Sometimes I think of all the things that I’ll pass along to my kids – especially all the things that I want to pass along to them but will likely not ever see come to happen. I mean there’s the financial and material, but also I think about the intangible things. Whenever I think of holding on to stuff for my kids, I think of something the Minimalists said to a listener who was having a hard time cleaning out his parents’ house after their death. “You are your parent’s legacy,” they said, “not their stuff.” It’s still hard for me to get rid of things, but these words are a bit of comfort when I do chose to part with something – these bits and things are not me. But also it’s somehow more weighty to think that my legacy is something so much more lasting than stuff.
At any rate, a lot of the times as I think of what I want my little humans to learn from me, I wonder if any of the good things I want to pass along get through to them. Lord knows, the bad things do… the yelling and the petty grievances, and the bad habits – those I see in them in the most cringeworthy ways. But the good stuff? Or maybe I’m not giving them enough good fodder?
This week, while camping with the two little kids, I tried really hard not to be too busy to enjoy being out in the woods and hanging out with these two little creatures. I’m trying to not let the things that occupy my mind take up so much space that I can’t experience the things that I like about being in the tent – the air, the trees, the golden sunsets, the fire, the unplugging (though to be fair, we had plenty of cell signal the whole time so there was period scrolling and texting).
At one point, as I was trying to make dinner, I realized that I was having a good time. I was enjoying the sunshine and the woods and my kids’ antics. I paused and gave the five year old a big hug. “I’m so glad you’re camping with me. This is fun.”
He gave me back a big hug in return. I turned back to continue to make dinner.
Out of the corner of my eye, I see him walk over to his little sister. His pesky little sister that not five minutes ago, was taking his sticks and fighting with him. The little sister who snatches his toys and then laughs in his face at his distress. The little sister who liked putting her feet in her face while they ride in the car. (I really should turn her car seat around…)
He walks over to her, gives her a big hug, and says, “I’m so glad you’re camping with me. This is fun.”
My heart grew a million times. Maybe the good stuff is getting passed down after all. Maybe the good stuff is the stuff that happens when I’m not even trying, but when I’m just simply loving them.
Recently I did two things that I guess I would put in the “frugal” category – I patched some leggings for the ten year old and I took our knives to be sharpened.
The Knives….
I think I last had our knives sharpened maybe five years ago. As knives go, I don’t think we are super fancy. One of our knives is probably about twenty years old. It’s a wood handled Chicago Cutlery 8″ chef’s knife that I bought in Wooster, OH when I was doing summer stock there. It seemed like such a grown up purchase at the time and I’m sure it felt like a lot of money, but in the scheme of knives it’s probably on the cheaper end. Despite that, the knife has been with me through many moves and still is my favorite knife – it’s light and small and fits perfectly in my hand without banging into my wrist. I will admit the blade lists slightly after twenty years, but I’ve learned to adjust. There is something humble and flawed about it that I love.
Our other knife is a Japanese Santoku knife that we bought at a knife shop at a DC market. It is a lovely well balanced knife and feels so solid and dependable in the kitchen. Most times, though, I just reach for the wood handled Chicago Cutlery knife – the Japanese knife often feels too weighty and important for me to be using all the time. Which I know is silly because is there anything more utilitarian than a knife?
Our other knives are a hodge-podge – the serrated bread knife that the Husband brought, which I think might have belonged to his parents, the set of paring knives bought from Bed Bath and Beyond one day in a fit of annoyance at not having any small knives, the small red handled knife that came from my in-laws’ house after they passed…. We don’t really believe in knife sets here, I guess.
One weekend, a notice went out on the neighborhood listserv that the travelling sharpeners would be at the park that Sunday morning. I mean how delightfully old fashioned does that sound? I think we last had our knives sharpened five years ago – the knife shop where we bought our Santoku knife also sharpened knives and they were located near the house of my good friend. So one day while visiting my friend, I brought our knives. The fancy knife shop people kind of looked a little disdainfully at my Chicago Cutlery knife, but they sharpened it any way.
