It’s the final month of 2025! November felt like a blur – a rush of doing and not so much being and reflecting. This is what my journal/ habit tracker looked like for the month:
It’s not like I didn’t make dinner, or go outside, or watch any tv/movies, or felt grateful, or brushed my teeth, or or or or whatever else I usually track. I just didn’t for whatever reason, take the time to write it down and meditate on it. Which, then makes me feel like I don’t really know how I spent my days. Oh I know I went to rehearsal, packed lunches, did laundry and all that day to day, but I have no recollection of what made each day specific. And taking that time to acknowledge the specifics of the day helps me to feel like life is less of a daily grind. It’s that whole “what made today unique/different” exercise I sometimes do in my journal.
But at any rate, things did happen. Here’s some of them:
November Highlights:
– Mom’s group reunion. When the 6 year old was born, the hospital facilitated a new mom’s group. We’ve kept in touch off and on over the past year – lunches, play dates, happy hour – and this fall, one of the moms hosted a gathering. It was such a lovely time to re-connect and share stories and tips and recipes. Most of our kids entered kindergarten this year, and to think that we/they had all met when the kindergarteners were squishy newborns – pandemic newborns too! What a wild time it was to reflect on.
-Soup Party. I hosted another soup party for colleagues at work. People brought soup, someone brough a fire pit, and someone taught us how to roast our own coffee in a cast iron skillet. A cozy, social evening.
-Tech/ Opening/Closing of my first opera of the fall. One of my favorites – I never got bored listening to all the beautiful music. The cast was divine, the director amiable, and the show was gorgeous.
-Starting rehearsals for my second opera. Working with some long time friends. I’ve known many people on this show for fifteen years or more; we all started in the business together, as assistants and interns. And now look at us! We get to be in charge! How did that happen?? There were days when I kind of felt like I was putting on a high school show with my best friends.
-Running along the Potomac while tech-ing and in performances for my first show of the fall. It’s always such a nice part of my day when we are at the theatre. It might be too cold to run next week when my current show moves down, but I need to remember to take some dinner time walks to clear my head. There is something so soothing about watching the water drift by.
-My parents came to visit. Unfortunately it was at a super busy time for me, so I didn’t see them as much as I wanted. However, they were able to fully embrace having grandkid time, picking them up from the bus, taking them to the library and to museums, and playing Legos and trucks and Uno.
-Thanksgiving. We had a small Thanksgiving – my mother was still here, and our choreographer joined us as well. She is from Italy and when I heard she didn’t have plans for the day off, I invited her to come have an American Thanksgiving. I always think it’s hard to be away from home on a holiday, even if it’s not your holiday. I love making a big Thanksgiving dinner. We had Turkey (Spatchcocked so it takes bout 90 minutes to cook), green salad, mashed potatoes (made the night before), gravy (made the night before), cranberry sauce (made the night before), soy-braised squash and mushroom rice (instead of stuffing), steamed green beans, Hawaiian rolls, and home made bread. Oh and Rainbow Jello Salad, which the 13 year old made all on her own for the first time. For dessert I had an apple pie and a whiskey chocolate cake. I usually also make a pumpkin pie, but I really wanted to make this cake recipe, so I decided to skip the pumpkin pie. I don’t know if we offered up a traditional Thanksgiving for our choreographer, but I hope she still had a good time – she told us so many stories of her life as a dancer and a beekeeper, and watched as the kids did their K-Pop Demon Hunters dance numbers for her. It was all in all a lovely day.
-Reading a really good book in one night. I hadn’t done this in a while. But I started The Seven Year Slip and it was so good that I just had to find out what happened and next thing I knew it was 4am. Now I know what the term “book hangover” means, physically and mentally.
-Getting our family photos back. – so much fun. here’s a little preview:
Thanks to our wonderful photographer William Petruzzo! He’s taken our photos since the 13 year old was a baby and he is so much fun to work with – calm, adventurous, and engaging with the kids. I love how his photos are so full of light and personality.
November Lowlights:
-The continued stress of uncertainty at work. Not bloggable, but looms in the background every day I am at work.
-Long work hours and only four days off work the whole month. I feel like I’m dropping a lot of balls. Things are on the back burner waiting to be taken care of, discussed, settled.
-Blank journals. As I mentioned above, this is one aspect of my daily routine that has really been neglected, and I do feel it. When I have time to sit and reflect and brain dump, it helps me with feel calmer and like I have the space to make good decisions. There were a couple bad decisions made last month because I was feeling overwhelmed and didn’t have the mental capacity or time to think things through before I acted or spoke.
-I would also add the state of American and world happenings, but I’ve stopped reading the news. So it’s all pretty horrible, I just don’t know specifically why or how horrible it is.
