gratitude – Page 4 – Life Off Headset

Weekly recap + what we ate: Gearing up for Tech Week

I did a big Costco run last week. Tech week is coming up and I felt like I had to stock up on snacks. Some new finds:

I like a spicy snack, and these two treats are opposite end of spicy. The almonds are spicy/ savory – perfect for when I’m tired of the sweet MLK. They are salty, smoky and crunchy with a little bit of heat. The Tamarind bites had intrigued me for a while and I finally decided to try them. I like tamarind a lot and I’ve always like chili spiced dried mango, so I figured these might be similar. These have that distinctive sweet/sour tamarind flavor with a nice kick from the chili. Not for eating by the handful, but I find one or two at a time very satisfying.

I got these strawberry yogurt bites more for the kids:

The kids really like yogurt tubes, but I can’t keep those in the car, so I thought this might be a nice alternative. They are sort of like yogurt covered raisins but with strawberry instead. The jury is out. They are a nice snack, but not very filling.

These protein bars:

I go back and forth on protein bars. I like the idea of them, but are they really better than just having a Snickers? I grabbed these because a guy standing next to me in the aisle said that it’s the only protein bar his gluten free son will eat. I’m very easily swayed by random strangers recommending things to me in store aisles. Anyhow, these are fine. They are a little larger than I expected, so feel like a lot. They taste okay to me and the ingredient list is not unexpected. Overwhelming endorsement, I know. I probably wouldn’t buy them again because they are on the pricy side, but if I need a gluten free bar, this isn’t a terrible option.

Other fun things:

Sometimes my kids take my camera and take really inane and unflattering pictures. Sometimes, though, they capture things like this:

Ignore me in the background blissfully unaware that my phone is gone. Look instead at the unbridled joy that the 6 year old captured.

That picture is going in my file of “Things to look at when I feel down.”

We also had Take Your Child To Work Day. The Husband took the kids to his office, where they had all sorts of fun activities – a Fire Truck, build a solar car, pizza lunch! Then he brought the kids to my work, where we had some late afternoon activities – build a prop flower, listen to some singers sing, tour the building, try on costumes. I was a little disappointed that the kids couldn’t come to rehearsal, but we have a no guest policy right now because of COVID. All the same, it was fun to see the kids at work briefly.

Very satisfying: I labelled the prop tables. There are a lot of props in my current show. The situation on the prop table had gotten quite chaotic – they had become some kind of random dump area. So one afternoon I just took the time and organized them and labelled spots for all the props. I do usually do this at some point in the process, but usually when there aren’t so many props it doesn’t feel as urgent. Or as satisfying when it is done. Opera aficionados can probably guess what opera this is:

Sort of annoying: The 3.5 year old got sent home with pink eye one day. The Husband went to pick her up and took her to the pediatrician and got drops then stayed home with her. I’m glad that he has a job that allows him to do that. I mean certainly if I had an emergency, I could have taken the afternoon off, but the Husband officially gets to take time off work. Benefits and all that.

Anyhow, we got drops for her, which she refused to let us put in:

It took a bit of bribery and holding her down to maybe get a drop in her eyes twice a day. And really, after the first day, bribery didn’t work.

Domestic Adventures: I made muffins in anticipation of tech. This time I made Coconut Peanut Mochi Muffins from Hetty McKinnon’s To Asia with Love. The muffins use sweet rice flour so they are gluten free, and they came out chewy like mochi but dense like a muffin. The swirl of peanut butter helps give it a substantial taste so that the muffin doesn’t tip into desert territory. I really liked these muffins and will definitely make them again. The kids didn’t love them, but the Husband did. The kids said it would be better with chocolate chips. Of course.

I did some mending. My favorite yellow linen pants had a hole in them from last fall when I accidentally poked them with my pencil. I decided to patch them and then saw that there was an even bigger hole on the left knee, so I patched that too. I find mending very satisfying. I do worry, though, that it might be considered not really acceptable to wear patched clothes at work. I patch my kids clothes all the time, but maybe the standard of appearance is different from kids vs. working professionals? Anyhow, I figured one of the benefits of working in the arts is that wearing patched clothes is probably okay since our dress code tends to be more relaxed and whimsy is not frowned upon. So I’ve been wearing them to work. Thank goodness because I really only have two or three pairs of pants right now.

We did a big purge of the kids’ toy room. The toys were getting overwhelming and the room was constantly messy. So we sat down and had the kids choose their five favorite toys/ sets and everything else got put into purgatory in the attic. This is what we were left with:
– Doll House and Castle
-Barbie house and accessories (This is a lot and I’m thinking that may need to be whittled down even more.)
-Magnaformers
-Blocks
-Train Tracks
-Matchbox cars and Hot Wheels garage (One cookie tin full.)
-Trucks (we led the six year old keep six trucks)
– Nugget and Fort play cushions
– Kitchen and accessories
– Baby Dolls and Toy Shopping Cart
– stuffies. Each kid got to keep five
– dress up clothes
-Swedish Climbing Ladder (This is bolted to the wall so had to stay, but the kids do legitimately play on it.)
-Things that the kids didn’t specifically say to keep, but which don’t take up a lot of room so we kept: The Speak n spell, Learn to Code Robot

Things that got sent to purgatory: Crazy Fort fort kit (which took up one big box – the kids really loved playing with this set during the pandemic, but they don’t build forts as much anymore), lots of trucks, all the craft kits, Transformers (surprisingly), stuffies not chosen.

What is left still feels like a lot. I guess since our kids are so far apart in age, there is going to be a wide range of toys. But we did put two big movie boxes of toys into the attic and just threw out a lot of the small or broken toys. (The 11 year old, who is a school bus patrol, apparently has been taking some of the small unmemorable figurines with her to the school bus and handing them out to younger kids as a reward for good behavior. I’m actually quite tickled that she is doing that. ) I think the ultimate goal is to whittle the toys down so they can go into another room, which will free up the toy room so that the 11 year old can have her own room. I think room sharing gets old once one is in the double digits. The toy room feels like a constant battle. I would love for it to be Pinterest organized and labelled, but the reality is if they can shove their toys easily to the side so that the cleaners can do the floors, I think I can begrudgingly live with that. So at least having fewer toys to shove into the perimeters will hopefully make said shoving go faster.

Something that made me smile: the six year old is starting to read, much to my surprise. during the Pandemic, I thought I might teach him using the How To Taech Your Child to Read in 100 Lessons, but it didn’t take. And then he got into a French Immersion program and we were told not to actively teach our kids to read because it sometimes confuses them as they are learning go read in French. So I just decided to let it go. We still read to him, but I didn’t try to ask him to sound out words or identify letters. Well the other day, I was driving him home and I heard … “ssssss- t- o…..p. Stop.” “can you read?” i asked him. “yeah.” “Who taught you?” “my brain.”

Grateful for:
– My Yeti Rambler with Hotshot lid. I had originally got this cup to keep my tea hot, but this week I also had the realization that it could also keep my drinks cold. Not sure why it took me so long to figure this out. Anyhow, it was perfect for making iced chai in the morning and sipping it all day long. One morning I even treated myself to a chai at my favorite coffee place near work and they put it in my Yeti and it was a nice pick me up all day long.
– Nice weather and longer hours of daylight. It had been raining all week which made the days kind of dreary. I had a happy hour scheduled with my mom’s group, and I thought it was going to have to be inside, but then the weather cleared up the afternoon of our happy hour. So we sat outside. And because we schedule our get togethers after bedtime, it was nice that the sun didn’t set until after 8pm so we still had some sunlight when we finally met up.
– This gratitude entry in my journal made me laugh: “Grateful for not moving the bar” There is a bar in our show. (As in there is a scene that takes place in a restaurant.) Of course we can’t have the real bar in the rehearsal room because it is part of the set. So have a substitute bar in rehearsal that is heavy as f*ck. Like it takes five people and six dollies to move it. We’ve been rehearsing in two rehearsal rooms so we had to move the bar one day from one room to the other, and it wasn’t fun. And then we thought we would have to move back to the first room again. But then the stage manager thought through the schedule and decided that we wouldn’t have to move it again, perhaps ever. So grateful.

Looking forward to:
-Tech week. Moving into the theatre! Prepping tech week food! I genuinely look forward to making sure I have food to get me though tech week. The week is long and stressful (I mean relatively – there are for sure more stressful jobs.), so I like to make sure I have food and snacks to get me through. In addition to the Costco snacks and mochi muffins, I’ll make a big batch of boiled eggs and bake muffins for a quick breakfast and have soup or curry that I can bring in a thermos for dinner.
– Meeting up with friends one evening at a park for food trucks and live music. It is starting to be live outdoor music season here, one of my favorite summer activities. I don’t know how many we’ll get to with my heavy work schedule this summer, but I’m trying to bookmark all my favorite events so I remember when they are happening. (we did this. It was kind of a bust – the park was over crowded and there weren’t enough food trucks for everyone and the food and beer wasn’t that good and it was expensive. So we bagged it and picked up sandwiches and went over to our friends’ house)
– Summer camp. This is still on the list because I still haven’t done it and I think if I make myself look forward to it being done, I will get it done. I thought I had an idea of what to do, but then the one camp I was thinking of only does ages 8-12, and I need something that both the 6 year old and 11 year old can do together. There are many advantages to having kids 5 years apart, but finding activities that both can do together is not one of them.

What we Ate:
Monday: Leftover Potatoe Leek Soup from the week before. Leftover soup has become one of our go to quick meal strategies.

Tuesday: Breakfast Sandwiches, made by the 11 year old.

Wednesday: Pasta and Meatballs in the Instant Pot.

Thursday: Sandwiches from Santucci’s, eaten in the park. Our first weekday park picnic of the season. Such an easy summer evening activity.

Friday: The Husband made stuffed zucchini. I ate leftovers at work.

Saturday: Happy Hour out with my mom’s group. I had mussels and asparagus. Meanwhile back at home, the Husband made pizza and the family watched the second Boss Baby movie. (The kids had watched the first movie on the plane to/from Amsterdam. Yes, they watched it twice.)

Sunday: Mac and cheese from the blue box and salad. Made my the 11 year old. I just realized – she made dinner twice this week. That feels kind of cool.

