vegan meals – Life Off Headset

Weekly Recap + what we ate: Good-bye February 2024!

Our last weekend in February was delightfully filled by a visit from my high school friend. She arrived on Saturday mid afternoon and was with us until Monday when I drove her to her hotel where she would be staying for her conference. She’s the only friend from high school that I still keep in touch with, and even though we only see each other every couple of years, we always pick up where we left off. She has children a few years older than mine, and she has such a chill approach to parenting that it’s so soothing talking to her about kids and life and how things turn out. She also used to date my brother so there are things that she just gets about me, even when she doesn’t know the details of my life ant any given moment.

Before my friend came in on Saturday, the 12 year old had a voice lesson, and since the voice lesson was closer to the airport than our house, we decided to have a little adventure in the two hours between voice lesson and my friend’s arrival. (The 12 year old had a hang out with a friend, so she didn’t come along). I remembered that the Gardens at Dumbarton Oaks are free during the winter months, and I had always wanted to visit. It was about 15 minutes from where we were, so we drove down to Georgetown, parked our car, stopped for some coffee, and walked down Wisconsin Ave to Dumbarton Oaks.

So funny story – the only reason I know that Dumbarton Oaks exists is because Igor Stravinsky wrote a chamber symphony called Dumbarton Oaks, which was commissioned by Robert and Mildred Bliss, who used to own the estate. The estate is now a research institute, library, museum, and gardens. Ever since I heard the chamber symphony in college, I’ve wanted to visit Dumbarton Oaks. So finally, twenty plus years later, we went. It’s so funny what random bits of information I know because it has a connection to music.

The gardens were quite extensive and there was lots to see, even though it was still pretty dormant. We played our “Find the Rainbow Colors” game. Though we didn’t really find blue because the sky, which is often our default blue, was pretty grey and cloudy. But there were these cool green-ish blue rocks in the pebble garden, so I took a picture of those. And I can never find indigo…

The purple and yellow flowers always remind me of the passage in Braiding Sweetgrass where Robin Wall Kimmerer said she wanted to study botany to know why purple and yellow flowers always look so nice together. Turns out there is a scientific explanation for that – I can’t remember what, to be honest – but it’s always struck me, this idea of wanting to understand beauty.

We wandered the gardens until it was time to go pick up my friend. The rest of the weekend was pretty chill. I loved having a friend visit who didn’t feel the need to be a tourist, so we could hang out and not traipse all over the city. She just tagged along with us on our normal life things and we had great conversations and connections. Looking back, Sunday was a great day – it checked a lot of soul satisfying boxes:
-Connection – hanging out for 48 hours with my friend, including dinner at my favorite hot pot place.
-Exercise – we went skating together while the kids were in lessons. So not super strenuous, but we got our bodies moving for a good two hours.
-Creative – I had to finish my watercolour homework, so in the afternoon, I worked on that while my friend hung out and hemmed her pants. How wonderfully domestic does that sound?
-Outside time – We took the two little kids outside after I was done my homework and watched them while they rode their bikes around the block for an hour. Again, not as active as a hike, but still some quality sunshine and fresh air time.

I think the only box that didn’t get checked was some knocking some big household organization project off my list. But… you can’t do everything and the day overall had a nice leisurely pace. The Husband did do a lot of work in the garden, though, so maybe I can have him check off the “household task” box for us?

March is my last month at a reduced work schedule before I go back into opera mode. I feel like February wasn’t super focused. I was on an 8 hr a week contract at work so I could do some admin and stage management department duties, but I couldn’t get into a good rhythm of when to be at work. I wanted to be available for at least 30-60 mind a day to handle email and tasks, so then the questions became how to spend the other hours a week. I did take the weekends completely off, like didn’t-even-check-email-off, which was really nice. I did periodically have a sense of panic that I was shirking my job responsibilities, but then I had to remind myself that an 8 hour a week contract means I only have to work 8 hours a week. I wasn’t being paid to be constantly available, and there were certainly enough people at work that nothing depended on me alone. I ended up mostly working two three hour days – usually Wednesday and Thursday – and then splitting the other two hours between the other three days, working from home. But even though a three hour day sounds short, it breaks up the entire day in such a way that I felt like unless I was super focused – which I rarely was – I lost a lot of time in commuting and transitioning. I find transitioning between activities is when I loose the most time – it’s when I’m most likely to get distracted, start scrolling and then loose and hour or so. So then little tasks – especially little computer tasks – got dropped because the last thing I wanted to do after being on my computer for 3 hours at the office was to turn on the computer at home and pay the bills and do the kid sign ups, research how to get rid of my car, etc.

