Tag: gratitude

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

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

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

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

Tech week reminders for me:

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

-Trying to Christmas plan while in tech.

-Secret Santa or White Elephant gift exchanges.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Thanksgiving 2024 + more gratitudes – NaBloPoMo 2024, #21

It was a quiet, low key Thanksgiving – which suited me just fine, as it was the one day off sandwiched between days of rehearsals. Wednesday night I took the 12 year old and her friend to see Wicked. I don’t go to see many movies and we almost didn’t get to go because I didn’t realize that these days you have to buy movie tickets in advance. Where are the days when you just went up to the ticket window and said, “Three please for the 5:30 showing of Wicked.”? Anyhow, there were no good seats left at our first choice movie theatre and time, so we ended up at a different theatre, but it was fine.

I ate lots of popcorn and drank lots of Sprite – probably too much because I ended up having to go pee right before the end of the movie and I missed the last minute of “Defying Gravity.” Wump Wump. The movie was gorgeous and very entertaining, but also quite long. I think there’s something in movies that demands more detail in story-telling. I was wondering how they make a 2.5 hour musical into a five hour movie, and I think it’s all about drawing out the story-telling into minute details and gestures that you don’t need in the theatre. It’s such a different method of story-telling.

Thanksgiving day, the Husband set up a TV in the kitchen so that we could watch the Macy’s Day Parade while making sausage balls. It’s our Thanksgiving Day tradition to watch the Macy’s Day Parade and the Husband noticed that I sometimes missed the Parade because I was in the kitchen cooking, so he set up the TV in the kitchen so we could all be together.

I had already done a lot of prep, but I still had to finish the buns, the turkey, masked potatoes, and steam the broccoli. It was feeling like a lot, so I made a little spreadsheet so that I could map out the rest of the day. At work we call this making a train schedule, and it helps me feel less panicked about the rest of the day when I see it mapped out:

After the Parade, we watched the Westminster Dog Show, as we always do. For the first time, a pug won best in show – how awesome is that? By the end of the dog show, everyone was getting a little stir crazy, so I took the two little kids out for a bike ride. We always need a bit of outdoor time at some point before we eat on Thanksgiving day – sometimes I forget and everyone goes bonkers by the time the food is ready, so we need to remember to plan this outdoor time into the day.

A damp, chilly, perfect fall day.

We got home and I started to carry out the cooking plan. One thing I forgot to figure into the plan was time to carve the turkey, so we didn’t actually sit down until 3:45pm. We had one guest for dinner – a work colleague who was new to town and wasn’t able to go home for Thanksgiving. He was a good sport to come over to the chaos of dinner at our house. Our kids can be super social and ask lots of questions and have a lack of table manners. After dinner we played Castle Panic, a fun cooperative board game which involves protecting your castle from trolls and goblins and orcs. We managed to win with one castle tower standing. I highly recommend Castle Panic as a fun family board game that doesn’t get competitive. After our guest left, the kids got into pjs and we watched a Charlie Brown Thanksgiving.

Thanksgiving menu 2024:
-Our traditional Thanksgiving morning project – Sausage balls, a tasty combination of sausage, cheddar cheese and Bisquick. We snack on these all day and they become breakfast and lunch on Thanksgiving day.
-Because we were having a guest, I put out some snacky appetizers: cheese and crackers and crudité with homemade blue cheese sauce (Greek yogurt, lemon, grated garlic, and blue cheese crumbles)
The main meal:
-Turkey – spatchocked, buttermilk brined, recipe from the New York Times. I think I will always spatchcock my turkey. The 12 lb turkey cooked in 75 minutes and I don’t need to stuff it.
-Steamed broccoli – a little plain, but this is how the kids like it.
-Cranberry sauce – made from the recipe off the bag, with some orange zest thrown in.
–Sweet Potato Buttermilk Rolls , also from the New York Times – I don’t think I love these/didn’t make them quite right. In an attempt to make them ahead of time, I did two slow rises in the fridge and they tasted a little fermented. I also think I should have left them in the oven a bit longer because they were almost too soft.
-Spring Mix Salad – salad green, apples, pecans, parmesan, cherry tomatoes. Just a basic salad because I didn’t think there was enough green in the meal.
-Mashed Potatoes – basic – potatoes, olive oil, butter, half and half, and sour cream. I wasn’t originally going to make these, but then I made a huge batch of gravy and we had a guest coming over, and I thought, “It doesn’t feel like a proper Thanksgiving dinner without potatoes.” So the Husband went out that afternoon and got some potatoes.
-Gravy – I made this ahead of time. It was a little bland. Need to figure out how to pump up the “meaty” taste.
-Rainbow Jello “Salad” – Recipe from my mother in law’s recipe box – we make it every holiday meal. A layer of Jello mixed with sour cream to make it pastel colour and then a layer of Jello made as normal. It makes for a really pretty dessert. Or a salad, depending on where you’re from.
-Pumpkin Pie- recipe from the Tartine cookbook, with an extra egg yolk for a firmer custard.
–Pecan Slab Pie – (another NYTimes recipe) – This ended up more like a bar cookie than a pie. It was still tasty, just not what I expected. Also – I miss having an apple pie. Now I know – I’ll always want and apple pie.

