weekly menu – Life Off Headset

Weekly recap + what we ate: Three Jobs I wish I could do

Last week was a mish-mash sort of week – it started off with the kids off school on Monday, and then mid-week, I started prepping for a new show. We went contra-dancing. My mother came to visit, and good friends of ours had their twins’ B’not Mitzvah (I learned that’s what it’s called when the Bat Mitzvah is for two girls). So busy and full, but also I didn’t have to work in the evenings, so some luxurious swaths of time as well.

Three Jobs that I wish I could do last week:
1) Animal control. There was a bird in our office building this week for a little over 24 hours. A cute little chirping sparrow that had somehow gotten inside. It started out in another office, then flew through the halls a little bit, and then flew into our office, I think, because we have very large windows and it was looking for sunlight. At first, it was kind of cute – the birds twittering almost made it feel like we were working outside.

But of course keeping a bird inside, where there is no food or water isn’t sustainable. Our facilities person was chasing it (him? I think they named him), trying to encourage it into the rehearsal room because there is a door to the outside. What a frightening experience the little bird must have been having. ( Fun Fact – numerous animal control companies were called but none of them would come – either they didn’t do birds, or our ceilings were too high.) Anyhow, we did eventually get the bird into a rehearsal room and out the door, but before that happened, there was much flapping, and chasing, and prodding on our part. I don’t think we were doing anything right. At least we were not effective.

2) Make-up Artist. At about 5pm on a Friday, I was at work, and I got this text from the Husband:

The 14 year old wanted to try some make-up for her school dance. That night. The dance was at 6:30pm. I don’t have a lot of experience with make-up – there was a time when I put on some mascara and lipstick for opening night, but I don’t even bother with that anymore. The Husband knows less than I do. But all the same, we wanted to be supportive.

No limbs were broken, but this sounded like the kind of situation that I should bail on work to help with. I shut down my computer, told my colleagues I had a family situation come up, and packed up my stuff.

“Meet me at Ulta,” I texted the Husband as I walked out the door.

I honestly didn’t know what I was going to do, having no knowledge of current (or any) make-up trends – my only make-up instruction came from a Mary Kay consultant that visited my church group when I was 12. (She was a mother of some in the group.) I just remember her talking about the face’s t-zone. But I figured I could meet the Husband and 14 year old at Ulta where there was a large selection, and then search Reddit for advice.

I arrived at Ulta at 5:35pm, little before the Husband and 14 year old, and was immediately overwhelmed. Rows and rows of displays and shelves and images of brilliant eyes, rosy lips, and perfect dewy skin. And there was the $6 lipstick and the $36 lipstick – what’s the difference? And so many colours and shades and was that even make up or was that hair spray???? The Husband and 14 year old joined me, looking at me for direction. “You’re a 40-something woman. You mush know what to do,” was the subtext. I did not know what to do. This is when I wished I were a make-up artist.

Then I saw a lady with a name tag (which I didn’t read – so sorry), an artfully messy updo, arms blooming with tattoos, and a friendly face. She said, “Do you need help?”

Oh thank goodness!, I thought.

“YES!” I said, pointing at the 14 year old. “She needs make-up for the school dance and we don’t know what we’re doing.”

And the lady helped us with calm, soothing tones. She asked questions, helped pick out colours while telling the 14 year old what different things would do. The concealer didn’t have testers, but she was a former make-up artist, and said that she was pretty good at matching colour for us. We left with lip stain (what even is that??), concealer and mascara – which I felt was a nice basic collection of things for a first time make-up user.

3)Stationary Tester. This is a fun one – My order from JetPens arrived and I spent an evening playing with everything I ordered. I bought monthly tabs for my planners and journals, a few new pens to try:

Look at my journal and my planner all nicely tabbed!

A stamp for my book journal:

and my favorite thing is this book clip:

Now I can read hands free (until I have to turn the page.) There are so many fun things on the JetPens site – how fun would it be if I could spend my days testing pens and papers and stickers and other objects of efficiency and purpose?

Grateful For:
– Sunshine and nice weather and the Potomac River. Monday was a no school day, so I took the 9 year old and the 6 year old and a friend for a hike to Blockhouse Point Trail – at last, my first hike of the year! Blockhouse point is one of my favorite trails because it is never crowded and leads to a stunning view of the Potomac River.

-The 9 year old figured out how to tie his shoes. Now all three kids can tie their own shoes. (yes, the 6 year old figured it out before the 9 year old…). They still need help with their skates, but for every day shoes and cleats, they can tie their own shoes. Seems like a milestone.

-The 14 year old cooked dinner one night, and she and the other two kids cleaned up afterwards.

– Having a contra dance two miles from us. When I was first introduced to contra dancing, it was at a location that was maybe a 20-30 minute drive away from where I lived in DC. (Washington DC has one of the biggest contradancing scenes in the country and there used to be two dances a week. Now there is one weekly dance and two monthly dances – which is still a lot more than many other places.) Similarly, when I’ve gone contradancing in other cities, I’m sometimes driving for up to an hour to get to a dance. But it’s fine – if the music and the people are good, it was always worth the drive to me. However, there is now a monthly contradance very close to us, and it makes going so much easier and lower stakes and also makes it easier to go as a family. We went dancing with the 6 and 9 year old last week and had so much fun. We danced for an hour and a half and were all home and in bed by 10pm.

– A walk with the 14 year old and the fact that she has been able to walk to school the past few years. She was in an off mood over the weekend, so the Husband and I took her on a walk to her school and back. I’m feeling a bit of the feelings that she’ll only do this walk for two more months and then she’ll be off to high school, and there will be other traffic patterns to figure out for her. As we walked together to her school, she gave us the rundown of the inner monologue that she has as she walks – who lives where, when she meets up with friends, all the stories she makes up in her head about the houses and people that she see, where she walks on the wall, when she crosses the street… It was such a delightful peek into her brain.

– Having friends who let us celebrate milestones with them. I’ve never been to a Bat/Bar/B’Not Mitzvah celebration before, and it was such a lovely experience. I will say the morning service was loooong (two hours), but I really loved the ritual of it all and also following along the Hebrew readings (there was a translation provided). I found there was something really cerebral and thoughtful about the Torah readings.

We also helped our friends set up and take down the party afterwards, and they let me run the popcorn machine and the cotton candy machine during the party! I’ve never done this before, but was game to learn new things. Besides the instructions were written right on the machines so it was pretty straightforward. The cotton candy machine was SO messy! I had cotton candy fluff all over me. Unfortunately (fortunately?) the machine stopped working about an hour into the party. But even after the first round, I was covered.

Which is all to say, there is something really nice about having friends that feel comfortable and trust us enough to ask us to come early and stay late for such a big event. They are there to help us and they let us be there to help them. There is something wonderful about being able to help. Sometimes I feel like I have people in my life that only want to help me and never let me help them in return and things end up feeling very loop-sided. I’m really grateful for this friendship where we get to lean on each other.

And we got to take home the balloon arch:

Looking Forward To:
-Maycember. Really April-to-June-cember. At this weekend’s family meeting, we looked at the calendar for this next quarter and I can’t say I’m looking forward to the pace of the next few months, but everything on the calendar are things I’m genuinely looking forward to – recitals, the middle school musical (with the 14 year old in the lead!), elementary school performances, a new show for me to work on, a vocal recital for me to do titles for, my parents visiting again, the 14 year old’s middle school promotion ceremony, a camping trip for everyone but me (I’ll be working that weekend, so I can’t go, but – yay! – weekend with the house to myself!)… all that on top of the usual lessons and activities.

-Summers at the Pool. And then my reward for getting through April-to-June-cember is that my last contract ends in by July 4th and I can spend the rest of the summer hanging out with the kids – there will be a lot of pool time.

– Starting rehearsals for a new show. It’s one I’ve always wanted to work on, so I’m excited to get started.

-Warm weather. Maybe too warm. It’s going to be like summer here this week. But… it also mean I get to break out all my cute warm weather clothes.

-Sunday night dinner with friends.

-Reading more of this book – I just started it and it is quirky and insightful. I think I like books that look at humans from the outside:

What We Ate:
Monday: Spiced chickpea stew with coconut and tumeric, an Alison Roman recipe from NY Times cooking. Vegan. This was tasty; I had it for lunch all week. I didn’t eat it that night because I went out to happy hour with friends and I had fish and chips.

Taco Tuesday: Black beans, Sauteed shrimp, guacamole, mango slaw. Hard and soft shells. Cheese and sour cream, of course. Taco Tuesday is so tasty. The Husband cooked this time and it was delicious.

Wednesday: Mac and Cheese (from the blue box) and steamed green beans. This is the night the 14 year old cooked.

Thursday: Nasi goreng. Indonesian fried rice w/ fried tofu. No recipe, really, just used up whatever vegetables I had around – broccoli, carrots, mushrooms, leeks. Vegan.

Friday: Pizza and Zootopia 2. It was a cute movie. I think I’ve seen the first Zootopia, but I can’t say for sure.

Saturday: I went straight to the B’not Mitzvah party from work, so I didn’t have dinner, but they had so much snacky/appetizer food. My favorite was the deconstructed pasta salad – it was a plate with cherry tomatoes, tortellini, and marinated mozzarella balls all laid out separately on a bed of arugula so you could pick and choose what you wanted.

Sunday: Tortellini with sausage, onions, and greens. Blanched green beans. I usually steam the green beans, but I had the hot water from the pasta in a pot and I thought, “Why waste a good pot of hot water?” So I threw the green beans in there for four minutes.

I hope you have a great week!

Any jobs you wish you could do lately? Do you tie your shoes the bunny ear method or with a single loop? Favorite party snack/appetizer? Have you ever sat through a service for a religion different than your own?

Weekly recap + what we ate: Good-bye March, Hello April!

Last week was spring break – we stayed home and had a relaxing staycation kind of week. Monday I took the kids down to the main library in downtown DC, and we also went to see some cherry blossoms. Other than that – we had some nice bike rides and playground time. Baking. A family trip to Costco. Hair cuts and dress shopping. Library visits and ice skating. It was nice to be home and living life at a relaxed pace.

The weekend was also pretty low key. On Saturday I dopped the 6 year old at an Easter Egg Hunt play date and went to get my emissions tested. The emissions didn’t take as long as I expected, so I stopped at Panera for my free Slip Club beverage and a BLT since I hadn’t had breakfast. Then in the afternoon, the Husband and the two little kids and I went on a nice long bike ride. In the evening, we watched the Men’s Final Four Basketball games. After the 6 and 9 year old went to bed, it was time to play Easter Bunny. The 14 year old was still up, and the Husband turned to her, dead serious, and said, “I have something to tell you. “

She looked at him expectantly.

“The Easter Bunny,” he said, “Isn’t real.”

I howled with laughter. The 14 year old helped us stuff eggs and then she actually went and hid all the eggs for us while the Husband and I finished watching the game.

Sunday, we went to 8am Easter Mass, which at our church is an English/ Bangla service. Reasons I really enjoy going to the English/Bangla mass:
-The rainbow of saris and kurtas that people wear are so fun to see.
-The homily is given in both languages, so it tends to be shorter.
-The music is provided by Bengali musicians and it is always upbeat and varied.

After Mass we went to breakfast at First Watch. We traditionally would go to IHOP for Easter breakfast, but the last couple of years, IHOP has always been so crowded so we decided to try something new. First Watch was for sure less crowded and the food was, in my opinion, better. The restaurant was having an Easter Egg hunt which was fun for the kids too. After breakfast we went home, had a nap. The kids hunted for Easter eggs. I made some lemonade and chocolate pudding for dinner, then we watched the Women’s NCAA Basketball final game while the kids folded laundry. The game was kind of a rout, with UCLA winning by 30 points.

For dinner we had burgers, tater tots, green beans, and lemonade. After dinner we went for a family walk – a rare thing these days to get all five of us to go for a walk together. The summer sunset sky was gorgeous! When we came home we had the chocolate pudding for dessert before sending the kids to bed. It didn’t feel like a fancy holiday weekend, but I think it was full of family, and good food, and what more could one want?

And now the calendar has turned to another month. April! Which means that 2026 is one quarter over. Here’s a look back at March:

March Highlights:
-Tech/Opening/Closing of a show. The Show certainly had it’s challenges, but I had such a good time with my co-workers.

-Family trip to the theatre to see The Sea Beyond the Ocean. Such a beautiful play.

-Supertitle recital gig of a lovely recital that featured Vaughn Williams’ Songs of Travel, one of my favorite song cycles.

-Running supertitles for another opera. I really like running supertitles – I get to lock into the music, but also I don’t have to talk to anyone else so I can just focus on one thing.

