outdoor adventures – Page 2

(Bi) Weekly recap + what we ate: Back to Work

Last week, I started a short gig. Life has been a little work heavy. Work always feels all consuming when I’m in the thick of it, and I’m trying to work on that balance. This week I feel like I haven’t been showing up for the “life” parts of work/life balance. (I don’t love that phrase to begin with, though. Balance seems to indicate that there is a sense of equilibrium that is ideal and I’m not sure I believe in that. Maybe “balance” is just a sense of peace or resignation. Also “Work/Life” seems to indicated some kind of dichotomy, but work is part of life, not the opposite of it.) I’ve been pretty bad about getting home when I said I would. Something comes up, or I try to send that one last email, or attend to one detail. I know it’s hard on the rest of the family when “I’ll be home for dinner” becomes “I’ll be home for bedtime” becomes, “I’ll kiss them goodnight once I’m home.” so I want to get better at this. I’m trying to figure out if this is an issue with how I manage my work or if the issue is with the work itself.

On my self-maintenance habits: I did manage to run five times in these past two weeks, did at least ten minutes of yoga every day, and journal every day, and do my Wordle and Duolingo, so that’s in the “check mark!” column. On the other hand, I did not go to bed at a decent time most nights, and I skipped a lot of meals and ate a lot of midnight snacks, so I have demerits in the “sleep” and “eat” columns. I think partly because the rehearsal schedule was a little different- one big rehearsal in the middle of the day rather than two shorter rehearsals with a meal break in the middle – so there wasn’t always a “typical” time to have lunch. I did bring lots of snacks, so it was just a matter of making sure I took time to grab a snack whenever we had a short rehearsal break. I think, though, in constantly snacking, I missed having a sit down lunch so my brain would think I was famished when I got home after rehearsal and I’d eat less mindfully than I would like. So maybe I need to work on more filling snack meals, or just remembering to eat when I can, not when I have to. Kind of like peeing. Or just to not snack when I get home.

Good things:
– The Husband had given me a National Parks Pass for Christmas so we went on a hike/walk to Great Falls on Saturday. It was a great day for a little walk, and the kids liked climbing on the boulders. Now that I have a park pass I’ll be sure to go more often. I also need to plan other National Park visits.

-We took down Christmas. It always feels like a lot of work – we never remember which ornament goes in what box or how to Jenga all the boxes back in the storage bin. There must be an easier solution. Also now that the Christmas tree is down, I’m relishing how much space we have regained in the living room.

-One Saturday night after dinner, we had impromptu family reading time. We’ve been borrowing Vox books at the library for the two little kids – these are books with a build in audio player so that the kids can work it themselves. They love them. And I don’t have to read Frog and Toad 192,853,782 times. The oldest didn’t read because she was practicing piano, but it made a nice accompaniment for the rest of us, ensconced in our chairs with our books. Until she complained that she couldn’t concentrate on practicing because the Vox book was too loud. So we rearranged ourselves and put the two littles with their Vox book on the other side of the room and all got back to reading and practicing. All told, family reading time was perhaps only 30-45 minutes, but it seemed so indulgent to all just be able to sit together in a room for that amount of time – no laundry to do, no carpool to drive, no homework to think about.

-The Oldest kid turned eleven! Despite all the the trials of birthday celebrations I had written of in the last post, I think the now-eleven year old had a pretty good birthday. She got to choose her birthday cereal (she picked Frosted Flakes), and got to have her favorite dinner (The Husband’s kung pao chicken). Then on the next weekend we had some friends over for a sleepover and movie matinee. I was all concerned about what they would do at the sleepover, as I hadn’t planned anything, but we had the kids make individual pizzas and they played Apples to Apples and watched tv and drank soda and everyone seemed quite happy with that. The next morning I made three batches of waffles and we had some more friends come over, then the kids and dads went to see Puss in Boots. Initially at the beginning of the week, the only Sunday morning movie listed was Avatar and I was a little leery about having the kids watch a 3 hour PG 13 movie, but luckily when I checked on Thursday, Puss in Boots was playing, so I bought tickets for that. I think everyone had a great time.

-The day of the sleepover, I had to work, but I also still had to do the grocery shop for the sleepover. So I put on my efficient speedy shopper hat and went to the grocery store at 8:45am, stopped at the Deli to pick up the requested rainbow cake for the party, and was home by 10am and had time to put away the groceries before getting to work in time for an 11am rehearsal. For someone who has to read every food label, grocery shopping can become quite a drawn out event. But that morning, I had such a sense of flow… It just felt like a huge accomplishment to have all the shopping done and groceries put away before 10:30am.

– At our production meeting after our final dress rehearsal, the director of our show made a point to tell everyone what a good job she thought I was doing. It’s been a fast intense process and whereas typically I have at least one assistant, this time I didn’t have any assistants since the show was supposed to be pretty minimal. It wasn’t. It wasn’t a large show by any means, and it wasn’t terribly complex, but it was more involved than this kind of project has been in the past. On our tech day, I logged 13 000 steps/5.7 miles and 11 flights of stairs. This is actually surprising to me somewhat that it’s so high because typically as a stage manager, I’m tethered to my console so i don’t get as many steps in. So … 13 000 steps – not as high as an Assistant Stage Manager who constantly is running around backstage, but definitely higher than when I stage manage. Which is all to say, it was a lot of hats to wear for this one show and I was really touched that the director acknowledged that in front of everyone.

-We ate the peaches! The weather has been remarkably mild, so the thought of eating the peaches that I had canned last August didn’t occur to me. I often think I need to save them for the depths of winter. But last week, we decided that January was a fine time to eat the peaches. They were lovely and redolent of summer. Just opening up the jar and inhaling brought back summer days and sunshine.

– I have a co-worker, a conductor and pianist, who often comes into the rehearsal room in the morning to practice before rehearsal starts. Often I’m in there setting up and I like to listen to him practice. One time I made the offhand comment that I love how he plays Bach, so now he will always finish his session with a little bit of Bach if I’m in the room. What a wonderful privilege to be able to listen to him play as I bustle around in the quiet before a rehearsal, setting tables and chairs and refilling pencil cups. This is one of the joys of my job.

Grateful For:
– My work bestie, also good friend outside of work, who thinks of solutions that I can’t see, and who can do time math so effortlessly.
-Actually, all the people I work with. They are all so smart and good at their jobs and they make me laugh and remind me that what we do is as beautiful and thoughtful as it is sometimes ridiculous.
-The opportunity to work on such a cool set of short operas. I’d say “Buy tickets now!” but it’s already sold out.
-Music. I’ve been trying to listen to more music and this week, I’ve been listening to Baroque music as I run and contradance music as I work. I’m by no means a classical music expert, despite studying music, but fast baroque music is one of my favorite things in life. I found a Spotify play list called “Baroque workout” – doesn’t it seem like there is a playlist for everything? I’ve been using it for my runs and it’s been a great motivator. As for the contradance music – the Husband and I used to be big contradancers. We haven’t been in years, and I would love to go again, but I don’t think contradancing in a mask would be very pleasant, so we’ll wait for a bit. I happened to stumble across a contrandance playlist last week and listening to it reminded me of when the Husband and I met, and going to dances and the the swirling colours of the dance hall, and the toe-tappingly catchy music that just dares you to sit still. The playlist made me really happy.
-The Husband, as always, for holding down the fort. He is the reason I have clean clothes to wear and that the kids get dinner when I’m working. And even though I tell him to leave the kitchen for me to clean when I get home, it is almost always shining when I get home.

Looking forward to:
-Making bread. I had thought my sourdough starter was dead – I had been feeding it for almost two weeks with little result. This week, I gave it a little rye flour because I read that rye flour is extremely reactive. And lo and behold, the sad little starter has started to bubble again. I’m hoping that next week the starter will be in a place where I can make a loaf of bread.
-The five year old’s birthday! He has a Chuck E. Cheese party in a few weeks, so next week will just be us low key celebrating as a family with the tradition of his birthday cereal of choice, dinner of choice (he chose Ama’s chicken wings), and a small cake. Maybe I’ll venture to get him a balloon. And this time make it to Party City before closing.

Aspirations and weekend plans:
– Well, opening night. Probably a little bit of work to do in the afternoon to get ready for the show. It’s been an intense fast process and my calling score is a mess. So I have to go back and fix those Post-Its.
– morning basketball game for the 11 year old. Incidentally I kind of love this sign that hangs in the gym where the kids play basketball:

– skating lessons for the 5 year old.
– It’s Lunar New Year! My father is here visiting for the kids’ birthdays and coincidentally Lunar New Year. I always feel unprepared for Lunar New Year and then I vow to do better the next year, but then I forget. Luckily my father is here so he came up with a plan. We will go to Taiwanese breakfast and have dumplings for dinner and he will give the kids red envelopes. (And I’ve just taken two seconds to put a reminder in my calendar for Lunar New Year next year – February 10th, 2024 – so I’ll plan something. I’d love to have a dumpling party.)
– uncovering the bench in my bedroom that has become de facto clothes storage these past few weeks.
– picking up around the house, get the kids to tidy the toy room. (When I mentioned this task to her today, the 3 year old today asked me, “What’s the difference between ‘tidy’ and ‘clean’?” I guess, in my mind clean involves purging, and tidying involves just putting things back. Or pushing them aside so I can see the floor of the room again.)
-Outdoor time, probably a park or a nature ramble.

Something Thoughtful I’ve consumed lately:
A few weeks ago, in Emily Oster’s newsletter ParentData she wrote an essay “There’s No Secret Option C”, which I thought a really great way to frame decision making. Often when faced with a choice to make, I delay and dither, thinking that there is a perfect solution, just I haven’t thought of it yet, or this perfect solution just hasn’t presented itself to me yet. But, as Oster says, “There is no secret option C.” “In these complicated moments,” she writes, “we are often waiting for a secret third option. No matter how unlikely it is, how impossible, it’s hard not to imagine it.” But usually, there is no other option and delaying making a decision will only… delay things, often until you end up having not choice at all. (Which is another was to make a decision, but kind of a passive-aggressive way to go through life.) In a way it reminds me of what Oliver Burkeman says about recognizing the finite so that you do not getting bogged down by the infinite. It is not about the options to choose from, it is about choosing an option and moving forward with life knowing that the option isn’t perfect, but that you can deal with it.