It was a lovely spread – I didn’t take any photos, though, so you’ll just have to believe me!

I already wrote an entire post about how I’m grateful for the Husband, and I thought I’d write about a few more people for whom I’m so thankful, to round out this month:

-Everyone who participated in NaBloPoMo 2024, by reading, by posting, by commenting here and around the interwebs. Thanks to San for organizing this. NaBloPoMo came at a really busy time for me, and I wasn’t sure if I should participate, but I’m glad I did. Ultimately, I only wrote 21 posts (I’m counting this one because it’s still November somewhere…) , but I think that’s actually pretty good for how full my month was. What I really loved was how people shared their lives in both their posts and in their comments and the sense of connection that comes across the screen.

– My grandparents, for so many things, but I think one of the biggest things is that they worked with my parents to set aside enough money that I graduated debt-free from college. The way they think about the future and the next generations was such a gift.

-My parents, who left home, emigrated to another country and have always been supportive of me.

– All the stage managers who worked with me, taught me, and mentored me through the years. Even though one can go to school to get a degree in stage management, I mostly figured out how to do my job through many internship, and just by watching other people do it, and by doing it myself, making mistakes, and figuring it out. When I first started out, I did a couple of internships and I was lucky to work under some really amazing stage managers – they were precise and detailed and had really high standards. I see now, after twenty years, that they were also wonderfully human people with insecurities and quirks. I think about these mentors every day I’m working.

-My kids. They are maddening and wonderful all at the same time. They help me think about what it means to be a good human – both in terms of who I want them to be and who I want to be for them. They have such capacities for joy and thoughtfulness. I know it’s a cliche, but seeing the world through them has made me a better person.

Well that’s the end of NaBloPoMo 2024- I didn’t get to all the posts that I had planned to write; I also wrote a couple posts I hadn’t planned on writing. I didn’t get around to answering the Ask Me Anything questions this month, but I still plan to do that in December for sure. If anyone still wants to submit Ask Me Anything questions via this link, I’m happy to answer them!

I hope you all had a great Thanksgiving and here is wishing everyone a joyful December.

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Weekly recap and other gratitudes- NaBloPoMo #18

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

I’m writing this post as part of NaBloPoMo – click on the icon below to see who else if participating. You can also leave me questions for an upcoming “Ask me Anything” post via this link. Happy reading and writing everyone!

Weekly gratitudes – NaBloPoMo #12

This week grateful for:

A weeknight at home- I got to cook dinner, help with homework and piano, do laundry, and go to bed before midnight. It was amazing.

Opening a show. There was one little snafu during the show, but otherwise it went well. It felt good to finally call all the cues in my book.

Printed spot labels. One of the most time consuming parts of putting cues in my book is writing in the information for the spotlight operators. The Stage Manager tells the spot ops whom to pick up with their light, where that person will be onstage, and what level intensity the light will be (in percentage) and also when to switch the colour in their light and then when to fade out. It’s a lot. Usually it takes a few hours to get it all in my book. My grandboss had this brilliant idea this show for the Assistant Lighting Designer, who creates the spotlight cues, to type labels with all this information. It was amazing. I just took the labels, put them in my book, and read them for the first time during final dress rehearsal. Okay, so it’s not my ideal situation to blindly call the spots for the first time during final dress- I like to have a better sense of what the spots need to do. But I simply did not have time to put the cues in my book ahead of time during this show. Having the spot cues pre-written took a huge chunk off my plate.

Friends who took the 5 year old for an overnight On one of the nights when the Husband had to be at the theatre late to pick up the 7 year old, our neighbors picked up the 5 year old from school (our kids are at the same pre-school) and kept her for the evening and an overnight. The 5 year old had a great time and it was helpful for her not to have to ride along to the theatre.

My hoodie that I keep in the office. I don’t usually love having branded work swag, but having this hoodie was really helpful last week because it was really cold in the theatre. And I spent a lot of time in the theatre.

All the people I work with – I know I said this last week, but it’s still true. I’ve dropped the ball on a lot of things or passed things off, and people have picked up the slack and given me grace and we still get the show up and sometimes we laugh a lot along the way, even while realizing how ridiculous the situation is. I couldn’t do this job if everyone was an asshole.

The Husband – it’s broken record worth listening to. The kids and I could not get through tech week and our busy schedules if he didn’t pick them up, feed them, drive them places, help with homework, bake cookies (he baked cookies on Monday when he was off for Vegeans’s day!), do laundry, pick up the house, keep in touch with contractors, and worry about us driving late at night.

What are you grateful for this week?

I’m writing this post as part of NaBloPoMo – click on the icon below to see who else if participating. You can also leave me questions for an upcoming “Ask me Anything” post via this link. Happy reading and writing everyone!

Things that ground me this week – NaBloPoMo Day 10

A few weeks ago, I signed on to a free online parenting class offered by the Parenting Encouragement Program. It is supposed to be a seven week course, but I could only make one night out of seven. The class I went to was about rituals and routines. At one point the class leader asked, “What routines do you have that make you feel grounded?”

I found myself raising my hand. “What do you mean by ‘grounded’?” I asked.