Anyhow, so for five years I haven’t taken the knives to be properly sharpened because there wasn’t a convenient way to do it. When the knives got unbearably dull, I would use the bottom of a mug as a whetstone and get a slightly sharper edge that way. Good in a pinch, but not for the longer term. Well, the Husband always says, “A dull knife is more dangerous than a sharp knife.” and I figured five years was enough time to be in a pinch, so when I heard the mobile knife sharpening people were coming to our local park, I jumped at the chance to take our knives. They also do gardening tools too, so the Husband threw his hedge trimmers into the pile and I also put in my good sewing scissors. We walked over to the park where the sharpeners were set up and while they worked, the kids got to play at the playground. Forty-five minutes later we got back our knives (including the serrated one!) and scissors and hedge trimmers, all newly sharp.
I was really excited to try out the results, and I have to say it was magical. Tomatoes cut smoothly! Melons opened effortlessly! Knives glide through meat as if it were butter! The sharpeners even smoothed out the chip in the Santoku knife where I once tried to open a coconut with the heel of the blade. (don’t recommend that method – the tiny knife chip fell into the coconut and that made for a harrowing attempt to eat the coconut flesh. I probably should have just chucked it, but I do love fresh coconut!)
Afterwards, I was thinking about how I should really make more of an effort to get my knives sharpened regularly. It was one of those things where knives get dull so gradually that I had just learned to acclimate to it until one day, I realize that I can’t slice that tomato. Of course sharpening knives costs money, as any skilled effort should – I think our total bill was around $50. But really, I think part of being frugal is taking care of the things you have so that they can continue to serve you. I know it is oft said that the more expensive thing is cheaper in the long run – buying one good knife that lasts thirty years is cheaper than buying a new knife every five years. When considering a cheaper knife, what is the lesser cost? Certainly a cheap knife is not the lesser cost in the long run if it causes injury and has to be replaced frequently. Yet, a mid-range knife, like my Chicago Cutlery knife, grows in value the longer I use it – sharpening it prolongs its life and increases it’s value. And the value, at least for this particular knife, is not just in how useful it is to me, but also in the memories it holds of all the meals and homes it has helped me make in the past twenty years.
The Leggings….
Leggings seem to always get holes in the knees. They can be the expensive ones or the cheap ones, it doesn’t matter. I suppose that is the reality of active children. When my daughter’s leggings (and honestly my own leggings) develop holes, I usually do one of two things – I cut them off at the knees and make them into bike shorts, or I put them in a pile to be mended. To be honest, this pile is rather aspirational. Apart from two years of Home-Ec when I was in Grade Seven and Eight, I don’t have much formal training with sewing. I have a sewing machine and can sew straight stiches (all those masks I sewed in the first year and a half of the pandemic!), but my hand sewing is very trial and error. Mostly error, and rarely pretty. But I still gather things in hopes of mending them.
Lately, however, I’ve been looking for a project to do while watching tv with the Husband. I didn’t feel like starting another knitting or crochet project and the embroidery kits didn’t really hold my interest. So, inspired by this book on mending that I got from the library, I decided to tackle the leggings. I had a pair of size 2T striped leggings that I knew no one was going to wear anymore – the bottom had been ripped out by a child sliding down a hill at the park – and I cut that up to make a patch. Then I threaded a needle and got to work.
Sometimes I wonder if mending a pair of leggings is truly frugal. It took me almost two hours to patch that pair of leggings. Given that I could run to Target and buy a new pair of leggings for less than $10, the economics of my time vs. my money perhaps doesn’t pan out when I decide to patch the leggings myself. I think, though, there is a bigger picture for me. A pair of leggings, patched with old rags while I sit on the couch watching tv, can be worn again. It keeps those ripped leggings out of the trash for another season, and keeps me from having to get in the car to make a Target run, or having yet another package sent to me. I guess when I look at the bigger picture, and ask what is my time worth, I do feel that small steps towards sustainability and the satisfaction of handwork is something that is indeed worth more than $10 to me.
I was worried that the patch was too homely, that having my daughter wear patched clothes was going to be perceived as “not cool.” After all, wearing patched pants is the exact opposite of having new trendy clothes.
So nervously, the next morning, I showed them to her.
“Here,” I said, “I’ve fixed your leggings so you can wear them again.”
