gratitude – Page 5 – Life Off Headset

Weekly recap + what we ate: Best Laid Plans and a Good Thursday

And now we have turned the corner into December! I have just one show and two recitals and a bit of office work to get through and then I’m off contract until after the new year. Of course that’s still two weeks to get through, and with the holidays bearing down …

I had to work all weekend, but the Husband took the kids to buy a tree and they put it up and decorated it while I was still at work. And not just the tree, but they also put up Christmas lights on our porch and pulled out the decorations for the mantel and top of the piano. Also, an added touch this year, they wrapped coloured lights around the railings to our upper level. We go back and forth as to to coloured lights or white lights on our tree, and this year, the white lights won out.

The Husband also got the kids Advent calendars. These ones had a nativity scene and stickers for each day that you are supposed to add to fill in the picture, ending, of course, with the baby Jesus. The four year old got really excited and did the first three days on day one. We’re going to have to hold her back lest she finishes all the stickers before Jesus is supposed to arrive. I had toyed with the idea of doing this watercolour advent paint along – every day the company releases a new small watercolour tutorial. I really love the idea, but I don’t see it fitting into my day. Or maybe when I’m off ontract, I’ll jump in.

Things that didn’t go according to plan this week – all those appointments for life admin that I had scheduled into the pockets of free time this week. I know things have a better chance of happening when I schedule them, but still… so frustrating when I feel like I finally did some adulting and made appointments and then have to cancel them. The sad: various bodily ailments. I had plans to knock out a bunch of life tasks this week, but plans had to be changed. The appointment for my drivers license renewal that I had booked was waylaid by a vomiting child, and had to be re-scheduled. The same vomiting child woke up two nights later complaining of an ear ache, which turned out to be a double ear infection. So her long awaited appointment at the pediatric dentist was also re-scheduled. (She also woke up in the middle of the night the next evening. No good reason, crying inconsolably. I let her stay up and watch Hallmark holiday movies with me and that seemed to make life better.)

Which, actually was a good thing that I had to cancel the morning dentist appointment because the 11 year old injured her thumb on Monday and couldn’t move it on Thursday. This was concerning because she had a piano recital on Friday. Since I wasn’t taking the youngest to the dentist on Thursday anymore, I could take the oldest to the doctor to look at her thumb. It’s like those puzzles of sliding pieces – move one piece over to create a space and slide another thing it its place. Anyhow, turns out the 11 year old had a minor sprain. “Take three Advil and you’ll be fine,” the pediatrician said. I was somewhat surprised by this advice, but okay. It’s better than having to get an x-ray and an MRI.

Thursday actually turned out to be a lovely full day. Not lovely in that it had any special adventures or big events, but just lovely in that things just flowed. It was my one free day this week, so I wanted to get as much life admin done as I could – I did the school bus drop, then I came home put away the laundry that had been sitting there for days (That the laundry even gets done is thanks entirely to the Husband who washes, dries, and folds mountains of laundry every week.) At 9:45, I picked up the 11 year old from school and took her to the Pediatrician’s appointment for her thumb. Took her back to school. Went home and put away more laundry. Then went back to pick up the 11 year old from school for her passport appointment. Submitted passport application. Hooray! Crossed that off the list and bought stamps for Christmas cards while at the Post Office. (Not that the cards are even started, but that’s one step done.)

Then it was 1:30p and the 11 year old and I decided that she could ditch the last two periods of the day – so we went to get Panda Express (her first time!) and walk through Joann’s Fabrics before heading home. I had work meeting – even though it was my free day from the show, I still had some departmental duties to do. Then once that call was over, the 11 year old and I walked down to pick up the 4 year old from school, which was nice because the 11 year old and I don’t get much time together – a combination of my work schedule this fall and prickly tween. After that, I did the school bus pick up and came home and cooked dinner while the Husband took the 11 year old to buy a dress for her recital.

After dinner, we did something new and fun (okay, so maybe we did have a mini adventure after all…) We had a pajama library excursion. Returning library books and checking out Christmas books was the one thing on my Thursday to do list that I didn’t get to, so I decided that after dinner, the kids would get into their pjs and we would go to the library for an hour. It was actually a nice fun break from routine, and I was glad to give the Husband and hour of alone time since he’s been on single parent duty pretty much since September. (Actually now that I think of it, an hour seems like barely enough for all that he’s done this fall.) I’m definitely putting this on my list of “Winter Weekday Evening Fun” – I think when I’m not working, on the nights that we can finish dinner by 6:30p, a pajama library excursion is very doable.

Thursday planning Post-it. Yes, I plan on a Post-it. I do have a planner, but for some reason, this is what I default to

So Thursday was a very satisfying day. It all felt like a very full day – one in which I didn’t have time to idly scroll my phone and lose half an hour of my life, or think about what to do with my day because there were enough scheduled things to give me structure, but not so many that I couldn’t breathe. I managed to do almost everything on my planning Post-it – it was very satisfying to scratch things off the list.

Pet Peeve of the Week – I adore the Husband for doing all the laundry in the house (except mine – I like to do my own laundry.) (also – he does the laundry even though the 11 year old is perfectly capable of doing it, so props to him) Anyhow – he hauls it down to the laundry room, puts it in the machine, starts the machine, comes back and puts it in the dryer, then he folds it. When I have time, I will put the kids’ clothes out on their bed so that they can put it away before they go to bed. BUT…. one of my pet peeves is that he does not fold the shirts with the design on the front visible. It is very important to the six year old that he wears certain shirts with certain pants. But, if the shirts are all folded with the design on the inside, how will he find the shirt he is looking for? He will take every. single. shirt. out of the drawer, strewing them across the room. What havoc!

Now, I know this chaos is not the Husband’s fault, so really this pet peeve is not directed at him. Anyhow, now when I am laying the folded clothes out for the kids to put away, I will refold all the shirts with the designs facing out. Truth be told, it does not completely alleviate the strewing of the shirts. But I can wish. Also – I use this 2 second method to fold shirts. Changed my life.

Outfit of the week:

I love this sweater vest, but I don’t wear it too much because it is somewhat bulky. But if you look, you’ll see that the front is made up of overlapping panels. I bought this vest right after my youngest was born. The Husband had given me a subscription to Rent the Runway earlier that year because I was feeling a little down about not having any cute clothes that fit. RTR carries maternity and nursing clothes, but I also got really good at looking at non-maternity/nursing clothes and figuring out if I could nurse in them. This sweater vest with it’s overlapping panels felt like it would fit in the “nursing friendly” category. So I added it to my monthly rental and when it arrived, I found that it indeed was perfect for nursing. Anyhow, that was three years ago and I ended up loving the vest so much that I bought it. (I guess this follows the trend set last week with my nursing dress that I still wear).
Continuing on in the vein of “clothes that I bought when pregnant” that little skirt I bought when I was pregnant with my first – it has a wide waist band that you can fold over, which was great for my expanding stomach at the time. At some point, the skirt developed a hole near the hem, but the skirt was so comfy and versatile that I just took scissors and trimmed six inches off it, making it the perfect mini skirt to wear with leggings. (Also that skirt/legging combination is often what I wear when I bike to work, since I can bike easily in it but also if I put on the right top once I get to work, it all looks okay for going to rehearsal, and not like I just biked five miles.) The leggings and shirt are from Duluth Trading Company – their clothes are solid, but a little unexciting, which makes them good for layering. The hat was a gift almost twenty years ago from a colleague whom I worked with. I used to have a red tam that I wore all. the. time. But then I lost it, and my friend bought me this hat because she said I didn’t look like me without a red hat.

This quote made me laugh: from the New York Times’ By The Book section featuring Rick Riordon:

I’ve always found this question a little… I don’t know… snobbish. I read a lot of romance novels, a genre that often is put into the “guilty pleasure” category, and I always feel like that is such a misogynistic take on the genre. What ever is wrong with the world that stories about happily ever after and people finding joy and pleasure in life are considered lesser than a 700 page tome about misery and suffering? Anyhow, I appreciate Riordon’s tongue in cheek point about the guilt one feels from reading should not be from the book itself.

Food discovery: Marmite! I had always heard of marmite and how some people find it awful. Which immediately makes it intriguing to me. So when I saw it at the store last week, I had to buy a jar. I ate it on a buttered crumpet (also one of my recent joys – a hot buttered crumpet for breakfast). My verdict: salty, very salty, umami filled but only palatable in small doses, with a slightly bitter after-taste. My first impression was that it kind of tasted like spreadable beer – and then I googled it and that made sense because it is made of yeast, originally invented as a use for leftover brewer’s yeast. I’ve been reading a few recipes for noodles that involve marmite, and I want to try that too.

Grateful For:
-Flexibility to stay home with a sick child. I don’t really have formal sick leave. The Husband, who works a “normal” white collar job, takes leave to stay home with kids when they are sick, or works from home. I don’t have benefits like that (or at all…) But, I do have understanding colleagues who, when I text in the morning and say, “I need to stay home today because the 4 year old is vomiting. Can you guys cover rehearsal without me?” They always say, “Of course!” Granted, this isn’t something I would feel comfortable doing if it were a tech rehearsal or a performance, but for a regular staging rehearsal – I’m grateful that I can do it.

– the 4 year old, who, after spending her sick day with me, says, as I am packing up to go to work for the evening, “It was nice hanging out with you!” Melted my heart and made staying home with a sick kid and listening to Llama Llama audiobooks in repeat not so thankless a job.

– The kids’ piano teacher for teaching them piano and for having a recital for kids to play. It was the six year old’s first recital. He played Jolly Old St. Nicholas. It wasn’t perfect, but he doggedly kept going. The 11 year old played a piece with lots of notes and chords and arpeggios. Afterwards there were cookies.

-Rehearsal ending early. There were a couple of days when we ended rehearsals really early. One was the Friday of the aforementioned piano recital, and I was able to get to the recital in time. And then another day, the last two hours of rehearsal were cancelled and I then had time to update some paperwork and clean up the markings in my score. Getting those couple of hours back so that I could get ahead with my paperwork was such a gift. I guess this is an example of things not going to plan, but in a good way.

Looking Forward To:
-Tech week! It feels like I just teched a show, and here we are again. I have a free day tomorrow, which is filled with the cancelled appointments from last week, but I’m also going to do some food prep: make boiled eggs, make soup, marinate some beans, stock up on fruits and vegetables and healthy snacks. Maybe make some chai concentrate so I can have a tasty hot beverage in the mornings. I heard about this condensed milk chai based, and I want to try it, though I worry about it being too sweet. I want to plan my outfits for the week as well. I’m always nervous going into tech because so much can go wrong and I feel a lot of pressure to keep things moving. I know some stage managers thrive on the adrenaline of tech, but it honestly, is not my favorite part of the process. Honestly, I’m dragging a little this week and I need to really dig down and remind myself of why I love this little show I’m working on and how lucky I am to work with some very excellent people.

-I have a supertitle gig for another voice recital coming up. I know the pianist and it’s always fun to see people I know play.

-Finding time to read. Right now reading:

Fiction Read – part of mother daughter book club

What We Ate: I cooked! Well, two out of seven meals, but it’s a start.
Monday: Husband cooked, I have no idea what they ate. Maybe eggs?

Tuesday: Sweet Potato and Black Bean tacos from Dinner Illustrated. I actually didn’t cook this, but I did plan and prep everything for the Husband before I went to work.

Wednesday: Mac and Cheese and green beans

Thursday: Bahn Mi Noodle bowls, from this recipe, though I used tofu instead of pork and noodles instead of cauliflower rice. Always a tasty meal.

Friday: First dinner was butternut squash soup I pulled from the freezer. After the piano recital we ordered pizza and watched Spirited. Holiday movie season is not open at our house.

Saturday: Peanut butter toast and yogurt. I had Thanksgiving leftovers after I got home from work.

Sunday: Not sure what the family had, tortellini, I thinn. I ate Tuesday’s sweet potatoes and black beans in a wrap. It was actually supposed to be my lunch, but I had a packed day at work and didn’t eat lunch that day. I actually ate this at the pool while the 11 year old had swim clinic. Usually she carpools to swim clinic with our friends, but this week they were sick so the Husband took her. Then, in order to avoid him sitting with the two other kids until swim clinic was over, I offered to leave work in time to pick the 11 year old up. Okay, the sad thing is that after I ate my wrap, I packed up to go meet the 11 year old as she came out of the dressing rooms, only I didn’t pay attention and I ended up leaving my Tupperware at the pool! Not sure if I’ll ever see it back now. Wump wump.

Weekly Recap + What We Ate: Being Thankful and Straight on to Christmas

The kids love any occasion to make a sign. Notice the handprint turkeys!

In a lot of ways, while Hallowe’en feels to me like the start of the end of the year, Thanksgiving kicks off the the true, inevitable, unstoppable slide. I mean I can’t stop time either way, but Hallowe’en feels full no on of possibilities and plans while Thanksgiving fills me with “Oh shit! I’m not going to be ready!” I’m working full time until mid December, but there are things that can’t be put off until then – Christmas cards, tickets for events we want to attend, Christmas shopping, the tree. I mean I guess we could delay the tree until I’m done my current spate of shows and recitals, but then it would only be up for ten days, and where’s the joy in that? I think the Husband has a plan, though. I came home from work on Sunday night to this:

A couple years ago, I decided that we needed to up our exterior Christmas light game and so we got this from Home Depot. It makes me ridiculously happy, even though it might be though of as just this side of tacky. There are a variety of slides that the projector can display, so after Christmas, we can switch to just snowflakes and enjoy the festive lights into the New Year. (It also comes with a Hallowe’en slide, but I don’t know that we’ve ever used that.)

Thanksgiving itself was quiet and cozy. I was up late the night before baking pies. In the morning, the 11 year old made waffles, and let me sleep until 8:30am before telling me I needed to come down for waffles. We then watched the Macy’s Day Parade while the Husband and kids made sausage balls – this is one of our Thanksgiving traditions. Followed by watching the dog show, also tradition here. I went for a run around noon, then came home and popped the turkey in the oven. One of my friends, in town to work on the show with me, came over for Thanksgiving Dinner. She essentially played with the kids for 5 hours while I got everything ready. What an absolutely wonderful friend she is!

Thanksgiving dinner. Missing is the Rainbow Jello and the rolls. And of course the pies.

For dinner we had:
-Turkey – buttermilk brined and spatchcocked. I had spatchcocked a chicken before, never a turkey. The main appeal was that the recipe said a spatchcocked turkey would cook in 80-100 mins. Yes please. I actually took it out at 90 mins and it was a little dry .
-Stuffing, made separately. The sausage dressing from A Year of Miracles. I’m not usually a stuffing person, and particularly since I was spatchcocking the turkey, hadn’t originally planned it on the menu. But then I wanted to make something from Ella Risbridger’s cookbook, and there was a recipe for sausage stuffing with apples and chestnuts and I immediately wanted to try it. I’m not sorry at all.
-Grilled zucchini with gremolata, also from The Year of Miracles. This was a last minute add as well. I didn’t think there were enough green things on the menu and I had some zucchini in the fridge.
-Green beans – the Husband’s specialty. He steams them then sautes them with garlic and soy sauce. So tasty.
-cranberry sauce – the cooked kind. Pretty basic recipe with some fresh ginger added.
-Rainbow Jello aka Ribbon Salad. The 11 year old made this from a recipe card from my late Mother-in-Law’s recipe box. Also another thing we have every holiday dinner. Also the only thing the two little kids wanted to eat. I used the Rainbow Jello to bribe them to eat the other things.

-gravy made from dippings
-German Potato Salad – my friend brought this. When we were at her house this summer, she made this for us and it was so good that I requested it for Thanksgiving dinner
-cranberry relish – my friend also brought this. I’d never had cranberry relish before, and I really liked it, especially sprinkled with pecans.
-rolls. Last year I didn’t have rolls and we all agreed that was a mistake. This year we had the Pillsbury crescent rolls and Hawaiian rolls.
-Apple Pie – when I made it the night before, I couldn’t tell if the bottom cooked through. Last year’s pie had a bit of a soggy bottom, so I was a little paranoid that I’d repeated the mistakes. So the next morning, I covered the pie in foil and popped it back in the oven for 20 minutes. Not sure if that was the reason, but the crust was in much better shape this year. I use the apple recipe from Serious Eats and the crust recipe from King Arthur’s Flour Baking Companion.
-Pumpkin pie. I use the recipe from Tartine, with an extra egg yolk added. (I’m glad I noted that in the blog because I always think I’m going to remember and I never do.) Only, I didn’t have pumpkin. I don’t know where I think a pumpkin was going to magically appear from, but I didn’t have pumpkin. But… I did have a plethora of butternut squash from the Hungry Harvest box. So I roasted that up, and in a fit of panic that it wasn’t going to be enough, threw in a sweet potato as well. The verdict from the Husband, “It’s good, but it’s not pumpkin pie.” So for those of you who think that pumpkin has no taste and pumpkin pie is merely a vessel for sugar, cream and pumpkin pie spice … well, I guess you’re wrong. The pumpkin does matter.

It was a lovely day. We watched some dog show, then ate some (lots) of food. Then after dinner, we played Codenames – which was kind of hilarious becasue the 6 year old insists on being the Codemaster and he’s … well, he’s six. There was a minor meltdown when his team (consisting of him, the 4 year old, and the Husband) kept losing to my team (me, my friend, and the 11 year old). “You NEVER give me a chance to win!!!!” he yelled.