I can’t for the life of me remember exactly what the response was, but it’s something I’ve been thinking about a lot during this busy busy season. To me, it means those things that make me feel stable and human. Those things that, when it seems like life is out of control and I’m starting to spin in my head, those things that remind me that we are human beings, not human doings. Rituals and routines that give me a bit of mental space so that I have the capacity for more inputs.

I do feel silly about how hard I found this past week. I mean I make opera; I don’t perform heart surgeries on babies. It’s not life and death. (I mean, not literally.) But it was a hard week, mentally and physically for me.

When I was writing the title of this post, asking myself, “What things ground me this week?” I thought – well, to be honest, tech really ground me to a pulp this week. Isn’t there a beautiful irony in that? The things that make me feel grounded are the things that I really need when life is grinding me up and spitting me out.

Here are a few things:

Tea in a mug. I often bring tea in my travel mug, but lately I’ve been re-discovering the tactile sense of connection of drinking out of a mug, the heat seeping into my hands and warming all of me. Drinking hot tea, strong and steaming, pulls me into a moment of just being and feeling present.

Short hot hot hot hot showers. I’m not a shower every day kind of person. I’m not even a shower every other day person. But this past week, I found that three minutes under a steaming hot blast of water was cathartic. I would drag myself up in the morning, after getting home past midnight. Sometimes during tech I decide sleep trumps showers. But these days I have to be up to pack lunches anyway, so I get up, feeling like the hard hard rehearsal the night before was still clinging to me. And even though I barely had time in the morning, I turn the water on super hot and jump in the shower, just long enough to breathe the steam and feel the sting of water burning my skin. And came out feeling like I’m going to make it through the day.

Classical music on the way into work. I have an audiobook for my long commutes to the theatre, but this week, on the way in, I just wanted to listen to classical music – I wanted the soothing, wordless melodies – anything with words would be too much. My mind could trace the musical lines as I listened, but also my mind could wander and problem solve and think about the day ahead. I think while part of being grounded is about being fully present in the moment, there is part of being in the moment that is also about thinking of the problems ahead. The challenges of the day are also part of the present moment. I know that people talk about mindfulness as being in the now, but I think the now is also made up of aspects of past and future as well.

Holding my son’s hand. The seven year old is in my show. (Which, on reflection, wasn’t a great idea for the family – it’s certainly has pushed us to activity capacity and the late nights have messed up a lot of things.) Some days he comes to the theatre before the child minder is on duty, so I take him out to the house with me where he sits in the seats behind me as I put cues in my book. He holds my hand as we walk around backstage and that little warm firm grasp reminds me that here is a living breathing human that I somehow pushed into the world, and how awesome is that?

The routine. Getting up in the morning and packing lunches – two slices of bread, two slices of cheese, two slices of ham. Apple, sliced. Five slices of cucumbers. One cookie. Feed the kids. What is important right now? Not obsessing about how to fit in 40 minutes of chorus break in a 4 hour rehearsal, but rather, packing this lunch so that the kids aren’t hungry at lunchtime. I don’t know how I’m going to fit in all those breaks, but I do know that we will get in the car at 9:55am to catch the school bus at 9:06am.

Expressing gratitude. For the Husband, for good colleagues, for the fine weather (that I don’t get to see). For being so very damn lucky that I get to make opera for a living.

What grounds you these days? What is grinding you up these day?

I’m writing this post as part of NaBloPoMo – click on the icon below to see who else if participating. You can also leave me questions for an upcoming “Ask me Anything” post via this link. Happy reading and writing everyone!

Weekly Gratitudes- NaBloPoMo Day 8(?)

A quick list this week. Because tech week.

Things I’m grateful for this week:

Tech- because it was so all consuming that it was a good distraction and kept me from spiralling over election news.

My Stage Management Team – because they kept rehearsals moving backstage, and any time I ask for help or give them a task, the answer is, “Sure, I can do that.” or “What if we did it this better way instead?” This show was really hard for me, and I’m so glad that I had assistants who were beyond competent.

Everyone I work with- for being collaborative and kind.

Post It Notes – Because it seems like all I did this week was run rehearsals or put light and scenic cues in my score. I’m grateful for Post It notes, because it is easy to move the cues around as we try to figure out how really we want scenic shifts to happen. (I think I’ve blogged about how this all works before, but I’m too fried to try to find that post… Maybe I’ll do another post some time.)

Yogurt – for being a complete meal. I feel like a terrible managerial example this week – I always try to tell my team to take their meal breaks and I barely took any the past few days. Thank goodness for yogurt.

Computers and email for sending documents – When I started at this company we were still faxing attendance sheets to the people who submitted payroll. Also when I started at this job, we would type up rehearsal notes and then print the out and put a copy in each person’s mailbox at work. So time consuming. Now we just scan/draft an email, and then hit SEND! Easy peasy.

The Husband – because he has done so much driving this week. And he holds things together and takes care of the kids and the house and still goes to work every day. He’s been the one that’s had to deal with traffic and kids’ tempers and laundry and so much more. Oh and the two days that the kids were off school, he was home with them and one day even took the day off work and took them to the Air and Space Museum. I might have worked 76 hours last week, but he worked 168.

