aspirations – Life Off Headset

Weekly recap + what we ate: better late than never – April aspirations

So I had a realization this week that between April 2nd and April 25th, I will have had exactly ONE day off work. Actually for the whole month of April, I will have three days off. We work a six day week when we’re in rehearsal, so it’s not as out of the ordinary as it sounds to have only a handful of days off – and of course, some of these long weeks is self inflicted because on last week’s day off, I had to work my supertitle gig. But still. Ooof. If I ever wonder why I feel so behind this month, this is why. I find myself re-writing the same to do list week to week and never being able to cross anything off. I did make a March reflection/ April aspiration list while on the plane home from California from Spring Break- so even though April is over half way over, I thought I’d share the list – you know, just another thing that’s behind these days….

March highlights:
-Spring Break trip to Berkeley and San Francisco – this was for sure the high highlight. I promise to finish the recaps, including the details on the trip to the emergency room.
-Lenten Women’s Group. This group that met Tuesday nights during Lent provided so much connection and thoughtful reflection.
-Going to lots of theatre, but especially the local high school production of Beauty and the Beast.
-Watercolour class. I learned SO much in this class.
-a really quick trip to see the cherry blossoms – literally a 15 minute run before a work meeting. I used to think going to see the cherry blossoms was something for tourists, but I’ve grown to love the magical feeling of walking among the trees in bloom, and now I feel like they are a yearly must see.
-On the work front – figuring out a new sign in sheet system for performers. Something that’s needed a bit of reform for a while and I’m so relieved that we’ve started to implement the new system. There are still some things to work out, but it’s a start.
-Daylight Saving and longer days and warmer weather.
-Going running with the 12 year old. Once.
– Dinner with a beloved colleague.

Lowlights – I’m not sure if there are any specific lowlights in March. Well, maybe the Emergency Room trip with the four year old, but even that was pretty chill once we got there. There is the daily tediousness of kids and chores and screentime struggles. I guess for me also, not having time to journal, which then makes it feel like life is slipping by unremarked upon, which always, for some reason, makes me panic a little and sends me into an existential spiral. Looking back, the are mostly the same lowlights as last month. I wonder what that says – maybe I’m stuck in a rut?

April Aspirations:
– ~~Taxes~~. Done by the end of the first week of April, which is early for us, but our tax guy had implemented an April 1st deadline for tax documents, which is helpful. Next year I need to do better accounting for our rental property, though. It was harder than it had to be this year.
-Research options to get rid of my car. (Still – have not made any progress on this one.)
-Process Amazon and Duluth Trading company returns. (The Amazon one is done. The Duluth one is complicated, so the box just sits forlornly in my bedroom.)
-Submit forms for the 4 year old’s early admittance to kindergarten.
-Purge the toy room.
-Finalize summer camp schedules. I think I forgot to sign up the 12 year old for basketball camp. I need to check on that one.
– Things that need replacing – 1) my purse/crossbody bag had a huge hole in the outside lining so needs to be replaced, 2) I need new sandals for summer, and 3) a new Yeti travel tumbler since I lost mine two months ago and it is nearing iced chai season for me, 4) maybe, for fun, new linen pants for the summer. Though I don’t find pants fun anymore.
-Decide on our Asia Trip.
-Mow the lawn twice. I promised that Husband that instead of hiring a yard service I would trade off mowing the lawn with him. He has now mowed twice and I have mowed not at all.

Okay, I am realizing that I’ve been blogging on and on about needing to get rid of my car and purge toys and what not for about five months now. I should make some movement on those so I can start griping about new things.

So the ironic thing is the Husband took the kids camping with friends this past weekend, and I didn’t go because I had to work. And I thought, “Great! House to myself! I’ll knock out some of those April Aspirations!” NOPE. The first night, I got home, picked up/tidied the living room, cleaned the kitchen, made baked chick peas, did a full load of laundry and then was too exhausted to even read my book. Saturday night was even worse, because for some reason I was soooooo tired, though I did manage to fold and put away that laundry that I started the night before. It’s so annoying how little life tasks got in the way of bigger life tasks.

Sunday morning, I drove up to the campground, which is only 40 minutes away, and hung out for an hour before having to head in to work. I had expected to show up in time to help the Husband break down the camp, but when I got there at 8:45am, he had already taken the whole thing down. My kids were eating breakfast out of red solo cups and barely said hello to me before running off into the woods with the other kids. Feeling pretty useless, I settled into a camp chair, wrapped in a blanket that my friend’s mom piled on me, pet the dog and just chatted with everyone until I had to go to work.