Grateful For in November:
-Carpools. When the 13 year old got into my current opera, we knew that getting her to 4pm rehearsal would be a challenge. Thank goodness for friends who will drive carpool. Also she has figured out how to take public transportation from school to the rehearsal studio by herself.
-Coworkers and colleagues. Opera is such collaborative work; I’m always grateful for the kind and brilliant people who I get to work with.
-Working on two operas that are remounts. Also grateful for the stage managers on those shows who came before me. I was able to just re-create the prior stage manager’s book in my own score, copying the cue placements right into my book. Really grateful for those stage managers for doing all the hard work of putting cues in the book the first time.
-Hot tea and my Yeti mug.
-relatively mild weather for this time of year.
-End of daylight savings and the morning light that it brought.
-The Husband, always the Husband who keeps life moving when I’m at work until past the kids’ bedtime. He handles the evenings night after night, and that is Herculean.
Looking Forward to for December:
-Setting up my journal and calendars for 2026. I need to take a day after this show is over to just sit and go through the year. Maybe at the library or in a coffee shop.
-Trip to Taiwan to celebrate my grandfather’s birthday. It’s going to be a very large family reunion. I’m looking forward to seeing it, but also kind of dreading it. I don’t see my cousins a lot and our lives as County employees and workers in the arts is very different from their competitive, corporate funded, high adventure lives. I need to remind myself to remember what is important to me when I get envious of their lives and achievements.
-reading and watching movies on the trip to Taiwan. I actually love flying, love the sense of stepping away from the world and having nothing to do but what is in front of me. I am looking forward to 12 hours on a plane – it will be kind of like a retreat.
-TubaChristmas. Tuna Christmas. Longwood Gardens. We are not going to Christmas to the hilt, but we’ll enjoy a few events. I had written in October about making the most of the last quarter holiday season even when I’m in an all consuming phase at work. I went back and read that list and I think I’m incorporating a lot of those things into my life. I’ve eaten lots of apples, and already watched four Hallmark Holiday movies, with more cued up. There is Christmas music playing even now as I type this while watching the evening sky turn pink then purple then inky blue. This season is packed; there is so much joy and savoring to wring out of the end of the year even while carrying on with the regular everything else of life. But these quiet moments of being, listening, and paying attention are where I think I feel the holiday spirit the most.
-Lenten reading group. Okay, we’re into Advent now, but in my mind it’s always been the Lenten reading group because that’s when we started. The Husband takes umbrage that they are called “Lenten Group” in the calendar… I had to miss our last meeting because of work, but we will have one more meeting before Christmas and I’m looking forward to it. We are reading this book:
First, before all that, though, this coming up week is tech week . It’s going to be a long week in the theatre. I love the show, I love the work, but it will be exhausting. So today, my one day off, this is what is on my docket to make upcoming life easier:
- Pick out my outfits for the week.
- Boil eggs. These are my go to protein to have ready at hand for breakfast, lunch, dinner, snack.
- Finish the Christmas cards so that it isn’t looming over me for the rest of the week.
- Pick up the house so we at least start from a tidy place.
- Bake something so I have convenient easy snacks on hand for me and the 13 year old who will be at the theatre with me.
- Make a big pot of something l so that there is food to pack for lunch and dinner. I’m thinking of this Korean soy braised vegetable stew.
- Spend some time reading so I feel like I didn’t spend my whole day doing chores.
What We Ate – I worked until 8:30pm most nights, so didn’t get to join the family for dinner most nights. I do miss the chaos of our family dinners.
Monday: Kabocha squash and tofu with noodles. The Husband cooked. I met up with some work colleagues after work and had a burger.
Tuesday: Taco Tuesday. It was my day off, so I made chipotle honey chicken tacos from the NY Times cooking website. . Very tasty.
Wednesday: Turkey Soup, made from Thanksgiving leftovers. I actually made this on Tuesday since I had the day off.
Thursday: Breakfast sandwiches. (I was at work and had sandwich and ate leftovers out of the fridge when I got home at 8:45pm)
Friday: Sandwiches from one of our favorite delis. A quick meal before the winter piano recital for the kids. The 13 year old and I were both at rehearsal until 7pm, zipping up to the 7:30pm recital just in time (the 8 year old played at the 6:00pm recital), so we kind of had snack dinner and cookies at the recital reception for dinner.
Saturday: Chicken wings take out as the family watched football on the couch. (I joined later after I got off work.)
Hope you had a restorative weekend!
How was your November? What are you looking forward to as 2025 comes to a close? Any favorite cozy meals that you can cook once and eat for the rest of the week? Anything you do to prepare for a busy season?