What are you grateful for this week? Have you ever had to use a fax machine? Do you still have to use a fax machine?

Weekly Gratitudes – NaBloPoWriMo Day #2

On my weekly posts, I always try to write at least three things I am grateful for that week. So for NaBloPoWriMo, my weekly gratitude list gets it’s own post.

This week, some things I’m grateful for:

-My sewing machine still working. I sat down two days before Hallowe’en to sew my 12 year old’s costume, and when I plugged it in – nothing happened. I started to despair. Is there anything more despairing than a non-working sewing machine two days before Hallowe’en???? After a moment of spiraling, I unplugged the machine and plugged it into a different outlet. And it worked! Turns out the machine is so old that you have to plug the plug in right side up. I tried to google why this is, but the explanation is too dense for me to process right now. The important thing is that the machine worked and I was able to finish the 12 year old’s Hallowe’en costume.

-Beautiful balmy weather this week. There were a couple days where the weather was in the high 80s this week. Not what I expected for end of October, but the sunshine and warm air was lovely.

-My bike. I had one day when we didn’t have rehearsal so I just went to work to do some paperwork. Since the day was a little flexible, I decided to ride my bike in. I did walk the bike up the big final hill, but other than that, it was a great ride. And then a few days later, because my bike was still at work, I went for a bike ride instead of a run on my dinner break. Running is not so fun for me. Biking is pure joy.

-Text from my 12 year old. There have certainly been some ups and downs and learning curves with getting the 12 year old a phone, but one of the most delightful things is that she now texts me. Sometimes it’s just “hi.” Sometime it’s more than that. Often it’s “When are you coming home.” And then there are lots of pictures – mostly food and selfies. There are parts of the phone that aren’t really working for me, but getting texts from my daughter does make me smile.

-Daylights Saving time ending and getting one more hour of sleep. (Though it’s a little bit of bad timing because I’m about to start tech, which means a lot of late nights. When my body will think it’s 11:30pm and I’ll still have 30 mor minutes of rehearsal to go….)

-Binder Clips. Is there anything as useful as a binder clip? I mean aside from the obvious purpose of holding paper together. We use them in the kitchen to close up bags, like a chip clip. I use them at my desk as a photo holder. I use them when cooking to hold my cookbook open. I use them to clip a bunch of scrap paper together to make a little notepad. So many uses! This week, I discovered a new use – to hold up a music stand. So if you’ve ever worked with a music stand, you know that the top part goes up and down so that if you are standing or sitting, you can adjust the stand to the right height. But… Sometimes with not so great music stands, you pull the top up to be able to use them at a standing height and the weight of your book slowly makes the top sink down again. It’s maddening. Often, we just take gaff tape and tape the stand at the height we like, but this really pisses the prop people off because it can really gum up the shaft of the stand and then it won’t raise or lower anymore. Well, one of my colleagues showed me something brilliant. You can take a binder clip, and clip it to the inner shaft at the height you want and the binder clip with keep the top part of the stand from sinking down. Amazing! The simple binder clip fixed a problem that I’ve had ever since I started stage managing. I’ll take a picture and add it to this post if I can – it’s a little hard to describe how truly brilliant this is.

What are you grateful for this week?

I’m writing this post as part of NaBloPoWriMo – click on the icon below to see who else if participating. You can leave me questions for an upcoming “Ask me Anything” post via this link. Happy reading and writing everyone!

Weekly recap + what we ate: filling time

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

He looks a little like Fievel from An American Tail.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

What We Ate:

Monday: Turkey white bean soup from freezer

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

Wednesday: Skillet pasta and sausage. The Husband cooked.

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

Friday: leftover soup and pizza

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

Sunday: leftovers

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

Weekly recap + what we ate: Haikus not photos

We started rehearsals last Thursday. Starting mid week is always a little tough because you get the momentum of the first day excitement and then bam, you have a day off and it feels a little like letting the air out of your own tires. Oh well, it’s the schedule and I’ll take any days off that I can get.

Bored and Brilliant Challenge #2– No Photo Day. The point of this challenge was to force you to really look at the things you might be tempted to take a picture of, rather than taking your phone out to snap a picture. Studies show that taking a picture of something actually could lead you to remember it less. This challenge kind of hit home when I remembered how a few weeks ago, I wrote about the bright purple flowers in our front walk on a gloomy day. When I was writing that post, I looked for a picture to post of those flowers, but I couldn’t find one. “Surely, I took a photo of that moment,” I thought. “I remember that flower so vividly!” But I hadn’t taken a photo – I had just seen the purple aster popping out on a grey grey day and that memory had embedded itself in my brain. Would I have had such a vivid memory of that flower if I had taken a photo? I don’t know.


Last week, I took exactly three pictures:

I sent this to the Husband as proof I was logging off my comouter and coming home.
Took this one for last week’s post on books I was reading- I’m enjoying both.
The seven year old doing his homework in rehearsal. I sent this to the Husband as proof that he does do his homework sometimes.