-Sunshine and warmer weather.

-It was a pretty negligent month for exercise, but I did go on my first run since November, and I did go to the fitness room at the rec center once.

-My friend L coming over to do laundry and getting to hang out with her late one evening.

-KPop Demon Hunters winning two Oscars, and seeing Golden performed on the telecast.

-My friend A coming home from their posting abroad. I mean not the reason they were sent home (they were posted in the Middle East), but the fact that I got to see her four months earlier than I was expecting.

-Going to the 9 year old’s Geobowl and the 14 year old’s Science Fair.

-Visiting the Textile Museum. Who knew horse blankets were so nuanced!

-Getting our tax information to our Tax Guy just in time.

-March Madness.

-Favorite meal cooked at home: Coconut Chicken Curry from New York Times Cooking.

-Cherry Blossoms. I never get tired of their fluffy delicate beauty.

Also – I snapped this picture while sitting in the shadow of the Washington Monument. I’m feeling a little down about the state of American politics, but I still feel inspired and hopeful by the symbols of our country, such as the American Flag and the Washington monument.

March Lowlights:
-Being sick. I was barely hanging on for a week mid-March. Turns out it was flu. I had to cancel so many plans that I had been looking forward to.
-News on the international front.
-News on the arts front at home. My heart aches for so many of my colleagues and former colleagues here in DC.
-A really hard tech process for the show I did. Everything was fine in the end, but there were definitely times when I thought I was just plain bad at my job.
-The back and forth as to the last day of school. This isn’t really a lowlight, but more like an ridiculous frustration. As the snow days piled up, the school district kept extending the school year, day by day until the last day, which was originally June 18th was pushed all the way to June 25th. I was glad I hadn’t signed the kids up for camp that week. But then…. then then… the week before spring break, the school district announced that they had gotten a special dispensation from the State to have a reduced number of teaching days and the last day of school would go back to being June 18th after all. ARUGH!!!! You know – I am find with whatever they decide to do, but to offer one thing and then change it back is… so annoying. I’m sure the school district knows how annoying this is.

How did I do on some of my 2026 Goals?
-Creativity – I only painted one picture; I wrote 3 haikus; I played piano several times – I’m trying to embrace the five minute piano noodle as something to do when I’m between tasks. So could do better on this front. But then I was sick for a week…

The one picture I painted all month. I guess technically it’s two. This was the leaf painting assignment from 30 Days of Watercolour.

-Finished one crossword puzzle. We didn’t renew our Washington Post Sunday paper til half way through the month, but it is now renewed so I can get back to doing my weekly puzzle.

-Museums = 1 (total so far this year, 4/10). Hikes= 0 (Not doing so well on the hiking goal)

-Vegan dinners = 3 (the goal is 5/month) I have to admit, vegan dinners are hard when I’m working in the evenings and am not home to cook.

-Excercise: not great. Strength training = 3x (goal was 8x/ month). Yoga daily = I missed two days when I was sick and 1 day when I just forgot. I did go running 4 times, once for only 10 minutes, but I’m still counting that.

-Family Goals: Game Night = 1 (Parcheesi; it was disastrous. Wait, I think there was a MarioKart night as well); Date Night = 0 (still); Call my parents once a week – I did horribly on this one; I think I called them once all month.

-Time outside: I tracked 14 hours, but it might have been more. I fell off the tracking wagon the days before and after I was sick.

Quote of the Month:
“I am an old woman and my life has been some strange balance of miraculous and mundane.” from The Correspondent by Virginia Evans.

Looking Forward to (the April edition):
– Contra dancing. We didn’t get to last month because of sickness in our household, so I’m hoping we’ll get to go this month.

-My mother’s coming to visit.

-Dinners and hang outs with various friends and families we know. The social calendar is a little full.

-An order from Jet Pens. As a gift to myself for getting through tech week (twice in one month!) and the flu, I ordered myself some things from JetPens – some monthly tabs so I can tab my planners, a new Preppy Fountain Pen, some new .25 point pens, and a book clip so I can clip my book open when I read while eating.

-Alisdair Fraser and Natalie Haas. I’ve been a fan of this fiddle and cello duo since their debut album in 2004 so I was super excited to see they are coming to play in our area. I very rarely go to live music concerts – usually if I’m going it live performance it’s opera or theatre – but especially these days, I feel like supporting live performance is important.

– Starting rehearsals for a new show and working with some of my favorite colleagues. (Okay, truth – most of my colleagues are my favorite colleagues. Now that I get to have a say in hiring stage managers, I don’t hire people I don’t want to work with… it’s a perk.)

– Reading in bed! I ordered a bedside lamp and it arrived!

Grateful for this week:
-Libraries. Particularly libraries that don’t have computers in their Children’s Section, thereby forcing my kids to actually look at books.

-Cadbury Mini Eggs. My favorite holiday candy. I got the big bag from Costco this year. Actually I got two. Last year I thought I didn’t need the big Costco bag of mini eggs so I didn’t buy them, and I regretted it ever since.

-A later piano lesson. The kids’ piano lessons are usually at 7:15am, but this week because it was Spring Break, their teacher was able to move the lesson to 8:00am and it was nice to stay home for that extra 45 minutes and have a leisurely morning.

-Bike trails and closed parkways. On the weekends, the parkway near us is closed to cars, giving us an endless length of road on which to ride our bikes.

-Spring Break and bonus time with my kids. Sure they periodically fought like tom cats, but overall I had a really great time hanging out with my kids this week. I think key to my great time was the fact that they play together pretty well, so a) I didn’t have to referee many arguments, and b) I could spend lots of time by myself without having to amuse them.

-Past me for making vanilla. Last year around this time, I had been given a mini bottle of vodka that I was never going to drink. So I tucked an vanilla bean inside to make vanilla. I had forgotten about it until this week, when I was making banana cake (this recipe – it’s really tender and moist) and realized we were out of vanilla. Panic! But then, I remembered that little bottle on our alcohol shelf. Past me to the rescue!

What We Ate:
Monday: Garlic-y Chicken with Lemon Anchovy Sauce a Melissa Clark recipe from NY Times Cooking. Eaten with rice and steamed broccoli on the side. I was looking to use up some chicken thighs I had in the fridge. This was really tasty.

Tuesday: Tacos from the taco place next to the barber’s. We had gone for haircuts for the kids and decided to grab dinner out before running some other errands this night.

Wednesday: Roasted Salmon and Potatoes with bagged salad. The 14 year old made dinner and it was super tasty.

Thursday: Kabocha Squash Japanese Curry from Hetty Lui McKinnon, and Pan Fried Tofu. I had picked up a Kabocha squash from the Farmer’s market and was looking for a way to cook it. I really loved this flavorful curry. I didn’t have Japanese curry, but Indian curry powder worked just fine. I think I’ve cracked the code on really delicious crispy fried tofu. This is my method:
-Press and drain tofu for at least 20 minutes. (I wrap it in a kitchen towel and then put my Dutch oven on it. Sometimes I start it in the morning so that it’s nice and dry by the time I get home after work.)
-Cut tofu into 1 inch cubes.
-Douse with soy sauce and then let it sit for at least 10 minutes to marinate.
-Toss in 1/4 cup of cornstarch, making sure all sides of tofu are coated.
-Heat about a 1/4″ of oil in a large skillet.
-When the oil is hot, add the tofu. Let it cook untouched for 3-4 minutes, until a nice crust forms. Then flip and cook for another 3-4 minutes on the other side.
-When nice and golden/ crispy on at least two sides, take out and drain on a paper towel.
The excessive amount of cornstarch seems to be ky.

Friday: Take out from local fish restaurant, because it was Friday in Lent. And for movie night: A Nice Indian Boy. I was looking for a rom com to watch since it was my turn to pick the movie, and came across this title from last year. It was just perfect – everything I want from a rom com: cute, appealing leads, offbeat secondary characters, believable conflict even within a quirky story, humour, heart, and wit. We laughed a lot. The movie tells the story of Naveen, a doctor, who yearns to meet the right man and get married. He meets Jay, a white man who was adopted by Indian parents, and much of the comedy and heart comes from the dynamics of Naveen’s family learning to accept Jay as the Nice Indian Boy they want for Naveen. I loved that everyone had a chance for a story arc, and the Indian wedding dance number at the end. This movie was the definition of feel good. Also Jonathan Groff is really pretty.

Saturday: Pizza (the Husband made – cheese, sausage and mushroom, fig and goat cheese, and a pepperoni).

Sunday: Burgers, steamed green beans, tater tots. Lemonade. Chocolate pudding. (Burgers, lemonade, and chocolate were all things that the kids had given up for Lent.) The Husband made the burgers and they were really tasty. The 9 year old at one point said, “It’s a good thing Easter isn’t on a Friday in Lent because we wouldn’t have been able to eat these burgers!” Um…..

Weekly recap + what we ate: Another round of unique things and frustrating things

I still feel like I’m digging out of being sick for a week, but it’s nice to feel like life is getting back to routine. Aside from some lingering crud and the occasional cough, I’m feeling better, though still very tired. I’m don’t know if the tired is just life or what. I’ve been trying to think of if I ever don’t feel tired? This might be something for me to track.

Anyhow, on weeks when life feels very routine, I like to do a round of “What make this day unique or special/ what made this day frustrating” in my journal. It’s a good reminder to me that even when things feel like a cycle of – sleep, wake, kids to school, work, sleep…. each day is different, even if in tiny ways.

Monday:
Unique: I took a nap in the afternoon before work. Still not feeling 100% this day.
-Reading in bed at night. I don’t often read in bed because the Husband often is asleep before I get into bed and I don’t want the light to bother him. This night, he had fallen asleep on the couch downstairs so I took advantage of having the bed to myself and read in bed.
Frustrating: The people in the parking garage that honk at me. The garage where I park at the current theatre is underground, which means there are lots of ramps to navigate. Some of these ramps are quite steep. Which, since I drive a manual car, makes me very anxious when the traffic is stop and go all the way out of the garage. So I tend to sit at the bottom of a section of ramp until the traffic is clear for a couple meters. That way I don’t get stuck mid way up the ramp and risk rolling backwards when I try to shift gears. People tend to honk at me when I do this. I get this – most people assume that stopping half way up the ramp is an easy thing, and I expect it is annoying to sit in a parking garage line and not have the car in front of you pull up. But I’m already a ball of anxiety getting out of the garage, honking tends to exacerbate my anxiety. Anyhow… I’ve started just waiting 45 minutes after work to leave so I don’t have to sit in the traffic.

Tuesday:
Unique: I didn’t have to work in the evening, so I sat and read my book after dinner. I wish this didn’t feel like a special thing, and was instead just an every day thing.
Frustrating: I should have had a conversation at work, but I didn’t because it was kind of a sensitive thing and the right moment didn’t happen for the conversation. It was frustrating because it was something I wanted to have taken care of and instead it continued to loom.

Wednesday:
Unique: An extraordinarily good pint of raspberries. I find raspberries a little hit or miss, and this one was for sure a hit. Sweet and firm and full of flavor.
– I went to visit a new to me museum – The Textile Museum. It’s across the street from the theatre and free admission. It’s a small, very niche, museum, which is sometimes the best kind. They currently have an exhibit about horse blankets and saddle covers. I loved seeing all the handwork. Like the exhibits on quilts that I’ve seen, I was struck by how no one knows who created these beautiful (and practical) works of art.

There was also an exhibit on sustainable fashion, which was fascinating. For example, this shirt below is made out of fibers made of pineapple leaves. The placard noted that different countries/regions have access to different materials, but globally, most of our clothes are made of the same materials, manufactured in a limited number of places, which contributes to a lot of waste and pollution. A lot of the sustainability ideas in the exhibit was about focusing on local efforts- whether it be natural resources or reclaiming/recycling fabric.

I stopped by the gift shop of my way out and picked up a few things: two napkins made from old sari materials, and this book on furoshiki, the Japanese art of wrapping things with fabric:

Also another special thing this day – my friend came over after work to do laundry – her machine is broken. We haven’t had a chance to hang out in a while since work has been so busy, so it was lovely to sip beverages and chat; she had a beer, I had some tea. She did some mending and I folded laundry. It was 11:30pm, but kind of the best kind of low key hang out to have with a very good friend.

Frustrating: We had a site visit for a theatre space at work and the parking near the space was a nightmare. I hate parking in the old parts of the city.