She took the leggings and looked at them, running her fingers over my very uneven stitches. Then she looked at me and said, “Mom… it looks so beautiful!”
This was my first week back at work. Prep week, where we get things ready on our end for rehearsals to start. It was a little bit of a struggle because there were some childcare issues so the Husband and I had to split our time watching the baby for the first three days. Oh my goodness, huge hugs and props to all the working parents who juggled kids at home whole working… it’s all kind of a mess, and continues to be, I know.
I did make it back into the office. My desk was pretty much as I left it 23 months ago, including the above pictured joke pad that one of my colleagues left me. The last time we worked on a show together, we would read a silly joke page after every rehearsal day, one of those things we did so we would remember to laugh at least once a day. The pictures of my kids were still pinned to my cubicle walls, though they were all two years younger, the baby only five months old when we were all sent home from work. My pencils and post-its were where I had left them in March 2020, the binder of the show I never opened sat next to the groundplans for the shows that opened but never finished their run. My hot water kettle, waiting to be filled with water and be set to work burbling hot water for my afternoon tea. It was almost like stepping back and picking things up right where we left them, only we are now all wearing masks and a new sense of fragility and gratitude.
Working in theatre is not a normal 9a-5p job, and over the past months I’ve thought a lot about how I can do better at balancing the inconsistent hours with some consistency in the things that make make me feel human and not like a worker bee. The hours can be long and odd, and there is this notion that people should make sacrifices for their art, but I think that saying art is about humanity is pointless if I’m sacrificing my own humanity to help create it.
I’ve made a list of things that I want to make sure I find time for even when things get busy. – Sleep. I’m a huge revenge bedtime procrastinator. Lately, though, I’m finding that maybe because I’m getting older or maybe because of the rhythm and demands of pandemic life, I really feel it when I only get 4-5 hours of sleep several nights in a row. One night of 4 hours might be okay, but more than that, and I crash hard on the subsequent nights. So yeah, asleep by midnight is my goal. – Time outside. I don’t know that I’ll be able to make the 1000 hours outside goat of 2.75 hours outside every day, but I do want to find at least 30 mins a day to be outside. Hopefully I can still walk the kids to the bus stop and school, so that’s at least 40 mins. But the days when that doesn’t work out, I can take time at lunch. Last week on my lunch break, I sat outside to eat lunch and then took a walk around the block, which I thought worked out well. –Communication with family/ the Husband. I think the person who feels the most pressure from my awkward hours is the Husband who is at home with the kids every single night. A lot of our stress comes from the evening hours being inconsistent – some weeks I’m home two nights a week, some weeks I’m home for dinner, some not…. I want to make sure I communicate with him ahead of time the expectations for that evenings and weekends. Also we need to set time to sit down and look at the calendar so that things don’t fall through the cracks. (hello, upcoming tax season!) And then remembering to call home on my dinner breaks to check in since the Husband is often asleep when I get home from the evening rehearsals. – Meal plan and stock up on healthy snacks. We haven’t been great about meal planning the past few weeks, and I want to be more deliberate about it – particularly meal planning dinner with the Husband so that the burden of dinner doesn’t fall completely on him. Whenever possible, prep dinner before I leave for work so that dinner is simple when he gets home. Also having healthy snacks in the office for when the hours get long. – Exercise – even if it’s 15 minutes of yoga in the morning, I want to have a more consistent plan. I also want to see if I can get a short run (not that I do anything but short runs) in when I have long breaks between rehearsals. –Drink water – I realized last week that because I have to wear a mask all day, I’m not drinking as much water as I normally do. So I just need to remember. Maybe I can make it some kind of automatic behavioral thing… –Making time to journal/write/plan/read. Activities to clear my head and help me keep things in perspective. Sometimes I can lose track of the world happening outside of the rehearsal room or the theatre
So that’s the aspirational plan to stay human.
This episode of the Happiness Lab about anger popped up in my feed Wednesday evening as I was making dinner. Somewhat ironically… I had had a tough ten minutes involving noodles and grocery resentment. The moment resulted in me throwing my favorite kitchen spoon in frustration and anger. And my favorite kitchen spoon broke. It was not a great moment and now my favorite kitchen spoon is irretrievably shattered. Something about the directions on the noodle being only in Japanese and then them turning into a gelatinous clump in the pot and dinner being jeopardized (of course my mind spun and catastrophized) and not being able to go to the store and choose my own noodles and n0 one coming to help me (though I don’t know rationally what anyone could have done to save the clumpy noodles)… anyhow. Not my finest moment of zen and calm, I am somewhat ashamed to say.