We had a weekend of really big rehearsals. The show I’m working on has a lot of people – 58 choristers, 12 supers, 10 dancers, 20 children, and 7 principal singers. That’s 107 people in the room. Well 100 on Sunday because some people were excused from that rehearsal. It is it’s own brand of organized chaos. I spent a lot of Sunday in dance rehearsals – the dancers set their choreography separately and then we merge them in with the singers. I find dance so fascinating – the process is mind boggling to me, how the choreographer says a few words, makes some slight movements, and out of it comes gorgeous feats of athleticism and movement. It’s such a different creative process and language from working with singers or actors. And how dancers remember all the steps and sequences – I am in awe.

Other fun things this week:
-Carpet of blossoms at the bus stop. The Kwanzan cherry blossoms, which bloom about two weeks after the Yoshina blossoms on the Mall. I love their huge puffs of pinkness. At our school bus stop, there is a Kwanzan cherry tree and the petals are starting to shed, making a bubble gum pink carpet on the green grass. I love the colour palette they make up:

And the four year old likes throwing the petals in the air like confetti:

– The vocal recital that I did the supertitles for this week featured the world premiere of a new song cycle. I thought it a beautiful piece, and especially loved the poetry. The text is by poet Jeanne Minahan, and a lot of the poems were about new parenthood. I loved these lines from a poem called After:

They say I gave you birth,
I think they may be wrong,
you bore me from that place
of no return, you pulled me
from myself, I’ve learned.

Sometimes I feel like that – like I don’t feel like the same person I was before I had kids – that they unearthed something in me, or perhaps because of them I’ve had to find a little bit more focus in myself.

-On the day of the recital, I had a really long dinner break. The weather was gorgeous – blazingly hot and sunny, and almost summer like, only without the oppressive humidity of deep summer. So I took a walk to Georgetown and treated myself to a boba tea. There are three or four boba places in Georgetown and I’m determined to try them all. I didn’t get out on a walk every day this week, so taking a walk on my dinner break felt amazing. I passed a guy playing bagpipes on a corner:

Squint to see the bagpiper. Hearing music unexpectedly is always so lovely.

Outside the boba place was this fun mural:

The actual boba place was okay- I liked that you could get your tea black and they had lychee jelly. I ordered a black oolong tea, 30% sugar, with boba and lychee jelly. It was fine, except the tea was still warm – a good sign because that meant it was freshly brewed and not powder- but I did want a cold drink and it took a while for the tea to chill because it had been hot. The other funny thing was that the place insisted that you order via a kiosk. When I got there , there was a group of college girls there (I think they were college age – I can’t tell how old anyone is anymore). They were all speaking French so i guessed that they were exchange students or something. But they apparently couldn’t pay via credit card and were super confused and ended up going to the counter and asking the lady at the register how to pay since they only had cash. The lady at the register took their order and payment at the register. Which made me feel like, “Why do I have to use a kiosk?” I hate using kiosks. Oh well. But watching these young ladies, I was full of admiration – I had badly wanted to study abroad in college and I didn’t manage to work up the courage to do so – but what a great adventure it must be for them to be living in a foreign country and have to navigate things like kiosks at the boba place. There is so much to learn about navigating life that I now take for granted, but I know that when I was young, the world was bewildering.

Boba and Georgetown canals and sunshine. A nice evening. Also – look how bright it is at 6:30pm!!!

Grateful For:
-Windows in our rehearsal hall. I’m pretty sure this has been on my list before, but it is still a wonderful thing. I’ve spent many a rehearsal process in windowless rooms, so to be able to rehearse in a room with floor to ceiling windows feels so luxurious. The other day, during a particularly tedious rehearsal, I was able to look out the window and see all the beautiful pink clouds of sunset and it was such a stunning little pick me up.

-The monitor set up that the Husband put in our guest room for when one of us has to work from home. When the Husband first set up two external monitors and a set of speakers on our little Ikea desk, i thought it was overkill. But now I fully admit, it is an awesome set up. When I had to format supertitles this week, it was amazing to be able to run the slides on one screen, edit them on another and have the original text up for comparison on a third. Plus, I can play the music via the speakers and actually give the titles a test run. It’s all so much more efficient than clicking back and forth, minimizing and maximizing screens when I need to look at one thing or another.

