vegan recipes – Life Off Headset

Weekly recap + what we ate: A Week in the Life edition- prep week

Last week was positively summer, with weather hitting 80 degrees. We’ve come home from spring break to the find the Yoshino cherry blossoms gone and replaced by branches of green, but the area has been replaced by Kwanzan cherry blossoms, apple blossoms, and redbuds. And the azaleas. Pink and purple and white bushes everywhere. Oh and the lilacs – the heavenly floral scent of lilacs!

The “emergency car chocolate” I keep in my car for… well, emergencies and late night commutes home has melted and I need to replace it with another car snack that can withstand the extreme heat.

I always enjoy reading “Week in the Life” posts, so I thought I’d capture a week in my life. I find that I have a lot of different versions of a “typical” week – there’s working and not working. But also within working, there’s prep week, rehearsal week, tech week, and performance week. So this is prep week, the week we have before rehearsal starts to get everything ready. It is supposed to be a pretty easy 40 hour week, but I’m prepping a pretty big show, so I ended up working more like 45 hours this week. Also, I don’t usually do the afternoon pick up when I’m working, but since prep week is a little more flexible, I like to do it when I can to give the Husband a break.

Monday: We just got back from Amsterdam the day before. Kids are off school, and the Husband has taken the day off to be with them since I have to work. If one of us can’t be home with the kids, we put the two older kids in the After care program at school.
5:00am – I never get up this early, but I’m a little jet lagged, so I’m awake. I get up, putter, try to put some stuff away. Make breakfast. Meal plan for the week and make a shopping list for the Husband who will do a grocery shop and Costco run.
10:15am – I leave for work
10:45am – 6:30pm – Work. It’s the first day of a prep week for a new show, so it’s a lot of onboarding of new people, showing people around, meetings. I do take a 30 minute walk at lunch time and talk to my sister in law on the phone. Our union mandates meal breaks have to be at least 1 hour long, but I don’t need the whole time to eat, so I always try to take a walk during lunch.
6:30-7:00p – Leave work. Pick up 11 year old from basketball. Drop her at home and then go get gas. (Often if I can’t be home for dinner, I’ll pick up the 11 year old from basketball so the Husband only has to schlep the other two kids along just once.)
7:00p – 8:00p – When I get home, the kids and the Husband are watching Golden Girls. I eat Dinner. The Husband had bought Bahn mi sandwiches for dinner since we didn’t really have any food at home post trip. I eat whatever is leftover.
8:00p – I help put the kids into bed. I fall asleep in the 3 year old’s bed while cuddling.

Tuesday:
5:00am – awake again, much earlier than normal. Putter, continue to try to put things away from our vacation. I have to pull some sheet music from online for my supertitle gig – I’m working a recital the following week. Usually the pianist will send me the music, but this pianist is on vacation, so I have to find the music myself. Not a big deal since it’s all in the public domain and therefore easy to track down online for free. There’s one set of songs that I couldn’t find, so I ask the pianist to scan it to me when he gets a chance.
6:45am – Husband leaves for work, so I get started with breakfast, and packing lunches for the kids and myself. At 8:10am, we do a kid exchange with the neighbors – we have kids the same ages and at the same schools, so they take the three year old to school and I take their 6 year old to the school bus with us. While the 11 year old take the 3.5 year old to the neighbors for kid exchange, I squeeze in 10 minutes of yoga. Then I get dressed for the day.
9:00am – Take the kids to the school bus, then drive to work.
9:45am – 3:45p – Work. I spend much of the day pulling paperwork from the last time we did this show.
3:45p – I pick up 6 year old and neighbors’ kid from school bus and take them home. While home I get the kids a snack then I putter and scroll until the Husband gets home with the 11 year old. She has math tutoring at school on Tuesdays and Wednesdays.
5:45p – Head back to work to cover an evening music rehearsal.
6:00pm – 10:30pm – Work. Covering a music rehearsal with the chorus. Basically these are the rehearsals where the chorus learns their music. It’s pretty low key and I continue to read and review the paperwork for the show and get myself organized.
10:30p – Back home.
12:00 midnight – ish? Go to bed I’m a little unclear. I think I worked on titles and scrolled a little bit before going to bed. This was not a good weak for mindful sleep habits.