What We Ate – There was no meal planning these past two weeks. The Husband actually cooked dinner all week. I admit I am a bit of a control freak about dinner, so it felt like I was majorly dropping the ball to have him fully take over dinner. But he made a pretty awesome week of dinners. And as much grief as I give him for being a meat and potatoes man, there were a lot of vegetables involved.

Saturday: Pizza and Catherine Called Birdy. We’ve been having pizza and movie night on Saturdays because of basketball practice. Catherine Called Birdy is based on the book by Karen Cushman, which I remember reading when I was a preteen. (Although I think I liked her Midwife’s Apprentice better.) The movie was a lot of fun, though I felt like it went in a different direction than the book.

Sunday: Leftover friend rice. As in fried rice made from leftovers from the fridge.

Monday: Cucumber salad and roasted poatotes. Funny story, the Husband likes recipes from the BBC Cooking website and this recipe was for Courgette salad. But the Husband bought cucumbers instead because he didn’t know what courgettes were. Which, I think actually ended up tasting better than squash would have.

Tuesday: Taco Cups. I wish I could find and link all the recipes that the Husband used because there were all really good. This one was probably my favorite. It involved lining muffin cups with flour tortillas, filling them with black beans and cheese and then baking til the tortillas were crispy and the cheese melted. I came home from work and promptly devoured all three that were leftover. And easy to eat with one hand too. Bonus.

Wednesday: Kung Pao Chicken and cake. This was the now-eleven year old’s birthday dinner request.

Thursday: Eggplant and Halloumi stacks. This sounded complicated. Fried eggplant slices, layered with Halloumi cheese. I think there was a sauce. It was delicious, clearly since there were no leftovers by the time I got home.

Friday: Sheet pan gnocchi. I actually cooked this one – Sheet pan gnocchi has become one of my favorite ways to use up veggies. In this case, carrots, mushrooms and broccoli, mixed with olive oil and pesto. And the meal comes together in about thirty minutes.

Saturday: Pizza and sleepover night. And Indian Jones and the Raiders of the Lost Ark. This was our first Indiana Jones movie as a family. I’d forgotten how funny they were. Even the fight scenes – they all have this impish air about them. The five year old had this observation: “A good way to save someone is to shoot the driver of the truck.” I’d say that’s a pretty accurate takeaway. Also: “Indiana Jones knows lots of tricks!”
All the Indiana Jones movies are now on Amazon Prime, so I feel like they will be in our near future.

Sunday: Take out Chinese.

Monday: Vegetable omlettes. Due to a spousal miscommunication in advance of the now-eleven year old’s sleepover, both the Husband and I bought two dozen eggs that morning. Which makes four dozen eggs, in addition to the dozen adn a half we already had at home. So now we have a lot of eggs to use up.

Tuesday: Migas, – This was tasty even eaten cold straight out of the pan three hours later.

Wednesday: Carrot Parsnip Soup. I actually prepped this one for the Husband. I did all the initial steps in the InstantPot and then set it to cook. When the Husband got home, he pureed the soup in the Vitamix and then served it.

Thursday: Egg bake with potatoes and mushrooms. Also delicious cold eaten out of the pan four hours later. I was told, however, that the three year old carefully picked all the mushroom and onions out of this.

Friday: Breakfast sandwiches eaten with grapes. Fast meal for a basketball practice day.

(Bi)Weekly Recap + what we ate: The week after Christmas and into a New Year

Well we are into 2023, so here’s a “coffee date” style recap/info dump of what life post Christmas has been like…

The day after Christmas, the Husband bundled us into the car at 6am and we headed on a little overnight getaway. Our first stop was Steamtown, a National Historic Site in Scranton, PA, dedicated to steam locomotives. I had first heard of this place last year when thinking of places where we could use the ten year old’s free National Parks Pass, though it turns out Steamtown is actually free to visit. (The ten year old’s Pass, given to all fourth graders in the country, went sadly underutilized; I have five years to figure out how to make the most of it when the five year old gets his free Parks Pass…). I had thought this historic site might be fun for the train-lovers in the family, but we never made it because Steamtown was in Scranton, PA, four hours away, which made it a little far for a day trip. When we were looking for a quick getaway for after Christmas, though, this seemed like a good option.

Steamtown features a huge collection of steam locomotives. The museum portion of the park, where there were displays on train history and technology, was having some facility issues so it wasn’t open unfortunately, but there was still lots to see. The roundhouse housed many trains and there were park rangers available to answer questions. The ten year old had many many questions for the park rangers. In the outdoor portion of the Roundhouse, there was a locomotive that we could climb into and even ring it’s bell.

After Steamtown we spent the night in Consohoken, where we visited the Edwards Freeman Nut Company – a shop with aisles and aisles of nuts, dried fruit and all the candy and chocolate one can imagine. There were wine gums (yay!), and four different types of black licorice, and dried peaches, and an impressive assortment of chocolate malt balls – dark, milk, mocha, mint… We came away with a lot of treats and snacks. Each kid was allowed to also pick some candy- the ten year old picked out a giant bag of Double Bubble and some Bazooka flavored soda, this latter which the kids all tasted and decided was not very good. But it’s good to try things. The five year old picked out a pack of Skittles – but it was Smoothie flavore Skittles, so quite a novelty. The three year old picked out a Kinder Joy and some Chocolate Pretzels.

Then we had dinner at a local restaurant – chosen because the website offered, “Burgers! Tacos! Sushi!” Though they didn’t serve sushi on Mondays so we had really tasty burgers and Tacos instead. Then off to the hotel, which is always a high point for the kids. They are always super content just to sprawl in a hotel room and watch TV and go to the pool and eat those waffles from the hotel breakfast bar. The pool, unfortunately was not working, but we were all exhausted so sprawling and watching tv seemed like a pretty good option. Eventually everyone went to bed, except the three year old, who proceeded to try to interact with the sleeping people in the room, so I took her out for a little stroll around the hotel. We rode the elevator, checked out the lobby and walked up and down the hallways. At one point, she started singing, “I’m never going to be sleepy.” Over and over and over.

She did eventually go to sleep and the next day, I got a run in while the Husband took care of getting the kids hotel breakfast. After I got back, we packed up the room and went to Longwood Gardens. The gardens still had their Christmas display up, and I enjoyed seeing all the festive decorations. The conservatory was an explosion of Poinsettias. My favorite thing, was a fascinating picture of a poinsettia in the wild. They are actually trees and grow to be eight feet tall, looking nothing at all like the plants we get at Christmas. Also – I didn’t realize this, but the red/pink/white parts of the poinsettia are actually the leaves. The flowers are the small yellow buds in the middle – which makes sense when I actually looked closely at a flower, but I had never really thought about it that way before. It’s always really fascinating to learn about something that seems so every day and familiar.

This one was for the birds – there are bird seeds in the gourds.

We also took in the train display and wandered all over the grounds. (Okay, side note re: trains – apparently trains are a huge deal in the Fire Departments around Baltimore and almost all of them have train displays. And there is a very nice person/group that collects all the places that have holiday train displays and posts them on a website which I must now bookmark for future use.) There is something beautiful and barren about gardens in the winter. Sure, the conventionally beautiful time of the year to see the garden is in the Spring and Summer, but I love how in winter when things are brown and sparse, I can really see the shape of things – the pointy and specific spikes of grass and tree and branches.

I know Longwood Gardens has a spectacular light exhibit, but we’ve never stayed late enough to see it. We’re usually on the road at 4pm so that we can be home in time for dinner. Every year, as we are leaving, we tell ourselves that we will make it out to see the lights one year. This year, the lights were starting to come on as we headed for the exit gate, and I dragged our family down one walk so that we could see some of the lights before we left and it was indeed very pretty.

A gorgeous book end to our trip – when we left the house on Monday at 6am, the sky was dark, except for the single strip of sunrise. And on our way home at 5pm, I noticed that the sky again was gorgeous with a neon orange strip of sunset. I love the contrast:

The rest of 2022was pretty low key, but surprisingly social. The baby went to daycare, but the two school kids were home, so I planned some playdates for the kids. One night we had the neighbors over for dinner, a pleasant evening which made me vow to invite people over for dinner more. We had chili for dinner – simple to make ahead and easy to customize.

The Husband ended up having half a day off on Friday before New Years, so we went to lunch at our favorite dumpling house, then went to Lake Needwood for a walk and some playground time. The weather was pretty mild, but the lake had frozen earlier in the week and there were still pretty ice patterns to be seen. I had been to this trail before, but didn’t realize there was a playground with one of those zipline type structures on it. The kids had a great time. I even took a turn or two. The five year old, who initially balked at the idea of going to this park said, when it was time to go, “I didn’t have enough outdoor time!” Which is always something that I love to hear from my kids. So we went to the same park again two days later, this time I suggested it as a meet up location for my mom’s group, which had been trying to get together for a while. I had met these kids when the three year old was born and it was fun to see how our little squishy babies have all grown. Of course, with ten kids running around, I didn’t really get to chat at length with too many other parents, but I guess that’s what happy hour is for.

In between, trips to Lake Needwood, was New Years Day. It was pretty quiet. new years eve we went to church then came home, had dinner and watched the ball drop in Times Square. Actually the Husband and the ten year old watched. The five year old, three year old and I fell asleep on the couch.

New Years Day was nice and low key. We went to Taiwanese Breakfast, and had bowls of warm soy milk – savory for the grown ups, sweet for the kids – with fired dough sticks (you tiao), and dumplings and noodles and egg pancakes. Then we went to the park for a few hours, skipping lunch because we were so full from breakfast. After we got home, I decided that I needed to do one house project so cleaned out the fridge. I’m a little embarrassed by some of the things in the back of the fridge – there were three containers of sourdough starter, all sorts of pickles and more “mystery” containers than I care to admit. The trash was very full by the end of all this. I won’t pretend out fridge is absolutely uncluttered now, but I have started to be more mindful about where things are in the fridge. For example, all the pickles and fermentation experiments will go on the top right shelf. Leftovers on the left. So when I’m madly looking for leftovers to take for lunch, I’ll know where to look.

