Our last weekend in February was delightfully filled by a visit from my high school friend. She arrived on Saturday mid afternoon and was with us until Monday when I drove her to her hotel where she would be staying for her conference. She’s the only friend from high school that I still keep in touch with, and even though we only see each other every couple of years, we always pick up where we left off. She has children a few years older than mine, and she has such a chill approach to parenting that it’s so soothing talking to her about kids and life and how things turn out. She also used to date my brother so there are things that she just gets about me, even when she doesn’t know the details of my life ant any given moment.
Before my friend came in on Saturday, the 12 year old had a voice lesson, and since the voice lesson was closer to the airport than our house, we decided to have a little adventure in the two hours between voice lesson and my friend’s arrival. (The 12 year old had a hang out with a friend, so she didn’t come along). I remembered that the Gardens at Dumbarton Oaks are free during the winter months, and I had always wanted to visit. It was about 15 minutes from where we were, so we drove down to Georgetown, parked our car, stopped for some coffee, and walked down Wisconsin Ave to Dumbarton Oaks.
So funny story – the only reason I know that Dumbarton Oaks exists is because Igor Stravinsky wrote a chamber symphony called Dumbarton Oaks, which was commissioned by Robert and Mildred Bliss, who used to own the estate. The estate is now a research institute, library, museum, and gardens. Ever since I heard the chamber symphony in college, I’ve wanted to visit Dumbarton Oaks. So finally, twenty plus years later, we went. It’s so funny what random bits of information I know because it has a connection to music.
The gardens were quite extensive and there was lots to see, even though it was still pretty dormant. We played our “Find the Rainbow Colors” game. Though we didn’t really find blue because the sky, which is often our default blue, was pretty grey and cloudy. But there were these cool green-ish blue rocks in the pebble garden, so I took a picture of those. And I can never find indigo…
The purple and yellow flowers always remind me of the passage in Braiding Sweetgrass where Robin Wall Kimmerer said she wanted to study botany to know why purple and yellow flowers always look so nice together. Turns out there is a scientific explanation for that – I can’t remember what, to be honest – but it’s always struck me, this idea of wanting to understand beauty.
We wandered the gardens until it was time to go pick up my friend. The rest of the weekend was pretty chill. I loved having a friend visit who didn’t feel the need to be a tourist, so we could hang out and not traipse all over the city. She just tagged along with us on our normal life things and we had great conversations and connections. Looking back, Sunday was a great day – it checked a lot of soul satisfying boxes:
-Connection – hanging out for 48 hours with my friend, including dinner at my favorite hot pot place.
-Exercise – we went skating together while the kids were in lessons. So not super strenuous, but we got our bodies moving for a good two hours.
-Creative – I had to finish my watercolour homework, so in the afternoon, I worked on that while my friend hung out and hemmed her pants. How wonderfully domestic does that sound?
-Outside time – We took the two little kids outside after I was done my homework and watched them while they rode their bikes around the block for an hour. Again, not as active as a hike, but still some quality sunshine and fresh air time.
I think the only box that didn’t get checked was some knocking some big household organization project off my list. But… you can’t do everything and the day overall had a nice leisurely pace. The Husband did do a lot of work in the garden, though, so maybe I can have him check off the “household task” box for us?
March is my last month at a reduced work schedule before I go back into opera mode. I feel like February wasn’t super focused. I was on an 8 hr a week contract at work so I could do some admin and stage management department duties, but I couldn’t get into a good rhythm of when to be at work. I wanted to be available for at least 30-60 mind a day to handle email and tasks, so then the questions became how to spend the other hours a week. I did take the weekends completely off, like didn’t-even-check-email-off, which was really nice. I did periodically have a sense of panic that I was shirking my job responsibilities, but then I had to remind myself that an 8 hour a week contract means I only have to work 8 hours a week. I wasn’t being paid to be constantly available, and there were certainly enough people at work that nothing depended on me alone. I ended up mostly working two three hour days – usually Wednesday and Thursday – and then splitting the other two hours between the other three days, working from home. But even though a three hour day sounds short, it breaks up the entire day in such a way that I felt like unless I was super focused – which I rarely was – I lost a lot of time in commuting and transitioning. I find transitioning between activities is when I loose the most time – it’s when I’m most likely to get distracted, start scrolling and then loose and hour or so. So then little tasks – especially little computer tasks – got dropped because the last thing I wanted to do after being on my computer for 3 hours at the office was to turn on the computer at home and pay the bills and do the kid sign ups, research how to get rid of my car, etc.
This week’s work from watercolor class:
First the homework from last week – the assignment was “sunsets”
Then the lesson was painting poppies. I didn’t love this one – I felt like it was a little un-refined. The lady who sits next to me in class makes such delicate paintings.