Wednesday:
6:00am – wake up. The 3.5 year old is in our bed somehow.
6:45am – wake up the other kids.
7:10am – Take 11 year old to piano lessons. Then take the other two kids to pick up breakfast sandwiches, as is our Wednesday morning routine. Usually I also get gas but I had filled up on Monday because my gas light had come on. The place we go to get sandwiches from is run by the super nice Korean man who always gives us free chips.
8:00am – home from piano lessons. Quickly pack lunch and eat breakfast sandwiches before the kid exchange happens. 10 minutes exercise video while kid exchange happens.
9:00am – Take kids to school bus then head to work.
9:30am – 10:15am – Run. I haven’t run in over a week because of being on vacation, so I do just 1.5 miles and also have a nice walk. I often run at work because it’s some of my only child free time and we don’t usually start work before 10am, so I can get a run in.
10:15am – 3:45pm – Work. I spend the day measuring the groundplans for the set so we can mark it out with tape in the rehearsal room the next day.
3:45pm – leave work to pick up kids from bus. Take kids home. Feed them a snack and make dinner (Chinese Corn and Egg Drop Soup – this was a huge hit, I’ll have to make it again).
6:00p – When the Husband comes home with the 11 year old, I head back to work to finish up some stuff – there’s another chorus music rehearsal, which I’m not covering, but my colleague who is covering it is doing it for the first time, so I want to be around just in case. I also spend some time chatting to my work BFF.
9:30pm – wrap up at work and head home. I work on some titles til pretty late at night. Liberally sprinkled with bouts of random internet blackholes.
1:30am – brain is fried, go to bed.

Thursday:
6:30am – wake to a 3.5 year old in my bed again. Go back to sleep, tired from being up late the night before.
7:15am – out of bed. I think the 11 year old got the little kids breakfast, so I just have to pack the lunches. 8:10am – kid exchange and I get in my 10 minutes of yoga.
9:00am – school bus run then to work.
9:45am – 6:30pm – Work. Today we tape the rehearsal room – laying down the tape outline of the set so the singers get a sense of where things are (hopefully. I mean some people don’t quite understand that a tape line is a wall and will keep walking through it, but I always figure they’re not going to walk through it when we get onstage and the wall is real.) Taping takes all day, but I do squeeze in a 15 minute walk at lunch time.
6:30pm- Home, I eat dinner – the Husband made something that involved chicken and broccoli and yummy siracha honey sauce. I wanted to be home before 6:45pm so that the Husband could take the 11 year old to basketball without having to schlep the younger kids. Then because the weather is so nice and it feels like summer, I take the two younger kids to play in the backyard for a little bit.
8:00pm – Come back inside and prep for bed. The Husband goes to pick up the 11 year old from basketball and then he and I quickly sign off on our taxes – we owe money this year, mostly because I took several 1099 gigs in 2022, more than I have in a long long time. A little bit of sticker shock on that one, especially on the heels of our Spring Break Trip, we feel a little like we’re hemorrhaging money.
9:00pm – Kids to bed (finally!), and once again, I fall asleep in bed with the 3.5 year old.

Friday:
4:00am – The 6 year old climbs into bed with the 3.5 year old and me. Then tells me to stop breathing on him. I take this as a sign and get up and work on titles for the next two hours.
6:00am – The 3.5 year old is up so I start the morning routine. (Is it really a routine? It doesn’t feel calming as a routine should. I guess maybe the morning tasks/chores?) Pack kids’ lunch (x3), and my lunch, get kids breakfast. I make potato leek soup (vegan) in the Instant Pot, so that there is something ready for dinner tonight since there is a basketball game in the evening.
8:10am – kid exchange. 10 minutes yoga. Then get dressed.
9:00am – bus drop off, chat with a friend at bus stop, then go to work.
9:45am – 6:00pm – Work. Today I work on helping the Prop Coordinator unpack all the props in the show. There are a lot of props; the prop list is 8 pages long. Four pages of those are for Act 2, which, while only 20 minutes long, features so. many. props. and. people. I take a 30 minute walk at lunch.
6:00pm – leave work and drive to 11 year old’s basketball game.
7:15pm – 8:15pm – basketball game. When I arrive the score is 22-1. The 11 year old scored that 1 point on a free throw. So yay? They did not make a spectacular comeback or anything, but they played hard. I think the final score was 35-7. They had won almost all their games in the winter league, so I think it’s hard for them to play against teams that are more polished and competitive then them. I mean there were players making legit 3 pointers on the other team. But she still loves to play, so I think that’s what’s important.
8:30pm – arrive home, put kids to bed. I do some titles work.
not quite sure – I didn’t log when I actually went to bed this night.