“Um…” I said, trying not to laugh, “every time you play is a chance to win, honey.”

That did not go over well. So we declared it was time for pie, and that seemed to mollify him.

After my friend went home, we put on our pjs and watched the Charlie Brown Thanksgiving special, though I don’t guarantee that I stayed awake. We were all full and exhausted and agreed to leave the dishes for the next day.

(Also – update on our broken dishwasher. It does need replacing because it is old and all its parts don’t really talk to each other anymore. But the repair guy said that if we turn the machine off at the breaker and back on again, it will re-set itself and we can run it. So I did not have to handwash Thanksgiving after all. Frugal me thinks, “Great! The dishwasher still is going strong! We’ll get another ten years out of it!” But the Husband thinks that having to turn it on and off at the breaker is not an ideal solution, so we have taken advantage of the Black Friday sales and ordered a new one.)

The day after Thanksgiving, the Husband took the kids away on an overnight. I so wish I could have gone with them – they went to the Please Touch Museum in Philadelphia. We hadn’t been to this museum in several years. We used to go several times a year – combining it with a trip to Longwood Gardens. But the 11 year old sort of aged out of it before the other two kids were really into it and then 2020 happened. Anyhow, the Husband decided that this weekend was a good time to go back with the kids so he took them on an a great little trip: Please Touch, then Hotel (with pool!, which I take it was a key component of any hotel stay) and hotel breakfast bar (also important.) The Please Touch Museum apparently was a great hit, and parts of it had been redone since we last went. We were a little unsure whether the 11 year old would be an active participant in a visit to the children’s museum, but she apparently really had a good time too.

Then the next day, the Husband took the kids to the Brandywine Museum. Back in September, when he went to the Minnesota State Fair, he and his friends had also gone to the Walker Art Museum. Well, it turns out it was cheaper for all of them to go if he bought a membership, so he did. And it turns out the Walker is part of the North American Reciprocal Museums Association so that his Walker membership gets us into many many many other museums too. One of which is the Brandywine Museum. I had suggested that it would be a good museum to take the kids to because they had their Holiday Trains up, but also they had an exhibit of art from children’s books and a dollhouse, which is always a draw for the oldest. I think children’s book illustrations are a hugely underrated slice of the art world and there should be more art exhibits devoted to that. I’m kind of sad I didn’t get to go along because it sounds like it was a really nice exhibit. The Husband did send some pictures, though:

This is a picture from Sophie Blackall’s most recent book Farmhouse. Can’t wait to read it! I wish I could have seen it in real life.

The Husband reported that the kids seemed to enjoy the art and that the museum had a reading nook set up so you could read all the books featured in the exhibit. He also said that he wrote down the names of almost all the books that were showcased – I’m excited to check them out from the library.

I’m determined to make the most of our reciprocal museum membership in the next 10 months. There are so many art and history museums that we could visit. There is a Duck Decoy museum in Havre de Grace, MD, which is probably about 90 minutes from us!

As for me, I had rehearsal from 12:00p-7:00p Friday, Saturday, and Sunday so I wasn’t home to enjoy the quiet house. Friday, I carpooled with my friend to work, and we went to Trader Joe’s after work, so that kind of felt like a fun friend date. There are a lot of things I love getting at Trader Joe’s (Everything Bagel Seasoning! Pound Plus Dark Chocolate! Chocolate Peanut Butter Cups! Nuts! Dried Fruit! Rice cracker snack mx!). I don’t go very often, however, because I can’t do all my shopping there, and it’s a little out of the way. So it always feels like a treat to go.

Saturday I got to bike to work, which is always exhilarating. When I first stepped out of the house in the morning, though, the sun was shining warmly so even though it was 45 degrees out side, I decided I didn’t need my windbreaker or gloves. About a half mile into my ride, I realized that was a mistake. I was very cold. I leaned into the brisk weather and tried to savor the chill and made it to work. I did, however, walk the bike up that last hill – I wasn’t going to make it up that hill.

Fun things this week:

-In the Fall of 2020, deep in the thick of being home with kids all the time, I decided to do something I’d always wanted to do and signed up for an art class the local community college. I’d always wanted to take a class, but it never worked out with my work schedule. Well, during the pandemic, all the classes moved to be online, and I was unemployed, so I figured it would be a good time to take a class. It turns out to be one of the best things I’ve ever done. (You can see posts with pictures of my work here.) Having that weekly drawing assignment gave me something to do that wasn’t changing diapers or feeding the family or supervising online learning and there was a sweet group of people to interact with every week. Anyhow, at the end of the second class I took, the instructor suggested I submit a drawing to be included in the course catalogue. This was two years ago, and I didn’t think anything of it, knowing that they must get many submissions and my picture was no where as polished at the stuff usually featured in the catalogue. Last week, the latest course catalogue came to our door, and to my surprise, I opened it up, and there was my picture!

It’s not quite like being published or anything, but it tickles me to have a picture of my art out there.

-The six year olds’ classroom had a “Classgiving” potluck. The week before sign ups were sent out for each child to contribute a dish if they wished. I asked the six year old what he wanted to bring. “A turkey,” he said.

Whoa what? No. Try again.

“Rainbow Jello!” That sounds more reasonable. Except when I looked at the food sign ups, it was like six or seven different kinds of baked goods. This was supposed to be the kids’ lunch on the last day of school before the break, and I was a little wary of adding yet another sugary dish to the mix. So we thought about it for a few days. This was the dilemma – do I send what the kid wants to send, or do I send something that will balance the rest of what is on the sign up? Given that it was meant to be a lunch potluck, I was leaning towards the latter. “What about your dad’s sausage balls?” I suggested, thinking a protein option might be a good thing to add. He heaved a sigh, “Okay…”

Which was a win for me on two counts: 1) savory protein (albeit wrapped in carbs), and 2) the Husband got to make them. He’s such a trooper.

On the day of the Classgiving party, parents were allowed to join, so I dutifully went to his classroom, even though I find these things terribly awkward as I am not good at small talk with other parents. Participating in classroom activities solidly falls into the “Will make my kid happy” category for me. When I got there the kids were watching Inspector Gadget and the six year old barely registered my presence. Oh well.

Oh the best part, though – after all my over thinking the potluck sign up of carbs and sugar – I didn’t have to worry that lunch would be unbalanced … someone brought in a paella. Like in a pan, beautifully presented with asparagus and peppers and chicken. It was awesome. It’s now one of my goals for 2024 to make a paella. Also, as I was leaving someone brought in this delicious looking meat stew with couscous. Only by that point the kids were so full of baked goods that I’m sure they didn’t give the meat stew a second glance. Sad. Oh well, I’m sure the other parents got to enjoy it.

-Also highly recommend this poem, by Clint Smith, which I heard on an episode of On Being from earlier this month. It’s entitled “Ode to Those First Fifteen Minutes After the Kids Are Finally Asleep.” Here are the first few lines, but you must click the link and read (or listen) to the whole thing:

Praise the couch that welcomes you back into its embrace
as it does every night around this time. Praise the loose
cereal that crunches beneath your weight, the whole‐grain
golden dust that now shimmers on the backside of your pants.
Praise the cushion, the one in the middle that sinks like a lifeboat
leaking air, and the ottoman covered in crayon stains that you
have now accepted as aesthetic.

Clint Smith’s poem “Dance Party” is also pretty great too. Smith perfectly captures the energy sapping joy of caring for other beings.

-One of the nice things about working on Sunday is that there is a Sunday farmer’s market next to work. So I stopped by before rehearsal to pick up some apples and vegetables (arugula, cucumber, onions, and carrots) as well as lunch (a berry smoothie and chicken empanadas). On my way out, I passed a stall that had a sign that said, “Pickled mushrooms! Try one! It will change your life!” Well, who am I to turn that down, so I did. They were pretty tasty, maybe not life-changingly tasty, but very tasty all the same. The pickled mushroom stand was one that specialized in fermented food and before I knew it, I was walking away with their kimchi, pickles, sauerkraut and, yes, a jar of pickled mushrooms. The ironic thing is that morning the Husband and I had just cleared out the fridge, getting rid of all manner of science experiments and eating up other things, including a bucket of pickles. I was a little abashed to fill that pickle vacuum so soon, but I’ve always been a sucker for fermented food…

Oksana’s Produce Farm. Why make space in the fridge if you can’t fill it with more pickles???

Outfit of the week: Last week was also the first day of rehearsal for the holiday show I’m working on. For the past few years, I almost always wear the same thing for the first day of rehearsal. The outfit is a little more polished than what I usually wear because I like to look relatively put together the first time I meet the singers and the conductor and director. Wearing this outfit is a bit like putting a a uniform- it gets me in the right mindset to start rehearsals.

The grey dress is actually a nursing dress from Latched Mama. If you look closely, there are slits in the side for nursing access. I bought it when the 4 year old was born and it turns out it is such a versatile dress that I wear it all the time even though I’m not nursing anymore. And it has pockets!! The jacket is Eileen Fisher which I picked up at Nordstrom Rack five or six years ago. I like how it looks a little vintage-y and I love the colour. It’s also a jacket that can elevate any outfit. I’ve worn it with sweats and a t-shirt and ended up looking cooler than I have any business looking. The boots need a serious polish, but I also have had them for ages and even had them re-soled a few years ago. They have a wingtip look and feel fancy but are really comfy. The tights are Uniqlo HeatTech because it suddenly got cold last week. And the scarf is super cool – the little circles are actually the digits of pi, written in a spiral. My sister in law got the scarf for me from a company that specializes in STEM based prints. I always get lots of compliments on that scarf. The hat is from my other sister in law (I think it has appeared before in other posts.)

Grateful for:
-Thanksgiving and friends and food and family. Not just on this one day, but all the days.

-Finding my gloves! Several years ago, the Husband gave me some lovely red gloves for Christmas. They were warm, leather Isotoners, and they had touch fingertips so I could use my phone while wearing them. But last year I couldn’t find them. I was distraught. They were not inexpensive so I was hesitant to replace them. Well, this week, I lost my raincoat (sad!), so I had to grab a spare coat from our closet one rainy day. It was a windbreaker that had belonged to my late mother-in-law, which we had kept just for this kind of back up need. Well, I put it on and reached into the lump in the pocket and there were my red gloves!! I was even better than that feeling you get when you find a $20 bill in your pocket!

– Leftovers! One of the most wonderful things about Thanksgiving is having leftovers for easy lunches for days afterwards.

Looking forward to:
-Errands getting done. because I don’t have to be at work until 11:30 most days, I have booked morning appointments this week for driver’s license renewal (mine), and then on my free day, I’ve booked a passport renewal (the 11 year old), and a pediatric dentist visit (the 4 year old.) Boy will it feel good to get some of the stuff off my plate. (spoiler alert – the 4 year old has a stomach bug so the license renewal has to be rescheduled since I have to stay home with her. Let’s hope the rest of the things will happen, though.)

-The two older kids’ piano recital. It’s the six year old’s first piano recital. He will be playing Jolly Old St. Nicholas. As you do when you’ve only been taking lessons for four months. The 11 year old is playing a more complicated piece called Sleighride. She’s been working really hard. At first her teacher was going to make some cuts to the piece because she hadn’t been really practicing and the whole piece wasn’t going to be ready, but then 11 year old buckled down and learned the whole piece. I’m going to be honest – piano, specifically practicing piano, has been a huge struggle. I vacillate between not caring and caring very (too) much.

– Christmas books! I love reading holiday and winter theme picture books in December. I used to make it an Advent calendar type event and wrap them all individually to read one per night. But that was a lot of work, and one year the Grinch was due back at the library, but it was still wrapped so I didn’t know which book it was and that was annoying. So now I just bring them home in a big reusable shopping bag and leave them out and we just grab what we want.

What We Ate: It feels like we ate out more than usual last week. Partly the lead busyness around Thanksgiving, also partly me working until 8pm most nights and the Husband and I not sitting down to meal plan. I don’t love eating out all the time, but I guess it’s just that season for us right now.
Monday: Bahn mi sandwiches (take-out)

Tuesday: Tofu stir fry with noodles (the Husband cooked)

Wednesday: We had tacos out after the six year old and Husband got haircuts. I had shrimp ceviche and a really tasty fish taco from Fish Taco, a local chain.

Thursday: Thanksgiving – see above.

Friday, Saturday, Sunday – leftovers from Thanksgiving. The Husband hot the kids pizza on their road trip. Sunday was dumplings and broccoli.

I don’t really see myself getting back into the dinner cooking groove anytime soon, which makes me a little sad. I miss having that time to putter in the kitchen and then producing something nourishing for everyone to eat. I had thought that I might be able to do more morning meal prep with my later morning starts, but to meal prep, I have to meal plan, and I haven’t had a lot of time for that lately either. I’m instead focusing on having good basics – fruits, veggies, eggs, kimchi, cheese – in the fridge so that even if I’m not cooking, there are options for solid snack meals for me. The Husband actually does really well for getting everyone fed. Honestly, the kids like his cooking more than mine.

Hope you all had a wonderful Thanksgiving! How is the rest of the year looking? Is it frenetic or calm? Or somewhere in between?

(bi) Weekly recap +what we ate: Closing and catching up.

We closed the show last night. It’s been some very long days since opening. Usually the pace slows down, but with this show we had a second cast to prepare and also a children’s version to put up (more on that below.). But in between, I had plumber visits (the upstairs bathroom faucet wouldn’t turn off, the downstairs toilet ran), and school runs, and dentist appointments (the long delayed dentist appointment that I wrote about earlier. Turns out the six year old has so many cavities he needs to be sedated to have them taken care of. So that is yet another dentist appointment in my future. Only because of the sedation, we need to find a day when someone can stay home with the six year old afterwards, so that’s another piece of the scheduling puzzle.

Fun things:
-The 11 year old’s school play. It was a play about aliens masquerading as students and the drama group presented the play in the school cafeteria. The 11 year old did great! She remembered all her lines, prompted a fellow colleague with a loud whisper when he forgot his lines, and generally seemed to have a good time. Seeing a bunch of middle schoolers present a play in their cafeteria with just one single lighting instrument and everyone wearing their own clothes is such a contrast to the work I do where sets cost millions of dollars and there are so many complicated details. Watching these students, I’m reminded that theatre is storytelling, and for all the spectacle of opera or Broadway, storytelling is at it’s core a very simple thing.

-Fall Trip to Longwood Gardens. On my day off one recent Sunday, we went to Longwood Gardens. The chrysanthemum exhibit was still going on, and the holiday train display just went up. The day was perfect for being outside – sunny and crisp and almost warm.

The kids and I do this rainbow photo project whenever we go to Longwood Gardens where we try to find something every colour of the rainbow. Blue is always tricks and we usually end up taking a picture of the sky. Even still, I love how many different nuances of colour there is to be found at Longwood. Here’s this trip’s rainbow photo collage:

After our trip to Longwood Gardens, we drove back home and met up with a friend who was in town for work. He was someone the Husband met contradancing twenty-some years ago, but who since had moved to the other side of the country. We talked a lot about what a wonderful contra-dance community there was in DC, and how he hasn’t found anything like it in his new city. We talked about how COVID must have hit the contradance community hard. It so funny how contradancing is something that we use to do once or even twice a week, yet we haven’t gone in five or six years. I’ve been listening to contra dance music when I run lately, and it’s really taken me back to a younger me, to a time when we would dance til 11pm, when the music was live and hot and pounding and flowing. I’m sort of sad, too, that we don’t go dancing anymore, but maybe this is just not the season and we will find our way back one day.

-Scone-apalooza! For the children’s show we did (more on that below), we had to be at the theatre at 9am, so I brought in scones. I stayed up later than I should have the night before to make scones, but I love baking and hadn’t done it for a while. Baking is definitely one of my flow activities. By the time I got done all the scones, it was almost 2am. I made blueberry scones (America’s Test Kitchen Recipe), chocolate walnut scones (from The Irish Pantry cookbook) and I also wanted to make a savory scone so I made cheddar ham scones (King Arthur’s Baking Cheddar Scones with ham added.) I accidentally put twice the amount of garlic powder in the cheddar and ham scones, so they were particularly tasty.

Scones for miles. From back to front: Chocolate Walnut, Blueberry, and Ham and Cheddar.

– Ground plans. One of the fun this that that after we finish each show, I get to bring the ground plans home for this kids to use as scrap paper. When they were little, we would draw body outlines on the paper, but now they have gotten too big for that. Once during the pandemic, my mother covered a whole page with a drawing of a neighborhood that she designed for the kids.

The not fun:
-Sick kids. Not sure what it was, but 2 out of 3 kids were home vomiting last week and missed a couple days of school. And then there was one day when I wasn’t feeling well and I really felt like I was going to collapse while calling the show. Luckily I didn’t, but I did spend most of the show sitting down, which is something I rarely do.
-More really long hours and a sleep deficit. Not having downtime after a show opens is really hard. With rehearsals continuing for various show-related things and prepping for the next show, I’m not getting the days free that I’m used to after a show opens. I’m feeling behind on life and self things. I did start to make appointments to get life admin tasks done – renewing drivers licenses and passports. And we did schedule a plumber visit for the one day id week that I could work from home so now we can use the sink in the upstairs bathroom again. The house seems like a constant state of mess; I want to figure out better systems for that. I’m looking forward to December when I can re-set life a little bit.

