaids, tampons and pads, COVID tests. We had so many masks from COVID times – like two drawers full. I’m torn on what to do with all the masks that I had sewn. On the one hand, I don’t think we’ll need them again, but on the other hand, they are an interesting memento of the times. Maybe I’ll keep one or two.
-Two small fresh figs from the fig tree on our back patio, harvested and eaten before the birds got to them.
-A day at the Maryland shore visiting my friend with good company, a relaxing pool, tasty food, and sheep.
-First Day of School! This year the kids are in 9th, 4th, and 1st grades.
-On that note – we have a high-schooler! My heart is bursts with pride watching her navigate life at high school.
-Favorite Dinner Cooked: Well all the dinners I cooked last week were given heart designations in my log. See Below. Also Crispy Tofu Tacos from NY Times cooking was a big hit.
-Favorite Things Watched: I think my favorite thing we watched was Derry Girls. We have one episode left and I’m so afraid to watch it and then have no more to look forward to. I also thought the Sheep Detectives was very entertaining.

Goals And Habits:
Painting: 2 (goal is 1/ week, so I’m falling behind.)
Crossword Puzzle: 1 (also wanted to do one per week. I didn’t bring puzzles with me on the trip, so there was some missed opportunities.)
Live Performance: Saw Wind in the Willows at the Shaw Festival.
Museums: 2 – Corning Museum of Glass and Niagara Power Station
Hike: 1 – Niagara Glen
Yoga: I logged 23/31 days. I might have done more days than that – I wasn’t great at habit tracking last month.
Run: 2 runs/ 5 swims.
Strength: 3x, all while on vacation because we stayed in places with nice fitness set ups. (Goal is 8/ month… wump wump)
Vegan Meals: 2 (goal is 4/ month or 1/week. We didn’t eat a lot of vegan dinners when we were on vacation.)

Clearly being on vacation is good for filling out some goals.

Quote(s) of the Month:
“There’s meaning in making something other people enjoy, something they look forward to, and talk about, and write their own stories about.”
-Star Shipped by Cat Sebastian.
Sometimes I question my career choice, and this quote reminded me that there is value in bringing joy to people and letting them feel emotions.

from This interview with Ina Garten in the New York Times:
 “I just love having a good time, and I don’t see any reason why I shouldn’t, so I always go toward that. I go toward people that are happy. I go toward people and projects that will be satisfying. Fun isn’t always like going down a water slide. Fun is building something with people that you care about. “
Earlier in the interview she talks about how “fun” for her is about having a process or task that engages her. I think this is so important – fun isn’t always joy, but it should be engaging.

“I never get tired of cookies!”
=The 6 year old. Yup. I totally agree.

August Lowlights
-Feeling behind at work. The nature of my contract is that I’m not full time during the summer. I sit in on meetings, but I feel like I’m not getting the full picture of what is going on because I’m not as active as I am when I’m on full time. It gives me a bit of anxiety to think about playing catch up in two weeks.

-Some really bad behavior on vacation that I’m not going to blog about, but it was really tough.

-Our fridge might have died. I’m not quite sure. It stopped working for three days and we ordered a new one, but then our old one is up and running again. Not sure if we should cancel the order of the new fridge or not?

-I feel as if between the vacation and activity sign ups and the fridge and random repairs we’ve been hemorrhaging money this past month.

-The time I forgot my kid’s voice lesson. I hate making stupid mistakes.

Looking Forward to in September:

-The youngest will turn 7! (I had a realization last week that we are 13 months from never needing a babysitter ever again since in Maryland kids can stay home by themselves when they are 8.)

-The Husband and I are going to a performance of Leonard Bernstein’s Mass this weekend. I love this piece – I’ve worked on it, but never seen it. It’s not produced a whole lot becuse it takes a lot of people to put on. This production is kind of being done as a response to all the shit that’s going down at the Kennedy Center since MASS is the piece that opened the KC.

-Family Visit. My cousins are coming to visit, then my parents.

=Renaissance Festival! Going this weekend. fingers crossed that it doesn’t rain!

=Declutter projects. Maybe I should just set one goal for this? Okay – I think the freezer situation is dire and I would like to get a handle on the bins of yarn in my bedroom. That’s two goals. Manageable.

=Starting Hallowe’en costumes. The children have chosen! I need to figure out if I can make them or if I’m just going to buy them.

-Tap Dance classes. I signed up for a 7 week Intro to tap dance class. Here’s trying new things!

-Easing back into work. No shows to rehearse this month, but I have a supertitle gig to prep for and I have to prep for stage managers starting in early October.

Grateful for:
-Loaner fridge. When our fridge stopped working, we went to the local appliance place to buy a new fridge and they gave us a loaner mini fridge to take home. How cool is that? We have a fridge in the basement that we put everything in, but it’s a pain to constantly be going up and down the stairs. The loaner fridge is just big enough for milk and a carton of strawberries, but it’s enough.

-Trail to school. I’m hoping to bike with the 6 and 9 year old to school a few times this fall and I’m glad there is a bike trail most of the way there.

-Passport confirmations and patient post office managers. When we were waiting for our passport appointment, a man came into the post office in a bit of a frenetic state, cellphone stuck to his ear. He was on the phone on hold with the Passport people. Turns out, he had submitted an application a while ago with his girlfriend and his girlfriend got confirmation of materials received and got her passport, but he has heard nary a peep. He’s travelling in a month and, understandably he is in a state of worry and frustration. The conversation was seriously second hand stressing me out. The part of his conversation that really stuck with me was this exchange:
Post office Lady: Did you apply for a new passport or a renewal?
Stressed Out Guy: I applied for a new one.
POL: Is this your first passport?
SOG: I had one like twenty years ago. But then I had my daughter and… you know what, that doesn’t matter. But yeah, I had a passport before, but it’s been twenty years.
Something about the link between having a kid and his passport expiring really got to my heart.
The lady at the Post Office managed to talk him out of his tree and said she would try to find a paper trail on her end for his materials. He left, not rally mollified, but at least he seemed calmer.
It is such a leap of faith, the postal system, right? You put your things in an envelope and hope it gets where it’s going.
Anyhow, grateful that I got an email confirmation this week about the kids’ passport info and that the Post Office Lady calmly helped the frustrated man.

-That the pool is still open. Our pool is open Memorial day to Labor Day, and Labor day is late this year, so we’ve been able to go to the pool in the evenings. I’ve been embracing the 45 minute pool visit – we go after dinner, have enough time for me to swim laps for 20-25 minutes while the kids play. The pool is usually not crowded in the evenings and there is something so blissful about swimming under the pink sunset sky.

-That everyone had an uneventful first day of school. The bus came. The kids got on. The bus returned the kids to us at the end of the day. Hooray.

-Also this is super cool – the 14 year old is taking American Sign Language as her foreign language requirement for high school. Her teacher is Deaf and it’s fascinating to how he manages the classroom. I’m so grateful that the 14 year old has this opportunity.

-That my friend A, who’s husband had been posted to the Middle East for three years came home and we can have long walks and conversations. She’s been home since the Spring, but because they were sent home early, they’ve been living all over the area. Now they are back in their own home a few miles down the road. I’m glad they are safe.

-The 9 year old’s imagination. Yes, he asks for screen time constantly, but when I say not right now, he will go and play. He still gets dressed up and acts out scenarios (usually something to do with alien invaders), or constructs lego planes that he swoops through the house. The other day he said to me, “I’m grateful for my imagination.” Same, little guy. Same.

What We Ate: I was home most of last week to cook and we had some five star dinners.
Monday: Chickpea noodle soup from NY Times Cooking. Vegan. I was not sure how this was going to go over because it has a heavy hand of tumeric and nutritional yeast in it, but it went over like gangbusters.

Tuesday: Fish Tacos from NY Times cooking. This was SO easy to make. We’re trying to have more fish in our lives. We had our tacos with cabbage, pickled red onions, avocado, and chipotle sour cream.

Wednesday: Eggplant pork stirfy with noodles. The Husband cooked. Another 10/10. Not sure where the recipe came from, but it was delicious.

Thursday: Ginger catfish (Trey Cha K’nyei). This is a Cambodian-ish recipe that is so flavorful. There is a huge amount of julinned ginger in the recipe. The ginger gets cooked first in oil and gives the dish a crispy spicy bite. The recipe comes together really quickly; the hardest part is julienning all the ginger, but I used a mandolin and that made pretty quick work of it.

Friday: Pizza (The Husband made) and Karate Kid. Can you believe I’ve never seen Karate Kid? It’s really a great family movie and I enjoyed it. Also a young Elizabeth Shue – so luminous! Also – did you know there’s a show on Netflix called Cobra Kai, which takes place 30 years after the fact and revives the old Daniel vs. Johnny rivalry. We watched the first two episodes and it didn’t quite get off the ground, but Reddit tells me the show really finds its footing in season two.

Saturday: Dumplings and green beans at home. Dumplings from the freezer from our favorite dumpling house. This was our last bag so we need to get more…

Sunday: Tortellini with red sauce. Cut up veggies and fruit on the side. Our standard Sunday Supper.