Thursday:
Unique – The Husband was out of town on a birthday trip with friends. He very rarely goes away by himself, so this was really unique. That evening, the kids and I went the the middle school STEM fair. I’ve never been to a science fair before – we didn’t do them when I was this age. It was so fun to see all the different projects and to realize that even the littlest spark of curiosity can be the seed for a science project. The 14 year old did an experiment testing different types of sugar for baking cupcakes. My favorite exhibit was one kid who compared catapults to trebuchets, even building one of each out of balsa wood and rubber bands.
Afterwards we went to a new to us Thai dessert cafe and had fancy drinks and Mango Sticky Rice Toast. It was all really tasty. The 6 year old wanted to lick the plate after we polished off the Toast. I told her she couldn’t lick the plate in a restaurant, but next time we could order it to go and she could like the plate at home.

Toast topped with condensed milk and fresh mango, along with sticky coconut rice, mango cream, whipped cream and vanilla ice cream. It was delicious.

Also – it’s Peak Bloom! A whole four days earlier than predicted. Peek bloom is one of those things that happen every year yet still feels unique every time it happens. I have plans to go see the blossoms with the kids next week on Spring Break; hopefully they will still be there. (update: we did this and it was beautiful)

Frustrating – Started gathering my tax information for our accountant. Starting them is not the frustrating thing; having to do them in the first place is. I guess this might more be classified as “annoying” rather than “frustrating.”

Friday:
Unique: I went to the fitness room at the rec center and ran the treadmill and did 15 minutes of strength with dumbbells. I tried 12 lb. dumbbells for the first time since the 5 and 10 lb ones were being used, and it wasn’t horrible. Again, I wish going to the fitness room wasn’t a unique thing in my schedule, but it is these days.

Frustrating: A few weeks ago, I wrote about receiving a W-2 for a gig I was never paid for. Well, this week got an email from the company’s accounting people saying, “Oops you’re right. You weren’t paid. Here’s a corrected W-2.” To which my response was, “Okay, thanks. Can I expect to be paid for the job still?” To which the nice lady in accounting said, “Sorry, that’s out of my hands. Here’s another email address that you can write to to ask.” I don’t understand how people run a business this way.

Saturday
Unique/ different – We went to the Farmer’s market this day (again, another thing I wish were more routine and not unique). We bought some amazing pastries and also apples and veggies and empanadas. While we were there we noticed that there was a Black Family Health Fair going on – there were people handing out toothbrushes and they said all were welcome; the fair wasn’t just for Black families. So we went to check it out. There were lots of booths from various health organizations, but also some fun activities. There was a booth where you could make smoothies by pedaling a bike that was attached to a blender. That was fun. We also enjoyed the art/collage workshop that was led by educators from the Phillips Collection. Going to the fair was such a lovely spontaneous activity.

The prompt was to build houses to represent our insides and our outsides. I don’t know that we followed the prompt. Our outside was brick and the inside was very Zen. The educator tried to make some comment about how it represents how tough and strong we feel like we have to be on the outside.

The other thing that made the day special was that we didn’t have any sports activities. We’re between basketball and soccer season and it was nice to have space in our day to do things like impulsively attend a health fair, or take an afternoon nap, or have family reading time after dinner. As we were lounging in the living room with our books, the 9 year old said, “This was a really great day!” Agreed, little guy. I totally agree.

Frustrating- I lost my Yeti mug a few weeks ago. Last year I wrote a post on things I would replace immediately and my Yeti Rambler with Hot Shot lid was one of those things. So I went to the local Ace Hardware to get a new one… and the 12 oz Yeti rambler with Hot Shot lid is no longer part of the Yeti line up; it’s seemingly been discontinued. They have a new Rambler, but it is slightly larger and doesn’t fit in my hand as well. So frustrating. I don’t want the new version, I want the 12 oz Rambler with Hot Shot Lid that I’ve had for five years now. My options seem to be:

-buy it in hot pink. Apparently some Ace Hardware Stores still have it in hot pink. Hot pink isn’t really my colour, though.
-buy the 18 oz (or 10 oz) water bottle and the hot shot lid separately.
-buy the new Rambler and be annoyed every time I use it.
-scour eBay or other re-sale sites. But it would have to be a new one – I’d feel weird buying a used one.

I ended up scouring eBay and buying one there. I might actually buy two more just as back up.

Sunday
Unique/Different – It’s the last show of my current run. There is always a special energy knowing that you’re doing a show for one last time.
I found street parking right outside the theatre so I didn’t have to pay for parking since it was Sunday.
After the show, we went to a friends’ house for dinner. It was a beautiful spring/cups of summer evening and the sun was still up, so I walked there. After sitting all day, it was nice to stretch my legs. The trees are blooming and there were lots of people out on their bikes. It’s like people are emerging from hibernation.

Frustrating- I don’t think there was anything frustrating about the day. It was a nice Sunday – some family time, some work, some friend time, and I finished my book. It was a pretty good day.

Grateful for:

-Driving a compact car so that it is easier to fit into parking spaces and navigate city driving.

-Chatting with colleagues. I was working supertitles for my latest show, which means I get to hang out in the booth a lot with the stage manager and the lighting supervisor. There is something to be said about being able to have casual conversations about work things – we can problem solve and kick around ideas to explore without being in some meeting where it feels like we have to have the right answer right there. A lot of my administrative work can be done remotely, which I appreciate, but I also am really grateful for casual face to face time to chat with my colleagues.

-For the chance to run supertitles for this latest show. I really love running super titles. I mean it’s essentially hitting a space bar 1000 times over the course of a two hour show, but I find it really satisfying to lock in and concentrate on the music and what is happening onstage. I’m glad when my boss was looking for someone to run titles I spoke up and said, “I can do it.” And that my boss then let me.

-that I’m feeling better after my week of sick.

-That the 9 year old still loves playing with his toy planes. He has such a big imagination. And makes up stories and battles with his toys. Yes, he also likes playing MarioKart, but I love that if I leave him alone he will also get deeply immersed in imaginative play, zooming his airplanes all over the house.

-Perennials that come up year after year. I always forget that we have hyacinths along our front walk until they suddenly pop up, fragrant and cheery.

-This sign that I saw backstage. A good reminder.

Looking forward to:
-Easter Dinner. The kids gave up burgers, chocolate, and lemonade for Lent. (mean one kid gave up each thing.) I was going to make a big fancy Easter dinner, but then we realized that we should just have burgers, lemonade and chocolate dessert. I’m not sure what the chocolate dessert will be yet. Maybe I’ll also make a vegetable.

-Starting a new show next week.

-Visiting the Phillips Collection. At the collage workshop, we were given family passes to visit the Museum. They have art workshops the second Saturday of every month, so I’m looking forward to finding a time to go. I haven’t been to the Phillips Collection since before the oldest was born, so I’m eager to put this on our calendar.

-Bike/runs with the kids now that the weather is nicer.

-Just started this book. It’s set in a Red Lobster during a snow storm.:

What we ate:
Monday: Coconut Chicken Curry in the Instant Pot, recipe from New York Times Cooking, with rice and Paratha. Made before I went to work. I’ve made this before and everyone always loves it. I made a double batch, so there is some in the freezer ready for when I go back to work.

Taco Tuesday: Shrimp Tacos w/ cabbage, smashed avocado, sour cream, cheese, and salsa

Wednesday: Banh mi – take out. I was working this night and it was the night that the Husband was leaving for his trip.

Thursday: Lemon Miso Tofu and Broccoli Stir Fry a Hetty Liu McKinnon recipe from New York Times Cooking. I was looking for a way to use up some broccoli I got from the Farmer’s market and this recipe popped up. It was really bright and lemony and I loved it. I can see the sauce also being good on white fish. I would make it again, but maybe less aggressive with the lemon since the Husband doesn’t like things too lemony. (Except Lemon Bars. He makes and exception for those.) Vegan.

Friday: Pizza and movie? I had to work. The Husband was coming home this night, so I’m not sure what they ate or watched.

Saturday: Chipotle (for the kids – there was one next to the hardware store and the kids really wanted it; the 14 year old even offered to pay for her own); Leftovers for me (chicken and kimchi in a bowl). Peanut butter and jelly sandwich for the Husband.

Sunday: Wings, salad, and fries at our friend’s house. Our friend is a genius with the grill.

Well, that’s the news this week. And now we’ll be into April. The weather looks lovely and almost summer like this week- a nice week for a Spring Break staycation with the kids.

What chocolate dessert should I make for Easter? When was the last time you ate something so tasty you wanted to lick the plate? And did you? Have you had any favorite items be discontinued? Visit any super niche museums lately?

Weekly recap+ what we ate: Good-bye, February! Hello, March!

Another show opened! It has been a hard hard week for me, but the show opened and it looks really stunning. And the audience is super excited to be there; the feeling of good will is palpable.

We’re over a week into March, but I wanted to do a February recap, now that I’m on the other side of tech. I keep wanting to put tech week into this recap, but that was technically March, so it will go into the next recap.

February Highlights:
-New York City Trip with the 14 year old. Seeing Two Strangers (Carry a cake across New York), eating good food, people watching.

-Doing titles for a voice recital that was lovely and featured an elegantly charming set of Post WWI French cafe songs.

– Watching the Olympics. The stunning figure skating pairs long program. The heartbreaking Men’s hockey final. The mad dash of ski Mountaineering. The zen of curling. The colourful opening ceremonies. The opera-filled closing ceremonies.

-Super Bowl Sunday, which was combined with the Husband’s birthday. Seeing lots of friends, eating food, and celebrating. The game itself – couldn’t tell you what happened there. We had the Olympics playing upstairs while the game was downstairs, so I kept floating between events.

-Our Zojirushi hot water boiler. Best new addition to our household. Hot water instantaneously.

-Some warm days – going outside without being all bundled up.

-The 9 year old getting his first library card.

-Two more snow days. One I wasn’t working so I hung out with the kids. The other I had to work, so we paid the 14 year old to watch her siblings. It is kind of amazing not to have to worry about what to do with the kids on a snow day when both the Husband and I have to work.

-Lunar New Year – pineapple cakes, pomelos, and an excuse to get together and eat dim sum with friends.

-Lunch with a friend from college.

-A chill mid-afternoon hangout with two other families. There were sword fights and K-pop dance routines and grown up conversations.

-The 6 year old’s kindergarten performance of Arf!

-Happy Hour with the stage management team at a new-to-me restaurant with $1 oysters during happy hour. I love oysters.

-Watching the 14 year old play basketball.

-Elisabeth’s FIG Club, which encouraged us all to find joy in moments of gratitude during February – such a delight to read everyone’s FIGS.

-Starting rehearsals for a new show. The feeling of homecoming as we finally got down to rehearsal after six weeks (or really, a year) of turmoil at work. Gathering to do work that is familiar to us despite all the changes. I keep hearing the phrase “Flying the plane while building it,” and it did feel like that often. But, you know… when we understand the fundamentals of what needs to be done, the rest is just logistics and figure-out-able.

-Also there’s a banjo in our show. It makes me so happy.

-Favorite meals cooked at home: Ethiopian food (shiro wat, yellow lentils, and fried potatoes, eaten with injera), and Shrimp tacos.

February Lowlights

-Starting to develop some lower back pain. I’ve always been pretty healthy and pain free, so this kind of chronic pain is really annoying. I can usually make it feel better by stretching, but getting out of bed in the morning is an effort for sure.

-Not exercising. I did my yoga daily but didn’t run except for 15 minutes on the treadmill at the rec center before the 14 year old’s basketball game. The lack of exercise actually has a lot to do with the weather, so hopefully I’ll do better now that the weather is getting warmer.

-Some confusion about the 14 year old’s path in high school, forms that we supposed to be filled out that weren’t. This was VERY stressful.

-Our office at work is very very very cold. Which is usually fine, but it was a cold month. It has something to do with the fact that the thermostat is located in the hallway and regulates a few different offices.

-A bunch of adulting fails including getting a ticket for expired plates. (This is now fixed.)

-Having to work a lot of evenings.

– Pretty sad news about plans for a cultural institution that had been my home for the past twenty years. It’s pretty shitty and devastating for so many people.

Yearly Goals – not great on some fronts, but it was a very work intense month:
-Taking the stairs – I don’t specifically track this, but I think I did okay on this. I did have to take the elevator at work for a while because my id badge was deactivated and that was the only way to access the stairwell from the lobby.

-Creativity: I only painted one picture (It was a birthday card, and I still haven’t sent it); I wrote 3 haikus. I spent some time on the piano – we ordered the easy piano version of music from K-Pop Demon Hunters, so that was fun.

-Did not do any crossword puzzles because our Washington Post subscription expired and I haven’t gotten around to renewing it.

-Museums = 0/10. Hikes = 0/12

-3 vegan dinners. (Goal is 5/month)

-Exercise Goals: Strength training 6x (Goal was 8x/month). Yoga daily – CHECK!