Anyhow, February 2024 is now past and we are onto March. I don’t always do a monthly reflection, but I did for February:
February highs:
– Starting water color classes.
-Getting back on my bike.
– Seeing the kids thrive in the activities we had signed them up for. I worried that it was going to be too much, but they truly love what they are doing – except piano, no one really loves to practice, though they say they want to learn to play…
– Hosting Super Bowl Sunday gathering with friends.
– Visit from my high school friend
– joining a women’s Lenten reading group. Having that connection, but also the daily readings, which somehow give me much to ponder even though I’m not Catholic like the others in the group.
-Making baozi. I want more cooking adventures!
-As a family, we made it to a museum, a hike and some gardens in February.
-The wonderful weather. Mostly.
-Watching Galavant with the kids. Only three more episodes to go! What should we watch next???
-The vocal recital that I did titles for. Such a beautiful program, beautifully sung.
-Lunches with the Husband. A good use of my lighter schedule.
February not so highs. (aka lows, but really, life is pretty good, so I don’t feel right calling them “lows” – they’re just life, the tedious, repetitive, papercut stresses of life. Or maybe I need a re-frame. Or more sleep.)
-Tantrums and chore cajoling. Ugh. When will this phase end? Though I ask that and my kids are all at different phases, so…. I guess never? When they move out? Also I realize chore cajoling could also refer to the pep talks I give to myself to stop scrolling and fold the laundry.
-Making little progress on some house chores, losing momentum and focus.
– The first grader and some communication issues with his teacher. Essentially he’s having accidents at school at least once or twice a month, either because his teacher wants him to finish his work first, or the teacher doesn’t realize he’s asking to go. I’m a little stumped by the whole thing. Also frustrated. Also trying to decide if it’s a problem because he doesn’t seem to mind…
-New duties at work that are surprisingly harder than I had thought they would be and not yet knowing how to make things better.
– Not finding/making time to journal and then not remembering or savoring the memories of what I’ve been doing with my days.
-Laundry. So much laundry.
Some aspirations for March:
-TAXES. This is the big one. If I do only one thing in March, it will be to assemble everything for our tax preparer. This is not an aspiration, but a MUST DO!!!!
– Figure out what to do with my car.
-Sort through summer camp sign ups. We registered for some second choice camps, but then first camp choice had slots open up, so I just have to take a minute to look at everything and sort it all out.
-Spring break adventures – getting through them.
-At work – some desk organization. I need to move desks – to the cubicle where the head of the stage management department usually sits, but I’ve been in my desk for over 15 years and I’m partial to it so this is proving psychologically difficult. Kind of like the car. Maybe I don’t need to move desks?
– Organizing a) my sewing corner, and b) the toy room.
– Lunch with my mom’s group.
-maintaining life habits – reading, yoga and exercise, journaling, writing here regularly, making 2 vegan dinners a week.
– sort out my county rec center pass, and actually using it. The County is once again giving all residents free passes to the rec centers this year. I want to get my pass so I can start using the gym and introduce some strength work to my life.
-continuing to find time for lunches with the Husband.
-Listening to more musicals. This is a fun one. I’ve been on a binge lately of those unironic big hearted musicals from the 90s – those musicals that were huge spectacles of stage and emotion. I’m currently obsessed with Frank Wildhorn and Nan Knighton’s The Scarlet Pimpernel. Up next, I think might be Titanic.
– Going to bed at a decent time. ie. before 11:30pm. Constant struggle.
-make some dentist and doctor appointments.
–maybe get a hair cut. I was realizing as I was writing in my 5 year journal that the last time I got my hair cut was this time last year. What?!?! I think I had a bit of sticker shock last time since my hairdresser had raised his prices. I’ve been with him for over ten years so I don’t know if I have it in me to find a new person. (Like my car and my desk at work….)
Grateful For:
-Sunny, warm weather. There have been some rainy days too, but the weather has been really mild. The hyacinths have come up along our front walk, and when I walk to the front door, their sweet peppery smell reminds me that it is early spring.
-Impulsive playdates and kids who can run free at the park without being watched. The kids had a half day of school on Friday, so I texted the mom of two of the 7 year old’s friends (they’re twins), and asked if they wanted to meet up at a park. They did and she invited two other kids from her bus stop to meet us there. We ended up spending two hours at the park. The kids ran around and did I don’t know what and I got to chat with the other moms. I don’t always find it easy to talk to other parents, but that wasn’t the case this time. We chatted about all sorts of things, and not just our kids, which is always nice.