Something I contemplated this week:
There is a lot of construction going on in the lot behind where I work. It’s actually been quite fun to see the construction vehicles work and machines moving. The other day, I looked up and snapped this picture:

And as I was looking at the men and machine work, I thought with a little bit of awe, “It’s all just wood and nails. Look at that building going up – it’s wood, so much wood. I thought it would be more complicated than that, and maybe it will be, but this stage is just wood.” Seeing buildings under construction, particularly with all their framing exposed, I always marvel at how fragile and basic a building can be.

Grateful for:
-windows. I spend a lot of time working in dark buildings with no windows, no way to see what the world is outside. It can feel a little insular. (It’s funny, on our company intranet site, there is a “virtual window” – a camera on the roof that shows employees what it’s like outside. Can’t decide if this is a cute idea or just kind of sad.). The other day, I woke up, got out of bed and pulled up the blinds and in streamed sunshine and I could look outside and see trees and streets and brightness and day. It was amazing. So I’m grateful for windows and being able to see outside when there are many days when I don’t get to actually go outside.

– the enthusiasm of children and the chance to give them something to be enthusiastic about. We did shortened version of our show for 1500 school kids this week. It was a whirlwind to rehearse – we performed excerpts of our show and in between we talked about the different things that go into making an opera – costumes, scenery, lights, stage hands, stage managers, supertitles, etc. The students were loud and rambunctious and very entertained. I hope that maybe in that crowd is at least one kid who grows up to be a singer, or a conductor, or an actor, or a theatre technician. And at least more than one kid who grows up to be someone who gives money to support the work of singers, conductors, actors, theatre technicians, etc.

-Not having to be at work at 9am most days. The above mentioned school show was at 11am, which mean I had to be at the theatre at 9am, something that I do maybe three or four times a year. And let me tell you, every time I get to go to work at 9am, I am very grateful that I don’t have to do it every day. First of all, the traffic between 8:00a – 9:00am is terrible. My non-peak commute to the theatre takes 35 minutes. Between 8:00am and 9:00am, it takes 50-60 mins. And people just seemed more stress at that time, less likely to let you in, more likely to behave irrationally. (Or maybe the driving is less predictable because there are more drivers out there?). Also a 9am start means that I have to find someone to take the kids to the bus in the morning. Luckily the Husband often can shift his schedule or the family we carpool with will switch shifts with me, but the school schedule is not made to accommodate parents who have to be at work at 9am. (Though I guess that is what before care is for…) And then just the general rush of having to leave 45 minutes earlier – it takes all the breath and space out of my morning. So all in all, I’m grateful that I don’t have to be at work at 9am most days.

-rehearsal pants. On the last day of the show, I went to our rehearsal office to do a couple hours work for the upcoming show before heading to the theatre for the final performance. As I was wrapping up to head to the theatre, I realized that I had forgotten my backstage running black clothes at home. I don’t usually wear a lot of black unless I’m working backstage, so I hadn’t put on my running blacks in the morning. wump wump. I didn’t have time to go home to get my black clothes. What to do? I had a black t-shirt on, but I was wearing a bright red skirt what wasn’t quite appropriate for backstage. Then I remembered that in our office was a pair of black rehearsal pants. (“Rehearsal” clothes are what we call clothes that we use in rehearsal instead of the “real” clothes or costumes. Like, say, if a singer wanted to wear a skirt in rehearsal that mimicked the fullness and length of her costume, we would get her a rehearsal skirt because the real dress probably would not be available to use.) The show we had been performing had a scene where the leading man gets dressed and so we had a pair of nylon pants that we used in rehearsal for him. So when I got to the theatre, I tried those on. I don’t think I’m the same size as our tenor, but thankfully the pants had a drawstring waistband and then I cuffed them in my best 90s tween manner. I think it was the cuffing that gave the pants a stylishly current jogger vibe and made it not so ridiculous that I was wearing men’s exercise pants backstage. Not that anyone truly cares what I’m wearing – we’re standing around in the dark, after all – but I am very grateful for rehearsal pants.

Looking forward to:
-Thanksgiving! I have to work the day before and the day after Thanksgiving, so we are having Thanksgiving at home, with maybe an opera friend or two joining us. I’ve figured out roughly the menu and written down the action plan for the next couple of days. The Husband did the grocery shopping over the weekend, so we should be set. (Though the dishwasher broke… again. So there’s that… I’m not looking forward to the dishes.) Here’s the plan for the week:
Monday (yesterday): I spatchcocked and brined the Turkey. When I put the turkey in the InstantPot pot, the turkey didn’t fit and I was confused because I had used the same container last year. Then I remembered that last year I only did a turkey breast. So I’m contemplating either getting a roasting bag or just flipping the turkey every so often.
Tuesday: Go to the 6 year old’s class Thanksgiving cerebration. Work from 11:30a – 8pm, come home. Make pie dough and cranberry sauce and cranberry relish. (The kids have a 1/2 day of school, but the Husband is covering that.)
Wednesday: Kids are off school, but I work 9:30a – 4:00pm. Come home – make pies, steam green beans. The 11 year old hopefully would have made the rainbow Jello during her day off.
Wednesday: Macy’s Day Parade and Sausage ball making. Cook Turkey, finish off the green beans. I’m contemplating making stuffing. TBD.
I’m so glad I wrote notes to myself last year on things to remember for this year. One of the main notes was thatt year I decided I didn’t have the energy to make rolls, then on the day we all missed having rolls. So we bought rolls this year.

– Holiday movies! Last year, I watched a lot of Holiday movies and I’m super excited to plunge in again. The 2023 holiday movies don’t look as diverse or interesting as last year but there are a few that I’m putting on my definitely watch list, and a few from last year that I missed. (Someone highly recommended to me Mistletoe and Menorahs…). I am kind of sad that there isn’t an Asian Holiday movie; last year there were two. The 11 year old has requested as her Holiday Fun List item is an all day Hallmark Holiday Movie marathon. Doesn’t that sound like the most indulgent cozy thing?

-The holiday opera that I’m working on. It’s kind of a whirlwind quick process, but I love this show, having done it twice before. It’s a beautiful piece, fun and festive and full of heart.

– I think I’m going to take an art class this winter when my work load lightens up a little bit. I haven’t signed up for it yet, but perhaps putting it into the universe will make it so.

What We Ate:
Since I’m pretty sure I wasn’t responsible for dinner the majority of the past two weeks, here’s what I do remember making:
Coconut Rice with shrimp – This was a ridiculously easy recipe I found in the free magazine they hand out at the Giant. It involved cooking rice in a can of coconut milk, adding frozen veggies for the last 5 mins or so (I did frozen edamame and corn) and adding shrimp for the last 3 mins and then letting the whole thing sit covered for another 5 mins to let the shrimp cook. It was super fast and tasty – on the table in less than 30 mins and that’s with having to take time to defrost the shrimp under running water. I would eat again.

Butternut squash soup. I had a surfeit of butternut squash in our Hungry Harvest box, so one morning, before I went to work, I sauteed some onions and garlic in the Instant Pot, added some red curry paste, sauteed some more. Then I peeled and cubed one butternut squash and added it to the pot with one quart of vegetable stock. I set the IP for high pressure, 20 mins and left for work. I texted the husband: “Dinner’s in the IP. Add one can of coconut milk and puree.” Super simple and tasty. Vegan

Brussel Sprout Fried Rice. This is the recipe from Meera Sodha’s East. I love this recipe. Some days the kids love it, some days they don’t. This was one of the “don’t” days. Oh well, more for me!

Then there was the one day where we just had breakfast all day long. The Husband made the kids eggs for breakfast. Then at lunch, I didn’t know what to give them and I needed it to be fast, so I made breakfast sandwiches. Then for dinner, we clearly were exhausted, because that was the night we all just ate cereal for dinner. A Triple Breakfast Day!!! #lifegoals.

–

Weekly recap + what we ate: Halloween and Opening Night

Another show opened! Yay. That feeling of relief and achievement and being able to get back to the rest of life.

Through the brilliance of opera scheduling, we had Halloween night off from rehearsals and performances. I took the kids over to a friend’s house to trick or treat since our own street is pretty quiet. The Husband stayed home to pass out candy, though I don’t think we had anyone come to our door. He’d been solo parenting in the evening for over a week now and thoroughly deserved a night to himself.

I only got one picture of the kids in their Hallowe’en Costumes:

Back in August, I had told all the kids that if they wanted me to make their costumes, the designs had to be in by the end of September since I would be in tech the week before Hallowe’en and unavailable for costume construction. The oldest wanted to be “The Taylor Swift House.” Which was not a reference I understood. To which her response was, “Why can’t you just Google it yourself!?!?!” There was probably an eye roll in there as well. At any rate, I’m sure I could have Googled it, but I wasn’t going to put effort into it if she wasn’t going to, so I left her to her own devices. Then a couple days before Hallowe’en – she woke me up on morning waving a piece of paper, saying, “I’ve designed a house!” She decided just to be a house. Of course it was the weekend before Hallowe’en, and not on my to do list. The Husband went out and bought her two pieces of plastic sheeting and a bunch of markers and she made the costume herself. I wish I got a picture of the back because the rooms she drew were amazingly detailed. I did attach the straps for her, though if I were to do it again, I would not use hot glue. The hot glue did not hold and half way through the evening, the straps came off and she just held the costume up for the remainder of the evening.

The 6 year old wanted to be a builder. I was initially going to make him a cardboard truck to be part of his costume, but then I saw Kiwi Co. makes kits where you can make an excavator arm – a working excavator arm – and attach it to a box. Well, that was much cooler than anything I could make on my own, so I ordered the kit. The morning of our first orchestra tech rehearsal, I got up at 6am to put together this cardboard excavator arm with the “help” of the children before going into work. You know when you roll into work at 10:30am and everyone else looks like they just got out of bed and are saying how tired they are and how early they had to get up to get to the theatre by 10:30am, and you don’t want to say anything because there is no competitive suffering in opera, but really you were up at 6am making a freaking cardboard excavator so they can all shove it, but you don’t really say that… ? Just me? Never mind. Anyhow, the excavator arm was every bit as cool as I had hoped.

The 4 year old made it easy and just pulled the astronaut suit from the dress up clothes and called it a day. It was brilliant because she could also wear the NASA bomber jacket that my father had given the 6 year old, and was toasty warm all evening. Or would have been except at one point she declared that she was hot and took it off.

It actually turned out quite chilly on Thanksgiving. This after a weekend of 75/80 degree weather. I think the cold discouraged people from staying out very long. By the time 8pm rolled around, the streets were pretty empty. We went back to my friend’s house, where we had some turkey chili and minestrone soup for dinner and the kids traded candy. Then I took the kids home and we watched It’s The Great Pumpkin, Charlie Brown with the Husband while we sorted the candy. By “we” I really meant “me.” The little kids didn’t quite understand the joy of candy sorting. An added bonus of the candy sorting was that I used it as an opportunity to combine the two little kids’ candy and then let them pick 30 pieces to eat and there was no jealous cries of “That’s my candy!” The rest of their candy, I put in a bag and set aside. By which I mean, I set aside so I can eat it myself. I feel like I can probably get away with taking all my kids’ candy for another year or so before they wise up and realize that I’m doing that. Case in point, the 11 year old who would not let me near her candy and sorted her piles on the other side of the room.

One thing I love is that the 11 year old always gives her 100 Grands to the Husband. In fact, if she ever is given the option to choose candy from a bowl and there is a 100 Grand, she will almost always choose that one, “For daddy,” she says.

The day after Hallowe’en was a day off of school for the two kids in public school. I think it was just a fluke of scheduling; it was an end of quarter grading day for the teachers. Fluke though it might have been, it was kind of brilliant. The kids could stay up late the night before and sleep in the next day. Only they couldn’t sleep in because the day after Hallowe’en was a Wednesday and the kids have back to back piano lessons starting at 7:15am on Wednesday. Gotta admit that was a tough lesson to get them to. If i had had more foresight, I probably would have cancelled for the week, but I am very much a slave to scheduled routines and didn’t even think about cancelling. But after that, the kids got to lounge around the house the rest of the day while the Husband worked from home and I went to rehearsal.

After rehearsal on that Wednesday, I took the 11 year old to participate in a study at the nearby University. When she was a couple months old, I saw a flyer for the University’s Child Development Center saying they needed babies and children to participate in studies. I wasn’t working at the time, so I thought it would be fun to do, and for the first few years of our kids’ lives we participated in three or four studies a year. Some of them paid, some of them didn’t but I always thought it fascinating to go to them. I think one of my favorite studies is the one from Gallaudet University which centered around a robot they were making that could communicate with deaf people – they wanted both hearing and hearing impaired babies to interact with the robot. When the youngest was four months old, I signed up for a study that involved putting her in an MRI machine – that one was kind of a disaster because we had to go during her bedtime so they could swaddle her and cover her ears to go into the machine while asleep, but she kept waking up once in the MRI machine and so we eventually gave up on that one. Anyhow, when people ask for things to do with one’s baby, I always suggest participating in research studies as a fun way to get out of the house.

The 11 year old had been feeling left out because her younger siblings were always being asked to be in studies, but she wasn’t. I don’t know if it’s because there are fewer people researching preteens? Or just in our area? So when an opportunity for a study for children 8-12, I signed up the eleven year old to go. It was a study about mother child interactions and anxiety and involved filling out a survey prior to the lab visit and then the lab visit where we wore eye trackers while participating in simulated conversations based on topics the researchers prompted. The study visit took 90 minutes and at the end we were $50 richer and the 11 year old got some sparkly gel pens. Afterwards I took her out for BBQ, which was nice because I’ve been feeling like we haven’t been getting a lot of mother-daughter time.

Random musings:

I just spent $80 on pads and hair ties for myself and my daughters. Now I know that pads and hair ties are not solely the domain of women/girls, but given that the majority of people who menstruate and/or have long hair seem to be female, I feel like I was just hit with some kind of penalty for being female and having daughters. I guess, men get their hair cut more so have to pay that expense more often? But in truth, my Husband’s hair cut costs about a quarter on mine, so it doesn’t seem to even out at all.

Also- Daylight Saving Time after Opening Night seems like a good idea. I got to feel like I slept in on Sunday morning. I had all sorts of thoughts as to what I would want to do with my gained hour. It involved aspirations of reading, and journaling and yoga. Yeah nope. In reality it just involved sleep. of course I didn’t get home until nearly 2am after the opening night party, so sleep would seem to be the best use of my gained hour.

I came home one day to find this in our yard:

A new tree! Earlier this year the county had taken down a tree in front of our house because it was not quite alive and also because it posed a hazard to the electrical lines above. I guess they have now replaced the tree. I’m not even sure what kind of tree it is, but it’s kind of exciting to have a new tree, to think about how big it will get. To wonder if it too will one day be cut down because it is growing into the power lines, or if by then all the powerlines will be underground…

More Fall Fashion:
I’ve posted before on how much I love dressing for fall, so I thought I’d do another mini fall fashion post. One day, I put on this outfit:

The 11 year old took this picture and was very specific that my hand had to be on the doorknob.

The outfit is a grey plaid flannel button down from Uniqlo, a dress from Wool&, black leggings, the “not for Amsterdam” blue boots, and a knit hat that was a present from my sister in law. The Wool& dress I bought this year and it quickly became one of my most worn garments – I’ve worn it at least twice a week since April. It’s not a terribly interesting dress, but it layers well and can be worn in many different combinations. Anyhow, I put on this outfit and the six year old said, “You look like a teenager.” Not at all sure what that means.

So I added my favorite and ubiquitous Uniqlo puffer vest:

And the six year old said, “Now you look like a mom!” Hmmm…. When I first got my puffer vest six or seven years ago, I did kind of feel like I was falling into a suburban mom cliche, but… but but… it is such a practical piece of clothing – keeps me warm without being bulky, and I can throw it on over anything. I might look like a mom cliche, but at least I’m not cold.

(On an incidental note – you see all that wood paneling? That is in our foyer. This wood paneling is 85% of my living room window treatment dilemma. I would love to have natural woven or bamboo blinds in the living room. But the living room is directly off of this foyer and I just can’t picture whether or not having bamboo blinds will clash with all that wood paneling in the foyer. Like whether or not the vintage/mid century vibe of the foyer needs to dictate the window treatment of the living room and whether bamboo blinds are too beachy for the vibe our foyer gives off…. this is something I’ve been pondering for over a year now. Opinions welcome.)

Grateful for:
– The Assistant Stage Managers, who are my eyes on stage and backstage when I’m too busy calling cues to look up, and the Assistant Director who, for me, is the real soul of this show. Getting to opening always is the work of many and having good ASMs and a great AD to share an office with is foundational to me getting where the show needs to go.

-The Husband, as always, for holding down the fort. For making dinner, picking up the kids, putting them to bed, laundry, keeping the house clean… all of it. Tech week is always a lot of hours away from home, but this fall, seems harder than normal. I think I’m still trying to balance some new responsibilities at work with the parts of the job I’ve always done and I haven’t quite figured out how to spread my time yet so I’m at work a lot more and I’m bringing home work to do a lot more than I used to. It’s been rough. There will never be a tech week where I’m not grateful for the Husband, but this tech period, I feel like has been particularly demanding.