And you know what, it all turned out fine. I rinsed the noodles, pulled them apart by hand and they were delicious. I apologized to the Husband for yelling and looked sadly at the broken spoon. The Husband, very sweetly was already trying to find a replacement, but I’ve been trying to find a replacement for ages and have been unsuccessful. And this is actually the second time I’ve smashed a kitchen utensil in anger. So there is that.
Afterwards I was listening to that Happiness episode on anger, and something they said stood out for me – on the podcast, the therapist/expert Faith Harper said that holding in your anger is like pushing down a beach ball under water; eventually it will pop up and hit you in the face. So the trick is being able to take a step back and figure out what your anger is telling you because emotion is your body and brain trying to tell you something. I’m going to sit with that for a while. Because I think often I try to rationalize away my anger, and really the emotion can be more useful if it is accepted than if it is dismissed.
Two quotes from Harper that I really want to remember when I need to be forgiving of myself and of other people:
“You’re not responsible for your first thought. You’re responsible for your second thought and your first behavior.”
“We’re not perfect… I don’t know that we get better so much as we get better at it… Nobody has this down; we are all works in process”
Some hodge-podge bits from the week:
This lost doll at the playground, waiting for her owner. Kind of creepy, kind of whimsical:
It was the Husband’s birthday this past week. He has said he didn’t want a cake, or any celebratory dessert. But I couldn’t just let his birthday go by like that. So I made him a key lime pie. It’s one of his favorite desserts and it’s so super easy and only takes about 45 minutes to make. The ten year old made a slideshow presentation for him where she asked me and her siblings our favorite things about him and then compiled them into slides. It was so super cute and thoughtful and made me laugh.
Birthday slideshow and pie!
I found myself downtown one day last week, and decided to pick up Chinese take-out from this place where we used to eat all the time when we were young urban city dwellers. The kung pao chicken is the Husband’s favorite, so much so that we ordered a tray of it for our rehearsal dinner even though we had moved into the suburbs by then. Much to our surprise, the owner himself drove the food all the way up to us in wintery rush hour traffic.
Anyhow, as I was waiting for our food to be ready, I wandered down to the used bookstore down the block. It’s the kind of place that has carts of books out front for $4/each. I found this book among the piles and it immediately took me back to my childhood:
It’s one of those books put forth by National Geographic in the 80s. We had a copy of this book when I was growing up, and I loved looking at the glossy yet raw pictures of life in the various parts of China. Even though in the book, Taiwan was included as part of China, I never felt any kind of kinship with the Asian faces in the pages; it all seemed so different and exotic. There was something odd, too, about my parents, who have always been staunchly pro-Taiwanese Independence, having a book that celebrated China.
For some reason the first line of the introduction have always stuck with me: “When I was a child my mother warned me, as I dug a large hole in our backyard flower garden, that if I kept on digging I would end up in China.” As a child, this idea was fascinating- digging a hole to emerge in a place so different from where I was… it seemed not like the introduction to a coffee table book, but rather the beginning of an adventure story.
And this week- the first glimpse of Spring. Is it too early? Will they make it? Stay tuned to find out….
hyacinths peeking.
What We Ate:
Saturday: Grilled veggies and pork chops using a bulgogi marinade. There is something really fun about grilling in 30 degree weather. I was always a charcoal grill person, until I got at gas grill and realized how much easier it was.
Sunday: Leftovers.
Monday: Chicken Katsu and Cabbage Salad from Dinner Illustrated
Tuesday: Breakfast Sandwiches
Wednesday: Orange Tofu and Sugar Snap Pea Stir Fry.
Thursday: The family had tortellini and red sauce and salad. When i got home from work I had half a pack of olives, croutons, and the leftover tofu from Wednesday. Eaten standing up in the kitchen while trying to urge the kids to get ready for bed.