This week’s work from watercolor class:
First the homework from last week – the assignment was “sunsets”

Then the lesson was painting poppies. I didn’t love this one – I felt like it was a little un-refined. The lady who sits next to me in class makes such delicate paintings.

Anyhow, February 2024 is now past and we are onto March. I don’t always do a monthly reflection, but I did for February:
February highs:
– Starting water color classes.
-Getting back on my bike.
– Seeing the kids thrive in the activities we had signed them up for. I worried that it was going to be too much, but they truly love what they are doing – except piano, no one really loves to practice, though they say they want to learn to play…
– Hosting Super Bowl Sunday gathering with friends.
– Visit from my high school friend
– joining a women’s Lenten reading group. Having that connection, but also the daily readings, which somehow give me much to ponder even though I’m not Catholic like the others in the group.
-Making baozi. I want more cooking adventures!
-As a family, we made it to a museum, a hike and some gardens in February.
-The wonderful weather. Mostly.
-Watching Galavant with the kids. Only three more episodes to go! What should we watch next???
-The vocal recital that I did titles for. Such a beautiful program, beautifully sung.
-Lunches with the Husband. A good use of my lighter schedule.

February not so highs. (aka lows, but really, life is pretty good, so I don’t feel right calling them “lows” – they’re just life, the tedious, repetitive, papercut stresses of life. Or maybe I need a re-frame. Or more sleep.)
-Tantrums and chore cajoling. Ugh. When will this phase end? Though I ask that and my kids are all at different phases, so…. I guess never? When they move out? Also I realize chore cajoling could also refer to the pep talks I give to myself to stop scrolling and fold the laundry.
-Making little progress on some house chores, losing momentum and focus.
– The first grader and some communication issues with his teacher. Essentially he’s having accidents at school at least once or twice a month, either because his teacher wants him to finish his work first, or the teacher doesn’t realize he’s asking to go. I’m a little stumped by the whole thing. Also frustrated. Also trying to decide if it’s a problem because he doesn’t seem to mind…
-New duties at work that are surprisingly harder than I had thought they would be and not yet knowing how to make things better.
– Not finding/making time to journal and then not remembering or savoring the memories of what I’ve been doing with my days.
-Laundry. So much laundry.

Some aspirations for March:
-TAXES. This is the big one. If I do only one thing in March, it will be to assemble everything for our tax preparer. This is not an aspiration, but a MUST DO!!!!
– Figure out what to do with my car.
-Sort through summer camp sign ups. We registered for some second choice camps, but then first camp choice had slots open up, so I just have to take a minute to look at everything and sort it all out.
-Spring break adventures – getting through them.
-At work – some desk organization. I need to move desks – to the cubicle where the head of the stage management department usually sits, but I’ve been in my desk for over 15 years and I’m partial to it so this is proving psychologically difficult. Kind of like the car. Maybe I don’t need to move desks?
– Organizing a) my sewing corner, and b) the toy room.
– Lunch with my mom’s group.
-maintaining life habits – reading, yoga and exercise, journaling, writing here regularly, making 2 vegan dinners a week.
– sort out my county rec center pass, and actually using it. The County is once again giving all residents free passes to the rec centers this year. I want to get my pass so I can start using the gym and introduce some strength work to my life.
-continuing to find time for lunches with the Husband.
-Listening to more musicals. This is a fun one. I’ve been on a binge lately of those unironic big hearted musicals from the 90s – those musicals that were huge spectacles of stage and emotion. I’m currently obsessed with Frank Wildhorn and Nan Knighton’s The Scarlet Pimpernel. Up next, I think might be Titanic.
– Going to bed at a decent time. ie. before 11:30pm. Constant struggle.
-make some dentist and doctor appointments.
–maybe get a hair cut. I was realizing as I was writing in my 5 year journal that the last time I got my hair cut was this time last year. What?!?! I think I had a bit of sticker shock last time since my hairdresser had raised his prices. I’ve been with him for over ten years so I don’t know if I have it in me to find a new person. (Like my car and my desk at work….)