– Bike store by work. Two weeks ago, I had ridden my bike to work and ended up leaving it there because it was dark when I got off work and I don’t have lights for the bike. Well, I finally went back to pick it up on my day off last week only to find the front tire had gotten flat. This was super discouraging because I had decided not to go running that morning because I knew I was going to be biking home later that day. The I remembered that there was a bike shop four or five blocks from work, so I wheeled my sad limpy bike there. Only to find a note on the door, “We’re moving!” and it listed a new address along with their re-opening date which, luckily, was the day before. So I wheeled my sad limpy bike down four more blocks to the bike store. I feel very ignorant about bikes – I want to be able to do my own maintenance, but I never got around to learning how to do it. At any rate, the technician at the bike store put my bike up on the rack and took the inner tube out, checked it for holes, found a hole on a seam, which indicated that it was just a bad innertube, but the still checked the tire for pointy bits anyway, then replaced the innertube while answering questions about training wheels, and I was soon on my way home. It was the best $25 I spent all week.

– County Rec Program. I signed up the 6 year old and 4 year old for a new session of skating lessons and while I did, I thought how awesome it is that they can take 6 weeks of skating lessons + a card for 6 admissions to open skate, all for $114. The expense of kids activities can really build up, so I’m grateful that we have access to really great, relatively low cost, activities through the county program. Our tax dollars at work, I guess.

-Guavas in the mail. My parents sent us a box of guavas from the tree in their yard. I love guavas – the rest of the family not so much. I guess they don’t appreciate the crunchy, sweet, and tropical taste. Yippeee, more for me! There were a few days when I realized that we were low on fruit in the house, but because we had these guavas, I could pack the apples for my kids and take the guavas myself and we would get through another couple of days without a grocery run.

Looking forward to:

– planning meals and cooking again. I haven’t made dinner in a long long long time. I got this cookbook from the library and I’m really excited about the recipes in it:

Hetty Lui McKinnon wrote To Asia With Love, which is another cookbook I’ve loved this year. This book is already overdue, but I’m hoping to sneak a few recipes out before the Library starts banging on my door asking for it back. There is a mushroom ragout that looks amazing, and a butternut squash lasagna that uses butternut squash in place of noodles. Which is fortunate because my Hungry Harvest box came with 4 butternut squashes this week.

– evenings not at the theatre. Evenings and bedtime is a slog, but I miss that routine and being able to snuggle at night.

-The 11 year old’s school play. She’s been working so hard learning her lines; I’m excited to see the lines in context. (This actually just happened – it was fun!)

What we ate: once again, I couldn’t say.

There was some kind of tofu/noodle/ thai-ish stir fry. The leftovers of which I accidentally three out because I thought it was the leftover Thai food that made me sick and had me vomiting at work one day. But it wasn’t and now I’m sad I didn’t get to eat any of my Husband’s yummy cooking.

There was an eat down the freezer meal- a handful of this, a handful of that to finish off some nearly empty packages in the freezer. From the Husband’s account it was something like six dumplings and a handful of tater tots.

There was a pizza and movie night, but I’m not at all sure what they watched.

Weekly Recap + what we ate: tech week!

Saturday was a day off after three looong days in the theatre. It’s been an exhausting week. Luckily the rehearsal schedule lightens up a little bit after this, but I’m behind on putting the cues into my score, so I’ll have to spend several hours on that when we’re not on stage or in a lighting session.

view from my station out front. I have many buttons to push.

Being out and about on the day off was something of a shock. I feel as if I started prepping for this show in summer and yesterday, I went outside and had to blink twice because it is fall. Trees blazing with colour and light. Leaves barely clinging on to branches, their cohorts carpeting the ground. Yet also it’s unseasonably warm this week – in the 70s and 80s. Our choreographer, who is from England, asked me the other day if this warm temperature was normal, and I started to say, “No, it’s not normal,” but then I stopped because I can’t remember what is “normal” weather anymore. I mean I certainly don’t remember it being 80 degrees the week before Hallowe’en, but I don’t think we’ve had a truly cold Hallowe’en in ages. Not the cool nights that I remember growing up, of layers and sweatpants under Hallowe’en costumes.

Some Fun Things This Week:
-Soup Swap At Work! This was absolutely an awesome idea. Four of us brought soup – we had butternut squash soup, cream of mushroom, matzoh ball soup, and I made kale and sausage soup. Someone brought bread, and I picked up apples from the Farmer’s market that morning. Since there were so many soup options, we decided to serve ourselves soup in mugs so that we could each try all of the options without filling up on big bowls of any one soup. Then we started mixing the soups and putting the matzoh balls in different soups. We had lots of leftovers. Definitely goes on our “Let’s do it again” list for work.

-The 11 year old went on a two night overnight trip with her school. I didn’t know this beforehand, but every sixth grader has the opportunity to go on an overnight trip, called Outdoor Education. It’s not really camping because everyone stays in a cabin, but they do spend the day in the wood – suburban woods, but still, outside among trees – and roast marshmallows at night. She apparently had a great time, which surprised me a little because she has always rejected the idea of sleepaway camp. Anyhow, the first day she was gone, I got home form work at midnight and saw that she had left her lunch on the living room floor and I got so sad because day 1 lunch was the one meal that was not provided. And I proceeded to worry about her for the next two days. (Would I have been this upset about it if it hadn’t been tech week, and I had gotten a full night’s sleep? Maybe not.) When she came home, I asked her about it, and she said that she just got a PB&J from the cafeteria and it was fine. I’m so proud of her for figuring it out. Also – I completely forgot to pay the Outdoor Ed fee because the online system was down. I don’t know … the whole thing was somehow utterly mentally exhausting for me. The important thing, though… she had a good time and no one had to pick her up at midnight from the camp because she wanted to come home.

-This fun jigsaw puzzle that one of my co-workers brought in for our office. We may have stayed later than prudent to finish it one night…

What a perfect puzzle for a bunch of theatre nerds!

Some genius things this week:
1) My favorite farm stand is my go to source for apples this time of year. The guy at the register once told me that they have about thirty varieties of apples over the course of Fall. I love trying all the different varieties of apples, but I could never keep straight what I was bringing home. Well, recently, they’ve started putting out paper bags for customers to buy apples. Brilliant! I can write the names of the apples on the bag. I feel like I’ve just been able to up my apple tasting game.

Just one small section of the apples available

2) The use of technology so casually and easily in rehearsal continues to amaze me. I mean when I first started working at this company, we were still faxing things back and forth. In fact there are some ways we notate things on paperwork because it was the only way that it would be clear when the fax came through on the other end. I used to have to make really complicated drawings on paperwork using Word or Paint or what not to show the crew how things should be set up. (My friend could make the most amazing line drawings in Word. They were truly works of art.) But now, I can just take a picture and add it to the paperwork.

The other easy use of our phones/cameras these days is to make study videos of parts of rehearsal so that the director can review them at night and come in with new ideas the next day. It used to be if we wanted to make study videos, we would have to get a camera and a tripod. But now, everyone has a phone with a camera and lots of memory and it’s so easy just to use that. The other week we were making lots of study videos and I had to hold the camera and it got tedious – my arms got tired and shaky. I thought, “How amazing is this technology, and yet, how much are we not set up to use it like this in rehearsal the way we need?” I went looking for a way to rig something to hold the camera up so I wouldn’t have to do it. I ended up finding two book ends and just wedging the phone between them, but it still wasn’t perfect because the bookends kept sliding apart.

Then the fight choreographer started prowling around the room, as if on a mission. And he came back with two rubber bands and a pencil and set this up for me:

The combination of high tech and low tech made me giggle.

What didn’t go so well this week – as usual, home life suffers during tech week. I barely see the Husband or the kids and when I do, it’s very functional. Pack lunches, brush teeth, empty backpacks, fold laundry (just half a load)… Next tech week, I want to find ways to be more… human with my family. Not sure what that means yet… find moments of connection and not just function?

Tech week treats – For me, tech week is a combination of meticulously planned healthy meals and also unlimited snacking. Two indulgences in this latter category which I discovered this week, one sweet and one savory:

Nerds Gummy Clusters! Where have you been all my life? I like have a variety of flavor and texture combinations in my candy and these are the perfect blend of sweet and sour and crunchy and chewy. Apparently there’s Nerd rope too? That might be a little much for me – I like that I can just pop one or two of these in my mouth at a time.

And then buffalo wing pretzels. Buffalo wings are one of my favorite things – and these pretzels – crunchy, tangy, spicy – are like having wings without all the bones and stringy bits.

Grateful for (tech week edition):

– post its notes and removable stickers. This is how I mark up my book. Post Its and removable stickers in all colors so I can color code all the things. On the wall of the theatre there are stage manager prompt books from the 70s and 80s and it’s all pencil and ruler lines and impeccably neat handwriting. I think I did learn to use ruler and lines when i first started marking up a score, but now I use post its, 0.9 lead mechanical pencils, and Frixion pens.

– sunshine and warm weather. Being in a dark theatre for 12-14 hours a day, the few moments of sunshine that I was able to steal are divine. (There was one day where I worked straight through two meal breaks and did not see the sun at all and that made me sad.) I managed to carve out at least 10 minutes, sometimes 30, every day to walk outside and soak up the sun.

– my lunchbox. I have a special lunch box for tech that is the size of a small cooler. It’s huge. But it has to be so that I can pack all my food. I have a huge aversion to being hungry, so I always make sure I pack a lot of food to get me through tech. There is a cafeteria at work, and restaurants in walking distance, but I like the security of knowing what all I have planned to eat that day. The first few days are usually 12+ hours at the theatre so I pack lunch and dinner and two or three substantial snacks as well as a snack to eat on the way home. It all fits in my lunch box, along with an ice pack or two. (One of my co-workers has a tech meal planning spreadsheet – stage managers love a good spreadsheet.) Thank you lunch box for keeping me from having to think about what I’m going to eat. The fewer decisions I have to make once I’m at the theatre, the better.

-Sleep and Showers. Full disclosure – I’m not a “shower every day” person. I think I shower every two or three days. This is how bad it is – I lose count. But I have to say, after working a really rough rehearsal, getting home from work after midnight and waking up 5-6 hours later to do the breakfast/lunch/kids/school bus thing and then being at the theatre by 10am, I just feel groggy and dragging. I feel like I’ve been hit by a truck. On those mornings, a shower does wonders for me. It makes me feel like it’s a new day, I’ve washed off all the baggage and criticism of the night before and am ready to face whatever is thrown at me. I am grateful for the chance to shower and start fresh.

Looking forward to:

-opening night. Actually final dress rehearsal. I know that opening night is supposed to be the big night, but for me it’s really about the final dress rehearsal. In opera, the final dress rehearsal usually has an invited audience and sometimes it’s the first time we get to run the show all the way through, including bows. (Side bar on Bows … there is never time to stage bows and usually it’s just crammed in at the end of rehearsals, in the five minutes between when the orchestra is released and when the stage crew gets to go home. And some shows… “staging bows” falls by the wayside and the stage management team is handed a sheet of paper on final dress with the bow order and we are supposed to just make it happen. Bows always seem so simple, but there is still a little bit to it – you have to tell the singers which side of stage to enter from, which side to go to after the bow, what the order is, how many bows, where to stand at the end of bow so they don’t get hit by the curtain coming in…. Final dress is the first time we really get to run bows and it is ALWAYS awkward.) Anyhow, I’m looking forward to final dress and getting all the elements lined up line up properly. It’s where I really feel like I’ve gotten the show to the finish line. Opening night is the victory lap.

-Hallowe’en. (okay, Hallowe’en was last night, but I drafted this earlier in the week and didn’t get a chance to post. It happened. More of a recap later). Last year, I was working on Hallowe’en, but this year, the schedule worked out that I’m off. Of course, Hallowe’en falls during tech week, which meant that I was up at 6am assembling one kid’s costume before going to the theatre, and hot gluing another kid’s costume ten minutes before we were out the door. Thankfully the third kid just wants something from our dress up bin. I hadn’t planned on carving pumpkins this year because of the tech schedule, but at the last minute, our neighbors invited us over for a pumpkin carving party so we had jack o’lanterns after all. usually we design our own jack o’lanterns, but the neighbors had some cool stencils and the kids really liked them, so I carved then ones they wanted. I thought they turned out really well.

-sleep. Because it’s been tech and 14 hour days at the theatre and still having to get up in time to pack lunches and get the kids to school. The Husband has been great and telling the kids to let me sleep in until 7am.

What We Ate – I have nothing for this. The Husband, as always during tech week, held down the fort, and he made dinner all week. I was gone every night so I didn’t even get to eat any of his yummy cookings. I think there was broccoli and pasta one night, there was an eggs night. Of course, pizza and a movie. He did make a pickle pizza, which I had leftovers of, and it was very tasty. I ate mostly leftovers, except for the one day when I was at the theatre on Farmer’s Market day and I got, in addition to Kimchi, an eggplant parmesan sandwich.

As for family movie night – I heard they watched Ghostbusters. I’m a little jealous they didn’t wait for me, but it is very seasonally appropriate.

Weekly recap + what we ate: Another Week in October.

The Husband took the kids camping with some friends this weekend. I had to work all weekend, or I would have gone as well. It makes me a little sad since I’ve only gone camping once this year.

Anyhow, it’s been a pretty run of the mill week. I get up in the morning, I make lunches, and breakfasts (if the Husband hasn’t already fed the kids), 10 mins of yoga sometimes, then school bus drop off, and work/rehearsal all day. Home (later than I want), and bed (also later than I ought.) There’s been some running (twice), and I even biked to work again this morning since I didn’t have to think about squeezing out a couple more minutes with the kids. AND I made it up the hill that takes me into the part of town I work in. Last week, I did not make it up that hill – I shifted slightly too late and it was game over. That hill is definitely tough though and I don’t know if it will ever get easier. Maybe there’s a baseline hard that the hill will always have? (Is this a metaphor for life?)

One of the joys for me of settling into fall is that it become cozy clothes weather, which I am fully embracing. I love the turn from hot weather to cool weather when I get to pull things out of my closet and say, “Hello, old friend! I’ve missed you! Let’s go out for a spin!” Flannel and corduroy and all the cozy knits. And I love being able to accessorize again. Summer dressing is so simple for me – usually it’s a dress, sometimes with a gauzy cover up, or a t-shirt layered. Fall dressing, though – bring out the cute boots, the colourful scarves, the jaunty hats! And my favorite Uniqlo puffer vest. I wear this sooooo much. It makes me wonder where the line is between a signature item and lazy dressing.

Someone at work called this outfit “hipster fall.” Not sure what that means. I’m not cool enough for the things people label me. (Also this picture – taken by the 11 year old – is terribly awkward, but I thought the outfit cute, so I’m sharing with the world.):

I love that skirt, though I accidentally put it through the dryer so the hem isn’t even anymore. I still wear it a lot. Those are the boots I bought to go to Amsterdam.

And a peek at this outfit – a corduroy dress I bought last spring and I’d forgotten I had since it hadn’t been corduroy dress weather. My grandmother’s knitted vest. My rain coat and lunch box – important things. And these fabulous blue boots that I had bought last spring when we went to Amsterdam, but which I hadn’t taken with me because they aren’t waterproof, but I thought they were too cute not to keep:

I do have a distinct lack of pants in my cooler weather wardrobe, so I have to do something about that. If I weren’t working, it wouldn’t be a problem, because I usually just wear dresses and leggings, but I do prefer to wear pants when I’m teching a show since I might be up and down stairs and ladders and what not.

Some things on my mind this week:

I follow many many sites via feedly, but two daily ones that I love are Diaries of Note and A Poem A Day (actually there are a couple daily poetry sites I follow). The former site features diary entries written on that day in history and it’s a wide range of people – artists, writers, scientist, thinkers… I love getting a glimpse into what one person was thinking on that day. Some days there are historical events lived through, and some days it the entry featured on the blog is quite quotidian – life, lunches, work. Reading other people’s diary entries also gives me inspiration to keep journaling. Not that I think my words will one day be published or given to the world, but rather reading other journal entries makes me realize that everyday is worth mentioning.

The variety of poetry sites that I get in my feed offer both classic and contemporary poems. I don’t read every day, but I find that whenever I need a quiet moment of stillness and I can’t calm my mind, sometimes reading a poem helps to focus my brain. A couple weeks ago, I read a poem that I liked and bookmarked it so that I could return to it. This poem, called A Man in His Life – opens with the lines:

A man doesn’t have time in his life
to have time for everything.
He doesn’t have seasons enough to have
a season for every purpose. Ecclesiastes
Was wrong about that.

A man needs to love and to hate at the same moment,
to laugh and cry with the same eyes,
with the same hands to throw stones and to gather them,
to make love in war and war in love.
And to hate and forgive and remember and forget,
to arrange and confuse, to eat and to digest
what history
takes years and years to do.