Weekly recap + what we ate: big ticket items and small pleasures

Another full week, but not as packed as the week before, thank goodness- On Monday we started rehearsals for a my next show, and that evening I had my last titles gig of the season. I worked 5 evening during the week, so I’m feeling really behind on the home front. Laundry, general house picking up, spaces that need to be organized, the living room still needs curtains. I also still need to register the two older kids for summer camp and I’m starting to have a little bit of anxiety about that. And we still have to renew our pool membership for the summer.

And all of it is big ticket items. I think in my mind we got through the expensive part of the year with our spring break trip and I’m waiting for a less expensive month, but really it doesn’t come.

Some highlights of my week:
– Slowly getting back into running. I did one pre-rehearsal run and one dinner break run, both less than 1.5 miles, but it’s something. I attempted another run on Saturday on the dinner break. The weather looked iffy, but I thought I could beat the rain. I was wrong. About 3/4 of a mile out it started to sprinkle. Then it turned into a deluge. Like one of those “I stood under a restaurant awning for 10 minutes hoping it would pass but eventually gave up and ran the four blocks back to work” kind of deluge. I was quite the sad soddened mess. And the dumb thing is I didn’t check the weather before hand that day; the morning was gorgeous so I didn’t even bring a raincoat. wump wump.

– Balloons in rehearsal. There are balloons in rehearsal. Bright colourful balloons. I got to use the helium tank and blow them up. It made me happy. One of my co-workers offered to take them down to the rehearsal hall for me, and I was like, “No way! I blew them up, I want to carry them down the hallway!” Of course they were sad and droopy by the next day, but that’s okay.

– The voice recital that I did supertitles for. Most of the songs were new to me, but there were two I absolutely loved. The first is called A Soft Day. It’s by a English composer C.V. Stanford, based on a poem by Winifred Letts. The poem describes a day that is damp and quiet and full of nature.

A soft day, thank God!
A wind from the south
With a honeyed mouth;
A scent of drenching leaves,
Briar and beech and lime,
White elder-flower and thyme
And the soaking grass smells sweet,
Crushed by my two bare feet,
While the rain drips,
Drips, drips, drips from the eaves.

A soft day, thank God!
The hills wear a shroud
Of silver cloud;
The web the spider weaves
Is a glittering net;
The woodland path is wet,
And the soaking earth smells sweet
Under my two bare feet,
And the rain drips,
Drips, drips, drips from the leaves.

I love poems that are able to capture a moment so precisely in words that I can almost feel the misty air around me. The song setting of this poem has that same relaxed and pensive feeling to it. And the way the notes “drip” like the rain…

British contralto Kathleen Ferrier. Pianist Frederick Stone. Such elegant singing.

My second favorite song in the recital was a beautifully sweet lullaby by Puccini. Puccini wrote lots of operas, big, grand affairs. I guess he also wrote lots of songs too, and I thought this one, Sogno d’or (Golden Dreams) was lovely. In it a parents sings to a child about how the angels will come to them as they sleep. You can listen to it here.

Soprano Krassimira Stoyanova. I worked with her years ago – she was a lovely person. We managed to communicate despite her not speaking English and me not speaking Italian.

Sunday was my day off, and even though there is not skating lessons this week since it is between sessions, I still took the kids skating. Actually the whole family went, though the Husband only sat and watched. It’s been so fun to see the kids get more and more confident on their skates. The three year old can skate by herself now, even though she insists on holding my hand while we skate.

In the afternoon we went downtown to meet my cousin who was in town for work. One thing I like about living near D.C. is that people often come to town for work, so we get to see them. We met my cousin at the National Postal Museum, which is one of my favorite of all the Smithsonian Museums. They have lots of informative and interactive exhibits which I find appeals to both me and the kids. Kids can learn how to sort mail, and design their own stamps and collect stamps too.

After the Postal Museum we walked down to Chinatown and had dinner at Jaleo, a tapas restaurant that is quite well known here. We decided to order the shrimp and squid paella in addition to a variety of tapas. I’ve been to Jaleo several times, but never ordered the paella; I think in my mind, a dish that’s mostly rice sounds unexciting. Well. I was proven wrong. The paella was heavenly. We also ordered dessert and there was a rice pudding with a lemon cream. Rice pudding, also something that is a very pedestrian desert in my mind, but which was divine in this iteration. I might have to reconsider my prejudice against rice.

Something that makes me smile: my pen holder from Muji and my red pencil. Years ago a colleague introduced me to 0.9 lead and it’s been my lead thickness of choice ever since. Of course everyone at work now used 0.9 lead pencils and we were constantly mixing up pencils since the barbells were all the same color. Eventually I stuck a piece of tape on mine so I knew which one was mine. When I found that Amazon sells my favorite pencils in my favorite color red, and not only that, in packs of 12, I immediately got a box and now I always know which 0.9 lead pencil is mine.

The pen holder, I found of the Japanese houseware store Muji. I was always putting my pencil down and forgetting where it was. Now, I have this clip on my binder and my pencil – and the green Frixion pen that I use to mark entrances – live there and I always know where it is. That adage “A place for everything” – I feel like this pen clip embraces that for me, at least in this small area of life. It’s not just about my writing utensils’ location but about containment and security. It makes me happy and feels so satisfying knowing where to put my pencil after I jot a notes, and to be able to find it when I need it.

A link I loved: I always enjoy the New York Times “By the Book” column where they interview noted people about their favorite books, not so favorite books, reading habits, etc. This week’s column features Judy Blume, and it is excellent. I put a lot of the books she mentioned in my TBR list, and have already started Sherman Alexie’s The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian and two chapters in it is already by turns hilarious and hesrtbreaking. I think of Judy Blume mostly as the author of “Superfudge”. I do remember reading “Are You There, God? It’s Me Margaret” but not really relating to it as much as I thought I would. Maybe it’s time for a re-read?

Grateful for:
– a morning walk with a friend. Several days I had afternoon and evening rehearsals, so I had the morning off. One morning, my friend from the bus stop asked if I wanted to go for a walk, so we did. The weather was nice, sunny, spring time weather. Afterwards we made plans to meet up at the park on Friday when the kids’ were off school. This friend is moving at the end of the summer – her husband is in the foreign service – and it makes me a sad that they are moving because I feel like I don’t make friends’ easily. I’m really glad she started talking to me at the bus stop one morning. They’ll be back in a couple years, though – I’ll just have to keep in touch.
– Having a car and being able to drive the kids to school. Another school bus related thing. One day, the morning school bus did not come at all. After half an hour of waiting, the parents who were at the stop took all the kids that were still waiting for the bus to school – whomever had a free seat in their car took a kid. I’m grateful that this is a community where this generosity is not weird and people are just willing to give another kid a ride to school without a second thought.
– Getting to listen to really talented people make music. For this show, I’m running the stage left side of stage. In rehearsal it means that from where I sit I get a prime view of the rehearsal pianist. I am in awe of how their hands dance over the keyboards, up and down, fast and slow. Sometimes they even sing the parts of the chorus or other characters who aren’t in rehearsal while their hands sprint across the notes. I try to find moments to savor every day and last week, many of those moments were watching the rehearsal pianists.

Looking forward to:
– Finalizing summer camp plans. As in looking forward to it being done, much the same way I was looking forward to our taxes being done.

– Happy Hour with moms from my mom’s group.

– reading this book. I love a good Jane Austen retelling and this one is proving pretty fun and thoughtful.

What we ate: (a lot more eating out than normal this week. I feel like we’re kind of in a meal planning slump)

Monday- I had my titles gig so I got take out from Beefsteak – tofu kimchi bowl. I am not sure what everyone else ate.

Tuesday- Pasta salad with the leftover grilled veggies from the Sunday before. vegan. I was working, so I made this in the morning before I went to work.

Wednesday – The Family had take out wings to celebrate a good report card. I was at work and brought leftover pasta salad.

Thursday – vegetarian tortilla soup in the Instant Pot. From this recipe from Two Sleevers website (aka the Butter Chicken Lady). Made in the morning before I went to work.

Friday – The Husband took the kids out to eat because they were off school and the 11 year old had a basketball game upcountry. I probably lay had leftovers.

Saturday- Pizza and movie night. The family watched Might Ducks. I went out for a drink with colleagues after work and missed the movie.

Sunday – Jaleo with my cousin.

Weekly recap + what we ate: pre-trip version

We are home from our spring break trip! Where we went:

Recaps to come. I hope. I still think I want to write recaps from our Montreal Trip too, so clearly I am behind.

But a quick rundown of the week before, since I selfishly like having these accounting of my days…

It was a week off of work, which was great because I could get some last minute errands and pre-trip things done.

some Highlights:
– Going for a cherry blossom run. I had always heard that the Kenwood neighborhood also has beautiful cherry blossoms, and it was less crowded than going to the Tidal Basin, so I thought I’d check it out. When I looked it up, I saw that there is a trail next to it, so I decided to combine my run with a cherry blossom wander. I parked at one of the lots off the trail that lead to the Kenwood neighborhood and had a little run then spent the rest of the morning wandering the streets. It was not as crowded as the Tidal Basin, so I felt like I was able to amble and savor at my own pace, though the blossoms in Kenwood are not the panoply of colors one sees downtown. It’s so interesting that this little neighborhood becomes such a cherry blossom hot spot. It was at the tail end of cherry blossom peak bloom and there was a light breeze, which sent cherry blossom petals drifting through the air and scattered on the roads.

-The six year old had a concert. The French Immersion students put on a concert every year, though apparently it hasn’t happened in a while because of the pandemic. Each class presents some kind of musical performance in French. The kindergartener show involved singing and dancing to a song about chocolate. I know I put on shows for a living, but I am seriously impressed by the coordination that it takes to organize 200+ kids to sing and dance in French. It’s always funny for me to go see school shows because there is a certain level of chaos that I would never see at my work, and yet… things always work out and people get onstage and offstage. I mean I just have to stage manage, but the teachers have to direct, choreograph, child wrangle, cajole, cheerlead… what full jobs they have… on top of the every day teaching.

The black light and fluorescent vests made me laugh.

– I got a discount on a book! I went to Barnes and Nobles to pick up a book for my flight. I usually like to read a book by someone from the country that I was visiting, so this is the one I chose:

Anyhow, as I was leafing through it, I noticed that the inside blurb page was upside down – you can see in the picture how the strip of the stepback is white and it should be red. I would have bought the book anyway because I wanted to read it and this gaffe wouldn’t have affected reading the book. But I took it to the front desk, pointed out the flaw, and they gave me 20% discount!