-Family Goals: Game Nights =0 (though we do sometimes have an ongoing chess game going on); Date Nights =0; Call my parents once a week = 3 times, so close;

-Not a lot of time outside – only 17.5 hours in February. That’s less than 30 mins a day.

Quote of the month:
One of the singers I worked with this month was a collegiate wrestler before he decided to become an opera singer. I asked him if there was anything from wrestling that he still applied to life and he said that learning to step up to the mat no matter the circumstances taught him the importance of showing up, and being persistent and doing what you have to do. Then he said:
“I always say: I never lost a match; I just ran out of time.” I love the grit and determination behind this idea – the sense that you can lose a match but still have the stamina and fortitude to be on a winning path.

Looking Forward to in March:
-More sunlight in our days and Spring!

– Running supertitles for the next opera. The most exciting part of this is that I get paid the union stagehand rate to run titles.

-No school day for the kids on 3/20. No plans yet but I have the day off, so maybe we’ll do something special.

-Getting my tax information to our tax guy.

-Happy Hour with my bus stop mom friends.

-March Madness.

-Spring Break starts at the end of the month. No plans currently; I probably have to work some that week.

-Cherry Blossoms!!!! Peak Bloom is predicted for as early as March 31st, though most media outlets are predicting the first week of April. We shall see….

-Not being in rehearsal all the time, so I will be able to do all the things I’ve been putting off, such as:

Bake things
Make dinner
Put the kids to bed
Clean out the kids’ clothes and prep for Spring
Run (this is more about the weather than my work schedule, though)
Game nights
Taking walks in the warmer weather
Paint, play piano, journal
Go to the grocery store
read books

Grateful for this Week:
-The stagehands, wardrobe crew, and wig and make-up crew – for making our show look so good and run so smoothly. And the assistant stage managers. The theatre where we are working has very limited room backstage and the ASMs are working miracles of organization and timing to get everyone onstage when they need to be, wearing the right clothes, with the right prop in hand. In one meeting, I gave them a shout out, saying “They are running New York City in the space the size of a postage stamp back there.”

-Cue lights! What are cue lights? They are lights that are hung around backstage that I use to indicate when a cue should happen. I turn on the light when the crew should be in “Standby” and turn the light off for “Go”. Most of the crew is on headset so they can hear me give the cues, but the cue light is also a good back up. Anyhow – when we first did a walk through of the theatre, we were told that they had ONE cue light. Well, this would have to go into the orchestra pit so I can indicate to them when to tune, meaning the crew wasn’t going to have any lights. BUT… the house crew at the theatre surprised us by purchasing a whole new cue light system! Hooray! It has SIX cue lights. (I only need five for this show.)

-My friend home from abroad. She and her family were in the Middle East (they work in the foreign service). They were sent home last week, given all the things going on. “Things” being the U.S. bombing Iran. I’m grateful that she’s home.

-That I didn’t lose my book. I had brought a book to read when I took the 14 year old to her voice lesson. And afterwards we went to a newly open cafe for sweet treat and to run lines. (It was opening weekend for the cafe and they were giving out free pastries!) Anyhow, I got home and realized my book was missing. I was in a bit of a panic because it’s a library book. But I texted the voice teacher and turns out I had left it at her house. Thank goodness.

-Panera Sip Club. Panera was running this deal where you could get 3 months of Sip Club for $3/month. Usually it’s $14/month. For $3/month, you could get all the coffee/tea/fountain sodas/lemonade/ice tea that you wanted. I think technically it’s limited to one every two hours. It’s not something that I would usually sign up for, but there is a Panera across the street from the theatre – it is in the Student Center (we’re performing on an University campus), and open until 11pm. And it’s tech, when I usually have more caffeine than normal to function/ pick me up during a long day. So I signed up and getting my cold Sip Club beverage is a nice excuse to get out of the building.

-Speaking of which – I’m grateful for getting to work on a University campus. I’m finding there’s something really special about university campuses – the students rushing here and there in non-homogeneous crowds: the squares with places to sit, even though we’re in the middle of the city; the sheer number of coffee shops and fast restaurants; the statues that greet you every few blocks. There’s just a youthful, hopeful air that I find energizing.

-Getting to drive home with my work BFF. We have a tradition of commuting together on opening night so that she can drink at the party and I can drive her home. It’s kind of our version of a friend date to run errands – we drive home and chat and catch up because even though we work down the hall from each other, the past few weeks have been intense and we’ve mostly been talking about work logistics when we cross paths.

-The snack box at work, which someone keeps stocked with chocolate, cookies, and other sweet and savory snacks.

-Freezer soup, for being a quick and easy thing to take for dinner.

-Kids being quiet. I took the 14 year old to school one day and when I came home it was eerily quiet in the house. I peeked through the two little kids’ door know and saw:

Yes, the door knob is missing. We removed it when the youngest was two because she kept locking herself in the room by accident and we didn’t have a key.

What We Ate: The Husband made dinner every night, since I wasn’t home in the evenings all week. I ate mostly leftovers at work.

Monday: Mac and cheese and hot dogs.

Taco Tuesday: Shrimp Tacos. This is the most requested type of Taco for Taco Tuesday.

Wednesday: Dumplings and green beans

Thursday: Zucchini Boats.

Friday: Pizza! I was actually home this night. The Husband made a pickle pizza and we ordered two pizzas from one of our favorite pizza places. We watched Wendy Wu Homecoming Warrior. I don’t know how this movie came across my radar – it was released in 2006 on Disney Channel, but I only heard about it this year. How is that possible? Asian representation was so non-existent at the time, I feel like it must have gotten a lot of buzz in the community, no? (To be fair, I didn’t have a tv in the early 2000s and this was before you could stream everything.) Anyway, the movie was pretty much everything you would expect from a Disney movie, with some hilarious martial arts sequences thrown in. I don’t know that I would watch this more than once, but it was a fun and charming movie.

Saturday: Indian take out.

Sunday: Leftover Indian take out, tortellini with red sauce, and green beans.

Well, that’s the week that was. And the month that was. Here the weather is almost summer like, all sunshine and warm rays. Not sure how long it will last, but I’m going to try to soak it up this week.

Weekly Recap + what we ate: Day in the life + FIGS Week #3

It’s been a grey, chilly week. The weather has sort of matched my week – dark and unrelenting. It seems like every day this week was something on the home front. The kids were off Monday for President’s Day and it was also my first day of rehearsal for a new show. School was closed again on Tuesday. Not sure why; it was Lunar New Year, but I’m not sure if that was the reason. Wednesday was Ash Wednesday – I worked late, but the husband took the kids to Mass. Thursday we had a site visit for the theatre where we’ll be performing in a few weeks, so that made that day extra long. Friday – Friday felt like a regular day. So I decided to do a “Day in the Life” post based on Friday, February 20th, 2026. More on the below.

Over all, though last week I just felt as if I was doing a terrible job at adulting. Here’s a list:
-I received a W-2 for a job that I realized I had never been paid for. Now I have to write that company and ask them where my fee is. And the job was a year ago, so I feel stupid to not have realized that sooner.
– I opened the bills for this month and was shocked by how high they were, only to realize they were that high because I forgot to pay them last month. Ugh. I think in the brain fog of jet lag in January following our trip to Taiwan, I just… forgot.
-my lower back hurts. I’m very lucky to be pretty healthy and free of ailments, so this constant lower back pain that I had last week was a new experience for me. Not sure what it is. If I make sure I stretch in the morning and try not to sit too much, the pain is usually gone by mid day. But in the morning, getting out of bed is more of a ginger effort that I’m used to.
-The to top it all off… I had gone to downtown DC for that site visit and miraculously I found parking on a street without meters. I was shocked that this street had free parking, so when I saw a parking enforcement agent across the street, I asked her if there were meters on this street. And she looked a me impatiently and said, “The meters are on the other street.”
I was running late, so I said a little prayer for having good parking Karma and headed to the venue.
A few hours later, I get back to my car – which in and of itself was an ordeal because I couldn’t remember where I parked and my friend was with me so we walked around the blocks a few times before I found it. I told my friend as we walked about finding free parking and the parking enforcement agent. We finally find my car and my friend says, “It looks like you got a ticket after all.” And my hear sank with disbelief. She looks at the sign and says, “I don’t know why – it clearly says two hour parking here.”
Greatly annoyed, I look at the ticket. Friends, I got a ticket because my tags were expired. In fact, they’ve been expired for two months.
I shouldn’t have talked to the parking enforcement agent.

Also – I would like to churlishly point out that in Maryland when you get a ticket, they put it in an envelope so that you can mail back the payment. They don’t do that in DC. I guess it is easier to just pay it online, but the principal of the matter….

Anyhow, there are some weeks when the whole adulting thing is just too much for me, and last week was one of them. It’s fine – it will all be fine. Nothing is life altering – it’s just all annoying and the last thing that I want to deal with.

But… on to my Day In The Life Post. This was what Friday, February 20th looked like for me:

6:15am- alarm goes off. I only recently started using an alarm to wake up in the mornings, because I wanted to get my mornings started earlier. Without an alarm I usually get up at 6:45am, so I started with 6:30 a few weeks ago and this week bumped it even earlier. I go back to sleep for a few minutes because I had been at work til 10:30p the night before and I was tired.

6:30p- out of bed for reals. Bathroom. Glass of water. I’ve been trying to get up early for some quiet alone time, but this morning the kids were up before me:

I make myself tea from my brand new water boiler. I’m loving the water boiler. It dispenses water at the push of a button, keeps the water hot all day, and I can set it the night before to be at the right temperature for tea when I wake up. It holds four liters of water so I only have to fill it once a week.

There was conversation and chatter- I don’t see the kids or the Husband very much when I work evenings, so I try to make time in the morning to catch up.

6:50: finally get my reading time while the two little kids eat cereal. Reading Crescent City, still. It is a very long book. I complain to the 14 year old (who recommended it) and she says, “That’s why I listen to the graphic audio version.”

The two little kids eat cereal and chatter about kid things.

7:20am -Then I fit in my daily yoga- just ten minutes today. I’ve been having a bit of lower back pain recently so I’ve been choosing yoga videos that focus on that.

7:40am- how does it take 20 minutes to do ten minutes of yoga? I get dressed and then take the 14 year old to school. She usually walks the mile or so to school, but I offered to drive her today because it was raining pretty hard. Also the Husband was working from home today so I could leave the other two kids at home.

7:55 pm- back home. I pack lunches (kids and my own). Also make myself roti egg for breakfast. I bought a pack of uncooked roti from Costco- the kids don’t like it as much as the paratha from H-mart, but I think it’s tasty, especially if not overcooked. Here’s how I make roti egg:

Crack egg onto griddle. Scramble it a little, but keep it pretty flat. Pinch of salt. Or drizzle of sesame oil, hot sauce, curry powder. Whatever is tasty.
Put roti on other side of griddle
After 30 seconds, flip cooked side of eoti on top of egg and flip the whole thing over so that the uncooked side of the roti is on the griddle, with the egg on top. Cook thirty seconds or so, then roll the whole thing into a tube.

It’s kind of a cheater’s version of Taiwanese dan bing (egg pancake). The two little kids, despite already having breakfast, ask for roti egg too. Good thing it’s fast to make.

My lunch:

brown rice w/ sweet potato puree and a boiled egg; yogurt with berries; snack box (grapes, cheese, triscuits, cucumbers slices); string cheese; trail mix; cut up carrots and veggies. napkin wrapped around sliverware.

While I make breakfast and lunch, we watch the Ski Mountaineering on the tablet. This is Skimo’s first year at the Olympics and I found it fascinating. The athletes sprint uphill on skis, then take the skis off, and strap them to their back, and climb stairs! And then they get to the top and rip these skins off their skis – the skins give them traction for the uphill sprint – and ski down. The whole thing takes less than four minutes. It’s exhausting to even think about.

8:30p- I sit down and eat my breakfast. Finally.

8:57am- the shoes and socks alarm goes off, indicating it’s time to atart heading out the door.

9:11am- arrive at parking lot on trail and walk up the path to school. Notice how high the water is in the creek because of the rain. The rain has stopped for a bit, but the kids still insist on bringing their umbrellas. My kids are obsessed with umbrellas and use any slightly damp occasion as an excuse to use their umbrellas. On the way up the path, run into another parent that I know. He used to work for USAID, so we often commiserate about our similar work situations.

9:30am- I usually take a walk after dropping the kids, but I had a new stage management team starting today so I head in early to allow time to pick up donuts to welcome them. There is a place near work that makes amazing donuts, and they’re vegan! This is the only picture I remembered to take of the beautiful donuts:

10:00am- meet and greet with new stage management team and my big boss.