Friday: Pizza and Frozen. It was the baby’s turn to pick the movie so we lined up all the animated dvds that we had and let her choose one. I think she picked Frozen because she loves snowmen.
The last week of April – lots of sunny weather and outdoor time. The husband impulsively bought the kids one of those plastic bat and ball sets, and we took it out for a spin over the weekend. The four year old alternated plogging and batting. I sometimes forget to get outside on the weekends, but the weather this week has been too nice to ignore.
As I stare down the barrel of a return to work (yay!), I’m feeling like I want a little less meandering in my life in these next few weeks.
Ever since the nine year old went back to school, we haven’t gotten into a good rhythm. Or rather I mean a productive rhythm. This is our days: drop off nine year old at school/ playground until lunch time/ lunch/ putter and clean up/ pick up nine year old from school/ dinner. I would like that post lunch period to be more focussed. Right now it feels like a never ending slog of cleaning up after the kids punctuated by some reading (to kids and for myself) and some (too much) random scrolling. Ideally this is where some of the preschool curriculum would go, but I find after lunch I don’t have the energy for it. The kids mostly wander around and do random playing between lunch and second school pick up. Maybe instead of trying to go back to implementing the whole curriculum, I could do one organized activity. I think part of it is, now that we are commuting again, I’m losing time I used to use to plan and set up activity. But surely one activity would be plenty.
So here we are, heading into May and summer. I don’t usually articulate goals, but I sat down and wrote down some things that I would to get done before heading back to work: – doctor’s appointments and check ups after I’m fully vaccincated – hair cut, after fully vaccinated. – finish the children’s book I’m writing for my friend Kristen. – Sort out summer camp for the nine year old. – research a pool membership for the summer (might be late for this, but I think there are still options out there. Or we will just go to the county pool. But the nine year old wants to join a swim team, so…) – figure out what to do with my car- repair or replace. – go hiking at least once – organize book club evening with my mom’s group. I like to load up on social activities before I go back to work, because these things are harder to figure out when I am working. – figure out a camping trip with my parents for when they are here. – work on juggling with three balls – blog every day for a week. Thought it might be a fun exercise to have a “week in the life” down for posterity. – fun times with kids before I go back to work. – sleep.
It seems a pretty lengthy list of goals for the month. On top of the daily grinds. Hopefully it will help me focus my time and efforts and scroll less. I seem to average 4-5 hours a day on my phone, which I don’t love.
I’ve been thinking a lot about this article that I read, “Write Better Job Ads” It occurs to me that in many ways, that barriers to inclusion need also to be tackled at the entry level. So in a way, entry level employees should be seen as an investment. When organizations want to hire the “best” or the “most qualified” candidate – often the parameters for that are exclusionary. So perhaps you don’t need to hire the “most qualified” candidate for an entry level position or internship. Because often that candidate gets there through the benefits of systemic privileges. And honestly, the most qualified candidate probably has other options. So maybe the key to inclusive hiring is to cast the net wide and re-define what “best” means. Maybe it’s the person with less experience, but a lot of potential. Maybe it’s the person who brings a different life experience to an organization. This also means that a company needs to be willing to do the work to have these employees. Having someone who fits seamlessly into a company culture – maybe that says more about the company culture than the employee. I’m sure my musings on this matter are somewhat impractical, particularly in competitive fields. But surely in the arts, we can do the work?
Listening: This episode of On Being with writer Katherine May who wrote a book called Wintering: The Power of Rest and Retreat in Difficult Times. It seems like a perfect pandemic book. There were so many thoughtful points in her interview with Krista Tippett. They talked about how we can’t just tell ourselves to “get over” unhappiness and suffering, but rather we need lean into them to really hear what our body and mind are trying to tell us. They talk about the need to slow down and how, as animals hibernate, we too, should have seasons in our life where we pause, reflect, and reassess. The hectic always moving pace of modern life leads us to miss a lot of the things and people around us and what makes us human. It is a gentle and pensive conversation. I have May’s book in my holds at the library and I can’t wait to get to it.