-Living walking distance to a Metro station. On Saturday, I biked to work, but then when I left it was dark and I still don’t have lights on my bike, so I was able to take the Metro home. It was really nice not to have to worry about how I was going to get home.
Although, on my way out of the Metro, I saw a sign:

Our stop is going to be closed basically ALL SUMMER. That is going to really suck.

Looking Forward To:
– Lunch with some people from my Mom’s group. Only one person could make it to the April meet up, but I think two or three can make it this time. It will be nice to catch up.
-Mowing the lawn. I actually don’t mind mowing the lawn, especially since we now have an electric lawnmower and it isn’t as loud or smelly as the gas one we used to have. And it is an excuse to be outside. I don’t do much yardwork – the mosquitoes and the fear of pulling up the wrong plants keep me away. But mowing… I actually look forward to.
-Just started this audiobook – picked because Richard Armitage (who was oh so dreamy in North and South) narrates it. The novel is gripping and feels appropriate reading for the time/times, but so very sad so far. I don’t know if I’ll make it all the way through right now – I think I may need a lighter audiobook to get through tech week. (I’m open to suggestions for audio books!)

-mornings off. Our rehearsal schedule is entering a period when we mostly work afternoon and evenings, so I’ll have a couple mornings off this week. Goals – take care of some of those April aspirations, run, meal prep. Of course this means that the Husband will be home almost every night on his own with the kids. I think a room full of 100 performers is much easier than 3 kids. At least when I tell the chorus what to do, they just do it and don’t argue with me.

What We Ate: I didn’t really meal plan this week because there were a lot of variables going on. I’ll need to do some prep this week and next, since I’ll be going into tech week the first week of May. (Also – how is next week the first week of MAY already?!?!?!)

Monday: Bean and parmesan soup, made in the InstantPot, with leftovers which I was able to freeze.

Tuesday: The Husband made pasta and green beans for the kids. I worked and ate leftovers.

Wednesday: The Husband and the kids went to dinner with a friend while I worked. I had leftovers again. And a massaged Kale salad with cheddar, apples, avocados, and pepitas.

Thursday: The Husband made mac and cheese from scratch for the kids. I was working this night and had a salad from the canteen at work.

Friday: I had leftovers (soup), the Husband and kids were camping and ate camp food, not sure what. .

Saturday: I had a kale salad and the leftover Mac and cheese – basically scrounge around in the salad and leftover-eating.

Sunday: The Husband brought home pizza. I had leftover pizza when I got home from work.

Weekly recap + what we ate: tech week snacks and a new month

I’m half way through tech week – it’s the light at the end of the tunnel part of getting a show onstage. It’s been rough, sometimes frustratingly and despairingly so, and I’ve really questioned my ability to do my job. But things always magically happen- well, not magically, actually, It takes a lot of wonderfully talented and thoughtful people. So we are getting there, I’m learning a lot about how to stand up for what I think is needed. I’m really looking forward to going to sleep before midnight again.

It’s a new month and I took a moment to write a few February highlights and and lowlights and some plans and aspirations for the next 31 days. A lot of these things have been pushed off til the next few weeks when my schedule is lighter and I’m not at the theatre for 12 hours a day.

February Lowlights:
Work drama and stresses
Colleagues moving on to other jobs. I mean I’m happy for them, but I will miss their presence and wisdom.
Repairs at one of the rental properties we manage. Nothing we can’t handle, but irksome to have to deal with it.

February Highlights:
The 6 year old’s Chuck E. Cheese party.
Having friends over for the Superbowl.
Booking some work for the summer.
Going to see Into The Woods.
The lovely and charming vocal recital that I ran the titles for.

March Aspirations:
For Me:
– Learn 12 new Chinese characters. I’ve been slowly trying to learn to read in Chinese. I don’t know how practical this is because I feel like written Mandarin is very different from spoken Mandarin. But I’m trying to learn 100 characters by the end of the year. Which, I know, is not a huge amount, but baby steps.
-Continue to find time to write here on this blog.
– Run 3x a week, and incorporate 10 minutes of yoga or strength work a day.
– Happy Hour with my Moms’ Group. This is scheduled. Yay.
– Find a pair of casual shoes for our Spring Break Trip. I have new running shoes so I now wear my old trail runners as my every day shoe (which also helps me get a run in at work because I can still run in them so if I don’t remember my running shoes it’s not a big deal). But I would like a pair of casual yet cut shoes for city walking. I had a pair of Olukai slip on shoes, but they have a hole in them now, and I don’t like the current colour selection. Suggestions welcome for colourful, comfortable and durable shoes!
-Reach out to friends for some lunch dates once my show is open.