That’s it from over here! Happy Labor Day Weekend for those that celebrate. And plain happy weekend for those having just another weekend!

Have you seen any of the Karate Kid movies? thoughts on cookies? How old were you when you started staying home alone? What has you excited about September?

Weekly recap + what we ate: Mundane things – small kitchen appliances in my life

So the other day at lunch, my co-worker made a comment about how I was eating my meatballs cold.

“I could never eat meatballs cold,” he said to me.

“Well, we don’t have a microwave, so I eat a lot of food cold,” I said.

“YOU DON’T HAVE A MICROWAVE???? WHY DON’T YOU HAVE A MICROWAVE???””

Maybe it’s just here in America, but I get that reaction a lot when I mention that we don’t have a microwave. But the truth of the matter is that the microwave did not convey with our current house and our previous microwave was a built in so we couldn’t bring it with us. And when we got to our new house, once we put the appliances out on the counter, there was no room for a microwave.

What is taking up an entire counter, you ask? Well, I thought maybe it was time for one of those posts about the mundane things in my life – namely small kitchen appliances. So here are the small kitchen appliaancea taking up space where we could have a microwave:

We call this “appliance row” at our house.

From Right to Left:

Vita Mix Blender – This was a present from my father who found it at Costco and decided we needed it. I scoffed at first – who needs a fancy blender??? The answer is I do. I need a fancy blender. Okay, I don’t need a fancy blender, but I do love it. We use it maybe once or twice a week, more often in the summer because we make a lot of smoothies. I use it to make Brazilian cheesy bread. I use to to blend the eggs when I make pancakes. I use it to make sauces. It’s one of those things where it would be a pain to haul out every time I needed it, so it just lives on the counter.

Kitchen Aid Stand mixer – I bought this as a present for the Husband for Christmas one year. But really, it was a present for me um… the family. It is a refurbished one so was less expensive than it could have been. This is also one of those things I didn’t think I wanted until we got one and wow – we can make cookies even if we forget to take the butter out of the fridge to soften.

InstantPot – another one of those things that I didn’t think I wanted until the Husband got me one for Christmas. Okay, here’s what I think of the InstantPot – the food does not taste better than with other methods, and it tends to produce mushy results if you don’t time things right. BUT… I love that it has a timer function so I can prep things in the morning and have the IP start cooking it in time for people to come home. I love that I set it and walk away. I love that I can use it to cook food from frozen for when I forget to defrost meat (see: no microwave above). I love that I can cook pasta, meatballs, and noodles all at the same time. So I love it for convienience over quality of food. All that aside, however, what I use it for the most is to make boiled eggs, 12 at a time. Two minutes on low pressure with quick release and I get a lovely jammy egg.

Rice cooker: This is actually my mother’s and only a recent addition to my counter. I have gotten so much slack in the past from other Taiwanese people when they learn I don’t have a rice cooker. They look at me with a mixure of horror and pity. I had always used my IP to cook rice if it was brown and stove top if it was white rice. But one day, I was making something in the morning in the IP and wanted to have rice to go with it, so I used the rice cooker and it was magical – fluffy rice with minimal effort and checking from me. (Side note – when I was a child, one of my jobs was to make the rice. My mother would call when she was on her way home from work and I would put the rice and water into the rice cooker and flick the button.) When my mom wants her rice cooker back, I’ll give it back… I’m on the fence as to whether or not to get my own, though. Part of me realizes that I’ve gotten along just fine without one but another part of me recognizes the ease with which it makes rice.

Toaster Oven: In the great Toaster Oven vs. Toaster debate, I am Team Toaster Oven. This might be our most used appliance. We use it for, obviously, toast, and also to reheat things and to roast small quantities of things.

Coffee maker: Mocca Master – some kind of fancy Dutch drip coffee maker purchased by my coffee snob Husband. Apparently it regulates how the water is dripped in for optimal taste. I don’t dink coffee, so I couldn’t say.

Coffee grinder: Another meticulously researched purchase for the Husband’s coffee habit.

Waffle maker: We should use this more than we do for the amount of real estate it takes up on our counter, but it’s so hard to store somewhere else.

Edited to add: The ktichen scale! How could I forget the kitchen scale. I prefer baking by weights and the Husband weighs his coffee beans in the morning.

Small kitchen appliances that are not on appliance row:

Electric can opener – This is a vintage item that came to us after my in-laws passed away. An avocado green relic of another era, the can opener has earned its place on our counter through nostalgia and functionality.

Hot water boiler: Maybe my favorite of all our small kitchen appliances. Hot water instantly, at the temperature I set. We don’t just use it for tea, we also use it to fill pots with hot water so that they boil faster when we are making pasta or steaming vegetables, or really anything that requires boiling a pot of water on the stove. The kids use this to make ramen, which is nice way for them to independently feed themselves. It’s probably my favorite purchase of the year so far.

Soda Stream – Is this an appliance if it doesn’t require electricity? My brother bought this for us a few years ago when he came to visit. He drinks a lot of fizzy water and didn’t want us to keep buying it for him, so he bought us this. It gets more use in summer than in winter tbh. I like that I can make the water as fizzy as I like. Lately, though, I’ve been buying canned seltzer because I enjoy the different flavors.

Crock pot – Again this is my mother’s. We used to have one and then I lent it to an intern and never got it back and I felt bad asking for it back because they make so little money. So we use my mother’s when we need it. Which isn’t very often, maybe once every two or three months or so. I prefer my IP to my Crockpot because the IP has a timer function and the crock pot doesn’t. Also I’ve always felt like the taste of food I make in the crockpot tastes somehow chemically. I think I’m in the minority on this, though. (No picture of it because, to be honest, I can’t remember where it is.)

Immersion blender (middle left shelf): This was a hand me down from my Sister In Law, when the oldest was a baby, which I guess makes this appliance almost 15 years old. She had given me the immersion blender because I was in my baby food making phase. I used this to puree a lot of food for my kids when they were babies. In addition to the blender stick, it also has a whisk, which is very useful for making whipped cream. I prefer the immersion blender to the Vitamix when making pureed soups – less chance for hot soup splash accidents.

Food Processor (bottom shelf, right hand side): This is another vintage machine. I’m not even sure of it’s origins, only that I “borrowed” it from my mother when I moved out of the house in my twenties. It has barely a 2 cup capacity, which makes it perfect for making sauces and such. I also love it for shredding parmesan cheese. From time to time I think I should upgrade and get a bigger capacity food processor, but this one is probably thirty years old and still going strong, so I don’t see the point in replacing it.

Hand mixer (you can’t see it, but it’s behind the cheese grater): This was a wedding present from my former boss. I had said something about having bought a hand mixer and it was very heavy. She got me this one with the note, “I hope this is lighter than the other one.” Since we got the stand mixer, I don’t use this hand mixer that often, but I don’t want to get rid of it.

Small Coffee grinder (next to the food processor) – This was our old coffee bean grinder before we upgraded to the above. I use it to grind spices. It smells like cloves.

Grateful for this week:
-Getting to spend time with friends. My current rehearsal schedule and commute makes it hard to do anything outside of work/ morning prep/ swim team stuff- all my free days are mid week. But I didn’t have to be in to work until 6pm last Sunday, so I was able to go over with the family to a friend’s house for a little bit and it was really nice to hang out and be social.

-The French bookstore near us. I wanted to get the kids something to read in French so that they didn’t completely slide on their French skills this summer (they are in a French immersion program at school). I had heard about this bookstore – Bonjour Books – but never visited and this was the perfect opportunity. The store was an absolute gem – a solid well-curated selection of books in French (for grown ups and kids), a used book section, and best of all, a charming and helpful owner who spoke French to my kids and encouraged them to find something that interested them. I spent a lot of money here, but I have no regrets and will come and spend more. Also really grateful for the other customer at check out who gently prompted the 9 year old in French to ask for Tin Tin books.

-Living near a trail so that it’s possible to squeeze in a run in the 45 minutes between getting home from work and having to leave the house for something else. After sitting in the car for the 40 minutes it took to get home, I really needed to move a little before getting in the car again. So grateful that living near a trail (with lots of shade!) made it easy to slip on my running clothes and go for a run.

-Three cooler swim meets. Swim meets in the summer heat can be brutal, and I’m glad the three meets lasts week featured cloudy skies. (I’m looking in my list of gratitudes in my journal and I literally wrote “cloudy meet” three times in six day.

-That my big boss brought in donuts for the first day of rehearsal. I love donuts.

-That summer swim team season doesn’t last forever. As much as I love the kids participating in summer swim team, it is a lot of work and logistics and I’m glad it’s almost over and that it doesn’t go all summer. We have one more meet and the awards night left – I was going over the rest of the schedule with the Husband and he said, “You mean we’ve almost made it through swim season this year?”

-That it’s peach season. Is there anything more delicious than a ripe summer peach?

-Period products in the bathroom at work. Am I the only one who goes to the bathroom to change my pad and then forgets to bring the pad? I’m grateful our work keeps a stock of period products out in the open.

Looking forward to:

-The 14 year old volunteered to sing the national anthem at the next swim meet. I’m really proud of her for stepping up and asking for the opportunity and I’m looking forward to hearing her sing.