In a fun bit of “use it up”ness, I found some garlic butter from one of the Husband’s pizza nights. There was also a container of butter and Worcestershire sauce mixed together, leftover from a failed Chex mix attempt. I combined the garlic butter and the Chex mix butter and made more Chex mix. It was a very successful batch of Chex Mix, and very satisfying to finish up the various butters and *not* put containers back into the fridge.

We also had a very “use it up”ness dinner, which was so satisfying, and then we played Kings of Tokyo before bedtime. So it wasn’t a New Year’s day with grand plans, but there was a good mix of tasty food, family outdoor time, house project time, and family evening. Which was actually, upon reflection, a very good ordinary day.

Then it was back to life. I have to admit, I was so glad when everyone went back to school on January 3rd. I love my kids, but having them gone also felt amazing. It took me a few days to get back into the swing of life on my own terms. The first day they were back at school, I wanted to go for a run, so I parked at a trail after doing the bus drop off. Then it started to rain. And I was so unused to having my time dictated by only myself, I didn’t know what to do. My brain was stuck in, “This is your time to run.” but it was raining out so I clearly couldn’t. (or I could, but I don’t really have the right rain gear to run in the rain right now.) I ended up sitting in my car for ninety minutes before I decided to go to the library and pick up some holds and wait for the rain to subside. The rain did subside and I left the library with some good books. And I did go for that run after all. But man, that first instance of blank, unscheduled time was… not well spent.

Grateful for:
– 2022. Another year in the books. I’m glad I got to see the end of it.
-2023. Another year to live. I’m glad I have the chance.
– The other mom, L, at the bus stop. I was late for school bus pick up twice this week. Twice. The bus has been arriving about thirty minutes earlier and I just mentally wasn’t prepared for it. You’d think I’d figure it out after the first time I was late, but I was late the next day too. There is nothing that combines mortification and fear for your child like being late for the school bus. L was there and texted to make sure I was on my way and sat with my kids until I arrived. So grateful for her.
– Another mom at my bus stop, A. We’ve been chatting at the bus stop for a while now and before the winter break, I said, “One of these days, we should just walk down to the cafe and have coffee rather than just chatting here in the middle of the street.” Well last week, I had a package to return at Whole Foods, and I asked if she wanted to walk down with me, and she said yes, and it was a lovely morning.
-YouTube. Yes, I find a lot of YouTube insidious, but last week, I was reading the book “The Oboe Goes Boom Boom Boom” to the kids. It’s a book all about children in a band. At the end of the book, the author’s note revealed that all the kids in the book was based on real musicians, most of which I hadn’t heard of. So I was able to pop on YouTube and pull up videos of these really obscure yet talented musicians, including Jazz trumpeter Valadia Snow, flautist (and Jethro Tull member) Ian Anderson, Oboe player and composer Ruth Widdy Gibbs, and so many more. I love picture books about music, and it’s always so much more tangible when we can hear it too.
– The Husband for driving on all our road trips. I don’t like driving. I suspect the Husband doesn’t like me driving either. At the same time, I know that driving can be tedious and tiring, so I’m glad that he takes the wheel when we go places.

Looking forward to:
– Going back to work. It’s just a short gig, two weeks. I’m almost done the first week and it’s been nice to be back at work.
– The ten year old’s birthday party. “Looking forward to” might be too strong a way to phrase it, but I’m certainly excited for her to have a party.
-My father coming to visit. He’s here for the kids’ birthday.
– Having time to sit and plan and think about the year. Maybe not this week or next week, but soon…

What We Ate:
Monday: Road Trip – we had dinner at Guppy’s Good Time. The tag line is Burgers, Tacos, Sushi. Unfortunately they don’t serve sushi on Mondays, but the tacos were tasty, as were the cauliflower bites.

Tuesday: Indian Take Out, picked up on our way back home.

Wednesday: Breakfast for Dinner. Waffles and Eggs.

Thursday: Vegetarian Chili from The Weekday Vegetarians.

Friday: Pizza take out and Hip Hop Nutcracker and The Bad Bunch.

Saturday: Yaki Udon noodles with tofu. A recipe from Mark Bittman’s Dinner For Everyone. This cookbook is great because it gives you three variations on each recipe – one fast (under 30 mins), one vegan, and one super fancy (aka time consuming.) We did the “fast” version. Also – life lesson: everything looks better sprinkled with sesame seeds and green onions:

The Husband always says when I’m unsure about a meal, I sprinkle it with sesame seeds and green onions. But I actually think this meal is pretty tasty.

Sunday: Fridge leftovers – used up the lamb from Christmas – part of it I made into sandwiches, some of it I chopped up and threw into the leftover Indian food from Monday. It was so satisfying to use up little bits of food that way.

Monday: Dumplings and green beans. Standard “We don’t want to cook” dinner.

Tuesday: Lentil Soup, loosely based on a recipe from The Weekday Vegetarian. I didn’t have chard, but I used some leftover cabbage that I had in the fridge. I also made zatar flatbread to go with it – pizza dough, flattened and sprinkled with olive oil, garlic powder and za’tar and then baked – the taste to effort ratio is really high on that one.

Wednesday: Brussel Sprout Fried Rice – Meera Sodha’s Nasi Goreng. (vegan) This is the dish that makes the family groan when I mention it’s for dinner, but then everyone devours. I also threw in the last bits of the cabbage and it felt really satisfying to use it all up.

Thursday: Corn and Tomato Pasta from The Weekday Vegetarian. The recipe calls for fresh corn and tomatoes, none of which I had on hand, but I thought this was pretty tasty using frozen corn and canned tomatoes. I think the secret is that the recipe starts with caramelizing a whole red onion.

Friday: Baked Teriyaki Tofu with Broccoli Mushroom Stirfry. (vegan)

Weekend report

We didn’t have huge plans for the weekend, but it still felt pretty full. I did not order a new planner, but I did do pretty much everything else on my aspirations list.

Saturday morning I took the two girls to Drag Queen Story Hour at the local Botanical Gardens. The Drag Queen reading the books was D’Amanda Martini and she read a couple books about Fall and Thanksgiving and Holidays. At one point, one little girl said, “You don’t dress up for Thanksgiving – you dress up for Halloween!” and D’Amanda Martini says, “That’s very true. Although, I like to get dressed up all of the time!”

The past few times the Gardens hosted Drag Queen Story Hour, there were people protesting against Drag Queens and holding up signs that had all sorts of hateful, fear-mongering messages. This time there were just four or five people holding up banners and praying on one side of the parking lot. The people with the anti-LGBTQ signs were vastly outnumbered by the crowds of supporters with rainbow flags and umbrellas that lined the other side of the parking lot, cheering and offering people who chose to attend story time an escort to their car. I found the whole thing flabbergasting and kind of sad, to be honest. I think it’s wonderful to have the courage of one’s convictions, but at the same time I think there is something very very misinformed about the people who would give up their Saturday morning to protest a child friendly, inclusive event.

That afternoon, we went to a birthday party at a bowling alley for a child in the 5 year old’s class. I hadn’t been bowling in years, and this reminded me of how I always found bowling a fun social activity. Years ago, the best/cheapest place to go bowling was on a nearby military base. You had to show ID and they would inspect your car in order to get past the gate, but it was something like $3/ game and $3 for shoes. This weekend’s bowling party was at a super fancy bowling place with a bar (obviously not for the 6 year olds), and waiters and a roof top terrace. I commented to the Husband that I wouldn’t mind having a bowling party for my birthday this year. I hate celebrating my birthday, but I do love doing fun things with friends.

I stayed for half the bowling party, then the Husband came and relieved me at the birthday party, and I zipped down to work. I was a little stressed because I was running late to work; it probably would have been best if I had just had the Husband bring the five year old to the party from the start, but he had to bring the three year old, and I was a little unsure of the etiquette of showing up to a party with an additional sibling. Turns out it would have been fine, but I feel like I’m never quite sure how to navigate these things.

It was the last performance of our show – always a bittersweet day. Though in these COVID times, I feel like it’s just a relief to get through the run without any COVID cancellations. We were still testing twice a week and masking backstage, so caution abounds.

I also think it’s fun to track my movement for each show I do:
Length of show: 100 mins.
Number of steps taken on average for each show: 2083
Number of flights of stairs each night: 4
So not a super active show, but does involve a fair bit of stair climbing.

I also have a post show ritual where I write down all the things that I want to remember about a show. I find that the rehearsal and tech process are so mind consuming that I don’t always have time to enjoy what we are putting onstage. Usually by opening, things have fallen into a routine and I try to find those moments that will stay with me. I once asked an Assistant Director friend of mine if she ever got tired of watching the same show every night. She said that sometimes yes, but then she really forces herself to watch mindfully and intensely and learned to concentrate her attention on things that she might have missed before – like a certain musical passage or the way a singer might move while singing a certain line. So when I get to a point in a show when I don’t feel busy, I try to really watch and listen to what is happening onstage and savor that moment because either it will never happen again, or the singer will do it exactly the same way every single night – and I think both things – the once in a life time, and the consistently repetitive – are fascinating to me.

Sunday was a morning at home to tackle yardwork and house puttering. I did get a little run in. The Husband cleaned up the yard and I picked up around the house. We finally tackled a project that I had been putting off, but which I knew I had to do – the kids and I dismantled the 10 year olds’ iPod Halloween costume, and we also took apart our carboard UPS Truck. Two years ago we got a new stove and we asked the delivery people to leave us the box. The box eventually became, at the then three year old’s request, a UPS Truck. (I wrote a post about our cardboard creations here.)

Well, after two years and repeated patching, the UPS truck was on its last legs. The kids still loved sitting in it, and it is their favorite hideout, but some weeks, it seemed to mostly be used as a catchall for clutter in the living room. The sliding door no longer slid, the rear door had fallen off, as had the steering wheel. If you had told me in Fall of 2020 that this cardboard box would still be in our living room two years later, I would not have believed you. Indeed, the Husband, whenever I bring something large and disposable into the house always asks, “How long is that going to be in our lives?”

“Not too long,” I always say vaguely. I think to myself, “There’s no way that this huge chunk of cardboard is going to last.” And here we are two years later.