House/Organizational:
– TAXES. This is the big one. Maybe I should just make it the one thing on my list…
– Clean out the guest room that has become baby clothes storage.
– Order more shade samples for the living room.
– Turn over the kids clothes for Spring. There is a big consignment sale at a local preschool so before I check that out, I want to go through the kids clothes so I know what I need to buy for the kids to get them through the summer.
– Help with Laundry more.

Family
– Sleepover for the 11 year old’s basketball team. 11 girls. pizza, movie, soda, cookies, waffles, tater tots. I think only half are sleeping over, though.
– Plan Spring Break. It’s coming up soon!
– Date night or Date Lunch with Husband.
– Figure out summer childcare/camps. Late to the game, I know, but I just recently booked summer work. I hadn’t been planning on needing any summer child care, then boom. This is one of the fall outs of my colleagues leaving the business – people were suddenly looking for stage managers.
-Work on family routines for cleaning and organizing that the kids will buy into. Or maybe the solution is constant nagging for the next 18 years?

Work
-Survive tech.
-then clean out my inbox and do my IT training.

Fun
– Hike the Billy Goat Trail. I hiked it last fall and I’d love to do it again in the Spring.
– Cherry Blossoms. I just read that peak bloom has been moved up to March 18th, which seems ridiculously early. But this coincides with a lighter time at work, so I’ll make plans to go down during the week when it’s not so crowded.
– Family adventure. Not sure what this would be. Maybe another hike. Maybe a little half day trip? I’ll have to ponder. It’s tricky because weekends are often booked with my work or skating lessons for the kids, so our adventure would have to be pretty local.

Some Fun Things This Week:
– I went to Costco! Twice, actually. One time for regular family restocking, and then the day we moved into the theatre, I stopped on the way to work to pick up some fun snacks for the office. Through my colleague, I have discovered Whisps! They are baked cheese crackers. Like you know when you make a grilled cheese sandwich and some of the cheese leaks out onto the griddle and gets all bubbly and toasty and crunchy? Whisps is like a whole bag of those. They are delicious. But also, sometimes they taste like the way string cheese smells when you find it hardened under the car seat. I’ll leave it to you to decide if that’s your thing, but I certainly could eat a bag by myself.

Also tried these bubble tea mochis. I like them, but probably not enough to buy them again. I’d rather just have bubble tea.

And and and… my a Costco discovery in the freezer section that made me super excited:

So when I was growing up my grandmother would visit from Taiwan and bring me White Rabbit Candy. It’s kind of a taffy like vanilla candy wrapped in edible rice paper. Seeing a popsicle version – at Costco of all places – brought back so many memories that I just had to try them. They taste just like the candy, expect maybe a little creamier and they don’t get stuck in your teeth the same way. I find it interesting the random Asian treats that I find at our Costco.

– I had a long walk and lunch with my friend. We walked to the cafe and had brunch – I had quiche. And she had a latte and I had a ginger turmeric chai, we both had pastries. Mine was a blueberry rhubarb Amann and it was delicious. And we sat outside and enjoyed the sunshine and brisk, but not too brisk, weather.

– Clementines. I love clementine season. The little oranges are the perfectly portable sweet snack. I also love that the kids can peel them by themselves. We go through a bag in two days so we buy a lot when they are in season. (When they are not in season, I find them very uninspiring.) One of my favorite things to do with them is to peel them and then leave them out so that the membranes get a little dry and crispy. When you bit into the slices you get a delicate crunch of dried shell, then the burst of sweet juicy fruit. It’s a small pleasure, probably made more so by having peeled them and then having to wait for the outsides to dry.

peeled and waiting for the membranes to dry. It’s actually tricky to get to the right degree to dry membrane because someone inevitably comes by and eats them…

-Signs of Spring. Seems too soon, but things are blooming and I’m enjoying the new bits of colour in the landscape.

