family movie night – Page 3

Weekly recap + what we ate: Back to School, Labor Day Weekend, and Moments not Mine

Beautiful skies and trees at the botanical gardens.

Hello from the other aide of Labor Day Weekend. We’ve turned the calendar to September and I feel like we now begin the new year in earnest- it’s a new school year and a new opera season. New activities beginning!

Sunday felt like the perfect end-of-summer day. We slept in – just late enough to feel luxurious, but not so late as to feel indolent. Which for us is 7:30/8am. Then I decided that I wanted to have special breakfast, so I made waffles. I usually make the buttermilk waffles from King Arthur Flour Baking Companion, only this time the 5 year old wanted me to put rainbow sprinkles in them, and I also made a blueberry waffle. I’d never put add ins in my waffles before, so I didn’t know how it would turn out – they turned out great.

After breakfast, we went to the farmer’s market. I biked with the 8 year old while the Husband and the other two kids took the metro. I was really impressed by the 8 year old – the bike ride is the same one I take to work. It’s about five miles and there is a big hill at the end. I often have to walk my bike up that hill, but the 8 year old put his bike in a low gear and kept pedaling up the hill. He did rest once, but then kept going. I’m loving how much he’s loving his bike. One vent, though, is that right before the big hill, is a stop light so ideally you get a green light and can accelerate through the light on a higher gear and get some momentum up the hill. Only you know those Lime Bikes? They’re those bike share e-bikes that you can find randomly around. Well, someone had left a Lime Bike in the middle of the sidewalk on the other side of the stop light. So we had to stop and any momentum we got coming out of the stop light was lost. I got SO MAD. I might have not too gently pushed the Lime Bike over and dragged it off the sidewalk. Sooooo annoying.

Anyhow, despite that we got to the Farmer’s Market where we bought vegetables (peppers, cucumbers, spinach, potatoes) and peaches and nectarines. There was not a huge peach sale this time, so we did not come home with a $25 crate of peaches. After the market, we all took the metro home. The ride was a little odd because we ran into the 13 year old’s math teacher, which it’s always a little awkward seeing one’s teachers out in the wild.

We spent the rest of the afternoon just hanging out in the backyard. The Husband was finally setting up the smoker that he had gotten a few months ago. Setting up the smoker involved cooking two pounds of bacon. “What are we going to do with two lbs of bacon?” I asked the Husband.

Apparently we were just going to eat it. The Husband doesn’t eat bacon, but the other four of us – we polished off that two lbs in less than an hour. It was tasty. No regrets there. Yet.

It was such a nice chill afternoon in the backyard. We planned the 5 year old’s upcoming birthday party. We talked to the 8 year old about some upcoming activity plans. I played a bit of soccer with the 8 year old backyard. I finished a book and flipped through the first few pages of a few options for my next read. I think if you had told me that I was going to spend three hours in my backyard reading and “life-ing”, I would have kind of thought, “What a waste of time. Shouldn’t I go organize my desk or something like that?” But you know what? It was just perfect. I guess this is what people do with weekends when they don’t have to rush off to activities or work.

Oh and then after that, we had a family cuddle session on the 13 year old’s bed. She had put “Family hug” on the calendar during the previous day’s family meeting. The Husband pointed out that we could hug for longer if we were on a bed, so we all piled into her bed and had an hour of cuddle time. Well I guess the Husband, the 13 year old, and I cuddled. The 5 year old and the 8 year old climbed all over us. It wasn’t relaxing, per se, but it was nice bonding time. Then I got up, and made dinner.

After dinner, I took the two little kids to the pool for one final raft night. Our pool closes on Labor Day, and since we had plans for Monday, if we wanted to get one last swim in, Sunday was the day. The pool was a little chilly, but we soon got used to it. Plus we had our inflatable rings, so we just floated along and enjoyed the sky and clouds.

The 8 year old took this picture at the pool because he said the sky was beautiful.

When I look back on Sunday, I think, “I would never have planned a day like that. But it was perfect.”

Which was nice because to be honest, the day before was kind of a disaster. We tried to go find a dresser for the 13 year old, driving all the way to Virginia because that is where the folks on Reddit say the best furniture stores in teh area are. Virginia is terrible to drive to/drive in. We looked at lots of furniture but couldn’t decide on what to get. Turns out we have a fundamental difference in overall vision for the 13 year old’s room, basically the disagreement is piece meal furniture vs. bedroom set. (And the 13 year old didn’t really care which way to go.) Most of our furniture in the house was obtained piecemeal, and one of us thought that maybe if we were going to buy one thing for the 13 year old’s room, we should buy a whole set since she didn’t really have a bed and was sleeping on a futon mattress. We spent thirty minutes in the furniture store disagreeing about set vs. piecemeal and finally left without buying anything.

We then tried to go to the really cool and tasty Vietnamese shopping center for lunch, but the parking lot was kind of a madhouse so we abandoned that. People in the van got hungry, then cranky so we ended up at a Laotian restaurant, though that required driving through more confusing traffic patterns. The GPS said it was 0.5 miles away. It was only a short distance away in miles, but it was miles in frustration. So all in all, not a great excursion. (But the food was really good – the crispy tofu lettuce wraps were divine.) I think we are scarred and likely won’t be going deep into the Virginia suburbs again for a long long long long time. (Apologies to any Virginia readers. I’m sure you feel the same way about driving in Maryland.)

All to say, after that disaster of a half day on Saturday, Sunday was everything I needed a long weekend day to be.

Labor Day Monday was our annual trip to the Renaissance Festival. The weather was gorgeous – the past couple of years it has been unbearably hot on Labor Day weekend, which makes the Ren Faire a little bit harder to navigate. But this year, the weather was high 70s, sunny with a breeze, and downright cool in the shade. That might account for the high volume of people going. The traffic was terrible. It usually takes us 40-50 minutes to get to the Faire. This year it took us 90 minutes. I’ve never seen it that bad. So we didn’t get through the gates until nearly 11:00am. (Our friends who were meeting us there took three hours to get there and they only live two miles from us.) I was probably the only one worried about not getting to the Faire right when it opened. The kids were happy in a slow moving van as long as they could put on KPop Demon Hunters and Broadway Show Tunes and sing along at the top of their lungs. I might have joined in.

Once we got to Revel Grove itself, we had a great time. The Ren Faire is such a multi-faceted event. You have all the shows and entertainment, you have the shopping, the eating, there’s the pirate ship playground, and games, and you also have the fun pageantry and people watching. It’s kind of like being in the middle of a parade, what with all the costumes that people were wearing. My favorite costumes I saw this year were the two people dressed up as Galinda and Elphaba, and also a stately older lady in this beautiful golden brocade gown with a headdress that had protruding spikes, as if she were the sun. It was pretty spectacular. The 13 year old’s favorite costume was the guy we saw dressed as Waldo from “Where’s Waldo”.

We saw all the familiar shows, including a 20 minute Macbeth. We saw the jousting. We ate turkey legs and other fried food. We let the kids play at the playground. The kids went through the maze and shot toy crossbows. The 5 year old was finally old enough to do the climbing wall, which she climbed with such ease. Next year she will have to do the “Medium hard” wall, I think. We listened to bagpipes and drums, the music so loud and rhythmic that you could feel the benches vibrate and the music under your skin. Going to the Ren Faire feels so familiar – I feel like we have a good routine and pace for how we tackle the day. I almost worry that we are in a Rem Faire rut, and I think next year we should go see at least a few new to us Acts and maybe try some new foods. I’ve started keeping a list of foods that go over like a lead balloon – so far on the list are the fried green beans (meh, so very much meh) and the apple dumplings (waaay too messy to eat while standing up or taking in a show.)

Leading up to Labor Day, though, was the first week of school. Monday was a “Transition Day” for kindergarteners (also 6th and 9th graders), so the older two kids were off school. After walking the 5 year old to school, we went to the Botanical Gardens and met up with some friends for a walk. In the afternoon, the 13 year old then had a voice lesson via Zoom, and we went to the 8 year old’s open house. The 13 year old did not have an open house. I guess at a certain point, they just expect you to show up at school and figure it out.

Then on Tuesday, everyone went back to school. Yay! I am so excited for the new school year, the new teachers, the new friends, and new routines. Everyone seemed to have a good first week of school. The 5 year old is excited to go every day, though she says they sit a lot. The 8 year old seems to like his teacher and the 13 year old – well, I think she likes the independence that she has at school.

Obligatory First Day of School picture. I don’t do first day signs though I love the idea. The 13 year old leaves for school an hour and half before the other two so I was lucky just to have everyone dressed to be in a first day picture together.

Fun fact – the 5 year old wore the same dress that her big sister wore to her first day of kindergarten. We even sort of recreated the picture from eight years ago:

I was thinking recently about how life with little kids seemed/ seems interminable for me. I look at the 5 year old and, also to some extent the 8 year old and think, “How are you still so young? It seems as if you’ve been little forever.” I wouldn’t wish the years away, but it does seem as if we’ve been in the “parenting littles” phase for such. a. long. time.

But, at the opposite end, with the 13 year old, time is flying. I am so acutely aware of (and completely unprepared for) the fact that she will go to high school next year; that two year (and change) from now she will be learning how to drive; that the years we have with her at home are fewer and fewer. We now have more years behind us than in front of us with her at home. (Unless she lives at home for college, which is actually a very real possibility. But that’s a future thing…)

Time passes simultaneously quickly and slowly when I look at my children. Sometimes it feels as if I’m living on two different timelines, parallel yet not quite concurrent. I was thinking that this slight dissonance is because as kids grow older, I’m getting fewer and fewer pieces of them. When kids are little, they are all ours – there is so much of them, a surfeit of responsibility, care, attention. When they are first born, they are with us 24/7. And even in the early years, they are either at school/daycare or with a parent. We take them to school, we feed them their meals, we take them to activities, even participating in those activities with them. Time with them moves slowly because there is so much of it.

But as they grow older and need us less and less, they also give us less and less. The 13 year old still wants time to cuddle and watch New Girl, but these days she also wants time alone. And coupled with all the time she spends at school, at basketball, at various lessons and activities, most of which she gets herself to and from – well, my time with her is just pockets. There is less of it – which is why, I think time with her goes much faster; there is just so little of it on a day to day basis. There’s a sense of time scarcity with the 13 year old that I don’t have with the younger kids. It’s not just that the years are fewer, but also that the moments are fewer. And on top that, the moments are no longer mine.

So here’s to savoring those moments I do get to share with her, and also letting her have her own moments as she becomes her own person.

Grateful For:

– Summer evenings with just the right amount of chill and light to remind me to savor the moments before winter is upon us.

-The Lenten Book Group and my friend who invited me to join two years ago. We had a meeting last week where we talked about Mary and Martha, and the Good Samaritan. I’ve always, to be quite honest, been bothered by the story of Mary and Martha. (Cliff Notes: Jesus comes to teach at Martha’s house and her sister Mary sits at his feet and listens while Martha works to prepare the house, serve the food, etc. Martha gets resentful and asks Jesus to make Mary help her, but Jesus says that what Mary is doing is important too.) We had a great discussion about actions being the manifestation of love, but also how sometimes just putting things down and listening is important too.

-School bus drivers, teachers, principals, and school administrators. Bless them all.

-A new bus route. We have switched the two elementary school kids to a different afternoon bus route that drops the kids by 4:15pm to a stop that is next to a park and walking distance from home. This bus was always an option, but in past years it didn’t drop off until close to 5pm. They’ve streamlined the bus routes this year, and while some parents are upset, it works out better for us. I’ll miss our friends at the old bus stop, but this new stop is so much better for life – the kids get off the bus sooner, and I can even can go to the playground for 20 minutes and still get home in time to make dinner. Also, the 13 year old can go down to the bus stop and shoot baskets while waiting for the kids and then walk them home. Anything we can do to minimize time in the car is a plus for me.

-Metro workers. On the train home from the Farmer’s Market, a man on our train car collapsed out of his seat. I went over to see if he needed help and he seemed a little incoherent, which was a little concerning. We had to get off at the next stop, so I told the Metro conductor, and I think he called for help because a police car and fire truck pulled up as we were leaving the station. I’m so grateful that there are people to help in those situations because I really felt out of my depths.

– The plethora of Ethiopian markets nearby where I can readily get injera. I had some time to kill between errands one day and realized I was in walking distance of two Ethiopian stores, so I stopped by one to pick up some injera. I love the stuff and can eat a whole package by myself. I hear it’s complicated to make, so I’m am grateful I don’t have to make it myself.

-This belt bag that I got as a hand me down from my cousin. I never thought I’d be a belt bag person, but it perfectly fits my phone, wallet, keys, and sunglasses, which makes it so handy when I’m out on my bike or am just running a quick errand, or to stuff in the swim bag. Hand me downs for the win!

Looking forward to:
-going to our friend’s house out in Southern Maryland. She’s closing her pool for the season soon and invited us up for one last swim. I’ll be making that peach cobbler again.

-Lunch and happy hours with friends. I tend to fill my social calendar up when I’m not working because my evenings and weekends get very packed when I am working. So I have lots of meet ups scheduled in the next couple of weeks.

-Riding bikes to school. This is a “Looking forward to” that is at least a year out. The 8 year old and I rode our bikes to his 3rd grade open house. It took just 15 minutes to get to school (though it took 8 minutes to find a bike rack and lock up the bikes…), and there is a trail almost all the way there. There is one major road to cross, but it has a traffic light there and lots of other foot traffic, so it’s not dangerous. I would feel pretty safe letting the kids ride their bikes the 2.3 miles to school. Right now, the limiting factor is the 5 year old doesn’t ride a bike yet, but once she figures it out, I can totally see the two of them biking to school together, and myself going with them sometimes. Their school is actually half way to my work, so it would be a convenient family commute.

-Back to School Night for the Elementary school kids. The middle school BTSN was last week (on the third day of school!) and that one was a lot of fun – we got to follow our 13 year old’s schedule and go from class to class. Being able to walk her paths gave me a lot of insight into how chaotic her days are.

-Fall cooking projects: I’ve decided that I’m going to try to make dosa from scratch this fall. Also I never got around to making Japanese milk bread and that is still on my list. And the 8 year old wants to make tang hulu (Sugar coated strawberries) since he missed out when we made it earlier this summer. I’m kind of leaning into the idea of having some good homemade snacks for when the kids get home from school.

-Reading this book:

Set near Johannesburg, it’s one of the books I had picked up to read while in South Africa, but I ended up not bringing it on the trip. This novel tells the story of a 10 year old white girl and a Xhosa widow whose lives intersect in a tragic way.

What We Ate:

Monday: Tomato and Zucchini Tart and Cucumber Avocado Salad. Really leaning into the summer produce for this meal. The Tart was super simple – pre-made pastry dough, covered with a mixture of cream cheese and mustard blended together, and covered with sliced tomato and zucchini. The cucumber avocado salad, was inspired by Julie, though not the exact of the one she posted.

Tuesday: Taco Tuesday! Shrimp and chicken tacos, made on the grill. I had a jar of green salsa of indeterminate origins so I used that to marinate the chicken. The family devoured this. I made 1 lb of shrimp and 2 lbs of chicken and it was all inhaled. I felt bad because we had a friend coming for dinner and she was running late so I fed the kids first and our friend only got two tacos because that’s all that was left. Oh, and for dessert I made peach cobbler, recipe from the NY Times. I’ve never made a peach cobbler before – friends! cobbler is SO fast and easy! And delicious! Will make again. (And I’m going to – see above about visiting our friend in southern Maryland.)

Wednesday: Dinner at Ikea as we went on our mission for a dresser for the 13 year old. The mission was a fail. But the meatballs were tasty.

Thursday: Meera Sodha’s Green Pasta – Trying to use up all the basil in our yard. I really like this pasta – you blend blanched spinach, basil, parsley, lemon juice, silken tofu and nutritional yeast into a creamy savory sauce for pasta. Then you top it with this olive/lemon/olive oil mixture. Well I did – the rest of family doesn’t care for olives. Vegan.

Friday: Pizza (carry out) and Dodge Ball. The 13 year old originally wanted to watch Forest Gump, but then realized it’s actually kind of a downer of a movie plus it’s kind of long, so she picked Dodge Ball instead. Which… I have to say, some of it is still hilarious (“If you can dodge a wrench, you can dodge a ball!”), but a lot of it is sexist, homo-phobic, body-shaming frat boy humor that hasn’t aged well for me. The kids liked it, but I gave a lot of disclaimers as we went along.

Saturday: The little kids and I went to a birthday party where there was pizza, snacks, and a cookie cake. The Husband and 13 year old went out for cheesesteaks. I was still hungry when I came home so I had angel hair pasta with the leftover olive oil/lemon/olive mixture from Thursday night.

Sunday: Sweet and sour eggplant with garlic chips, served with rice. Recipe from NY Times Cooking. Easy stir fry with the sweetest, silkiest Japanese Eggplant from the farmer’s market. I also added green beans and carrots since I realized that recipes that say “2-4 servings” won’t feed our family. Vegan.

Monday: Smoked pork sandwiches with Coleslaw. The Husband’s first smoking project was a delicious success. I’m not sure if he will become one of those guys who tries to smoke everything and spends all weekend with his smoker. From what he described to me, smoking meat is a combination of leisurely hands off and attending to the temperature of the smoker as if it were a colicky baby.

Hope you all have a lovely start to September.

What parts of life seem interminable to you? What parts seem to go quickly? Are you team furniture set or team piecemeal furniture? Any fun cooking projects lately? Have you ever made dosa from scratch? Any favorite movies from your youth that haven’t aged well for you?

Weekly recap + what we ate: Last week of summer!