And truth to tell, I had to look back at my camera roll to remember what pictures I had taken. on reflection, I think I took pictures to communicate something to someone else. These were not photos of things I wanted to remember for myself. I don’t know if this “No Photo” thing will stick. I do take a lot of pictures for practical reasons – to remember parking spots and grocery lists, to use at work when it is easier to take a picture than try to find the words to explain what I mean when I’m trying to give a note about a prop of some such. And I do like having photos of my family with me, capturing moments we have together. But I think because it is so easy to take photos, I have a higher expectation of these images I capture- I want them to be perfect, I want moments to be perfect. And some are. Sunsets, laughter, getting to the end of a hike. But also – I don’t need a million pictures of these things. I don’t need to take picture after picture, holding the camera between me and the things I want to capture. I can just take one, and maybe it’s imperfect, maybe not everyone is looking at the camera. But that’s the moment too. (Actually, the 7 year old is notorious for turning his back to the camera when I want to take a group picture – at least it’s honest of where we are.) Of course, when it comes to a family picture for the Christmas card, I reserve the right to try to get a nice one.

So last week, as part of the No Photo challenge, I challenged myself to write a haiku every time (well not every time) that I wanted to take a photo, as a way to think about why I’m struck by something. Here are some of the haikus I came up with:

This one is about those purple flowers on our front walk:
On a gloomy day
Purple asters line the walk.
Such bright drops of joy.

Inspired by the first signs of fall foliage that I saw:
Orange dappled leaves
Flaming amidst still green trees.
The first to welcome Fall.

Another one for fall:
Dropping temperatures
bring sartorial changes –
Cozy clothes season!

They play, chattering
Sharing imaginations.
Worlds only they see.

Full moon shines. The clouds
drift lie widow’s weeds across
transcendent beauty.

I will say, last week my phone pick ups did go down 21% from the week previous. (from 98 average pick ups per day to 78). And my daily screentime average was down 25% from the week before (2 h 42 m m vs. 3h 37 mins). I don’t think lower numbers is the ultimate goal in and of itself, but rather what I do with the time, that additional 55 minutes.

Bored and Brilliant Challenge #3 is to delete one app. I’m not sure which one that would be. I no longer check social media and I don’t play any phone games. My most used apps are text/messages, Feedly, and Safari. Safari is probably mostly reading blogs. So I guess that would mean deleting Feedly. Will report back.

Other goings ons–
-Speaking of phones. We got the 12 year old her first phone this week. It has been a huge decision and it’s actually a little earlier than I had wanted to give her a phone. Let’s be honest, if I could have waited until college, I would have. I’m kind of late to technology adoption and late to change. But with activities ramping up and with her being in a show this fall, I felt like for safety and communication, it was best to give her a phone so she could move around more independently. We got her a Bark Phone – the Husband did the research – and it seems like a low commitment way to get her a phone that had lots of parental controls on it. I had briefly contemplated a smart watch, but I wanted her to have something that she could leave in her locker and that wouldn’t be attached to her wrist and constantly monitoring her or sending her physical notifications. Before we got the phone, we all agreed to each come up with three rules about phone usage. If anyone else has guidelines or thoughts on phones and kids, I’d love to hear it. Right now we’re trying to figure out how we decide which apps she can download. I’m not opposed to her having some fun things to do on her phone, but I don’t want her to have so many apps that she is constantly switching between apps looking for that dopamine hit one gets when exposed to new and fresh things. Like you know when you constantly re-fresh apps looking for something new? Anyhow… lots to think about here.

-Soup Party at Work. This was a lot of fun. I make Chinese Corn and Egg Drop Soup. We also had Baked Potato Soup, Lasagna Soup, Sausage Kale Soup, Chicken and White Bean Soup, chicken orzo soup. Lots of bread and carbs too. It was a nice cozy way to gather. I want to have a soup party in the new year, maybe February? It seems like February would be a nice month to have a gathering.

-Family time on a beautiful fall Sunday afternoon. My days off are all over the place this month. I had last Sunday off. I took the 12 year old to buy fabric for her Hallowe’en costume then we were home. We had lunch together outside on our back patio and then later we went together to the park where we played basketball together. The 7 year old and the 5 year old are comically unskilled at basketball, and it made for a lopsided game with people changing sides on a whim. But it was a lot of fun for all five of us to be doing something together, and the weather was perfect.

-I’ve been thinking about NaBloWriMo. (Thanks, San, for organizing!). November is legit bonkers busy for me, but I love the idea of a collective flooding of the internet of good old fashioned blogging. Maybe I’ll write shorter posts? My weekly posts have four parts – life update, gratitude, anticipation, what we ate – maybe I can concentrate on writing/posting one part per day?

Grateful for:
-Hand me down winter coats. I have a friends who gives us all her kids’ outgrown winter coats. She has three kids and each kid always has two or three coats, so it’s a lot of coats. I think between the two little kids, I’ve only ever had to buy one or two winter coats since they were born. (The oldest always gets a new (or thrifted) winter coat.) One day last week it was quite chilly and I needed winter coats for the kids, and I was really grateful that I had a whole closet of winter coats to pull from. The first onset of cold weather is always a scramble for appropriate winter gear, and it’s nice to know that I’m covered on the coat front for a few more years at least.

-Fall apple season. I think apples might be my favorite part of fall. There are so many kinds of apples at the farmer’s market and every apple is a kind of adventure of discovery. Is there anything more satisfying than biting into a perfectly crisp, tart-sweet apple.