This poem is by the Israeli poet Yehuda Amichai, who was new to me, and I loved how perfectly he captured that urgency of “two things are true,” a mantra that parenting guru Dr. Becky often offers up. It’s not precisely a temporal urgency, that Amichai writes of, but an emotional one – this acknowledgement of how complicated and messy life can be. “To laugh and cry with the same eyes…” how beautiful a thought is that? To give ourselves permission to feel all the feelings at one time.

I have since gone on a bit of an internet dive on Amichai, and especially in light of the war raging these past few weeks, though he died in 2000, his words seem like something to be carried close these days. Go read his poem, “Memorial Day for a War Dead” as you read the news. Heavy thoughts on human lives.

Continuing in the vein of reflection exercises I mentioned last week, which I learned from the podcast The Fix:
What Went Well: On the personal front – I ran three times and had one bike ride and did 10 minutes of yoga 6 out of 7 days last week. On the family front – I had one evening where I managed to get home in time to take the 11 year old to basketball, and then came home and practiced piano with the 6 year old for 20 minutes before going back to pick up the 11 year old. It was just one of those evenings that felt packed, but the time felt well used – sometimes empty pockets of time are needed, but sometimes they make me feel restless. It just felt good that I was able to take control of my schedule to do some of the parenting tasks because I know, with tech week coming up, I won’t be able to be as physically present for a few weeks, which is hard on everyone.
On the work front, we had a rehearsal where we went through the whole show and it felt really nice to know that, after two week of rehearsing in bits and bobs and out of order, there is indeed a whole show emerging.

What didn’t go so well: Some bad family scheduling this week. On a couple later nights, didn’t make it to pick up the 11 year old from a couple activities like I had hoped because I didn’t leave work on time. And then, I hadn’t tracked that the Husband was going on this camping trip this weekend – I knew it was happening, just not when – and I scheduled a night out with some friends I hadn’t seen in several years. The dinner was fun, but then I wasn’t home to help the Husband pack for camping, which, since I’m the one who does most of the camping, made things more difficult.

Also I’m a little behind in work. I’m still haven’t figured out the best way to balance of my added work responsibilities so I can devote time to the needs of the stage management team and also get my own stage manager work done.

What do I want to do differently: I need to go back to putting thing in my planner so I can see work and life in one place. I’ve been working purely off my work calendar these days, so I’m missing the big picture of life happenings. And the Husband and I missed our weekly check in and week overview – which is where we usually talk through these things and plan.

Grateful for:
-The support I have at work. I had to have some Big Stage Manager in Charge type conversations this week. I know it’s part of the job as the stage manager to have the awkward and sometimes difficult conversations, and being a little non-confrontational, it’s always hard for me. I admire the stage managers who can have conversations confidently and without hesitation. I struggle a little because I find that I can always see the arguments from every side, and I want all sides to be right. But sometimes what is right for one person is not what is right for the rehearsal room or the show. Which is all to say, I am grateful that I have the support structure at work that I feel like I can have these conversations.

-Being able to afford bi-weekly cleanings. I am not a neat person, but being forced to pick up around the house twice a month in anticipation of the house being cleaned is certainly good for me. And then there is something so calming about coming home to a house with a sheen of clean and fresh sheets. It feels like a luxury to be able to afford this.

-Sticks. I took the 6 year old to the park one day and he proceeded to spend 90 minutes playing with sticks. Well maybe not the whole 90 minutes, but he was at it for a good long time – pretending that the sticks were his tools and using them to scrape each other. I am grateful for sticks for being a perfect toy.

Looking forward to:

-The Sunday Paper. We started subscribing to the Sunday paper this month. Like a “physical real life paper to touch, inky smelling, rolled up and cocooned in a plastic bag and deposited at the foot of our driveway” newspaper. When I was growing up, we always got the daily newspaper and I remember how excited I was every morning to see the fat cylinder in our driveway. On Sundays, my brother and I would I always fight over who got to read the coloured comics first. The comics and the advice columns were always what I read first. (I still do, let’s be honest.) Even though we have digital subscriptions, I thought it might be fun for the family to start getting a physical paper on Sundays. That excitement of “What’s going on today?” with my morning cup of tea, the kids fighting over the funny pages, and maybe reading some of the other sections. I don’t know how to describe it- it’s not the same as opening up the app on my phone. Also – there is something very insular about reading the newspaper on one’s phone. To the kids, it’s hard to distinguish between “Mom reading the news” and “Mom scrolling aimlessly.” With a physical newspaper, the kids can be involved and see that news and journalism is is important to us. I’m hoping it will foster a little more engagement from the kids with the world we live in.
And also – the crossword puzzle! I’m finding a lot of joy in having a crossword puzzle to work on in the mornings as I sip my tea. And even more joy when I manage to finish it!

Yes, I do it in pen. Pencil just doesn’t show up well enough for me. I also test drive words in the margins before I commit.

-Soup Swap! Someone suggested we do a soup swap at work so today we are each bringing in soup to share. I’m making Zuppa Toscana – sausage, kale, potato soup, an Olive Garden copycat. (note: this happened yesterday and it was so awesome!)

-Kimchi. Next week begins tech week for my show, which means I need to start thinking about tech week food. Kimchi is one of my tech week staples – it makes everything taste better and I don’t have to cook it. Only drage is the kimchi that I like to buy is sold at a Farmer’s market that I don’t often get to – it’s the farmer’s market down the street from work, but I don’t often work on Sundays so sometimes I go months without restocking. This weekend, though, I’m working on a Sunday, so I’ll get to visit my favorite kimchi vendor. Makes me happy. (Note: the kimchi vendor is not at this particular Farmer’s Market anymore!! Sad Face. I think they are at the farmer’s market near the theatre, so ‘ll hopefully stock up later in the week. )

-A Night at the Opera with a friend. The opera that is is being produced concurrently with my show is having it’s final dress rehearsal next week, so I have plans to go with my friend. I’m excited to see both my friend and this opera. It’s a new opera, and seeing a world premiere is always interesting. I’ve seen some rehearsals of it and it is quite impressive.

What We Ate:

Saturday: We went over to a friends’ house for meat. He has one of those Big Green Egg smokers and it makes the most delicious meat. The Husband also brought over his milk shake machine and we had milk shakes for dessert.

Sunday: Egg and toast and leftovers. Kitchen pantry Sunday, as is our habit.

Monday: Eggplant stirfry with noodles. The Husband cooked.

Tuesday: Lemon Chicken and Potatoes in the InstantPot. Recipe from the Washington Post. This was really tasty and very easy to throw together before I left for work. I used leeks instead of onions because I had one to use up and I think it made a big difference in the taste. (Oh now that I looked up the recipe to share, I see that it’s from a cookbook written by the author of one of my favorite Indian Instant Pot cookbooks – the famous Butter Chicken Lady. I need to check out this new cookbook.)

Wednesday: Pinto bean soup, made in the InstantPot before I left for work. Recipe from Dad Cooks Dinner. I added some frozen corn becuase it was a little spicy.

Thurdasy: Dinner with friends. I think the rest of the family had take out pizza.

Friday: Leftovers. When the family isn’t home, I mostly scrounge in the fridge.

(Tri) Weekly recap + what we ate: FOUR!!!!

We are deep into October! Even though the weather has been in the so very up and down here, it does feel as if we are firmly into fall. The trees have started to take on crimson and gold tips and tinges, I wake up in pre-dawn darkness, and we dine as the sun is slipping away. One of the true indications of fall for me is when the morning sunlight slants sharply into the kitchen through the window over the sink so that washing dishes in the morning is a blinding exercise. Sometimes I do dishes leaning to one side so I can avoid the sun’s rays piercing my eyeballs. Sometimes I just decide that the dishes can wait until the sun move on. Then I tell myself- just wait a few weeks and this timing of sunlight will pass. Like many things things in life…

In the mean time I will enjoy pumpkins…

The gourd situation at my favorite market

Leaves…

and making applesauce:

I mentioned last post that we were having a birthday party for the youngest and all my anxiety about last minute planning and lack of party guests. Well, the lack of RSVPs actually turned out for the best because it was raining all weekend, banishing the possibility of having any part of the festivities outside. And given that the party was at our house – well, it seems like 11 kids and 10 adults made for a plenty big enough party inside our house. House size is certainly relative – our current house is definitely bigger than our first house, yet is not as big as houses you would find in our area- but all the same, I wouldn’t objectively call our house small, yet I can’t imagine having any more people inside than we had for this birthday party.

We basically set up three areas for everyone: the living/dining room for food and cookie decorating; the toy room for, well, toys and playing and we have a Swedish climbing ladder there that was very popular; and the basement where we cleared everything breakable and set up music for a dance party. I will say the toy room was at max capacity what with everyone wanting to play with the toys and try out the climbing ladder, and parents in there to make sure no one fell off the climbing wall. Or at least no one got seriously hurt falling off the climbing wall. If we had to do this again, I might clear more toys out of the toy room to give more space – that whole room was a disaster zone. It still is. Also maybe make parents sign waivers if their kids are going to try the climbing ladder. Kidding. But maybe I shouldn’t be.

The cookie decorating, which was the main activity went rather well, I think. People seemed to really like it. I had gotten the idea from seeing a local sweet shop offer the same thing, but there the kids would also bake the cookies. I figured a bunch of four year olds would not have the patience to roll out and bake and decorate cookies, so we just went with the decorating bit.

We put two kid sized tables in the living room, covered them with paper and set out bowls of icing and jars of sprinkles. We gave each kid a piece of parchment paper on which to decorate their cookies, in an attempt to try to contain the mess.

Things that I think made the cookie decorating go well:

– We ordered the cookies rather than trying to bake them myself. We called our local bakery and ordered 48 unfrosted cookies. They make the best cookies and I didn’t have to bake any. And the cookies came in a variety of shapes, which was fun.

– We made all the frosting using a royal icing mix. I was just going to go get a few tubs of Duncan Hines frosting, but the Husband went to a cake decorating store by his office and they showed him royal icing mix- you just mix it with water and voila! This was waaaaaay better than Duncan Hines- it was spreadable but stiff enough not to be too messy. I mixed it with gel food colouring so we had three different colours plus white. Another great thing about royal icing is that it hardens as it dries, which gives the cookies that professional cookie sheen. I have an extra bag of royal icing mix and I’m excited to use it for Christmas.

– We used old spice jars for the sprinkles. This was the Husband’s brilliant idea. The Husband had bought six different kinds of sprinkles from the cake decorating store. I was going to put the sprinkles in a small bowl. The Husband had the idea to wash out the old spice containers that we had been keeping for a rainy day and put the sprinkles in those so the kids could just shake them out. It was still messy, but so much less messy than bowls.

-For spreading the icing, we bought 4” offset spatulas from a restaurant supply store. The small size was good for little hands and much easier to use than plastic knives. Plus I had the kids take them home as their party favor.

One thing I wasn’t prepared for was that the kids would want to eat their cookies right away. We had bought cute boxes for everyone to take their cookies home, but I think only used half of them. Kids were very eager to try their colorful efforts as soon as they were done. At the end of the party, one kid asked me, “Are there goody bags?” and I thought, “Well… you were supposed to take your cookies home…” We did also get mini rolling pins to go in the boxes, which were super cute and I had a parent tell me a couple days later that they are great for playing with kinetic sand.

Birthday cookies. Not sure what’s with the random hands.

My other favorite thing from the party is that we ordered soft pretzels. I was driving down the major street by us when I saw a yard signs advertising The DC Pretzel Company. I love soft pretzels, so of course I had to look them up. Turns out a guy, originally from Philadelphia, started a weekend business making soft pretzels. During the week, he works for the federal government, and then on the weekend, he makes pretzels out of one of those shared industrial kitchens. And the service was great! I had all sorts of questions on how many to order, and my email was answered promptly (with a 10% off coupon!) and then when I had to add additional pretzels to my original order, the owner texted me to reassure me that the two orders would be combined. And the pretzels were sooooo tasty! Chewy, malty, and flavorful. And vegan. And since we ordered too many, we were lucky to eat them for days – we reheated them in the oven and they were just as chewy and tasty. 10/10!!! I would definitely order again. (Thank you for coming to my Yelp review.)

The morning of the four year old’s birthday, the Husband said, “It’s going to be so weird- we won’t have a baby in the house anymore. After twelve years!” And it’s true- there’s something bittersweet for me about no longer being in the baby phase. I loved having babies – the soft cheeks and unformed blob of sweetness. Now it feels like my kids are all muscles and limbs. And opinions and thoughts. I know time only moves forward, and watching kids grow from helpless bundles into real people really makes that thought hit home, showing me every day that there is no going backwards.

Other things and happenings – I was listening to the podcast The Fix, which talks about work, more specifically advancing equality in the workplace. I find the hosts and her guests very insightful on issues that I do think about a lot especially since I work in an industry that is historically (and let’s be honest continues to be) not terribly diverse. The episode I was listening to talked about the importance of building self-awareness at work – and one exercise is for ten days to take 15 minutes a day and write down: What went well today, What didn’t go so great, what could I do differently? I’ve been trying to do this reflection on a work and personal level lately and I think it’s been a good frame for thinking back.

Going well – Chore spinner! It used to be that the kids each had their specific chores to do after dinner. Then it came up that the kids were always wanting to do someone else’s chore, and it wasn’t fair that all one kid got to do was take the napkins down to laundry, or it wasn’t fair that so and so got to use the broom. So a couple weeks ago, we instituted a chore spinner. There are six evening chores and each kid spins to find out which two chores they will be responsible for. The chores are:
-dining room (wipe down table and sweep floor)
-dry dishes and help put them away
-pick up the living room and the foyer
-take the napkins and dirty towels down to the laundry room
-pick up the bedroom and make the beds
-wipe down the bathroom counter after teeth brushing.
Clearly some chores are faster than others, but the beauty of the new system is that one person doesn’t have the easy task all the time – it’s totally up to chance who will get the much coveted bathroom counter wipe down. (Also – side note, the kids at some point also started wiping down the toilet in addition to the bathroom counter. Not sure how I feel about this – on the one hand, it’s the toilet can be a little gross, but on the other hand, they are using Clorox wipes, so it’s should be pretty sanitary. Also – I find it fascinating that they don’t really know yet that wiping down the toilet is considered gross to some people. ) WE do help the little kids with the dining room and the living room if they draw that because those are bigger tasks and they kind of still suck at sweeping. All in all, though, it has made the kids less grumbly about chores. Who know how long the novelty of the chore spinner will work as a means to more cleaning/less whining evenings, but I’ll take whatever I can get on the kids and chores front these days.

Another thing that went well recently: Biking to work. I got to bike to work this week. At some point last spring I did something to one my bike inner tubes and then the bike languished in the shed for many months. The Husband actually fixed it a while ago but I just hadn’t found time to get the bike out. But this week, I pulled it out and biked to work on a day when I didn’t have to do the school bus run. I was reminded about how much I love riding to work. I did have to walk the bike up the last hill before work because I misjudged my shifting and didn’t shift in time to make the climb easier, but all in all, it was a nice ride.

Things not really going well right now: I’m adjusting to being back at work. The work part is fine, the home part has been a bit of a mess. I’ve been very bad at predicting when I’ll get home, which, understandably, causes much consternation. I think I’ll be home by 6:30p, and I don’t get home until 8:30pm and it makes bedtime tricky. This issue for me is two fold:
1) getting sucked into lengthy last minute conversations and tasks at work. I’ve gotten pretty good at finishing all the tangible tasks on my own to do list in a timely manner, but I’m discovering that having more responsibility means more people want your attention on things. Which is great and all, and I want to have thoughtful and thorough conversations, but sometimes I need to figure out how to put a pin in something and get out the door. Or to have more succinct conversations?
2) not communicating with the Husband when I’m coming home when these last minute things pop up. Rehearsal is done at 5:30pm, so I tell him I can be home by 6:30pm, but then one thing and another and suddenly it’s 6:15 and I’m still typing the rehearsal notes and then someone asks my input on something and I get sucked back into work things and then when I next look up, it’s 7:00pm. I know the answer is to text at 6:15pm saying “I’ll be home at 7pm”, but I’m always optimistic at 6:15pm that I’m about to hit send and walk out the door and I’ll only be ten minutes late home, so is that really worth a text or should I just plow right on so I can leave? That’s the internal monologue. And the answer should be, “yes, just send that text.”
Anyhow, I’m working on it. I think from the work perspective I have good work-life balance, but from the life perspective, work is winning out a little right now. hmmmm…. maybe I should unpack that a little.

What can I do differently: (I like the framing of do “differently” vs. do “better”. because if the expectation is that changes *must* improve things, it feels so daunting. But if the idea is just to change the way something is done, then it makes the process of change much more forgiving.) I think I need an automated system or reminder to help me track time after rehearsal is over so I continue to be efficient and conscious of time. Maybe an alarm at 6:25 to remember that the intern needs to wrap up and I should send a status report to the Husband?

Podcast recommendation: On Being is back! I love this podcast for the meandering and thoughtful conversations. The first episode of the new season is a hilarious, wise, and touching conversation with theologian Kate Bowler who learned that she had cancer when she was 35 and wrote a book (or perhaps a couple) about it. As expected the conversation dissects on the idea of mortality and how lucky we are to be alive – “Ageing is an effing privilege,” she says at one point. And I loved the idea Bowler brings up about our 2pm/2am self – that the former is where we have it all together and the latter is the vulnerable, darker self who feels alone. This idea that there will be moments of every day where you feel like a completely different person, where your ability to deal with life completely evaporates. And that is okay. Because you are still you. It’s a little hard to describe why I loved this episode so much, but it was a perfect contemplative listen for a long walk. And Kate Bowler is so very, very funny too. I laughed out loud many times.