This past week, we bought school supplies, squeezed in more pool time, one kid had a cavity filled, met the Husband for lunch (fried chicken and Boba!) . I also had some work meetings. We went to the Kindergarten Open House for the 5 year old. I was really proud of the 8 year old for introducing his little sister to the teachers. They are both in a French Immersion program, so the teachers aren’t allowed to speak English in front of the students. Some teacher even pretend that they don’t understand English. I could have introduced the 5 year old to the teacher myself, but I figured the 8 year old hadn’t spoken French all summer, so he could stand to start up again.

On Saturday, we took the kids to the K-Pop Demon Hunters sing1a-long in the movie theatres. Since we don’t have Netflix, I hadn’t actually seen the movie, even though we listen to the soundtrack all. the. time. – in the car, during breakfast, at clean up time… just whenever. It first came into our lives because the 8 year old had watched it at Taiwan Camp, and asked to listen to the music non stop. Then when the family was in Indiana the friend they stayed with put it on for them to watch. The kids know all the words, they make up dance numbers. They even took my phone last week while I was on a call and filmed music videos. Afterwards I found all the black clothing in the house strewn across the living room. Their dedication to the project was admirable. The videos involved costumes, props, choreography and dizzying film work. I was actually quite impressed. (Also happy that they were able to amuse themselves while I was on a two hour call.) Obsessed. They are all obsessed.

We didn’t tell the kids that we were going to the Sing-a-long, just that we had a “surprise outing”. They kept asking questions about the activity, as if we were playing a never ending round of twenty questions – “Does it involve food?” “Is it outside?” “Do I have to get dressed up?” “Does it involve food?” “Do I need to bring money?” “Does it involve food?” . Eventually we said that we weren’t answering any more questions.

As we were riding the escalator to the movie theatre, a couple was coming down on the opposite side; he was wearing a top hat and cloak, and she was wearing a shiny white mini-skirt and halter top. As soon as the 13 year old saw that, her eyes got really big and she got this huge grin on her face. “Are we going to the sing-a-long?” she whispered to us. I don’t think I’ll ever be the parent that surprised their kids with a trip to Disney, but I have to admit, seeing the joy and realization creep across the kids face when they realize they’re going somewhere fun is priceless.

For those who haven’t experienced it yet, K-Pop Demon Hunters is a Netflix movie about a K-Pop band that fights Demons, saving the world through their music. There is angst and intrigue, romance and fight sequences. I found the movie incredibly entertaining and satisfying to watch. After listening to the music on repeat for the past six weeks, seeing them in context made me realize that they are not just songs, but cleverly propel the story. This movie is as much a movie musical as any of the Disney classics. It’s sentimental and big hearted and not-subtle.

But also – there is something about taking my kids to see a movie where the protagonists are all Asian, and the whole movie is very much steeped in Korean culture. For one, the food scenes were so amazingly familiar – granted Korean food is very different from Taiwanese food, but seeing people eat noodles with chopsticks and then all the snacks… these things are part of the food culture I grew up with. I’ve written here before about representation in media and I’m always struck that my children are growing up in a world where they see the non-White part of their heritage reflected in mainstream media. I didn’t have that growing up, and I’m so glad they do.

Everyone had a great time, singing along and bopping. There was one funny thing that happened, though – before the movie started, this group of ten or so kids and grown ups came in, and many of them had balloons. Well during the last third of the movie, someone let go of their balloon, and it floated into the light of the projector. The shadow of the balloon string ended up dangling in the picture of the rest of the movie. It looked like the characters all had the same hair curl in every frame and was mildly distracting. I was alternately annoyed and amused. It didn’t ruin the fun, though.

Sunday, we went to the Farmer’s market for lunch and produce. The two older kids and the Husband biked the 5 miles there while the 5 year old and I took the metro to meet them. The plan was for all of us to metro back after having a special drink at one of our favorite coffee shops. (The 13 year old loves their house made chai lattes, and having one was on her summer bucket list.) At the farmer’s market, I picked up some beautiful Japanese eggplants, spinach, nectarines, and peaches. At one point I was checking out at one stand and noticed that there was a sign that said “Box of peaches $25”. Well that’s irresistible to me. Never mind that we had metro-ed to the Farmer’s market. I debated – can I get that home? I just canned a whole crate of peaches, do I need more? (the answer is always YES) – Then the Husband said, “You know you want to. We’ll get it home.” The thirteen year old helped me carry a little of the way, but she was also walking her bike, so I ended up carrying the box most of the way home. It was worth it. I don’t think I’m up for more canning, so I froze some and I think I’ll do some baking. That is if there are any left come this weekend. The kids go through peaches like termites.

The rest of the day was taken up by a pool party birthday for the 5 year old, and then I met up with some friends in DC for dinner. It was eerily quiet at the restaurant. But perhaps it was because it was 6pm on a Sunday night? Perhaps it’s because the National Guard is here. I mean they weren’t in the neighborhood we were in, but there is a general sense of tense gloom. It’s been really disheartening these days. I don’t have to go into DC very often, so the added military presence is not something I’m faced with every day – I’m sure it’s a little alarming for people for whom it’s a daily sight.

Other things I’m pondering lately:

-Trees – I’ve been painting trees lately, watching tutorials and then trying to copy them. I’ve noticed that after watching tutorials and hearing what the painters say about what they are trying to capture in a tree, I look at trees differently. Like I’ll see how the light comes through the leaves or something and think, “Oh! That’s why the painter uses yellow there!” It seems a little backwards to notice the light after learning how to paint it, though. Sometimes when the kids and I have just a half hour or so to kill, I’ll get the paints out and it’s a very soothing way to pass the time. (until the kids start mixing the colours too much and I have to bite my tongue and just let them….)

-Minor victory – The kids and I cleaned up the toy room that was kind of a disastrous explosion of toys. I basically pushed everything into the center of the room, put the empty bins beside the pile and told them to sort things back into their bins. We managed to clean it all up in two twenty five minute sessions, interspersed with ten minute popsicle breaks. I guess phrasing it as “sorting” rather than “cleaning” might have kept the whining down? I don’t know. But I’ve never been that successful at getting them to clean the toy room.

-there was rambutan and lychee and dragon fruit at Hmart last week! I’m always excited when the uncommon (to America) fruit is at HMart.

-answering the question of “What to do with that half can of condensed milk?” I had made peach popsicles the other day (Peaches, yogurt, condensed milk in the blender and freeze), and had half a can of condensed milk left. The Husband found this recipe – Cornflake Caramel Squares. It’s kind of a twist on Millionaire Shortbread. The Cornflakes are incorporated into a shortbread crust along with some shredded coconut. Then the half tin of condensed milk is used to make a caramel that is spread over top. Then top it with a layer of chocolate. It was tasty. (I’m also really intrigued by the idea of the website: Traybakes & More. I’d never heard of the concept of a tray bake – I guess a savory one would be a casserole and a sweet one would be like a bar cookie/ brownie type thing? But the recipes look less fussy – more like mix and dump and bake. Anyhow, I would like there to be more traybakes in my life. The sweet kind. I’m not a huge fan of casseroles.)

-Family Task Management- any suggestions? One struggle I’m having right now is keeping track of all the family to do items. The Husband and I tend to text or email each other when something comes up that we need the other to take care of – change the credit card on an account, fill out paperwork, pick up toilet paper and even bigger stuff like finalize the tenant’s lease, look into plane tickets for something, FSA receipts- but sometimes I lose track of the text or email before I complete the item. So I’m trying to figure out a system that these things don’t get lost in the shuffle. I really want to set up a system that we can have in place once I start back in rehearsal because there are long stretches when we are like ships in the night since I work so late and he goes to work so early in the morning. I guess what we need is:
– ability for both of us to add tasks (he’s Android, I’m iPhone)
– Simple to use.
– ability to check off tasks when complete, not just delete
– if there’s a way to get a notification when a task is added? Otherwise we’d be texting “I added something to the list” back and forth. Trying to streamline the process
-Some day will want to share with the kids, so might want to be able to make different lists.
-not a calendar. We already use Google Calendar for events.
-not really interested in a paid system (yet)
I feel like this is into Parents as CEO territory, but if anyone wants to share how they manage and share tasks with another person, I’m all ears!

Grateful For:

-Cooler weather. The weather has dipped into something practically fall-like last week. It was almost too cold to go to the pool, but we did manage a few “last hurrah of summer” swims.

-That the 13 year old made lunch for her siblings while I was in a Zoom meeting. AND they even cleaned up.

-College Friendships that still are strong. Last week, I got to meet up with a college friend, E, who was nearby to visit family. The kids and I drove up to meet her and we had Indian food and then went to a park where my friend and I walked while the little kids played. Then on Sunday E and my friend K met up for dinner (see above) – the three of us had met in college and all were heavily involved in music. E actually played the piano for my senior year recital. There is something so great about having friends who have shared formative years with me, and being able to reflect on that together, but also being able to talk about today and the future and who we are and want to be.

-That I don’t have to work on the weekends for the next six weeks or so. October through December will be very busy for me work-wise, so I’m glad I have weekends free for the next little bit.

-Butterflies for adding a flash of color and beauty to the world.

-Our Realtor who offered us some advice about a tricky tenant situation. He’s super pragmatic and chill and has been managing properties for a long time, and he gave us some good perspective on a situation we were having with the house we rent out. I’m always grateful for his advice and expertise and that he still takes our call even though we last bought a house from him five years ago.

-Collective bargaining. Unions are important. The right to form and join a union is also important.

Looking Forward To:
-Soccer season has started. The 8 year old is just playing in the rec league, so he has just one practice a week + 1 game.

-A return to routines once school starts. At one of our family meetings we talked about “expectations” for the school year and one of them was a regular pick up time and chores for the kids. We’ll see if pick up time can be come a routine, but I’m ready for the house to look less like a den of wild animals live here. (I mean – everyone was home all the time last week, so yeah, in a way, it was like a pack of wolves had taken over.)

-Having just ONE pick up to deal with. And ONE school calendar. The thirteen year old walks to and from school, so with the 5 year old entering kindergarten, she now rides the bus home with her brother, so we have one pick up to do. Also – because they are in an language immersion program, there are special bus routes and I just realized that this year there is one bus route that drops off walking distance from our house. So we are going to try that new bus route and see how it goes. (The old bus, which we’ll still take in the morning, picks up about 1.5 miles from us, so not a terrible distance, but still requires a car ride.)

-Lunch with mom friends. The mom’s group I joined when the 3rd kid was born kind of got a new breath of energy this month as almost all our babies all all going to kindergarten this fall. So we’re having a Friday lunch date.

-this book just came off my holds. It seems quirky and fun:

What We Ate:

Monday: Kale and Tomato Saag from Meera Sodha’s East. I didn’t have paneer (or the energy to make it) so we had it with tofu. Served with paratha, which I found in the frozen section of HMart. Vegan

Tuesday: Shrimp Tacos

Wednesday: Teriyaki Tofu w/ rice and steamed broccoli from America’s Test Kitchen’s Vegan for Everyone. A reliable hit. Vegan.

Thursday: Roasted Tomato Pasta Sauce and Garlic Bread. I had some tomatoes our friend had given us from their CSA – so I roasted them with lots of garlic and Basil and mashed into a sauce. We ate it with angel hair pasta and I made garlic bread. I had forgotten what a great thing angel hair pasta is – it cooks in seconds!

Friday: Pizza and Ever After. It was my turn to pick the movie and I wanted something beautiful, romantic, and warm. Ever After is one of my all time favorite movies. It’s my comfort watch – Drew Barrymore being plucky, Dougary Scott giving the prince brooding self discovery, Angelica Huston. Melanie Lensky, before she took the world by storm. Love it so much.

Saturday: Movie theatre popcorn and peanut butter sandwiches when we got home.

Sunday: I went to Happy Hour with my friends (I had oysters, truffle fries, ceviche, and balsamic Brussels sprouts.) The family had dumplings and edamame at home.

Hope you are having a sunshine filled week! The kids have started school (will give a report next week) and already we have a long weekend coming up. We’ll go to the Renaissance Faire! Also hopefully tackle some decluttering and also relax and maybe one last trip to the pool before it closes.

How do you manage family tasks? Give me all the tips! Have you jumped on the KPop Demon Hunters bandwagon yet? Golden is definitely our song of summer here. What would you do with half a can of condensed milk? What are you up to this Labor Day weekend?

Weekly recap + what we ate: Tech/opening/closing; Motivation and Discipline

I’ve made it to the other side of the show. Last week we teched and then had our one and only performance. It’s been an intense week for sure, working until 1:30am two of the nights. The process has been fast and furious – only two days of rehearsal in the theatre before opening. Usually we have four days in the theatre, at least.

Lighting session. The view from Stage Right.

The thing that’s particularly intense about this schedule is that the first rehearsal onstage for the full cast was with orchestra and full costume, wigs, and make-up. Usually the first onstage tech rehearsal is just piano and no costumes, so we can get used to the set, figure out the staging, slowly work through tricky traffic. To have to throw set, costumes, orchestra, light cues at the process the first time most of the cast stepped onstage was a lot. But big shout out to our stage manger, who came up with a plan to keep things moving while stopping and allowing everyone time to work on elements that needed work – firing weapons, fights, offstage singing moments, balance notes, costume changes etc. The one costume change I was really worried about involved the entire 36 person chorus changing from a winter look to a spring look in 1 minute 30 seconds. It’s not a complicated change – mostly just taking off overcoats and scarves, and adding summer hats, but when 36 people have to do it all at once, it’s a bit of a madhouse.

But we did it, and by all accounts the opera was beautiful. Everything went smoothly, no noticeable hiccups. People backstage, cast and crew, seemed to not be too confused, so that always makes me feel as if I’ve done my job well. There is something gratifying about being a stage manager in that people always appreciate you. At least the people backstage and onstage.

Now I have a little break before I plunge back into rehearsals again. I took the weekend to relax. It was truly a plan-free weekend. We actually spent all of Saturday morning playing “My bed is my island” as all five of us cuddled and napped and read in the 13 year old’s bed. It felt so indulgent. Then we did a few chores around the house and went to the pool for a couple hours. Highlight of our pool time was that the 13 year old taught me how to dive! I’ve never really been able to dive – just kind of teetered at the edge of the water then belly flopped in. The 13 year old gave me lots of tips and coached me through it. Yay! I’ve always wanted to figure this out.

After the pool, we came home and had pizza and watched Glee. Then after the kids went to bed, the Husband, 13 year old, and I watched Jaws. I had never seen Jaws before, and as the movie is 50 years old this year, the Husband thought it a good time to watch it. There was definitely some screaming and clutching going on while we watched. What a nerve-wracking and entertaining movie. I don’t know that I need to watch it again, but glad I checked that off my list. All in all, it was such a perfect, lazy Saturday. This is what summers are made for, I think.

The thirteen year old teaching the 5 year old how to dive.

Every time I have a gap between shows, I like to think about routines I want to set up (or return to) so that when I am back into working nights and weekends I have some good practices in place. Along those lines, something I’ve been thinking about a lot lately was this article by Leon Ho on Life Hack: Motivation vs. Discipline: Why One always Beats the Other (And It’s Not What You Think). The article made me think about how there were some things I was very disciplined about at while working (daily yoga, eating fruits and vegetables, finding time to get outside, making the bed.). And there were some things that just didn’t happen because I didn’t feel the motivation (journaling, running, check ins with the Husband, putting away my lunch box). It’s not like the former is more important than the latter – I just never felt like doing it. Reading Ho’s article really made me think about how waiting to be inspired to do something wasn’t going to work.

And because I’m a Questioner (per Gretchen Rubin), the article stuck with me because it broke down the brain chemistry of motivation vs. discipline to explain why discipline gets more consistent results. In a nut shell, motivation releases dopamine, which makes you feel awesome and powerful. Motivation lights up your brain and encourages action. However, these dopamine flows cab be fleeting and unpredictable. And this is why relying on feeling motivated to do something doesn’t work. Discipline, however, Ho writes, is about creating systems that will work even when motivation isn’t there – it’s the adulting pre-frontal cortex. It is really hard for the pre-frontal cortex to win out over dopamine, but you can build routines and habits that make it less of a struggle. This is the quote that really made me sit up:

“Picture Michael Phelps at 5:30 AM, staring at a chlorinated pool in Baltimore. It’s 2003, years before his first Olympic gold. The water’s cold. His muscles ache from yesterday’s 12,000-meter swim. Does he feel motivated? Hell no. But he dives in anyway. Every. Single. Day. Even Christmas.”

This was an eye-opening re-frame for me: Michael Phelps doesn’t swim every day because he wants to swim in a dopamine flood of motivation. He swims every day because that’s what he has to do to achieve his goals. So when people say you have to want things to get it, they aren’t talking about “wanting” to win a game or play your best in that moment, they’re talking about using that “want” to set up disciplined habits. So that your dopamine lacking brain will still do the thing even when it isn’t feeling warm dopamine fuzzies. It’s all about showing up, right? And towards that, thinking about how to show up. Or what can one do to make showing up a habit. Because you can’t rely on dopamine to get you there.

None of this is particularly groundbreaking or new, but sometimes a different framing can cause a lightbulb moment. So I started thinking of all the things I want to show up for, even when I don’t feel motivated. And here’s some of the list, and thoughts on how I can develop the discipline to do them.