– Not fun, per se, but watching the 11 year old’s basketball game. They played a team of 6th graders and lost by one point. Losing on free throws is always hard and made me a little angry. But … I’ve been really enjoying being able to go to her games and cheer her on. I never thought I’d be a good sports parent – cheering and clapping always makes me feel self conscious, but these basketball games really brought out the cheerleading parent in me, I guess. There is something really fun about sitting in the stands with other parents and watching a nailbiter of a game.

Mystery of the week: Where did the waffle batter go? The Husband made a double batch of waffle batter one night for dinner, and saved half of it to make for dinner this past week. Well, we can’t find it. It’s not in either of our fridges. It’s not in the pantry. It’s not in any of the cupboards. I am kind of dreading the day when we find a six month old container of waffle batter in an utterly random corner of the house.

Grateful for this week:
– As with every tech week – first prize gold star goes to the Husband for holding down the fort every evening. He makes dinner, he scrapes the ice off my car in the morning, he cleans the kitchen at night. He goes to pick up the kids when they have an accident at school. He’s been awesome.
– My favorite pencils – Pentel Twist-erase mechanical pencils. The best features: a) 0.9 lead, nice and thick and won’t break when I’m writing quickly, and b) the barrel is red so I don’t lose them, c) the eraser which is thick enough so that it doesn’t shred the page when I rub too hard. I bought these pencils in a 12 pack last year because I didn’t ever want to be without.
– 2020 me for keeping such a neat prompt book. I literally took my score from this show in 2020 and copied all the tech cues into my 2023 score. There were still a lot of things that we discovered when we got onstage because… well we only had two tech rehearsals in 2020 before we were all sent home. So certain cues we never even had to a chance to realize that we would need them. But even so, it’s been great to be able to have all the cues in my book before we started onstage so I’m not putting in additional hours writing them in when I’m already at the theatre till 11pm at night.

Looking forward to:
– Opening night. This is the show I was working on when the pandemic shut everything down. It’s been a little surreal to be working on it again.
– Pizza party/movie night/sleepover for the 11 year old’s basketball team. (Apparently according to my niece this is actually a slumber party, not a sleepover…) We’re going to have the players make their own pizza and then the Husband says he’s just going to throw them in the basement and hand over the remote. I think about 11 preteens will be descending on us, though only half are actually staying the night. Waffles in the morning.
– working on my taxes. This is not a “looking forward to” because I find doing my taxes fun, but rather “looking forward to” in that I need to get it off my plate and I know I’m going to feel a lot better when it’s done. We actually have a person do our taxes, so I just need to find the information for our spreadsheet of deductible expenses and gather the tax documents.

What We Ate: another week of barely planned dinners:

Saturday: pizza (take out) and Good Night, Oppy. Such a good movie! This is a documentary about the Mars rovers Perseverance and Opportunity. They were originally anticipated to last 90 days on Mars, but Opportunity lasted fifteen years. There was something really human about this little rover wandering the planet, capturing pictures, and the scientists and engineers behind it.

Sunday: Dinner at our friend’s house before the Husband and the 11 year old went to the theatre with them. Our friends make ribs and hot dogs and salad and curly fries.

Monday: Defrosted some carrot parsnip soup – the husband fed the kids that with leftover pizza from the weekend. I was working, so I’m sure I packed something out of the fridge.

Tuesday: Perch and bagged salad. I was a Costco and it being Lent and we want to eat more fish, I bought a giant package of Perch.

Wednesday: eggs, fruit, cut up veggies. This was the night of the waffle batter mystery.

Thursday: Coconut Soup from Family by Hetty McKinnon.

Friday: I was working through most of my dinner break, and managed only to shove half a sandwich and a soy egg in my mouth before rehearsal. I’m not sure what the rest of the family had for dinner. I think they had take-out sushi.

Weekly Recap + what we ate: sick week

Last weekend was pretty chill. There was a basketball game, then a park. We don’t often go to a park all five of us – the eleven year old has almost aged out of parks. But there was a park near basketball, so we all went. And took some silly pictures:

Then we went grocery shopping as a family. Also a rare occurrence. It was our family adventure of the week, I guess. The grocery store we went to had shopping carts shaped like cars, which two kids could sit in at a time, so the two littles definitely felt like it was an adventure. (Funny story – when the oldest was a kid – before we had the middle child – one of the reasons she wanted a sibling was so that she could have another person sit with her in the shopping carts at Coscto. Well, the two kids are five years apart, and by the time the middle kid could sit up on his own in a shopping cart, they had maybe six months of tandem shopping cart sitting before the oldest got too big. Well, dreams can come true, just not forever, I guess.) We mysteriously seemed to have misplaced a bag with three cucumbers and a ball of mozzarella cheese. I hope that bag was left at the store and not moldering in some corner of the house somewhere.