But Christmas is coming and we have to make room for the Christmas tree, so this past weekend, I faced the inevitable and agreed to dismantle the box and begin the process of sending it to recycling. The kids were a little sad to have their living room play space taken down, but then I gave them the screwdriver to take out all the Makedo cardboard screws and they eagerly jumped on that assignment. The ten year old needed a large piece of cardboard for a school project so her eyes lit up at the prospect of taking part of the UPS truck. I’m sad the UPS truck is gone … it certainly took me a while to get to a point where I felt okay letting go of it. Part of me feels silly to be so attached to something that I always knew would not be permanent. But there are a lot of memories wrapped up in the box, particularly from early in the pandemic – which was such an insular and resourceful time. I have to remember the legacy of the box is not the physical thing, but the memories we have of it and the knowledge that we could have great adventures with something that otherwise would be meant for the trash.

Throwback to the Glory Days of the UPS Truck…

The baby – what a little things she was! – trying to work the trunk of the UPS truck.

So after tackling those house projects, I insisted that we get some fresh air by going for a hike. I dragged the family on a one hour drive up county on a hunt for one of the Selfie Stands that the County Parks Department has set up. This Selfie Stand was a view overlooking the Potomac; this far upstream the Potomac is quiet and wide, very different from Great Falls. I will say, it wasn’t the most picturesque spot – this part of the county is perhaps a little neglected. Maybe it’s nicer in the summer? At any rate, I always do love seeing the Potomac, and we managed to find the selfie stand and snap a poorly lit family picture. Ultimately, though, it was very cold and we didn’t last long, maybe just thirty minutes. We took our selfie then tromped back to the parking lot and got back in the car.

On the way home we stopped by a local brewery, one of those places on acres and acres of land with tents and string lights and tables made from old sewing machine legs and things like “Ricotta Toast” on the menu. Which was tasty, by the way. Craft breweries on farms seem to be a very popular thing in our County. If it hadn’t been so cold, it would have been a wonderful spacious place to hang out and have a beer with the kids. Not that the kids drink beer. The Husband drinks beer. The rest of us watch and eat foot and maybe drink a soda. We ordered burgers and sandwiches and shrimp and enjoyed the pink sky and golden light of sunset while plotting fun holiday aspirations and making our Christmas movie list (more on that later!). And then it was suddenly dark and we felt the need to go home, but of course it was only 5:30pm. Splendid, I thought! We can have half an hour of tidying the living room and then watch two episodes of Golden Girls.

Of course there was great reluctance to clean so it ended up being one hour of cleaning and one episode of Golden Girls, but that was still a fine way to cap off a Sunday night.

Weekly recap + What we ate: Fall Camping

The kids had two days off school this week. Monday was end of quarter grading, and Tuesday was election day. Schools close here on election day because a lot of schools are used as polling locations. So I did get my act together and took the two younger kids on a camping overnight. The oldest had been invited to a birthday party, so she did that.

We went to Burke Lake, about an hour away in Virginia. The main reason I chose this campground was that it was close and also one could book a single night stay. Most of our usual campgrounds require a two night stay. I hadn’t been to Burke Lake before, and found it is a pretty suburban campsite; I could hear the traffic from where we were. As expected, the place was pretty quiet. I imagine it’s a very popular destination in the summer – there is a lake for boating, with a nice trail around the perimeter, and there is also a carousel and ice cream stand and a train ride, none of which was open. I was a little nervous at how empty it was at first. We were the only ones at the campground when we arrived at 1pm, and I do sometimes wonder if camping by myself as a woman is the most prudent thing. But another group arrived late in the afternoon so I felt better.

It was a pretty relaxed camping trip, as these things go. I had thought that we could hike the trail around the lake, but once I had set the tent and the hammock up, the kids were happy just to swing in the hammock and play with their toy cars. We did go for a little woodsy stroll along the part of the lake trail that came past our campground. The weather was lovely – almost 80 degrees – and the afternoon sun was golden. The trees were almost all bare, leaving such a thick carpet of leaves for us to swish through.

This time of year, it gets dark so early, so I started dinner at 4pm. I also made a fire – that’s one of the kids’ favorite parts of camping. I made mac n cheese and we roasted hot dogs over the fire to put in our mac n cheese. We had ‘smores.

The sunset around 5:15pm, and it was dark. I remember looking at my watch as the sun was going down and thinking, “What am I going to do – there’ still three hours til bedtime.” Well, turns out, with my kids, once the sun went down, they were ready to turn in. I’m not sure if it was the lack of sunlight, the big day, or the end of daylights savings, but they were pretty tuckered out by 6:30pm. Maybe it was all three factors. We went to the bathhouse to brush our teeth, returned to the tent to put on our pjs, and I read them two chapters from Winnie the Pooh under the light of the lantern and they snuggled into their sleeping bags – Cocoons, they called them. I stayed up to read for a little bit, and then was asleep by 10:30pm – so early for me!

I was woken up by bright bright light streaming into the tent. I hadn’t set up the rainfly on the tent this time because the weather looked to be dry and I thought it would be nice to get some air into the tent and to be able to see the sky. In the middle of the night, this incandescent light pushed past my eyelids, and I opened my eyes, thinking I had forgotten to turn off the lantern. I hadn’t forgotten – it was the moon. The moon was practically full that night. I remembered seeing it during dinner as it came over the horizon, a huge glowing white disk. Now it was directly over the tent, bright as bright can be. When I’m at home in a house, it’s easy to forget how much light the moon can produce. I could see everything in the tent in the moonlight that came through the mesh roof of our tent.

Eventually I went back to bed and woke up around 6:00am. The kids were already up – I’m not sure how long they were up, or what they were doing, but the sounds of them chattering away to each other penetrated my sleep fog. That and the fall morning chill. Even though I objectively knew the second day was going to be colder (in the mid-50s according to the weather report), I was still unprepared for the reality of it. I hunkered in my sleeping bag as long as possible, but finally faced the reality that kids had to pee and forced myself to emerge.

We had bacon and eggs for breakfast. Then I slowly packed up the campsite with a pause for some hammock time. As I was driving in the day before, my sister-in-law called and we chatted, and I said to her, “What I really want to do is laze in the hammock and read my book.” I almost didn’t get a chance what with setting up the camp, and taking the kids on a walk and then making dinner and cleaning up dinner… but this morning, I decided that I was going to be sad if I didn’t find some hammock time. So after breakfast, and before I packed the car, I took half an hour and lazed in the hammock with a book. It was quite chilly so I packed the sleeping bags in the hammock and it was a super cozy thirty minutes.

After the car was packed up, we spent some time playing at the playground and wandering along another stretch of the lake trail, then we went home around 1pm since I didn’t want to get stuck in traffic. All in all a very relaxing 24 hours.

The rest of the week was pretty uneventful. I buckled down and got some errands done off my to do list. Finally mailed those sweaters off. Processed more returns – the leggings I ordered from Pact did not fit. Bummer. I liked that they were of a thicker material, but I think the thicker material make them less stretchy.

I did a tie dye experiment with some old sweaters. The experiment wasn’t entirely successful – I tried a technique called ice dying where you put ice over the clothes and sprinkle the tie dye powder over it, and as the ice melts, it saturates the dye into the clothes. I had ice left in the cooler from camping, which is what inspired the project. I sprinkled the dye unevenly, so the grey sweater just looks like it was in a laundry accident – also I think I should have chosen a different colour for the grey sweater – the blue didn’t really show up. Even so, I always love the look of tie dye and I think I’ll try it again since ice dying was a pretty hands off way of doing it.

I had one very frustrating day where on the way to work, there was construction and a poorly marked detour and I spent a half hour driving around trying to get to our parking garage. Driving downtown is always super confusing – the streets change direction at rush hour and if you miss a fork, you’re suddenly in Virginia and you can’t just pull a u-turn to get back on track. (I mean I guess you could – I’ve seen people do it – but I’m not that brave.) I felt particularly defeated because I had planned to get to work 45 minutes early so I could get a run in before starting my show duties, but the detour/getting lost in Virginia ate up all that time. This wrench in my plan almost had me in tears. But got to work and decided to salvage it by running ten minutes to the Wednesday farmer’s market and getting empanadas for dinner and kimchi from one of my favorite vendors. So I guess it wasn’t a frustrating day, just a frustrating, despair ridden 45 minutes.

Yesterday, being Veteran’s Day, the Husband had it off, so we went to Glenstone Museum. It was a rainy, drizzly day, but lovely nonetheless. I had been a few months ago with my mom and cousin, and we didn’t get to see all of the grounds on that visit, so I was glad to go back. We didn’t see everything this time either, but we were moving at a slow pace. We meandered the walkways, stopped for lunch at the cafe (where we also started planning our spring break trip!) and took in some of the galleries. I don’t always understand contemporary art, but the docents at Glenstone are always willing to talk to patrons about it in thoughtful ways, which I appreciate.

Not art, just the view through a drizzly window.

Grateful this week for:
-Our friends, avid campers, who loan us camp chairs and coolers.
– The nice person at FedEx who helped me sort out all the various forms for shipping back to Ireland the Irish sweaters that the Husband had bought me last Christmas. Finally checked that off the to-do list.
– The three year old’s teachers. We had a parent teacher conference for her today and she’s doing really well. I’m impressed by how many letters and numbers she knows. Apparently she needs to work on sharing and letting other kids be the line leader once in a while. I’m not surprised.
-My car, which just just crossed 180, 000 miles and still takes us where we need to go. I probably wouldn’t drive it across the country, all the same.
-A phone call from an old friend and colleague whom I worked with years ago in Colorado. She is a costume person, and had made the ten year old the cutest outfits when she was a baby. Anyhow, after we both left that company, we lost touch except a Christmas card. It was wonderful to catch up.

Hard things this week: Screen time struggles/strategies with the ten year old. We are generally pretty restrictive about screen time, but the ten year old has joined a writing club at school for National Novel Writing Month, which she seems to be enjoying. However, the school has issued Chromebooks to the students in writing club so they can work on their novels at home. There has been a lot of surreptitious screen time for non-novel writing things, and precious little actual novel writing, and I just don’t have the bandwidth to constantly monitor what she is doing. We’ve caught her with her Chromebook in bed a couple of nights too and so we’ve had blanket and dictatorial confiscation of the Chromebook – which I’m on the fence as to whether it’s the best strategy since it leads to a lot of tantrums and generally unpleasant behavior (on both our parts), but it’s the easiest tactic to implement. I think there just needs to be some kind of joint discussion about screen time and Chromebook use and expectations. Also maybe have her show us what she’s using the Chromebook for. I think right now, the parents are the enemy in the screen time battle, and I don’t like that dynamic.