Giggle of the week –
This sign, seen in the neighborhood, which abounds with Little Free Libraries:

I feel like the six year old would take advantage of that too.

Grateful For:
– Public Transportation – I had lunch with a friend one day and I could take the metro there. It was just as fast as driving, but much more relaxing, and I could read my book a little.
– A friend for lending me a suitcase. I was going to buy a new suitcase since the wheels of my carry on rolling suitcase have come apart. I’ve had that suitcase for almost twenty years, so I guess it was about time to replace it. But when we went to look at suitcases, I was so overwhelmed by the options and couldn’t pick one. Relating my suitcase woes to my friend, she said, “I have one that you can borrow!” So I did. It saved me money and it saved me the mental energy of having to choose a suitcase. Sometimes having something just given to me is even more perfect than having to choose it myself.

-Time. Last week, I had more money than time, what with being unemployed and all. I think about this a lot. Sometimes when I’m unemployed I find my spending goes out of control because I finally have the time to browse/choose/buy those new shoes to replace the ones with holes that I have been making do with, or catch up on house projects, or refresh the kids’ wardrobes. I find when I’m thick in work, I don’t tend to throw money at things, rather I just decide to hobble through and replace things when I have time to think about it. But of course it means that I tend to have the time to spend money when I’m not making any money – which doesn’t even out as much as I would like. I suppose the answer, somewhat, is to increase my income. But also I think I should lean into thinking about how to spend time not money when I’m unemployed. Some things do need to be replaced, but maybe some things can be repaired? I sewed up a hole in a sweater that I wanted to take for vacation rather than buying a new one. And also – I went on the abovementioned run to see the cherry blossoms in Kenwood. It’s the kind of thing I wouldn’t have had time to do while working, but when I don’t have to be in at work, I can do these things. I can use time to buy moments of beauty. I can use time to buy moments of connection, like when I have lunch with friends. (Okay, also it took money to pay for lunch, but we could have just as easily gone for a walk and visit, or she could have come over for tea… the food wasn’t the important part.) Anyhow… when I’m feeling money poor and time rich, maybe I need to think about the things that time can buy me. On that note, I realize how lucky I am that I do have time – there are many people who have neither time nor money and that must be so stressful and hard.

What We Ate:

Monday: Chickpea noodle soup from Vegan for Everyone by America’s Test Kitchen. The six year old wanted veggie soup and I had celery to use up- I feel like I make this a lot when those two boxes need to be checked. Vegan.

Tuesday: Waffles. Quick dinner before the six year old’s school concert. I had heard a hack earlier this year of measuring two batches of dry ingredients when you make/bake something so that you just have to add the wet ingredients later on for a second batch. I thought this brilliant so last time I made waffles, I measured a second portion of the dry ingredients into a container and put it in the pantry. When I needed a quick dinner this night, I just tossed in the wet ingredients and everything was came together super quickly. I know measuring the dry ingredients doesn’t take that much time, but when you factor in finding things, hauling it out, measuring, and then putting it back away… to be able to just dump it in a bowl… pre-making the dry ingredients has the ease as if we were making our favorite waffle recipe from a box mix.

Wednesday: Dinner out with friends from out of town. I had pasta with mushrooms. There was parker house rolls with bacon jam involved.

Thursday: Off in an airplane!

Weekly recap + What We ate: Learning to find the moments even in tech

Well, that last weekend was a very full weekend! And it was followed by a very full week, so I’m posting about a week behind. There has been the time suck of ill children this week, and this post has been sitting languishing in my drafts folders for many many days. But for those of your following along, here’s the run down of life lately….

First off, we hosted the 11 year old’s basketball team for a sleepover. They came over Friday night, we had a build your own pizza station, and they made a huge Thank You Poster for their coach. I think six girls stayed the night. There wasn’t a lot of sleeping. Which I expected. What I didn’t expect (and maybe I should have?) was that most of the girls brought some kind of screen, either a phone or a tablet. So even though I told them to turn their lights out at 11pm and took away the tv remote, they were still up on their devices. I’m torn as to whether or not I should have collected their devices at Lights Out. On the one hand, sleepovers are kind of supposed to be a free for all, but on the other hand, the 11 year old commented to me afterwards how people didn’t really interact as much as she wanted – no one would play Uno with her, for example – because they were all on their screens on looking on to someone else’s screen. I don’t know if next time, I should tell the parents to leave their kids’ screens at home, or to just be stricter about collecting them, or have more organized activities?

After the last kid was picked up, I decided that I needed to get out of the house so we went to a nearby trail for a little walk. It’s not the most picturesque trail, but it was nice to see some signs of spring and the kids liked climbing the rocky outcrop they found.

Then off to work and opening night, which went smoothly. I fee like there was a somewhat collective sigh of relief that we got this show to opening, since last time we did this show, there was a global pandemic and we had to stop before the first onstage orchestra rehearsal. Funny story, there is a sign on a bulletin board in the theatre dated, March 3th, 2020 that encourages mask using. I’m not sure if the memo is left up out of neglect or some odd sense of memorium.

Then daylights savings the next day, which I had completely forgotten about, but somehow the Husband managed to get the two little kids up and to 8:30am mass on time. Daylights savings after a late night is always tough. I was so disoriented when I woke up to a quiet house and a watch that say 8:45am, and a clock that said 9:45am.

The Husband brought the kids home in time for me to bundle them back up and go to skating lessons. After skating lessons, there was a park, then home for lunch. Then we had a family adventure to the outlets to try to find some luggage. We wanted to get the 11 year old her own rolling suitcase for our Spring Break Trip, and we found something for her at the Samsonite store. Of course the two little kids also decided they wanted luggage, but let’s be real, I don’t know that the three year old is going to pull her own rolling suitcase through an airport. So we stopped by Target and got them (relatively) inexpensive rolling suitcases – cheerful luggage that will hopefully last three or four years. I still need to replace my rolling suitcase – it’s well over 20 years old, the wheels have disintegrated and it’s actually probably a little too long to fit in the overhead these days. A project for the weeks to come, I think.

On the way home, the Husband called an audible for dinner and we ended up at Dog Fish Head brewery for dinner, which was a tasty way to finish off the weekend, and a much needed bit of de-stressing since I think we were all cranky and overwhelmed by the shopping. There are just so. many. options. in the world. Then we went home and watched the Oscars.

Anyhow, the week before that very busy weekend was the rest of tech week, which went pretty smoothly. The schedule eased up quite a bit once we started rehearsing with orchestra, and we even had a few days without rehearsal. I know I say this all the time, but I still feel like I’m not great at switching between working 12 hours a day and 2 hours a day. I find I tend to be a slug on lighter work days and then life tasks don’t get done – so trying to find ways to balance the need to slug and the need to get through the list of things that had been put off during tech.

The three year old continued her contributions to science by participating in the trail for the Pfizer booster. It had occurred to me last month that she was eligible for the booster, and when I asked the group that administers the trial if I could go ahead and get her booster, they said I could but then she would have to withdraw from the trial. So… figuring that things were pretty low risk right now, and that the $150 might be nice for her college fund, we decided to wait until the booster trial opened up. That turned out to be a three hour appointment. But she got a cute teddy bear out of it!

Some random thoughts on the Oscars: I didn’t get to watch all of it because bedtime fell right in the middle of everything, but what I did see checked a lot of boxes for glamour, pretty people, and touching thank you speeches that reminded me how powerful public gratitude can be. Some thoughts:
-The clothes! Let’s be real, this is why I watch – I think I’ve seen exactly one of the movies that were nominated. (Tar, for the record) My favorite gown was Cara Delevingne’s huge red dress. I thought it was classic Hollywood glamour on a large scale. And also the Rock in the blush pink satin tuxedo. That made me smile.

It’s a little shiny, but I love the pop of colour in a sea of black.

– The folks who won for Best Live Short, singing happy birthday to one of their stars, James Martin. I mean how awesome is that? You have a global platform and only 45 seconds, and you use it to give your star the gift of two thousand people singing happy birthday?

– A moment that really connected for me was when Ernestine Hipper, who won for Production Design said, “When I started this, I was told – don’t ever forget, you are only as good as your team… ” And it made me think of my awesome colleagues and how I had just had a hard tech week and thank goodness I have a rock solid beyond competent team of stage managers to work with me because they make me look good, and it would have definitely been harder without them.

– Everything, Everywhere, All at Once sweeping the awards. I have yet to see this movie, but I very much want to. I mean how many times will I get to see a movie where the main character wears a print blouse and a puffer vest, just like my grandmother did? So that was lovely, and all the speeches thanking immigrant parents really hit close to home. The Asians who thanked their parents for letting them do what they wanted…

Grateful For:
– A very smooth opening night and the privilege to work on this show.
– Smiling Mind meditations. I’m (still) trying to wean the three year old at night. I’m feeling slightly ridiculous about this, but sometimes it’s the only pathway to sleep. Lately I’ve been able to get her to sleep before she demand “Milk!!!!” by playing a bedtime meditation for her and the six year old after we read books. I’ve been using the app Smiling Mind, an app based out of Australia. I picked it mostly because it is free, but the cute Australia accent is nice to listen to as well. There aren’t a whole lot of options for meditations, but my kids are creatures of habit and listen to the same one over and over again.
– Small moments to savor this week – the little bits of things that let me pause and enjoy being, like…
Golden sunsets on my dinner time run:

Steaming cups of chai. I’ve been making my own chai concentrate at home and enjoying a cup of chai in the afternoons, wrapping my cold hands around the fragrant warmth of the cup of milky brown tea. I find the pre-made chai too sweet for my taste so I started experimenting with making my own. I’m still working out the perfect recipe; I can’t seem to get my chai spicy enough. Currently I’m using cardomon pods, star anise, cinnamon stick, black peppercorn, ginger and tumeric. Maybe more ginger? Maybe grate the ginger?

Packing lunches for the kids. It seems silly to be grateful for such a tedious chore, but after working so many evenings and being gone for bedtime, I felt grateful that I could do this one thing for my kids every day. (Well, not every day. About half the time the 11 year old packs her own lunch.)