Grateful For:
-Sunny, warm weather. There have been some rainy days too, but the weather has been really mild. The hyacinths have come up along our front walk, and when I walk to the front door, their sweet peppery smell reminds me that it is early spring.

-Impulsive playdates and kids who can run free at the park without being watched. The kids had a half day of school on Friday, so I texted the mom of two of the 7 year old’s friends (they’re twins), and asked if they wanted to meet up at a park. They did and she invited two other kids from her bus stop to meet us there. We ended up spending two hours at the park. The kids ran around and did I don’t know what and I got to chat with the other moms. I don’t always find it easy to talk to other parents, but that wasn’t the case this time. We chatted about all sorts of things, and not just our kids, which is always nice.

-My friend at our bus stop who invited me to the Lenten Women’s Group. I think it’s always awkward to invite someone to something new, but especially something that is based in religion. So I’m glad my friend had the courage to ask me to join. It was nice to get out of the house and talk to other moms about their spiritual background and how they try to incorporate it into their lives. I kind of feel like a fraud since I wouldn’t call myself religious – Lent wasn’t a thing when I was growing up. But religion is important to the Husband and two of the three kids are Catholic, so I do want to understand how it makes up the fabric of our life and support that. I also really like thinking about the group readings. The book looks at Lent through the lens of the Seven Deadly Sins. We’ve covered gluttony and lust so far. The readings have made me really think about what it means to have enough and what to do with my energy rather constantly accumulating/wanting more.

-That I don’t have to be in tech. I stopped by the theatre a couple days last week since the show that we’re currently producing, but which I’m not working on, is in tech. I love my job. I love making the magic of theatre and music happen. But once in a while, it’s nice to just sit and watch tech happen and not have the pressure of having to be the one to make it all happen. I find it also good to sit and watch tech from the house sometimes, just to remind myself what it’s like out front. When I’m in tech, I have a headset on and I’m communicating with all the other stage managers and I’m talking to the crew, so I usually know what’s going on. Sometimes, I forget, though, that the people out front don’t necessarily have the same voices in their ear as I do and might not know what is happening backstage. So what to me backstage might seem like a frantic scramble to get, say, a prop ready to come out onstage while the singer onstage waits for it, is, to the people sitting in the house, sometimes… nothing happening. Watching the process without a headset is always a good reminder to make sure that the people without headsets know what is going on. Anyhow, as much as I love my job, I’m grateful that sometimes I don’t have to be part of that stress. (and also jealous because the show is super cute and fun.)

Looking Forward To:
-We booked a trip to Maine/Acadia for this summer. We got a National Parks Pass and I very much want to make sure we use it this year. We’ve had passes the past couple years (including a free one given to all 4th graders when the 12 year old was in 4th grade – it’s a great program!), but I don’t think I use it to it’s full capacity. We go to Great Falls and Shenandoah regularly because those are all close, but I’ve always felt like I want to do more. So this year we are going to Acadia. I’m looking forward to sunsets and hikes and lobster. (I don’t think we’ll be doing sunrise at Cadillac Mountain because of where our airbnb is located, but I think it would have been a hard sell for the kids. Another time…)

-Theatre trips! I have tickets to a couple shows coming up! Yay. The Husband and I are going to see Company, and the dress rehearsal/ Opening night for the next opera (which I’m not working on, so I’ll get to see it! Yay!). And then the local high school is putting on Beauty and the Beast and I think that will be fun to see too. I feel like it’s good to see the professional shows and the high school ones – for a sense of perspective.

-I have a contract for my summer gig and I am SO EXCITED! It’s an opera I worked on six year ago, an opera written in 2017 about the Christmas Eve truce of 1914 during World War I. The opera is just. so. beautiful – in my top 5 opera jobs ever. And it’s very rare one gets to do a contemporary opera more than once, so I’m super thrilled.