11:00am- I spend the rest of the morning catching up on email. I send a company wide email welcoming this new stage management team, also noting that it is twenty years to the day that the Stage Manager started with the company. I love that. We both started here as interns, one year apart, when we were in our twenties and fresh out of school, and now we have houses and mortgages and a dog (him) and children (me).

12:50 pm- my brain is mush. Stop at the bathroom. Take a picture because I like my outfit today:

From head to toe: Orange beanie (Duluth Trading Company). Ottoman sweater from Free People (I love this sweater, but I never wear it because it is white. But when I put it on, I am always struck by how sophisticated white looks). Uniqlo Puffer Vest (ubiquitous fashion item for me from Hallowe’en until Easter pretty much). Red Dress from Wool&. Blue legging from Duluth Trading Company. Rain boot – I think they are Bogs.

Go for a walk. Admire the funny sign and cute small town vibes of the area where I work:

About ten minutes into my walk I get a text that our laptops are here! This is very exciting. We’ve been working on our personal laptops for six weeks now, ever since the company shake up. We still don’t have access to printing, but small wins are huge at this point.

2:30pm- In rehearsal. We finish staging Act 1 and then run it. We’ve spent three days putting the first act together one musical number at a time, and it feels really good to put the whole thing together and see what it’s like from the top of the overture to Intermission. We got some new props for rehearsal today:

5:30pm- Dinner Break, just as the sun is setting. I love that we have windows in our rehearsal room so I can see the sunset:

I send a text to my team with this picture, which is the order of the numbers we are going to review in the evening’s rehearsal.

During dinner, we do the jigsaw puzzle:

6:45pm – Dinner break is over. Back to rehearsal. We spend the evening putting the dancers and Supers (non-speaking roles) into Act 1.

This is the view from where I sit. On the travel alarm clock is a Post It reminding me when I have to release certain groups of people from rehearsal. I have to write it down and put it on the clock or else I will lose track of time and if I don’t release people in time, it will sometimes cost the company money. Timekeeping in rehearsal is very stressful for me.

10:00pm – Rehearsal is over for the day. The stage managment team gathers to go over the notes from rehearsal, which I type into a report and send out. It’s a lot of notes like “So and so needs a pocket…” “Change this word to that word” type of things.

10:45pm – walking out of work. I give my colleague a ride home. She came directly from another gig and didn’t have time to drive to us from her home, so she doesn’t have her car and has been taking the metro to work. We finish work so late that I give her a ride home. I’m loving the ten minutes we have to chat in the car on our drive.

11:10pm – home. I sit in the car for a little bit, scrolling – I find I always need a minute alone before I go into the house. I should perhaps go for a walk around the block instead of scrolling – that might be better for me.

It’s a clear, cold starry starry night. I pause in our front walk to breathe the cold winter air and look at the stars.

11:30p – I go inside. Put my stuff down. I notice that the dinner dishes are still on the kitchen counter. The Husband had texted me earlier that night to say that the youngest kid had been vomiting, so I’m guessing they just left the dishes for later while they dealt with the vomit. I go upstairs, give the kids kisses while they sleep, change into my sleepy clothes.

I’m tired and little hungry, so I snack on some cheese, cold cuts, slathered with dill pickle mustard.

I load the dishwasher and wipe down the counters. I don’t mind doing this late at night because I know when I’m not home in the evenings, there is a lot on the Husband’s plate and this is one small thing I can do for everyone.

12:15am – I read a little bit to try to wind down and end up falling asleep in my reading chair.

1:00am – I shake myself awake, brush and floss, and head to bed.

And that’s the day! It was mostly a pretty typical work day, though I’m not often at work for twelve hours so this one was longer than usual.

Grateful for This Week – FIGS Week #3. (Shout out to Elisabeth for encouraging people’s ray of gratitudes.) I felt like I struggled to find FIGS at the end of the day this week. I do remember feeling wonder, delight and gratitude in many small things, and in the moment thinking, “Oh that’s such a good small FIG!” But when it came time to remember these small things, at the end of the day when my brain was fried, I was tired to recall what brought those small moments of joy to me. So, rest assured – there were quotidian FIGS last week. I know in my heart they were there, even if my brain didn’t hold on to them.

But the FIGS I did hold on to:

-Our new Zojirushi water boiler came two weeks ahead of schedule. Just in time for a week of chilly weather. I’ve used it several times a day to make tea. No more waiting for the water to boil! The kids have also started using it when they make ramen.

-The stage management team on my show. They make me laugh. They catch things that I miss. They are damn good stage managers. Also – one day I was really really late to rehearsal – I had forgotten I had to take the 14 year old to voice lessons and miscalculated how long it would take to get to rehearsal from there. The other folks on my team started rehearsals without me and kept the room going. I’m really thankful that I work with people that I can trust to run a room.

-The Olympics. What a fun two weeks of watching people doing things really really well. We watched the gold medal hockey game live on Sunday morning- I always root for Canada in hockey and was so sad for them not to get the gold. AND did you see all the opera at the closing ceremonies? Seeing and hearing all the greatest hits of Italian Opera gave me such delight.

– Taiwanese Pineapple Cakes for Lunar New Year. From Costco(!). Pineapple cakes are a pastry with a shortbread cookie type exterior around a thick pineapple jam filling. I love pineapple cakes, but they are generally only available around New Year. I was so surprised to see them at Costco three weeks before Lunar New Year. I should have bought more than one box because when I asked my friend to pick up another box a few days before New Year, Costco had already moved on to stocking goods for other holidays (Eid. Passover.) These were some of the best pineapple cakes I’ve ever eaten. I took the box to work and shared them with the cast and it was fun to share a bit of something I love with everyone.

-Finding hearts in every day places:

I snapped this picture as I was leaving skating lessons with the 9 and 6 year old. They look so sweet sharing an umbrella, but not two seconds before, one child refused to share, saying the other child had a waterproof coat on and didn’t need an umbrella. I reminded them to be kind to each other and they stopped squabbling and shared the umbrella. Which is when I noticed the skating bag had settled into a heart shape.

-Along those lines – I’m grateful for the inane chattering conversations my kids have with each other. I feel so lucky that all three of them get along most of the time. Sometimes they will get into tearful yelling fights, but then they have a bit of time to themselves and are back to being real tight and when I ask if they’ve made up with each other they look at me like, “What are you talking about? Why would I argue with my amazing sibling, my favorite person in the world?” I know you can’t guarantee the future, but I hope they will continue to be there for each other their whole lives.

-My snow boots that keep my feet warm and dry.

-My Bed Is My Island. The 14 year old can be … reclusive. She really really loves her room and her bed. Some weekends, she emerges only for basketball games, church, food, and to go to the bathroom. So sometimes, we will knock on her door and ask if we can come in. And when she says yes, all of us – me, the Husband, the two younger kids – will pile together on her bed and play “The Bed is an Island.” It’s what a director friend of mine used to call those days when she didn’t have to be at rehearsal, but still had to prep for the next day at work so she would gather her computer, books, and scores, and just settle into a day of working from bed. Anyhow, in our version, we all pile into bed with the 14 year old and laze around. Sometimes we watch whatever YouTube videos she is watching, sometimes we just chat. This week, we ran lines with her for her school play. My Bed is My Island always starts as a mad scramble as everyone finds their comfy place in the family pile; usually at some point we settle into some configuration and it’s actually a quite comfy tangle of limbs and bodies. Often someone falls asleep. Often it’s me. The pile lasts anywhere from two minutes to an hour, and it’s just such a cozy way for us to hang out as a family of five without feeling like we have to drag the 14 year old from her bedroom. These moments are what I want the kids to remember of their childhood when I am gone.

Looking Forward To:
– My parents are coming to visit in April!

– These next two months are busy, but I have a few happy hours on the calendar with various friends, and I’m looking forward to catching up with friends.

-Summer. The Husband and I mapped out our summer and I’m excited for pool time and maybe camping and hanging out with my kids. I’ll be done with shows by the beginning of July, so the summer looks to be pretty relaxed.

-Using my new hot water boiler. Yes, I realize this is the third time I’ve mentioned the water boiler in my post, but I am seriously so very excited for this new addition to my family. I get up in the morning and say to myself, “Oh look! The water is already hot!”

What We Ate – I pretty much worked every night this week, so the Husband did the majority of the cooking.

Monday: Butter chicken. This is the famous Instant Pot Recipe from Usha Pitre. I made it before I left for work – the Husband finished out the recipe and made rice to go with it.

Tuesday: Shrimp Tacos.

Wednesday: Smoked Salmon and bagels.

Thursday: Kung Pao Chicken.

Friday: Pizza (the Husband made it) and Hamilton. It was the 9 year old’s turn to choose the movie, and he chose a re-watch of the musical.

Saturday: Grilled cheese sandwiches and tomato soup.

Sunday: Dumplings and green beans.

Welp that’s the world here – I hope you have a FIG-gy week

Do you set an alarm in the morning? When was the last time you got a ticket? Any adulting fails lately? How about adulting wins?

Weekly recap + what we ate: Things I track and FIGS Week #2

Scaling mountains of ice and snow to get to school.

The week ended with weather that was positively spring like with temperatures in the 50s and, more importantly, blinding sunlight and clear blue skies. I am of the opinion that the sun and sky have more effect on me then the actual temperature. So much light and colour, the world can’t help but to feel like it is warming up. I left the house without my bulky winter coat a couple times and it feel so freeing! But this coming week looks to be a little on the grey side. Today (Sunday) was oh so rainy and chilly.

Anyhow, it’s been a week back in the office. It was fine. Everyone is overwhelmed and doing three jobs, but morale is high and we are all excited to be doing opera again. I want to remember to carry this feeling and remember it when the show feels hard – we are so very very very lucky to continue to tell stories onstage for people.

Stephany had a post a few weeks ago about the how she tracks her habits and goals and I was inspired to write a similar post. I’m fascinated by the minutiae of other people’s planning/tracking, so maybe other people will be interested in my methods?

So my current planner stack features:
-Hobonichi Weeks for day to day planning. (this might get it’s own post some day…)
-Levenger Five Year Journal, which I try to write in every day, with varying results
-A moleskin notebook that I use to track my reading; I write books that I read, and a few comments on them. This isn’t always a moleskin- it’s generally whatever blank notebook I have on hand when I run out of pages in the last one.
-A Hobonichi Cousin that I use to track routines, life, habits, some longer form reflections.

This has pretty consistently been my stack for the past five or six years. Last year, I tried a different planner, trying to put the planning and reflection/tracking in the same book, but that lasted less then a month before I went back to my tried and true method. I’m mostly going to write about how I use the Hobonichi Cousin here.

First off – Meals, media, and time outside:

On the top I track tv and movies that we watch. A lot of these are family movie night movies. Hearts are things that I really enjoyed.
Below that, I write down each day what we have for dinner. If we eat out, it gets a pink dot. If it is a vegan dinner, it gets a green dot. If it’s a meal we made at home that went over really well, I draw a heart so that I can go back and remember what was a hit with the family and make it again.
The last section is where I track time outside – each box on the grid represents one hour. I started doing this when I was trying to do 1000 hours outside, but I don’t think I’ll ever get to that in one year, so I now just track to see what is trending.

The Weekly Spread – Here I time track, writing down what I did every day in 30 minute segements.

This was a very light week for paid work.

I have a loose colour coding:
Green = work that I get paid to do
Purple = unpaid labor and family time (ie chores, making dinner, driving carpool, hanging out as a family)
Orange= time that is just for me, where I ignore (or don’t have to think about) the kids or family
Blue = Sleep.
Also on the left hand side, I write the books that I’m reading.

This is the section i’m the most inconsistent in filling out; I find I have a lot of nebulous time that is not accounted for….

365 Day Tracker – this is where I log my daily yoga. Here I also colour code according to how much yoga I do – pink=10 mins, orange = 15 mins, yellow = 20 mins, green=25 mins, and blue = 25 mins. There is something really fun and satisfying about this page. I sometimes think I should track something else for 365 days, but I’m not sure what that would be.

Daily Pages – This is where I write longer reflections that don’t fit into the 5 year journal. When I travel, this is where I write daily travel reflections, gather ticket stubs and what not. If I go to a museum or see a play, musical, etc., this is where I write my thoughts about what I saw. If I need to do a larger brain dump to problem solve something it goes here. I write haikus here for my weekly haiku project.
These daily pages also have a blank page at the start of each month and that’s where I write my monthly highlights/ low lights/ lessons learned.