-Cookbooks on Libby. For the Soup Party, I wanted to make a recipe from a book I had borrowed from the library, but I didn’t have time to get it from the library, so I checked Libby, and there it was! I find that cookbooks on Libby aren’t always formatted to easy to browse and read, but when I’m just looking for a recipe, it’s a good way to find cookbooks.

Looking forward to:
I have to be honest the next few weeks look like kind of a grind of work and activities, so I don’t have anything fun planned. This all hit home when I tried to schedule dentist appointments for the kids and there was literally no weekday until mid December where I could take all three kids at once to the dentist. It was hard enough getting two kids to back to back appointments.
– Fall walks. I’m going to try to go on a walk every day at lunch. On days when I’m working an evening rehearsal, I’m going to try to fit in a run since I have 90 minutes between rehearsals. I’ve packed my running clothes and shoes and they are at my office right now, so hopefully it will prompt me to go run.

-2025 calendar. Our 2025 wall calendar arrived! Can I tell you how much I LOVE this wall calendar? It’s the At a Glance Move A Page Three Month Calendar. It’s designed so you move each month up as you go so that you can always see the next two months as well as the current one. A lot of 3 month calendars that I looked at were just four pages of three months each, so you’d have to flip back and forth to see adjacent months if you were on, say, March. Or they were all three months on one page, so you’d have to re-write future months as they became present months. There is no re-writing necessary with this calendar. Also – this calendar has lines in the date blocks so it makes writing in it neater. I bought several different 4 colour pens, so everyone in the family gets their own colour on the calendar.

from here .

-Free Day to run errands. I have a free say mid week, so I’m hoping to get some errands done. I’ve scheduled an oil change, want to return library books, run, lunch with the Husband, and visit a local consignment sale- the 7 year old is in dire need of pants.

-oh the most important thing I’m hoping to do on my free day is VOTE! Early voting starts this upcoming week. I have a little trepidation and a little hope about the elections. I don’t trust the polling so I feel like anything could happen. I feel like we’ve been here before- is it just me, or has every election seemed nail bitingly unpredictable?

What We Ate: it was soup week here! Partly because of fall weather, partly because it’s an easy thing to make ahead of time when things get busy.

Monday: Chicken rice soup. Made in the Instant Pot. I’m trying to use up things in the freezer, and we had a bunch of chicken breasts, so I put them in the Instant Pot with celery, onions, butternut squash, turnips, brown rice, and chicken broth. It was really tasty and there were leftovers for all week.

Tuesday: Corn and egg drop soup and dumplings. I made a double batch of the corn and egg drop soup so that I could bring to the Soup Party at work. I used the recipe from Vegetarian Chinese Soul Food by Hsiao-Ching Chou. It’s actually just a corn soup in the recipe, and I added the egg drop part to up the protein. The dumplings were pulled from the freezer – we had bought from the Farmer’s market last month.

Wednesday: Soup Party at work! I brought the Corn and Egg Drop Soup. It was even more ginger-y because I had added ginger slices and let them sit overnight.

Thursday: Chili- the Husband made this on Sunday night. It was super tasty.

Friday: Pizza (takeout) and IF. I had to work this night and had leftovers.

Saturday: I had to work, so I had leftovers. Not sure what the rest of the family ate.

Sunday: Toast and leftovers. Sunday is usually simple supper/ clean out the fridge night.

How is fall in your area? If you are in the States – are you voting in person or by mail? Early or on Election day? What’s the last photo you took? What’s the last photo you sent someone?

Weekly recap + what we ate: September Review/October Aspirations

I was feeling kind of “meh” about September. We had a big goal of doing a lot of decluttering, but we had one major win (the attic), and one kind of fail (the toy room.) We have a plan for the foyer to manage our shoes and socks and drop zones, but it requires ordering new shoe storage. I’m excited about the shoe storage that we have picked out, but it is pricy, so I’m not sure when we’ll order it. And then on top of it all, the start of school and activities just feels overwhelming – totally my own doing, of course, but it’s stressful.

But when I went to journal about my September, I found there were some highlights tucked in there.

September Highlights:
– My parents came to visit.
-The youngest kid turned five!!! We had cake at home and also a birthday party for her with friends at the small local aquarium.
-The kids and I went to the Renaissance Faire. It was so much fun. I’m glad we went early because it’s been sold out for the rest of the season since mid September.
-Going through the attic and throwing out/donating/ passing along so much stuff. The space that this has opened up is amazing.
-Family Game Night. A wonderful, quieter alternative to big adventures.
-Discovered some tasty food near us – a Balkan restaurant and an Indonesian one.
-The County’s Friendship picnic – tasty falafel and bounce houses.
-On the work front – working a corporate gig (a new to me experience), and doing super titles for a Vocal Recital (familiar gig, nice to return to).
-We found out that the 12 year old got into the children’s chorus for the holiday opera that I’m working on. She was so excited. I took this picture of her reading the offer:

September Lowlights – funny how many of these lowlights are tied to the highlights:
-Trying to figure out the logistics of getting the 12 year old to opera rehearsals. Rehearsals start at 4pm, and that’s kind of a logistical nightmare. She doesn’t start until November, but it’s causing a lot of stress.
-My parents came to visit, but I barely saw them because I was working most nights that they were here.
– Not managing to work through the toy room declutter.
-Not having a chance to go on any hikes or visit any museums all month. This might be the first month all year where I didn’t fit in either a hike or a museum visit.