-Listening to this audiobook:

I saw this audiobook recommended on the site Five Books, and I really enjoyed Alexis Hall’s book Boyfriend Material, so I thought I’d give this one a try. I’m very much loving it – it’s an amnesia romance novel where the amnesia victim doesn’t really have amnesia. How’s that for flipping a trope on it’s head? Amnesia romances usually aren’t my thing, but this one’s pretty great. And the audiobook is pitch perfect; it’s like an audio version of my favorite British rom com in the vein of Notting Hill or Four Weddings and a Funeral. Fluffy and and warm and hilarious. I’ve laughed out loud so many times.

What We Ate:
Saturday: Chicken Ginger Scallion soup from Deb Perelmans’ Smitten Kitchen Keepers cookbook. This was a super easy soup, and I even make it with frozen chicken, just cooking it a bit longer. Nice pantry type meal. Everyone loved it. We didn’t watch a movie because my friend was visiting, but we did watch and episode of the new season of Bad Batch.

Sunday: We went out to Hot Pot with my friend. Our favorite place with a conveyor belt and a robot that delivers the food for you.

Monday: Chickpeas braised in tomatoes. This was leftover from the week before. I added some water and it was more of a soup than stew, but still tasty. We had it with bread. Vegan.

Tuesday: Beet burgers and tater tots. The beet burgers were this recipe from Post Punk Kitchen. We had beets to use up, so I tried this recipe. The burgers were really tasty, and pretty easy to assemble, though grating the beets did take a while and then because my food processor is small and only does 1.5 cups at a time chopping all the ingredients together took a couple of batches. If you had a bigger capacity food processor then these would be much faster to whip up. I highly recommend this as a veggie burger. The burgers also heat up really well, so I had them for lunches the rest of the week. vegan.

Wednesday: Take out Vietnamese – buns and noodle bowls. We had an afterschool playdate with a friend and her father brought dinner over afterwards. Tasty.

Thursday: Pork and tofu stir fry with udon noodles. The Husband cooked.

Friday: Pizza and Galavant.

Weekly Recap + What we ate: Christmas is around the corner! Try not to panic.

Christmas Train Display at the Trolley Museum.

The festive events are starting to really populate our calendar. Last weekend, we took the kids to the Trolley Museum for their holiday display and trolley ride with Santa. This checked a lot of boxes on the Holiday fun list – there was model trains, Santa, and crafts. The two little kids went on the trolley ride twice so got to ask Santa for toys twice. The first time, the baby asked for a rubber crocodile. The second time, both kids asked for a train set. Spoiler alert – they are not getting a rubber crocodile.

Sunday the ten year old and I went Christmas shopping at the mall. I haven’t done that in an age! We also had lunch there, and there was a really tasty Korean noodle place in the food court. I love how food court options have really expanded since I was a kid. The ten year old had Shake Shack. I find malls a little exhausting for all the choice that is there. We were there to get calendars, but also ended up in the candy store. There were wine gums and Dairy Milk, so I guess it was an okay pit stop. The we stopped at Michaels and we indulged in that fad of taking pictures in the floral section:

Monday was Merry TubaChristmas! It’s a concert where tuba players of all ages from across the region get together to play Christmas carols. The Husband and I have been going to TubaChristmas since we were dating; it’s one of our Christmas must dos. I think one year I was working and couldn’t go, but except for that year, and 2020, we’ve gone every December. It’s always fun to go see all the tubas decorated for the holidays and to hear them play Christmas tunes and feel the floor vibrate for the very lowest notes. They always invite the kids up to sing Jingle Bells, and the three year old took to the stage without hesitation, with the ten year old running up behind her to make sure she could get up onstage okay. The five year old didn’t want to go up at first, but when he saw that his sisters were both up there, he went up too.

That’s a lot of brass. And there were even more in the balconies.

The rest of the week was pretty chill. There was a “snow” delay on Wednesday because of an anticipated storm. It ended up just being rainy and cold, but I was still fine with school starting two hours later and having a slower morning.

I went to the library one day and hoped to pick up some holiday/Christmas books, but the pickings were super slim. I guess that is to be expected mid-December. I usually go the week leading into Christmas but since I wasn’t really going to do Advent books this year, I didn’t feel the same sense of urgency. Maybe I should just buy some more Christmas picture books?