Showing up for my physical self:
-Daily yoga. (Check – I do this by knowing that it’s the first thing I do in the morning)
-Sleep, specifically going to bed early. (I’m terrible at this – I need to be more disciplined about having a set bedtime. Maybe if it can be a time to be in bed, even if it’s with a book when I don’t want to go to sleep?)
-Eating fruits and vegetables with every meal. (Check – I stock the fridge with fruits and veggies and cut some up for myself every day when I’m prepping food for the kids. I can’t make them eat veggies, if I don’t do it myself.)
-Running or strength training every day. (working on this. Motivation is very weak on this one. I think I need a set time. I’ve been running in the morning with the kids following me on their bikes, but not sure if this will still work once school starts.)

Showing up for my mental self:
– journal
-paint/play piano
-write
-read
All these, I think, are about finding consistent time to do it. But there are only certain hours in the day. Some could fit into a weekly practice, though.

Showing up for my financial self:
– Monthly financial admin days to pay bills and review payments and any other financial housekeeping.
-monthly financial check ins with the Husband.
-Double check my pay stubs.

-not buying things impulsively and mindlessly
Again, I think a lot of these are all about scheduling and sticking to it. I think it’s hard for me to stay on track with some of these things because it’s very computer based and I tend to get distracted on the computer. Also finding time to meet with the Husband when we both feel like we have the mental capacity to talk finances is hard. But maybe we just have to schedule the time, and set the bar low – like 15 mins to look at the bank account together to start and then scale up from there? Or maybe we meet for lunch once a month and go over everything?

Showing up for my Work Self:
-Focused times to get ahead with paperwork so it’s not last minute.
A lot of ink has been spilled about productivity and focus at work. For me, I need to embrace the mantra “create before consume” and eliminate distractions for even just 45-60 mins of concentrated work first thing when I get in. (I need to get up and stretch after that anyway.)

Showing up for my social circle and far away family:
-spending time with friends – in a group and one on one.
-responding to texts and phone calls.
-sending texts and phone calls when I haven’t heard from then in while.
-offering support when they need it

– sending my parents pictures and updates of the kids regularly
I think the way to be disciplined about this might be to make scheduled efforts to reach out. Maybe every morning I send a text to one person to say, “Thinking of you.” Once a month see if anyone wants to grab lunch.

Showing up for My Family (Okay – some of these are a little more abstract, but I do think that for me it’s easy to neglect my family when I’m tired or busy or stressed. I think, “Oh, I’ll give them my attention once tech week is over”, as I rush out the door. And then when I do get home, it’s hard for me to remember to be loving. I want to figure out ways to show up for them when I’m not home on evenings and weekends and when my brain is full of work things. I don’t want to get prescriptive about these things, but along the lines of motivation vs. discipline – just because gestures of affection and connection and automatic and pre=planned, it doesn’t make them any less sincere. )
-Calling home on my dinner break. (I used to have an alarm at 6pm that was labelled “call home” so that I would remember to do this on long days at work. I should re-instate this. Sometimes at work I get caught up with what is in front of me – if it’s a work thing or a great chat with a colleague about potato chips, what not – and I forget to call home.)
-Weekly family meetings. (We currently do these at 7:30am on Saturday mornings. They are a little painful, but it’s a good way of checking in about the week ahead and making sure everyone gets the bigger picture of what is going on.)
-Being kind even when I’m tired.
-Tell them they are doing great. Sincerely.
-Giving them hugs and kisses every day when I leave for work, even though I’m in a rush. Along those lines, getting up before the Husband leaves for work so that we can have even one moment of connection. He leaves for work at 7am, and some days it’s hard. But this is where I think discipline can help me.
-Sneaking into their bedroom to give them hugs and kisses every night when I get home, even if I’m bone tired and they’re asleep.
-family rituals: Rose/Buds/Thorns, movie night, family clean up time

Whoa that was a lot of brain dump on that topic. Thanks for coming along on the ride (if you’re still here…) I think my big take away from that exercise is to wake up earlier, scroll less, and schedule my life more. For someone who love to have the ability to be flexible and capriciousness (for myself – let’s be honest, I can’t stand it in others.), discipline is met with resistance. But I guess that’s the point. Discipline allows me to fight against that inertia of not wanting to do something when I’m not feeling motivated. I think the trick is to balance a disciplined life with one where I can also have a sense of spontaneity and flexibility.

Grateful For – this week’s gratitudes, many tech week related:

-Tech week hero- The Husband, for recovering my files. The night before our first onstage rehearsal, my computer died at 9:30pm. I was only half way finished the wardrobe running paperwork and hadn’t saved the document into the cloud. (The wardrobe running is the document that tells the wardrobe and wig/make-up crew when people change clothes, what they are changing into and out of, where they will do this change, and how much time they have to do the change. For this show, because there are so many people and so many different costumes, the wardrobe running is a 10 page document.) Cue despair. For me, this was the ultimate version of the worst possible time for one’s computer to die. I mean it was such a horrific thing to happen, I couldn’t even have a meltdown because I just needed to finish the paperwork so I could give it to the crew for the next day. The Husband, calmly let me use his laptop and took my laptop to see if he could get it to turn back on. Meanwhile I started re-creating my paperwork from scratch. Eventually the Husband was able to pull my files from the computer and put it on a separate hard drive, even though the computer motherboard was dead. Thank goodness I didn’t have to re-create the entire wardrobe running from scratch!

-Duluth Trading Company tank tops with built in wireless bras. It was a hot and humid week to be doing outdoor opera last week. I usually don’t wear tank tops to work, but I made an exception for 80 degree humid weather. These tank tops from Duluth were my wardrobe MVP last week. They have built in bra cups so that I don’t have to worry about finding an appropriate bra to wear with them, and they are thick enough cotton that it doesn’t feel too skimpy to wear at work. I only have two, but I think I will order more next time they go on sale.

-I got a free t-shirt from our Fight Choreographer! I had asked him where I could buy swag from his business, and he showed up one day with this shirt for me!

He does fight and intimacy work for the stage.

-The crew, cast, creative team, and my co-workers for the show I worked on. Making opera magic happen! Having the opportunity to be part of making opera magic happen.

-my water bottle. And the coolers of ice and Gatorade that the theatre keeps backstage. Staying hydrated while I sweated buckets. Also the Coke that got me through the late nights.

– No more long awful commute. Friends, this will be the last time I complain about the commute to my summer job. At least until next summer. I’m glad I won’t have to drive those 18 miles again for a while. Though now I’ll have to find other times to listen to my audio book.

-This tomato sandwich because it represents friendship and summer:

The bread was from my co-worker at the opera. She is from out of town, and before she left for her next gig, she gave me two big bags of food that she hadn’t finished.
The tomatoes are from our friend who doesn’t like tomatoes so all the tomatoes in his CSA he gives to us.
The sandwich features basil mayonnaise, the basil plucked fresh from the Husband’s garden.
And eating it all outside on out back patio.
All these things made lunch just that much more poignant and full of love.

Looking Forward to:
-School starts in a week. Eeeep! I’m excited to start the new school year. I still have to get school supplies (note: this is done), and assess the clothing situation for the kids. They do all still have backpacks from last year so I don’t have to worry about getting new backpacks since that is often where the pickings are slim in mid to late August.

-Renaissance Faire!!!! Opens this weekend. We’re going to go Labor Day Monday, I think, for our annual Ren Faire Trip. Looking forward to shows and feats and turkey legs and people watching.

-Peaches in January. I spent Sunday canning peaches I had bought when there was a sale at the Farmer’s market. I kind of messed up and didn’t temper the first batch of jars and two of them cracked when I put them in the water bath. It was slightly alarming as I’d never experienced that before. I had to empty the canning pot, removing the broken glass and peaches floating the the water bath, and reheat the water again. So I have only 6.5 jars of peaches for this winter and lessons learned for next time. The kids wanted to eat the canned peaches immediately, but I said they couldn’t eat them until January at the latest.

-Lenten book club. Well, it’s not Lent anymore, and it’s not really a book club, but the group of ladies that started a Lenten book club has decided to continue to meet through the year to read and discuss life and spiritual things. This month’s reading is the parable of the Good Samaritan coupled with the story of Mary and Martha. I’m looking forward to a night of community and discussion.

What We Ate:
Sunday: Falafel sandwich and oysters. The stage management team went out to dinner together between rehearsals. The stage manager paid for my dinner, which was very nice of her.

Monday: Tofu and eggplant stir fry with Udon noodles. The Husband cooked, using some of the tenderest sweetest eggplants of the season that I had picked up from the Farmer’s Market.

Tuesday: Chicken Mole tacos leftover from the week before. I worked this evening and brought a salad from home – marinated beans, spinach, and arugula.

Wednesday: I had the same salad at work. Not quite sure what the rest of the family had.

Thursday: I went to a happy hour farewell gathering for a co-worker and had a BLT slider and fries. The family had mac n cheese, I think.

Friday: I had the same marinated beans, spinach, and arugula salad at work. The family had pizza and watched Star Wars: New Hope.

Saturday: dumplings and green beans and Glee.

Sunday: Tortellini and red sauce with roasted zucchini on the side. I sliced the zucchini into rounds, tossed them with salt, garlic powder, smoked paprika, oregano, and olive oil. Roasted for 15 minutes. Stuck parmesan cheese and basil in the food processor and then sprinkled it on the zucchini for the last five minutes or so of roasting. It was delicious. The kids ate the whole pan. I should have made more.

Hope you’re week is going well as the seasons change. I guess the season of life, if not the actual season. Here the weather has been distinctly on the cool side, that is tricking me into fall feelings, but I bet there are still warmer days in store.

Have you ever seen Jaws? Backpacks – Did you (or your kids) get new backpacks every school year? What are you disciplined about? What do you feel motivated about? Any tips for finding discipline for the things on my list?

(bi)Weekly recap + what we ate: Things I would replace immediately

Hello from a quiet empty house! The Husband has taken the children on the annual trip to Indiana and since I have to work, I have stayed behind. I won’t lie, it’s really nice. You know how they talk about secret single behavior in Sex and the City? The thing that people who live with other people do when they don’t have to be with or live with other people? My secret single behavior is:
-Sleeping with the blinds up so that the sunlight wakes me up in the morning.
-listening to NPR.
-Not emptying the dishwasher until there are so many dirty dishes on the counter and I need the space back.
-Eating snack dinner.
-Going to bed early. When the kids are home, I tend to go to bed late because after I put them to bed, I just want to stay up and scroll. But without kids, I can scroll during the day! and then go to bed early. (Though, TBH, there isn’t a lot of this going on because I’ve been working til 10:30pm every night.)

I feel like there are other things I do that would qualify as secret single behavior – wearing the same clothes for three days in a row (I do change my underwear), eating food from the back of the fridge that might be a little too old, making bodily function noises… But you know what? I do this when the family is home anyway, so it’s not really secret. And the family puts up with it and this might be one reason I love them.

The house is quiet. Almost too quiet. I was dog sitting for a couple days, but even the dog has now gone home, so it’s just me. I had all sorts of plan of things to do with my empty house, but between work and walking the dog and sleep, I find I don’t have as much time leftover as I would like.

You know that saying by Groucho Marx: “Outside of a dog, a book is a man’s best friend. Inside of a dog, it is too dark to read.”

Some sort of goals for this child-free weekend (or what remains of it.)
-Finish my book (I’m less than 100 pages from the end!)
-prep food for next week, since it is tech week. Boiled eggs, marinated beans. Maybe bake something (Japanese milk bread?). Chai concentrate. Lemonade concentrate?
-Blog post. Maybe prep a few more.
-Declutter the area by my desk in the bedroom.
-Consider if we can fit a camping trip in this summer.
-journal and reflect on July and plan August/ School year things.
-Farmer’s market?
-watercolor time

One thing on my list I did do was hang out with my friend K. We went kayaking along the Potomac – something I’d never done before and which I had always wanted to do. We went down to Fletcher’s Boat house, rented a tandem kayak for an hour and went upstream a little bit, then back down, all at a meandering pace, enjoying the wildlife, sunshine, and occasional breeze. I can’t believe I’ve never done this before – Fletcher’s Cove is easy to get to, there’s plenty of parking, and here the Potomac is gentle. It’s not so isolated that you can’t hear the airplanes flying into National, or see the traffic on the GW Parkway, but these are all very distant and being on the water feels like it’s own special place.

Afterwards, my friend K and I went to grab lunch at a nearby sandwich place. We split a salad and a tomato sandwich. The sandwich was made from the tastiest summer tomatoes and topped with with basil mayo, all tasting of sunshine and leisure. And afterwards we split a cup of strawberry ice cream. We were there for two hours, just chatting and catching up – it was just a perfect summer friend date. How wonderful it is to have friends (or spouses, or kids) who like splitting food so you never have to choose just one option, or you never have to finish that ice cream on your own.

It was a nice way to spend the day away from the opera and work, recharging my emotional battery for what will be a long week ahead.

The past few weeks have been lots of kid time and lots of work and lots of driving. Here are some moments:

The rehearsal hall strewn with flowers. There is a scene in our show where the chorus throws flowers all over the stage. The effect is quite stunning. It’s the kind of thing you only do once or twice during room rehearsals because it’s such a pain to have to clean up. Much to my surprise and delight, at the end of rehearsal, most of the cast stayed to help us pick up all the flowers and petals. What kindness.

Best commute of the week: driving from the 13 year olds’ theatre showcase to work. There is a farm stand on the way and I got to stop an pick up vegetables and peaches and plums.

Worst commute of the week: Friday evening after rehearsal. Which, you would think, it’s 10:30pm on a Friday night, why would traffic be bad???? Well it was, due to construction. I guess it makes sense to do construction when the traffic is lighter. Though it makes the traffic less light. It took me an hour to drive the 18 miles home. The Husband reminded me of a saying from when he lived in Minneapolis: In Minneapolis there are two seasons- Winter and construction.

Conversation with my the five year old:
5 year old: [Big brother] said I wasn’t smart.
Me: Is it true?
5 year old: No. It hurt my feelings.
Me: I would just ignore him, if I were you.
5 year old: Well, I’m not you.

Speaking of the 5 year old, we are all determined to get her to ride a bike by the end of the summer. Even the 13 year old is part of the efforts. I’m a little surprised because the 5 year old is quite fearless – she is already diving, even before she can really swim a full length of the pool – so her reluctance in bike riding has been giving me pause.

Swimming laps. While the kids have been away, I’ve gone to the pool to swim laps. I have to say at first it felt weird to go to the pool without the kids, but told myself I was being silly – we are all members of the pool, I get to use it too! Our pool is never crowded, and showing up at 11am, I practically have the whole place to myself, except for the biddies who sit under the cabana and gossip together. It’s been such a soothing thing to be able to swim back and forth and back and forth, just thinking about air and breath and movement. I’ve been feeling a little overstimulated lately – too much light and sound and constant singing in my ears. The pool has become the place I go when I want quiet. I’m coming to appreciate places I can go for just 30-60 mins for a quick recharge. Ducking into a museum, dropping by the pool, a quick library visit… Sometimes I don’t go places because I think I need to spend a few hours there, but really for places that are free (or to which I have a membership), going for a quick trip a couple times a week is just as much of a value as going for a half day once a month.

I checked something off the 5 year old’s summer fun list and we made popsicles. These are watermelon-lime-strawberry popsicles:

Sweet and sour snacks: Two snacks making my mouth happy these days are Haribo Twin Snakes and Taiwanese salty dried plums. The latter I brought back from Taiwan in January, and only now just opened because they are actually quite difficult to find the the U.S. and I knew once I finished the package, that would be it for a while. When I was growing up, my grandmother would bring these sweet/sour/salty treats from Taiwan when she visited us, and I would nibble the flesh off the seed, savoring all the different tastes swirling around, then I would pop the seed in my mouth and suck on it until all the flavor was gone. This brand of salted plum I got from Taiwan is seedless, so I can’t suck on the seed, but I’m savoring them all the same.

As for Twin Snakes, the 13 year old turned me on to these. They are like two gummy worms stuck together where one is sweet and one is sour. I love the sweet/sour combination.

But speaking of Twin Snakes. We might have had an incident where the two little kids ate the 13 year old’s Twin Snakes while she was out of the house. As a punishment, I had them write a card of apology to their big sister. Well, the 8 year old wrote it:

In case you can’t read 8 year old scrawl, it says, “Dear Lulu Sorry for eating your twin snak[e]s. Yell at me all you want. Don’t yell at dad. Sincerely A”

On replacing things….Towards the end of the previous week, my watch stopped working. In the middle of rehearsal. As someone who’s job it is to keep track of time, this was kind of a panic inducing thing. I ended up having to use my phone for the rest of rehearsal, which isn’t ideal because I find it distracting and annoying to have to keep pulling it out. I didn’t get around to replacing my watch for three or four days. In the past when my watch stopped working, I just went to Target to get a new one. It’s a pretty basic Timex digital watch. EXCEPT – the Target near me didn’t have them. Indeed, the sales associate looked at me strangely when I first asked where they were, since the watches weren’t in accessories where I was used to finding them. She sent me down to electronics. Of course, all they had down there were smart watches. The associate in electronics seemed somewhat confused that I would want a non-smart watch. Anyhow, after that bust of a Target run, I did end up ordering the exact same watch from Amazon, and the next day, my wrist felt not as empty any more.

Anyhow, it got me thinking of what other things in my life I would replace immediately if I lost or broke it. Of course there are the obvious things like wallet, ID, keys, phone, laptop – things that could be counted as “essential.” What, though, are the non-essential things that I would replace immediately? I feel like sometimes when things break or I lose them, I go a while before replacing them – I’ll try to make do with a replacement I already have at home, or just decided that I don’t need to replace them at all. There are, however, little luxuries that I have gotten used to, which feel almost essential to me now, that I would replace immediately if something happened.