October Aspirations:
Okay, I had written a big long list for October aspirations, but I think I’ll just whittle it down to a few essentials:
– Survive our schedule, making sure everyone stays fed, rested, and gets where they are scheduled to be. In addition to the kids’ usual activities, the 7 year old is going to be a supernumerary (non-speaking extra) in the opera I’m working on. I might regret signing him up – it will be several late nights and will take thoughtful logistics, but he’s excited to do it, and I’m excited to have him in the show.
-Hallowe’en. I think we have costumes sorted out. I need to make them, but I’ve penciled costume work days into my calendar.
– Another effort on the toy room purge.
-VOTE. This is a big one. Early voting starts in ten days. If I don’t do anything else, I need to do this.
-Remember to hug the Husband and children every day.
-Daily time outside. Even the low bar of the Cool Bloggers Walking Club seems high to me right now, but here’s a reminder to step outside and breath the fall air every day.
-I had a bunch of other aspirations written down – the perpetual “get rid of car” project, planning for our Asia Trip, hike, museum, exercise, no-spend month, social plans… I think those are going on the “really, maybe, probably not this month” list. I’m setting expectations low here.

Other Things This Week:
-Contra-dancing! The Husband suggested we go contra-dancing this week. There is a new-ish contra dance about two miles down the road from us on the second Thursday of the month. The Husband and I met contra-dancing and we used to go several times a month. In our area you used to be able to go to a contra dance on Friday Nights and Sunday nights, and if you were willing to drive to Baltimore, you could also go to one on Saturday nights as well. It’s a pretty popular activity here. The Sunday night dance no longer runs now, thanks COVID. And we also haven’t been for a while, thanks, kids. I don’t think we’ve been since before the 7 year old could walk. Anyhow, the Husband told me about this Thursday night dance and we went, taking all the kids, and we all had such a great time. The music was amazing, the people friendly. There were several people that remembered us from when we used to attend the dance regularly. I laughed, I spun really fast, I moved my feet to the music, I swung my kids around, I made small talk with nice people. It was a really great time.

Blurry screen capture from video the 12 year old took of the Husband and me.

-Good talk with a teacher – One of the kids has been struggling in school so we set up a meeting with the teacher to talk about strategies. I’ve always been a little hands off with my kids’ schools, but this year, I’m realizing that there is a an element of collaboration that is needed – teachers and administrators want to know when kids are struggling, and it’s better to ask the questions rather than assume things will work out. I’ve always felt bad about emailing teachers about issues, and taking their time, but I’m seeing that there is a time and a tone for these communications, especially in the elementary/middle school years. I’m sure high school is a whole different ball game.

-Matching Overalls! We went to Duluth Trading Company on Saturday – the Husband needed some new shirts and pants. I’m doing a casual, no-pressure Buy Nothing month (inspired by Stephany!), so I didn’t buy anything for myself, but I did try on some jeans and they weren’t terrible. I might buy myself a pair in November. I haven’t worn jeans in two years and it’s hard to go back, but they are a really versatile piece of clothing and good for running around backstage. So I will marinate on that. But in the mean time, I couldn’t resist picking up a pair of overalls for the 5 year old. They have a super cute fox print pattern on them. And… the overalls come in adult sizes as well. The 12 year old and I both tried them on together. I was sooooo tempted to buy us all matching overalls, but they are on the pricy side and the 12 year old found a pair of ivory corduroy overalls she liked better, and I decided to resist the temptation and stick to my “no buy” intentions. But look how cute we all are!

-We finally finished watching a TV series! This is very rare for us – we often peter out of energy when watching something together, or if I’m watching something on my own, I am often reluctant to watch the series finale because I don’t want the show to end (I’m looking at you, This is Us). We watched the last episode of Ted Lasso over the weekend. (Though there are rumors of a Season 4…?). The last episode was predictably sentimental and heart-tugging to the point of manipulative, but I kind of loved it. I feel like it’s not “cool” to wear your emotions on your sleeve anymore – there is so much television about people being mean to each other, or being irrevocably lonely, or trying to get ahead, or having terrible things happen, and blood and sex and gore and ironic wise assery. And Ted Lasso’s big hearted optimism is the antidote to that. This last season – sure it was predictable and it seemed like they were box checking plot points, but dammit if there weren’t some genuinely touching moments and I might have been a little teary eyed.