Saturday:
6:30am – awake. putter. journal, read, write.
7:00am – Make waffles for breakfast. Then clean up and putter.
10:00am – Go for another short run, then shower.
11:00am – outside in the backyard with the 3.5 year old while the Husband takes the 6 year old and 11 year old to a family dance class. One of the local theatres has a dance class for grown ups and kids, and I thought it would be a fun activity for the Husband and kids to do together. I would have enrolled the 3.5 year old, but she is too little. I work on titles out on the back patio while the 3.5 year old plays. Every so often I take a break to kick a ball with her. Around noon we go back inside and have dinner.
1:00pm – I head to work.
1:30pm – 6:30pm – Work. I spend the day organizing the props and then setting up the rooms for rehearsal next week.
6:30p – head home. The family is having pizza and movie night. They are watching Pirates of the Caribbean, which is such a fun movie. I arrive half way through and after the movie ends, I make the family start again at the beginning so I can watch the first twenty minutes or so because I always like seeing how things begin.
9:00pm – Kids to bed. Once again, I fall asleep in the 3.5 year old’s bed. Around midnight I wake up and move to my own bed.

Sunday:
7:30am – Awake. We spend the morning cleaning (we have cleaners coming the next day – yes, we clean for the cleaners…), putting away the things from our vacation (it never ends, it seems…), and working on some titles. I’m sure there was some reading and internet scrolling in there as well.
10:30am – The 6 year old and the 3.5 year old have skating lessons. Let me tell you, going to a nice cool ice rink when it is 80 degrees outside feels heavenly! It’s the last lesson of the session – the 3.5 year old gets to move up to the next level, but the 6 year old has to repeat his level. After lessons, we stay for free skate. I register the kids for the next session before we leave.
1:00pm – Take the kids to HMart for a weekly grocery shop. I don’t usually do the weekly shop at HMart, but it is close to the rink, and I needed mostly produce and fruit, so HMart made sense. Also fun – there was a person in the Hmart parking lot selling fresh coconut – the kind where he cuts the top off for you and drains it into a container and cuts out the flesh. I bought us one to share and it was so tasty!

2:30p – Home. We’re having friends over to grill for dinner, so I prep veggies and chicken for the grill and put away the groceries. I bought a lot of veggies so that I could grill up extra for the week ahead.
4:30p – take a nap, I’m exhausted.
5:00p – start the grill. Friends come over. We have kielbasa, hotdogs, chicken and grilled veggies (eggplant, zucchini, peppers). Also two different kinds of bagged salad. Super simple.
8:00pm – Friends head home and our kids get ready for bed. They’re in bed by 9:15pm – I told them I couldn’t stay and cuddle tonight because I had to get my titles done for the concert the next day. I finish formatting the text of the titles (in word, which is exported to Excel) and the Husband does some database magic and imports the titles directly from the Excel into the Powerpoint. I stay up to finish adjusting the titles and marking title placement in my music.
1:00am – brain is fried. Fall asleep on the couch, with the 3.5 year old who woke up at midnight and came to find me.

And that’s seven days in my life! It felt very work heavy because I had to work on the titles gig also. I can often tell how busy a week was when there are not a lot of pictures in my phone roll, and this week’s photos seemed to be mainly (unflattering) pictures the kids took of me while I was puttering around the house or working at the computer. Typically, I also might have spent more time doing cleaning/laundry/household chores, but let’s be honest, the Husband does most of the cleaning and laundry. I might have folded one basket of laundry all week. I’m really grateful for him.

Weekly recap + what we ate: Authenticity and THREE!!!

Glenstone Museum. One of this week’s bright spots.

This week was one of those “between jobs” weeks.

I did not knock out as much of my “To do” list as I wanted – partly because the week after a gig is always a slow re-entry for me, partly too because my cousin came to visit. I do want to be better at picking up life after I’m done a gig. Too often, the aftermath of a gig feels like … well, you know that scene in the Drew Barrymore Cinderella movie Ever After (such a good movie!!!) when Drew is supposed to meet the Prince, but she’s in her servant clothes so she races back to the house, goes in through the back door, and then emerges out of the front door in a gorgeous gown and pearl circlet, just in time to meet the Prince, and then the shot changes to behind the front door, where the servants are collapsed on the floor in exhaustion from having transformed her so quickly….