Other updates on my litany of complaints:
– I’ve booked dentist appointments with a pediatric dentist for the two littles, so hopefully that will get the ball rolling on taking care of their cavities.
– The Husband and I went to test drive a mini van. I’ve resigned myself to the fact that there will be a minivan in our family. It won’t be my main vehicle, but it will likely replace my 20 year old car. I will move over to driving the Husband’s current car and he will drive the mini van.
-still no progress on window treatments in the living room…

Grateful For:

-The now four year old for being such a bright spot in my life. She is such a happy ball of energy. Never one to shy from a challenge, she climbs playgrounds and cabinets fearlessly. She is independent and capable, yet quite agreeable. When she falls, she bounces right back up with a cheerful, “I’m okay!” She is always telling us, “I got this!” She is the child most likely to mischievously cause mayhem and mess, but also the child most likely to clean that mess up. I hope she carries that sense of adventure and responsibility into the rest of her life.

– Being able to shower with the kids at home. It hasn’t always been the case, but as I got in the shower one morning, I thought, “Wow, it’s nice to be able to disappear for fifteen or twenty minutes and not worry about someone hurting themselves or doing something irrevocable to the house.

– Kimchi. There have been many a time when I get home late at night and I’m hungry and I look in the fridge and pull out the bag of kimchi and whatever else might be in there. And the kimchi makes the whatever else taste amazing. I’m grateful for kimchi for being a pretty healthy thing to eat at 10:30pm at night and for being delicious.

Looking Forward to:

-My show. Last week, I started rehearsal for my next opera. It’s been lovely so far. Certainly there have been things to navigate, but overall it’s been a good process and I do actually look forward to going to rehearsals everyday.

– Instant Pot meals. Opera season means I’m gone many many evenings, so when I can, I like to make dinner in the morning for the family to eat when they get home in the afternoon. I borrowed several Instant Pot cookbooks from the library and am excited to explore them.

-This book:

I’ve been in kind of a reading slump lately – In September I started many many books but they all had to be returned before I could finish them. I’m not sure if it’s a time thing or a motivation thing. I started reading this book this week and I can’t wait to find time every day to read it. It’s about three women who, after years of living with the casual misogyny of everyday life, discover in middle age how powerful they really are. It’s a little magical and a lot angry. I’m sucked in.

What We Ate (The First half of October version):

Friday: Pizza and movie night. Captain America. Fun, shiny entertainment.

Saturday: Birthday party leftovers – pretzels, veggies adn hummus, chips and salsa, cookies, cake, charcuterie plate. All the tasty things.

Sunday: Snack dinner from Birthday party leftovers again. This was such a lazy day – we didn’t have afternoon activities, so we stayed home and watched A Knight’s Tale. I had seen the 2001 Heath Ledger movie in the theatre when it first came out and thought it would make a fun movie to watch with the kids. It is just as stylish and cheeky as I remember. Though, of course watching it twenty years later and with kids, I found myself wishing that the storyline with the father were more fleshed out. It’s so interesting to watch movies of my youth with older eyes and brain and heart.

Monday: Mac and cheese (from the blue box) and edemame.

Tuesday: Nachos. We had a lot of chips leftover from the birthday party, so we sprinkled some beans, cheese, peppers, and jalapenos on them and made a couple pans of nachos.

Wednesday: Eggplant curry. vegan. I had some yellow curry paste to use up. It was definitely spicier than I thought it would be. I ate leftovers all week, tucked into a wrap.

Thursday: I worked this night. The Husband and kids got wings for dinner.

Friday: pizza and movie. I think this was the night they watched the Lego Batman movie.

Saturday: Dumplings and green beans.

Sunday: Leftovers and toast. I want ot get back ot Sunday night being leftovers/clean out the fridge night.

Monday: Garlic-y pork in the Instant Pot. Recipe from Melissa Clark’s book Dinner in and Instant. Eaten with tortillas.

Tuesday: no clue. I don’t think I was home, so the Husband cooked.

Wednesday: Lentils and sweet potato in the Instant Pot from the Good Housekeeping IP cookbook. The family liked this much better than I thought they would and the leftovers were great taken for lunch in wraps later the week.

Thursday: Noodles and tofu, the Husband cooked.

Friday: Pizza and Lilo and Stich. (I was working) When the 11 year old was a toddler we tried to watch this movie, but she got really upset by the chaos caused by Stitch and we had to turn it off. Clearly chaos does not bother her anymore.

Saturday: Dumplings and Broccoli. There is a theme to our Saturday nights

Sunday: Tuna potato salad. Kitchen sink meal. I had some potatoes to used up, and canned tuna is an easy protein, so I combined a can of tuna, steamed potatoes, pickled onion, radishes, and green pepper together. Olive oil, a dash of Dijon mustard and lots of black pepper. It was a lot tastier than I thought it would have been twenty minute earlier when I was staring in despair at the fridge without a plan for dinner.

Monday: Eggplant with pickled raisins and mint from the cookbook Ruffage. The Husband cooked. He had picked up this gorgeous cookbook from the library and it has a lot of surprising ways to prepare vegetables.

Tuesday: Green beans sauteed with tomatoes and garlic. The Husband cooked. I think this was also from Ruffage.

Wednesday: Bahn mi sandwiches from our favorite Vietnamese place. My father was in town and he bought us dinner.

Thursday: Dinner out with a Friend. I had mussels and paprika cauliflower.

Friday: Pizza and Lilo and Stitch 2. I was working that evening – there was no comment about the movie, so I guess it was entertaining?

September so far+ what we ate: a litany of complaints.

This started out as my regular weekly post, then a biweekly post. And now September is almost gone. So here is where we are so far this month….

Life’s been kind of super “meh” lately. And I don’t even know why I’ve been feeling so overwhelmed, or petulant about adulting – I haven’t been working full time so I have time, everyone is healthy (even with the Husband having knee surgery), our bills are being paid… It’s the adulting that is getting to me. Or maybe it is the not working full time that makes the adulting hard. Life seems more manageable when I have the anchor of work limiting my choices – or maybe I can focus my energy better when I’m working? I start back at work full time this week, so we’ll see.

But, if I can indulge – here’s a partial list of life stressors lately –

-The kids had dentist appointments and there were cavities. Like more than a few. Including a couple that had been detected at the last visit but I just never got around to setting up follow-up appointments to get them filled. And now I need to take the two younger kids to a pediatric dentist because it’s gotten so bad our family dentist thinks they need the pediatric specialist and possibly crowns for one kid. I think they might have genetically bad teeth because we are pretty good at brushing- not “three times a day every day” good, but at least “every night for two minutes and then mom does a pass and then twice a day most days”. And the three year old even flosses a couple times a week! They do eat candy, but not an unreasonable amount, and I always make sure to do extra brushing if we’ve had a particularly sugary day. Gah! It’s so upsetting.

-I went to get passport photos taken at CVS, finally getting on that passport renewal that’s been on my to do list. (My passport has been expired since mid September; I hope there are no international emergencies for the next 6-8 weeks.). Granted, I don’t think the lighting at this CVS was very good, and granted it’s been ten years since my last passport photo, but I was not prepared for how much older I look now than in my last photo. It’s fine. I considered having another picture taken, somewhere with better lighting, but it’s truly not worth it; I will maybe look at the picture once every few years. I feel petty for finding this so irksome.

-Then there is the three year old’s birthday party, which I didn’t plan until the last minute and now only a handful of kids from her class is coming, and not the kid that she talks about all the time. Two of my kids have birthdays right after really busy times of the year – the four year old after the start of school, and the 11 year old just after Christmas/New Year – so I’m learning that I need to plan/prep birthday parties before the busy part of the year hits. Or maybe not learning since I fall into this trap every. single. year. and have to scramble to throw a party together. I also find the September birthday a bit of a conundrum – first of all, statistically September has a lot of birthdays so there is a lot of competition for birthday guests and venues. But then also, September is the new school year, so people tend to invite the whole class to parties. It seems like birthday invites peter out as the year goes along because kids solidify their friend groups so that they don’t necessarily want all the kids at their party. Which is all to say, a September party – well pluses are we can have an inexpensive park party outside, but minuses are tracking down contact info for all the kids in her class, which means I can’t send out invites until after school starts, or, in the case of the 4 year old, after the kids all moved to their new classrooms. (note – the party happened – everyone had a good time, I think. more on that in a later post.)

-I feel bad that I’ve been messing up the 11 year old’s activities. One day I sent the Husband and the 11 year old (with the six year old in tow) to the first day of swim clinic while I went to a music festival with my friend and the 3 year old. EXCEPT… swim clinic doesn’t start for another three weeks. They arrived at the pool and everything was closed up. face palm. Then three days later, I totally messed up the time for her basketball workout – I thought it was at 8pm, but it was actually at 6pm and she ended up missing that. Ugh again. I’ve written both swim and basketball times now on the wall calendar.

-I’m feeling a little stymied by the decisions in life – two mainly: Window treatments in the living room and a new car. It just seems so overwhelming. I know we need window treatments – the sheers and too short curtains from another room have been up for over a year and I think the improvised nature of it all is just making our living space seem unfinished. To be fair, I care less than the Husband, but he cares very much indeed. I completely understand why people come to hire interior designers. It’s not that they want to spend money making their living space look a certain way – it’s that’s they don’t want to spend mental energy on it. In my twenties, I spent a lot of my time living in furnished rentals for various opera jobs. I learned that I really don’t care what a space looks like as long as it is functional and the bed is comfortable. This is what I care about the window treatments in our living room: cordless, top down/bottom up function so I can let in the sunlight without having the whole world look into our living room, light filtering. But there are so many other features – inside mount or outside mount? do we add drapes as well? how high would we hang them? does it complement the wood paneling of the foyer? too much! And it’s not like paint where we can just repaint if it isn’t great. Window treatments are expensive. And permanent. Decision paralysis.

-Also the car. The car. It’s 20 years old with 180, 000 miles on it. And last week I took it in for an oil change and some other random things. It squeaks. Random lights keep coming on. It leaks oil. It’s probably terrible for the environment. So… I know we need a new car. The Husband wants a mini van. I would rather not. But I also don’t really want to have to go car shopping. The beauty of my current car (2003 Subaru Legacy Wagon) is that someone very special to me sold it to us for a good deal. It is not the car I ever imagined I would drive, but it was a car that came to us at the right time. I did not have to go car shopping and test drive and compare and haggle and finance – I just had to decide whether or not to take this one car. It was an amazingly lucky situation.

-I feel like I’m still trying to find the morning routine. It feels like the bare minimum right now- the kids wake up, get breakfast, get dressed, I make lunches…. with a lot of free play sprinkled in there. But our mornings are really long – we don’t leave for the school bus until 9:50am – so I think the mornings can be more restorative for me than they currently are.

Things I want to add to my morning:
– 10 minutes (at least) of yoga.
– piano practicing with the six year old
– breakfast that isn’t finishing off someone’s uneaten yogurt
– teeth brushing for the kids, every day.
– a minute to think through my day.
-reading and journaling. (Though I’m trying to move journaling to the evening routine, but this past week, I’ve had supertitle work in the evening. And I’ve been really tired. I don’t know why, but this past year I’ve noticed that I get SUPER tired the week before my period – like asleep by 9:30pm tired, which is really early for me.)
-better clean up efforts for the breakfast dishes.

If I get up early enough- like before 6:15am, I can get reading or journaling or yoga in as well before the Husband leaves for work at 6:45/7:00a. But the 3 year old is also an early riser and is always interested in hanging out too, and time with her is also feels precious, especially as I start working more evenings and weekends. But time for me is precious too. So … maybe I should wake earlier even? I’ve been setting my alarm for 6:15p lately. Going to bed before midnight is also an important part of this equation.

All things things are fixable, of course. I sometimes feel like the things that I can do something about are more stressful than the things I can’t do anything about.

Okay – to balance that griping, it wasn’t all terrible:

-The 11 year old got a part in the school play!!!! I guess sixth graders don’t always get parts, so this is really special. She is playing “the smart girl”.

-The 3 year old is not allergic to yellow jackets. She got stung in the face at a birthday party one weekend. Her face swelled up something fierce and I was very concerned. The pediatrician was not concerned. It was definitely a “Looks much worse than it is” type deal.

-I started a new position at work. I still stage manage, but I have some added responsibilities with overseeing the department. I have some mixed feelings about this. Excited for the possibilities, but also nervous for the added responsibilities and balancing everything. One of the lovely things, though, is that a lot of people have been congratulating me on my new position, and when I walked into the chorus music rehearsal last week, everyone clapped and cheered. The good will and support I feel just beaming from people is both daunting and comforting.

-The Husband and I had an afternoon date. He was still recovering from his knee surgery, so we didn’t do anything too strenuous – we went and got fancy bagel sandwiches, then got coffee, and then went to a local garden and sat on a park bench and read. The weather had cooled down but it was still sunny, which made for a lovely time to sit outside and read. Then afterwards we went to run errands – we went to the library and stopped by the local deli, where the owner talked our ear off and told us how good parents we were because every time we came in with our kids they looked really happy and didn’t run around touching things they weren’t supposed to. Then the Husband says, “Well the youngest one is always very interested in the cookies.” And the owner says, “Here, I’ll give you a bag!” and he gave us a bag of almond cookies to take home. It was such an unexpected small town moment in our suburban lives.

Grateful for – the weather has cooled off here, but the beginning of September was verrrry hot, so here are my hot hot September gratitudes: :

– shady trails – I’ve mentioned this before but I feel so lucky to live near a shady trail. With the kids back in school, I have time to run in the mornings now, so the shade made the 90 degree weather bearable.

– sun shade in car – I have one of those fold up shades which you put on your windshield so your car doesn’t get as hot when it is parked in the sun. One of my least favorite parts of hot hot summer is a hot hot car. The car sun shade is definitely on my top ten summer must haves for helping to keep the car from getting as hot as it could.

– Basil from the Husband’s garden for basil lemonade. I think I’ve also mentioned this before – I’ve been making basil simple syrup and lemonade base to mix with fizzy water for a cold drink and it’s been lovely. The basil syrup gives a nice herby twist and cuts the sweetness of the lemonade.

-and now I am grateful for the cooler weather, even if it did rain all weekend. The trips of some trees have started to turn red and gold and . We are, after all, officially into Autumn.

Looking forward to:

– going back to work. I start prep for my Fall show this week. I think the show will be challenging and it’s bigger in many ways than anything I’ve done before, but I’m feeling well supported, so I am looking forward to it.

– apples. It’s apple season. My favorite farm stand is starting to explode with a variety of apples. I like to try all the variety, but I always forget which apple is which. I need to do a better job of labeling the apples that I buy. I tried taking pictures as I buy them, but when I get home, they all kind of look the same.

– wearing new to me running clothes. I have been running in nursing tanks and decided that I should get better options. I was going to order some new running tops and sports bras from online, but one day, I thought I’d swing by the thrift store to see if I could find anything there before I bought new. The thrift stores near me are very large so it always feel daunting to go – there are some good things to be found, but also there are a lot of things that are not of great quality, so it takes a lot of sifting to find things I want. But I ended up finding two Athleta bras and a couple Athleta tank tops. Of course the weather has cooled a little bit now, so I can run in t-shirts rather than tank tops, but getting new to me running clothes and not having to run in old nursing bras helps me look forward to my morning run.

– season 3 of Starstruck. This charming and hilarious 2021 series on Max is about Jessie who hooks up with Tom, whom she later finds out is a famous movie star. Jessie’s life is a mess, and watching her fumble though life and inadvertently get involved with a very famous person hit all the right notes for me. I’m really excited to see more of Jessie and Tom.

What We Ate: (So far in September – we haven’t been great about doing an organized meal planning and grocery trip; some nights I’ve had to open the pantry and freezer and be creative. Luckily, we keep a well stocked pantry and I prioritize buying vegetables)

Tuesday: Pasta with broiled tomatoes (using up some of the last of the summer tomatoes from the Garden) from Dinner Illustratedd.

Wednesday: Smoked Salmon snack dinner – crackers, spreads, fruit, cut up crudite.

Thursday: Taco Salad. Improvised by throwing together lettuce, black beans, cut up tomatoes, a chipotle dressing, avocado and tortilla chips. This was one of those pantry meals that tasted better than it had any business tasting for the degree to which it was thrown together from whatever was in the house.

Friday: Pizza and Billy Elliott. This movie, about an 11 year old boy who wants to be a ballet dancer, set against the backdrop of the 1984 coal mine strike in Northern England came out in 200o. I remember it being hugely praised, but I had never seen it before, so I borrowed it from the library when it was my turn to pick the family movie night movie. What a lovely movie! It was a lot sadder than I expected, but the characters, especially the father really stayed with me. There might have been some tears along the way. It’s so funny how one watches movies differently as one gets older – I think if I had seen it in 2000, I would have been really focused on Billy’s journey, but 45 year old me really saw this as a movie about a father wanting the best for his kid.