The Monthly Spread – This is where the bulk of my tracking is. The categories I track here are mostly inspired by things I learned when I took The Science of Well Being, a free course on Coursera that is also known as the Yale Happiness Course because it is taught by a Yale Professor, Laurie Santos. Each week of the course, Santos talked about one thing that has been scientifically proven to make people “happier”, and gives assignments based on that topic. I took this course during the pandemic and it was really helped me focused on little things that I could be mindful about that could make life feel fuller, especially at a time that was really felt like a stressful daily grind. A lot of what her findings show is that people are really bad at predicting what makes them happy- the things people think they want are often inflated in their minds, leading to disappointment if it doesn’t come about. People find the most contentment when they focus on personal connection and what is right in front of them.

January. The first eleven days are blank because we were in Taiwan/I was getting over jetlag/feeling overwhelmed.

I like tracking things here because I can write a little more on what each thing is, allowing for a bit more reflection.

So what I track here:
-Hours outside (yes, I know I put this in two places, but I wanted also to see how much time I was spending outside on a daily basis.)
-Gratitude: at least one thing I’m grateful for each day.
-Savoring: one thing I take time to slow down and savor each day.
-Connection: at least one person I connected with that day. Santos has a week where she talks about the benefits of positive interaction. Sometimes for me, this is a long conversation over dinner, sometimes it is small talk in the grocery line or just a text exchange with a friend.
-Brush/floss: Okay, this one isn’t from Laurie Santos, but I used to be terrible at brushing and flossing, so I started making myself check a box for it. I’m not usually a box-checker, but in this case it really worked for me. One check for brushing, one for flossing.
-Exercise – I take this to mean movement. So the daily yoga and any work outs or runs I do go here, but also if I take a walk at lunch time, go skating with the kids, etc.
-Create: Here I write if I do something creative that day. To me this means write a blog post, compose a haiku, play piano, spend time painting, cook a fancy new recipe – basically anything where I create something from nothing.
-Anticipation: I write something I’m looking forward to. This wasn’t part of Santos’ course, but I read a NYTimes article about how anticipation boosts happiness so I added it to the list.

Along the bottom I track some of the habits I want to do this year:
-Paint 26 pictures
-Write 1 haiku a week
-visit a museum
-go on a hike
-do the Post Sunday crossword puzzle every week.

As a side note, some things that Santos talks about which improve well-birng that I don’t track:
-Sleep. My sleep is shit. I’m working on this, but I’ve tried tracking sleep and tracking does not motivate me to go to bed earlier, so I stopped.
-Meditation. I’ve tried, Lord know I’ve really really really tried meditation. I just can’t figure it out.
-Acts of kindness. This one was really hard for me to do mindfully without feeling performative. Some days I feel like the kindest thing I can do is hug my children and tell them I love them every single day, so I try to at least do that.

So that’s my system. I’m not a box checker, as I mentioned, so I don’t necessarily do these things to cross them off the list. But I do find it useful to see what things I’m making room in my life for. If I’m looking at my tracking spread and I notice I didn’t write something in a particular column for several days in a row, I will make an effort to find time to do it. But also, it helps when I’m in really busy time of the year to remind myself that there are certain things I still manage to do, even if it is as simple as brushing my teeth.

Anyhow, speaking of creating – here are my paintings from January:

This was from our hotel room in Beitou, Taiwan. Picture’s blurry because I didn’t actually take a real picture of this one and now I don’t know where it is….

The top picture is an exercise from Everyday Watercolor by Jenna Rainey; it’s a book of daily watercolor exercises. The bottom picture uses the salt technique where you sprinkle salt on wet paint to create a blotchy effect- it’s loosely based on a tutorial I found on YouTube on painting snowflakes.

Grateful For (FIGs, Week 2) – shout out to Elisabeth’s February FIGS collective, where she is gathering people’s gratitudes this month. These are some of my FIGs from last week.

-Libraries and printing. We aren’t fully set up with our IT at work yet, and I needed to print our music scores. So I went to the library to print them out. The process is so easy – log into the website with my library card, upload the documents and then go to any library and print. There is a thing where I have to have the librarians put a “fine” on my card to pay for the printing, but once I print the job, I pay off the “fine”. Also, the first 15 pages are free. This is such a great service.

-Sunlight in the morning. On Tuesday, I did my daily morning yoga in my bedroom instead of the basement. I pulled up my shade, and as I was doing my upward dog, I noticed that I could see pink sky when I had been used to the sky still being inky black at 7am in the morning. The days are starting to get longer.

-On the other side of the day, I walked out of work at 5:30pm one day and it was still light outside. After all those days of being stuck at home with the snow, the longer stretches of daylight are like fingers of hope and growth and the end of the tunnel.

-Our tax guy. I had to fill out new tax paperwork as part of the transition at work, and I was so very confused by the form. So I sent my tax guy an email and he told me exactly what to write in. Thank goodness.

-Getting to watch the 14 year old play basketball twice -once for her middle school team and once on her rec team. Her face always lights up when she sees me at her games, and I hope mine does too.

-Getting to pick up the kids after school. That moment they get off the school bus lifts my heart. I hope I never get tired of my kids coming home.

-To that end – school bus drivers. Some of the roads still are barely passable because the snow has not been cleared out to the curb. Grateful for the bus drivers that navigate that and get our kids to and from school safely.

-That quiet sliver of time between getting home with the kids and starting dinner. A few times last week, the 6 year old and I got the watercolours out and made a piece of art or two. A relaxing transition from the work/school day into the evening.

-Crisp clean sheets to slide between after a long day.

-Birdsongs and fat robins hopping in the snow. Spring is coming.

-Leaving for school a little on the early side and not having to rush up the path. There was time for the kids to pause and throw sticks in the still frozen creek, to tromp through the snowier path to school, and to summit the ice mountain that still sits in the parking lot between our path and the doors to school. (see photo at the top of the post!)

-A quiet office before the rest of my team arrives. I try to get to work half an hour before the rest of the stage managers get in; I love the stillness of the office in the morning and the ability to knock off some tasks without interruption.

-The Husband for helping make a tough situation better. We found out this week that when the 14 year old filled out her high school choice form, she had forgotten to also apply for the high school program that she wanted. (It’s a program that allows high school seniors to take a full year of classes at the community college for free.) So she got assigned to the school, but not to the program. I have to admit that the whole process was kind of confusing; we had thought you filled out the interest for after getting assigned to the high school. We were wrong. There were tears. So many tears. And yelling. And despair. All the stages of grief. This program was the whole reason she wanted to go to the school. Well, the Husband did some digging and it turns out that if she goes to the school counselor in the first week of school, she can still fill out an interest form for the program. So all is not lost. Thank goodness. I’m grateful that the Husband was persistent and called and emailed until he got an answer on the issue.

Looking Forward To:

-Starting rehearsal this week. Ready to dive in.

-Lunar New Year. It’s Tuesday. I have to work in the evening so no big celebration for us (plus it’s Taco Tuesday), but I will wear red and I did buy pineapple cakes, so I’ll bring those to work.

-Just started this audiobook, a memoir of growing up in Derry as one of eleven children being raised by a single father. It’s funny in that stolidly ironic way. On of my favorite bits is that whenever anyone asks O’Reilly’s father how he managed to raise 11 children on his own, he says, “Well, which of them would you have me give back?”

-Also started reading this book – I feel like it’s going to be the perfect read as I wait out the last of the cold winter:

What We Ate:
Monday: Chinese leftovers from Super Bowl Sunday.

Taco Tuesday: Middle school tacos – basically ground beef tacos.

Wednesday: Curry chickpeas with scallion and cilantro. From Milk Street Fast and Slow, their Instant Pot cookbook. Eaten with rice and paratha. We’ve discovered this year paratha from the frozen section of HMart. You cook the paratha on the griddle and it’s magical. Vegan.

Thursday: Breakfast sandwiches.

Friday: Pizza (take out) and The Hitman’s Bodyguard. This 2017 film with Ryan Reynolds as a protection agent (bodyguard) who is hired to guard a notorious assassin played by Samuel L. Jackson. The movie was hilarious, with Reynolds and Jackson in top notch bantering form. Greatly enjoyed this movie. There is a lot of swearing and shooting in it, though.

Saturday: Dumplings and green beans.

Sunday: We went over to a friends’ house for a casual afternoon gathering, and ate lots of hummus and baba ganouj and fruit and Valentine’s candy. It was a lovely time – the big kids and little kids played together, then the tween/teens put on music and started performing K-Pop dance numbers. At one point, one of our hosts, who is a musician, started playing Part of Your World on the piano and the girls did an improv dance – I think they were all some form of seaweed. All in all, it was a lovely afternoon. But all to say, dinner was … undefined. I filled up on snacks so wasn’t hungry when we got home. Of course the little kids were, so I boiled some ravioli and doused it with olive oil and parmesan and that’s what they ate.

I hope you have a sunny week! We have a lot of evening rehearsals this week, so I’m girding my loins for that. But I’m excited to get started with rehearsals.

How/what do you track or record? How do you transition from work to home life in the evenings?

Weekly recap + what we ate: A New York Adventure and FIGS

Two Strangers (Carry a Cake Through New York), I love a stage before a show!

This was my last week “off” before starting a new show. It wasn’t really “off” because I had emails and paperwork to go through and I’ve started thinking about staffing for next season and I had a supertitle gig on Sunday to prep for. But, I was able to work from home and I didn’t have to be in rehearsal so it was nice to have the flexibility. The kids were home Monday (no snow but the school district deemed the sidewalks and roads not sufficiently ploughed/shoveled for kids to make it to school safely), and then a delayed start Tuesday and Wednesday. Thursday and Friday, however, it was business as usual. The school year has been extended by one day and there is a no-school day in March that will now be a school day, but there is something like five days of school that need to be made up, so I’m curious where the other days will come from.

The highlight of the week was going to New York to see a musical with the 14 year old. It was Broadway Week so you can get 2 for 1 ticket deals. last year we had gone go see Hadestown during Broadway week and it was such a fun adventure that I decided to go again this year. This year I just took the 14 year old, as a birthday present, pulling her out of school on a Wednesday for a mid-week escape.

We took the 8:10am train up, arriving in New York at 11:30am. The trip up was pretty smooth- I got some work done and had to take a meeting on the train. The best thing on the train was this group of senior women who were clearly on some kind of group trip. They settled into seats next to us and the proceeded to bring out the most lavish buffet I’d ever seen on a train – breakfast sandwiches (“bacon or sausage?” they asked each other), strawberries, grapes, homemade muffins. All on these eaten off delicate gold trimmed plates. They were most certainly living their best lives. I don’t know why they were going to New York or even if that was their final destination, but they were having such a good time.

Upon arriving in New York, our first stop was to get bagels from Best Bagels, four blocks from Penn Station. The bagels there are huge and fluffy, crispy on the outside and soft and chewy inside. I got a jalapeno everything bagel with bacon and scallion cream cheese and the 14 year old got an everything bagel with scallion cream cheese. We took our bagels to Bryant park and ate at the tables there. I was worried it would be too snowy to eat outside – the city was still ankle deep in snow in places and all over you could see work crews clearing the snow – but the tables and chairs in Bryant Park were clear and even though it was chilly, the sun was out and the day was cheery. (I took a lot of food pictures on this trip; when I first asked the 14 year old what she wanted to do besides see the show, she said she wanted to eat lots of tasty food. We certainly did our best.)

After we finished our bagels we went to Katagiri, a Japanese grocery store that had onigiri. Onigiri (Japanese rice balls wrapped in seaweed, often with meat or veggies stuffed inside) is one of the the 14 year old’s favorite food. We’ve always had them from grab and go places like 7-11 in Taiwan or from the boba tea shop or H-Mart. The onigiri at Katagiri made those pale in comparison. First of all they had so many different kinds – salmon, spicy tuna, veggie, eel…, a whole display case full. And they were huge – almost the size of my fist – and the rice was fluffy yet still sticky enough for the onigiri not to fall apart. I got a ume plum one and a shiso one and the 14 year old got a salmon one. They were so tasty and still a little warm.

We munched on the onigiri as we made our way to our next destination- Kinokuniya, the Japanese Manga/Book/Stationary store. We had visited here last year and I love popping in to see what they had. I didn’t end up buying anything, but it’s always fun to browse.

We left spent about twenty minutes in Kinokuniya before walking over to the theatre. Our seats at the theatre were next to a a bunch of theatre buffs. Next to us was a gay couple, one of whom had seen Wicked ten times. In front of us was two ladies in their thirties who had come from Buffalo and Florida for Broadway week. I loved listening to them talk and gossip about shows they’ve seen and Broadway stars.