-Going to the theatre with the Husband. One of my favorite local theatre troupes has a show this month and I want to get tickets – their shows are always such a blend of whimsy and emotionally resonance. I’m writing this wish here so that it will be true.

-Happy Hour with my school bus mom friends next week.

-Listening to more of this audiobook – it might be a bit of a heavy listen for my commute, but after seeing the Enola Gay at the Air and Space Museum, I find myself wanting to learn more about Nagasaki and Hiroshima:

The Devil Reached for the Sky: An oral history of the making and unleashing of the atomic bomb, by Garrett M. Graff

What we ate:

Monday: Sandwiches from the Italian Deli near the Husband’s work – Pool Dinner. We had gotten back from our trip the night before and no one had time to go to the grocery store yet.

Tuesday: Dumplings, edamame, and sour cream and onion chips – eaten at the pool

Wednesday: Sesame noodles and watermelon. Pool dinner. My Go To recipe for sesame noodles from the New York Times Cooking site.

Thursday: Dan Dan Noodles with eggplant from New York Times cooking. This was very tasty. At first I was worried about having two noodle dishes in a row but you know what? We love noodles, and could eat them every day.

Friday: Snack dinner – charcuterie, cheese, crackers, fruit. Another of those hastily put together dinners for the pool. After swim practice, we went to a friend’s house to make s’mores on the fire pit where one of the kids introduced me to the amazing ness of a layer of peanut butter on the graham cracker before adding the marshmallow off the stick. Mind blown. It was delicious. I don’t always care for Hershey’s chocolate so I’m glad I found an alternative for my S’mores.

Saturday: Pizza (take-out) and family World Cup watching. I was at work, so I had leftovers for dinner.

Sunday: We had dinner at our friend’s house. They grilled chicken kabob. I had to leave for work before dinner was ready, so I basically snacked all afternoon. Before I left I did grab a pita and smear it with whipped feta. It was delicious.

Welp, another weekend is upon us. I have to work both days. The Husband’s cousin is coming for a visit, and there are Swim Team Divisionals on Sunday. Oh and there’s a little soccer game being played on Sunday too. The air was not great today – swim practice was cancelled. Fingers crossed that the air will be better by Sunday for Divisionals. I feel really awful for people who are in the thick of fire and smoke. There was a thick haze over everything as I drove too and from work and we got the masks out from COVID times for when we had to be outside going to and from the car. So interesting how easily the kids just put them on. I hope everyone is staying safe, however possible.

Tell me about your favorite small kitchen appliance!

Weekly recap + what we ate: Good-bye June; Hello July!

We’re back from our holiday weekend of Taiwan camp (the kids) and reading retreat (the Husband and me). Last week was a short week of work for me, which was nice since my mother, brother, and niece were in town. My brother was only staying long enough to drop off my niece who would be going to Taiwan camp with my kids and my mother later in the week, but before he left, we did manage a trip to the Udvar-Hazy Air and Space Museum out by Dulles Airport.

The Udvar-Hazy Center is probably the more impressive museum here in DC, featuring two large hanger with over 200 air and space crafts. Some really famous aircrafts are there, like the Enola Gay (the plane that dropped the first atomic bomb over Hiroshima), the Concorde, and the space shuttle Discovery. There is also an observation tower where you can see the planes land and take off from Dulles Airport. When we went up, there was a docent in front of a flight tracker screen and he told us all about how you can track information about commercial flights – their paths, their altitudes, etc. He was using an app called FlightRadar24 and it was really neat to see and think about all those planes taking all those people to all those cities.

It’s always fun to visit the Udvar-Hazy Center – also pretty cool that it’s a Smithsonian Museum so admission is free, though parking is $15. But you know what’s not fun? Getting home from there. The Udvar-Hazy Center is actually close to my summer job, and if you’ve been around here, I’m sure you’ve heard me complain about the commute. Well it took us almost 90 minutes to get home from visiting the aircrafts. So much ugh.

The rest of the end of June/ beginning of July was taking the kids to Taiwan Camp – twice! My mother, niece, and the 6 and 9 year old went up on Wednesday for the first day of camp, and the 14 year old went on Thursday because she was doing basketball camp that week too. After dropping the 14 year old, the Husband and I went on our reading retreat, which I’ll recap in another post, but here’s a preview:

One of the four bookstores we visited over two days.

We didn’t do much for the 4th of July since we were hunkered and reading and it was so very very hot and then there was that huge storm. Sunday we picked everyone up from Taiwan camp. After a stop for ice cream – actually two stops because the first place I wanted to go was closed because they had lost power, a sad fate for an ice cream shop – we took my mom and my niece to the airport – they were flying back to California that night. My nuclear family headed home where we unpacked, had dinner, played a round of MarioKart and then sent the kids to bed. The Husband and I watched the Mexico v. England soccer game. What a wild ride of a game that was!

I ended up staying up way past the end of the game because it turns out my mom and niece’s 7pm flight was delayed due to the weather – we’d been having super rainy thunderstorms. I thought I might have to go pick them up if their flight got cancelled, but it wasn’t officially cancelled until 12:30am. They got re-booked on a flight this morning at 6am so decided to stay at the airport. What a travel ordeal. What was originally a direct flight from BWI to SFO was, the next day, a flight from BWI to Chicago to San Diego to San Francisco. And after that they still had to get home to Berkeley. Props to my mom for dealing with all that. I hope neither my mom or my niece are terribly scarred by all that. Some times you just get really unlucky travel days.

And now I’m home and ready to jump into another show. But before I get too deep into the month, shall we look at how June 2o26 was?

June Highlights:
-Going to a weekday matinee of The Devil Wears Prada 2 with my friend.

-Piano recitals for the 9 and 14 year old. Voice recital for the 14 year old.

-Summer produce from the Farmer’s market.

-The 14 year old’s promotion ceremony – she is finished with middle school! High school here we come.

-Dentist appointments for me and the kids. To do checked off. (Did I mention my dentist has an office beagle???):

-So much pool time – swim meets, swim practices, swimming laps, cooling off in the waters.

-The last day of school for the other two kids. Yay we survived our first school year without day care payments. Not that life gets any less expensive. It’s just the money goes different places.

-My first foray to Royal Farms for their fried chicken.

-The first show at my summer gig – tech/ opened/ closed. Getting to work with a new to me Technical Director who was so good at her job and really cared about the singers not just being safe on stage, but also feeling safe on stage.

Our set – I think this is one of the prettiest sets I’ve ever worked on.

-Going to see Shakespeare in the Park – As You Like It. How lovely to be watching the residents of the Forest of Arden get matched and unmatched under the stars.

-Picnic lunch with three friends from college. So great to catch up.

-Seeing the Tall Ships in Baltimore Harbor.

-Visits from my brother, niece, and mother. Going to hot pot and the Udvar-Hazy museum.

-I went running three times! It’s pretty paltry, but it’s more than the month before, so I’m kind of stoked about it.

– Watching the World Cup. So we don’t have Fox, but we do have Telemundo via Peacock, so I’ve been watching all the games in Spanish, which is actually really fun because I feel like I can focus on the game and not get side tracked by the commentary. Plus I get to hear the most famous announcements of “Goooooooooool!”

-Favorite Dinner this month: Take out Style Sesame Noodles w/ teriyaki chicken. Perfect meal for the pool – can be eaten cold, packs a lot of flavor and vegetables and filling enough to fuel swim meets.

-Favorite thing we watched: Derry Girls. hilarious. The Husband said it actually reminded him a lot about his childhood growing up in Indiana.

June Lowlights:
-Some house things with my parent’s rental unit. Unbloggable, but it seems like every month there’s always something. I guess that’s just the price of owning a home. (literally….)

-The awful commute to and from my summer gig. Sorry if you’re tired of hearing about this one, but it is a truly awful time suck.

-Feeling very stretched. I think this is a lot to do with the point above – I spend so much time commuting that I’m finding I don’t have as much time for other life/family things. Spoiler alert – this will probably also be a July lowlight too….

-I got a stupid parking ticket. Again. This was totally my fault- I was just making a quick stop and I didn’t pay the meter. Stupid mistake.

Checking in on 2026 Aspirations:
Creativity:
-painted two pictures (10/26 pictures painted for the year.)
-wrote 1 haiku (16/52 haikus written this year… need to work on this.)
-finished two crossword puzzles (My goal is to finish one every week, but I got behind)

Consumption:
-1 live performance – As You Like It
-1 Museum – Udar-Hazy Center (see above!)
-0 hikes. (need to work on this….)

Health:
I was rubbish at tracking exercise in June. But I did start swimming while the kids were at swim team practice. It’s been too hot for me to go running consistently. But I did run inconsistently.
-Daily yoga – I think this was 25/30 days. Like I said – rubbish tracking in June.
-3 vegan dinners. Two of those were the Teriyaki Tofu from America’s Test Kitchen. It is that good. And easy. (goal is 5 vegan dinners a month, but given that we were at the pool almost every night, I’d say any vegan dinner is a plus.)