For the kids being adorable and cute and at that age when they get a lot of joy out of dressing alike. I had picked up this blue eagle shirt for the six year old a couple of years ago and he looooooves wearing his shirt. “My Robot Eagle Shirt”, he calls it. And he always wears it with red bottoms. I was worried what would happen when he outgrew the shirt, but then I was able to find the shirt one size bigger on Poshmark. Anyhow, now the original shirt has been passed on, and the kids do cute things like this:

This jigsaw puzzle – a soothing opportunity to shift my brain during rehearsal breaks. One of my co-workers brought in this charming puzzle made by Wentworth Wooden Puzzles – the pieces are made of wood and feel so satisfying to click into place, and some of the pieces are shaped like objects. I thought this clipboard was very appropriate for our Stage Management Office.

I’m a beginner puzzler, but I thought this puzzle fantastic!

The clean living room. One day, the 11 year old declined to go out running errands with us, saying that she would stay home and tidy. I was skeptical. But we got home and lo and behold:

Spring. I took a few hours to wander at the botanical gardens one day, to pause and breathe and enjoy the colours of spring.

Looking Forward To:
– Weekday lunch with the Husband. Like a date, almost.
– Time to breathe and work on all the things that get put off during tech.
– My brother and his family are coming to visit this summer! It’s a couple months away, but we haven’t seen them in a while, so I’m excited to see them.

What We Ate:

Saturday: I brought at hummus and cucumer sandwich to work. The Husband made pizza for movie night. I think they watched The Good Dinosaur.

Sunday: The Husband and kids had dumplings. I had Green Room chicken – as in there was a catered event at the theatre next door, which my friend was working. There was too much food leftover, so my friend brought it over and I had chicken and rice and salad for dinner.

Monday: The Husband made waffles with sauteed mushrooms for the kids. I packed ramen to eat at work.

Tuesday: Roasted Garlic Potato Soup from Family by Hetty McKinnon. Made before I went to work and was able to take myself a thermos full. The kids said this was bland, but the Husband and I thought it was tasty. Actually the best part was the salty paprika garlic almonds that the recipe calls for as a garnish. Vegan.

Wednesday: Vegetarian Jap chae. A kitchen sink, clean out the fridge meal. Vegan.

Thursday: Veggie quiche, made before I went to work. Another attempt to use up veggies in the fridge.

Friday: Pizza/ basketball team sleepover.

Saturday: Leftovers for me. The Husband and kids had pizza (homemade, I think?) and watched Frozen.

Sunday: Dog Fish Head Brewery. I had nachos and the ahi tuna sandwich. It all felt very indulgent.

Weekly recap + what we ate: Attention

I had to work both Saturday and Sunday last week, but Sunday was the supertitle gig, so it did actually feel like a break from my opera job. And running titles is fun because I get to enjoy the music and run the titles projections and I don’t have to talk to anyone. When I’m stage managing sometimes it feels like there is someone constantly talking to me. One fun thing that I did Sunday morning before going to work was take the eleven year old on a run. She usually has a swim clinic on Sundays, but lately has been reluctant to go, so I offered that we could go for a run instead. (I was partially inspired by Coco for this idea; I always love reading about how she runs with her children.) We went to the track at the middle school and ran laps and then did a few passes up and down the stairs while listening to Against the Odds. We didn’t go very far or very fast, but at least we kept moving.

Monday was President’s Day, and the kids were off school. I was working, so the Husband took the kids down to the Mall to visit the Natural History Museum. This seems to be the Husband’s routine on no school days with the kids – he takes the on the Metro downtown to see a museum. I have to say I’m quite jealous because I have yet to go to any museums this year and I told myself I would make a point to visit the more frequently. It just seems like all the free museums are a perk of living in the DC area and I don’t take advantage of it enough.

The highlight of the week was definitely going to the theatre to see Into the Woods. The day was unseasonable warm – almost 80 degrees and sunny. I attempted to go on a run during my lunch break, but I was not dressed for such weather – I made it about ten minutes then got really hot, and went back to the office. I did go for a walk earlier that day, so the weather was enjoyed and savored. After work, my friend picked me up and we headed down to the theatre, stopping to pick up food on the way from Flower Child, a new to me restaurant chain that is purports to be healthy. I had a tofu plate with curry cauliflower and yuzu brussel sprouts and it was pretty tasty. The weather was so warm that we could sit on the back terrace of the theatre to eat.

The show itself was wonderful. I laughed so hard throughout and then I almost cried at the end. I first heard Into the Woods in high school – I think I saw the telecast of the original Broadway cast on PBS or we rented the video or something. The orchestra was onstage in this version, and it made me really appreciate the music a lot more – especially the strings and the very busy percussionist who did a lot of the sound effects. I sort of regret not bringing my 11 year old, but she went to see it later on with the Husband, so I think it’s okay. Some more of my favorite moments:
– Cole Thompson as Jack singing “Giants in the Sky”. It’s my favorite song in the whole show.
– The amazing puppet work and the very hilariously meta way that Kennedy Kenagawa the puppeteer/actor that played Milky White the cow was integrated into the action. There was no pretending that we couldn’t see the man behind the curtain.
-The scene change when everyone goes into the woods and birch trees come floating down from above. I know the mechanics about how things fly in – often I’m watching it from the side of the stage, making sure no one is standing in the way of things flying in. To see it happen from the audience point of view- I am reminded how magical these simple theatre maneuvers are. How, with a bit of man power and proper riggings, something very simple – attaching scenic elements to a pipe and slowly lowering them to the ground along with a change in lighting- can bring about stunning transformations.
-At the end of intermission, a voice announced that for the remainder of the show, the role of the Baker would be played by his understudy. Said understudy was playing Rapunzel’s Prince, and so the role of Rapunzel’s Prince would be played by his understudy. (I had seen the Baker limping at the end of the first act, but I thought he was acting. I guess not?) What excitement and frenetic arrangements must have been taking place backstage while I was enjoying some fresh air at intermission! Okay, the best part was when it came time for the scene in Act Two where Rapunzel’s Prince and Cinderella’s Prince enter for their second duet – the two men entered, greeted each other, as in the script, then Cinderella’s Prince says totally deadpan, “Brother, you look different.” Brought. Down. The. House. I laughed so hard. I love it when actors can riff with ease like that.
– One thing that I really appreciated about the show was that it wasn’t too loud. I often find that when I go see musicals, everything is so loud that it is distracting. I don’t know if it was because the orchestra was onstage, but I found that the levels for the performers was perfect – I could hear them and they didn’t seem overamplified.

Bad Moment/Good Moments: Getting the kids to clean up after dinner (or really clean up in general) is still proving to be a struggle. There was definitely some yelling this week. There was one day when dinner was super loose because the Husband was trying to make it to Ash Wednesday service, so he ate first, but then when he left for church all the kids left the table and disappeared. It made me so angry to have no one answer when I called them back to the table, and then to have to clean the kitchen by myself. I just want my kids to be helpful! I yelled and then went outside and stood in the driveway in the cold air for a while. What awful roommates they are.

But then there are days when they just dance by themselves in the kitchen, and it just makes me smile to see them bopping away on their own:

Podcast listen of the week: This episode about how to manage your attentions span from The Art of Manliness (I find the title “The Art of Manliness” really cringe-y, but they do cover a wide array of fascinating things.) The guest on the program, Dr. Gloria Mark is a professor who studies attention span, and actually wrote a book called Attention Span: A Groundbreaking Way to Restore Balance, Happiness and Productivity. Ironically, it took me over a week to get through this podcast as I kept getting distracted. The discussion (which there is a transcript at the link) discussed how attention span seems to be shrinking, whether or not technology and media has contributed to this shrinking attention span or is merely a reflection of it, how your personality type reflects your attention span, and why multi-tasking makes us inefficient. As someone who often finds it hard to sit and focus for long periods of time, I really connected with a couple of points:
– Dr. Mark talks about how task switching really can torpedo attention span and points out how even when one is concentrating on doing one thing, there is a significant amount of task switching within that thing. They use the example of planning a trip – even when doing that one thing, it’s comprised on many small tasks – checking tickets, switching over to checking calendars, the logging into your bank account, etc. So there is a huge potential to get distracted and fatigued from task switching. I think this is why consciously breaking down large projects into smaller portions is a good tactic.
-I had mentioned in a previous post about the morningness-eveningness quiz which helps determine an ideal bedtime and you”morningness/eveningness” type. I had first heard about the quiz from The Art of Manliness site before the podcast was released and it was interesting to hear them talk about how to use the quiz results in context of attention span. One of Dr. Mark’s main ideas is that we can get a handle on our attention span by acting with more agency and deliberately planning our day to when we are the most alert – not groundbreaking advice by any means, but I had never thought to really try to find out when my most alert times of day were. I realized that I haven’t been maximizing my morning-evening type lately, and as a result I’ve had some pretty inefficient days at work. I’ve had a few days with a very light rehearsal schedule, and I usually run in the mornings because the trail is near the bus stop so it makes sense to do the school bus run then hit the trail. But then I don’t get to work until noon or 1pm and then I find it hard to concentrate. Given that the quiz seems to indicate that I’m an intermediate/morning type, I think it might make more sense to go to work after the school bus drop off and then have my run later in the afternoon when I find myself getting more distracted. I’m going to try to implement that whenever possible and see if I find it easier to focus and plough through stuff by getting to work earlier.
-My favorite point – They talk about how distraction is not necessarily a bad thing because studies have shown that giving yourself positive brain breaks actually can replenish your cognitive resources. This got me thinking of positive brain breaks I can take. And some of the things I came up with:
> doing a downward dog and some light stretching
> reading the list I keep of funny things my kids say/ looking at cute kid pictures
>have a chat about non-work things with my colleagues. No complaining allowed.
> go for a walk outside and savor nature.
> do some leisure reading
> have a tasty snack or some water
> do something creative like doodle a random art prompt, or write a haiku
> Say thank you or compliment someone.
> Do a puzzle or a brain game.
What I want to avoid, when I need a positive brain break is scrolling on my phone or taking on a lot of negative energy or emotion from someone else. I’m not on social media because I found it mentally and emotionally draining, but there are still lots of other websites and forums which I don’t feel recharged after visiting. So I like the idea of having alternatives to my phone when I find myself unable to focus. This actually ties to something I did last month. I created a screen on my phone of “positive activities.” I had heard the idea on a podcast of creating a folder on your phone for social media alternatives so that when you feel the urge to aimlessly scroll, you can go to that folder instead. I did a variation on this, and put certain apps that I feel positive about on one screen, so when I idly pick up my screen for a little break, I tell myself to check out those activities first. It doesn’t work all the time, but many times, it does keep me from internet rabbit holes.