After the grocery store and lunch, I managed to get a run in, and the skies and clouds were beautiful.

Sunday we had the usual skating and swim lessons, then the rest of the day was… nothing. Such a luxurious feeling! The Husband went to watch the afternoon football game at a friend’s house. I took a nap, and the kids played and read on their own. Around mid afternoon, feeling as if we had to do something, I pulled out a science kit from Christmas and we built a wind turbine – pretty much a windmill that lit up. But then realizing that we didn’t have the 2 litre soda bottle needed to anchor the turbine, we went out on a grey drizzly walk to CVS to purchase a soda in a 2 liter bottle.

Well, the rest of the week felt kind of downhill from there. The six year old was sick for most of the week the followed, so that was kind of a bummer. He missed three days of school with a temperature and a bad cough, and I stayed home with him. All my grand plans of cleaning and organizing before I went back to work next week were dashed. The first day, he mostly slept, but the second and third day he was still running a bit of a temperature – so sick enough to stay home, but not so sick that he stayed in bed all day. He would come up to me whenever I tried to get into a project…

“I’m bored.”

“The house is too quiet.”

“Can you play with me?”

“Read me a book, please.”

My time log for this week features a lot of entries that just say, “Putter.”

I was a little grumpy to have my week taken up with hanging out with the sick kids, but then I tried to lean into having the alone time with the little guy. For all that I was annoyed not to have the week that I planned, I had to remind myself that the days when I can cuddle and coddle are limited so maybe cleaning out the guest room can wait. So we had some lovely mommy-son hanging out time.

I taught him how to play Uno. And I didn’t let him win.

We went to the library and borrowed a huge stack of books, including several Vox books. And we came home and sat on the couch and read books together. I particularly liked this one, Seaside Stroll. There is a note in the afterward that the author was inspired by ASL poetry in writing this book -and I can see that in how a lot of the words in the book are not about strict rhymes but about sentence structure and patterns.

We had lots of hot cocoa. A friend of ours had moved to the Bay Area and for Christmas sent us eight pounds of Ghirardelli hot cocoa mix. It’s the kind that you can mix with water, so it’s easy to put the kettle on and stir up a cup. I add a splash of half and half to cool it down and for a bit of creaminess.

And sometimes, we just sat on the couch, tucked the blankets around us and cuddled.

And in between I managed to pay some bills, make some phone calls, read some books, and bake some bread.

By Thursday, he was well enough to go back to school, and off he went, a little reluctantly, I admit.

One of the things I’m so glad I did manage to do this week was make that sourdough bread. Hooray! My starter is still alive! I use this recipe, which is very simple and requires no kneading, and which I’ve had the most success with in creating a loaf that has some height. I’m so relieved that the starter is still alive – it’s over twenty years old, gifted to my by a singer I worked with, and I brought it back from Colorado the last summer I worked there. I would have been sad if I couldn’t keep it alive. We say we are cutting down on carbs in our house, but we are making an exception for the bread. The first loaf was gone by the next morning. So I made another one on Friday, and it is already almost gone.

Other things/ thoughts from this week:

The eleven year old using a dictionary. The other day, she asked me what “dilated” means. I told her to go find it in the dictionary. She said she tried, but couldn’t find it. Not the dictionary – we have two of those. She couldn’t find “dilated”. And then I realized that whereas you can just type “dilated” into google and get an answer, in a dictionary, you have to look under “dilate” and see variants. I’m realizing that I maybe took dictionary use for granted and that using one is something you have to figure out. Of course she can build things with minecraft that I have no idea how to, so…

Speaking of teaching skills, I also introduced the eleven year old to the concept of a shoe horn last week. She has a maddening (to me) habit of stuffing her feet into her sneakers in a way that wrecks the back/ heels of the shoes. Sometimes she just ignores the backs of the shoes and steps them down, wearing her shoes like a slipper. So I decided that she needed to learn about the wonderful invention called the shoe horn.

When i was growing up, we had a shoe horn hanging up in our coat closet and it was used all. the. time. Perhaps like Phantom of the Opera and Dictionaries, this is one of the wonders of my childhood that I felt my own child needed in her life. She was somewhat skeptical. But at least she now unlaces her shoes before stuffing her feet in them, if only to prove to me that she doesn’t need this odd old fashioned shoe horn thingy-ma-jig.