-Gelrup slippers. I almost always wear slippers around the house and I love my Gelrups because they are made of wool so aren’t too hot in the summer, yet still cozy in the winter. If my slippers went missing, I guess it wouldn’t be the end of the world, but there is something about walking on bare floors/carpet that makes me cringe a little bit and I would want my slippers back as soon as possible. (Probably large part due to the fact that we don’t sweep enough….)

-Yeti mug. I love everything about my Yeti Rambler with the Hot Shot lid. I love that it keeps my drinks cold or hot for hours. I love that it is dishwasher safe. I love that it doesn’t leak (unless I forget to close the lid properly) so that I can toss it into my bag and not worry about tea getting everywhere. I love the colour. I leave the house with this in my hand 95% of the time. I actually did lose this one time – I had left it behind in the lobby of the building where I had been taking art classes. I immediately went out and got a new one even though I have a few back up travel mugs. They just don’t do all the things I need them to do. I should probably throw the spare ones out, but I think, “What would I do if I lost my Yeti?” Apparently, the answer is run out an immediately buy another one.

-Airpods. Maybe this should fall under “essential” now that my phone no longer has a jack for earphones? Being able to listen to books, music, podcasts, etc, and take phone calls hands free – I would be sad if I had to go back to wired earphones. The 13 year old recently lost/broke her Bluetooth headphones and now wanders around the house using crappy old wired earbuds, the kind that you get for free on airplanes. We have DRAWERS of these crappy airline earbuds. Anyhow, there is something delightfully old school about seeing her with wires dangling. But me, I don’t think I could ever go back.

-Flip Belt. Look, I try not to let sad excuses stop me from running, but I will admit there have been days when I decided not to go running because I couldn’t find my Flip Belt. Running while trying to hold my phone and without my water bottle is just so…. inconvenient. I have thought about getting a second one as back up, but I do feel like I’m the kind of person who keeps better track of things when I only have one.

-pen holder. This clips to my binder and helps me not lose my pens and pencils. It’s from Muji and one of the best $3 I’ve ever spent. The sad thing, though, is even though I would run out and replace this if I were to lose it, I actually can’t because Muji doesn’t sell them anymore. In fact I can’t find them anywhere on the internet. So I better not lose this.

-Little alarm clock – This clock sits with me in rehearsal, so I can keep an eye on the time. Sure there’s a clock on the wall. Sure I also can look at my phone. But there is something more immediate about having the time at a glance, without have to pick up my phone. Once and a while I forget to bring it to rehearsal and I feel lost. I do actually have more than one of these.

-Travel Bluetooth keyboard. My keyboard is paired with my phone, my iPad and my computer, and it’s only a little bigger and thicker than an envelope so I can just slip it into my laptop bag. I love using it when I have to fill out registration forms on my phone – typing on the phone is not something I excel at. Half the time, I hit the wrong key and have to start over again – it’s very frustrating. Similarly, typing on the iPad is just not … convenient. This keyboard was a game-changer for blogging on my tablet – so much faster than typing on the screen. This keyboard has made my life so much better that when I lost it recently on our South Africa trip, I replaced it as soon as I got home.

I’m sure there are more things, but off the top of my head those are a few things that are panic-inducing if lost. I sometimes feel so materialistic when I panic over lost things and immediately replace them, but there are some non-essentials that do indeed make my life so much better.

Grateful For:
-Nature oases in the city. As my friend and I were floating along the Potomac, I was just so grateful that even though we live in an urban area, there are lots of ways to get to nature. Being among green things is so good for my soul.

-Lifeguards.

-Cooler weather. We’ve had a few weeks of unbearably hot weather. So glad it is cooling off a little bit.

-The 13 year old’s theatre instructors. We went to her theatre camp showcase and it was so much fun to see her singing and dancing.

-A perfectly ripe, juicy mango.

-Sleeping in. I don’t know if 7:00am counts as sleeping in, but it does for me, without kids to wake me up. Though the dog did wake me up once at 6:30am. I took him out for a walk and then went back to bed and slept for another hour.

-People who plant gardens so I have beautiful flowers to see on my walks.

Looking Forward To:

-Tech week. I don’t love tech week – it’s stressful, and moves quickly, and I have to be so very prepared to go into it because a lot of people rely on me to get them where they need to be so that the show can happen. And I’m always terrified of making a wrong decision or telling someone the wrong thing. YET when it goes well, it feels really good. But truth, I am looking forward to this particular tech week because it is in an outdoor venue, which means that we can’t have lighting sessions until it is dark. (Lighting sessions are tech sessions where we tweak the lighting without the cast onstage waiting for us to fix the light cues – this is particular to opera. In theatre, they usually set lighting cues with the artists onstage.) Which means that we usually have lighting sessions after rehearsals. So we will rehearse from 8-11:30p with the singers, then we will let the singers go and light until 2am. This sounds intense, right? I will admit, though, there’s a special air of bonding in the air when you are standing onstage at 1:30am setting lighting cues. Like only the strong get to stay behind and do it. But really, my favorite part of over night lighting sessions, and what I’m looking forward to is that the company feeds us between the rehearsal and the lighting session. Free food makes a lot of things better in my book. Maybe I’m cheap, maybe I’m a sell out. But free food, man, is irresistible to me. I’m really looking forward to that 11:30pm burger, fries, and Coke.

-The family coming home. I don’t think I necessarily miss having the kids around, but I am very excited that they will be home soon.

-Tap dancing lessons! The Husband and I had a session where we looked at activities for the kids for the upcoming year – trying to figure out where they will fall and what we have the budget and logistical capacity for. I’m not in rehearsals until the end of October, so we can be a little activity heavy the first few months of school. So I signed the 5 year old and myself up for parent/tot tap dancing lessons. I’ve always wanted to learn to tap dance, and the 5 year old wanted to take dance classes. I’m so excited. The 8 year old also wants to take tap classes, but I need to see what the soccer schedule is like first.

-Basil. The Husband planted a whole bunch of basil and it’s going gangbusters. I can’t wait to use it. There will be pesto. I also am thinking of making some kind of basil simple syrup to have with fizzy water. Any other suggestions?

-Next up on my audiobook cue – it’s come highly recommended by so many people – it’s not my usual fare, so I’m excited to see if I like it.

Whoa – I just saw that this is 16 hours long… not sure if I’ll finish it before the end of this gig. I hope traffic is not so bad that I do finish it….

What We Ate: Two weeks worth of dinners to record, but really the last few days here don’t really count because … well secret single behavior.

Monday: Caprese Pasta Salad. Tortellini, Buffalo mozzarella, diced tomatoes, basil, drizzled with balsamic vinegar.

Tuesday: Shrimp tacos. I prepped the shrimp and the mango slaw before I went to work, and when the Husband came home he just had to heat the tortillas and sautée the shrimp and dinner was fast and easy. (I had leftover pasta salad at work.) I think the Husband also make a tofu filling for the tacos too.

Wednesday: I had more pasta salad at work. The Husband picked up Bahn mi sandwiches for the kids. He himself went out for dinner with his friend.

Thursday: The kids and Husband had steamed green beans and leftovers at home. I was done rehearsal by 5pm, but it would have taken an hour to get home at that point, so I went to Yard House with the other stage managers. I had a really tasty Ahi Tuna sandwich.

Friday: Pizza and the Minecraft movie for the family. I had some kind of leftovers at work. I hear the movie was surprisingly good.

Saturday: The family had dumplings and steamed green beans. Leftovers again for me.

Sunday: We had spaghetti with red sauce, Caesar salad, and garlic bread. There is something so comforting and delicious to me about spaghetti with jarred red sauce. So simple yet often just what I’m in the mood for.

Monday: Eggplant and pork stir fry with udon noodles. I had the leftover spaghetti at work

Tuesday: Taco Tuesday – chicken mole tacos. This is the mole sauce that I had made three months ago. Thank you past me for freezing three batches of the mole sauce for easy dinners later on.

Wednesday: This is the day the family departed so I’m not sure what they had for dinner. I had the leftover eggplant and pork stir fry.

Thursday: Family still gone. To be honest, I didn’t really eat dinner this day because I went to work late and worked straight through to the end of rehearsal. It’s not an abusive system, I swear. I just wasn’t hungry when I had time to sit down and eat, so I didn’t. I did have snacks througout rehearsal and then I did eat half an avocado and sesame rice crackers when I got home.

Friday: Family still gone. Another day without having to cook. And actually another day where I wasn’t hungry becasue we started teh day so late. I had yogurt and blueberries when I got home from work.

Saturday: Family still gone. I had snack dinner – brie, goat cheese, and Triscuits.

I hope you have a wonderful week as we round the corner of summer. We’ve flipped out three month at a time Calendar and eep! I can see October.

Do you have any secret single behaviors? Is there anything yo’ve always wanted to learnt o do? Do you remember who taught you to ride a bike? What should I do with all that basil? What things would you replace immediately replace? Tell me everything!

(bi) Weekly recap + what we ate: Life update. Five things, five categories

Lots of things going on these days. Here is a long rambling brain dump of a post, to catch up on life in my neck of the woods.

The end of the school year is in sight. Last Friday was originally supposed to be the last day of school, but the school year was extended by two half days to make up for all the snow days that we had. The 13 year old was already signed up for basketball camp this coming week, so I gave her the option of 1) going to camp after her half days of school, or 2) skipping the last two days of school and going to camp. She chose option 2. So last week, she cleaned out her locker (and her backpack, and actually her room too!), and now she is done with seventh grade.

Middle school is so funny – I feel like the first year is about getting used to not being in elementary school. Then you have 7th grade where you get into a rhythm of things. But then 8th grade you are preparing to leave – the fall of 8th grade is when students here apply/choose high schools. In our area of the county, there is a consortium of five high school, each with different specialties and programs. Every student gets into their home school, but they can apply to get into any of the other four schools as well – some require applications and some are lottery. The high schools all have open houses in October and the school choice forms need to be in by November 1st. It all sounds very stressful. The 13 year old current first choice is our home school, so this might be an easy process. But I think we’ll go to all the open houses anyway, just to be informed. I know high school is two years away, but having to go through the process of school choice in a four months makes it all seem really soon. Time. Time. Time. Flying.

Last week was the 5 year old’s graduation from pre-K. They had a cute little ceremony – children processed, songs were sung. Each child got to say what they wanted to be when they grew up. Our five year old said she wanted to be a doctor. There was balloons and cakes and good friends. She still is enrolled in day care for two more weeks, so it all felt a little anticlimactic. In fact, driving in the car a few days before the graduation, she said, rather excitedly, “I only have two more days of school left!”
“Honey,” I said, “you do know you still have to go to school after graduation, right?”
“Oh.”
I felt bad bursting her bubble.

The eight year old will go to those two half days/ make up for snow days and then he’ll be off. He’s a little salty about the fact that he still has to go to school, but oh well. Ironically, his school was cancelled last Friday because the air conditioning was broken at his school. After he graduates, we’ll have our traditional ice cream and school year recap outing.

Other things in life: An unexpected car wait. I had to take the van in for a small fix. I was originally told that it would take an hour, so I decided to wait. Friends, it took four hours. I’m glad I brought my book and my portable keyboard with me so that I had something to occupy me. Eventually, I got tired of sitting in the waiting room, despite the unlimited cheap hot chocolate. I had finished my book, written a blog post, and my phone was running out of battery. So I took myself out for a walk. The car dealership is not in a particularly picturesque part of town, but by that point in the afternoon, anything was going to be better than the waiting room. I wandered to a plaza next door. I stopped at Giant for some snacks, contemplated getting a hair cut (but the next appointment was in an hour and I really hoped I would be on my way by then.) And then I discovered a board game store. I wandered in and browsed their selection of games and after a while, I asked the guy behind the counter for recommendations for a game I could play with my kids, ages 13- 5, one of whom couldn’t read yet, and without lots of tiny pieces. I came away with two games:

We played the Happy Salmon game a few days later, and let me tell you, if you are looking for a gentle quiet game, this is not it. It is a loud, hilariously raucous, energetic, fast paced game. We laughed so very hard. Definitely a welcome addition to our game collection.

I haven’t opened Dixit yet, but it looks beautiful too.

All in all, it was irksome to be stuck at the car dealership, but I think I made the best of the time.

But speaking of which – I did go back a week later to that hair place that I had seen and finally got a hair cut:

Just in time for summer heat, back to having short hair!

Contra-dancing – We went contra dancing as a family last week. That was lots of fun. The band was super hot. The kids all danced. The two littles like to dance as one person, which sometimes makes it confusing, but everyone was super forgiving and helped push them in the direction they needed to go. A super sweet thing – the three kids waltzed together at the end of the dance. I love how for the last waltz, this band will come down off the stage and play from the middle of the dance floor. It’s all kind of magical.

Two new culinary adventures: Chocolate orange cake. It was really pretty. I made two because we had the ingredients for two. I thought I would give one away, but I didn’t. We just ate both cakes ourselves. Is there anything more lovely than having a cake on the counter?

Tanghulu – candy coated fruit, very popular in the Taiwanese night markets. The 13 year old has wanted to try to make this ever since she tried it in Taiwan. Basically it involves melting sugar with water and cooking it down until it is “hard crack” temperature – meaning the sugar/water hardens when cooled. The process sounds simple, but getting the timing right is kind of tricky. Still, we were pretty successful for our first attempt:

A Day Playing hooky – I had a day where I didn’t have to be into work, so I met up with a friend and we ran errands, picked up Chipotle and the went back to her house and watched Bridgerton. We don’t have Netflix, so I’ve never seen Bridgerton. I do like the books – well except the last two books, I thought those were not as good as the first six books – so I’ve been so curious about the tv series. We watched two episodes, ate popcorn and had a lovely mid-week relaxing day.

This past weekend was Father’s Day. It wasn’t the most exciting of Father’s Day. I feel kind of bad about that – the 13 year old had a swim meet on Sunday, so we were out of the house by 7:45 am to make it to the meet. (Next week’s meet is 30 minutes away, so we’ll have to be up and out of the house even earlier than that… I’m not looking forward to that one…) The Husband took the 5 year old to Agility Class and then ran errands with the kids. I came home, we had lunch and then I took the 13 year old to basketball workout. We did spend the evening with friends who grilled for us, but then I had to leave to take a meeting for union stuff. It wasn’t a very celebratory Father’s Day, I’m afraid. I’ll have to do better next time.

Five things that are currently working in life:

Patio Time – Summer porch time is a beautiful concept. Only I don’t have a porch. But I do have a back patio, so I’ve been having a bit of summer patio time in the mornings. Just 15 minutes of me with my book and a beverage in the morning, enjoying the air and sunlight. Our patio is east facing, so it has started to get hot. Thank goodness for our patio umbrella.

Playaways – Playaways are little tablets you can check out from the library that are pre-loaded with educational games. A few weeks ago, I borrowed a few from the library for the 8 and 5 year olds. Promising them Playaway time has been a great bribe/ incentive with them, since they generally don’t get a lot of tablet time. I like that the Playaways aren’t connected to the internet so I don’t have to worry about my kids going online and ordering $4000 worth of dum dums or anything like that. Currently in the morning, if they get all their stuff done, they can have Playaway time, and it’s been working pretty well.

Daily yoga– I’ve been able to doing at least 10 minutes of yoga every day this year so far, except for one day when we were travelling back from Malaysia. What’s been working for me to do this:
1) Charlie Follows yoga videos – I like that her videos are anywhere from 10 minutes to 45 minutes so I can choose what fits into my day. I like that there is no intention setting or chanting or too much cheerleading going on – just straight forward yoga routines with options to make it easier or more challenging, without judgement. I like that there is no music. The other yoga resources I like to use for practices are Down Dog Yoga (I also like that it’s no frills), Rise and Shine Yoga Flows by MoveWith on Audible (I like that it’s an audio only option), and Sara Beth Yoga (has lots of ten minute videos, but she is a little affirmation heavy for my tastes, TBH).
2) I usually do the yoga in the morning. I feel like it’s less mental energy just to know that I’ll do it in the morning.
3) if I don’t get to it in the morning, I write “YOGA” on my hand to remind me to find another time to do it. Usually I will do an evening routine before going to bed. Once in a while, if it’s quiet at work, I will roll out a mat in my office and do 10 minutes there.

Swim bags for each kid – Up til now, I’ve always hauled all the stuff to the pool for me and the two younger kids. The 13 year old has always carried her own stuff. This summer, I got each child their own swim bag. No more having to carry my stuff, the little kids’ stuff, and dinner to the pool myself. No more having to be responsible for goggles and towels and kickboards. It’s the kids’ responsibility to make sure their bags are properly packed. Not to say I don’t still remind them constantly. Wow going to the pool feels much lighter now.

Half a Duvet. The Husband sleeps hot. I like to sleep bundled and buried under loads of covers: this had led to a bit of a duvet conflict. We’ve been looking into getting separate duvets- when we were in Amsterdam two years ago, we noticed that all the duvets were individual sized, even on the bigger beds. I thought this might be a good solution to the duvet conflict so I’ve been trying to find “European Twin” duvets. But then the other day, I had an inspiration. Just fold the existing duvet in half! Brilliant. The Husband doesn’t have to wrestle with the duvet and I get double thickness of duvet to snuggle into!

Five consuming things (that I’m consuming or that are consuming me):

–Dill Pickle Hot Cheetos – OMG three things I love: Cheetos, dill pickle flavoured things, and spicy things. I may have polished off one bag in one sitting. I did have some help. And then I went to the store and bought two more bags. I feel a low level panic that this is a one time food item. That thought makes me sad.

–Root Beer Float Cookies – I found these at Trader Joe’s. They are vanilla creme sandwich cookie bits, covered in pop rocks and root beer flavored coating. These also might have been eaten in a single sitting:

I only have a picture of the empty bag because they were eaten so quickly

–Gilded Age, Season Two – Just started the second season of Gilded Age and devoured the first few episodes – what a deliciously soap opera of a show.