Saturday: Salmon, roasted with potatoes and zucchini. Another dinner pulled off without forethought. One of the things I love salmon is that you can roast it from frozen – I can pull it out of the freezer and have a fancy-ish feeling dinner in 30 minutes. This meal was also a minor triumph because those potatoes had been sitting in the fridge for who knows how long and I’m so excited that I finally used them up.

Sunday: Meatballs and pasta. The Husband made dinner as I had gone to a music festival with a friend. I had food truck Vietnamese which was very tasty. I guess the owners fof the food truck are opening a restaurant three blocks from my work and I am veeeerrrry excited.

Monday: Eggplant noodle salad from the Greens Cookbook. I love this salad – roasted eggplant and blanched broccoli marinated in soy sauce, garlic, sesame oil and vinegar, eaten with noodles. (the original recipe calls for snow peas and bean sprouts, but I had broccoli and I don’t buy bean sprouts because they always go slimy before I can use them up.) This recipe is the reason that I keep the Greens Cookbook on the shelf. Vegan. Oh wait – I used honey instead of sugarin the recipe. So not vegan, but could be.

Tuesday: Corn and egg drop soup from Vegetarian Chinese Soul Food. This is a big hit with the family. I made a broth from ginger, celery, and jujube and it really gave it a special “my Mom’s kitchen” flavour.

Wednesday: Sheet pan gnocchi – one of my favorite quick pantry meals. This recipe was great for using up the last of the tomatoes from the Husband’s garden. Vegan.

Thursday: Chicken taco wraps. I had to work, so the Husband cooked.

Friday: Pizza and movie night. Dungeons and Dragons. Very entertaining movie, though completely formulaic movie based on the role playing game – I could see each act/beat play out predictably. But still, it was a good time. The 11 year old made a comment that she was really excited to see so many strong female characters. On the pizza front – the Husband made a Mexican inspired pizza by putting the chicken and pickled onions from the night before along with some corn and cheddar cheese on a pizza and it was amazing.

Saturday: We went out to eat at the local Japanese Hibachi and Buffet. We had promised the 11 year old that we would take her in 2019 and then there was a pandemic. So we are finally honoring the promise. So. Much. Food.

Sunday: leftovers/ fend for yourself.

Monday: The Husband made dumplings and green beans. I was working that evening. I think I ate leftover salmon on salad greens topped with kimchi.

Tuesday: The Husband took the kids out to dinner with a friend. I had leftover salmon on greens with kimchi again. I swear – kimchi is my “any meal” food.

Wednesday: Pad Thai Cabbage Salad from Hetty McKinnon’s To Asia with Love cook book and salt and pepper tofu. A pad thai dressing over rice noodles, shredded cabbage and kale topped with peanuts. The tofu is just pan fried and sprinkled with white pepper and salt. Vegan.

Thursday: Chicken rice soup in the Instant pot . I had meant to make spaghetti and meatballs in the IP since I wasn’t going to be home that evening, but I couldn’t find the meatballs. So I improvised – frozen chicken breast, carrots, celery, onions, a can of diced tomatoes, chicken broth and some frozen leftover rice throw it all in the Instant Pot with some salt, pepper, rosemary, and thyme. It turned out really well. Also I got to use up the celery languishing in the fridge. yay.

Weekly recap + what we ate: Back to School and Labor Day Weekend 2023

A couple years ago, our school district switched the first day of school from after Labor Day start to before Labor day, and I am not a fan. So much momentum and excitement to get back into a routine with kids back onto the school bus, and then it all gets derailed by the last long weekend of the summer. Labor Day weekend is supposed to feel like the last hurrah of summer, but instead it kind of feels like we can’t have too much fun because we are now in school and the routines must be kept. (not that we really did that…) The kids at the bus stop this morning were definitely very low energy. Though that might be the heat.

So last week – First day of school. This is the only picture I got of all the kids:

The 11 year old was in a low level amount of panic and not wanting to take the picture because she wanted to get to school. I get that – she leaves the house at 7:30am, a time at which the other two kids are still in sleepy shinegans mode. This is her face saying, “Fine. We will take this stupid picture, but I don’t want to be late.” She hates being late. The Husband walked her to school that first day. In subsequent days, I’ve walked her to the main road and made sure she gets across safely. Once she’s across, the traffic through the neighborhood is slower and there are sidewalks and other kids that she can walk with. I’m not at all happy with the speed at which cars come down this main road, and with the lack of stopping for people in the crosswalk. The Husband says we can can request traffic monitoring from the County to see if there is anything else that can be done to encourage traffic slow down and stop for pedestrians. We live by the hospital, so I always tell myself that maybe there is a person in labor in that car and to try not to judge. But it still pisses me off. And I do judge. I don’t get Mama Bear about many things, but not stopping for people in a crosswalk is one of them.

The six year old started first grade. The bus has been a source of drama. The first day, another mom at pick up got a call that her kindergartener did not get on the bus and was still at school. She went off in a rage to pick her child up. I guess I’m just glad that the kid didn’t actually get on the wrong bus. That would have been more complicated. Every September, I think about how logistically challenging it must be to get all those kids dismissed to the right bus, or car, or parent, and I’m amazed that it gets done. One child out of 200 sitting at school seems kind of not bad.

The three year old started a new classroom as well – so new classes for everyone! I was a little surprised that they moved her – this would be her third classroom in less than a year. But she is a September birthday, so I guess it’s not a bad idea to move her to the pre-K class. We are contemplating trying to get her into kindergarten next year – one year ahead of schedule. Mainly because we are tired of paying for childcare, but also I think she could be ready. She has a lot of spunk and independence but also is really good at following directions and interacting with people. There is a testing process that we have to go through in order to try to get her into school early, so that’s one of my fall projects is to figure that out. I know she is almost 4, but in my mind she is still 3, and the thought of my baby going to kindergarten… I’m not sure I’m ready for that.

First Day of School Sweetfrog tradition.

Labor Day Weekend was jam packed. The Husband was out of town – he went to Minneapolis with some friends. I guess the Minnesota State Fair has always been on someone’s bucket list, and they decided to go. The Husband had lived in Minneapolis right out of college so I think he was happy to go back for a visit. Which is all to say, I had a three day weekend at home with the kids. I usually like to have a mix of “to do” activities and “for fun” activities on long weekends, but solo parenting, I decided to let the “to do” slide and we did a lot of “for fun” things. I think when I have the kids by myself, I try to spend as much time out of the house as possible. I know they aren’t at an age where they will let me just plow through a house project (see my last post on no flow in parenting….). I suppose if I just handed them screens they would leave me alone, but I didn’t really want to spend the whole weekend locked in screen battles which usually arise when they have too much screentime – so I tried to be a little purposeful about the screens.

Friday we had a chill evening at home. I had thought about going to the music concert at the golf course, but I didn’t want to schlep everyone down there. Plus I knew Saturday was going to be a big day, so I wanted to have a low key Friday night. We had dinner, cleaned up, and then I promised that they could watch something. They chose Superstore, so we watched two episodes of that, then we headed for bed. As they were getting into bed, though, I realized I hadn’t thought through what they were going to wear for our trip to the Renaissance Festival the next day, so we stayed up for another hour or so trying on bits and bobs and things to cobble out costumes.

I always think I don’t need to have the kids in garb for the Ren Faire, but then I always change my mind at the last minute. Dressing up is so much fu, why wouldn’t we want to do it? This is what we came up with. Not bad for thrown together at 10pm the night before.

The 3 year old is wearing:
– a puffy white shirt that I pulled out of the Goodwill bag – it used to belong to the 11 year old, but she had outgrown it and it was a little more crop top than I originally thought so I wasn’t going to keep it as a hand me down.
-a pink party dress that my friend handed down to us. I feel a little bit bad because it’s a really nice flower girl dress and it got pretty trashed at the Ren Faire. But… it had been sitting in our closet for a couple years and I don’t think anyone ever wore it, so I figured at least this way, it got some use.
-a headband I had made for the 11 year old three years ago when she went as Moana for Hallowe’en
-purple fairy wings that we had bought at last year’s Ren Faire.

The six year old is wearing:
-a white blouse of mine from Uniqlo that I bought a couple years ago, but have worn maybe twice. I liked that it was a nice light fabric and a flowy cut, but let’s be honest, I don’t have a job where I wear button up shirts very much.
-A red faux silk scarf of mine, wrapped around his waist and tied
– a black vest made out out an old black shell of mine that no longer fit and which I pulled out of the Goodwill donation bag. I cut the shell down the front to make a vest, and then stitched the boat neckline to make the pointy/cap shoulders.
-his own grey shorts.

The 11 year old is wearing:
-An old skirt of mine that is super twirly and I love, but which I don’t wear anymore because I have little use for clothes without pockets theses days.
-A yellow peasant-y shirt from Uniqlo that I originally bought for myself, but which is a little short for my middle-age/post-3 kids belly, so the 11 year old now wears it.
-And a length of cut up black t-shirt as a sash
So she did not actually end up going to the Ren Faire in costume because we couldn’t get the sash to stay up quite right, but it was fun to create a look. I think next year I should think ahead and get her a costume cincher or corset. I think I could probably make some kind of cincher pretty easily.

Saturday we pretty much spent all day at the Ren Faire. (The official title is the Maryland Renaissance Festival, but I’ve always just called it the Ren Faire.) We left the house at 10:15am and did not get home until 7:30pm. It was a hot hot day, but I had looked at the weather and Saturday was the coolest day of the holiday weekend – only 84 vs. 91 the other two days – so that’s why we picked Saturday to go. We were able to stay in mostly shady spots and by the time we left it had cooled of significantly. And to be honest, I think once we accepted the heat, we barely noticed how much we sweltered. I was amazed at the people who came in head to toe leather garb. That is dedication. Also they looked pretty awesome.

It took a few hours to feel like we were having a good time – I always find the first few hours of the Ren Faire overwhelming with so many choices to be made particularly since a lot of the show are playing simultaneously on different stages. Do we see the juggling ro the acrobats? The Musicians or the magician? But once I accepted that we can’t see it all and leaned into seeing what we could while making time for quiet moments to sit and savor the atmosphere, I started having a great time. (It’s very reminiscent of Oliver Burkeman’s theory that once you accept that you can’t do it all, you start to enjoy what you can do even more.) We saw some shows, listened to some music (bagpipes!), ate food on a stick, played some games, saw the jousting. Jousting was something which I had never in all my years of Ren Faires never actually made it too so this year I was determined to go and we did! Twice! We people watched – which is one of my favorite things to do because there is some pretty entertaining garb going on, from the authentic to the fantastic. It was crowded but not suffocatingly crowded and everyone just seemed happy to be there. At the end of the day we were sweaty and dusty and covered with food stains. But, as a lady told us last year, “I can always tell which kids’ parents let them have the most fun here – they are the dirtiest ones.”

The three year old was asleep before we made it out of the parking lot – I carried her right into the house and put her in bed, wiggling her out of her stained and dirty dress. The other kids were not far behind. I spend the rest of the evening scrolling and cleaning the kitchen before heading to bed myself.

Saturday morning I woke up to the three year old asking me why I was still asleep, after all the clock said “6”. The Husband is the early riser. I am not. So I managed to let the kids amuse themselves until about 7am, when I got out of bed. I decided that we would make waffles for breakfast, and a double batch so that we could have some for breakfast the upcoming week. Our standard is the buttermilk waffle recipe from the King Arthur Flour cookbook, but I subbed in a cup of buckwheat flour for the all purpose flour. I had had this bag of buckwheat flour in the pantry for a while and thought this was a good time to use it. I couldn’t actually tell the difference in taste – maybe a little “nuttier”? They were not as light as waffles made with just AP flour. The 11 year old helped make the waffles and she made some with sprinkles and some with raspberries and blueberries.

Around 11:00am I packed a picnic lunch and we headed out of the day’s adventure – the Labor Day Art Show and Social Dance Showcase at Glen Echo Park. Glen Echo Park is special to us because it was there are a contradance that the Husband and I met. Glen Echo was once an amusement park and people could take the trolly from DC there, but these days it’s the home to a variety of artists and cultural groups. The kids’ summer theatre camp was here. There are a couple dance venues, a playground, and a small aquarium. There is also a carousel that you can ride – $2 for a single ride, or $5 for a wristband to ride all day. That $5 wristband is probably one of the best deals ever.

Glen Echo is one of my favorite places to take the kids. They played on the playground, rode the carousel, then we went to the Social Dance showcase – it’s an all weekend event where the variety of social dance organizations had a free dance – mostly with live music! – so people could come check out what the dances were like. We went for to the Family Dance, which I guess they now call barn dance. The Family Dance is run by the same organization that does the contra dance. It’s so strange to think that the Husband and I used to go contra dancing two or three times a month and now we haven’t been in maybe six or seven years. There were kids, then COVID. How hard COVID must have been for the dance community! The people at contra dances are such kind, smart people who strive for connection – why else would you be drawn to social dancing? To think that suddenly people had to stop dancing in groups, stop gathering to hear live music and move together…

When I walked into the dance with the three kids, it was just like I remembered it. . There was the same guy working the sound board, the same lady calling the dances. So many faces were the same, just seven years older. Though there was one gentleman, an older guy with a snowy beard, who looked exactly the same as I remembered. A few people recognized me, which is surprising because the Husband was the one who was well known back when we were coming – he had been doing it for years before I even got started. One guy said, as we passed each other in line, “I haven’t seen you in a while.”

“In about six years,” I said, gesturing to the six year old.

“You let a little thing like that keep you guys from dancing?” he said as he and his partner danced to the next couple.

Now to be perfectly honest, none of the kids wanted to dance. This was purely something that I wanted to do that I brought the kids along for. It’s like that line in Kevin Wilson’s Nothing to See Here – “Maybe raising children was just giving them the things you loved most in the world and hoping that they loved them too.” I had to bribe them to dance; I told them that if they each did two dances we would go get ice cream afterwards.

So they all agreed and each did two dances with me. The 11 year old was most reluctant, but I saw a smile or two eventually. “That was funner than I thought it would be,” she told me afterwards. The three year old required a lot of guiding on the dance floor, but she seemed to get it – although she didn’t quite grasp the do-si-do and just stood there are I orbited her. The six year old actually ended up doing a contra dance with me. He had only done one dance by the time the family dance was over and the contradance was the next session, so we stayed and he did the first contra, which was not very difficult and he actually did very well and danced the whole dance. Afterwards he said that he liked it, but that it “was a little much.” It was so much fun to be dancing, to remember what it’s like to dance to live music and move in counts of 4 and 8, and how smoothly things can flow. (Dancing must be one of my flow activities!).

After the one contradance with the six year old, I really wanted to stay for more, but decided not to push my luck that the kids would be willing, so we popped in to the art show – it’s a showing of art from artists and students at the various studios at Glen Echo, some pieces which were for sale. The kids got a little squirrely, so the 11 year old took the 3 year old back to the playground while I took another look around with the 6 year old. Then we took one more ride on the carousel and headed out.

On the way out, we stopped to peruse the pottery that was for sale by the Glen Echo Potters. Periodically they have a “seconds” sale where they sell pieces by weight, but this was the regular sale. I have a weakness for pottery and we walked away with a couple things –

This small mug – because I have two small mugs, bought back when I thought we were just going to have two kids. But of course we had a third kid, which makes hot chocolate time difficult.

This sponge holder. I love beautiful and functional things.

And this soap dispenser. Which I picked up and put back so many times because it is so beautiful, but also much more money than I should pay for a soap dispenser. In the end, I decided to splurge and we brought it home.

We then went for the promised ice cream, at the little shop near home. They were out of many flavors – not quite sure what was up with that, so we ended up having banana (three year old), peach (six year old), pumpkin (for the 11 year old) and passionfruit sorbet (for me.) Aside from the passionfruit, they aren’t flavors that we had tried before. The pumpkin was my favorite -it tasted like Thanksgiving! While we were eating our ice cream we decided to order Bahn Mi sandwiches for dinner since the prospect of cooking seemed so daunting.

We picked up our sandwiches and came home. The kids did some picking up and piano practicing and then we ate our sandwiches in front of the tv. We had much debate over what to watch – I wanted to watch some kind of musical. AT first I was going to watch Dear Evan Hansen, but I realized that the kids listening to the soundtrack is one thing – I wasn’t quite ready for them to see the movie yet. Eventually we settled on a movie called Everybody’s Talking About Jamie – a film that came up a couple times in a reddit post for best movie musicals. It’s a movie loosely based on the true story of a gay teenager who dreams of becoming a drag queen. It was a sweet movie – the music wasn’t particularly memorable or catchy, but the dancing was fun and I enjoyed the performances.

Proud Mom moments- the three year old folded the kitchen towels as part of her chores! I don’t have a favorite child, but I do have favorite child moments and this is might be one of them…

After the movie, we watched some trailers, then I sent the two older kids to bed because the three year old had fallen asleep on me. It had been many an age since I had been stuck under a sleeping baby, so it was a sweet, if inconvenient moment. Eventually, with some tips from the Husband via text (he gets trapped under the sleeping three year old a lot when I work evenings…) I got her to bed. then I went and cleaned the kitchen that was still in its’ post-waffle decimated state from the morning.