Yeah, aftermath of a job feels like the servants on the ground in a heap. I’ve spent so much time keeping the job related parts of life afloat, that the non-job parts of life, the parts that actually allow me to function, get somewhat neglected and left in a heap (by me, not by the Husband… he does a magnificent job of holding down the fort!). And when the gig is over, I have to pull the servants up off the floor and put everything back in order, but it takes a while for me to get in the right headspace for it. I fully realize it’s a privilege not to have to figure out how to balance work and life all fifty-two weeks of the year – big props to people who do it – so I want to get better at tackling the life stuff efficiently when I don’t have work stuff on my plate.

I’m pretty good at doing the things I want to do but don’t really get to do when I’m working – I went running three times, had lunch with a friend, made muffins, got to write in this space. It’s the life admin stuff that I struggle to find the discipline to attack – laundry, big organizational projects, paperwork that needs to be done – the adulting stuff, I guess. And now I’m about to go back to work and some of it still looms. I might just have to dedicate time for it when I am working so it doesn’t pile up for when I’m not working on a show.

Some thoughts and things this week:

– The ten year old has started piano lessons again, after a break for much of August. Her lessons are at 7:15am and I particularly notice the shifting of the seasonal light on those mornings when I take her (and the other kids) to these early morning lessons. We’ve passed into the season when the sun is just starting to rise as we pack into the car, and this week, at a stop light, I glanced into the side view mirror and couldn’t resist taking a picture of sunrise behind me. Even though the traffic ahead of me sat in misty morning grey, the cars behind me were bathed in a golden red glow. Soon, I know, it will still be quite dark when we go to piano lessons, but it was a good reminder to savor the beautiful golden moments when I can.

– I’ve been listening to the podcast Under the Influence with Jo Piazza. (Not to be confused, now that I’ve Googled it, with Under the Influence from the CBC with Tim O’Reilly, which also looks interesting).

It’s a series that takes a look at the world of social media influencers, particularly mothers. I’m only six episodes in, and it’s been fascinating and though provoking. Even though I have social media accounts, I had to quit them cold turkey a few years ago because they had become a time suck and just made me feel bad about my life and career. Still, the idea of being able to make a living through gathering a social media following is really intriguing. The podcast really dissects the cultural implications of how women, who would otherwise be home-makers or stay-at-home mothers – that is to say unpaid labour – have parlayed domestic life with children into a commodity that they can be paid for. The episode on Authenticity, particularly was pretty engrossing, and made me think about how the term “authentic” is often bandied around when describing influencers.
Being authentic is valued. But so is being happy and shiny. Yet there is this paradox where when one only posts happy and shiny content, one is labelled as not authentic. I don’t think not posting the rough and hard and ugly parts of life makes a person less authentic. There is something, to me, inauthentic about reaching for a camera and generating content when your child is having a meltdown, rather than putting your camera down and comforting that child. The hard moments aren’t splashed across the happy shiny Instagram, perhaps because people are trying to navigate them rather than share them. I’m all for sharing hard moments – and I really appreciate it when people are brave enough to share them – but I don’t think sharing the hard moments makes a certain person or post more “authentic” than any other. The thing is, any one social media posts can lack context and doesn’t really reflect anything beyond that moment. Even look at our annual Christmas card – I pick the cutest picture of my kids to send to people. Am I being inauthentic because I don’t also include a picture of me washing up a poop accident? It seems like demanding authenticity just sets people – women – up for failure.
They make an interesting point on the podcast about how Hillary Clinton was mocked for wearing a scrunchie when that was probably the most true to herself thing that she could wear. While Obama or Trump or any man could probably wake up, take a shower, put on a suit and be ready for a press conference in thirty minutes, Clinton probably has to go through an hour or so of hair an make-up before appearing in public. The degree to which we demand authenticity from women yet at the same time shame her if she doesn’t put on a face, really speaks to a double standard.
The conversations on the podcast also has made me think of how I present on this little corner of the internet. I don’t want to be an influencer by any means, and it’s made me realize that while I’m grateful for the handful of people who read, I really just want to write what I want to write and brain dump the things that are interesting to me. Like this podcast, which I highly recommend.