–Swim season. We’re at the pool three hours a day, four or five days a week. The little kids do preteam at 5:00pm-5:30pm, and the oldest helps out on preteam. Then the oldest’s swim practice is from 6:15p-7:30pm. So we eat dinner at the pool, sometimes shower at the pool, then go home and go to bed. I spend a lot of time thinking about what we are going to eat, what time to pick up kids, when they are going to change … the logistics is consuming. At least we are lucky that we have evening practice and not morning practice as a lot of other pools do. In fact I’m writing some of this post while waiting for swim meet to start.

– South Africa – Preparing for the trip to South Africa is consuming me too. Packing! It is winter in South Africa, but here in Dc it’s summer and 90 degrees, which makes it very difficult to think about what 50 degree weather Diane will want to wear. Also binoculars- what kind to get that are compact but also not the most expensive? My time has been taken up by waaaay too much googling. I’ve been listening to podcasts about travel and packing tips. This trip has definitely been consuming me mentally.

Speaking of which…

Five things I’m stressing about for my trip:

Bras – I have somehow convinced myself that I need a new bra for the trip because I probably won’t have access to laundry. But you know, at home I wear the same bra all week and maybe, maybe wash it every other week. (sorry, probably TMI there…) So why, on the eve of a trip, have I decided that while on vacation I’m going to take to washing my bras more than I normally would?? I’ve been on the hunt for the perfect travel bra – thinking of bras for travel has taken up a lot more of my brain space that I would like to admit. Maybe the perfect bra for “international flight/ sightseeing” thing doesn’t exist. I don’t have any perfect bras – maybe I’m using this as an excuse to buy more?

Shoes – How many shoes do I need to pack? Do want to pack my ankle boots? Normally, I would wear my ankle boots on the plane because they are the heaviest item, but we will have a layover excursion in London where it will be hot, so wearing the ankle boots isn’t that appealing. Currently I have my slip on sneakers and my water resistant wool runners. Are those too similar? Should I ditch one and pack the ankle boots? Also I’m trying to think of a not Crocs option for a comfy shoe to wear while hanging out at the hotel or the pool (if there is a pool – I’m not sure on that one.) I don’t want to bring my Crocs because they are too bulky, and I don’t have a good pair of sandals. So what is the slim Croc alternative?

eSim card – When we were in Asia, I got an eSim for my phone rather than getting the daily international plan that AT&T offered. The eSim was something like $30 for two weeks while the international plan was $12/day. I could make calls and texts via Whatsapp, and use data when I had to look something up, and that seemed to be all I needed. Anyhow, I need to look into whether I should do the same thing for South Africa. The bummer thing, though, is that the 13 year old’s phone is a Bark Phone and I can’t put an eSim on it, I don’t think. So she’ll just have to use wifi when she can, I guess? And I’ll try not to lose her.

Hotel housing – I didn’t realize that I had to put in a special request for the 13 year old and I to room together. I guess I had kind of assumed that they would put family members together. But that isn’t the default and right now we are not assigned to share a room. Wump wump. I need to call the tour company and see if anything can be done. If not, I’m sure we’ll survive and make new friends.

Currency – I want to get some Rand before the trip, but I’m not sure how to go about this. Also I’m kind of obsessed with thinking about if I need a money belt to carry all that money around?

And it’s more than five, but so many other things stressing me out– I need to find the travel chargers, I have to remember to pay for activities and the cleaners because those payments will be due before I get back, I have to photocopy my and the 13 year old’s IDs to our trip leader, I have to download the tour company app… So many little things that need to be done. I just have to work my way down the list one thing at a time…

Five things I’m Grateful for:

-I got my period this week and I won’t have to deal with that while in South Africa. I won’t say there’s zero percent chance that I’ll have to deal with my period – I’ll still bring supplies – but there’s a pretty good chance that I won’t have to try to figure out how to buy period products in a foreign country. (Though I have to say the pads we found in Taiwan were AMAZING!).

-vanilla ice cream topped with peanut butter. This is a delicious way to use up the last dregs of peanut butter in the container – drop a few scoops of vanilla ice cream in the jar and eat.

-Parents who coach youth sports and parents who organize swim meets. The 8 year old had his last soccer game, and I have to say his coach deserves HUGE kudos. It can’t be easy to wrangle ten 8-9 year old boys, but he has such patience with them. And with other parents. And on that note – organizing a swim meet is a lot of work, and the parents at our pool do it once a week for six weeks during the summer. I’m so grateful for the time and effort they give so my kids can have a great experience.

-Bluetooth in the car. My last car did not have Bluetooth so I listened to the radio a lot. I still love the radio, but I also love getting in the car and being able to finish my audiobook.

-These little plastic cups. Last winter, our tour guide in Taiwan, a lovely gentleman named Hoya, gave use these plastic cups with lids as tour swag – they all have his contact information on them. When we first got them, I groaned inwardly about having to bring more plastic home, but I was wrong. I’ve gotten so much use out of these little cups. These days, I use them to bring smoothies to the pool with us. I love that the lids fit tightly and the little loop makes them easy to carry.

-Bonus gratitude – I’m grateful that the 13 year old now takes the initiative to write thank you notes to her teacher on her own. I caught her writing these during a quiet moment at the swim meet:

5 Things I’m Looking forward to:
-Trip to Longwood Gardens – I think we are going to try to squeeze in a trip before the 13 year old and I leave for South Africa. It’s always so pretty there in the summer. (And in the fall. And in the winter. And in the Spring…)

-Eating more watermelon. It’s watermelon season!

-Half days this week. I was originally going to work a gig next week, but due to a miscommunication, the company went in another direction in terms of staffing. Which is fine with me. Despite needing the income, the thought of the job was giving me some minor anxiety because I’d never worked for the company before and it was an international summit, and I don’t like doing new things. (There is a reason I’ve been working for the same opera company for twenty years.) Anyhow, the last two days of school are next week and they are half days. I’m looking forward to having a few hours of mornings free to be able to run errands and then half days to spend with the kids.

-South Africa! South Africa! South Africa! Counting down the days!

-Reading this book:

It’s about two elderly women in Cape Town, one Black and one white who are bitterly feuding neighbors. I picked up a paperback copy from Barnes and Nobles this week -I like having a physical book to read on the plane. Also – thank you to folks who gave recommendations for books for my trip! I’m loaded up my Libby with books to read once I finish the Woman Next Door.

What we ate : Two weeks worth of meals here – most of it pool dinners.

Monday: Braised White Bean with Greens and Parmesan from NY Times Cooking- Something fast, and I needed up use up some chard in the fridge. This was essentially a soup. It was tasty.

Tuesday: Quesadillas – black bean and corn.

Wednesday: Dumplings (eaten at the pool – I pan fry them and put them in a thermos.) Cut up veggies and fruit, and pop corn.

Thursday: Snack dinner – sausage (in a bun), edamame, cucumbers, carrots, red peppers, popcorn, fruit smoothies. Dinner at the pool.

Friday: Pizza (the Husband made it) and Glee. We usually watch an hour of a tv show on Friday nights during swim season because we get home from the pool too late for a full movie. I do also pack a lot of snacks for the pool so the kids don’t get hungry before we get home.

Saturday: Chinese Takeout and Invictus – this 2009 movie tells the story about how Nelson Mandela used rugby to help the people in post-Apartheid South Africa find common ground. Quiet and elegant and all the expected sentimentality of a good sports movie. I really liked it. It was also an interesting movie to watch during our current political climate. I had wanted to watch it in anticipation of our trip.

Sunday: leftovers. We had a lot of leftover Chinese food, so I reheated that for dinner.

Monday: “Baked” Ziti from Dinner Illustrated. This is a genius recipe because the pasta is cooked right in the sauce, saving a step. I was also really excited because this recipe allowed me to use up some kale that was languishing.

Tuesday: Dumplings and edamame and smoothies. Eaten at the pool.

Wednesday: Pesto Pasta Salad – tortellini, cucumbers, cherry tomatoes, fresh mozzarella, cannellini beans. Not the meal I had planned, but a pretty simple one to throw together with stuff from our pantry. Eaten at the pool before swim meet.

Thursday: Japanese style Tuna Noodle Salad from NY Times Cooking. This was a light noodle salad. I didn’t love the tuna – I probably would make this with tofu or chicken. But the dressing was tasty. Eaten at home – we didn’t make it to the pre-team practice this day because of preschool graduation.

Friday: Pizza (take out) and Glee.

Saturday: Dinner out to celebrate graduation and Father’s Day. The family had burgers. I had the butter chicken.

Sunday: Grilling at our friend’s house. It was the usual burgers, brats, and dogs along with the smoked pork that our friend likes to make. I might have also eaten way to many chips. My friend introduced me to the idea of mixing sour cream (or Greek yogurt) into the salsa for a creamy dip.

Oh my, well that’s a lot of ink spilled for one post, but that’s life lately. Hope you have a lovely week ahead. I’ll be finalizing details for my trip and helping a friend celebrate her birthday. What are you up to this week?
Anything currently working really well for you in life? Have you ever played Happy Salmon or Dixit? What’s your favorite dip to eat with chips? Favorite ice cream topping? What things are you consuming lately? What is consuming you?

Weekly recap + what we ate: Good bye, May. Hello, June!

Last week was a very Maycember week. The 13 year old’s swim team practice started, though it was really cold and rainy and she ended up only going to one practice. I had an unusually full week of work as the opera season wound down – I worked on a workshop of a piece we’re doing next Spring; we’re commissioning a new book and new arrangements. The workshop was a very fly by the seat of my pants affair – the first day I climbed the equivilent of 20 flights of stairs as I ran around making things were happening that needed ot happen – in the end, though, it was fun to see as new show all come together. We also had feedback and post mortem sessions at work where we talked about how things went on the last show. I really appreciate how everyone spoke frankly and with open minds. I had lunch with my dad one day, which was nice because my parents often want to come help out when the Husband has to essentially solo parent during my busy times at work so when they are here, I don’t get much one on one time with them because I’m always at work. I’m glad my dad and I made time to have lunch.

Friday night was the piano recital for both the 8 year old and the 13 year old. I had to work on Friday – we did end of season feedback sessions – and barely made it to the recital in time. This is probably the last year that the 13 year old will play in the younger kids’ recital, which means two recitals for us from here on out- one for the oldest and one for the middle kid.

Saturday was First Communion for the 8 year old. When the oldest had first communion it was during COVID, and the church was much less crowded than this time. I was not prepared for the sheer mass of humanity that filled the church on Saturday morning. Because our church has such an international congregation, the readings were done in English (the Husband did the first reading!), French, and Spanish. (I said to the Husband that we should have sent the 8 year old to French religious ed classes!). But the other fun thing was the pageant of international fashion on display – saris and dashikis and caftans in bright and bold hues. Hats and high heels. People really brought it, and I loved seeing it all.

After the service, we went home, had a quick family meeting, and then went out to lunch. I was then anticipating a lazy afternoon at home, but the weather had other issues. There was a tornado warning in our area and a whole lot of rain in a very short amount of time. Mid afternoon, my father texted that there was water in his basement unit. The husband and I grabbed armfuls of towels and headed over to my father’s house where we spent the next hour and a half cleaning up water. Not originally on my Bingo card for the day, but what can you do?

Once we got everything cleaned up, we raced to pick up pizza and went home to throw towels into the laundry and then change into nice clothes because the Husband, the 13 year old and I had tickets to the opera that night. My father was going to stay home with the two little kids for pizza and movie night. It was a mad rush to get to the theatre and we actually missed the first ten minutes or so of the show. Funny story, though, I got to the theatre and realized that I didn’t have my glasses with me; I was wearing my sunglasses! I found out later that the glasses were in the sunglass case and had fallen out of my purse during the mad water/pizza/clean up episode. Well, I guess my options were to take my sunglasses off and watch the opera in a blur – I told the Husband that after all, isn’t opera about the music? – or wear the sunglasses for the show. I chose the latter and the opera had a lovely sepia tinged quality to it.

Sunday was the usual mix of activities – Agility class and then skating. This Sunday, however, we also had the 13 year old’s voice recital right after skating. It was one of those days where everyone just piles in the van and gets to go to each other’s activities.

While the little kids skated, the 13 year old and the Husband and I had a lovely little walk on the trail next to the rink. I am becoming acutely aware that our time with the oldest is growing shorter and shorter. She was an only child for the first five years of her life and I think we all miss the days when it was just the three of us. Rose coloured glasses and all that, but there was something really sweet and fun about those times. I love our family unit of five, yet at the same time, anytime we can have moments of what we like to call “the original” family, it feels really special.

The voice recital was lovely – I like how her voice teacher frames it as just another chance to practice. We practice technique and we also practice singing in front of people. After the recital we went to an early dinner at a Mediterranean/kabob place. It was super tasty – I got the Mediterranean platter which had salad, grape leaves, falafel, hummus, and white bean salad. Then we went home and finally felt like we could rest. Well, first there were baths and Bluey and then bedtime for the kids. While I took care of that, the Husband drove my father to the airport as he was headed home. He had been staying here in Maryland since the beginning of May and it was so nice to have him in the fabric of our lives.

Anyhow, we’re now into a new month! June! That interstitial time between the end of a school year and the beginning of the next one. Reflecting on the month that was…

May highlights:
-My parent’s visit
-Lots of social plans – Happy Hours, lunches, walks, BBQs. I feel like after 6 intense weeks of work, I finally emerged and started to re=form ties with people.
-Phone chat with my friend A. who is currently living abroad.
-Closing my show.
-The end of opera season.
-Some good feedback and post-mortem sessions at work. Some new ideas for improvement that I’m looking forward to implementing.
-At work, a workshop for an opera we’re doing next season. I very rarely get to see a work at this ground level of development and it’s kind of exciting, but also a lot of work.
-Going to the opera with the Husband and 13 year old.
-Hiking with the family on Memorial Day weekend.
-A new pope! And he’s American!
-Local street fair with the kids – it was overwhelming at first, but then settled into a wonderful afternoon.
-Started to watch the new season of Pokerface with the Husband.
-Watching the 13 year old in her middle school musical.
-The 5 year old got baptized and the 8 year old had his first communion.
– Being home in the evenings.
-Piano recitals. Voice recitals.
-Reading lots of books. None of them particularly spectacular, but all very entertaining.
-The weather turning towards spring/summer
-Continuing my yoga streak – I’ve only missed one day so far this year, and it was a day I was travelling.
-Went to the dentist for my cleaning.

May lowlights:
-The ongoing situation of uncertainty and anxiety at work and in Washington DC in general. I know this is on the list every month this year so far, but I’m afraid the month it doesn’t make the list is the month that I delude myself into thinking this is a kind and inclusive way to go about things.
-Sometimes parenting is HARD. I never know what the right thing to say is. I worry about how my kids will navigate life if I don’t get things right. (I mean, I know that nothing is going to 100% be my fault, but it’s a hard message to internalize.)
-Water in the basement at my parents’ house. Ugh. What a mess. We’re going to do some work in the yard to fix the drainage.
-The Maycember frenzy. All the good and fun things I listed under “highlights” were indeed highlights. But having them all packed into one month was exhausting.

Looking Forward To, the June Edition:
-The 5 year old’s preschool moving up ceremony. She’ll be off to kindergarten.
-South Africa! It’s really happening. I’m super excited. We also just found out that we’ll have lengthy layovers in London Heathrow, so our tour company has given us permission to go into London for a few hours. It’s like having a bonus trip!
-Evenings at the pool. I’ve decided that I’m going to swim laps while the little kids are in pre-team. I haven’t been running lately; due to my own inertia, I find it hard to motivate myself to run when my day is not broken up into blocks the way it is when I am in rehearsals. So swimming while the kids are in pre- team hands me a block of time to fill.
-The end of the school year. I took a gig on the actual last day of school for the two older kids and then I’ll be in South Africa for the 5 year old’s last day of preschool. I’m trying to not be too sad about not being there for thee milestones. I have to remind myself that it’s just a blip in the life of my kids and they probably won’t remember that I wasn’t there this one year. They’ll remember if I’m never there for these things. Show up when you can, I guess.
-Wrapping up at work – archiving, tying up some loose ends.
-A bonus day with the kids – they are off school. I’m a little irked that there is.a day off of school less than two weeks before school ends, but actually, it’s Eid. The 13 year old wants to make tanghulu – a candy coated fruit that is very popular at Taiwanese night markets. Wish us luck!

Grateful for:
-That the 5 year old likes to take her medicine. I mentioned last week that the 5 year old had a swollen eye and the doctor put her on antibiotics. Maybe it was the Kit Kats we used as a bribe, but the 5 year old was so eager to take her medicine. She was constantly reminding us that it was medicine time, bringing it to us, asking how many doses she had to take. Then she developed a technique to swallow the medicine while tasting it as little as possible. It was all so easy. The two older kids would regularly refuse and then vomit up their medicine, so this was a nice change of pace.

-The rain. Yes, it did flood the basement, but it also took all the humidity out of the air, leaving some beautifully clear and bracingly crisp mornings.

-The wet dry vac. Speaking of the rain. So glad we had this to clean up the water.

-Wifi at work. The first time I ever did a new opera workshop was in 2012 and we did not have wifi at work. Furthermore, because we work for a quasi federal institution, they did not permit flash drives on work computers. There was one computer in our whole rehearsal studio that you could stick a flash drive into if you wanted to print new material from the composer. All this to say, when you’re working on a new piece and the composer or librettist says, “I have new pages. How can we print the for the cast?” – it is so much easier to do this now that the creatives can hop on wifi and email the new pages to me to print.