-Bored and Brilliant Challenge. As I mentioned in the last post, I’m trying to work my way through the Bored and Brilliant Challenge – six challenges put together by the podcast New Tech City/ Note to Self in 2015 to help one re-set phone habits. The first challenge was to keep your phone in your pocket (or your bag) when you are in transit. As part of the episode, the host sat on a New York City street and counted how many people walking by were interacting with their phone. Of the 1000 people she counted, 30% of people were interacting with their phones, which actually seems low to me – but the episode was from 2015, so maybe people were less attached to their phones nine years ago? At any rate, one of the main points of this first challenge is how even when you don’t look at your phone, even having it out is a distraction and keeps you from truly connecting – with others, with your surroundings, with yourself.
I’ve been doing this “phone in pocket” challenge, and at the beginning I noticed that I would, out of habit, pull my phone out after work as I walked to my car. This wasn’t great, especially since I often left work late at night when it was dark out. But it was also something that I wasn’t even thinking about. What was interesting to me about this challenge, too, is that one would think that a behavior that requires effort (pulling out one’s phone) comes against more friction than something that requires no effort (leaving the phone in my bag). But that itch to check my phone – the discomfort of being bored – clearly was winning out over the inertia of leaving the phone in my bag. So when I started finding myself reaching for my phone while walking or in the car or wanting to take it with me when I walked down the hall to talk to someone at work, I tried to acknowledge the discomfort of being bored, the urge of wanting to be entertained, and sat with that a little bit. Like seriously, what is so boring about walking to the car that I feel like I need to be looking at my phone? I’m sure there are scientific studies that look at how the brain processes content from the phone vs. other inputs. Maybe this “challenge” will just become a habit.

Challenge #2 is to have a Photo Free Day, where you don’t use your phone yo take any pictures for a whole day. I do like to take pictures to remember things, and capture moments. Will report back on how this challenge goes.

Grateful For:
-Walking trails to school. Twice last week, I drove the 7 year old and his friend to school. The first time, was because we missed the bus, so I drove and parked along the trail that goes to the school and we walked the rest of the way – I kind of loathe sitting in the carpool line and thought this would be nicer. The 7 year old said to me, “It’s nice to start the day with a walk!” So on Friday, I asked if he wanted to walk to school again, and he did, so we once again parked on the trail and walked up to the school. I’m grateful that for living in a pretty urban suburb, there are still lots of ways to walk.

-Being home for dinner. Opera season is starting for me, which means a lot of nights and weekends. I’m grateful when I get the evening off and can be home for dinner. I love family dinners.

-Parks and playgrounds. On Saturday, the 12 year old had a birthday party. It was about 25-30 minutes away from home, and we didn’t think it would be efficient to drop off then return, so we took the opportunity to go grocery shopping and to take the two little kids to a playground. I feel so lucky that there are so many parks and playgrounds in our area. You can often find one (or two or three) within a 10 or 15 minute drive of wherever you are in our part of our county. So if ever we need to kill some time, going to a playground is usually a good solution. I’m also grateful that the kids still like playgrounds.

-Not quite getting rid of my car yet. Our van had to go into the shop and we were down one car for a week, so I ended up driving my 20 year old car while my husband drove the Impreza until the van was fixed. I know we are lucky to have three cars for situations like this – even if one car is 12 years old and the other car is 20 years old. Part of me thinks, maybe we don’t need to get rid of my car – it’s good to have an extra car for instances like this. But it is silly and expensive and hard to justify keeping a third car for emergencies when we live a 10 minute walk to public transportation.

Looking forward to:
-Hallowe’en. I’m not working on Hallowe’en this year, so I get to take the kids trick or treating. The costumes have all been chosen. There were some last minute changes, but I stuck firm that I wasn’t making different Hallowe’en costumes, so any changes had to be able to be sourced/purchased.

-Starting rehearsals. We’ve been prepping for the start of rehearsals. It’s always exciting to learn a new score and wrap my brain around new sets and costumes (well, new to me – the costumes are rented and the set takes parts of previous shows and uses them together). At a certain point, however, I am itching to move from the show being in my head to see how it is going to get up on its feet, to see what the singers and creative team is like, to hear the music sung by real live people.

-Soup Party! I’ve organized a soup party for my department at work. I’m excited – and the weather is just starting to turn chilly enough for soup weather. I think I’ll make Chinese corn soup – it’s easy to put together and very tasty. Not sure if I’ll make it vegan (tofu instead of eggs).

-Just started these two books:

In busy seasons, I try to find books that are fun to read and engagingly written right off the bat, and these two books are that, in very different ways. One is about navigating puberty- it gives the science behind the changes that happen and also gives ideas on how to kids about the changes in a wonderfully non-judgmental way.. The other book is a love story that straddles two eras.

What We Ate:
Monday: Pasta Salad. Made before I went to work in the afternoon. Jenny Rosenstrach’s marinated beans, pasta, cucumbers, tomatoes, peppers. Vegan.

Tuesday: Soba and herb salad with roasted eggplants and plums. This was simpler than it sounds, but boy was it tasty. I ate it for leftovers the rest of the week. Vegan.

Wednesday: Leftover pizza from the 5 year old’s birthday party.

Thursday: Leftovers

Friday: pizza (take out) and Glee

Saturday: The 12 year old was at a birthday party. The husband and I weren’t terribly hungry after a big lunch, so we didn’t eat, but we did buy the two little kids a sandwich to split from the grocery store.

Sunday: Leftovers for me. Yogurt with berries and honey. Toast (again) – PB&J on English muffins for one kid, melted cheese on English muffins for the other kid. Cut up veggies on the side.

How is your October going so far?