My positive apps: photos; weather; Smiling Mind (meditation, mostly I use for the kids); Libby and Hoopla for library books; Duolingo to practice my Mandarin; Runkeeper; Podcasts; Notes for random thoughts and haikus; Wordle – did you know you can set any website to be an icon “app”? I think this is genius because now I can go directly to Wordle rather than getting distracted by other sites when I open my browser. I’m contemplating adding Spotify or a music app or Audible to my “positive break” page. But then I would cover up the Husband’s face even more and we can’t have that.

Grateful For:
– Windows in the rehearsal hall. I’ve worked in many a company where we rehearse in a windowless bunker – cafeterias, basements, church auditoriums… You go in in the morning and emerge blinking into the light at midday and then back in after lunch then at the end of the day come out to the dark of night; it is always a little disorienting. The rehearsal room I’m working in now has huge floor to ceiling windows . I love how the windows let in the sunlight and I can see the progress of the day outside. Our windows face west, and some days I can watch the sun set and see the pink and orange skies – it is a lovely positive brain break during long rehearsal days.
– That I sometimes get staff discounts for performance tickets. It’s a definitely perk of where I work. I will be the first to admit that going to a live performance is expensive; I am so grateful for people who come to see shows and help pay my salary. At the same time, I know I would very rarely prioritize paying full price for a live performance unless it were something very special. So having access to a discounted ticket here and there from work makes me feel so lucky.
– Drop off birthday parties and the parents who throw them. The six year old is at an age now where he is invited to drop off parties. I don’t mind terribly having to make awkward small talk with other parents, but when I’m working and there is only one parent at home and three children to watch, being able to drop a child off at a party is a gift. I picked the six year old up from a party and I literally said to the birthday child’s parent, “Thank you for having a drop off party!”

Looking forward To:
– A morning walking date with my work bestie on our day off on Thursday. I see her almost every day at work, but it’ll be nice to have some time to talk about non-work stuff.
– Cooking from Cookbooks. I put a bunch of cookbooks on hold at the library recently and they all came in at the same time. In retrospect, the week I start rehearsal is hardly an ideal time to dive into new recipes. I’ve leafed through them for some of the simpler ideas to use these next few weeks, and I’m planning on cooking from one of them on my day off – probably a soup so I’ll have easy leftovers. I’m really looking forward to cooking from them once the show opens. I love reading cookbooks, and one of them is part memoir, part cookbook which I’ve been reading during breakfast and it’s been lovely.
-Tech week! Coming up. I’m excited to get this show to Opening Night. I’ve started stocking up on all my favorite snacks.

What We Ate:

Saturday: Pizza (Husband made) and Star Wars. I have to admit that I fell asleep during this movie. I had had a couple late nights and Star Wars is a great movie, but I just couldn’t keep my eyes open.

Sunday: Chipotle. The 11 year old’s choice to celebrate an improved report card.

Monday: Stir Fried Garlic Green Beans, Roasted Potatoes and Mac n Cheese. The Husband cooked – it was a bit of a fridge clean out kind of smorgasbord.

Tuesday: Black Bean Soup from Hetty McKinnon’s Family: New Vegetable Classics to Comfort and Nourish. Since I was making this in the morning so the family could eat it that evening, I adapted her recipe for the Instant Pot, using dried beans instead of canned. Vegan.

Wednesday: Breakfast for dinner – waffles and eggs and breakfast tacos. This was one of those days which we didn’t meal plan something and then the afternoon got busy and at 4:30pm, the Husband asked, “What should I make for dinner?” I initially suggested pancake because we had some Kodiak pancake mix, and when I got home he had the waffle maker out.

Thursday: Butter Chicken and rice, using the leftover butter chicken sauce from last week.

Friday: Tortellini with red sauce. Our usual Friday night quick dinner before the 11 year old’s basketball.

Weekly recap + what we ate: kind of a slog

Last weekend’s highlight was the Chuck E. Cheese Party. So overwhelming, but lots of fun was had. I think if I had to do it again, I would skip the party package and just take a bunch of kids on our own. One of the main features of the party package is the Chuck E. Cheese show, featuring a highly energetic birthday video and a person in a Chuck E. Cheese costume – both of which I think the six year old found bewildering. The whole thing was rather loud and frenetic, on top of the already loud and frenetic video games. Also Chuck E Cheese is an explosion of choice – so many games to play, and then at the end when you redeem your “point” for “prizes”. Part of the party package gives the birthday kid an extra 2000 points, which greatly increases the prizes you can cash in for. Most kids only managed to win enough points to get a plastic ring and a dum dum. The six year old had so many more options – none of them life-changing, though I kind of wanted him to bring home the light up gyro wheel. I think he spent twenty minutes starting at the prizes and came home with one of those sticky spiders you throw at the wall and watch them slowly climb down. Standing with your child at the Chuck E. Cheese prize counter is an excellent exercise in restraining parental judgement. At least for me.

This week following felt very full and kind of a slog. In that ordinary life is kind of a slog kind of way. The Husband was at an in town conference for two days. He still came home at night, but because of conference events he didn’t arrive home until after bedtime, so I felt on my own with the kids two nights in a row. Three if you count the night the Husband took the oldest to basketball practice and I had the two littles. Luckily they were the two days that there were no activities, so we could just be at home. I always feel bad complaining about how challenging I find solo parenting in the evenings because when I’m working, the Husband solo parents almost every night. He does six week stretches with lots of solo parenting evenings, so I should be able to handle two nights.

I think the most exhausting thing about being solo alone with the kids is the kitchen clean up. We clean up as a family after dinner, but when the kids are being reluctant about it, it adds a whole other level of emotional energy to cajole and supervise them. Some days I think it would just be easier if I cleaned it myself after bedtime. At least then I could watch tv or listen to a podcast while I do it. But I do want the kids to take ownership in the upkeep of their home. I remember when I was in high school, after dinner my parents would go out for a walk and it was expected that my brother and I clean up after dinner. He and I had this system where one person did the dishes and the other person did everything else because the dishes were such an onerous chore. I know I need to recognize that my kids are a long way from high school, so I can’t expect them to clean up after dinner by themselves, but there is a part of my brain that thinks, “C’mon, kids! You’ve been here for years. Why aren’t you more independently helpful?”

In addition, the two little haven’t been sleeping well. The six year old would wake up screaming. The baby would come to my room and tell me her big brother was screaming, then refuse to go back to bed. I think the Husband was in the baby’s bed at one point. There was bed musical chairs going on. Find an empty sleeping space and use that. One night the only thing that would calm the six year old down was sleeping in a chair in the living room while listening to his bedtime playlist, while I slept on the couch next to him. Every so often, he would wake up yelling that one song or another wasn’t supposed to be on the playlist and I’d have to get off the couch and delete it.

(Sidenote annoyance – the free version of Amazon Music has changed its format so that you can’t just play your playlists anymore; they mix up the songs on your playlists and insert other things they (or rather their algorithm) think you might be interested in. The reasoning is they’ve made all their music library available so there is more music available, but fewer options for how to listen to it, I guess. I was fine with a limited music collection that I could play as I wanted. Luckily I haven’t updated the Amazon Music app on my iPad so I can still play the bedtime playlist in the right order, but I’m annoyed at the conspicuous money grab to try to get people to sign up for a more expensive service. I get that nothing is free, but man it’s annoying. I should just pay for a music streaming service, I guess. I wonder if I can write it off on my taxes then? Because often when I need to listen to a specific thing it’s for work.)

Anyhow, I actually quite enjoy the bedtime playlist, so at least it was nice to listen to the tunes. The Current Bedtime Playlist:
Put on Your Sunday Clothes (from Hello Dolly! the recent Broadway version)
Octopus’s Garden by the Beatles
Put on Your Sunday Clothes (from Hello Dolly! the movie version)
Rocket Ship Run by Laurie Berkner
More I Cannot Wish You (from Guys and Dolls, sung by Betty Buckley)
Dear Theodosia from Hamilton
We’re Going to be Friends by The White Stripes
Waving Through the Window from Dear Evan Hanson
A Million Dreams from The Greatest Showman
For Forever from Dear Evan Hansen
It’s Quiet Uptown from Hamilton

This last song was the source of much consternation because it was “too sad.” (He’s not wrong.) So I was instructed to take it off the playlist. But then on the next pass through, there were tears when it didn’t play. So now Quiet Uptown is back on the bedtime playlist.

Songs I had to remove from the playlist, having caused a crying fit in the post-midnight hours:
At Last I see the Light from Tangled (why?!? I thought he loved that song!)
Try to Remember from the Fantasticks (I like this song. I thought it fit in with the mix, but apparently not…)
Simple Song from Leonard Bernstein’s Mass (this was was a stretch anyway… I love the piece and thought I could just slip it in. Nope)

Okay, it wasn’t all a slog, though. I got to go running a few times, after taking the whole week before off because I was stuck at home with a sick kid. I baked more bread. I got some walks in. I started a new show. Twice I went out for lunch with friends and both times the food was amazing. One time was to a taco place, and they had these really good mushroom tacos. The second time was to a Chinese restaurant and I ordered off the dim sum menu and got turnip cakes and shrimp chang fen and sticky rice in bamboo leaves, salty spicy tofu and Chinese broccoli in oyster sauce. It was so delicious. I don’t always love going out to eat, but these two places were definitely worth it.

One fun thing: On Friday, the six year old’s class was asked to dress up as what they wanted to be when they grew up. Six year old wanted to be a builder. I had a toy hammer for him, and we had a dress up construction hat. But come Friday morning, we couldn’t find the hat. This caused no small amount of consternation because it would have been the perfect accessory. And of course it was thirty minutes before we had to leave for school. So I asked him what else a builder would wear. And he says, “A Safety vest!” Sure. Let me just pull that out of thin air. But… I looked in his drawer and he had an old yellow t-shirt. So I got a pair of scissors and some electrical tape, and…

Instant costume. I think my favorite part is the plaid flannel shirt. He was a little resistant to wearing the plaid flannel shirt, but I googled pictures of construction workers to show him that, yes indeed, plaid flannel shirts are what builders wear.