The five year old’s class had a gingerbread house decorating event on Friday morning, which I went to. It was actually graham crackers attached to small milk cartons with frosting, but I’m sure it’s all the same as long as there is a surface to attach candy. Lessons learned:
– Get the thick popsicle sticks to spread frosting. The tongue depressor size.
– do not get the shrink wrapped candy canes. By the time you get the plastic off there are broken pieces and frustrated kids.
– the cutting edge on the Saran Wrap is sharp.
-kids like decorating with those red and white peppermint candies, but do not like to eat them.

Also … one parent brought Hot Tamales candy. I thought that was a curious choice. Maybe a little unfortunate for those kids who were unfamiliar with them and thought they were Mike and Ikes. But I don’t know… maybe there are kids out there who like Hot Tamales? My did certainly did not.

Thank goodness for the mask, otherwise enforcing the “no licking, no eating” rule would have been hard.

One week til Christmas and hopefully I’m in an okay place. On the to do list still:
-grocery shop. I have the menu mostly planned.
– Holiday cards for the kids teachers. We’re going to paint some blank cards this weekend. I have to pick up some gift cards to go in them this week.
-Put our Christmas cards in the mail. They are all addressed and stamped, I just have to walk them down to the mailbox. This feels pretty late. Every year I say I’ll do it sooner, but it never works out that way.
– Order presents for my brother’s family. They don’t celebrate Christmas so I’m not that concerned with making the December 25th deadline for this.
-Order present for my parents. I’m gifting them Storyworth this year. It’s a service that sends the recipient weekly questions about their life and the recipient writes and answer, and can upload pictures. At the end of 52 weeks, the company take all the answers and put them together in a book. It’s a virtual gift so I don’t feel panicked about that either, as long as I order it this week sometime.
-Pickup one last present for the 10 year old. She wanted some Barbie accessories. This stuff was specifically on her letter to Santa. I’m always surprised that she still plays with Barbies, but I think she just really likes setting up little scenes. I’m going to pick up some plates and tiny food from the craft store. (The stuff says “for decoration only. Not a toy.” so I had a moment of pause. But I figure it’s fine for a ten year old.) The rest of the kids’ presents are mostly done. I think. The Husband is in charge of the toys. I try to stick to some version of “Want, need, read, wear” categories for the kids, plus one Santa gift. I take care of the “need, read, wear” and the Husband does “want” and “Santa”. Clearly he’s the fun parent.
-Stocking stuffers – mostly candy and snack food, but other things if the mood strikes. Last year, in a somewhat self-serving mood, I got everyone a small kitchen gadget. This year we’ve got small things from the arts supply store and matchbox cars so far.
-Maybe one more present for the Husband if I can make it to the right store.
– organize some activities and playdates for the winter break. Also buy tickets to a Christmas movie.
-Pre-make cookie dough. We’re having some kids over to decorate cookies during winter break.

So not too much, I hope, to get done in one week if I’m purposeful about it.

Speaking of baking… I’ve been thinking about my Holiday Baking aspirations. Most of my ideas this year comes from the Cooks Illustrated Holiday Baking magazine – some of the recipes are a little fussy, so the holidays are the perfect time, I feel, to put in the effort. This year I would like to bake:
-Molasses cookes (chewy and spicy kind)
– Sugar cookies and gingerbread cookies for decorating
-Sticky Toffee Pudding, our traditional Christmas dessert
-Eggnog Bundt cake. Because the Bundt pan I got this year has been woefully underused.
-Cinnamom buns for Christmas morning, as is our tradition. This I usually use the recipe from either The Irish Pantry or King Arthur’s Flour.
-Chex mix. Have to have something savory.
-rolls for Christmas Dinner.
-And I’ve already made apple cranberry crisp. It was a recipe from that Cooks Illustrated magazine and it was a great way to use up the leftover bowl of cranberry sauce from Thanksgiving. I’m going to put this crisp into post Thanksgiving rotation because we always have so much leftover cranberry sauce.