We had seats in the second row of the balcony. Broadway theatres are smaller than the theatres where we see opera, so even though we sat in the balcony, I still felt like I was very close to everything. I will say, though, next time I might try sitting at a lower level, even if it’s farther back. I found with this show, the actors tended to direct their energy out in front of them, so I felt like I was watching much of the action from above rather than directly in the line of it. It’s not a big difference, but I’m curious how a show would feel from a different angle.

The show itself was wonderful. It’s a two person show, about a British guy and an New Yorker. His dad is marrying her sister and the whole situation is messy and complicated. The show was funny and sweet and moving – the best kind of rom com. The two performers brought so much energy and brilliance and heart to their performances. It must be a lot of pressure to have a two person show – so exposed, you know. I loved, though, how, even though it was just the two of them onstage, they made me believe that their world was full of so many other people.

The guy next to us said, “Someone wrote this. They put it on stage, and now it’s on Broadway. How amazing is that?” Amazing indeed.

After the show, we walked back to the train station. On the way, we picked up some Chinese food for dinner to eat on the train home (noodles and dumplings from The Handpulled Noodle in Hell’s Kitchen) and also got some boba tea as well (from Coco Bubble Tea). We also swung by a bakery to pick up some treats for the rest of the family. I had looked up bakeries near us and found Posh Pop Bake Shop, which had some beautiful desserts. I didn’t realize until later that it was a gluten free bakery. We came home with some apple cider donuts, a salted caramel brownie, and a birthday cake cookie.

I’m loving these little day trips into New York. To be honest, I find New York overwhelming – the people and the rush and all the things for sale, all the options for things to do, to see, to eat. Just walking down the street is an adventure filled with so many characters and stories. One of my favorite moments was in the evening as we were walking back to the train station. We heard a phone ring, I patted my phone, but it wasn’t mine. It was the guy next to me, slick looking guy in a business suit and long wool coat.

“Yeah,” he says impatiently into the phone. “I’m on my way. I’m nearly there. Look I’m on Seventh already.”

We were on Eighth.

Not that I’ve never fudged my location when running late….

Dusk in NYC. Something about all the tall buildings make the view of sky very precious. Golden, almost literally.

Anyhow, it was all in all a nice day. Next time I might opt for an earlier morning train. The 8:10am train was easy to get to, but also it didn’t quite leave us enough time to explore before the show. I had chosen the 8:10am train because it was $38 for that leg and the 7am train was $60. But I think the extra money is worth it to have more time at the beginning of the day. I’m hoping to make a Broadway Week trip to NYC an annual thing I do with one (or more) of the kids.

Grateful For: For the Month of February, Elisabeth is gathering people’s gratitudes for her gratitude collective, FIGS. I already regularly write a gratitude list in my weekly posts, but this month, I’m going to make an effort to write at least seven per week, though I’ve found that some days when I’m writing them out, I have so many more than one each day. Anyhow – some FIGS for this week that was:

-One more snow day. Yes, everyone was starting to get a little feral after ten days at home, but I was actually glad to have one more day cozy with the kids. We shoveled some snow, built up our snow fort, met the Husband for lunch, got boba, went to the library (got the 9 year old his own library card!), went to the park and slid down icy slopes on our butts (because I didn’t think to bring the sleds.). I work so many weekends, that I don’t often get an obligation-free day home with the kids, so the snow day felt like a gift of time with them.

She wanted the snow fort to be taller than she was when kneeling. Unfortunately I didn’t do a good job with the construction and on the next slightly warm day, the snow melted enough for the walls to fall in.

-A warm house after a cold walk.

– getting to go to New York with the 14 year old. I had such a good time, and I do genuinely like hanging out with my kid.

-Google for when I don’t know what I’m doing in PowerPoint, and people who provide tutorials to tell me how to do it. I use PowerPoint to my my supertitle slides, but I’ve never really learned it. Mostly just noodled around until it did what I wanted it to do. But for those times when noodling doesn’t work, I’m grateful that I can put what I’m trying to do and 90% of the time I will find a step by step tutorial that teaches me how to do it.

– Laughter. There was an article in the New York Times this week, The Evolutionary Brilliance of the Baby Giggle, that talked about the social importance of laughing. It’s an interesting read, but really what got me was the various videos in the article of babies laughing. I dare you to click over and not at least smile at the pure baby joy.
Laughter feels so good. I don’t often realize that I haven’t had a good belly laugh recently, until I do. One thing that made me belly laugh was last week – the 14 year old has a Bark Phone, through which we can set parental controls and also Bark will flag content that it thinks we should be aware of. Well, the latest thing is that Bark now give us a summary (clearly AI generated ) of the 14 year old. The Husband read it to me and we were rolling on the floor laughing. Apparently Bark knows our kid is well rounded because she spends equal amounts of time on Webtoons, listening to music, and on Libby. The kicker, though was when it told us that her most frequent contact was John Smith (not the real name!). “John Smith is often included in communication with ‘Mom’,” Bark relayed, “indicating that [14 year old] is open with her communication.”
Friends, “John Smith” is the Husband.
We howled with laughter, thinking about how Bark seemed to be hinting that John Smith was some nefarious stranger.

-Friends who help celebrate the Husband’s milestone birthday on Superbowl Sunday. I’m not the best at planning parties, so I’m glad that people come over and make it about the company and not the party. A few die hards did stay until the end of the game, including one friend from Boston who was holding out hope for the Patriots. We actually set up a second tv in another room to play the Olympics in case any of our friends weren’t into the Superbowl. I drifted between rooms, but I did watch the half time show. I wasn’t very familiar with Bad Bunny, and wow. It was unlike any half time show I’ve ever seen before – there was such specificity to the whole act, and it was full of people looking like they were having a great time. I kind of loved it.

-That dark chocolate quinoa crisps are back at Costco!

– All the people who make middle school sports possible. I got to catch the first half of the 14 year old’s basketball game this week, and I’m just so grateful for the Coach (who is the school nurse), and the people who put in time to ref the games, and our middle school sports coordinator. At a time when playing sports can be so expensive, I’m really grateful that through the schools there is a no/low cost way for kids to play sports.

-All the people out there who are steadily chipping away at the snowcrete, clearing sidewalks and cutaways that are thick with ice, even a week after the snow.

Looking Forward To:
-Contra Dancing this week. We’re going to try to go to the Thursday night contra dance.

-Familiar colleagues coming into town for my next show. I’m looking forward to seeing everyone again.

-Pomelo! We went to HMart and picked up some fruit – they had pomelos for Lunar New Year, so we bought one. They also had mangosteen, which we had in Malaysia last winter. It’s of course not as fresh as in Malaysia, but it’s still tasty. Also … I didn’t really look at the price when I put it in the cart, and ended up spending $37 dollars on 2.5 lbs of mangosteen. Ooops. Sorry/not sorry. I kind of look on it as an indulgence – some people buy fancy clothes and cars. I buy fruit.

-A water heater/boiler! Not the HVAC kind; the making tea kind. We ordered a Zojurishi Hot water boiler to replace our kettle. It seems awfully fancy, but I’m excited. I’m most looking forward to not being late out the door because I’m waiting for hot water to fill my tea mug.

-Continuing to read the Washington Post. The news about the layoffs at the Post this week was devastating especially since I consider the Post my hometown newspaper. In addition to our online subscription, we get the Sunday paper delivered to our door every week- there is something I love about the newspaper appearing on our driveway, the kids immediately pulling out the comics while I look at the arts section, and then leafing through to the Metro, Travel, Book and Front page. As terrible as it feels to “support” Bezos and whatever he is doing to American journalism, it is inconceivable not to support the journalists. I felt very similar when people told me they were not coming to the opera anymore because the institution where we performed was being taken over and going in a direction they didn’t agree with. Look, I’m not going to tell people where to spend their money, but to me the art isn’t about the building it’s in, it’s about the stories that we can tell, the ways we connect and the work that is being done, day after day by the people who believe in the medium. So just as I hope people will continue to come to the opera and go to the Symphony (what another terrible blow there was this week for the Symphony), I will continue to read the Post and look forward to it appearing on my driveway every Sunday.

What We Ate:
Monday: Ethiopian food. I made misir watt and yellow lentils and then fried up some potatoes to go with since not all the kids like injera. (The injera I bought from the store). The yellow lentils were a little soupy when I first opened up the Instant Pot, but they thickened over time. Vegan.

Taco Tuesday: Shrimp Tacos

Wednesday: This was our New York adventure day. The Husband took the two younger kids out for Korean fried chicken while the 14 year old and I were away.

Thursday: Golden Potato Leek Soup from NY Times Cooking and biscuits. I had some potatoes to use up. I added corn and peas to the soup, to give it a little more variety. I also threw in the leftover yellow lentils from Monday to give it a bit of protein. Two family members loved this soup, two family members said it had too much stuff in it.

Friday: Pizza (The Husband made)+ Central Intelligence – a 2016 funny buddy caper/action movie starring Kevin Hart and the Rock. It was pretty funny and the performances were fun, though the plot was confusing. Afterwards we watched the Olympic opening ceremonies.

Saturday: Tortellini with red sauce and leftover salad.

Sunday: Super Bowl Sunday. Also a big milestone birthday for the Husband. We ordered Chinese food from his favorite take out place, pretzels, cake. And lots of other snacks and sweets.

On that – can I say some random thoughts on the Opening Ceremonies –
-I missed the first ten minutes and was super confused by the Opening Ceremonies taking place in three different locations. It took me a while to realize that those weren’t just different sets that people were parading through, but actually different parts of Italy.
-I want to vacation in a small Italian city now. I mean, yeah, there is clearly part of the Olympics that is one big travel ad for the country hosting. And tell you what – it works on me.
-Can we talk about the opening ceremony country looks? How cozy were some of the team sweaters? I’m looking at you Norway and Ireland. Also those thick scarves worn by Great Britain – I want one. I also wondered if people wear their outfits after the Olympics. I certainly would. The Canadian puffer vests looked very impractical but such a fun statement. (though maybe not impractical – I read that they can also be used as pillows!) Oh and the French contingent all looked like they were on Hoth.
-I was VERY annoyed when Guinea-Bissou and Haiti was marching and NBC split the screen over to talk to the American athletes waiting to march. I mean Haiti had TWO athletes and Guinea-Bissou had ONE. The network couldn’t give them our full attention?
-How fun was all the choreography? All I could think about was, “How do you even rehearse something that big???” I loved how it was clearly designed to be impactful from far away – what looks on the camera to be chaotic mass of swirling people, when seen from a gazillion steps back, is a beautiful purposeful swirl of color. Also – shout out to the few times you saw the crew pop out to move things. I always get excited when I see stagehands.
-The nine year old is participating in his school Geobowl. The theme this year is Europe and the opening ceremonies was a fun chance to get him to start thinking about all the different countries. When a European country marched, I would point it out on the map and tell him the capital. It’s okay to stay up til 11am if it’s educational, right?
-The Olympic flame coming through and lighting the cauldron. Made me tear up. Thinking about journey and history and past becoming present…. gets me every single time.

Well that’s the news from this end. The snow continues to blanket our world here, but I hear sunshine and warmer weather is around the corner.

What makes you laugh? Did you watch any Olympics? The Super Bowl?

Weekly recap + what we ate: January recap!

Hello, February!

January felt a very much like I was existing in a liminal space. There was upheaval at work. There was re-entry from our trip to Taiwan. There was snow and snow days and being inside, waiting for things to clear. It felt like a slow start to the new year. Wait, not slow… how about gentle? A bit of way finding, a bit of tweaking routines.

Even though we didn’t have any more snow after Monday, the world was super icy and buried quite deep. On top of the snow was a two inch thick frozen layer and everyone walked two inches taller this week as you could walk on top of that frozen layer. It was a bit like Russian roulette, being able to walk on top of the snow, but every so often hitting a week spot and plunging shin deep into powder. Even after our street was ploughed, there was still limited parking as the snow piles were feet from the curb. On Thursday night, two friends and I went out for a previously scheduled Happy Hour and parking was quite challenging to find. Once we finally got in the pub, it was a 30 minute wait for a table. It seemed everyone was eager to emerge for a warm room and beer and pizza. I don’t blame them. We stayed til almost 10pm and it was so nice to catch up and socialize and not have to wrangle our children.

The schools ended up being closed all week. A couple times, the 6 and 9 year old called their friends around the corner and set up play dates. It’s kind of fun to see them use the landline to arrange their own lives. One day our kids went over, one afternoon their kids came over to our house. One day we divided the kids up – two at one house and two at the other. Thursday I invited them over for a movie night. We watched Shaolin Soccer and ate popcorn. Have you seen Shaolin Soccer? It’s a fantastic movie, about kung fu warriors who start a soccer team. I could only find it in Cantonese/Mandarin, so I relied on the older kids to read the subtitiles aloud to the kindergarteners. Which they did for the first half. But then they lost steam, and you know what? it turned out it didn’t matter. I love that the older kids can watch movies in a foreign language and I love that the movie tells such a good story that the younger kids didn’t need to understand everything that was being spoken.