Breakfast of the moment – Since the 11 year old got a waffle maker for Christmas – one of those gifts ostensibly for her, but really for the whole family – we will periodically have waffles for breakfast. I always make a double batch so we have waffles for breakfast the following week. They’re super easy to pop in the toaster over and reheat. My current favorite breakfast is a waffle with peanut butter, topped with banana slices and sprinkled with Everything Bagel Seasoning. Something about the combination of the sweetness of the banana along with the savory/salty bits of the sprinkle and the hardiness of peanut butter really hits the spot for breakfast. I love sweet/savory combinations. Plus it’s very portable and I can take it to work and eat it at my desk.

Interesting link: This quiz to help determine how much of a morning or evening person you are. Based on your answers to the questions, The Automated Morning-Eveningness Questionnaire then calculates your optimal bedtime plus when your body starts winding down. I thought it was pretty neat to fill out – the questions were about your current sleep/wake habits plus when during the day you feel most active. (Plus you get your results right away – not like some sites where you have to give your email address so they can email you your results … and lot of subsequent spam.) Turns out I am a pretty middle of the road person in terms of when I am the most alert, and my recommended bedtime is 11:30pm with at 9pm winddown.

Grateful for this week:
– Longer hours of daylight. This week was the first time I really noticed that there have been more and more hours of daylight. The sun is up when we drive to 7:15am piano lessons and there was still enough sunlight after school that I could take the kids to the park after school.
– My coworkers. I know I say this a lot, but I feel so grateful for the stage management team I work with. They are all so thoughtful and competent and they always make me laugh. I’ve worked places where the team dynamic isn’t great, bordering on toxic, and that is absolutely not the case at my current job. I don’t always love being the lead stage manager on a show, and having solid assistants makes it a much better experience.
– Leftovers. I sometimes complain that no one else eats leftovers at our house, as if it is some burden to eat the leftovers. Truthfully, the eleven year old will eat them, and the two littles will sometimes eat them if I put it in front of them, but they are nobody’s first choice when making consumption decisions. This week, I’ve been packing leftovers for dinner and I was struck by how easy it is to have a fridge full of leftovers that I can just package up and toss into my lunch box.

Looking Forward To:
– I got news this week that my cousin is coming to visit in a few months. Hooray! I remember babysitting her when she was a toddler and now she has a real job and everything!
-Getting my haircut this week! It’s been a year since my last haircut and I’m looking forward to having it short again. I usually get it cut before I start a job, but didn’t get around to it last fall.
-Starting rehearsal. Before each show begins rehearsal, I have a week called “Prep week” to work on paperwork. It is always a nice low key way to get ready for the show to begin. The first day of prep, I’m always glad to be able to take a pre-dive into the show material. But then there’s always a point midweek when I’m tired of just thinking about the show and ready just to get into the rehearsal room with the singers and director and start putting the show up.
– Supertitle gig coming up next week. The singer is someone whom I worked with when she was barely out of grad school; I’m excited to hear how she’s grown in the past five years. I need to get those translation slides done – I had a dream last night where I showed up to the recital without the titles done and it was quite embarrassing.

What We Ate:

Saturday: Pizza (the Husband made), and Robin Hood, the Disney animated version from 1973. I remember watching this when I was a child. Truthfully, I fell asleep half way through, but the part I was awake for I thought was lovely.

Sunday: Quesadillas (for the kids) and leftovers (for the adults) and garlic green beans for everyone

Monday: Red Pepper Pasta. Only made with orange peppers. More or less this recipe from Minimalist Baker, but I use half and half instead of soy milk so it wasn’t vegan.

Tuesday: Sweet Potato Poblano Tacos from Dinner Illustrated. Vegan.

Wednesday: Pasta e Fagioli Soup. Vegan.

Thursday: Butter Chicken and cut up cucumbers. This is the internet famous InstantPot Butter Chicken recipe – it was the Husband’s request for his birthday dinner. I like the recipe because it makes extra sauce so we can have butter chicken again next week.

Friday: Take out – Fried Chicken and BBQ from Fryers Roadside Chicken.

Weekly Recap + what we ate: sick week

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

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

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

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

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

“I’m bored.”

“The house is too quiet.”

“Can you play with me?”

“Read me a book, please.”

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Other things/ thoughts from this week:

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

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

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

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

The shoe horns seem to be drowning in pack material.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Weekly Recap + What We Ate: Bye Week

Lincoln with Washington in the background.

It was a week off work, so I spent much of the week back in the swim of school carpool (and this week, missed buses and forgotten backpacks) and internet errands – paying bills, making purchases, etc. The weather has been so erratic. Cold, gloomy, and wet one day and then the next, clear and sunny. It’s that clear and sunny that I expect in the Spring. But it is, in fact January. Where is the snow and chill? I absolutely blame it on the fact that I bought a sled in October. And snowpants for the oldest. If I had not prepared for snow, I’m sure we would have been knee deep by now. Or maybe not, given the state of the environment. Alarmingly, I saw some hyacinths poking their blooms out in the front yard today.

So last weekend was the one and only performance of our show. Actually two performances in one night – a 7pm and a 9pm. Everything went relatively smoothly. Some glitches as were to be expected when we didn’t really get to rehearse things a lot. But I did go in early to run scene shifts with the crew, and I was pleasantly surprised that the props crew asked to run the shifts an extra time. Often the crew doesn’t want to do it more than once when things are simple. But we hadn’t really had a chance to run things at the dress rehearsal – I had to pretty much coach them through it over the headset then. So the crew took it upon themselves to want to get it right, even if it was only for two performances.

I was in my nice backstage clothes, so I didn’t run on my dinner break, but I did get a walk in and reveled in how beautiful DC looks in the evening.

Sunday was Lunar New Year. We went to Taiwanese Breakfast in the morning. We always show up right when they open. My dad was with us and the waitstaff was really excited to see him for some reason. We usually order the same thing every time we go – sweet soy milk, savory soy milk, you tiao (fried dough sticks), soy bean and mustard green salad, egg pancakes, scallion pancakes, dumplings, and dan dan noodles. This time, we ordered some new to us dishes, and there was one pork noodle dish that might make it into our regular rotation.

Clockwise from the bottom: My plate (with cucumber salad, seaweed salad, bean curd noodles), bowl of savory soy milk with you tiao, seaweed salad, bean curd salad, dan bing (egg pancake), cucumber salad, you taio, cold dish of mustard greens, bamboo shoots, and edamame, sweet soy milke.

Other moments of the week:

-Finding a Christmas Tree. The Husband likes having old Christmas trees for backyard projects, but usually the Christmas trees I see on the curb are too big for me to handle myself. So when I saw a little tree in front of a house near the school bus stop, I dragged it into the trunk of my car. I texted him this picture (along with a note that said, “Don’t say that I don’t love you.”)

-Our second child turned six this week. What?!?

He did actually have a present to open- no evening Taki run for him. The Husband had ordered him two Transformers for Christmas, but then in the deluge of holiday packages we couldn’t find one of them when we were wrapping presents, only to have the missing Transformer reappear after Christmas. Which was probably for the best because two Transformers at Christmas might have been too many to get properly played with.

Anyhow, he has a Chuck E. Cheese party scheduled for later on, so he actual birthday was a small family affair. My father was in town and got him a bomber jacket from the Air and Space Museum, which looks super cool. I made his requested dinner – Ama’s chicken wings and Broccoli. Ama is the Taiwanese form of Grandmother – the wings are my mother’s recipe. And by recipe, this is literally what she sent me:

Obviously my mother does not believe in measurements.

I also made him a chocolate bundt cake, and then we couldn’t find the candles, so he ended up with a “3”, “1” “1” and a single candle on his cake. As long as the math works out, right?

He’s Six. Not Three hundred and eleven. In case you were wondering.

-Another fun thing this week is that we got to dog sit for our friends. We had this little guy at our house for the week:

He’s a really sweet dog. Except if there are other dogs nearby. Also he’s a little stubborn and always wanted to go in a certain direction on our walks, but it was in the direction of the big busy street so I tried to avoid it. But he just wouldn’t move and proved very implacable for such a tiny dog. I had to pick him up and carry him several times on our walks. Who was walking whom here?

But indoors, he is super affectionate, almost cat-like. I had many lovely moments relaxing with a book with the little guy curled up against me, a living heating pad.

Outside a book, a dog is a man’s best friend…

-It was also quite a social week. One night the Husband and I went out to dinner with a friend, and another night another friend came to our house for dinner. When I looked at the plans for this week. For the dinner out, we went into DC and had dinner at a tapas restaurant on Capitol Hill. It was funny being down there and seeing how much that area had changed in the past fifteen years since we left DC for the suburbs. One of the first things I noticed was that there was a Little Gym and a Mathnasium there now when it used to be mostly restaurants and bars. The Husband says, it’s a sure sign of permanent change when the new business coming in are geared towards kids. We don’t go into DC very often these days, but it always strikes me how different it is from when we lived there. Also nothing makes me feel my suburban mom-ness more than a swanky city restaurant.

-I also got out my watercolours and made some art this week. One of my friends from college has a birthday coming up and I wanted to make her a birthday card. I’m super happy with how it turned out. I thought about just leaving it with the watercolour flower bursts (on left), but I went back and added the detail with the pen. I’m on the fence as to which I prefer – on the one hand I love how you can see all the nuances and shades or colour without the pen, but I also love how articulate the version with the pen detail is, and how it made the flowers really pop. Which version do you prefer?

Read of the Week: This essay in The Cut about Monterey Park, where there was a(nother) mass shooting on Lunar New Year. Monterey Park is a predominantly Asisan suburb, a couple cities over from where I grew up, but it was very much part of the fabric of my teen years as the child of immigrant parents. My uncle’s medical practice is in Monterey Park, and is, in fact, only a few blocks from the shooting. This article beautifully articulates the importance of these immigrant enclaves. I have no words for the state of gun violence in America, just a lot of sadness for victims and, yes, for perpetrators.