Plans /Aspirations for this weekend:
– Drag Queen Story Hour at the Botanical Gardens. The three year old keeps calling it “Dragon Story Hour”. I hope she isn’t disappointed.
– Birthday Party at a bowling alley for a classmate of the five year old.
– Work. It’s closing night! I’m a little sad.
– Order a new planner for next year. I use a weekly planner and I just realize there are only six spreads left for this year. When I think of the rest of the year in terms of just six spreads, it seems like the year is fast disappearing.
– Run.
– Maybe a hike. Something outdoors for sure.
– Think/ Plan holiday/ end of year things.

Looking forward to:
-Happy Hour with my mom’s group next week. I think only one or two moms can make it this time, but it’s been a while since we had one, so I’m looking forward to it nonetheless.
– This is way in the future, but our Spring Break Trip!
– Another Date Day with the Husband. He took half a day off this week to work in his garden, and we spent half an hour watching Only Murders in the Building and eating chocolate bars. It felt very un-adult like. Looking forward to more like that.

What We Ate:
Saturday: I was solo with the kids, so we had snack dinner – Soy Sauce Eggs, Veggies, Fruit, Edemame, crackers and cheese. Eaten on the floor while watching Thundermans.

Sunday: I had a matinee show, so the Husband made dumplings and cut up some veggies for the kids. They saved me some dumplings, which I ate when I got home.

Monday: Camping. Trying to keep it super simple – boxed Mac n Cheese with hot dogs and broccoli mixed in. A tip I learned from my brother is to buy the Deluxe Mac N Cheese; it come with a cheese sauce rather than cheese powder, so it’s easier to make. And then of course ‘Smores for dessert.

Tuesday: The five year old requested veggie noodle soup, so I made Chickpea Noodle Soup from America’s Test Kitchen’s Vegan for Everyone Cookbook. It’s actually a great pantry soup.

Wednesday: I had to work so I had empanadas and dolmas from the Farmer’s Market by work. The Husband made some kind of hashbrown/peppers/egg skillet for the kids.

Thursday: This was the day that I kind of lost it and told the kids that if they didn’t empty the dishwasher, we’d have toast for dinner because I wasn’t going to dirty anymore dishes until I could put them in the dishwasher afterwards. Well, joke’s on me. The dishwasher did not get emptied in time so we had bagels and baba ghanoush, and carrots and cucumbers and hummus, and fruit. Everyone thought it was a great dinner. So much for natural consequences.

Friday: Pizza (take-out) and The Secret Lives of Super Pets, which was a pretty funny movie.

Pass it on

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.

Weekly Recap + What we ate: Tech week and Opening Night

This weekend was opening night! Yay! We made it. It’s actually been a pretty chill tech week, a gazillion flights of stairs, notwithstanding. It helps that the show is short (100 minutes!) and there is only one set look, so no complicated scene shifts to have to co-ordinate backstage. I’m sure the show it plenty challenging for our lead soprano who is onstage for practically the whole show, however.

I spent much of my time at work this week lightwalking – which is when someone (usually the assistant stage managers) stands onstage while the lighting designer sets the lighting looks. You can read about lightwalking in a previous post of mine here. Lightwalking can be tedious, but I got some good reading done while standing under the lights. Currently reading these two books:

I’m a little on the fence about Dava Shastri’s Last Day – the ideas behind it are touching, but the execution is a little clunky. Lindy West’s book, is hilarious – I’ve been reading bits of it out loud to the Husband and sometimes I can’t continue because I’m laughing too hard.

On the home front, however, things felt kind of like a mess… I stayed up super late while the kids were gone and never seemed to get back into a good sleep routine. Every morning seemed like a struggle. In addition to the great effort it’s been taking to even just get out of bed, the ten year old also has signed up for a Novel Writing Club at school, as part of National Novel Writing Month, and the club meets twice a week at 8:15am. I’m really excited that she’s undertaking the club, but an 8:15am drop off makes for very choppy mornings. I have to get all three kids in the car at 8:10am, to be able to take the ten year old to writing club. After I drop her, I come home with the younger two kids and we have about 25 minutes before I have to do the school bus run for the middle kid. I’d like to find a way to make those 25 minutes feel like well used time, but I’m not sure quite what that would be yet. Do I want it to be time where I try to fit in a short yoga session? Or is it time to snuggle and read with the littles? Or time to get ahead with house chores? I think ideally I would love to spend that 25 minutes journaling since I’ve gotten a little out of that habit, but I find journaling hard with the two little kids around since they like to hang out with me when we are at home.

As always happens after opening night, I’m feeling a little disoriented, and feel like I need to find a little bit of focus to put life back in order – both our physical space since the house is a mess, and our non-physical things like paying the bills and dealing with small house projects. Tech week is always so intense and all consuming that I feel like I need a week to just sleep for days, but I also feel like that’s so self indulgent – I mean plenty of people hold down very intense jobs all the time without the reprieve of opening night. I think what I really need is to focus and think through some systems and routines to put in place now that my schedule has opened up, so that I can balance rest and things that fill up my cups and the adulting things that have to get done.

Anyhow, other things from this week:

– Hallowe’en is around the corner! I’ve been feeling a little unprepared for Hallowe’en this year. I didn’t carve a pumpkin, which makes me a little sad, but I think I’m the only one who really cares. We don’t actually get very many (or actually any) trick or treaters, so the decorative aspects of Halloween tend to fall by the wayside unless I really make an effort. And being in the thick of tech week, it just didn’t feel like a priority this year. Plus, I’m working Hallowe’en night, so I’m not feeling as motivated to be as involved as I usually like to be. I did manage to finish the ten year old’s Hallowe’en costume this weekend. Here’s a sneak peek:

Any guesses? All will be revealed after trick or treating! I’m a little sad to miss trick or treating with the kids, but the Husband has promised to take pictures.

-Rides home with my friend. I have a very good friend at work who lives two miles from me. She doesn’t always work the same hours as me, but lately, she’s texted me before work and asked if I wanted a ride home after work since she was working the same shift as me. So on those days I take the Metro in to work and then my friend gives me a ride home. I love this arrangement for two reasons: 1) Metro ride means time to read on my commute. Also it’s much cheaper to ride the Metro in to work than to pay for parking. and 2) Rides home are almost like date night with my friend. Since we both work for the opera, during the busy season we never get to have friend dates. Getting to ride home together has been so much fun – we chat and gossip and trade parenting stories and ideas. It’s been a highlight of my week.

– Trying to soak in the fall colours:

-More fall delights:

We don’t have trees in our backyard, so a big pile of fall leaves is quite a novelty to the kids. We were walking around our neighborhood this weekend, when the kids spotted a big pile of leaves, and instinctively they knew just what to do. After we moved into our current treeless house, I realized I don’t miss having to do leaf clean up every year – or rather the Husband is the one who does it – but I do miss having big pile of leaves to play in.

– One day this week – the serendipity of having the Wordle match the World:

-Office essentials for tech week:

The note, left for us by the stage managers of the opera that is performing on opposite nights as us, says “No Trains – but something calming and fun” and is in reference to the train set that we had set up in our rehearsal space office. And this little puzzle has indeed provided a nice brain shift in the midst of a very busy week. And of course, all the snacks – so essential.

– One day the afternoon bus was an hour late. Turns out the shortage of bus drivers is creating a situation where bus drivers have to drive more than one route, often returning to school to pick up kids between routes. There were definitely some very frustrated parents at the bus stop because there was a lack of forthcoming information. While waiting, I snapped this picture of the trees across the street, thinking, “Well at least I have pretty trees to look at!”

– Something touching:

On the nights when I don’t make it home until bedtime, there has been lately a toothbrush prepped for me when I get home. Apparently the baby insists on prepping me a toothbrush as she is doing toothbrushes for the other kids. I find it so sweet. Of course by the time I get home, the toothpaste has dried out and hardened a little bit, but I still use it anyway and feel immensely loved. Also it makes it so much harder to get mad at the toothpaste art all over the counter.

What we ate: I wasn’t home a lot this week for dinner, but we still managed a few good home-cooked meals.

Saturday: This was part of child free weekend, so I didn’t really have real meals. Funny how keeping the kids fed is the main motivation for regular meal times at out house. I cleaned out the fridge and at some probably questionable leftovers. Then supplemented with popcorn and a cherry coke at the movies

Sunday: I worked this night so I’m pretty sure I brought leftovers.

Monday: the Husband and kids came home while I was at work. The ten year old made mac n cheese from the blue box, and the Husband steamed some broccoli. I had leftovers at work.

Tuesday: Taco Tuesday… I prepped Butternut squash and poblanos for the Husband. When he got home, he roasted them and mixed it with a can of black beans. They ate that with tortillas and guacamole. It’s the Sweet Potato Taco recipe from Dinner Illustrated, with butternut squash subbed for Sweet potatoe

Wednesday: i was home and we had Indonesian fried rice with Brussel Sprouts, steamed edamame and shrimp on the side. The fried rice is something that everyone groans when I tell them that’s for dinner, but then love it, Brussel sprouts and all. Along with the fried rice, I steamed some edamame and we also ate some leftover shrimp that the Husband had brought home from a fancy restaurant from Queens:

Shrimp in Queens. This is the picture from the restaurant where the Husband and the kids had dinner one night.

Thursday: the Husband brought the ten year old to the opera to see the final dress rehearsal of my show. They ate at the cafe at the theater. I made turkey meatballs in the Instant Pot for my dad to feed the two little kids that evening. These were the same meatballs that I had made last week, and at that time, I had also made a batch to put in the freezer for Future Me, which proved fortuitous.

Friday: Pizza and Hocus Pocus. I had never seen Hocus Pocus, and being as how Halloween is around the corner, I thought that it would be a good option for movie night. It was not at all what I expected; there wasn’t as much plot as I thought there would be.