Also – the shoe horn, alright I ordered a two pack – the two pack of shoe horns arrived in a humungous box. The box was at least 24″x18″ big. Filled with lots of packing pillows. And two shoe horns. Oh and a oil decanter. I had to laugh. At myself, really, who got so excited by this huge box arriving on our doorstep, wondering what large thing could be coming into our life. I mean a shoe horn is exciting, but definitely not what I expected in the box of that size.

The shoe horns seem to be drowning in pack material.

Walking errands. I’m toying with the idea of walking, running, or biking if I have errands less than two miles away. This week, I had to pick up the 11 year old from her after school math tutoring session. Since I had been home all day with the sick six year old, I decided to walk to the school, which is 1.2 miles away. I had the time, and it was a good excuse to stretch my legs and get some fresh air. A couple weeks ago, I had to walk my friend’s dog and I decided to run to her house because I hadn’t gotten my run in yet. Combining exercise with a task felt really fulfilling for some reason. It seems like such a no brainer to not take the car whenever I can, but for whatever reason, my first instinct is usually to get in the car. I’d like to work on shifting that mindset a little bit. Of course, often time is a limiting factor, but perhaps I can be more mindful on when time is a truly limiting factor or just one of minimal convenience.

Fascinating read of the week. Do not read while eating. This rundown of ancient toilet paper alternatives had me riveted. I don’t think twice about toilet paper being the obvious choice for certain daily functions, yet reading about how past populations dealt with the bathroom tissue issue was eye opening. I guess, of course when “disposable” is not something you can take for granted, there has to be alternatives but I had never considered what the alternatives would be. And also… there are people who study this kind of thing.

Deep thought of the week: In my quest for finding fun playlists for running – Why, do the Spotify playlists that are labelled “Throwback” feature no music that I recognize, while the playlists labelled “Retro” feature all the hits of my childhood? When did my “Throwback” become “Retro”?

Along the note of music and nostalgia – after dinner one night this week, I sat and listened to Samuel Barber’s piece Knoxville: Summer of 1915. It’s a piece for orchestra and soprano and I always wanted to sing it, back when I studied voice, but I never really learned it. I had pulled the piece up because the eleven year old had read some Walt Whitman in class (which I’m impressed – I’ve never really understood Whitman.), namely his poem “I hear an army”. (note to self: There is something really lovely about hearing poetry read or recited – we should do that more. ) Barber had done a setting of that poem, so I cued it up to listen to, and from there (thank you YouTube auto-play) the next video that played was a performance of Knoxville: Summer of 1915.
The text is taken from a prose poem of James Agee, writing in the voice of a child who contemplates the moments of a summer evening and the people in their life. The passage was eventually used in his novel A Death in the Family, and I think it perfectly captures that ephemeral sense of security one has as a child and how it can be recollected but not recaptured. It is one of my favorite pieces of music, yet I hadn’t thought of it for years. Rediscovering it this week has been such beautiful experience. I could listen to it endlessly. If you have fifteen minutes, you can find one of my favorite recordings here. I love the entire text, but this is one of my favorite passages:

All my people are larger bodies than mine,
With voices gentle and meaningless
Like the voices of sleeping birds.
One is an artist, he is living at home.
One is a musician, she is living at home.
One is my mother who is good to me.
One is my father who is good to me.
By some chance, here they are,
All on this earth;
And who shall ever tell the sorrow
Of being on this earth, lying, on quilts,
On the grass,
In a summer evening,
Among the sounds of the night.