Some wonderful things this week:
My final project from drawing class:
I wanted to explore toys, and the lives they lead. I still struggle with seeing colours for what they truly are, and am surprised when things look better than I think they will. The shading on the baby’s face, for example. I couldn’t get it right, then I remembered that the teacher mentioned using purple for shadows. That did the trick, but it was hard to see that purple was the right choice until it was done. Working in colour is a little scary because it’s hard to fix. I don’t love the background.
I’m a little sad the class is over; it was a wonderfully supportive group of people to share art with.
Grateful for local listservs – We had been driving past this park next to the fire station. It had a play structure shaped like a fire station, and the four year old would always ask if we could go visit it. I couldn’t figure out if it was a public park since there was no parking, and there was no information about it on the County’s parks website. So I asked the listserv. Turns out it is a public park, but one maintained by a different branch of the county. And, in addition to this information, many people sent me other playgrounds with fire engine play structures. The four year old loves fire trucks, so we’ve put these parks on our list to visit this summer.
Fire engine. Not much cover, so best visited n a cloudy day.
Friday there was wind. Lots of wind, so we went to fly a kite. It never flew very high or for very long, but any amount of lift was thrilling. The four year old embraced the “run as fast as you can” method of kite flying.
The baby has discovered pockets. It’s the best things ever.
On our walk a few weeks ago, we came across a puddle full of tadpoles. This week we went back to see if the tadpoles were still there. They were! And fatter than last time. Someone had also put a bucket and a sign by the puddle, urging people to add water to the puddle so that it doesn’t dry up.
What we ate:
Saturday: Sushi take out.
Sunday: Can’t remember….
Monday: Gnocchi and red sauce (Husband cooked!)
Tuesday: Taco Tuesday! Chicken, black beans, rice.
Wednesday: Charred cauliflower pasta from Milk Street’s Tuesday Nights.
Thursday: Lentil Bulgur Salad from Moosewood Cookbook (made with farro because that’s what we had). With the weather warming up, I think pasta/grain salads will be my go to make ahead meal for Thursday nights, rather than soup.
Friday: Pizza (homemade) and Annie, the 2014 version with Jamie Foxx and Quvanzahne Wallis, and some not as good as the original songs.
There is a lot of citrus in the house these days. There are blood oranges, minneolas, clementines, naval oranges – some even sent from my parents in California, tangarines… It’s the season, and in the depths of winter, they make for a sweet-sour juicy treat.
After dinner we usually have fruit. The other day, the nine year old took the oranges into the kitchen, sliced them, and brought them back, all laid out on a plate.
I took one look and clutched my pearls.
She had cut them into half moon wheels. This was not what I was used to.
I can be a little…. inflexible in the kitchen. The Husband tells me I have a lot of food rules.
“You have to cut it into smiles,” I insisted.
The Husband said, “You can’t tell her how to cut an orange.”
“Yes I can. Oranges are cut into wedges. Or else you can’t put them in your mouth and smile orange smiles.”
“Yes, I can!” the nine year old said, and proceeded to put a half wheel between her teeth and pull her lips over the edges. “Theee?” she said. “Orange thmiles!”
I shook my head, “No, no, no! This is not how you cut oranges to eat after dinner.”
The Husband took a patient breath. “How do you cut them? Can you show us?”
So I took another orange and proceeded to cut it in half from the pedical through the core. Then each half, I cut into three wedges for a total of six smiles. Satisfied with having my teachable moment of the day, we finished our fruit and moved on.
But later that week, as I was slicing oranges for lunch, I thought about it. I asked myself, “Why can’t oranges for after dinner be cut into half moons? I mean it certainly is prettier and makes for nice garnish. It surely doesn’t taste differently?”
So I decided to try it. I took an orange and cut it around its equator into slices, the segments radiating from the core like the sun rays. Then I cut those in half. So far so good. As I picked up the half wheel, I realized that cutting ihe orange in half wheels was a whole different eating experience; rather than struggling with stuffing a huge segment of orange in my mouth, I could peel back the rind and pull the orange segments apart, one small triangle at a time. This also proved a much easier way to share the orange slices with the Baby. It wasn’t what I was used to, but it worked rather well for getting food into bite-sized segments. Well then.
Later that day, I went up to my daughter and said, “Honey? I’m sorry. You can slice your orange however you want.”