Weekly recap + what we ate: rituals and whimsy

This was the first week where I’ve really noticed the trees donning their Autumn colours. First a faint swipe of colour here and there, like blush among the green and then towards the end of the week, brilliant red and gold trees. Some trees I saw while out on my lunch time walk:

This past weekend on my day off, I took the kids and my father on a hike to Weverton Cliffs. The five year old had requested, “A hike to a view” as his weekend activity, and Weverton Cliffs came up in my search as very kid friendly. The hike was about two miles out and back hike, and though there was a bit of an elevation gain, the switchbacks made it all very manageable; all three kids walked the whole way – I didn’t have to carry anyone! I feel like 3 miles is the limit for the baby these days. And indeed at the top, we were rewarded with a view. And also some hot chocolate, as one child said that they would not go hiking unless there was hot chocolate. The weather was actually a little warm for hot chocolate, but I think we enjoyed the decadence of having hot chocolate while gazing out on this:

There wasn’t quite enough fall colour to make it seem like this was our “Fall Folliage” hike, but the view was breathtaking nonetheless.

Something I read that made me think this week:
– This article from Barking Up the Wrong Tree, about the power of rituals. There seems to be a fine line between rituals, routines, and habits, but one distinction that the article makes is that rituals are not necessarily practical actions – that is to say a morning exercise routine has a tangible function, but crossing yourself and praying before every meal does not. The interesting point of the article makes, though, is that rituals, even if they don’t have tangible outcomes, do have a huge psychological function. Rituals help anchor chaotic times; they can provide concrete actions in times of anxiety.

There is a great example of how the tennis player Rafael Nadal has all these rituals during a tennis match – from only stepping over lines with his right foot, to making sure his game ID is face up on the bench to squeezing his energy gel exactly four times before he consumes it. These rituals may seem like ticks, but really they are ways for him to create order in his environment. He is quoted from his memoir:
“Some call it superstition, but it’s not. If it were superstition, why would I keep doing the same thing over and over whether I win or lose? It’s a way of placing myself in a match, ordering my surroundings to match the order I seek in my head.“

I was thinking about my life currently, and I don’t think there are many rituals in my day to day. We do say grace before dinner. When I’m stage managing a performance, I have certain things I like to write in my notebook during the half hour before a performance… Aside from that, I can’t think of any rituals that don’t feel like they have a practical purpose. For example, I put my work ID in the exact same spot in my bag the minute I leave work – it is a routine action, but is it a ritual? The practical aspect is that it keeps me from losing my keys. On the other hand, it is a transitional gesture, to signal the end of the work day, so there is indeed an air of ritual about it.

Anyhow, the article made me think about what times in my day would a ritual be helpful for me to create an inner calm amidst chaos – mornings. evenings. before big chorus rehearsals. Tech. Holidays. Travel. In one of the studies the article cited, researchers had subjects perform a ritual involving sprinkling salt and crumpling up paper before they had to sing a big solo. They found that subjects who did this seemingly pointless gesture performed more accurately. So maybe I need to find my own version of salt sprinkle/paper crumple to incorporate into my mornings? I am intrigued by the idea.

Fun things:
-I rode my bike to work. Friday morning, I was going to try to fit in a run before work since we started at 10:30a, then I realized that I could instead get on my bike, get my exercise and commute at the same time and it seemed like that best idea I’d had all week. It’s a 4.9 mile bike ride and takes about half an hour, which is ten minutes longer than taking the metro, but much more fun in the crisp autumn air, especially after having several dreary rainy days. I will admit there is a couple blocks that go uphill and I did get off and walk the bike; hopefully if I ride my bike more I’ll be able to ride up that block soon. After work, I biked to the park and met up with my friend who had picked up the two little kids from school and we played in the playground until it was time to go home for dinner.

-We did not go apple picking last weekend, but we did stop at a farm stand that had many many many different kinds of apples. We bought one of every variety, but didn’t keep straight which was what so I can’t go back and stock up on the varieties that I like the best. For the record, I like crisp apples that are a combination of sweet and sour – apples that crunch when I bite into them. Turns out the apples from Spicknall’s stand are the same price as they would be if we had indeed gone apple picking. I might have to re-evaluate the value of apple picking. Of course our favorite apple picking place has a goats and chickens and a playground, so I guess it is probably more about the event than the fruit.

-We’ve started rehearsal for our next show. One day, mid week, our director emailed me, saying she was cleaning out her son’s closet and did I want some toys that he had outgrown. “Sure!” I said. The next day she brought in a bin full of train tracks and a Lego robot. Now, I have always had an adverse reaction to train tracks and Legos. I know everyone sees creative open ended toys that are fabulous for the imagination. I see tiny pieces that I will have to pick up, or (in the case of Legos) that I will step on, causing excruciating pain. In my ideal world, all toys would be formed to be one single piece, preferably larger than my fist, and with no bits or bobs that will fall off. At any rate, I do fully recognize that these train tracks and robots will send my kids into toy heaven, so I am grateful for the hand me downs.
I put the bin of train tracks in the Stage Management office, and when I came back at the end of rehearsal, this is what I found:

Apparently a box of train tracks could not be resisted by the other stage managers. Over the week, the train set us has grown and morphed, been disassembled and reassembled. We are playing. Seeing the joy people are finding in assembling wooden paths has made me realize that we don’t play enough. We come in and work with great intensity, yet I think there is something that could be incredibly useful in having a trainset in the office. It invites us to shift our brains to something else for a little while and work together. I mean we always work together – I think that’s one of my favorite things about my colleagues is that there is no one I don’t work well with – but building train routes together is a whole other way of working together – kind of whimsical and relaxed. It is a shame our office at the theatre is too small for train tracks. Maybe I need to find something whimsical and fun but compact. A jigsaw puzzle, perhaps?

What we ate: Two soup nights this week – it’s the easiest thing to make ahead in the InstantPot when there is a lot going on in the evenings. In trying to stick to making two vegan dinners a week, I was trying to branch out from the usual bean soups, and I found two soups that were pretty tasty.

Saturday: Take out from one of our favorite restaurants, a Burmese place that had closed briefly during the pandemic but is now open again for take out. Hooray!

Sunday: The Husband and I had date night – that is to say we went grocery shopping together while my mom watched the kids, then had early dinner at a deli. The ten year old made frozen tortellini with red sauce for her siblings.

Monday: Wild Rice Mushroom soup in the InstantPot – It’s a basketball night, so I needed to make something that would be ready to eat when the Husband and kids got home. Vegan.

Tuesday: The Husband cooked. Something involving eggplant. I worked late and had leftover Burmese take out for dinner.

Wednesday: Zucchini pancakes from Bare Minimum Dinners. Such a simple idea – grate two zucchinis, mix up a batch of pancakes from mix (I used Kodiak), add the zucchini and onion powder and some chopped herbs ( cilantro, mint, parsley was what I had on hand) to the mix. I also made some tzatziki on the side and we ate it with chopped up carrots.

Thursday: Pumpkin Lasagna Soup in the Instant Pot. Another activity heavy evening, so I made dinner ahead of time to be ready when folks got home. I was a little skeptical of the recipe, but it sounded interesting – a pumpkin soup with half a cup of tomato sauce and coconut milk and chickpeas and lasagna noodles. It turned out to be really really tasty. vegan.

Friday: Pizza (takeout) and Cool Runnings. I had never seen this 1993 movie about the Jamaican Bobsled team, and it came up in a list of family friendly movies under 100 mins, the time limit being important because we were having a late start to movie night. The movie is highly fictionalized but even still, it is delightful, funny, and inspiring – kind of a perfect family movie night film.

Seasonal Fun lists, regrets, and Fall Aspirations

My first glimpse of Fall colour this year – at Mont Royal in Montreal in AUGUST!!!

Today is officially Fall!

Earlier this month, I was thinking about all the “Summer Fun Lists” I see around the internet and, conversely this article “Our Biggest Regrets from this Summer “ on Slate. I certainly did not do all the activities on my summer fun list, but I did a lot of them. As I watch the last rays of summer fade, I realized that while there are certainly things I did not get to, I don’t really regret not doing them. I think of my Summer List as a brain dump of all the possible fun things to do between mid-June and September, and I don’t have to do them all; I can chose things off the list that suit my mood and situation at any given time. There is no Bingo prize for checking all the boxes. Certainly there are things on the summer list that do require advance planning – travel, seeing friends, activities that require tickets – but many things do not. And being a planning resistant person, I find that it really helps me clarify my priorities to see what I’m willing to put in the effort to plan for or even do on a whim.

Take, for example, my monthly mom’s group happy hour. I’m the one who plans these for my mom’s group, and it usually goes on the calendar three weeks out. I very rarely plan things that far in advance. Of course there are things that go on the calendar that far out, but these are the immovable things that are set by others – swim meets, rehearsal and performance dates, summer camp, etc. My mom’s group happy hour is one of the rare things that I will actively make plans for – I send out a doodle poll for dates and venue suggestions, pick the date and venue, make reservations, tell my Husband so he can plan to be home with the kids that night. It seems like a lot of work, but I feel like mom’s group happy hour is a priority – I love seeing these moms and swapping stories about poop.

The things on my list that I decide to do last minute or the day before – it’s not really a question of priority – it’s just that I think the priority during the summer is to get out and enjoy the sunshine, so any one of a variety of activities will do. I feel so lucky that there are so many wonderful adventures to have near me that can be pulled off impulsively, so there will always be worthwhile and beautiful things to do. As Oliver Burkeman notes in 4000 Weeks – once one realizes the finite nature of life, one can let go of the infinite possibilities and focus on those things that one actually chooses to do.

Last year, we tried to complete the Maryland Ice Cream Trail, and were a little bummed not to get to all ten creameries on the list and vowed to complete it this year. But you know what? We only made it to two of the ten this year, and I’m fine with that. We still had tasty ice cream. Last year we went to three creameries in one day in our quest and that was arguably not a great move. A great memory, but still… regrettable in other ways.

Alright, now that I think of it, I do have one summer regret – I regret signing the ten year old up for County camp. She didn’t love it (apparently the kids were mean) and it was a bit of a schlep for me. Of course hindsight is 20/20 because she loved the camp last year – but this year, I guess it was a different group of kids. At any rate, now I know and I think next year, we will do fewer weeks of camp. Perhaps over winter break I will have her come up with a list of all the possible things she might be interested in doing and then.

I’m not saying there aren’t other things that I wish I had done more of or less of this summer, but I don’t think I had a summer to regret.

Having said all that, Here are some thoughts and aspirations for Fall, roughly (if not technically) between now and Thanksgiving.