Grateful for This Week:
– The ten year old’s school music program. They had their Holiday Choral Concert this year and it was really cute. At her old school, Choir was an extracurricular so kids had to opt in to do it and got pulled out of class. At her new school, it’s just part of the regular music class. I really like that the school feels like music performance is important enough that all kids should participate.
– Finding parking just a half block from the restaurant on Monday night after TubaChristmas. Also grateful for the Restaurant itself, Chinatown Express, where tehy hand make their noodles. We went to this restaurant, partly because the Husband had been there with the kids the day before and had left the 5 year old’s hat there. So aside from this place having really really good food, we had a practical reason for going there. But… it is also smack in the middle of Chinatown, next to the arena and there was a game that night so parking was a challenge. We circled the area for about fifteen minutes and were about to give up when someone pulled out and we snagged their parking spot. And it was just a half block from the restaurant. A true holiday miracle. And the staff at the restaurant are always super nice and they put up with my attempts to speak half in Chinese and they smile when the kids’ say “xie xie.” The biggest surprise was that the baby loves Chinese broccoli! She grabbed the thick stalk in her hand and just chowed down on it and then had two more pieces. She ate a vegetable!!! So exciting!
– Libraries and librarians. I had a book that I just can’t find – it’s in the house somewhere, but I don’t know where it ended up. Anyhow because of that book being waaaay overdue, there is a hold on my library card. I was going to just pay for the book, but the librarian gave me that sly look that they do and just clicked a few things and electronically returned the book and re-checked it out to me. “I’m just going to give you nine more weeks to find it,” she said to me.
– Not being at my old summer job. I’ve been off Facebook for over a year now, but this week, I popped back on as I was doing Christmas cards and I have a few friends who had gotten married and I had to Facebook stalk them to figure out the correct last names to put on the cards. Anyhow… it was kind of an overwhelming vortex black hole of … noise and news and happenings. Before I could log off, I saw a whole bunch of posts about this one company that I used to work for. I had left under difficult circumstances, and I had been very sad to leave, and I always somewhat regret not being there still. It’s also a part of why I no longer log into Facebook since I found I couldn’t deal with seeing any news about the company or my colleagues and friends working there. Anyhow the company now seem to be embroiled in some union negotiations that are, let’s just say, not going well. The whole thing just seems really sad and toxic. Over the past five years I’ve have bouts of great sadness about not working there anymore and I really miss my colleagues and the work we did, but after reading about the union negotiations that are happening, I am really glad I’m not part of the contentiousness happenings and drama.

Looking forward to:
-Anniversary Date Night with Husband. We hired a sitter and everything!
-Zoolights with friends.
– Going to see a musical with the ten year old and the five year old and our friends!
-Ticking everything off my Holiday to do list above.
-Christmas dinner and family time.

What We Ate:
Saturday: Pizza (Husband made) and Arthur Christmas (see my last post for the run down on that movie).

Sunday: Sheetpan baked gnocchi. This was one of those pantry dinners that never seem like pantry dinners. Toss whatever roastable veggies I have in olive oil, salt and pepper – in this case it was butternut squash, broccoli, mushrooms, onions, turnip, rutabaga – add gnocchi. Pour into sheet pan. Roast for 25-30 mins.

Monday: Dinner out at Chinatown Express – we had duck noodle soup, roast pork stir-fried noodles (both these dishes with fresh noodles), Chinese broccoli with oyster sauce, green sauteed with garlic, soup dumping, pork dumpling and kung pao chicken. So much food! Sooooo good!

Tuesday: Kale Saag Paneer from Meera Sodha’s East. I had a bunch of heavy cream and half and half to use up as well as two bunches of kale, so this seemed like a good recipe to use. The paneer didn’t turn out great – I think using heavy cream instead of all half and half makes for a softer paneer so the texture didn’t quite hold up in the saag.

Wednesday: Farrotto with roasted butternut squash and brussel sprouts from The Weekday Vegetarians. This was billed as risotto but with farro. It never got as creamy as risotto, but it was still pretty tasty.

Thursday: Red lentils from The Weekday Vegetarians. Vegan. Something quick and tasty that we could eat before the 10 year old’s holiday concert.

Friday: Pizza (take out) and Charlie Brown Christmas and The Ted Lasso Holiday Special from last year.

Weekly Recap + what we ate: Morning routines

This was supposed to be one of the few weeks this fall where everyone had a five full days of school. But… there was the unfortunate incident of the plane in the electrical tower which caused a huge power outage and resulted in school being cancelled on Monday. Then Tuesday and Wednesday, the baby was sick so she stayed home. So it was a lot of unexpected child care this week.