-Rain coat, rain boots, and umbrellas.

-My father. I’m sure he could always pull the “I’m 80 years old” card and opt out of playing with my kids or walking the mile from his house to ours every day or cleaning up the water in his basement. But he does all that and more with a cheerful disposition.

-Key lime pie. Because it is delicious.

-These sparkly sneakers. They make the 13 year old so happy and they go with everything. She wore them with her fancy recital dresses and also with her denim shorts. And she made up a song about them, singing, “I love my beautiful bedazzled shoes,” over and over again.

What we ate – I think the Husband cooked all the meals last week because I didn’t get home until past dinner time all last week.

Tuesday: Taco Tuesday. Ground beef tacos

Wednesday: Tortellini and red sauce.

Thursday: Bahn mi sandwiches from our favorite Vietnamese take out place. These are seriously so delicious and simple.

Friday: Sandwiches (PB& J, Ham, Turkey) and leftovers after the piano recital. It was nearly 8pm when we got home from the piano recital, so we just threw together the easiest of easy here.

Saturday: pizza (take out) and Frozen II. It was supposed to by my father’s turn to choose the movie, and given that last time it was his movie night he chose Chariots of Fire, I would hazard a guess that someone changed their mind about what movie would be fun for an 8 year old and a 5 year old to watch.

Sunday: Mama’s kabobs – we went out to eat after the voice recital. The food was delicious.

Hope you have a lovely weekend. What do you have going on? We have a soccer game, and then the usual agility class for the 5 year old. Is there skating? I can’t remember… And I imagine we’ll go to mass in there at some point. In between things I want to sit down and write a packing list with the 13 year old for South Africa.

Do you remember life before wifi? Is there anything sparkly in your closet? How was your May? What does June look like?

Weekly recap + what we ate: Memorial Day weekend and reconsidering evenings

Even though it was a long weekend. I still had to work on Saturday and Monday I had a shop call for our union. So it didn’t feel like a long weekend. But it was the first Sunday in ages when no one had any activities, so I declared I wanted to go on a hike. I haven’t been on a proper hike in such a long time – I don’t think I’ve been on one yet this year. We wanted to just go for half a day, so I picked a new to us location that was about 45 minutes away – Gambrill State Park. I thought it was a perfectly pleasant hike – the weather was nice and cool, and the hike had some pretty steep parts to keep it interesting. (The Husband at one point said, “I have one work for you – switchbacks. Clearly this hiking path was made by young men with good knees.”). There was a nice little view of the city below at the end. I think it was a 3 mile loop which we did in about 2.5 hours.

At the parking lot, there was a little nature/history center. It had a couple small exhibits on the wildlife in the area and then also a room dedicated to the Civilian Conservation Corps which built the park as part of the New Deal. I was super fascinated by this menu that was on display.

I have so many thoughts: First of all – the three meals are Breakfast, Dinner, and Supper. Where’s lunch? I’m guessing Dinner is the midday meal? (I’ve never really used the term “supper”.) Though it looks like dinner is the large meal on the weekends. On the weekdays, it’s sandwiches. Secondly – it’s a lot of meat. The vegetable pickings are… slim – buttered beets? And the only fruit I see are oranges, stewed apricots, and prunes. Thirdly – I’m glad they got ice cream. Fourthly – what’s a “cheese salad” sandwich?

Speaking of food – this whole trip I had been promising the kids that we could have ice cream if they came on the hike – yes, my kids need to be bribed to go hiking with their parents. The 13 year old said, “I don’t want ice cream. I want boba.” To which I said, “I don’t think there will be boba where we are going.”

Well, lo and behold, when we got to the vista point, there were two young men hanging out with boba drinks. I gave the 13 year old a nudge and she went up to them and said, “Excuse me, where did you get your boba?”

Well, I was wrong – there was a boba place about 15-20 minutes from the park.

After the hike, we went to late lunch at a nearby diner, where the portions were huge and delicious and then we went to get boba. The Boba place was in the back of a family owned Filipino grocery store.

Oolong tea, lychee jelly and boba. My usual. The boba was a little too soft for my tastes.

The boba place was in the same plaza as a furniture store. The Husband and I have a weakness for furniture stores. There’s something really fun about going and looking at furniture for us – I don’t know what it is – we like sitting in chairs, opening and closing drawers, looking at side tables. I think furniture is fun and full of possibilities. A lot of furniture in furniture stores, though, we find is too big for our space so we don’t often buy anything. At any rate, there was a Memorial Day sale going on and we ended up buying two chairs. One for the Husband to sit and read in the sun room and one swivel chair that’s big enough for two people that is going to be super cozy for reading together. Not sure if that will go in the kids’ bedroom or in the living room yet. I also found this super cute swivel chair that I was really tempted to get for the 13 year old’s room, except it’s white and a white chair in a teenager’s room seems… unwise.

Anyhow, that was our big Memorial Day adventure. On Monday I took the little kids to the park while the Husband gardened. Then I had a meeting for union stuff, and then I headed over to a friends’ house to eat lots of meat. Out friend had a smoker and he made pulled pork, brisket, and ribs. It was all delicious.

Evenings: I’ve been pondering evenings. It’s another quirk of “reentry” after closing a show that suddenly I get my evenings back. Now that I’m not at the theatre every night, a whole new time slot has opened up in my life. There was one day last week, when the kids were home from school by 4:30pm, and I didn’t have to start dinner until 5:00pm, and I sat in the living room and read while the kids did… I’m not sure, but it didn’t involve me. And it felt horribly indulgent. But then I thought, “What if this is just what life is like?” I’m sure there was something on my to do list that I could have done – my desk, for example, needs a going through, there are bills to be paid (and a traffic ticket) – but none of that felt urgent. The time between coming home from the bus and then starting dinner – surely it isn’t a time of leisure, is it? It feels like there should be million things to do upon returning to the house in the evening.

Another night last week, the Husband took the 8 year old to soccer practice and I was home with the other two kids. “What shall we do?” I asked. And how silly it felt to be asking, “What shall we do?” at 7pm in the evening. Shouldn’t we be at the point in the evening where we stop doing things? Anyhow, the 5 year old’s response was, “Can we bake something?” So I made a lemon buttermilk cake. It was delicious. Here are some other things we have done with our evenings, post dinner clean up:
-played card games. (Currently I love playing Skyjo – it’s a numbers game, which is nice because it doesn’t require deftness with the English language or being able to read, meaning that both my father and the 5 year old can play.)
-Watched New Girl with the 13 year old and howled with laughter.
-Read a book while listening to the kids practice piano.
-Read a book while the kids played together. One night, the 13 year old decided she wanted to stage “Dear Theodosia” from Hamilton with her little siblings. It involved stuffed animals and chairs put together to make a crib.
-Walk around the block.

It used to be the late afternoons/evenings were a slow crawl towards bedtime, but it doesn’t feel like that anymore. The kids are old enough that they don’t require constant vigilance. They usually even help clean up. There are kid activities, and even then, with both parents at home, we can take turns driving. And we don’t need to participate in the activities; we can just drop off. And then go run errands or read or take a walk or write. I hate to say it, but kids activities have sometimes been lovely pockets of alone time for me.

The other thing for me is that 7:00pm is a little bit of a mind shift. When I’m at work, 7pm is the start of the last rehearsal of the day. At 7pm, there are three and a half more hours of work in front of me before I can clock out. 7pm is the most hectic time off the day at work because we have chorus and dancers and principals and supers showing up for rehearsal all at once and it’s a mad frenzy to check all the sign in sheets and make sure were are ready to start rehearsal. But when I’m not working, 7pm feels like the end of the day – the dishes are all done (hopefully), the floors are swept, and there is just one little sliver of time left before the kids can go to bed. Before the kids need to go to bed and we can, as the Husband says, Turn off the taxi cab light. 7pm is wind down time. Okay, baking a cake is not a wind down activity, but there is a certain soothing rhythm to baking that lends itself to a gentle close to the day. And, truth, some nights it takes up upwards of 90 minutes to clean up after dinner, so clearly a leisurely evening is not always the case. This is probably for another post, but I don’t understand how some nights post dinner clean up is 20 minutes and sometimes it just seems to take. so. long.

Which, having said all that, we are about to go into eight weeks of summer swim season, so the evenings will decidedly not be leisurely as there will be practices four nights a week as well as a weekly meet. But I guess that’s it – maybe we are in a season – and I work in an industry – where the routines and rhythms are constantly shifting? So I have to work at being intentional – or intentionally unintentional – about those evening hours. I could putter around the house endlessly, but I could also read a book. I could sit down and pay the bills, or I could scroll. All activities add value to my life, fills buckets – yes, even scrolling in moderation. I think what doesn’t fill my buckets is feeling like I am defaulting to being unintentional with my energy. Maybe I need a list of activities that could be done in 15, 30, 60 minute increments? A couple things I do want to do more is consistent journaling, painting, organize something (bins, papers, files, craft supplies…)

I’ll leave you with this bit of sartorial serendipity….
When you and your kid inadvendently dress all matchy-matchy:

Grateful For:

-The parent in the 5 year old’s class who had the class over to try vegetables from their garden. What a sweet little field trip. Also, the 5 year old ate kale. This is the kid who picks any speck of green out of her food. And then a few days later, she ate salad. On her own. Like filled a bowl with vegetables and lettuce and ate it.

-Our friend for giving us his CSA while he’s on vacation. We ate the salad greens and the fennel. (The fennel I used in a fruit salad). We still have chard and mustard greens left, though…

-our piano and people who play it, filling the house with music.

-summer evenings warm enough and light enough for a post dinner constitutional.

-having the ingredients on hand to impulsively make a cake. And then having the cake on the counter to snack on all week.

This cake definitely tastes better than it looked.

-That one of my bus stop friends whom I no longer get to see anymore because of return to office requirements got off work two hours early and came to the bus stop and I got to see her and chat.

-getting a run in between activities and sudden rain showers.

-It’s mulberry season! There are several mulberry bushes along the paths/trails where I walk and it’s a true joy of summer – picking mulberries off the bushes and eating them – a sweet/tart treat.

-Dogs at the dentist. My dentist has an office dog – a cute chill little beagle that greets patients as they come in. It just brightens my day when I go for my cleaning to see her bright eyes and wagging tail.

-Siblings not fighting:

-Being able to get a same day doctor’s appointment. The 5 year old’s eye was strangely swollen one day, so she couldn’t go to school. But I was able to call the pediatrician and get an appointment for later that day. They couldn’t tell for certain what it was, but put her on antibiotics just in case.

-Getting a bonus afternoon with the 5 year old because she couldn’t go to school. See above. After the doctor’s I took her to the park and we had a lovely afternoon in the sunshine.

Looking Forward To:
-Piano recitals for the 8 year old and the 13 year old. (This has since happened…)

-First Communion for the 8 year old. This falls under the “I’m not Catholic, but I like rituals and gatherings.”

-Voice recital for the 13 year old. Maycember keeps coming.

-going to the opera with the Husband and the 13 year old.

-Seeing this movie:

I don’t go to the movies a lot – it just always seems very expensive to me in terms of time and money. But this movie looks like exactly my catnip, so a friend and I are going to see a weekday matinee.

-Also – You’ve Got Mail is currently on Amazon Prime. It’s been on my “Movies I’ve never seen but really want to watch” list forever. So that’s going to happen too. I actually put it on one night as I was doing the dishes, but it was so adorable that I turned it off and decided I wanted to save it for when I could snuggle on the couch and watch it.

What We Ate:

Monday: Sandwiches and cut up vegetables. Simple supper for an activity filled Monday night.

Tuesday: Taco Tuesday. Chicken mole tacos – this was the mole sauce that I made a huge batch of last month and then froze. It actually tasted better this second time around. I still have one more jar of sauce in the freezer. yum.

Wednesday: Greek Pasta Salad. Vegan. I was looking for a vegan pasta salad and came across this recipe for tofu feta – it’s basically tofu marinated to give it the flavor profile of feta. I thought it was delicious. The family really liked it. The Husband said that once you get over the fact that the “feta” is not, in fact, cheese, it’s really tasty.

Thursday: Breakfast Sandwiches

Friday: Pizza (the Husband made pizza) and The Eternals. It was the 13 year old’s turn to choose the movie and she picked this Marvel movie – the movie was fine, but it was 2.5 hour long, which was longer than I wanted to spend watching flashing flight scenes and bizarre hard to follow plots. But I do think Gemma Chan is divine.

Saturday: My dad took us out to dinner at a nearby Chinese restaurant where we ordered waaaaay too much food, all of it delicious.

Sunday: we didn’t really have dinner because we had a late lunch at a diner with hugmongous portions so no one was hungry come dinner time

Monday: We went over to a friend’s house for Memorial Day cookout. Our friend loves to smoke meat and he had brisket, ribs, and pulled pork. Also mac n cheese, baked beans, and two kinds of pie. We brought fruit salad and an green salad.

Hope you have a lovely weekend!
How long does it take for you to clean up after dinner? On that note – do you call it dinner or supper? Anyone have ideas of what to do with mustard greens? Any movies that you’ve always wanted to see but never have? What would you do with 15 minutes of free time? 20? 30?

Weekly Recap + What We Ate: Thinking about an Intentional Summer

Last week was my first week without a show to work on, and, as always, there’s a period of readjustment/ re-entry after being gone in the evenings and weekends so much. Things are not where I expect them to be, routines have shifted, some routines haven’t shifted yet I need to figure out how to fit back into them. Expectations have shifted. That’s a big one, I’m learning. When the family doesn’t expect me home, it’s a bit of a shift when I am all of a sudden around.

Some delightful things last week, though…

-Social plans with friends – Happy hour (or rather happy three hours) with my friends from the bus stop who I don’t see anymore because of return to office orders. It was great to catch up and I had a delicious dill pickle brined fried chicken sandwich. Another day, I had lunch with other friends whom I used to work with but now don’t see anymore.

-Randomly running into one of those lunch friends four days later at the skating rink with our kids. Isn’t it so delightful when you randomly run into a friend? And it was so nice to meet her son. I have friends who I meet through our kids and it’s nice to have friends that were friends before kids and you finally meet their kids and it’s like meeting a mini version of your friend.

-Going to Ikea with my parents. Having lunch at the cafe where the light is so soft and makes everything look good. Also – how much do I love wandering through Ikea! All the lives and possibilities it’s trying to sell me? Everything so practical. And finding the exact chair we wanted in their clearance room for $17, marked down from $35.

*It was a very rainy day – felt very Scandanavian.*

-The 5 year old was finally baptized. The Husband is Catholic, so this is something that we had intended to do in 2020, but pandemic and then procrastination. And here we are. I’m not Catholic, but I do love rituals of tradition and gathering.

-It’s also Breakfast Smoothie Season here. The kids have been having berry smoothies (cashews – though I’m temporarily out, frozen berries, kefir, honey, chia seeds, banana, ice.) and I’ve been having green smoothies (kale, ginger, honey, vanilla, kefir, banana). The other day, the 5 year old said to me, “You have an Elphaba smoothie and I have a Galinda smoothie!” Side note, I think we will be watching Wicked for movie night soon.

Summertime….For the first time in a while, I’m not working during the summer. Even though the prospect of nine weeks at home seems to stretch into the void, I know it will fly by quickly and before you know it, we’ll be back in school. I don’t want to arrive at the end of August feeling like I didn’t have an intentional summer. Which is not to say everything needs to be planned – I just want to have a good mix of fun, productive projects, active moments, and relaxing time. And connection. I am fast realizing that our summers as a family of 5 are limited. We only have four or five years left before the oldest one is launched and off to college. I want to set building blocks so that we feel connected as a family.

Things that are already on the calendar:
-Swim Team for the 13 year old, pre-team for the 8 and 5 year olds. This means 5 evenings a week at the pool for most of June and July.
-Trip to South Africa with the 13 year old. (10 Days)
-Weekend in New York City to meet up with the Husband’s sister.
-Summer Camp -for the 8 year old: 2 weeks of theatre camp. For the 13 year old, 2 weeks of basketball camp and 3 weeks of theatre camp
-continuing with piano lessons (13 year old and the 8 year old), and basketball workouts (13 year old), and skating lessons (8 year old and 5 year old) and agility class and/or gymnastics (5 year old)
-five days at a Taiwanese American cultural camp for the 5 and 8 year olds. They are going with my mother. I don’t really know what goes on there, but it’ll be their first time away without me or the Husband and I’m excited/nervous about how they’ll take it.
-the 5 year old’s last day of preschool will be the end of June. (SOB!). I’ve sent the notice. I’m feeling a little sad and wistful and I’m regretting that her last day will be while I’m away, but it didn’t make sense to keep her in longer since she’s going to Taiwanese American kids camp the day before I get back.