Podcast Listen of the Week: I listened to this episode of the Happiness Lab entitled “Stop Looking for the Perfect Job” while out on my walk one morning. It coincidentally came the day after I had a conversation with someone at work about next season. Long and short of it was, they said they were contemplating offering me a large show to stage manage, and I told them that I didn’t feel like I was at a place right now where I wanted to stage manage something of that size and potential complexity. I would be happy to assist on the show, but I didn’t want to be the one calling it. Afterwards, I got off the phone, I sort of wrestled with whether or not that was the right thing to have said. I don’t want to come across as being unwilling to accept challenging work or peg myself as someone who only wants to do easy shows. I actually love working on a big new production with a huge cast. But at the same time, I know that taking on something that I’m not 100% sure I can handle will certainly make me stressed out and miserable. And lord knows, if I want to be stressed out and miserable, I can certainly do it for more money that I’m making right now. I wouldn’t say I’m unambitious, and I know there is a saying to “Do what scares you” – even still, I think “what scares you” should also be “what excites you.” I think in a few years I’ll be happy to take on such a project as I was offered, but I want to climb that ladder slowly.

Which is all to say – the above episode of The Happiness Lab came at a perfect time for me because I was seriously questioning the merits of being unambitious professionally. I’ve had a lot of thoughts about work ambition this past year, lots of feelings of jealousy when I see people with sky rocketing careers. This episode reminded me that work doesn’t have to be my defining aspiration. In the podcast they quote Esther Perel as saying, “Too many of us bring the best of ourselves to work, and bring the leftovers home.” I’ve definitely been guilty of this, and I want to mindfully avoid it as much as possible.

Mysterious Question of the Week: Where do all the hair ties go? Both the girls have long hair. I also have ponytail length hair these days too. Usually I keep my hair short with a pixie or a bob, but I find myself less motivated to cut my hair when I’m not working. Anyhow… that makes three ponytail wearing people in the house. I feel as if I’m constantly buying hair ties. Where do they all go?!?!?! In the morning, the girls go off to school with hair in ponytails. When they come home, there may or may not still be a ponytail. But inevitably, the next morning when it’s ponytail time … I can’t find any hair ties. I feel like I’m buying hair ties at least once a month. Also … the three year old will only wear thick colourful hair ties, despite her having the thinnest wispiest baby hair. At this rate, I feel like I should just hit the Amazon Subscribe and Save for hair ties.

Grateful For This Week:
-That my dad was able to visit for two weeks. He went home this week and I’m always a little sad when he leaves. He tends to visit while I’m working so I never feel like I have enough time with him. Even though there is something about me that from time to time resorts to being a moody teenager when I’m with my parents, I am always grateful that they come and are active and involved and self-sufficient.
-Good coaches. I’m really grateful for Coach Rob, who volunteers as the coach for the 11 year old’s rec basketball team. Every game, I see him really encouraging the players and making sure they have fun. I’m just really glad that there are people encouraging my kid to do well. On that note, received news this week that the summer swim team coach at our pool will not be returning. This news hit me harder than I thought it would. He had been such a positive coach last summer – encouraging the swimmers to be good swimmers and good teammates. I’m so super bummed that he won’t be back. Good coaches are hard to come by and I’m grateful for those who have the knowledge and the skill.
-Running Lights. I had mentioned in my Christmas post that the Husband bought be a plethora of lights to clip to myself when running in the dark. I don’t really have any intention of running after sundown, but I love the gesture. (I did wear one of the wrist bands when running the hour before sundown, though.) Anyhow, sometimes if we have time between dinner and bedtime, and the 11 year old is at basketball, I’ll take the two little kids on an evening walk. This time of year, though, it is dark by then so we’ll go on a flashlight walk. This week, I had the brilliant idea to give each kid a running light for our walk, and they loved it! Even the dog got one. It make the walk much more fun.

Looking Forward To:
– Lunch plans mid-week with moms from my mom group.
– Another bye week from work. I have grand plans to work on some house decluttering. I think I’m going to pick one area to work on each day: 1) the ~~pile~~ mountain of outgrown clothes in the guestroom, 2) my sewing corner in the guestroom, 3) the collection of random boxes in my bedroom, 4) the linen closet, 5) label the spice cabinet. Now that I’ve typed it out, it seems awfully ambitious.
-Turning the calendar page to February. Whoa, the end of the month has really snuck up on me. But here we are, a few days from February. Another chance to plot and plan and think of how to bring my best self home.

What We Ate:

Saturday: I worked, and packed leftovers. The rest of the family had pizza and wings and it was someone’s movie night, but I’m not sure what they watched. Oh wait – they watched Avatar. The first one.

Sunday: Lunar New Year. I made a rice cake stir fry and dumplings. The dumplings were bought frozen from our favorite dumpling place. The rice cake stir fry in black bean sauce recipe was from Vegetarian Chinese Soul Food. Rice cakes are a traditional New Year dish because the word for rice cake sounds like the words for “high year” so it’s auspicious. Truth to tell, I’m the only one in the family who likes rice cakes. But yay, more for me!

Monday: Ama’s chicken wings, broccoli stir fried with garlic and chocolate bundt cake. For the birthday boy.

Tuesday: Meatballs and pasta (in the InstantPot) for the kids and my dad while the Husband and I went out to dinner with a friend.

Wednesday: Pav Baji – Meera’s Sodha’s recipe from Fresh India. I describe this as Indian Sloppy Joes. It’s eggplant, onions, potatoes and cauliflower cooked in a tomatoe gravy, eaten on a buttered roll. Vegan, for those that chose not to butter their rolls. (I used coconut oil to cook the veggies) I also made this really tasty cucumber and peanut salad on this side.

Thursday: Cheesy Beans from The Weekday Vegetarian. My friend came over for dinner, and she brought a Greek Salad.

Friday: Asparagus and parsnip frittata and roasted russet and sweet potatoes. Another very satisfying clean out the fridge meal.

Venn Diagrams of Life

a large cupcake shaped balloon, with the words Happy Birthday written on it. — Birthday balloon, and Birthday Girl.

In the Venn Diagram of Motherhood, with one circle being “Utterly Devoted Mother” and the other circle being, “Mom that drops the ball”, I found myself squarely in the overlap earlier this week, standing in the Giant grocery store at 8:30pm, the night before the ten year old’s birthday with a pre-inflated Happy Birthday balloon in one hand, and a ginormous bag of Takis and a slightly smaller bag of Cheetos cradled in my arms.

Because even though I had written in my December Aspirations List “Plan Birthday Party”, I utterly failed to do it. I don’t know why I have a mental block about this. Well, I can think of a couple of reasons:
1- I hate making decisions. And a birthday celebration is a myriad of decisions.
2- Her birthday is two weeks after Christmas. I know the flip of the calendar to a new year is a societal construct, but 2023 seems so far away during the tail end of 2022.
3 – Birthdays are just … not my thing. So it’s hard to prioritize them.

But… I love my family and my family loves Birthdays. So there I was at Giant. Why Giant? Well, I got stuck at work til 7:20pm, and by the time I got to Party City at 7:50pm, ten minutes before closing, the doors were already locked. Now I get that the last thing an underpaid sales associate wants to do ten minutes before closing is inflate eleven balloons; I don’t blame them entirely. But still… There might have been some cries of utter despair in the parking lot at 7:50pm.

Feeling defeated, I headed to Giant, since it was still open, and I figured – I didn’t get the kid a present, but I could still get her a bag of Takis. She would love a giant bag of Takis! Buying my kids Takis also fall into a Venn Diagram as well. One circle being “Things that make my kid happy” and the other circle being “Things that aren’t Legos”. Legos are great and full of creative possibilities. They also hurt a lot when you step on them, and are very frustrating when your younger siblings mess with them when you’ve only completed bag 3 of 6.

Luckily, Giant happened to have balloons, maybe not eleven, but they had some nice large foil ones. Only, there was no one working who could inflate the balloons. More cries of despair. I mean I’m already feeling pretty lame for a) not planning a birthday event, and b) deciding that a bag of Takis was a perfectly acceptable birthday present. Way back when, I used to get the oldest roses on her birthday, one rose for every year. But then, you know what? Roses are expensive, and they just die. So I stopped doing that. The very nice manager at customer service apologetically delivered the news that there was no one available to inflate my chosen Happy Birthday Unicorn-shaped balloon, but there were some pre-inflated balloons tied to the magazine displays at each register, and maybe one of those would work. There was one, a 36″ cupcake, that I thought might be okay, though it didn’t seem at it’s peak inflation point, but by this point it was 8:45pm and beggars could be choosers and all that.

Now you may ask, why am I the one running too and fro trying to make it look like I actually planned a special ~~day~~ evening? Well, that’s another Venn diagram of motherhood – one circle is “Mom guilt”, and the other circle is “Loves my kid.” And in the middle is “impulsive purchases.” The Husband, on the other hand, had only one job – the ten (soon to be eleven) year old wanted the Husband’s Kung Pao Chicken for Birthday dinner.

(Side note: It has come to my attention that my children like to eat meat and the lack of meat at the dinner table has not gone unnoticed. Just the other day, I had this exchange with the kids:
Mom: Do you guys like to go camping?
Five Year Old: Yessssss!
Mom: What’s you’re favorite part of camping?
Five Year Old: We get to eat meat!
Apparently Meat beats out campfires and fresh air and smores. )

So the Husband would make kung pao chicken, and I was at Giant.

It was all fine. It’s all fine. I’m a little salty that it feels like a lot of work for very little credit – which probably explains this little internet pity party, I’m throwing myself. It’s just that evening Giant runs are not like the type of thing where I can say to my kid, “See how much I love you? I stood in line for a balloon and Takis at 8:30pm on a school night!” (Though I do constantly remind her that I let the doctors cut me open to bring her into the world. Gah! I hope I’m not scarring her for life.) Aside from the fact that I don’t want to burden her with my mom guilt, I also don’t want to admit how utterly unprepared I was for her birthday. And at least I got to go home and kiss her goodnight before bed. There were many people working at the Giant that still had many hours left in their shift.

So here’s another Venn diagram from that evening: “People who are kind to me” and “People who work very late hours at the grocery check out.” And the nice folks at Giant are squarely in that overlap. And I’m grateful.

Weekly Recap + What we ate: Christmas is around the corner! Try not to panic.