Quote of the Month:
“You can’t thrive for free”
-from Netflix’s Beef. Said by the Ali Wong character to her mother in law in regards to the cost of raising a child. I thought this was hilarious. Also we watched an episode of Beef and I don’t know if I’ll return for the rest – it’s pretty dark and full of people doing things that range from unfortunate to reprehensible. Not my jam. I know it was critically acclaimed. sigh. Sometimes I don’t feel cool enough for the critically acclaimed media that everyone loves.

Looking Forward to in July:
-Starting rehearsals for my second opera this summer. Excited to again be working with some great colleagues.

-World Cup. I have rehearsal on the afternoon of the World Cup Finals. Today I asked my stage manager if we could move rehearsal. I was only half kidding.

-planning our Niagara Trip. The trip isn’t until August, but planning is part of the fun, right?

-speaking of which, there is an exhibit at the National Gallery of Art featuring paintings of Niagara Falls, I want to try to take the kids before our trip – might be a fun tie in. Also there’s a Mary Cassatt exhibit there too. Might be the same one I saw in Philadelphia, but Cassatt is always worth seeing either way.

-Peach Truck Peaches!!! I ordered a 25 lb box of peaches from the Peach Truck.

-Digging into the pile of books I bought on my reading retreat:

Grateful for the week:

-$2.50 ice cream scoops for 4th of July.

I got a peanut butter chocolate pretzel.

-This imperfect country that celebrated its birthday last week. Look, there are a lot of not great things happening. BUT… I once had to spend three days at the INS office replacing my lost green card and I realized that there are much worse things going on in other countries. Things are messed up, but in the scheme of things, we’re really very lucky we live in America.

-That my mother, brother, and niece came to visit. It was nice to spend time with them. I got to have a few moments of one on one time with my niece, and we talked about books and school and food, and it was cool to see her becoming her own person.

-Slow mornings with the family and not having to rush to get to school or work.

-That the kids had a good time at Taiwan camp.

-Air conditioning.

-Food that lasts in the fridge. Actually refrigeration in general. We got home from our holiday weekend away and I was going to make our pantry standby of pasta with red sauce for dinner, but I was unexcited by the prospect, so I looked in the fridge and there was some ground turkey from before we left. I looked up ground turkey recipes and found this recipe for Italian Wedding Soup, and in addition to the turkey, it needed kale (which had been in our fridge for at least two weeks) and eggs (which were from at least two weeks ago), lemons (at least a week old), parmesan cheese (who knows how old that is..) and other things that we had in our pantry (chicken broth, pasta, panko break crumbs). Instead of parsley and garlic, I dumped the week old zhug sauce (from when we had shawarma earlier in the week) into the meatball mix. It felt really good to use up bits and bobs to make a really tasty meal that was a step above plain pasta and red sauce.

What we ate:

Monday: Cauliflower Sheetpan Shawarma with Tahini Sauce and Zhoug Sauce. My brother was visiting and he’s vegetarian. And I had a cauliflower to use up, so this was perfect. Honestly, though, it’s all about the sauces.

Tuesday: Chicken Wings and steamed green beans – eaten at the pool. My mother made her famous soy garlic chicken wings.

Wednesday: We ordered Indian Food for dinner – The 14 year old’s choice since it was her first time being alone with her parents since she was five, before we had more babies.

Thursday: Grabbed food on the road while driving 14 year old to Taiwan camp. I got Naan Tacos from a place called Tikka Shack Indian Grub, which I guess is a chain. They were really tasty.

Friday: Made dinner from stuff we picked up at the markets – Sage pork chops, steamed green beans, corn, salad, sauerkraut. it was delicious.

The salad is in a pot because the Air BnB did not have serving bowls. What the what????

Saturday: Went out to an Indian restaurant for dosas. Wow typing this out, i’m realizing that I had Indian for dinner three times this week. I do Love Indian food. If I had to choose a last meal, I would have a hard time deciding between noodles and dumplings or Indian Food.

Sunday: Italian Wedding Soup with Turkey Meatballs from NY Times Cooking. This was fast, and easy. I added dollops of Ricotta on top for added creaminess.

And onwards we move into July. 2026 now has more days behind us than in front of us – whew, that’s a thought.

What critically acclaimed tv show do you not get? What cuisine could you eat multiple times a week and not get tired of it? Favorite pantry meal? Are you watching the World Cup too? Can you thrive for free????

Weekly recap + what we ate: Good-bye April, Hello May!

When did it become May??? When did it get to be half way through May??? When did it become 3/4 of the way through May????? Can you tell I’ve been plugging away at this post for a very long time?

Well, I guess I started May in tech for a show. Then I worked supertitles for two recitals, started prepping for my summer show and also stage managed a one night gala performance. That’s four contracts in two weeks. (Five if you count my contract for admin work as head of the Stage Management department, which is indeed a separate contract.) And on top of that so many May-cember things. That is where May has gone. But… I like having these monthly reflections, so here is how April was, just as we are turning the corner into June.

April Highlights:
-The show I was working on. It’s a musical, so it’s been a really different experience for me since I primarily work on operas. Musical theatre performers are so very very fit and pretty. The combination of athleticism and grace of what they do onstage astounds me. And they were each of them so very kind and friendly.

-March Madness and basketball fever at our house.

-Cool Blogger’s Walking Club. I did participate and had a whole rainbow collage planned to show folks, but I never made it past yellow. Maybe I’ll still put the collage together.

-Take your child to work day. It was fun having the kids with me to watch rehearsals – they helped me set up tables for the scene we were doing and they helped me announce breaks. The performers were all so kind to the kids, and I’m grateful for that.

-going contra dancing as a family. Always a fun time.

-Farmer’s market trip and stumbling across the Black Health Fair and the collage-making workshop. It was a nice afternoon of art and swag.

-Hiking with kids. Finally went on a hike. First of the year. So far only of the year. I need to do better on this.

-Chorus Benefit concert. Our opera chorus holds a benefit concert every year. I’ve never been, but this year they asked if I would volunteer to stage manage and I said yes. The 14 year old came with me and was my assistant. It was really lovely to see the many chorus members and realize that I knew almost all of them. Some of them I’ve known for over 20 years. It is such a great community.

-Attending our friends’ B’not Mitzvah. So glad we got to celebrate this milestone with them.

-Grilling for the first time this year, one time when we hosted friends for dinner.

-First make-up buying excursion with the 14 year old. Thank goodness for the helpful lady at the counter.

-The AC in our office at work got fixed! It was amazing.

-My mother’s visit.

-Discovering Frixion Markers – erasable markers!!!!

-Happy Hour with my bus stop mom friends.

-Easter and Easter Service at our church, which is a vivid multicultural affair.

-Favorite Dinners this month: Steak Fajitas from NY Times Cooking. Grilled Teriyaki Chicken, using the Teriyaki sauce recipe from America’s Test Kitchen Vegan cookbook. (The recipe is for teriyaki tofu, but the sauce works just as well on Chicken).

-Favorite movie watched: A Nice Indian Boy – a lovely rom com with some lovely people in it.

April Lowlights:
-Some delicate dynamics at work. Not bloggable, but it was tricky to navigate.
-Not being home a lot and feeling out of touch with the family.
-Teenagers. Gotta love them, but man….
But over all not a lot of lowlights in April. Or maybe the things that were tough at the time now seem figure out-able. I feel like it’s the same things all blurring together in my head that make life seem overwhelming, while the things that make me happy or brought me joy all are very specific in my head.

How I did on my various goals:
Creativity:
-Painted two pictures. (8/26 pictures for the year)
-wrote 3 haikus (13/52 haiku for the year… need to do some catching up on this.)
-1 hike. (1/12 so far this year – not doing so well on this goal)

Consumption:
– 1 live performance – Alisdair Fraser and Natalie Haas concert. It turns out this is the farewell tour for this fiddle and cello duo. I’m so glad we got to hear them play live.
-0 Museums. (3/12 for the year so far. Though we got free passes for the Phillips collection at a community event, so maybe that will happen in June.)

Health:
-4 sessions of strength training. (Goal was 8, but something is better than nothing.)
-Daily yoga – 30/30 days.
-5 vegan dinners. (Goals is 5/ month, so yay! This is making up for May where we’ve barely had any vegan dinners so far…)
-1 run. (Exercise was not a strong suit of mine in April.)

Quote(s) of the Month:
“I use he/they pronouns, but use whatever pronouns you want for me as long as you use them with respect.”
One of the performers in my April show said this on the first day of rehearsal as we went around and introduced ourselves.

“Our talent is our floor, but our character will be our ceiling.” Cori Close, UCLA Women’s Basketball coach.