Other Summer Things on my Menu of Activities: I’m calling this a “menu” because these are things I’ve brainstormed for this summer – some fun activities, some life tasks. It’s not a “to do” list or any kind of mandate by any means.
-Time at the Pool (aside from swim team time – I would love to swim some laps myself. Maybe even take the kids to the county pool where there are water slides.)
-Getting the two younger kids to learn how to swim confidently and independently.
-Make a family summer play list.
-Family biking time – teaching the 5 year old to ride without training wheels and getting the 8 year old a new bike. (he is currently using a pink and turquoise hand me down bike with broken pedals.)
-Teaching the 8 year old how to tie his shoes.
-Boba taste test. There are a lot of boba shops around here. The 13 year old and I have a plan to try all the places and pick our favorite.
-Camping.
-Hiking.
-Visit the library and read lots of books
-Find a perfect pair of sandals. This is on the summer list every year for the past three years or so, but I love my current El Naturalista Zumaia sandals so much that I always I manage to squeeze one more summer out of them. I would like to get a new pair of sandals before I leave for South Africa.
-make paletas. I borrowed some books from the library with recipes I want to try.
-Mow the lawn regularly. I don’t like yardwork, and the Husband does most of it, so I’m vowing to take on some of it.
-host friends for grilling/dinner
-Lunches and meet ups with friends, particularly mom friends and former federal worker friends.
-Outdoor concerts and music
-eat lots of peaches. (Last year we regularly got peaches from The Peach Truck, but they aren’t delivering nearby this year. I’m trying to decide if it’s worth the 30 minute drive for a 25 lb box of amazing peaches.)
-Take the kids to a rock climbing gym or to the adventure park.
-Take the kids to the local water park.
-Closet audit. Get rid of things I no longer wear.
-Watercolor postcard project. Paint and send mail. (Do you want a postcard from me? I feel like if I collect addresses, I’m committing myself to doing this one. Which would be a good thing.)
-Go school supply shopping in early August. Also Maryland’s tax free week is the beginning of August, so if we need any clothes or shoes, that would be a good time to go shopping for those. (Although the kids usually get fresh shoes for summer…)
-Teaching the kids some life skills (cooking, touch typing, how to tell time, maybe cursive – is that too ambitious?)/ making sure they get into the habit of doing their chores.
-Eating outside when possible.
-Have a screen free day or two.
-See some opera. Even though I won’t be working for the opera company I worked for last summer, i do want to see some of their productions.
-movie afternoons, either at home or at a movie theatre.
-Buy produce at a farmer’s market, or a farm stand. Make yummy food from our purchases.
-Going to the County Fair, riding all the rides and seeing the animals.
-Work-wise – we have union negotiations coming up this summer. I want to be an active participant in that.
-I also have a few work meetings scattered here and there that I’ll need to attend.
-Decluttering projects: The sewing corner, my desk corner, the medicine/linen closet in the bathroom, the pile of outgrown clothes/hand me downs in the 13 year old’s bedroom. The toy room. I’m posting a picture to remind myself what a dire situation these places are. Brace yourselves, it’s kind of awful. I hope I’ll have some “after” pictures come August.

Potential Summer Stressors:
-Money. When I’m not working, money is of course a little tighter. I’m going to try to pick up one off gigs when I can, but to be honest, I don’t love event work; it pays really well, but is highly stressful for me.
-Not having enough alone time. I will always have at least one child at home with me this summer, and sometimes I just want to sit and read and not have to fix a snack or read someone a book or referee a fight or what not. I’m lucky that my kids are pretty self sufficient, but even still, it’s not nothing.
-Being hot. Being in the sun. Being in the car when I’m hot. This always just puts me in a bad mood. At least I won’t have a soul sucking commute like I did last summer, though there will be time in the car because of camp drop offs/pick ups.
-mosquitoes.
-house projects with the house we manage.
-Getting the kids to actively participate in chores or family activities/ fighting about screen time. I fully recognize the need for them to have time to chill and decompress, but also want to balance that with a sense of responsibility.
-Eating dinner at the pool all the time and keeping pool time organized in general. It’s a lot of work to pack for the pool. Last year, I got it down to a good routine, but every year is a little different. One of the big shifts this year is I have to reconsider where we dry the swim stuff. We used to dry it in the lower bathroom, but now that is the 13 year old’s bathroom, so it is going to be inconvenient for her to have to always move the stuff.

Now that I’ve written all that down, I can see summer as full of possibilities and also some road blocks. I think what will help with the road blocks:
-Researching low cost activities. We are lucky there are a lot of free things to do in the area.
-Sitting down and making a plan to do those low cost activities. Put them on the calendar.
-Being brave and saying, “Yes” to any gigs that I can work.
-Having a structure to my days – block in rest time and adventure time and chore time. Or acknowledge that some days will only be two of those three categories. Or even just one.
-Have lots of cool treats and beverages in the fridge and freezer.
-Meal plan. I do this a lot anyway.
-Making a screen time plan with the kids.
-Embrace mornings as calm times. Embrace evenings as family time.
-Remember that the goal is we a feel connected and ready for the new school/work year in September.

Grateful For This Week:
-Stories from my parents. I’m going to admit that my parents and I don’t have a super easy relationship. It’s loving and supportive, but the conversation has never really flowed easily between us. I’m sure I need to unpack that a little -I feel like it has something to do with the culture that my parents are from (very patriarchal/valuing filial piety) and the culture I grew up in (less so, and resentful of filial piety) Anyhow, on Mother’s Day, the New York Times published article called “25 Questions to Bring You Closer to Your Mom.” Every so often in the days that followed, I would ask my mom and dad one of the questions, and the answers were surprising and insightful. Some of my favorites:
“What was your nickname growing up?”
“What are some of your favorite memories of the two of us?”
“What’s the worst advice you ever received about motherhood?”
“Who made you feel seen when you were growing up?” I thought this one was particularly interesting because both my parents said when they were growing up, they didn’t want to be seen, because that meant they were in trouble. This made my heart ache a little.

-Dog Man books in the Little Free Library. The 8 year old LOVES Dog Man books. I love not having to pay full price for them.

-Sleep. Trying to catch up and having the time to catch up and having a bed in which to catch up. I’ve been noticing this past year that I get incredibly tired the day or two before I get my period. Like “in bed by 9:30pm” tired. (I’m usually in bed at midnight most nights). I’m grateful I had the time and space to be able to just sleep last week when I was premenstrually tired.

-Cherry Coke and a chocolate chip cookie. An awesome combination.

-The 5 year old getting into the French Immersion program. This means that she will get to go to the same school as the 8 year old. Thank goodness. I mean we would have figured out three kids at three different schools – and we will have to in a few years – but I’m grateful that that is a future me problem.

-The Husband for clearing everyone out of the house when I had a splitting headache. He took the 8 year old to soccer practice and also convinced the other two kids and my parents to ride along. I lay in a dark and quiet room and popped a bunch of Advil and was feeling much more normal when they came home two hours later.

-That the rain let up just in time. We were supposed to meet our friends for a picnic and a show last Friday, and just as I was stepping out the door, the rain came down in unrelenting sheets, making driving pretty scary, and I thought, “Uh oh, so much for a picnic!” But the rain was actually quite isolated and the skies at the park was clear and the picnic tables were relatively dry and we had a lovely picnic lunch and then went to see a student musical theatre showcase and it was quite a fun evening.

-Park benches along a trail and the the perfect not to hot/not too cold weather to sit on one and enjoy the wind in the trees.

Looking forward to:

-June. Maycember is hitting pretty hard. I don’t know that June will be any more restful, but I’m looking forward to flipping the page on the calendar. It’s all good things in May – baptisms, recitals, soccer games, parents visiting, first communions, wrapping up the school year – but it is exhausting to be always out and about.

-Memorial Day Weekend. Is this weekend?!?!?! where did that come from? I understand we have plans to grill with our friends, but I’m a little hazy on the details.

-This audiobook. I don’t usually do romance novels on audio, but this one is narrated by Will Watt, who read Ten Things That Never Happened, and he was so charming and heartfelt in that book that when I saw he had recorded a new audio book, I immediately put it on my holds list. His deep, rumbly voice is like being wrapped up in my favorite feel good movie.

What We Ate:
Monday: Pesto Pasta Salad from NYTimes Cooking. I didn’t have capers, so I used sundried tomatoes instead, and I subbed walnuts for the pine nuts. Everyone really liked this. Vegan

Tuesday: Shrimp Tacos. This was the night I went out with my friends, so i had a very tasty dill pickle brined fried chicken sandwich. Before I left, I prepped the shrimp for the tacos and left the 13 year old with instructions on heating up the taco shells.

Wednesday: Kielbasa on the grill, sweet potatoes, and steamed broccoli. The Husband cooked. The sweet potatoes were this recipe, and were really tasty. The Kielbasa was from the Kielbasa factory, and we cooked them on the grill. I’m so excited for more grilling. Also – in my quest for ways that the kids can help in the kitchen after dinner, I had the 5 year old label the leftover kielbasa:

Thursday: Dumplings and green beans

Friday: Chicken sandwich picnic – I also packed cucumbers, apples, and strawberries.

Saturday: Pizza (carry out) and Chariots of Fire (It was my dad’s turn to pick the movie. I’ve never seen Chariots of Fire before – the two older kids were surprisingly engaged. The 5 year old, not so much.)

Sunday: Mac and Cheese – the 13 year old is made dinner! She did accidentally put in twice the amount of butter than was called for, so it was a very rich mac n cheese.

Hope your week has been lovely!
What would you do with 25lbs of peaches? What corner in your house is most in need of a good declutter? Favorite frozen treat or cold drink for summer? Who made/makes you feel seen? Mosquito solutions? Any plans for the Memorial Day weekend? I have to work on Saturday, but I’m hoping for a hike and some time with friends on Sunday and Monday.

Weekly recap + What We Ate: Closing Night and Mother’s Day

Welp, another show closed and in the books. I meant to post this earlier in the week, but I’ve been so exhausted that I haven’t been at my computer. Plus my parents are visiting, which means that we need my desk chair at the dinner table, which means every time I have a minute to sit down and write, it feels really inconvenient because there is no chair at my desk. Well, I got over that road block and am now sitting at the kitchen table to write this little life update.

It’s a little crazy to think that I don’t have another show to work on until October. I didn’t book any work this summer because I would be travelling at a time that overlaps with a contract I usually take. I’m a little sad that I won’t be in the theatre for such a long time, but I’m going to lean into having a great summer home with the family.

I always make a list after every closing of moments that I want to remember forever on a show, and for this show, some were:
– the opening number with a billion light cues to call, which was kind of scary at first, but once I got into a rhythm, it was almost fun. Calling cues is the part of my job that gets all the glory, but for me it’s actually the easiest part of the job – you just have to know where the cues go and be able to follow the music and read the post its and look up once in a while to make sure things are still on track.

-The tenor and the baritone leads doing a silly dance onstage in the number when they are pretending to be teenagers. Nothing more fun than seeing grown men dance with abandon.

-The part at the end of the show where the lead female character sings, “Be here now. Be here now.” It’s such a beautiful phrase of music and some days, when I was really bone tired, I could hear her voice in my head, grounding me and helping me focus.

-The baritone who sings the father in the opening scene – I’ve known him for four or five years now and he’s still quite a young singer, but I think he has the heart of a dad and was just so perfect for the part.

-The bass’s aria set in the Zen Center, when he tells the main character to “Take one step…”. This was a special reunion for me because I first met this singer when he first came to America as a student – he was shy, barely spoke English, and had a voice and a heart as big as a house. And now he has a flourishing career all over the world. I’m always struck in my business by how strong the bonds are that we forge when we are starting out.

-The way the crew opened the walls at the back of the set. Opera can be pretty low tech – most of the time when you see something move in opera, it’s not computers or motors or what not; it’s a bunch of stage hands pushing or pulling. The first time we ran this scenic move, the wall zoomed open at an alarming rate and the lighting designer said, “It’s too fast! Do we really want it this fast?” But the doors needed to open within three bars of music. So I told the crew, “Open gently, then move off quickly.” And they did. And it was magical.

The rest of the week…

Usually after we open a show, I get some of my time back, especially evenings. But this performance schedule had six performances over six eight days, and one additional rehearsal on the night we didn’t have a show. So it has felt a little unrelenting. On my one night off, I went to see the 13 year old’s middle school musical – she was in the ensemble for Once Upon a Mattress. It was a cute show, clearly a lot of work, and everyone performed with so much enthusiasm. It’s fun to know that she had a tech week on the heels of me having my own tech week. After the show, she took me around an introduced me to all her teachers, which was kind of fun – that she still wants people to know who I am…

The rest of the week was errands and catch up and catching my breath. I had dropped so many things by the wayside that I’m slowly trying to pick up the mess and pieces and try to figure out what life is supposed to look like when I’m around.

Mother’s Day – I’m not a huge Mother’s Day person. These are the three things that I always ask for Mother’s Day:
– Get my picture taken with my kids. Doesn’t have to be fancy – just one photo where no one is picking their nose, or crying, or what not, and where I look half way decent.
-Some time outdoors. Either a hike, or a walk, or an activity.
-Some time alone.

The scorecard was decidedly mixed this year. I did sleep in until 7:30pm. At one point, I felt a little hand on my leg and then another little hand thrust a card under my hand. The card was sweet, even though said child had spelled his name wrong. It made me laugh. the 13 year old had used her own money to buy me a bag of M&Ms and a bag of gummy bears. I was torn between thinking it was such a thoughtful gestures and not wanting her to waste her money on candy at CVS. Parenting is full of conflicted emotions.

We had our usual spate of activities in the morning and afternoon. In the morning I took the 5 year old to Agility Classes, and, the sweetest thing, one of the coaches was handing out roses to moms. “Here,” he said to me, “I see you here every week, and I think you deserve a rose.”

My mother’s Day roses living with the 13 year old’s opening night tulips. She also got two bags of Takis for opening night. That’s what she really wanted…

After lunch, and a nap (perhaps that was my alone time?), more activities, and to be fair, the Husband asked if I wanted him to take the kids to skating lessons, but I said I would do it because I knew he wanted time to be in his garden, and he had been solo parenting for the better part of the time for six weeks while I was in rehearsal, so if anything, I figured that he deserved the alone time. Funny story – when the kids were little, they used to call the Husband “MommyDaddy”, I think this might have been because I was often out in the evenings. So I now joke that Mother’s Day should also be for the MommyDaddy as well.

But I got to skate while the kids were in lessons, so that was like alone time. After skating the kids wanted to play outside so I took the to the nature center. I read my book while they made me food. Here is bark burger and a leaf pie.

We spent about half an hour at the Nature Center before going home, where we turned around three times and then headed to Benihana. Originally it had been suggested that we go to Hot Pot again, but we had just been there, so I suggested Benihana as an “event” type meal. (If you’re unfamiliar, Benihana is a chain of hibachi restaurants where the meal is cooked in front of you with a lot of flash and dash. It’s like dinner and a show.) I hadn’t been since I was a teenager and the kids had never gone, so I figured it would be a fun outing. The food itself isn’t spectacular. Not awful, just very ho hum. But let’s be honest, we’re all there for the flying spatulas and spinning eggs. After dinner the restuarants were handing out Macarons for the mothers (or the assumed mothers), which was another nice treat. I think mother’s day is a little performative sometimes, but you know what, I’ll take a free treat.

After dinner, the family tried to fulfil my wish of spending time outside and getting a picture with the kids by taking us to a trail and going for a walk with the idea of taking a picture together. But for reasons that are a little inexplicable, and in retrospect were probably a little silly, things went quickly south and no good pictures were taken and people stormed back to the car in a fit of anger. To be honest, I’m not sure quite what happened. I think partly, I just wanted a quick photo on my iPhone with everyone looking at the camera, and the family instead brought this huge set up with a tripod and the 13 year old’s fancy camera, which I don’t know that anyone really knows how to get the photos off of it… And then no one would take a nice picture, which was hugely annoying for me. I just want one thing and I got a little snarky at the family’s inability to deliver that one thing. (okay, three) Anyhow, it was kind of an ignominious end to Mother’s Day. Oh well. We’ll all try again next year.

Conversation with my Five Year Old:
Me: Are you wearing underwear?
5 year old: No.
Me: Again?!?! You should be wearing underwear. Why don’t you wear underwear?
5 year old: Sometimes it’s just too much pants.

Grateful For:
-My parent’s health. My parents are both the upper side of 70 and are still so very active. They travel internationally three or four times a year, come visit us, play with the grandchildren. Go on long walks every day, usually four or five miles. Lead community organizations. Advocate for Taiwanese independence. Once in a while I look at them and I realize objectively they are quite old, something I tend to forget because they are so busy. I realize more and more that every year, month, week, day with them is a gift.

-Sunny sunny weather. Open window, fresh air. A comfy chair and a good book. And a messy living room, well inhabited.

-A new Pope! I know that it’s odd to be grateful for something that was probably inevitable, but I’m so glad that for a few days, I could replace doomscrolling with “hope”scrolling as I checked for news from the conclave.

-Getting to commute to work with my work BFF. She lives two miles from me and during busy opera season we don’t really get to hang out, so when we carpool to work, it’s like at 35 minute friend date.

-My Eye Doctor, for fixing my glasses. One night as I was going to bed, I stumbled and dropped my glasses and the lens popped out. I’m sure it was a minor fix, but I took it to My Eye Doctor, where I got the glasses from, and they put everything back together again.

-D, our contractor. He’s been working on renovating the basement of my parent’s rental unit and finished the work last week. But then this week we had sheets of rain and there was some water in the basement. D came over the same day that we called and looked at things, and then realized the sump pump wasn’t plugged in and more than that, the outlet that it was plugged into wasn’t working. He spent an hour at the house fixing everything. He’s so easy going and thoughtful and full of practical solutions, I’m so glad we have him on speed dial.

-Lights backstage. It is dark. Rope lights make everything better.

-Middle school teachers. On the day of the second performance of Once Upon a Mattress, I drove the 13 year old to school, so I could drop off snacks for the cast. OMG. Walking into the middle school was like walking into an alternative universe populated by strange half grown people all looking confused and defiant and disaffected and joyful. Sometimes all at once. And then there were these grown ups who kept saying, “Sit down. Don’t block the hallway. Get to class,” as if they were programmed on some kind of auto-loop. I went to a K-8 school, so this whole middle school thing is alien to me. And then as I was leaving the school, it struck me – this is what it is like every. single. day. The noise and chaos and emotion and physicality. It wasn’t just one crazy morning. it’s is every. day. Every day, my daughter walks these halls of screaming sensory overload. No wonder she comes home and wants to sit in her room and not talk to anyone for the rest of the night. And every day the teachers and school professionals manage the chaos and try to focus it into an environment for learning and growing. I have a hard enough time dealing with one tween/teenager. I am so grateful for the people who deal with hundreds of them every day.