Labor Day Monday started off much like the day before, only this time with two kids in my bed. Eventually they realized I wasn’t goin to get up, so they took themselves off for other mischief. I have no idea what was going on while I slept, but when I finally got out of bed, the bench that had been at the foot of the bed had been dragged askew and there were papers everywhere. Oh well. We had breakfast and biked/scootered down to meet a friend at a park. It was so so hot, but our park has lots of shade so it wasn’t so bad as long as we stayed out of the sun. We took the scooters on a ride down the road since it is closed to car traffic on weekends and holidays.

We came home and had lunch. Freezer and snack lunch, meaning crackers and cheese and whatever I could find in the freezer, which turned out to be frozen edamame and friend ravioli. The fired ravioli was new to me, but we have friends in St. Louis who have told us how popular it is there, so when I found some at the grocery store last month, I got some to try. It’s basically ravioli with a crunchy breaded filling. I cooked it in the toaster oven and it was actually not bad. It doesn’t seem too healthy, but I think it is a perfectly nice sometimes snack.

After lunch, because it was the last day our pool would be open for the summer, we went to the pool for the afternoon. Even though I’d been to the pools with the little kids at last once a week this summer, the 11 year old hadn’t really come with us at all. (The one time she came, she forgot her bathing suit!). I’m glad she came and participated this time – the diving board was open, which it hadn’t been at all last year, and she loves jumping off the diving board. She later confessed to me that she felt bad about going to the pool because she didn’t join swim team this year and didn’t want to run into any swim team people. I felt so sad that this was what she was hung up on! It just goes to show how we can get into our own heads sometimes with a really false narrative. Anyhow, it was lovely to spend the 90+ degree day at the pool. Afterwards, we came home, ate some Dilly Bars and went to pick up the Husband from the airport.

One the way home we stopped for Indian food, where I had this really awkward exchange:
Waiter: Everything okay?
Me: Yes, but our butter chicken didn’t come.
Waiter, pointing at a dish: That’s the butter chicken.
Me (feeling awkward at not knowing the difference): Oh! I thought that was the chicken makhani.
Waiter: Chicken makhani and butter chicken, they are are the same thing.

Mind blown. And I felt like an idiot. Although, why did they let us order both a butter chicken and and chicken makhani??????

So we got home, put the kids to bed (eventually) and that was the end of our three day weekend. The house looked like a disaster, but I guess that is to be expected when we were home or out having fun all weekend.

And the Husband brought this home with mhim from Minnesota:

Grateful For:
-A smooth first week of school and everyone getting to and from school safely.

-The bag of peach seconds – made into a galette. The whole thing made so much easier because past me made a double batch of pie crust and froze it for future me.

The recipe I used has the galette baked in a frying pan, which I thought was a pretty good idea.

-Music with the kids. We don’t do it a lot but every so often I’ll sit down with the kids at the piano and we’ll sing songs. I don’t play very well, but I can bang out chords enough for us to sing. I discovered that there are lots of easy piano e-books available on Hoopla with our library card. I also recently discovered YouTube karaoke videos which we love doing too. Belting out tunes with the kids is such a fun way to pass 20 or 39 minutes in the evening. Last week, I also showed my kids my hidden talent for playing the spoons. Okay I’m actually pretty terrible at it, but it is a lot of fun. I love that the kids love making music too.

-A long weekend filled with fun adventures.

-Shady roadways, closed to car traffic, giving us a long way to roll

-Pourable mason jar lids. I’ve been very much into making my own fancy drinks this summer. My chai concentrate goes into a large jar, but the lemonade base goes into a mason jar. I’ve also taken advantage of our bounty of basil and made some basil simple syrup and then making basil lemonade. These mason jar lids made storing a pouring the concoctions so easy. I had originally gotten them when I was pumping and storing breastmilk in mason jars because the lids were great for pouring the milk cleanly into bottles. I love that they continue to be useful.

lemonade base on the left. Matcha chia pudding on the right

-Time to run. Now the kids are back in school, I’ve been running three times a week after drop off. I only manage a mile or two and then a very long walk back to the car, and it’s been great for clearing my head, listening to audio books and podcasts.

-Beautiful dusk skies. I love skies – the infinite variety of colours and cloud formations. I’ve never looked at a sky but thought breathlessly, “What an expanse of beauty.”

Looking Forward to:
-Kids activities starting up again. I’m eager to see what the routine will be like and to see where the spaces in our weekends will be. Currently the oldest is doing basketball (1-2 times a week), piano lessons (once a week + practicing), and swim clinic (once a week) and religious ed classes (once a week.) . I think she’s also going to do the school play too if she can get on the crew or cast. The six year old is doing soccer (twice a week, but only for eight weeks) , piano (once a week + practicing) and skating (once week) and religious ed classes (once a week). The three year old is doing agility classes (once a week) and skating (once a week). It seems like a lot to places to be, but it also seems like there is so much more out there that they can learn and do. The six year old wants to learn how to sew – there is a pace locally that has sewing classes, but you have to be 7, so maybe next spring.

-Using our new soap dispenser. I’m so excited to have such a pretty thing as part of my every day mundane experience.

-Billy Elliott, the movie. I have never seen this movie, but I heard it’s a great family film, so I put it on hold from the library and it just came in, so I think we will watch it for movie night. I’m trying to find more live action movies to watch for movie night. Cartoons are great and very well done, but sometimes I want to see real people. Suggestions welcome!

What We Ate:

Monday: Eggplant curry – I had bought some Japanese eggplant at the local produce market and had a can of coconut milk to use up, so I made a simple curry with eggplant and chickpeas. Vegan.

Tuesday: Cornflake chicken, corn and bagged Caesar salad. the 11 year old wanted to cook dinner, so this is what she made – the recipe is from the America’s Test Kitchen Young Chef’s cookbook.

Wednesday: Snack dinner and smoked salmon and green beans. Cheese and crackers and the like.

Thursday: Zucchini Boats.

Friday: Tomato and kale Pasta, recipe from New York Times. We have a bunch of tomatoes to eat from the garden, so we’ve been having some variation of tomatoes and pasta at least once a week. This recipe is cool because it’s pan deal – you cook the pasta, tomatoes together in one pan with a bit of water and it makes a nice sauce as everything cooks down. I also threw in some corn leftover from corflak chickn night. Vegan (we didn’t use the cheese)

Saturday: We just snacked all day at the Ren Faire.

Sunday: Bahn mi and Everybody’s Talking about Jamie

Monday: Indian Food, eating out.

Weekly Recap + what we ate: No flow state

This past week has felt like a disjointed mess. Errands. Play dates. Life. Laundry. Dishes.

Everything just felt fraught, everyone was grumpy. Or maybe just me. Then in the middle of the week, it hit me: I was feeling so off because I wasn’t in a place to have any sense of flow in my life – there is no flow in parenting. Flow. That state of total occupation where time seems to melt away. When an activity is just challenging enough to demand total attention and focus. Much ink has been spilt lately on how flow is essential to well being. When I took the Yale Happiness Course (free online – I found it very insightful and tweaked some life habits after taking this course.), flow was cited as important to achieving well being and reducing stress. When you’re in a flow state, you’re in the zone, totally present with a sense of purpose, which makes for a really enjoyable experience.

I think about activities when I find that sense of flow:

-In the Kitchen. Cooking and baking definitely put me into a flow state – the mixing and combining and seeing yummy things manifest.

-timing scores. At work, one of our jobs is to listen to the opera with a stopwatch and mark every 15 seconds in our score. It helps later on to figure out how much time there is between two moments in the show – say, a singer exiting and re-entering, or if we have live flame onstage we can tell the fire marshal how long the torch will be lit, that kind of thing. Timing the score is one of those moment of flow because I have to really concentrate to follow the music and get the marks in the right place. We all know not to bother someone when they are timing a score. And at the same time, I love it because I get to listen to the music and music is pretty awesome.

-mending. Part of it is I’m not very good at mending, so I have to concentrate very hard on it and I find it a completely absorbing activity, and it’s also really satisfying when it is done to know that I saved a piece of clothing for a few more wears.

-Writing here on the blog. I am a very slow writer, also it doesn’t come easily to me. Or maybe I have a lot to say, and like finding ways of getting words out. When I get a chunk of uninterrupted time to write, the time can fly and I’m usually really happy with the outcome.

But even aside from those “fun flows” I get a certain satisfied sense of flow in being able to just get things done. Like bang out all the “internet errand” (bills, registrations, forms, etc.) in one go, or tidying a room, or organizing a closet. I actually think I get a huge sense of flow from cleaning the kitchen late at night after the kids go go bed.

Which all brings me to my realization: There is no flow in parenting. With the kids at home, there was no chance to get through something uninterrupted, no chance to immerse myself, lose track of time. Someone was always hungry, or needed help with something, or complaining about a sibling. And even when the house was quiet – that in itself also disrupts flow because something in my brain would tick and say, “It’s too quiet, what are the kids up to????” I’d sit down for two minutes to get a task done, or roll out my yoga mat to do ten minutes of yoga… and suddenly footsteps, a knock on my door, a small hand tugging on my arm, a voice in my ear, then my train of thought and sense of purpose is shattered. If flow is about uninterrupted immersion, then yeah… there was not flow during daytime hours last week.

The other thing I found interesting in reading up about flow this week, is that researchers say flow is achieved when peak skill level combines with peak challenge level. So if you don’t feel challenged at something you’re not at all skilled at, you’re going to feel apathetic about it. I like the range of states on the chart below:

from this website, but also it features in Laurie Santos’ talks.

And here, I realized, is another reason I find no flow in parenting – Parenting, for me is a high challenge situation for which I have low skills. Empathy and understanding and doing the right thing and having the perfect response – those come neither naturally or easily for me. So there I am right in the “Anxiety” corner of the chart, though I probably hang out more in the “worry” segment. (I also feel this way about work sometimes. ) So not only does parenting disrupt any flow I may have when I undertake an activity, it also does not provide any kind of venue for intrinsic flow either.

I don’t know if I can spin that into a positive – something about savoring my children while I can despite the challenge? Or if I should just live with the expectation that when the kids are home life will feel abrupt and disjointed and fractured and at sea. After all reasonable expectations are also a component to well being. I think it’s perhaps all of it – setting boundaries with the kids, managing my own work load when they are home so that the tasks can be interrupted, and also leaning into those interruptions. That all sounds very idealistic. Well the kids are all back in school as I write this, so hopefully in the hours between 9:30a and 4:00pm, I can regain some sense of the flow that I was missing the past few weeks.

Speaking of being interrupted, I read this article last week about the importance of curiosity and how we can foster curiosity in ourselves and in children and it really struck a nerve with me. This paragraph:

Children also have to feel that they are free to express their curiosity. Adults need to ‘create environments where children know that it’s safe to ask questions, where there are opportunities to explore, where it’s OK to be wrong and to express uncertainty,’ Bonawitz says. In one high-school classroom that Engel observed, a ninth-grader raised her hand to ask if there had ever been places in the world where no one made art. ‘The teacher stopped her mid-sentence with, “Zoe, no questions now, please; it’s time for learning”,’ Engel recounted.

I think I needed this reminder as I felt myself growing impatient with the constant questions from the 6 year old. He’s very into asking the meaning of words these days, and when I’m trying to achieve a flow state, the constant interruptions for word definitions was so irksome. He’s not old enough for a dictionary yet, but even still, another thing the article points out is that research shows that children display more curiosity if the grown ups around them also engage with a curious mind. So maybe instead of just impatiently rattling off a definition to the six year old, we can get out the dictionary together. Time seems like a precious commodity and I definitely feel myself torn between doing my own thing/encouraging independence vs. engaging with my children. It’s a balance – for everyone’s sake. Constantly responding to never-ending demands certainly taps me out, but I do want to respond to my children in a way that will help them grow and learn and, yes, be curious.

Snapshots of the week:
– The 11 year old had her mini day at middle school. After all my dilemmas about how she should get to school, she ended up just walking. I followed her to school on her mini day, ten steps behind because I had the two little kids behind me. I was really proud of how she looked at her watch before she set out (she’s wearing a watch!!!), and then took note of how long it took her to get to school. It seemed a very mature thing to do. There a lot of kids who walk, so once she crosses the busy road into the next neighborhood, she’ll have lots of walking buddies. I love seeing how she is thriving with the added independence of middle school.

-We went to the 6 year old’s sneak peek at his classroom. His teacher has such boundless enthusiasm, and I’m excited for his school year.

– We went to the local botanical gardens with some friends and their kids. We saw turtles and geese. The 11 year old took over my camera and took a bajillion pictures of all the kids in various locations. It was like a fun photo shoot.

-In an attempt to curb middle of the night visits from the three year old, we’ve given her an alarm clock and told her not to come into our room until the first number is 5 or 6. We are having various degrees of success. Sometimes it works really well. Sometimes she comes when the clock says, 2:05, saying that there is a 5 and therefore it is time to get into mom and dad’s bed. There was the one time at 9:22 pm when she got out of bed, holding the clock upside down claiming that there was a 5 and she should not have to stay in bed anymore. Either she’s still figuring it out, or she’s already figured it out, crafty girl.

-Speaking of time – The kids got into my iPad and set an an alarm:

Every day at 8am. It’s good to have the reminder.

-We went to Longwood Gardens on the Sunday before school started. We hadn’t been all summer and the Husband wanted to go, so we bundled into the car, listening to How To Train Your Dragon on the way up and back. We haven’t been to Longwood Gardens in the summer in a while and I loved seeing all the colors of the blooming flowers.

One of the best parts of Longwood for me is always the vegetable gardens. They grow so many varieties of vegetables, and I always love seeing how vegetables look as they are growing, before they get plucked and delivered to the grocery store. My favorite thing this year was the rows and rows of basil, growing so tall . The smell of it all, sun soaked and fragrant, was just pure summer.

-It took me a while to find PEACE:

Grateful for:
-Siblings. I love that my kids (mostly) get along. They play together. They have the oddest conversations. They hold hands when they walk. They read to each other. They collude against the parents. They encourage each other. Particularly the oldest – she is always encouraging the little ones and can talk them out of a tantrum better than I can. Sure they have moments when they squabble and fight and take each other’s things, but on the whole, the love they have for each other shines so bright. I know you can’t predict how siblings turn out, so I hope they continue to be close as they get older.

-Public school. As I was taking the kids to their various pre-first day activities, I saw all the kids streaming to school and I thought how lucky we are to have schools were kids can go to learn. The six year old is in a French Immersion program that costs us nothing but our taxes. The 11 year old is taking a theatre class as part of the regular curriculum. And I felt grateful not just that my kids could go to school, but that any kid in our county could go to school. I borrowed a picture book from the library last week about two girls who couldn’t go to school because of the hukuo system in China. It’s a system where you have to register your residency in order to, among other things, receive services. Once registered, it is very hard to change so if you move from the rural area to the urban area, your kids aren’t guaranteed a place in the school of your new location. That’s an oversimplification, but the idea that a child would not be able to go to school makes me so sad.

-Public transportation. Another good use of my tax dollars. One day last week, we had another 6 year old over for a play date and we decided to take the bus to the library. It felt so much easier than trying to get the extra booster seat out. I just learned that the 11 year old and the 6 year old can get a bus pass to ride the county bus for free! I’m going to have to put that on my list of things to look into.

Looking forward to:
– September. A New Month! I’ve been thinking of habits and routines that I want to try to cultivate.

– Maryland Renaissance Festival! The Husband is going out of town this weekend – he’s going ot the Minnesota State Fiar with a bunch of friends. I guess it’s a bucket list trip for some of them. So a three day weekend with the kids for me. The Husband does not care for the Renaissance Festival, so I usually take the kids without him. For some reason or other he’s often away labor day weekend. Given the number of trips he’s taken with the kids solo this summer, I feel like he more than deserves a trip with his friends.

-Cooler weather. We’ve had a spate of weather in the low 80s and breezy and it’s been lovely. I’m not ready for autumn life happenings (The Hallowe’en stuff is out at Costco already!!) , but I sure am ready for autumn weather.

What We Ate:

Monday: Pasta with tomato and anchovy sauce. Tomatoes from the Husband’s garden. From the cookbook “Cook What You Have” about easy pantry meals.

Tuesday: Egg Curry. I heard about this on the podcast Didn’t I Just Feed you? I would not have thought of making a curry with hard boiled eggs, but this was really tasty and will go into our rotation. The Husband said, “I knew this was going to be good – it’s two of my favorite things: eggs and curry!”

Wednesday: Tomato Chirashi and tuna sushi bowls. The tomato chirashi bowl was from a Washington Post recipe that calls for marinading tomatoes in soy sauce, mirin, fish sauce so that the tomatoes sort of mimic raw fish. I made brown rice with vinegar and added edamame, cucumbers, carrots, and canned tuna and we topped with nori. It was really satisfying and the kids could pick and choose what they put in their bowl.

Thursday: Corn Dogs and bubble tea. We met up with the Husband after work at a Korean Corndog place in the mall for Happy Hour, which turned out to be not a great food choice, but very tasty.

Friday: Pizza (carry out) and Frozen. It was the 3 year old’s turn ot pick the movie.

Satureday: Pizza (again) at a birthday party.

Sunday: Totellini with sausage and red sauce. Pantry dinner after we got home from Longwood Gardens. I wanted something simple and quick and this was it.