Looking forward to in May (many of which have already come and gone):
-Well, the middle school musical was a big thing in our calendar. I’m kind of sad that it’s done and past. It was for sure a highlight of the month so far. The 14 year old was playing the lead – Marian in The Music Man, Jr. It was so amazing to see her onstage and to hear all the lines we’ve been running in context, and to hear all the songs she’s been practicing. I’m so incredibly proud of her for working so hard on this show. I felt like my heart grew every time I saw her onstage.
-Stage managing a gala concert. I feel like I’m being pushed outside my comfort zone with this one. It’s so very different from anything else I’ve done before – barely any rehearsal, big names, and one shot to get it all right. It actually makes me a little sick to think about it, but I’ve been reading the book Mindset by Carol Dweck and her writing is inspiring me to look for opportunities to learn and grow. (This also just happened and it was a doozy getting there, but ultimately a really good experience.)
-Starting my summer show. And a long commute.
-listening to lots of audiobooks because of above commute. (Looking for suggestions!)
-The pool opens Memorial Day weekend! Swim team starts.
-A potential quiet house over Memorial Day weekend because the Husband is taking the kids camping with friends. (Update! I think we are getting Sunday and Monday off for Memorial Day weekend, so I might drive up and meet the family after work. Time in nature with family vs. time in a quiet house by myself…. it’s a tough decision, I have to admit.)

Grateful For (so far this month.)
-Middle school theatre and music teachers. Actually teachers in general.

-our van. I don’t like driving the van, but it does come in super handy sometimes. Like when I have to take 10 music stands, a stool, and two large bins of office supplies to our Gala location.

-Speaking of Gala – for finding free parking downtown. I had pre-paid for parking via SpotHero (do you know about SpotHero? It helps you find parking spots. We use it to book parking space at an airport hotel when we fly- it’s so much cheaper than airport parking.), but ended up finding free parking a block from our venue both days I had to be downtown. I was then able to give my pre-paid spot to my work BFF.

-All the people at work. What we’ve done at work is… I mean we’re not doing open heart surgery on infants or anything, but we had a massive pivot earlier this year and it’s been an amazing and challenging time. Everyone I work with has put in at least 110% to make opera happen and I’m grateful.

-A visit from my parents. I feel so lucky that my parents (who are 75 and 80) still have the energy and mental sharpness to travel to see us.

What We Ate: I’m afraid I don’t have much to report here because I’ve made it home for dinner only a handful of times so far this month. There was food. The family ate. No one went hungry.

So that’s a wrap on April. Aside from my horrendous commute, the next few weeks look a little calmer, and I hope to get back to writing here more regularly. Hope your May has been lovely and warm.

Weekly recap + what we ate: Good-bye March, Hello April!

Last week was spring break – we stayed home and had a relaxing staycation kind of week. Monday I took the kids down to the main library in downtown DC, and we also went to see some cherry blossoms. Other than that – we had some nice bike rides and playground time. Baking. A family trip to Costco. Hair cuts and dress shopping. Library visits and ice skating. It was nice to be home and living life at a relaxed pace.

The weekend was also pretty low key. On Saturday I dopped the 6 year old at an Easter Egg Hunt play date and went to get my emissions tested. The emissions didn’t take as long as I expected, so I stopped at Panera for my free Slip Club beverage and a BLT since I hadn’t had breakfast. Then in the afternoon, the Husband and the two little kids and I went on a nice long bike ride. In the evening, we watched the Men’s Final Four Basketball games. After the 6 and 9 year old went to bed, it was time to play Easter Bunny. The 14 year old was still up, and the Husband turned to her, dead serious, and said, “I have something to tell you. “

She looked at him expectantly.

“The Easter Bunny,” he said, “Isn’t real.”

I howled with laughter. The 14 year old helped us stuff eggs and then she actually went and hid all the eggs for us while the Husband and I finished watching the game.

Sunday, we went to 8am Easter Mass, which at our church is an English/ Bangla service. Reasons I really enjoy going to the English/Bangla mass:
-The rainbow of saris and kurtas that people wear are so fun to see.
-The homily is given in both languages, so it tends to be shorter.
-The music is provided by Bengali musicians and it is always upbeat and varied.

After Mass we went to breakfast at First Watch. We traditionally would go to IHOP for Easter breakfast, but the last couple of years, IHOP has always been so crowded so we decided to try something new. First Watch was for sure less crowded and the food was, in my opinion, better. The restaurant was having an Easter Egg hunt which was fun for the kids too. After breakfast we went home, had a nap. The kids hunted for Easter eggs. I made some lemonade and chocolate pudding for dinner, then we watched the Women’s NCAA Basketball final game while the kids folded laundry. The game was kind of a rout, with UCLA winning by 30 points.

For dinner we had burgers, tater tots, green beans, and lemonade. After dinner we went for a family walk – a rare thing these days to get all five of us to go for a walk together. The summer sunset sky was gorgeous! When we came home we had the chocolate pudding for dessert before sending the kids to bed. It didn’t feel like a fancy holiday weekend, but I think it was full of family, and good food, and what more could one want?

And now the calendar has turned to another month. April! Which means that 2026 is one quarter over. Here’s a look back at March:

March Highlights:
-Tech/Opening/Closing of a show. The Show certainly had it’s challenges, but I had such a good time with my co-workers.

-Family trip to the theatre to see The Sea Beyond the Ocean. Such a beautiful play.

-Supertitle recital gig of a lovely recital that featured Vaughn Williams’ Songs of Travel, one of my favorite song cycles.

-Running supertitles for another opera. I really like running supertitles – I get to lock into the music, but also I don’t have to talk to anyone else so I can just focus on one thing.

-Sunshine and warmer weather.

-It was a pretty negligent month for exercise, but I did go on my first run since November, and I did go to the fitness room at the rec center once.

-My friend L coming over to do laundry and getting to hang out with her late one evening.

-KPop Demon Hunters winning two Oscars, and seeing Golden performed on the telecast.

-My friend A coming home from their posting abroad. I mean not the reason they were sent home (they were posted in the Middle East), but the fact that I got to see her four months earlier than I was expecting.

-Going to the 9 year old’s Geobowl and the 14 year old’s Science Fair.

-Visiting the Textile Museum. Who knew horse blankets were so nuanced!

-Getting our tax information to our Tax Guy just in time.

-March Madness.

-Favorite meal cooked at home: Coconut Chicken Curry from New York Times Cooking.

-Cherry Blossoms. I never get tired of their fluffy delicate beauty.

Also – I snapped this picture while sitting in the shadow of the Washington Monument. I’m feeling a little down about the state of American politics, but I still feel inspired and hopeful by the symbols of our country, such as the American Flag and the Washington monument.

March Lowlights:
-Being sick. I was barely hanging on for a week mid-March. Turns out it was flu. I had to cancel so many plans that I had been looking forward to.
-News on the international front.
-News on the arts front at home. My heart aches for so many of my colleagues and former colleagues here in DC.
-A really hard tech process for the show I did. Everything was fine in the end, but there were definitely times when I thought I was just plain bad at my job.
-The back and forth as to the last day of school. This isn’t really a lowlight, but more like an ridiculous frustration. As the snow days piled up, the school district kept extending the school year, day by day until the last day, which was originally June 18th was pushed all the way to June 25th. I was glad I hadn’t signed the kids up for camp that week. But then…. then then… the week before spring break, the school district announced that they had gotten a special dispensation from the State to have a reduced number of teaching days and the last day of school would go back to being June 18th after all. ARUGH!!!! You know – I am find with whatever they decide to do, but to offer one thing and then change it back is… so annoying. I’m sure the school district knows how annoying this is.

How did I do on some of my 2026 Goals?
-Creativity – I only painted one picture; I wrote 3 haikus; I played piano several times – I’m trying to embrace the five minute piano noodle as something to do when I’m between tasks. So could do better on this front. But then I was sick for a week…

The one picture I painted all month. I guess technically it’s two. This was the leaf painting assignment from 30 Days of Watercolour.

-Finished one crossword puzzle. We didn’t renew our Washington Post Sunday paper til half way through the month, but it is now renewed so I can get back to doing my weekly puzzle.

-Museums = 1 (total so far this year, 4/10). Hikes= 0 (Not doing so well on the hiking goal)

-Vegan dinners = 3 (the goal is 5/month) I have to admit, vegan dinners are hard when I’m working in the evenings and am not home to cook.

-Excercise: not great. Strength training = 3x (goal was 8x/ month). Yoga daily = I missed two days when I was sick and 1 day when I just forgot. I did go running 4 times, once for only 10 minutes, but I’m still counting that.

-Family Goals: Game Night = 1 (Parcheesi; it was disastrous. Wait, I think there was a MarioKart night as well); Date Night = 0 (still); Call my parents once a week – I did horribly on this one; I think I called them once all month.

-Time outside: I tracked 14 hours, but it might have been more. I fell off the tracking wagon the days before and after I was sick.

Quote of the Month:
“I am an old woman and my life has been some strange balance of miraculous and mundane.” from The Correspondent by Virginia Evans.

Looking Forward to (the April edition):
– Contra dancing. We didn’t get to last month because of sickness in our household, so I’m hoping we’ll get to go this month.

-My mother’s coming to visit.

-Dinners and hang outs with various friends and families we know. The social calendar is a little full.

-An order from Jet Pens. As a gift to myself for getting through tech week (twice in one month!) and the flu, I ordered myself some things from JetPens – some monthly tabs so I can tab my planners, a new Preppy Fountain Pen, some new .25 point pens, and a book clip so I can clip my book open when I read while eating.