Looking Forward To:
-Happy hour and lunch dates with friends. Now that my schedule is lighter, I’m doing all the social things.

-Season two of Poker Face. The Husband and I watched Season One together last year and it was a lot of fun. I’m excited for more murders and hijinks. Highly entertaining.

-Summer pool season. The weather is already in the 80s and muggy here and I can’t wait until I can be in the pool. Our pool opens in two weeks and soon we’ll be in the thick of summer swim team season. I’m going to have to think about how to prep for nightly dinners at the pool between swim practices.

-Just started this book. I’m determined to finish it before I go to South Africa next month, so I’ve set myself weekly reading goals. It’s proving fascinating and engrossing so far.

It’s a big book (almost 600 pages). But 25 of those years he spent in jail, so I’m really intrigued what that part of the book will be like.

What We Ate:

Monday: Ravioli Bake. The Husband made this and it was tasty – he was looking for easy recipes to make ahead and take along for those days when the 8 year old has to ride along to the 5 year old’s 6pm gymnastics classes and didn’t have time to have dinner beforehand.

Tuesday: Taco Tuesday – Ground beef tacos with guac, salsa, sour cream, cheese, and hard shells.

Wednesday: Chicken wings. My mother made them. This is one of her specialty dishes. The kids love it. It involves soy sauce, honey, and garlic.

Thursday: Black Pepper Asparagus and Tofu Stir Fry. I had picked up some asparagus and broccoli from the farmer’s market so I use both in this stir fry. Vegan.

Friday: not sure what the family ate. I was at work and ate leftovers. (Well sort of – I packed leftovers, but then got busy and didn’t eat them.).

Saturday: Pizza (take out) and Frozen.

Sunday: Benihana for Mother’s Day.

Welp, hope you have a lovely weekend. Ours is the usual kid activities and then the 5 year old is finally getting baptized. Hopefully there will be sunshine and fresh air involved, though.
What summer things are you looking forward to? Pools – yay or nay? Favorite pool dinners? Have you ever been to Benihana? Who was your favorite teacher in middle school?

Weekly Recap + what we ate: Opening Night, and April Reflections.

Another show opened! Yay! Now we are open, and I have a week of performances and meetings and cleaning up before I close out opera season. It feels like space has opened up in my life, but it is May which means a lot of life/ family/kid things are happening this month.

This weekend was probably busier than it should have been for me, given that it’s been a little non-stop at work. I should have taken time to gather my forces and refocused on what I need to do on the life admin/home front. On Thursday, my one official day off, I ran errands with a friend, went on a walk with another, took the two older kids to be “Mystery Readers” at the 5 year old’s classroom, took the 8 year old to soccer… it seemed like a lot for a free day when I really just needed to sleep or stare at the wall.

On Saturday, I decided to take the kids to a local street festival. We all biked there, which was really fun. Usually I walk while the two little kids bike and scooter (the 13 year old was on a service project with friends), but this time the kids said I should bike too, and it worked out better than I thought. The 5 year old is a dervish on the scooter and being on a bike, I could finally keep up with her. There’s something really fun about an excursion with the family where all of us are rolling on wheels. My goal is to get the 5 year old off her training wheels this summer.

The street festival has valet bike parking, which was really great. So we biked/scootered to the festival and left our bikes with the bike valet – so convenient. The place was super crowded and at first I remembered why I don’t often go to these festivals – there were so many people; I was supposed to meet up with friends, but I couldn’t find them; the inflatable activities weren’t being monitored and it was open season – chaos and even dangerous as balls and foam arrows flew around. I was actually pretty miserable for the first 30 minutes. But then I managed to pull the kids away from the inflatables/flying objects “fun” zone and we walked down the street and found a children’s musician singing songs about nocturnal animals. We sat in the shade, ate our snacks and listened to music, and I began to decide that I was having fun after all.

We walked on down the road, checking out some displays by various county organizations and found a mountain biking group – they had set up a little course and were letting kids try out mountain bikes. The 8 year old wanted to try and he ended up spending twenty minutes there, riding the same course of two little speed bumps over and over. He’s due for a new bike this spring – he is still using a hand me down purple and turquoise bike with broken pedals, which I think is a testament to how much he loves being on his bike – so afterwards I talked to the people running the mountain biking booth, and they said to get him a mountain bike because he can do whatever he wants on a mountain bike. The group also does youth mountain biking rides with a “no one left behind” philosophy – I’m excited to check it out further for the 8 year old. (And maybe the rest of the family…?)

Afterwards the mountain biking, we stopped at the truck touch, and I did end up running into some friends and having some great catch up time. So in the end, I’m really glad I took the two little kids to the street festival. I think I just have to remind myself to try to find the not so crowded places to be. One thing I thought was cool was they had “sensory friendly” tents where you could sit in a comfy chair with a pair of earmuffs on when things got to be too much. i thought that was such a great idea at an event that could be overwhelming.

That evening, the 13 year old and I got dressed up and went to the Gala Concert at my work. Her favorite opera singer was singing, so I thought it would be fun for her to go. We went with some friends, and it was nice to just go and watch a show without having to work on it at all.

Sunday I took the 5 year old to Agility Class and then came home, turned around twice and then went to work for the Sunday matinee performance. It’s nice that the show is so short because I have time to come home and still have a bit of time to re-set for the week.

I’ve been trying to lean into the idea of a “Sunday reset” to get me ready for the week ahead. So far my Sunday Reset list involves:
-Putting away the floordrobe and all the clothes on the bench in the bedroom.
-taking a shower. For me and the kids.
-planning my clothes for the week.
-boiling eggs for the week so I have easy breakfast. (I can’t find my silicone egg holder for the InstantPot so I’ve been boiling eggs on the stove and they don’t turn out as well. Suggestions welcome.)
-Tidying the living room and my desk. (usually one or the other, but I would love for it to be both.)
-exercise
-Cleaning out the backpack bins by the door
-Bluey with the family. Or Andor.
I would like to also add:
-dealing with the mail bin.
-clipping the kids’ nails. I always forget to do this until their nails are too long. I think if I had a set time to clip nails, it would be better.
-Getting the kids activity bags set so I don’t have to think about it later in the week.
-clean out my purse – it gets so full of receipts over the week.

I’m also wondering where the line is between Sunday routine and Sunday Reset. Maybe one is a flashy internet term and one is just … life. Because I would also like to find time on Sunday to be outside, to write on my blog, to connect with friends. But that doesn’t feel like it’s in the “get ready for the upcoming week.” category. Am I overthinking this? Also where is the line between over thinking and acting mindfully?

April Recap/ Reflections
April was definitely consumed by work work work work. I started prep for a show on March 31st and we had our final dress rehearsal on April 30th.

April highlights:
-finished our taxes on time. Finished the 13 year old’s taxes. (She got paid for the show that she was in last December. It was a 1099 and we claimed her voice lessons as an expense against it, so she ended up operated at a loss last year.)

-rehearsing, teching, and opening a show. It’s been one of the smoothest show processes I’ve ever had. It helps that it’s a remount of an existing production, and the show is short. Even still, everyone was lovely to work with, which is really important.

-“Ask Me Anything” session for the Production Assistants with the Staging Staff at work. So may words of wisdom and practical considerations to pass along to the next generation of people in the arts.

-March Madness. Yes, it says March, but it finished in April. We watched some really exciting games together as a family. I’m not a huge basketball fan, but it’s fun to see the Husband and 13 year old really get into something together.

-My mother and Uncle’s visit. Taking them down to the Mall and walking amongst the monuments.

-The weather – Spring has sprung. Sunshine, warm air. We’ve moved past cherry blossoms into tulips.

-Running – I ran 7 times last month, which is the most I’ve run since November. Getting to run along the Potomac on my dinner break is always great for views. I love that the path I take to run takes me across a bridge over the river, and from that end, I can look back and see my work place all lit up, and it seems so far away – it makes me feel like I accomplished something on my run, even though it’s really only a little more than a mile away.

-Continuing my daily yoga. Some days I squeaked it in with a 10 minutes video before bed, but most days I did 15-20 minutes in the morning.

-Lenten reading group. Such a great group of ladies with whom to contemplate life.

-Take your child to work day. I did not participate – my work hadn’t organized anything, but the Husband took all three kids to work, and they all had a great time. His work place goes all out for TYCW day, with lots of crafts, riding busses, scavenger hunts (one of the items is “Photocopy your hand”)

-figured out the 8 year old’s soccer team. He’s having such a good time being out on the pitch again.

-Easter service with the Bangla musicians.

-we finally got window treatments! It’s a little plain, but better than the mismatched curtains that I had before. I was so delighted by the top down/bottom up mechanism that I spent a good fifteen minutes after they were installed putting the shades up and down. The plainness of the shades do open up the wall on either side, and now I feel like I need art for the wall.

April Lowlights:

The Federal Government blood bath continues and it is very much hitting home. I’m trying not to think about it, but almost every conversation I have with friends starts with a ginger, “How are you doing?” because I just don’t know if people still have their jobs or not.
Not having a lot of time at home, leaving a lot of the burden of parenting with the Husband. Tech is hard on everyone.
Dropping a lot of balls in life admin.
Taking the corner into the parking lot poorly and putting a sizable dent in the car. AGH!
The house desperately needs a declutter, but I haven’t had time or energy to do it. I’m so tired of not being able to find things or constantly stepping on papers and toys and half done projects.
Owing money on taxes. This is to be expected now, but ouf. I’m going yo try to pay quarterly taxes this year, to make April less painful, but it might all be a wash.
The death of the Pope. What a humble, wise, kind, and beautiful person. The passing of public figures don’t usually hit me that hard, but the death of Pope Francis brought a real sense of loss.

April Insights- two insights, one practical and one philosophical:

-Practical- and this is super weedy stage management stuff, just warning you – Getting my cues in my book before we hit tech makes life so much easier during tech week. Okay, this seems obvious, but I struggle with this one. One thing I’m trying to work on with my own personal journey as a stage manager, is working ahead when I can. I often wait to put cues in my book because I think, “What if things change?” But you know what? They can’t change all 150 cues. So I should do what I can and move the Post It as I need to. For this show, I had the stage manager’s book from the last time they did this show, and that even gave me time to type my light cues onto labels for my own book. I’ve always kind of raised my eyebrows at people who type their cue labels, thinking it’s a lot of work for something, and kind of fussy. But OMG! how clean and pretty does it look to have all the cues typed?

This is the opening number – this is the most cues I have on one page, but the first twelve minutes of the show is a wild ride indeed. I basically just keep my head down, keep calling cues, counting measures, and am thankful that the lightboard operator is good at her job and keeps up with me.

I had hemmed and hawed about typing my labels because I like my light cues to be in a diamond shape and I couldn’t figure out how to print the labels in the right orientation to make them diamond shaped. I procrastinate for a week, thinking I would be able to figure it out. But then I decided, if the choice is between hand writing all 150+ light cues on the exact right shape label vs. typing them on not quite the right shape …. well typing them is so much faster. So I said to myself, “Diane, stop being ridiculous. Done is better than perfect. Stop waiting for the perfect solution to hit you on the head. You’ve been staring at this for a week now. Just do it the slightly different way and get it done.”

– The Philosophical – At our AMA with our Production Assistants, one of them asked us what is the best advice we’ve ever been given, and one of my co-workers said something that stuck with me. She said that Gavin Creel, a musical theatre star who passed away last year, said something that really stuck with her – (And forgive me if I’m not saying it correctly or paraphrasing it badly – I can’t find internet transcript of his exact words) He said that life isn’t a ladder to climb; it’s a lily pond. We are all on our own lily pads, and sometimes you jump from one lily pad to a bigger one, and sometimes you jump from a bigger one to a smaller one. And sometimes you jump onto a lily pad that sinks and sometimes you jump on to a lily pad that floats away and takes you somewhere unexpected and wonderful. I think this is such a beautiful metaphor because we live in a world that is obsessed with climbing the corporate (or what ever) ladder, but we have to realize that life is not all about climbing up. It’s about finding the lily pad where you want to be, and also about being willing to jump to a different lily pad when the time is right.

Cool Blogger’s Walking Club. Big thank you to Elisabeth for inspiring and highlighting daily movement. Some walks this week: walk on the trail near the 8 year old’s school, and grateful for a bench in the shade. Run at work on my dinner break, with blue skies and cool sculptures and architecture. Walk around the plaza at work on the day when I didn’t quite have time to go for a run. Walk to the Farmer’s market near work, where I got a pineapple ginger paleta (so refreshing, a bracing blend of sweet and spicy), and admired the front yard sculpture exhibit the neighborhood is sponsoring. A date to Costco with a friend (I’m counting this! We walked, and we got out of the house.). A walk on our nearby trail with a friend, catching up. A walk around the block one evening after work with the family, watching the kids collect leaves and run ahead of us, a perfect post dinner Sunday evening activity for Summer.

I was initially hesitant to declare participation because I knew I was going into a busy month, but you know what? It is more doable than I anticipated. I was motivated to find those ten minute chunks, late at night, on my meal break, etc. And it also gave me an excuse to try to cajole my family along with me. I think there was one day the first week of April where I didn’t get out and walk/run/bike, but I probably could have squeezed in something. Sometimes it takes planning, but also sometimes it’s about realizing when you have a bit of empty space. Not that we have to fill up all the empty space in our lives, but I’ve realized that going for a walk is still a form of having empty space – it gives me time to think, or not think, to breathe, and work out a bit of restlessness. Ultimately, though, there is no failure here. We do what we can do.

Grateful For:

-The above mentioned chance for the 13 and 8 year olds to be Mystery Readers for the 5 year old’s class. Before we went, the 8 year old said that he was nervous, but he did a great job! He read Pigs to the Rescue and The Giving Tree. The 13 year old read Daddy Daughter Day and 100 Dragons Named Broccoli.

-the box of tempation at work:

It is filled with chocolate:

-Everyone at work who does such a great job to make the show look and sound so good.

-Parent coaches. Despite what I wrote last week about the fight between the two coaches at the 8 year old’s soccer game, I really believe parent coaches are doing amazing work. I watched the 8 year old’s practice last Thursday. Herding a bunch of 2nd graders seems like an exercise in frustration, but Coach Greg kept it together and managed everything so well.

-Carpools. The thirteen year old had a full day of activities on Saturday, and I didn’t have to drive her to anything thanks to carpools.

-That I still have a job. It seems like every week, there is a new round of layoffs at work.

-Zhong zi, and my mother for bringing them. When my mother was visiting in mid April she brought a whole bag of zhong zi. These are sticky rice balls, filled with meat and mushrooms and wrapped in bamboo leaves. They are one of my favorite Taiwanese foods. One day when the fridge was pretty bare since we’ve been behind in the shopping, I needed a quick lunch and found the bag of zhong zi. I steamed them up and we had them for lunch and it was the perfect low fuss meal.

-comfortable shoes. That match the carpet at work. A wonderful thing on days when I am on my feet all day.

-Other things that make tech week go well: lunch boxes and ice packs, the Husband, a comfortable bed, water bottles, the ginormous chocolate chip cookies from the canteen at work, monitors and a strong conductor’s down beat.

Looking Forward To:

-The 13 year old’s middle school musical. Opens this week. I’m really excited to see it.

-My parents are coming for a visit. They very rarely come see us together, so this feels kind of special.

-May! What a month. We have lots going on this month – the 5 year old is FINALLY getting baptized. The 8 year old has first communion. The weather is turning the corner from Spring into Summer. Farmer’s markets. Piano recitals. Voice recitals. Happy Hour and lunches with friends.

-Watching Season two of Andor as a family. Well, actually, watching season one of Andor as a family. I haven’t even seen the first season. I hear it’s really really really really really good.

-Reading this book, not sure what it’s about yet, but I find myself nodding along with a lot of its shrewd and cutting observations. And the chapters are short so it flies by.

What We Ate:
Monday: Lamb stew, from the freezer. Thank you again, past me.

Tuesday: Taco Tuesday. The Husband made chicken tacos

Wednesday: I had empanadas from the Farmer’s market since I was at work. This is the best part of being at work on Wednesday. I think the Husband made some kind of sausage skillet for the rest of the family.

Thursday: Dinner out with friends.

Friday: I had leftovers at work for an early dinner then went out with the stage managers after the show and had a truly decadent dinner – scallops, risotto, kale salad, fancy guava soda made from scratch, peanut butter pie for dessert. The Husband and kids had pizza (take out) and watched Smoky and the Bandit. (Which I have never seen myself.)

Saturday: Kitchen sink chopped cabbage salad with chicken. I was kind of at a loss for what to make, so I took a bunch of sad vegetables from the fridge (cherry tomatoes, cucumbers, cabbage, red onion, avocado), chopped it up, added walnuts, olive oil, salt, pepper, and red wine vinegar. Threw in some shredded chicken and… dinner! It was tastier than it ought to have been given the despair I felt when I first opened the fridge.

Sunday: Egg/ Breakfast sandwiches. The Husband cooked because I was at work. I think I had toast and yogurt when I got home.

Hope you have a lovely week.
Do you have a Sunday reset? How was your April? What does May look like for you? What do you make for dinner when you are looking in despair at the fridge at 5pm? Do you feel like you are on a ladder or a lily pad?