Hallowe’en Costumes. I love making Hallowe’en costumes. Last year’s Millenium Falcon was certainly epic for me. This year, however, the two littles wanted to be something that was going to be far simpler to just buy. The ten year old, however, has a more creative idea in mind. I think she was a little disappointed that she couldn’t top her brother’s Millenium Falcon last year (but honestly, what could?). So this year she has an idea that will be a lot of fun and involves cardboard. Or maybe foam core. We’ll see.

Carve a Jack-o’-Lantern, or two or three. I love pumpkin carving. I’m actually working on Hallowe’en this year, so I’ll have to pre-game. Maybe I should also come up with an appropriate costume to wear backstge?

Another round of attic clean out. Finally work up the heart to get rid of the baby stuff.

Apple Picking. If not apple picking then at least apple sauce and apple pie.

Fall Camping. Given my lack of two day weekends this one is very very aspirational.

Hiking in fall colour. Hopefully once a month. By the looks of this fall foliage predicator, it seems like peak colour with happen in our area around the end of October. The Husband is taking the kids to New York to meet up with my parents that weekend, and since that is tech week, I won’t be going. However…. that means that I will have a day off my myself, so I think I will plan a hike on that free day. Or maybe even a bike ride. There are also lots of hikes and activities that our County Parks department sponsors. They always look really interesting and informative, so I want to see if any will fit in our schedule.

Celebrate the baby’s birthday. This is actually this weekend. I didn’t get it together to plan a party, but we have family in town and we will have cake and balloons (shhh… this last will be a surprise). And she got to pick her breakfast cereal at the grocery store this week, a tradition in our household. She picked Fruity Pebbles.

Go to the Theatre. This one is practically done. I have tickets for Hamilton this weekend, purchased four months ago. I never plan theatre (or anything, really) that far out in advance, but last spring I decided that I wanted to take the two older kids so I went ahead and bought the tickets. I did kick myself later because I didn’t double check my dates – it’s the baby’s birthday weekend plus the kids have Monday off school, so maybe we could have taken a bigger family adventure. Oh well.
Hamilton aside, there’s a lot of other really interesting theatre happening near us – this production of Beauty and the Beast looks to be unconventional and awesome.

Survive Tech Week. Keep practicing good habits and making sure I stay human and don’t become a theatre zombie during a tech process that I might be dreading a teeny tiny bit.

Fix the Storm Door. The glass on the storm door got broken by a child a few weeks ago. It’s a pretty old door so will need to be replaced, I think.

Make progress towards ordering window treatments for the living room. We’ve had a stop gap solution in place for a while since our curtain rod broke. It involves sheers and some too-small black panels. I would like to take a step or two towards having proper window treatments in place again.

Ziplining with the ten year old. I had planned on taking her this summer, but it was just too hot, so we put it off until Fall.

Cozy Kitchen Adventures. Who says Fall Adventures have to mean leaving the house? Fall is the start of “hunker and carbs” season. I do want to make something in my Bundt pan since my last attempt was such a wet goopy fail.

Watch some recent movies. Cooler weather means hunkering and watching movies is a good way to hunker. I’m not always able to stay awake for a full movie these days, but there are some that I really want to stay awake for. I am super excited by this adaptation of on of my favorite books as a child, Catherine Called Birdy. AND the ten year old has read this book, so we can watch it together. Also Fire Island has been on my Watchlist all summer. It’s a gay Asian re-telling of Pride and Prejudice, and all of that is just my catnip.

Happy Hour with my mom’s group. A lot of the parents in this group prefer outdoor meet ups so I definitely want to get a few more Happy Hours in before the weather gets too chilly.

Happy Hour with fellow Stage Managers. There has been a seismic shift in the stage management staff at work this past year and it’s made me realize that I really value the my co-workers as human beings, not just as people I work with. The thought of not seeing them at all this opera season makes me a little sad, so I would love to arrange something.

Free Days that are restorative and fulfilling. Given that I’m working every weekend between next week and the middle of November, I don’t know how many of the Fall weekend specific things I’ll manage to get to – things such as Fall Festivals and Special Fall Events. Since I generally only have one day off a week, I really want to guard that time and spend it on what matters. I’ve been thinking about this lately – how to spend my one precious free day. When I have chaotic and hectic free days, I don’t feel at all ready to go back to work. A good free day needs to be a good combination of life tasks and family tasks and personal tasks and leisure tasks and social time and rest. Which seems like a lot to ask of just one day. So maybe I need to pick three of those categories each free day, with rest always being one of the choices.

Home and everyday adventures.

We’ve just come home from our summer road trip to Montreal. It was a wonderful time, and now I’m plunged into a week of unpacking/ school prep/ union negotiations/ baby’s first day (ever!) of daycare. I have trip recaps coming from our road trip…and I have to finish the Shenandoah recaps too. Whew. It feels like there was a lot of travel there, but I think we’ve just packed two trips into the end of the summer because the 10 year old’s swim team schedule took up much of June and July.

The weeks before we went to Montreal felt really packed. I had the two little kids with me for one week and then all three with me the next week. I had all sorts of fun plans for the week with the three kids, but then I got sick. Not COVID sick, thankfully, but aches, pains, sore throat, persistent cough, and low energy. And then at the end of the week, I got pink eye. I felt so sad to have to cancel the fun family plans that we had, but I think the kids were just as happy to hunker on the couch with me and binge watch Ugly Betty. (A show that I never watched when it was on air, because I didn’t have a tv then, but is really delightful.) Also, I discovered that HBO co-produced a Chinese version of Miss Fisher’s Murder Mysteries called Miss S. It is set in 1930s Shanghai, so I also watched that to brush up on my Chinese and scratch the Miss Fisher itch. Miss S, was better at the brushing up than at the scratching of the itch. I think there are some cultural differences that make the Chinese version feel a little more superficial and melodramatic than the original. The costumes and the people, however, are just as gorgeous.

At any rate, before I got sick, we still managed to squeeze in some fun adventures with the kids. I knew we were going on a big trip, so I didn’t feel like I had to get too ambitious, and at the same time, I knew that getting the kids out of the house was going to be important to everyone’s well being. It turns out there are so many little adventures to have near home that require very little prep. Either they fit in a morning and we can be home for a late lunch, or I throw together a simple lunch (PB&J sandwiches, cucumbers, fruit, and some trail mix or cookies) and take it with.

Patapscoe State Park and A Day playing in the River then stop at Spicknall’s Farm Stand – I think this is one of my favorite day trips during the weekday. The river is always shady and quiet, there aren’t a lot of people. There is a fun bridge to cross over to get to the river, and the river is nice and shallow and cool. We were dog sitting the day we went, and I think we all had a very relaxing day. We spent a few hours at the river and then stopped at the playground at the park before heading home. On the way home we picked up some produce from Spicknall’s farm stand – peaches, melons, squash, eggplant, corn, and tomatoes. I’m always so surprised by how inexpensive the summer produce is when you get out of the city/suburbs.

Library for morning story time then books and a park – There is a children’s library near us that has the best story times. The librarian always does some songs and fingerplay activities as well as reads the funniest books in the funniest voices. This library is just for children so inside is all picture books and toys. It makes for an easy outing – 9:30am story time, then inside the library for an hour or so, then we walk to the park ten minutes away to play for a while. Typically there is little bakery nearby that we will walk to to get a treat, but it was closed the day we were at the library. So the kids immediately decided that we would just have to come back for storytime/library/park again. The baby has taken to saying, “I want to go back there tomorrow!” anytime we do something she likes and then have to leave.

Glen Echo Park for Carousel Rides and the Aquarium – We got wristbands to ride the carousel all day, but turns out the five year old was not as enamored of carousels as the baby. The baby would probably be happy to ride it all day. The five year old could only be convinced to ride three times. We also got tickets to to go to the aquarium. It’s a small affair – just one room of tanks, mostly focusing on the sea life of the Chesapeake Bay. Even still, we spent about an hour there. There was also a touch tank with horseshoe crabs and other creatures. And then outside the aquarium, a big sand pit to play in. We only did a half day at Glen Echo, but next time, I might also get tickets for the puppet show and stay longer.

The National Building Museum – With so many free museums in DC, it is easy for this one to fall off my radar because it does charge admission, but it is worth it. It is actually a really great museum for kids, though, and there are some really neat exhibits about architecture and building. Every summer they do a huge installation exhibit in their great hall – one year they converted the space into a huge lawn with fake grass and hammocks, one year it was a beach. This year, in a joint venture with a theatre company, they installed a theatre – Playhouse, they call it. During the evening the theatre company has been performing A Midsummer Night’s Dream. I thought it would be fun to go see the space and this theatre. We missed the tour so couldn’t go backstage, but we could look at the space from the audience and from above. The Building Museum also has a great Play/Work/Build room where kids can build with big and little foam blocks. There was also an interactive/ Virtual reality Notre Dame exhibit where you got a tablet and walked into a room with pictures of Notre Dame, and you could point the tablet at the QR code on the pictures and get at 360 degree view of what it was like when Notre Dame was being built. Pretty cool, and very high tech. There were a couple other exhibits that we didn’t get to see, so I do want to go back. We took the metro down, which always makes things seem like an even bigger adventure.

Two Dollar Tuesdays at the Regal Movie Theatre – This was one of the outings I took the kids on when I was still feeling run down, but not so run down that I wanted to stay home since we had been home for two days straight already. Regal Theatres does $2 Tuesday matinees during the summer of older movies, so I took the kids to see the third How to Train Your Dragon movie. (It was either that or Trolls.) After parking, popcorn, and soda it really wasn’t as frugal an adventure as I had thought it would be, to be honest. Yet, the movie was pretty good, and it was the baby’s first time at a movie theatre. The theatre was a little more crowded than I had thought – when I reserved my tickets the theatre only had a handful of seats occupied, but when we got there there were several summer camp groups. Oh well… I feel like it still felt like a classic summer adventure – popcorn and Sprite and a movie in an chilly air conditioned theatre on a hot hot day. I had a good time.

Next time, I’m only getting one popcorn for them all to share!

And of course – parks, playgrounds, and playdates.