-Alisdair Fraser and Natalie Haas. I’ve been a fan of this fiddle and cello duo since their debut album in 2004 so I was super excited to see they are coming to play in our area. I very rarely go to live music concerts – usually if I’m going it live performance it’s opera or theatre – but especially these days, I feel like supporting live performance is important.

– Starting rehearsals for a new show and working with some of my favorite colleagues. (Okay, truth – most of my colleagues are my favorite colleagues. Now that I get to have a say in hiring stage managers, I don’t hire people I don’t want to work with… it’s a perk.)

– Reading in bed! I ordered a bedside lamp and it arrived!

Grateful for this week:
-Libraries. Particularly libraries that don’t have computers in their Children’s Section, thereby forcing my kids to actually look at books.

-Cadbury Mini Eggs. My favorite holiday candy. I got the big bag from Costco this year. Actually I got two. Last year I thought I didn’t need the big Costco bag of mini eggs so I didn’t buy them, and I regretted it ever since.

-A later piano lesson. The kids’ piano lessons are usually at 7:15am, but this week because it was Spring Break, their teacher was able to move the lesson to 8:00am and it was nice to stay home for that extra 45 minutes and have a leisurely morning.

-Bike trails and closed parkways. On the weekends, the parkway near us is closed to cars, giving us an endless length of road on which to ride our bikes.

-Spring Break and bonus time with my kids. Sure they periodically fought like tom cats, but overall I had a really great time hanging out with my kids this week. I think key to my great time was the fact that they play together pretty well, so a) I didn’t have to referee many arguments, and b) I could spend lots of time by myself without having to amuse them.

-Past me for making vanilla. Last year around this time, I had been given a mini bottle of vodka that I was never going to drink. So I tucked an vanilla bean inside to make vanilla. I had forgotten about it until this week, when I was making banana cake (this recipe – it’s really tender and moist) and realized we were out of vanilla. Panic! But then, I remembered that little bottle on our alcohol shelf. Past me to the rescue!

What We Ate:
Monday: Garlic-y Chicken with Lemon Anchovy Sauce a Melissa Clark recipe from NY Times Cooking. Eaten with rice and steamed broccoli on the side. I was looking to use up some chicken thighs I had in the fridge. This was really tasty.

Tuesday: Tacos from the taco place next to the barber’s. We had gone for haircuts for the kids and decided to grab dinner out before running some other errands this night.

Wednesday: Roasted Salmon and Potatoes with bagged salad. The 14 year old made dinner and it was super tasty.

Thursday: Kabocha Squash Japanese Curry from Hetty Lui McKinnon, and Pan Fried Tofu. I had picked up a Kabocha squash from the Farmer’s market and was looking for a way to cook it. I really loved this flavorful curry. I didn’t have Japanese curry, but Indian curry powder worked just fine. I think I’ve cracked the code on really delicious crispy fried tofu. This is my method:
-Press and drain tofu for at least 20 minutes. (I wrap it in a kitchen towel and then put my Dutch oven on it. Sometimes I start it in the morning so that it’s nice and dry by the time I get home after work.)
-Cut tofu into 1 inch cubes.
-Douse with soy sauce and then let it sit for at least 10 minutes to marinate.
-Toss in 1/4 cup of cornstarch, making sure all sides of tofu are coated.
-Heat about a 1/4″ of oil in a large skillet.
-When the oil is hot, add the tofu. Let it cook untouched for 3-4 minutes, until a nice crust forms. Then flip and cook for another 3-4 minutes on the other side.
-When nice and golden/ crispy on at least two sides, take out and drain on a paper towel.
The excessive amount of cornstarch seems to be ky.

Friday: Take out from local fish restaurant, because it was Friday in Lent. And for movie night: A Nice Indian Boy. I was looking for a rom com to watch since it was my turn to pick the movie, and came across this title from last year. It was just perfect – everything I want from a rom com: cute, appealing leads, offbeat secondary characters, believable conflict even within a quirky story, humour, heart, and wit. We laughed a lot. The movie tells the story of Naveen, a doctor, who yearns to meet the right man and get married. He meets Jay, a white man who was adopted by Indian parents, and much of the comedy and heart comes from the dynamics of Naveen’s family learning to accept Jay as the Nice Indian Boy they want for Naveen. I loved that everyone had a chance for a story arc, and the Indian wedding dance number at the end. This movie was the definition of feel good. Also Jonathan Groff is really pretty.

Saturday: Pizza (the Husband made – cheese, sausage and mushroom, fig and goat cheese, and a pepperoni).

Sunday: Burgers, steamed green beans, tater tots. Lemonade. Chocolate pudding. (Burgers, lemonade, and chocolate were all things that the kids had given up for Lent.) The Husband made the burgers and they were really tasty. The 9 year old at one point said, “It’s a good thing Easter isn’t on a Friday in Lent because we wouldn’t have been able to eat these burgers!” Um…..

Weekly recap+ what we ate: Good-bye, February! Hello, March!

Another show opened! It has been a hard hard week for me, but the show opened and it looks really stunning. And the audience is super excited to be there; the feeling of good will is palpable.

We’re over a week into March, but I wanted to do a February recap, now that I’m on the other side of tech. I keep wanting to put tech week into this recap, but that was technically March, so it will go into the next recap.

February Highlights:
-New York City Trip with the 14 year old. Seeing Two Strangers (Carry a cake across New York), eating good food, people watching.

-Doing titles for a voice recital that was lovely and featured an elegantly charming set of Post WWI French cafe songs.

– Watching the Olympics. The stunning figure skating pairs long program. The heartbreaking Men’s hockey final. The mad dash of ski Mountaineering. The zen of curling. The colourful opening ceremonies. The opera-filled closing ceremonies.

-Super Bowl Sunday, which was combined with the Husband’s birthday. Seeing lots of friends, eating food, and celebrating. The game itself – couldn’t tell you what happened there. We had the Olympics playing upstairs while the game was downstairs, so I kept floating between events.

-Our Zojirushi hot water boiler. Best new addition to our household. Hot water instantaneously.

-Some warm days – going outside without being all bundled up.

-The 9 year old getting his first library card.

-Two more snow days. One I wasn’t working so I hung out with the kids. The other I had to work, so we paid the 14 year old to watch her siblings. It is kind of amazing not to have to worry about what to do with the kids on a snow day when both the Husband and I have to work.

-Lunar New Year – pineapple cakes, pomelos, and an excuse to get together and eat dim sum with friends.

-Lunch with a friend from college.

-A chill mid-afternoon hangout with two other families. There were sword fights and K-pop dance routines and grown up conversations.

-The 6 year old’s kindergarten performance of Arf!

-Happy Hour with the stage management team at a new-to-me restaurant with $1 oysters during happy hour. I love oysters.

-Watching the 14 year old play basketball.

-Elisabeth’s FIG Club, which encouraged us all to find joy in moments of gratitude during February – such a delight to read everyone’s FIGS.

-Starting rehearsals for a new show. The feeling of homecoming as we finally got down to rehearsal after six weeks (or really, a year) of turmoil at work. Gathering to do work that is familiar to us despite all the changes. I keep hearing the phrase “Flying the plane while building it,” and it did feel like that often. But, you know… when we understand the fundamentals of what needs to be done, the rest is just logistics and figure-out-able.

-Also there’s a banjo in our show. It makes me so happy.

-Favorite meals cooked at home: Ethiopian food (shiro wat, yellow lentils, and fried potatoes, eaten with injera), and Shrimp tacos.

February Lowlights

-Starting to develop some lower back pain. I’ve always been pretty healthy and pain free, so this kind of chronic pain is really annoying. I can usually make it feel better by stretching, but getting out of bed in the morning is an effort for sure.

-Not exercising. I did my yoga daily but didn’t run except for 15 minutes on the treadmill at the rec center before the 14 year old’s basketball game. The lack of exercise actually has a lot to do with the weather, so hopefully I’ll do better now that the weather is getting warmer.

-Some confusion about the 14 year old’s path in high school, forms that we supposed to be filled out that weren’t. This was VERY stressful.

-Our office at work is very very very cold. Which is usually fine, but it was a cold month. It has something to do with the fact that the thermostat is located in the hallway and regulates a few different offices.

-A bunch of adulting fails including getting a ticket for expired plates. (This is now fixed.)

-Having to work a lot of evenings.

– Pretty sad news about plans for a cultural institution that had been my home for the past twenty years. It’s pretty shitty and devastating for so many people.

Yearly Goals – not great on some fronts, but it was a very work intense month:
-Taking the stairs – I don’t specifically track this, but I think I did okay on this. I did have to take the elevator at work for a while because my id badge was deactivated and that was the only way to access the stairwell from the lobby.

-Creativity: I only painted one picture (It was a birthday card, and I still haven’t sent it); I wrote 3 haikus. I spent some time on the piano – we ordered the easy piano version of music from K-Pop Demon Hunters, so that was fun.

-Did not do any crossword puzzles because our Washington Post subscription expired and I haven’t gotten around to renewing it.

-Museums = 0/10. Hikes = 0/12

-3 vegan dinners. (Goal is 5/month)

-Exercise Goals: Strength training 6x (Goal was 8x/month). Yoga daily – CHECK!