-My friend at our bus stop who invited me to the Lenten Women’s Group. I think it’s always awkward to invite someone to something new, but especially something that is based in religion. So I’m glad my friend had the courage to ask me to join. It was nice to get out of the house and talk to other moms about their spiritual background and how they try to incorporate it into their lives. I kind of feel like a fraud since I wouldn’t call myself religious – Lent wasn’t a thing when I was growing up. But religion is important to the Husband and two of the three kids are Catholic, so I do want to understand how it makes up the fabric of our life and support that. I also really like thinking about the group readings. The book looks at Lent through the lens of the Seven Deadly Sins. We’ve covered gluttony and lust so far. The readings have made me really think about what it means to have enough and what to do with my energy rather constantly accumulating/wanting more.
-That I don’t have to be in tech. I stopped by the theatre a couple days last week since the show that we’re currently producing, but which I’m not working on, is in tech. I love my job. I love making the magic of theatre and music happen. But once in a while, it’s nice to just sit and watch tech happen and not have the pressure of having to be the one to make it all happen. I find it also good to sit and watch tech from the house sometimes, just to remind myself what it’s like out front. When I’m in tech, I have a headset on and I’m communicating with all the other stage managers and I’m talking to the crew, so I usually know what’s going on. Sometimes, I forget, though, that the people out front don’t necessarily have the same voices in their ear as I do and might not know what is happening backstage. So what to me backstage might seem like a frantic scramble to get, say, a prop ready to come out onstage while the singer onstage waits for it, is, to the people sitting in the house, sometimes… nothing happening. Watching the process without a headset is always a good reminder to make sure that the people without headsets know what is going on. Anyhow, as much as I love my job, I’m grateful that sometimes I don’t have to be part of that stress. (and also jealous because the show is super cute and fun.)
Looking Forward To:
-We booked a trip to Maine/Acadia for this summer. We got a National Parks Pass and I very much want to make sure we use it this year. We’ve had passes the past couple years (including a free one given to all 4th graders when the 12 year old was in 4th grade – it’s a great program!), but I don’t think I use it to it’s full capacity. We go to Great Falls and Shenandoah regularly because those are all close, but I’ve always felt like I want to do more. So this year we are going to Acadia. I’m looking forward to sunsets and hikes and lobster. (I don’t think we’ll be doing sunrise at Cadillac Mountain because of where our airbnb is located, but I think it would have been a hard sell for the kids. Another time…)
-Theatre trips! I have tickets to a couple shows coming up! Yay. The Husband and I are going to see Company, and the dress rehearsal/ Opening night for the next opera (which I’m not working on, so I’ll get to see it! Yay!). And then the local high school is putting on Beauty and the Beast and I think that will be fun to see too. I feel like it’s good to see the professional shows and the high school ones – for a sense of perspective.
-I have a contract for my summer gig and I am SO EXCITED! It’s an opera I worked on six year ago, an opera written in 2017 about the Christmas Eve truce of 1914 during World War I. The opera is just. so. beautiful – in my top 5 opera jobs ever. And it’s very rare one gets to do a contemporary opera more than once, so I’m super thrilled.
-Listening to this audiobook:
I saw this audiobook recommended on the site Five Books, and I really enjoyed Alexis Hall’s book Boyfriend Material, so I thought I’d give this one a try. I’m very much loving it – it’s an amnesia romance novel where the amnesia victim doesn’t really have amnesia. How’s that for flipping a trope on it’s head? Amnesia romances usually aren’t my thing, but this one’s pretty great. And the audiobook is pitch perfect; it’s like an audio version of my favorite British rom com in the vein of Notting Hill or Four Weddings and a Funeral. Fluffy and and warm and hilarious. I’ve laughed out loud so many times.
What We Ate:
Saturday: Chicken Ginger Scallion soup from Deb Perelmans’ Smitten Kitchen Keepers cookbook. This was a super easy soup, and I even make it with frozen chicken, just cooking it a bit longer. Nice pantry type meal. Everyone loved it. We didn’t watch a movie because my friend was visiting, but we did watch and episode of the new season of Bad Batch.
Sunday: We went out to Hot Pot with my friend. Our favorite place with a conveyor belt and a robot that delivers the food for you.
Monday: Chickpeas braised in tomatoes. This was leftover from the week before. I added some water and it was more of a soup than stew, but still tasty. We had it with bread. Vegan.
Tuesday: Beet burgers and tater tots. The beet burgers were this recipe from Post Punk Kitchen. We had beets to use up, so I tried this recipe. The burgers were really tasty, and pretty easy to assemble, though grating the beets did take a while and then because my food processor is small and only does 1.5 cups at a time chopping all the ingredients together took a couple of batches. If you had a bigger capacity food processor then these would be much faster to whip up. I highly recommend this as a veggie burger. The burgers also heat up really well, so I had them for lunches the rest of the week. vegan.
Wednesday: Take out Vietnamese – buns and noodle bowls. We had an afterschool playdate with a friend and her father brought dinner over afterwards. Tasty.
Thursday: Pork and tofu stir fry with udon noodles. The Husband cooked.
Friday: Pizza and Galavant.