Some other thoughts that came into my life in that past little while:

-I love Carolyn Hax’s advice column, and there were two things she wrote recently that really struck me – so much so that I screen shot them and saved them to my phone:

I think I’ve been struggling lately with expectations – of myself, of my kids, of my husband, of my work. Hax also had one column where she said that “All anger and resentment lie in the gap between expectation and reality.” It may sound defeatist to stop expecting change, yet I think there is a fine line between giving up your expectation that someone/something will change and being realistic about the future and acting accordingly. There are so many things, I think “Oh if only it were this way or that way, it would be better!” And perhaps I need to shift to accepting these things and seeing them for what they are and work with that.

– Perhaps in that same vein of expectations and adjusting, this quote via swissmiss, is so very true, I think:

-I thought this Wordle especially ironic as I solved it at the park while getting eaten alive by mosquitoes:

On that note – I’ve been shifting my Wordle strategy lately. When I started, I would try to build off the previous word I played and try to solve in as few steps as possible, but lately I’ve been trying to fully suss out all the letters before guessing the word – so I try to play as many letters as possible in the first three lines. Sometimes this method is more efficient, but it always pains me a little to play a word that I know will be wrong in the hopes of discovering more letters. There’s something a little poignantly sacrificial about that tactic. Well… any other Wordle tactics I should try?

-One day, when I was sick and hunkering on the couch in the basement, the Husband brought home take out for dinner. In anticipation of his arrival, I sent the kids upstairs to set the table. They were soon back, claiming to have accomplished the task. Skeptical, I sent the five year old up with my phone. “Take a picture for me!” I said. And he did:

I don’t know why this picture delights me so much, but it does.

-The picture at the top of this post is just a picture of the sky. It’s been such a beautiful shade of blue these first few weeks of August. It’s not quite captured in the picture, but I wanted to remember that such a blue exists.

What We Ate, the pre-vacation, minimal shopping version:

Monday: Happy Hour with my mom’s group so I had nachos at the local brewery.

Tuesday: Tomato and Corn Tart and Salad. The tart is loosely based on this recipe. I had picked up tomatoes and corn from the market and wanted to make the full recipe, but the way the day went, I didn’t have time to make the cornmeal crust, so I used puff pastry. I’ve decided frozen puff pastry is a freezer staple that allows me to instantly pull off a fancy-ish dinner. Throw some sauteed veggies in a pastry crust with some cheese and egg. Bake. An easy elegant dinner in less than 45 mins.

Wednesday: eggplant snow peas stir fry – kitchen sink kind of dinner to use up some veggies in the fridge.

Thursday: Grilled sausage, corn and hotdogs with bagged Caesar Salad and cut up melon. We had a friend over for dinner and grilling is always the perfect easy meal for impromptu casual dinner with friends.

Friday: Pizza and Thor

Saturday: Farro and Snap Pea Salad from Dinner Illustrated. I was trying to use up some veggies and happened to have everything to make this salad.

Sunday: Dumplings and green beans. One of our go-to simple weekend dinners.

Monday: Spaghetti and Meatballs. A request from the kids. I used the InstantPot meatball recipe from Bare Minimum Dinners – so easy.

Tuesday: Take out Burgers and fries.

Wednesday: Chilaquiles, sort of. Another kitchen sink meal (can you tell I was trying to eat down the fridge before we left on vacation?). I wanted to do something to use up the package of corn tortillas in the fridge and the Husband had grown some corn in the garden that he wanted us to eat. There was a recipe from Bare Minimum Dinners for chilaquiles which was pretty much just salsa and tortilla chips and eggs. So I fried up all the corn tortillas – they turned out really really tasty and we almost ate them all on their own. Then I looked in the fridge and turns out we were out of salsa, so I dumped canned tomatoes, onion, and peppers in a skillet, added a can of black beans and the corn and cracked some eggs into the whole concoction to poach. It was kind of a combination of chilaquiles and shakshuka.

Thursday: Tortellini and red sauce and Alfredo sauce. I was trying to use up some cream, hence the Alfredo sauce. But then I realized I could actually just freeze the cream and use it when I got back. The Alfredo sauce was pretty tasty, though.

Shenandoah camping – Day two

One thing about camping with two small kid and no other adult is that when one kid wakes up at 6:30am and needs to use the restroom, you have to wake up the other kid as well because you can’t very well leave a sleeping toddler in a tent by themself. I know I should just instruct the five year old in the fine art of peeing in the woods- that would be the simplest solution. Yet, the mechanics of peeing while standing up still baffle me a little and everytime we try, pee goes all over. This instruction might be something I assign to the Husband.

At any rate early morning bathroom call was how the day began. A little earlier than I had wanted since the sleep the night before had been not terribly restful, as is typical for the first night of camping. But bladder and sunlight and a natural early riser meant that at 6:30am there was a bathroom run. And then we were up for the day.

We came back from the bathroom and I made everyone oatmeal from the musli that I had made while looking over trail maps to decide what I thought might be fun to do with the kids.

After breakfast we walked along a trail next to our campground that led to tbe campstore – I guess one could call it hiking, but it seemed more like a relaxes nature stroll. The path we took was part of the Appalachian Trail, which was kind of a cool thought- that we could get on this trail and walk south to Georgia or North to Maine. This stretch was pretty unremarkable, a path through the woods though we did see rocks and sticks and acorn, which the baby demanded that I put in my pocket to take home. And there was a millipede which the kids found fascinating. The first of many we would see.

Trail explorers along the Appalachian Trail.

We got to the campstore just as the misty rain became a downpour. In a bit of unfortunate oversight, I had left our hats, umbrellas and rain gear back at the camp site, so we just waited in the covered alleyway outside the campstore for the storm to pass. I felt ill equipped for this kind of waiting it out, but I did have a sack full of trail mix, water, and, in a bit of luck, a deck of BrainQuest cards. This last kept the kids occupied for a little bit, but then they spent the rest of the time running back and forth.

Eventually, after about an hour, the downpour lightened to a mist and we walked back to the campsite, and had lunch. To keep the kids occupied while I made lunch, I set up the hammock for them, including the rain fly in case it were to rain again. They always have great fun with the hammock- fun for swinging but also fun for lazing around.

After lunch was eaten and cleaned up, I decided to join them in the hammock to see if the baby would take a nap. Well, we all ended up asleep. I think that’s one of the lovely things about camping- the sleepless, restless first night is always offset by a lovely afternoon nap. I woke up about an hour later to the sound of rain tapping against the rain fly. Somewhere in the back of my head I remembered that I had left the windows to the car open in an effort to air the car out. This thought kept wafting into my groggy nap brain, but it was so hard to pull myself out of the gentle lull of a swinging hammock full of warm child snuggles!

In a fit of superhuman strength I untangled myself from the kids, went to shut the car windows and returned to the hammock. I spent another half hour reading The Splendid and the Vile among a tangle of children’s limbs until they woke up and reminded me of my promise to buy firewood and make a fire that evening. We got into the car and headed back to the camp store. After getting two bundles of wood, i decided there was still enough time in the day to sneak in a quick hike, so I drove us to the trailhead for Blackrock summit.

My guidebook said this was an easy hike with a rocky scramble to a great view. The baby has never met a rocky scramble that she didn’t like, so it sounded perfect. Plus the hike was only a mile long so it was just the right length for a late afternoon adventure.

The baby complained most of the way up the trail, (“I’m tired,” “My tummy hurts!”) but the moment she saw the rocky scramble at the top, she was happily off like a shot. The summit looks like a pile of construction rubble debris, but the placard at the trail head said that it was actually a rock shelf at the bottom of the ocean, when this area was an ocean. The ocean receded and eventually the rock shelf collapsed.

I know everyone is always amazed by their children, but I am truly in awe of how well the baby can climb- she looks at the situation, and plots where her toes and fingers can go and how to wedge her foot in just so to get leverage. She lifts with her legs and isn’t afraid to blindly drop to a lower level. It is so much fun to watch.

After our hike we went back to the campsite and had dinner and a little fire. I have become okay at making a fire, but I’m always surprised when it does work. My method mostly consists of making fire starters from newspaper and dryer lint and wood shavings. (the Husband, who does the laundry, saves dryer lint all year in a Ziploc bag so that I can have it for when I go camping). The weather had been so wet and rainy, so I didn’t really have any good twigs and branches to use for kindling. Surprisingly the fire still managed to catch rather quickly. I wanted to save the marshmallows and s’mores for when the ten year old and the Husband arrived the next day, so we just enjoyed the flickering flames

The fire eventually died down, I cleaned up dinner, we brushed our teeth, got into pjs, read the rest of The Enormous Crocodile, and then went to bed. It was only about 9:45p when everyone settled down to sleep, which was late for the kids but early for me. Clearly being in the woods without internet does wonders for my ability to go to bed early. I did stay up another half and hour to read and journal, but even still I was asleep much earlier than usual.

When I was planning this trip, I was a little nervous when I saw the rain in the forecast, but looking back, it didn’t end up being a big deal. Luckily we have good gear so we all stayed dry and the rain was pretty sporadic- two 90 minute showers. The rest of the day was mild and not so hot. I think the nice thing about camping is that I feel like I’m either having leisure time (book and hammock or hike) or doing essential things (feeding kids); there isn’t empty time or puttering time or aimless time. Having my time be black and white like that – relax with purpose or survival – takes away a lot of the restlessness I can feel when there are a billion small tasks to be done. While camping, I don’t have to think about activity registration or paying the bills or making social plans, or fixing that thing that needs to fixed (or thinking about fixing it…)… because I can’t tick those things off my to do list right then. I can think and plan, but the number of things that are actually achievable is actually quite limited.

Even though the time is filled and every tasks has many more steps than at home, somehow, I don’t feel busy. Having to unpack the camp stove for every meal, having to wash all the dishes right away, and then haul the dirty water to the bath house, having to put away all the food completely for fear of bears – that doesn’t feel busy to me. It is just essential. I think busy comes from feeling like there is soooo much to do that I am just going from one task to another, and it will never get done. Yet when camping there is just two things – enjoy being outside and feed everyone (Okay, there is also bathroom call and brush teeth, I suppose) – it doesn’t feel like I won’t get things done. Because of course we will eat. And then of course we will relax or go for a hike.

I once went camping with a friend and in the middle of one afternoon, while I was sitting reading a book, she came over and said to me, “It’s amazing how there is really nothing to do here.” And I thought, “Yes, isn’t that the beauty of it?”