On Monday, I decided to take advantage of the no school day to take the five year old and the neighbor’s kid down to the Botanical Gardens to see the model trains. It actually worked out well – when we have gone to see the Botanical Garden trains in the past, we’ve had to go on the weekend and it’s always been really crowded. This time, the crowds were very light so we could easily see all the displays. I’m glad we went during the week because the train display was smaller than in the past, and probably would not have been as relaxed an experience if I had to fight the crowds to see it.

Model of Union Station, all built of plant matter.

Also – there were baby pineapple plants in the bathroom at the Botanical Gardens. I was so charmed by it, I had to snap a picture:

Monday night the baby started running fever, so I kept her home on Tuesday. She spent a lot of time sleeping, thank goodness, and I got some work done. Other than one incident of vomiting in my bed, she was a pretty low maintenance patient. Even still, she ran a fever again on Tuesday night so we kept her home on Wednesday too. Of course she was more her normal, curious, active self on Wednesday, so I didn’t get as much work done. I actually didn’t mind, though – I was reminded of how during the pandemic I was home and it was just me and the kids and we just kind of hung out and went on walks and baked and read books while cuddling on the couch. And while there was a voice in my head that said, “You really should be working on those supertitle slides!” I think hanging out with my kid is important too – for both of us.

Fun new thing – I’m working on supertitle slides for a concert next week, and one of the songs is in Arabic. I’ve never had to work in Arabic before, so it’s been interesting for sure to match up the translation I was given with the text of the song. Thank goodness for Google and Google translate. At first I was so daunted by the whole things and I kept putting off working on this one song, and I had to remind myself that it’s good to have new work challenges.

Moment to savor: One nice thing about earlier winter sunsets is that when I’m waiting for the school bus in the afternoon I get to see beautiful pink and gold skies. Even as I shiver in the cold there some something breathtaking to see.

I’ve been thinking about my morning routine lately, mostly because there’s been no morning routine this past week and a half. And when there’s no morning routine, habits fall through the cracks.

I’ve been reading B.J. Fogg’s Tiny Habits, and he has developed a method for building habits that can be summed up as:
1) finding the smallest things you can do,
2) finding a prompt to do that small thing,
3) celebrate doing that small thing to make yourself feel good for doing it.

The part I’ve found most helpful is 2), finding a prompt and I’ve been trying to incorporate more prompts in my daily life. There are lots of good behaviours I want to encourage, but I struggle with finding a routine. So I’ve latched on to the idea of finding prompts for things as a reminder to do (or not do) something. For example:
1) The five year old used to wet the bed at night at least once a week. This was mostly because we forget to tell him to go the the bathroom before bed. Also- the ten year old was always leaving things in her pockets, causing havoc on laundry day. So now, after we brush our teeth (prompt – more specifically, after we put our toothbrushes back), the five year old goes to the bathroom and the ten year old empties her pockets.
2) I have a terrible habit of checking my phone at stop lights, and I decided I needed an alternative activity. So now every time I get to a stoplight (prompt), I do kegels until the light turns green to keep me off my phone.

Anyhow, I had set up a series of prompts in my head for the morning, and for a variety of reasons (holidays, the oldest has a morning writing club, just being tired), I hadn’t been doing these things. Rather I was just relying on memory and instinct to do them. My ideal morning prompt/habits would be:

– The Husband leaves for work. The moment the door shuts behind him, we all go do our morning teeth brushing.
-The ten year old leaves to walk the baby to the neighbor’s so they can take her to school. The moment she leaves, I do a ten minute yoga video. (In Fogg’s world, the tiny habit would be – the moment the door closes (prompt), I lay out my yoga mat (tiny action.)) I particularly liked this one because the five year old would do it with me.
-I take the kids to the school bus. When I pull in wherever I need to go after (work or home), as soon as I turn off the car, I do my daily Wordle and Duolingo.

(I still would love to figure out a prompt for journaling… maybe I need to put the journal by my bed and do it as soon as I wake up? I think this is also where routines and habits blend into each other.)