-Family Goals: Game Nights =0 (though we do sometimes have an ongoing chess game going on); Date Nights =0; Call my parents once a week = 3 times, so close;

-Not a lot of time outside – only 17.5 hours in February. That’s less than 30 mins a day.

Quote of the month:
One of the singers I worked with this month was a collegiate wrestler before he decided to become an opera singer. I asked him if there was anything from wrestling that he still applied to life and he said that learning to step up to the mat no matter the circumstances taught him the importance of showing up, and being persistent and doing what you have to do. Then he said:
“I always say: I never lost a match; I just ran out of time.” I love the grit and determination behind this idea – the sense that you can lose a match but still have the stamina and fortitude to be on a winning path.

Looking Forward to in March:
-More sunlight in our days and Spring!

– Running supertitles for the next opera. The most exciting part of this is that I get paid the union stagehand rate to run titles.

-No school day for the kids on 3/20. No plans yet but I have the day off, so maybe we’ll do something special.

-Getting my tax information to our tax guy.

-Happy Hour with my bus stop mom friends.

-March Madness.

-Spring Break starts at the end of the month. No plans currently; I probably have to work some that week.

-Cherry Blossoms!!!! Peak Bloom is predicted for as early as March 31st, though most media outlets are predicting the first week of April. We shall see….

-Not being in rehearsal all the time, so I will be able to do all the things I’ve been putting off, such as:

  • Bake things
  • Make dinner
  • Put the kids to bed
  • Clean out the kids’ clothes and prep for Spring
  • Run (this is more about the weather than my work schedule, though)
  • Game nights
  • Taking walks in the warmer weather
  • Paint, play piano, journal
  • Go to the grocery store
  • read books

Grateful for this Week:
-The stagehands, wardrobe crew, and wig and make-up crew – for making our show look so good and run so smoothly. And the assistant stage managers. The theatre where we are working has very limited room backstage and the ASMs are working miracles of organization and timing to get everyone onstage when they need to be, wearing the right clothes, with the right prop in hand. In one meeting, I gave them a shout out, saying “They are running New York City in the space the size of a postage stamp back there.”

-Cue lights! What are cue lights? They are lights that are hung around backstage that I use to indicate when a cue should happen. I turn on the light when the crew should be in “Standby” and turn the light off for “Go”. Most of the crew is on headset so they can hear me give the cues, but the cue light is also a good back up. Anyhow – when we first did a walk through of the theatre, we were told that they had ONE cue light. Well, this would have to go into the orchestra pit so I can indicate to them when to tune, meaning the crew wasn’t going to have any lights. BUT… the house crew at the theatre surprised us by purchasing a whole new cue light system! Hooray! It has SIX cue lights. (I only need five for this show.)

cue light switches.

-My friend home from abroad. She and her family were in the Middle East (they work in the foreign service). They were sent home last week, given all the things going on. “Things” being the U.S. bombing Iran. I’m grateful that she’s home.

-That I didn’t lose my book. I had brought a book to read when I took the 14 year old to her voice lesson. And afterwards we went to a newly open cafe for sweet treat and to run lines. (It was opening weekend for the cafe and they were giving out free pastries!) Anyhow, I got home and realized my book was missing. I was in a bit of a panic because it’s a library book. But I texted the voice teacher and turns out I had left it at her house. Thank goodness.

-Panera Sip Club. Panera was running this deal where you could get 3 months of Sip Club for $3/month. Usually it’s $14/month. For $3/month, you could get all the coffee/tea/fountain sodas/lemonade/ice tea that you wanted. I think technically it’s limited to one every two hours. It’s not something that I would usually sign up for, but there is a Panera across the street from the theatre – it is in the Student Center (we’re performing on an University campus), and open until 11pm. And it’s tech, when I usually have more caffeine than normal to function/ pick me up during a long day. So I signed up and getting my cold Sip Club beverage is a nice excuse to get out of the building.

-Speaking of which – I’m grateful for getting to work on a University campus. I’m finding there’s something really special about university campuses – the students rushing here and there in non-homogeneous crowds: the squares with places to sit, even though we’re in the middle of the city; the sheer number of coffee shops and fast restaurants; the statues that greet you every few blocks. There’s just a youthful, hopeful air that I find energizing.

University mascot.

-Getting to drive home with my work BFF. We have a tradition of commuting together on opening night so that she can drink at the party and I can drive her home. It’s kind of our version of a friend date to run errands – we drive home and chat and catch up because even though we work down the hall from each other, the past few weeks have been intense and we’ve mostly been talking about work logistics when we cross paths.

-The snack box at work, which someone keeps stocked with chocolate, cookies, and other sweet and savory snacks.

-Freezer soup, for being a quick and easy thing to take for dinner.

-Kids being quiet. I took the 14 year old to school one day and when I came home it was eerily quiet in the house. I peeked through the two little kids’ door know and saw:

Yes, the door knob is missing. We removed it when the youngest was two because she kept locking herself in the room by accident and we didn’t have a key.

What We Ate: The Husband made dinner every night, since I wasn’t home in the evenings all week. I ate mostly leftovers at work.

Monday: Mac and cheese and hot dogs.

Taco Tuesday: Shrimp Tacos. This is the most requested type of Taco for Taco Tuesday.

Wednesday: Dumplings and green beans

Thursday: Zucchini Boats.

Friday: Pizza! I was actually home this night. The Husband made a pickle pizza and we ordered two pizzas from one of our favorite pizza places. We watched Wendy Wu Homecoming Warrior. I don’t know how this movie came across my radar – it was released in 2006 on Disney Channel, but I only heard about it this year. How is that possible? Asian representation was so non-existent at the time, I feel like it must have gotten a lot of buzz in the community, no? (To be fair, I didn’t have a tv in the early 2000s and this was before you could stream everything.) Anyway, the movie was pretty much everything you would expect from a Disney movie, with some hilarious martial arts sequences thrown in. I don’t know that I would watch this more than once, but it was a fun and charming movie.

Saturday: Indian take out.

Sunday: Leftover Indian take out, tortellini with red sauce, and green beans.

Well, that’s the week that was. And the month that was. Here the weather is almost summer like, all sunshine and warm rays. Not sure how long it will last, but I’m going to try to soak it up this week.

Weekly recap + what we ate: Another museum, another birthday! And Snow.

Our world is blanketed with snow so thick and frozen that you can walk on it. We’re on Day Three of the schools being closed and they’ve already announced that they will be closed tomorrow (Thursday) as well. The kids were super excited. The six year old made this to do list:

For those who aren’t fluent in six year old pictogram, the list reads:
1. Build snowman
2. Throw snowballs at the snowman
3. Go sledding
4. Make snow angels
5. Build and igloo
6. Have a snowball fight
7. Shovel Snow.

The weekend featured the usual runs of voice lesson and a basketball game for the 14 year old. The two little kids were invited to a playdate so they didn’t come to the game. The 14 year old won her game so we stopped to get fries from McDonalds on the way home. Why are fries SO tasty? I had to work Saturday night, and took the Metro in, just in case the snow came early. The Metro costs $2.50 more than parking, and takes 15 minutes longer (though in rush hour, it’s actually faster to Metro). I figure the extra time and money is worth the stress I save from having to drive through the city. I got to read my book, and truth to tell, the walk to and from the Metro Station is always a welcome opportunity to move.

Sunday, we woke to several inches of snow on the ground, with more coming down. We hunkered, and shovelled a little. The two older kids and I walked down to the park- I live seeing it blanketed with snow. The snow was almost sand like, making it quite a workout to walk through it.

Sunday evening we had some neighbors over for dinner – our kids swim together, but since swim was cancelled, we thought it was a good opportunity to get together. It was a lovely evening- I made pasta with Marcella Hazan’s tomato sauce, foccaccia, and we had bagged salad. Our neighbors brought cookies and cannoli. Afterwards one of their daughters introduced us to Imposter. Have you played? It’s loads of fun; there’s an app where everyone secretly gets a word (the same word) except one person who is the imposter. Then everyone goes around and says one word related to the main word, including the imposter who has to try to figure out what word to add without giving away that they don’t know the word. There was a lot of laughing.

On the bummer side, the heat at my parents’ rental went out o n Sunday and since the Husband and I manage the property for them, we were the ones who had to deal with it. Monday morning we managed to get our car out and drive over to their neighborhood. They hadn’t been ploughed out yet, so we parked two blocks away and walked up to the house with space heaters for the tenants. I dropped the Husband and drove back home, and I’m pretty sure I burned the clutch on our car getting it back home over the unploughed streets. (We have two cars, but the van does not have all wheel drive, so we had to drive the manual Impreza). Later that evening, we headed to the rental house to see if we could troubleshoot and open the faucets since we didn’t want the pipes to freeze; the tenants had checked into a hotel by that point. Given the lack of parking at the rental, the Husband and I decided that the easiest thing would be to walk over. So the Husband and I walked the mile there, some of it on the road since the sidewalks hadn’t been cleared. I pulled on my wool and silk underlayers, bundled up and it turned out not to be so bad of a walk. The streets were pretty quiet and the sun was setting and the snow was still white and smooth. As we turned the corner to the house, I looked up and it was golden hour. The Husband said, “At least the light is beautiful.”