– My mother also came to visit while my cousin was here and I managed to get tickets to the Glenstone Museum, a private museum that specializes in contemporary art, mostly installation pieces from Post WWII. A big part of the collection are sculptures throughout it’s outdoor campus, which makes for a really wonderful afternoon of meandering through trails and sitting and enjoying nature and art. The tickets are released on the first of each month are are usually booked three months out, so I was really surprised when I looked on the website earlier this week and saw that there were tickets available for later in the week. Another things I loved about the museum is they don’t have the usual placards in place giving information and thoughts about the pieces. Rather there are very knowledgeable docents who will talk to you about the artwork and the museum if you want, otherwise they leave you to contemplate the pieces for yourself. I sometimes find contemporary art hard to understand, and being able to talk to a docent and ask questions made the artwork so much more accessible. Definitely worth a trip back.

Koons. We ran out of time so didn’t make it all the way to this one.

The buildings and gardens are also works of art.

– This piece of advice from the blog Ask A Manager:

I sometimes run into this situation with interns and I admit I don’t always have the patience to be gracious about coaching someone through steps that they already have documented in paperwork. “What have you tried so far?” seems to me a great way to help distill where the trainee might be getting hung up, rather than me just telling them how to solve things.

– The big thing this week, was that the baby turned THREE!!! I’m feeling all the feels on this one. The night before her birthday, the Husband says to me, “This is our last day of ever having a two year old.” And it just about slayed me. It’s been hard, certainly, to know that she is our last baby. I love babies – the sweet, cuddly, exploratory, needs-to-be-protected, blind faith, little personalities – they are just such great companions. I’m excited to see who the baby grows up to be, but at the same time nervous because I know I can’t control that. But who she is right now is an adorable, mischievous, intrepid, dexterous, opportunistic, happy, clever, and cheeky little child. She’s the most independent of the three kids and finds such joy in everything around her. Having a baby as the world shut down was not something that I could ever had imagined happening, but she was certainly one of the bright marvels that helped keep things interesting.

skating last weekend. I used to think skate helpers were silly, but I realized that for her, keeping up with her siblings was more important than learning to skate properly. So skate helper it was.

What We Ate: I was home all week and all three dinners I cooked were vegan. We’ll see how it goes when I go back to work next week – I feel like vegan meals aren’t as easy to make ahead of time.

Saturday: I was working the evening show. I was running late to work, so I just shoved two half eaten meatball sandwiches from the night before into a container and ate them at my desk. I might have also had an apple.

Sunday: I was working a matinee, so I had bubbly water and cake for dinner at the reception following the performance.

Monday: Orange Cauliflower with Fried Tofu and Rice. The cauliflower recipe was from the Bad Manners Brave New World Cookbook and was their vegan take on orange chicken. Aside from being made from cauliflower rather than chicken, this was healthier because the cauliflower was baked, not fried. Of course then I fried the tofu to go with.

Tuesday: Tacos with meatless meaty filling from Bare Minimum Dinners, with cabbage mango slaw and avocados. I’m really liking Bare Minimum Dinners. There aren’t a lot of vegetarian recipes in it, but this meatless taco filling was pretty great. It’s a combination of mushrooms, walnuts, and pinto beans with the sauce from an adobo pepper in chipotle sauce. It was actually on the spicy side, so I just heated up a can of black beans with cumin and a clove of garlic for the two little kids

Wednesday: We went to meet a friend at a local Biergarten. They have the best wings – they smoke them then fry them so they are so full of flavor. I feel like this evening definitely offset all the vegan dinners we ate this week.

Thursday: Curry Udon Noodles with Teriyaki Jackfruit from Bad Manners Cookbook. This was my first attempt cooking with jackfruit, which I hear touted as a substitute for pork. My verdict – Jackfruit is pretty tasteless, so good sauce is needed. It did mimic the texture of fplled pork, though. But also, I added a bunch of mushrooms in with the Teriyaki sauce, and I think I would be just as happy to eat this dish with mushrooms instead of Jackfruit.

Friday: Pizza (made by The Husband) and movie – Minions: The Rise of Gru. This movie was pretty hilarious in parts, but kind of lost steam towards the end. (Or maybe we lost steam?) And then to round things out…. we had cake. I made a cake for the baby’s birthday and we zoomed the rest of the family to sing happy birthday. (Also sent some store bought cupcakes to school, because I guess this is the times right now where we can only send store bought treats. I understand the reasoning what with allergies and COVID, but it still makes me a little sad.) My cousin helped with the cake – we made this chocolate cake recipe with vanilla frosting and then sort of followed the instructions for a pinata cake. I don’t think the cake was high enough to have the desired effect of m&m spillage. But maybe it’s one of those things that’s only perfect on Instagram?