Christmas Train Display at the Trolley Museum.

The festive events are starting to really populate our calendar. Last weekend, we took the kids to the Trolley Museum for their holiday display and trolley ride with Santa. This checked a lot of boxes on the Holiday fun list – there was model trains, Santa, and crafts. The two little kids went on the trolley ride twice so got to ask Santa for toys twice. The first time, the baby asked for a rubber crocodile. The second time, both kids asked for a train set. Spoiler alert – they are not getting a rubber crocodile.

Sunday the ten year old and I went Christmas shopping at the mall. I haven’t done that in an age! We also had lunch there, and there was a really tasty Korean noodle place in the food court. I love how food court options have really expanded since I was a kid. The ten year old had Shake Shack. I find malls a little exhausting for all the choice that is there. We were there to get calendars, but also ended up in the candy store. There were wine gums and Dairy Milk, so I guess it was an okay pit stop. The we stopped at Michaels and we indulged in that fad of taking pictures in the floral section:

Monday was Merry TubaChristmas! It’s a concert where tuba players of all ages from across the region get together to play Christmas carols. The Husband and I have been going to TubaChristmas since we were dating; it’s one of our Christmas must dos. I think one year I was working and couldn’t go, but except for that year, and 2020, we’ve gone every December. It’s always fun to go see all the tubas decorated for the holidays and to hear them play Christmas tunes and feel the floor vibrate for the very lowest notes. They always invite the kids up to sing Jingle Bells, and the three year old took to the stage without hesitation, with the ten year old running up behind her to make sure she could get up onstage okay. The five year old didn’t want to go up at first, but when he saw that his sisters were both up there, he went up too.

That’s a lot of brass. And there were even more in the balconies.

The rest of the week was pretty chill. There was a “snow” delay on Wednesday because of an anticipated storm. It ended up just being rainy and cold, but I was still fine with school starting two hours later and having a slower morning.

I went to the library one day and hoped to pick up some holiday/Christmas books, but the pickings were super slim. I guess that is to be expected mid-December. I usually go the week leading into Christmas but since I wasn’t really going to do Advent books this year, I didn’t feel the same sense of urgency. Maybe I should just buy some more Christmas picture books?

The five year old’s class had a gingerbread house decorating event on Friday morning, which I went to. It was actually graham crackers attached to small milk cartons with frosting, but I’m sure it’s all the same as long as there is a surface to attach candy. Lessons learned:
– Get the thick popsicle sticks to spread frosting. The tongue depressor size.
– do not get the shrink wrapped candy canes. By the time you get the plastic off there are broken pieces and frustrated kids.
– the cutting edge on the Saran Wrap is sharp.
-kids like decorating with those red and white peppermint candies, but do not like to eat them.

Also … one parent brought Hot Tamales candy. I thought that was a curious choice. Maybe a little unfortunate for those kids who were unfamiliar with them and thought they were Mike and Ikes. But I don’t know… maybe there are kids out there who like Hot Tamales? My did certainly did not.

Thank goodness for the mask, otherwise enforcing the “no licking, no eating” rule would have been hard.

One week til Christmas and hopefully I’m in an okay place. On the to do list still:
-grocery shop. I have the menu mostly planned.
– Holiday cards for the kids teachers. We’re going to paint some blank cards this weekend. I have to pick up some gift cards to go in them this week.
-Put our Christmas cards in the mail. They are all addressed and stamped, I just have to walk them down to the mailbox. This feels pretty late. Every year I say I’ll do it sooner, but it never works out that way.
– Order presents for my brother’s family. They don’t celebrate Christmas so I’m not that concerned with making the December 25th deadline for this.
-Order present for my parents. I’m gifting them Storyworth this year. It’s a service that sends the recipient weekly questions about their life and the recipient writes and answer, and can upload pictures. At the end of 52 weeks, the company take all the answers and put them together in a book. It’s a virtual gift so I don’t feel panicked about that either, as long as I order it this week sometime.
-Pickup one last present for the 10 year old. She wanted some Barbie accessories. This stuff was specifically on her letter to Santa. I’m always surprised that she still plays with Barbies, but I think she just really likes setting up little scenes. I’m going to pick up some plates and tiny food from the craft store. (The stuff says “for decoration only. Not a toy.” so I had a moment of pause. But I figure it’s fine for a ten year old.) The rest of the kids’ presents are mostly done. I think. The Husband is in charge of the toys. I try to stick to some version of “Want, need, read, wear” categories for the kids, plus one Santa gift. I take care of the “need, read, wear” and the Husband does “want” and “Santa”. Clearly he’s the fun parent.
-Stocking stuffers – mostly candy and snack food, but other things if the mood strikes. Last year, in a somewhat self-serving mood, I got everyone a small kitchen gadget. This year we’ve got small things from the arts supply store and matchbox cars so far.
-Maybe one more present for the Husband if I can make it to the right store.
– organize some activities and playdates for the winter break. Also buy tickets to a Christmas movie.
-Pre-make cookie dough. We’re having some kids over to decorate cookies during winter break.

So not too much, I hope, to get done in one week if I’m purposeful about it.

Speaking of baking… I’ve been thinking about my Holiday Baking aspirations. Most of my ideas this year comes from the Cooks Illustrated Holiday Baking magazine – some of the recipes are a little fussy, so the holidays are the perfect time, I feel, to put in the effort. This year I would like to bake:
-Molasses cookes (chewy and spicy kind)
– Sugar cookies and gingerbread cookies for decorating
-Sticky Toffee Pudding, our traditional Christmas dessert
-Eggnog Bundt cake. Because the Bundt pan I got this year has been woefully underused.
-Cinnamom buns for Christmas morning, as is our tradition. This I usually use the recipe from either The Irish Pantry or King Arthur’s Flour.
-Chex mix. Have to have something savory.
-rolls for Christmas Dinner.
-And I’ve already made apple cranberry crisp. It was a recipe from that Cooks Illustrated magazine and it was a great way to use up the leftover bowl of cranberry sauce from Thanksgiving. I’m going to put this crisp into post Thanksgiving rotation because we always have so much leftover cranberry sauce.

Grateful for This Week:
– The ten year old’s school music program. They had their Holiday Choral Concert this year and it was really cute. At her old school, Choir was an extracurricular so kids had to opt in to do it and got pulled out of class. At her new school, it’s just part of the regular music class. I really like that the school feels like music performance is important enough that all kids should participate.
– Finding parking just a half block from the restaurant on Monday night after TubaChristmas. Also grateful for the Restaurant itself, Chinatown Express, where tehy hand make their noodles. We went to this restaurant, partly because the Husband had been there with the kids the day before and had left the 5 year old’s hat there. So aside from this place having really really good food, we had a practical reason for going there. But… it is also smack in the middle of Chinatown, next to the arena and there was a game that night so parking was a challenge. We circled the area for about fifteen minutes and were about to give up when someone pulled out and we snagged their parking spot. And it was just a half block from the restaurant. A true holiday miracle. And the staff at the restaurant are always super nice and they put up with my attempts to speak half in Chinese and they smile when the kids’ say “xie xie.” The biggest surprise was that the baby loves Chinese broccoli! She grabbed the thick stalk in her hand and just chowed down on it and then had two more pieces. She ate a vegetable!!! So exciting!
– Libraries and librarians. I had a book that I just can’t find – it’s in the house somewhere, but I don’t know where it ended up. Anyhow because of that book being waaaay overdue, there is a hold on my library card. I was going to just pay for the book, but the librarian gave me that sly look that they do and just clicked a few things and electronically returned the book and re-checked it out to me. “I’m just going to give you nine more weeks to find it,” she said to me.
– Not being at my old summer job. I’ve been off Facebook for over a year now, but this week, I popped back on as I was doing Christmas cards and I have a few friends who had gotten married and I had to Facebook stalk them to figure out the correct last names to put on the cards. Anyhow… it was kind of an overwhelming vortex black hole of … noise and news and happenings. Before I could log off, I saw a whole bunch of posts about this one company that I used to work for. I had left under difficult circumstances, and I had been very sad to leave, and I always somewhat regret not being there still. It’s also a part of why I no longer log into Facebook since I found I couldn’t deal with seeing any news about the company or my colleagues and friends working there. Anyhow the company now seem to be embroiled in some union negotiations that are, let’s just say, not going well. The whole thing just seems really sad and toxic. Over the past five years I’ve have bouts of great sadness about not working there anymore and I really miss my colleagues and the work we did, but after reading about the union negotiations that are happening, I am really glad I’m not part of the contentiousness happenings and drama.

Looking forward to:
-Anniversary Date Night with Husband. We hired a sitter and everything!
-Zoolights with friends.
– Going to see a musical with the ten year old and the five year old and our friends!
-Ticking everything off my Holiday to do list above.
-Christmas dinner and family time.

What We Ate:
Saturday: Pizza (Husband made) and Arthur Christmas (see my last post for the run down on that movie).

Sunday: Sheetpan baked gnocchi. This was one of those pantry dinners that never seem like pantry dinners. Toss whatever roastable veggies I have in olive oil, salt and pepper – in this case it was butternut squash, broccoli, mushrooms, onions, turnip, rutabaga – add gnocchi. Pour into sheet pan. Roast for 25-30 mins.

Monday: Dinner out at Chinatown Express – we had duck noodle soup, roast pork stir-fried noodles (both these dishes with fresh noodles), Chinese broccoli with oyster sauce, green sauteed with garlic, soup dumping, pork dumpling and kung pao chicken. So much food! Sooooo good!

Tuesday: Kale Saag Paneer from Meera Sodha’s East. I had a bunch of heavy cream and half and half to use up as well as two bunches of kale, so this seemed like a good recipe to use. The paneer didn’t turn out great – I think using heavy cream instead of all half and half makes for a softer paneer so the texture didn’t quite hold up in the saag.

Wednesday: Farrotto with roasted butternut squash and brussel sprouts from The Weekday Vegetarians. This was billed as risotto but with farro. It never got as creamy as risotto, but it was still pretty tasty.

Thursday: Red lentils from The Weekday Vegetarians. Vegan. Something quick and tasty that we could eat before the 10 year old’s holiday concert.

Friday: Pizza (take out) and Charlie Brown Christmas and The Ted Lasso Holiday Special from last year.