Grateful For This Week:
– The Husband cleaning off my car after a little snow. We woke up one morning to a dusting of snow – the first of the season. Of course it had to be on a morning when the 11 year old has her 7:15am piano lessons. It’s hard enough to get out of the house in time for piano lessons, but to have to fit in cleaning off the car… I was certain we would be late. But the Husband offered to warm up my car and clean the snow off of it, and I didn’t say no.
-My raincoat. Between the sick kid and the weather I didn’t get any running in this week. Knowing that I wasn’t going to prioritize running, I made an effort to walk (see above: Walking errands). Once the Husband got home from work, I walked to do school pick up, despite the drizzly weather. Luckily last year I bought a proper rain coat and it proved very useful, overriding any weather related excuse I might have to stay inside and sedentary.
– Against the Odds podcast. Each season of this podcast tells the story of one event or situation that seems impossible to overcome. The first season was about the Thai soccer team that got trapped in a cave. We’re now on season two which tells the story of Aid worker Jessica Buchanan who is kidnapped in 2011 by Somali pirates. It’s really gripping storytelling – maybe a touch melodramatic. But I expect being kidnapped by Somali pirates is very dramatic.
Anyhow, the 11 year old was not happy when I showed up on foot to pick her up from her after school tutoring this week. She was expecting to ride the car home, not a twenty minute walk in misty drizzle. I had read this post on Cup of Jo last week, that talks about shifting conversations. Instead of talking about having to do the undesirable task, what about saying, “Well you have to do it, so what can we do to make it feel better?” So I pulled out that phrase. Pause. Grumble. Mutter. Sigh. (That last was me.) “What if,” I asked, “I gave you one of my earbuds and we listened to a podcast on the way home?” And her face lit up. “Can we listen to Against the Odds?” she asked. So we walked home, each with one earbud, listening to this engrossing podcast. And I got some one on one time with her, which I don’t always get these days.
-The eleven year old packing lunch for her siblings and including sweet notes for them. Afterwards she told me that she did it because I used to do it for her when she was in kindergarten. So many mixed feelings about this: 1) I don’t know how I feel about her doing parent like things because it’s not her job, and I don’t want her to feel pressure to be that figure for her sibling. (That song Surface Pressure from Encanto is all about her.) but 2) I love that she is thinking of her siblings and wants to give them something to cheer them up.

Looking Forward To:
– The six year old’s birthday party at Chuck E. Cheese. I’ve never had one of those birthday package parties, so this will be a new experience. But I’ve been told that a lot of the kids are sooooo excited. (Three of the five kids coming ride the school bus with the 11 year old and they’ve been telling her that they can’t wait for the party.) [This has happened and it was every more sensory overload than I could have ever imagined. Still, lots of fun was had.]
-Starting work on a new show. Getting to see familiar work colleagues.
-Super Bowl Sunday. Apparently we are hosting. We (the Husband) likes to have food that corresponds to the teams that are playing. I think that means we’re having Cheesesteaks (Philadelphia) and Barbeque (Kansas City). It seems awfully meat heavy. Maybe I can get away with some carrot sticks thrown in there. Okay, I just googled and Tastykakes are from Philly. I can’t decide what I want to do with that information.

One last note: Went to Bed, Bath and Beyond this week, and this was out:

Now I suppose home decor is different from chocolate and candy, but still… it feels awfully early. And what, did we just skip St. Patrick’s day?!?!

What We Ate:
Saturday: Pizza and movie night. We watched Ratatouille – a lovely movie. It was the three year old’s turn to choose the move and she originally wanted Frozen, but her big sister convinced her to choose Ratatouille. Ratatouille is perhaps a little lacking in action and the three year old kept asking, “When will this movie be over?” Well she should learn to just stick to her guns.

Sunday: Solo parenting so I made breakfast burritos for the kids and ate leftovers for myself.

Monday: Mac n Cheese from Dinner Illustrated, with peas instead of chard.

Tuesday: Grilled eggplant with pickled onions. Vegan. The Husband cooked from the cookbook The Green Barbeque, which features vegetarian recipes for the grill.

Wednesday: Sheetpan nachos. Nachos covered with Monterey Jack and cheddar cheese, topped with pinto and black beans, corn, peppers, jalapenos (which were disappointingly not spicy), onions. Avocado and cilantro sprinkled on top after it came out of the oven. I also made some cashew queso to have on the side. Nachos are one of those super easy dinners that I rarely make because something in my mind doesn’t accept that it’s a complete meal. Yet, when you load them up, they really are a complete meal.

Thursday: Baked Cod and Garlic Green Beans (The Husband cooked)

Friday: Tofu Lettuce Wraps, this recipe. I used snow peas instead of water chestnuts. (Vegan). The three year old picked out all the mushrooms and snow peas from her tofu. And they were chopped in half inch piecesinterspersed in crumbled tofu. That’s a commitment. She claims that she doesn’t like mushrooms or vegetables, but I don’t think I’ve ever seen her eat any, so I’m not sure what she is basing her claim on.

Goals and Aspirations – Fall review and now til 2023

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Watch Holiday Movies – we’ve made a list!

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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