We finally were able to find an HVAC company that could come out on Tuesday – most places were saying Wednesday or Friday at the earliest. The heating and gas were fixed, thankfully and we could all breathe easier.

Before all that happened, though… the previous Monday was MLK Day and we went on a family museum adventure to the Renwick Gallery. The Renwick is a Smithsonian museum dedicated to the art of crafts and handiwork. There is currently an exhibit called State Fair: Growing American Craft. It features work that was created and displayed at State Fairs around the country from the early twentieth century to today. I loved this exhibit. It was a great reminder that art is not purely the domain of the artists whose work hangs in the big museums, who have highly publicized exhibits. Art can come from the farmer’s wife, who collects fabric scraps and sews them into a beautiful quilt after the kids go to bed, or the insurance agent who takes up knitting as a hobby, or the art student who is just learning how to throw pottery.

I think this exhibit was one of the most diverse exhibits I’ve ever seen – it celebrated the work of people from a wide variety of cultures and races and backgrounds. While I was going through this exhibit, I thought of the Amish Quilt exhibit at the American Art Museum I had seen a few years ago and how all those quilts were made by “unknown.” I loved that the pieces in this exhibit all were able to credit the creators.

Some of my favorite pieces:

This quilt was made by Grace Snyder (1882-1982) of Nebraska. She learned to quilt when she was six to keep herself occupied while she watched the cattle. The quilt is made up of 87,000 small triangles. It’s almost like a Grecian mosaic.
Butter Cow! by Sarah Pratt and her daughters Hannah and Grace. I’ve never seen one of these before, and this made me super excited.
Hair wreath by Josephine Daly (1860-1939). This was made over the course of eight years, from real hair. I find this beautiful and creepy,.
Pyramid of preserves, canned by Rod Zeitler of Iowa City. . All I could think about when looking at this was, that’s a lot of toast. Also – are they going to eat it all?
Seed art by Linda Paulson. This is art made by gluing tiny seeds one by one. So meticulous – look at the detail!

I picked up a few things from the gift shop. I don’t often buy things from Museum Gift Shops, but more and more I’m feeling like since our museums are free, I should support them in some way. Especially these days. I got a hand made bud vase – I don’t like cut flowers, but a sprig of something or a single flower could be nice. I also picked up this this beautiful book of stickers:

How beautiful are these stickers? I almost don’t want to use the stickers, they are so gorgeous, but I think it would bring people a lot of joy to see them, making them perfect for including in mail.

Afterward the museum, we walked up to Dupont Circle and had lunch at our favorite cheap Chinese restaurant. When the Husband and I started dating, he worked within walking distance from this place and we would often meet here for lunch, usually ordering the same thing – kung pao chicken for him, chicken and green beans for me. We order all that along with orange chicken, combination lo mien, and Mongolian Beef. It was all so tasty.

After lunch, we walked back to the metro, popping briefly into Second Story Books to browse. I mean with this sign out front, who could resist:

In other news from last week, it was also the middle child’s birthday. He is now 9 years old! Happy birthday to this imaginative kid who loves stories and puzzles and thinking about life. You can always find him reading – he’s recently really gotten Plants vs. Zombies – playing with his swords and nerf guns. He likes making up adventure stories in his head and enacting them with his little sister. He loves to build, be outside, ride his bike, kick a soccer ball, and play Mario Kart. He doesn’t like practicing piano, being told to put his book down, or when his sister takes his Lego creations apart.

Grateful for (The Snowy Snowy January Edition):

-The people in Minneapolis who go out in the cold and protest and protect and bear witness to the sad and heavy things happening there.

-The beauty and quiet of a world covered in snow.

-people who clear their side walks.

-Snow plough drivers. Our street didn’t get ploughed until Tuesday afternoon, and boy was I happy to see the snow plough when it arrived.

-The magical alchemy that is baking – flour, levener, liquid. Butter. All that combines to make magical cozy things that comfort us by the mouthful. In addition to focaccia I also made M&M cookies (this recipe, really good!), and thumb print cookies (from Cook’s Illustrated – a little bland, TBH), which I made with pepper jelly and blueberry jam.

-That our heat works.

-That our Metro stop is underground. A lot of Metro stops in the suburbs are above ground, which makes it very cold when waiting for the train. Our metro stop and the metro stop at my work are both underground so I can wait for the train without being exposed to the elements.

-Hot chocolate. When we heard a storm was coming, I told the Husband we had to stock up on butter, eggs, and hot chocolate. These are the important things.

-the back up electric kettle. Last week, our electric kettle meet an unfortunate fate when someone tried to move the cart it was sitting on without unplugging the kettle. There was broken glass and tears. For as much tea as I drink, being without an electric kettle is DIRE. Luckily we had an old kettle in our basement that I pulled out. It’s not ideal – it’s plastic, for one – but it will do until we get a new one. OR… I’m really considering upgrading to one of these electric water boilers. It would be a splurge, but all the Taiwanese people have them – it keeps water at a constant temperature. How many times have I been late to work because I was waiting for hot water so I could fill my coffee mug and take it to go?

Looking Forward to:

-Cool Blogger’s Book Club! Reading The Age of Innocence. This is a re-read for me, but knowing how it end, has made some things in the first few chapters really pop for me. I stopped at our library’s used bookstore to find a copy, and there is was! I also picked up a few other fun things:

I got the Far Side and the Get Fuzzy for the 9 year old – they were two of my favorite Sunday comics when I was growing up and I wanted to share them with him. He reports that Far Side is “funny, but scary.” Upon re-reading it, I can see what he means.

-This is more of a “Some day in the future” rather than concrete plans, but when we were in Dupont Circle, II was thinking that I would love to take a child-free Dupont Circle Day some day. I do love spending time with my kids, but they don’t really do leisurely meandering. If I had a child-free day in Dupont Circle, I would go to the Phillips Collection, then spend some time browsing the various stationary and book stores along Connecticut Ave., and then find some tasty food or a refreshing beverage (Maybe from the Afghan Chai truck??) and sit on the circle and people watch. I think I will put this on my list of fun things to do this spring.

-Radishes. We had two bags of radishes passed along to us from our friend with the CSA – he doesn’t like radishes. So I’m determined to eat one a day so that they don’t go to waste. There are beautiful watermelon radishes that I’ve been slicing thin and eating with salt, pepper, red wine vinegar and olive oil for breakfast. There are also some black radishes that have a very spicy bite. I ate one sliced with salt and pepper and decided that I couldn’t eat them raw, so I cut one up and put it in congee. I might miso-roast the other black radishes.

-the kids going back to school. Monday was a grading day so we weren’t supposed to have school anyway, but now school has been cancelled through to Thursday because of the weather. On the one hand I’ve been enjoying the cozy time with the kids, and I dread going back to routine – it’s like having a second winter break.- , but on the other hand, it is really hard to keep up with the dishes and the house hold chores when everyone is home all the time.

-Just started this audiobook, a historical fantasy set in WWI; it’s just gotten a bit creepy…

What We Ate:

Monday: I was going to make Ethiopian food this day, but then I fell asleep after getting home from the Museum. So the Husband raided the freezer and assembled a dinner of dumplings, soup, and edamame.

Taco Tuesday: reheated the honey adobo chicken from last week. (I had to go to work this evening, so I wrapped some of the chicken in a soft tortilla and took it with me.)

Wednesday: Butternut Squash and Leek Za’atar Pie, Ottolenghi recipe for NY Times Cooking. I made this in an effort to use up some delicata squash, leeks, and chard that our friend had given us from their CSA when they were out of town. This seems like a fancy dish, because it’s all wrapped up in puff pastry, but it was actually pretty fast and easy to put together. Puff pastry makes anything feel fancy. I thought it was rather tasty – the kids didn’t care for the fact that I didn’t peel the squash beforehand, but once the Husband took off the skin (I was at work), they ate it. Made for good leftovers.

Thursday: Pasta and red sauce. Simple fast dinner for a night when I had to work and the Husband had evening plans.

Friday: The family had dinner out with a friend (I think they had burgers). I was at work. Can’t remember what I ate, probably leftovers.

Saturday: Pizza Hut (the 9 year old’s special birthday request) and The Music Man. The 14 year old got the lead in the middle school production of Music Man. I’m so excited and proud for her! Although after seeing the movie, she’s decided that Marian doesn’t make sense – she spends the first half of the show yelling at Harold Hill and then suddenly has a change of heart. It told her that that’s the actor’s challenge, isn’t it?
(I had to work. I think I had leftovers before heading to the theatre again)

Sunday: Marcella Hazan’s oh so easy famous Tomato Sauce w/ pasta, Turkey meatballs (This recipe, but baked instead of fried), potato and leek frittata, and salad (from a bag)

Hope those of you in the path of winter weather remain safe and warm. Here’s hoping there is sunshine and clear roads in your future.

Do you go to your State Fair? Have you ever entered anything into a State Fair? If you could, what would it be? What was your favorite Sunday comic growing up? What do you panic buy make sure you stock up for when bad weather is coming?