Anyhow, the morning brushing, yoga, Wordle, and Duolingo weren’t getting done this past week. Partly because not having to catch a school bus sucks the urgency out of the morning, and also a couple days, the ten year old’s before school writing club meant that there was no prompt for #2. Wordle and Duolingo usually got done at some point in the day, but I did have to use a couple streak freezes for the Duolingo because I would just forget. And granted none of this stuff was IMPERITIVE, but the morning feels better when I just automatically do things. I feel like when I know that these things will automatically happen after a prompt, I don’t spend mental energy on trying to figure when or if they will happen. (Contrast that with exercise/running – I don’t have a prompt for that because what with the weather and darker days and my current more flexible schedule, exercise doesn’t always happen at the same time and I like to look at my whole day in order to decide where it will happen. )

So I’ve been contemplating the difference between having a morning routine, where the morning is time blocked (ie. 7:00a teeth, 7:15 breakfast, 7:45 get dressed, etc…), versus just having prompts and habits and knowing the rest of the morning activities (pack lunch, get dressed, prep dinner, make breakfast – the essentials) will fall in place around it. I will say we have a luxuriously long morning – the kids are usually up by 6:30/6:45a and the baby goes to the neighbors’ at 8:10pm and the rest of us leave for the school bus at 8:50a. So nothing feels rushed, really. I just think I feel like the morning gets off to a better start when I do more than just the essential survival tasks of food and clothing. Anyhow, here’s hoping the next few weeks I can get back to my tiny habit mornings.

One the List This Weekend:
– Birthday Party (adult)
-Birthday Party x2 (kids)
-Decorate for Christmas/ go get our tree
– Tidy/ Pick up since cleaners are coming on Monday.
-Order Christmas Cards
-Christmas movie
-Bake Cookies (hopefully)
-World Cup Watching.
-Meal Plan for next week.

Grateful for This Week:
– That the pilot and passenger who flew into the electrical tower were able to be rescued safely. I don’t know them, but it must have been horrifically scary. I’m really glad that there were people who knew how to get them down safely.
-All the bloggers who participated in NnBloPoMo – I’ve really enjoyed reading all the thoughts they put into the world this month, such honesty, realness and humor. And now I feel like I have new blogs to pop in and read and the (virtual) world has opened up a little.
-That I’m not working right now and can just roll with the school cancellations and sick days. This week would have been difficult if I had been working because before/after care, which I usually would have used for school closures, was also closed due to the plane/power outage issue. I know so many parents that had to majorly scramble for coverage on Monday.
– Hoopla and my library card. The kids have been listening to Dear Evan Hansen a lot these days. (Also Taylor Swift.) I thought it might be fun to get some music from the show so we can sing it, so rather than buying the sheet music, I put a bunch of music books on hold at the library. When I was loading up my holds list, I noticed that a bunch of these music books were also available as eBooks via Hoopla, so I downloaded those and have been trying to learn Waving Through the Window. There was a lot of music available and I’m eager to dip into more!

Looking forward to:
– Helping my friend celebrate her birthday tonight.
– Supertitle gig next week.
– Getting my teeth cleaned. I know going to the dentist isn’t something people look forward to but, 1) next week is relatively quiet for adventures, and 2) I really like my dentist and hygienist – they are so nice, make me feel taken care of, and make me laugh even while suctioning spit out of my mouth.

What We Ate – This managed to be an eat-from-the-pantry/fridge/freezer week, which is always good the week after Thanksgiving:

Monday: Broccoli Pasta from Bad Manners cookbook. Vegan. This is really tasty for how simple it is. Boil pasta, drain. Sear broccoli in a pan, add garlic and red pepper flakes. Mix pasta in with broccoli. At the table, top with panko parmesan (Panko, nutritional yeast, garlic powder, paprika.) Yes, it’s essentially carbs topped on carbs, but the crunchy savory topping is what really makes this dish for me.

Tuesday: Spicy Salmon Tacos – I used the Korean Pork Taco recipe from Dinners Illustrated but subbed in Salmon and Shrimp for the pork.

Wednesday: Comedy night with my friend – I had a vegan mushroom risotto. The Husband stayed home with the kids and they had breakfast sandwiches and hash browns

Thursday: Butternut Squash Soup from Weeknight Vegetarian. Vegan version that used coconut milk to make it creamy. This was simple and tasty.

Friday: Meatball subs from the deli, wolfed down before the 10 year old’s piano recital. No movie this night – the piano recital was followed immediately by basketball practice.