We ended up going sledding three times. The first time we walked to the nearby park that had some small slopes. The next day, I drove the 6 and 9 year old to the elementary school that was next to a big hill. The hill was quite icy and there had been a bump built into the snow so that if you hit it at the right angle, you would go sailing through the air. The kids sledded for about an hour and had so much fun that we went back yesterday as well. This time the Husband came. He originally said he was going to just drop us, but he ended up staying and went down the hill a couple of times. And so did I. Speeding down the hill, getting launched in the air and then over turning into the snow – it was winter fun all bottled up. We all had so much fun – I can’t remember laughing so much in a long long time.

There will likely be a two hour delay on Monday.

(breaking news: School has been cancelled on Monday because many roads are deemed unsafe still. So not a snow day, but a hazardous to walk to school day, I guess. It isn’t so much the snow, but the ice and the fact that a lot of streets/ sidewalks still haven’t been cleared. It reminds me of a section I read in the book Invisible Women: Exposing Data Bias in a World Designed for Men, about how there was a city in Sweden where they prioritized clearing side streets and sidewalks first then clearing the major roads, and they found that it hugely decreased injures and accidents. But of course clearing the sidewalks and side streets first wasn’t the default because those were pathways primarily used by women, while it was men who used the major roads. I’m thinking about this a lot this week as I walked in the street to and from the Metro, or the park with my kids, or to the grocery store, walking in the street because the sidewalks aren’t cleared yet. )

I have to say, coming out on this end, I didn’t mind the snow days. I can see how snow days can really derail life for people who have to show up for their jobs. Luckily I didn’t have to be in the office and worked from home in spare pockets of time when the kids were occupied and not fighting or eating.
The snow day good:
-Slower mornings, no rushing.
-Snow adventures. Sledding. Snow forts. Shovelling – tedious, but good work out.
-Being able to savor being inside and cozy.
-having time together as a family without having to worry about carpools or activities
-having time for playdates. I think with school the kids don’t get enough time to play with their friends on a day to day basis. I think they need time to learn how to be kind humans out in the wild.

The Snow day challenges:
-bored kids who nag at me.
-bored kids who push each other’s buttons.
-bone chilling cold and having to wear many many layers outside.
-not knowing when it will end.
-“Didn’t I just feed you?”
-the mess of everyone being home all. the. time. I don’t think our house was meant to be occupied 24/7. There were constantly dishes in the sink, the kitchen to be cleaned, pick up pick up pick up. It’s hard to be motivated to keep things tidy, to find a resting neat condition for the house when I know that with all of us constantly in the house, there is no “resting condition” – just constant movement and needs and wants and impulses. I think I need to think a little bit about what the “resting condition” of the house is like when we live in it every single moment of every single day.

January 2026 Recap – on to a big picture look at the month that was:

Highlights:
– The rest of our trip to Taiwan. Two nights at the hots springs in Beitou. Family. A long yet uneventful flight home.
-Birthdays for the two older kids.
– Two freelance jobs – one a title job of Brahms Choral Music, which I love. Another a stage management gig as support for a play based on interviews conducted with Israelis about October 7th 2023; regardless of your politics, it was a pretty powerful piece.
-The 14 year old getting the lead in the middle school musical.
– Visiting the National Museum of Women in the Arts
-Visiting the State Fair exhibit at the Renwick Gallery, then going to our favorite cheap Chinese restaurant and browsing the nearby bookstore.
– Visiting/ Hanging/ connecting with friends – Advent book group, Happy Hour, Lunch with mom friend, Having friends over for dinner, going over to their house for dinner.
-Watching the 14 year old play rec basketball
-Discovering a new Taiwanese cafe nearby. The boba was very good and they had the red bean smoothie that the Husband loves.
-getting in the habit of reading every morning.
-Writing down some gentle aspirations for 2026, and being mindful about carrying through with them.
-New bedroom furniture for the 8th grader. We bought this last fall, but it finally arrived this month.
-Snow. Going sledding with the kids. The Husband joining us sledding.
-Five Star new to us recipes: M&M cookies, Leek and Potato Focaccia, Masala Chickpeas with Tofu and Blistered Tomatoes.
-Favorite meal cooked: Marcella Hazan’s Tomato Sauce w/ pasta and Turkey Meatballs. Eaten with Leek and Potato Focaccia and salad (from a bag)

Lowlights:
-The state of the world. The state of the United States.
-Big changes at work. It will all lead to good things, but it’s been a rough transition.
-having to say good-bye to so many people at work because of the transitions.
– Not getting my life together enough to plan birthday parties for the two older kids. wump wump. This happens every year, and I need to figure out how to combat this one.
-The heat going out at my parents’ rental the first day of the big snow storm.
-My sleep hygiene has been terrible. At first it was jet lag, but then I think it was revenge bedtime procrastination. I went to bed well well well past midnight most nights, then would take a three hour nap in the afternoon. I got a little bit better at this by the end of the month.
-Too much scrolling.

Quote of the Month: “Failure is Data.” I wish I knew where I first heard this phrase.

Looking Forward to in February:
-Going to New York with the 14 year old to see Two Strangers Carry a Cake through New York. I’m really glad I booked the tickets for the first week of February and not the last week of January.

-Superbowl Sunday. Which coincides with the Husband’s birthday. Unfortunately he is not getting the present of the Chicago Bears going to the Super Bowl, but we will celebrate with cake at half time all the same.

-The Olympics. I’m excited for this. I just learned about, Ski Mountaineering where the skiers hike up a mountain then ski down. I really want to catch that, it sound intense. I mean it’s all intense. Also looking forward to figure skating, hockey, and the Zen of curling.

-Lunar New Year. It’s the Year of the Horse, my birth year. I expect there will be dumplings, noodles, and red envelopes.

-A couple of get togethers already planned – lunch with friends, family hang outs with other families.

-the 14 year old’s Middle School basketball games. I think I can make one or two.

-Starting rehearsal for a new show. I’m actually a little nervous about this – it’s the company’s first show since our big shake-up, and the show is a new production, so I think the rehearsal process will be intense. It’s also going to be a lot of evenings. So I guess I’m more “girding my loins” than “eagerly anticipating” this one.

Grateful For This Week:
-Aquaphor, for protecting my lips and my skin from the bitter cold elements.

-The stage crew at work.

-Hoopla. There have been a couple times when I’ve wanted to watch a movie, but then it’s only available on Netflix, which we don’t have, or I would have to rent the movie from Amazon. But then I search in Hoopla and there it is! Hoopla also has the ability to check out a Hallmark bingepass, so I can watch ALL the Hallmark movies that I want in a one week period.

-Our stove top griddle that has enough space for me to make eight pancakes at a time.

-Hills on which to go sledding.

-Our freezer full of food.

-The “send later” function in iMessage. I often have a thought I want to share with someone, and this thought often strikes me at midnight or later. Well, if they have an iPhone, like I do, I can write a text and set it to send later. Then the thought is not taking up space in my brain anymore. I love anything that allows me to open some space in my brain.

-Hand Me Downs. As we frolicked in the snow last week, I realized that almost every piece of outerwear and winter gear the 9 year old and the 6 year old were wearing was a hand me down, either from their older sister or from a friend. It felt really good not to have to spend money on cold weather layers for the kids.

-That our school district is having snow days rather than remote/online learning days. Online learning just didn’t work for our family during COVID. There are a couple schools in our area that had remote/online learning days last week. I don’t know how I would have managed three kids with online learning. I don’t think I even have that many devices for them to use. I’m so glad we haven’t gone (back) there.

What We Ate:

Monday: mac and cheese from a box. This was the day we were at my parents’ rental all evening dealing with the lack of heat. The 14 year old was supposed to make them dinner, but halfway though making dinner, she said she felt faint, so she turned off the stove and went to bed. The Husband and I came home, finished up dinner, and served it with some cut up cucumbers and apples.

Taco Tuesday: Re-fried Bean tacos. I was originally going to make black beans for this pantry meal, but then I realized we were out of black beans. So I made refried beans instead, only I had just one can of pinto beans. So I threw in a can of cannellini beans and added some frozen corn, and voila! Dinner from pantry ingredients. This was tasty. I also made a pico de gallo from some sad leftover tomatoes and tossed some coleslaw cabbage in a bowl and called it done.

Wednesday: I had to work this evening and I brought leftovers. The Husband defrosted soup and made BLTs. Bacon is so tasty.

Thursday: Tofu Stir fy with Udon Noodles. The Husband cooked. This is the night I went out for Happy Hour. I had a half club sandwich and half Greek salad and an order of fries.

Friday: Pizza and Tangled. It was the 6 year old’s turn to choose the movie. Can we just say what a perfect romantic movie Tangled is? The songs are top notch, the action moves along with humour and heart, but at the same time the movie takes time to linger on emotional moments that need a bit of space. The slow unfurling of Rapunzel and Flynn’s relationship is wonderful to watch, and even better, both Flynn and Rapunzel have a character arc with true growth. Sigh and swoon.

Saturday: We were originally going to order out, but then ran out of steam and couldn’t agree on something everyone wanted, so I just raided the freezer and we had dumplings, bao, endamame, and steamed green beans. The Husband made milk shakes.

Sunday: tortellini and steamed green beans. Keeping it simple on Sundays.

Welp that’s what the world is like over here. Hopefully the kids will go back to school soon and we can carry on with business as usual…

What are you looking forward to in February? What’s your favorite/ least favorite part of a snow day – either a self imposed snow day or one imposed by outside forces?

Weekly recap + What we ate: 2026 Gentle Aspirations

Well it’s been an odd odd week. The sleep hasn’t gotten any better. At this point I don’t think it’s jetlag. I think it’s just revenge bedtime procrastination and the revenge is super working. Work has been in kind of a holding pattern, which has made me incredibly restless. I keep checking my phone for news. One day this week, I logged 12 hours on my phone. TWELVE. There were a couple nights when I couldn’t summon the will to go to bed, only finally turning in when my phone and table both ran out of battery. This is not good. And on top of that, the events foreign and domestic continue to be shit – I’m sure that doom scrolling was part of the 12 hours of battery draining screen time.

In and amidst all that, I made a list. A list of goals and aspirations for 2026. I’ve been brainstorming the list for a while, and last week I spent some time living with that list and seeing if it felt true to what I wanted to do, who I wanted to be.

As I was looking at the list, however, I felt that some of my goals were focused on the wrong thing. I think some goals and aspirations are focused on an end goal, but many are really about the process or the inherent pleasure of doing the thing. A few years ago, I read “Midlife: A Philosophical Guide” and he talks about how activities can be telic or atelic. Telic are activities with and end point; atelic activities are activities without an end point. This idea has stuck with me a lot. One of my biggest takeaways from that book is that as we enter the latter part of one’s life = and, let’s be honest, once you’re past your mid 40s, there are likely fewer years ahead of you than behind – we might not see the end point of everything we do, so perhaps there is value in focussing on atelic activities rather than telic ones.

So for example, one of the goals I had originally written was “Read 70 books.” Yet when I really thought about this goal, I realized that I didn’t want to read more books; I wanted to spend more time reading. If I just wanted to read more books, I could read shorter books; I could just read books that were easy and fluffy (which I do love); I could skim more books. But looking at my goal, I realized those things aren’t how I want to read. I want to read books that make me feel and make me think. I want to read books that are immersive and that spin a longer tale. I want to read books that tell good stories, fiction or non-fiction. I want to read books to learn. I want to read prose that sings, that I can savor. And these things, don’t mean more books. It means more time. I will never read all the books I want; I will probably die with a very lengthy TBR. But hopefully I will die having been enriched by the books that I do get to read.

Which is all to say, i think I’ve been going about some of my goals the wrong way. It’s not about what I want to accomplish, but about how I want to spend my time. I don’t want to do yoga every day so that I can check boxes off to have a streak – I want to do yoga every day because it feels good to move and stretch my body. I think sometimes when I make goals that are focused on hitting a number goal, I forget why I get enjoyment or growth or benefit from putting the thing on the list in the first place. In past years, I would say I want to do X Y number of times and then I would feel very disappointed not to get there. This year I want to flip the script – putting a number on certain goals is motivation to do it regularly, a reminder that these are things that fill my cup. It’s not about how many times I ultimately do the thing, but that I make time to do it.

So anyhow, here is my list of 2026 ~~goals~~ gentle aspirations. There are also things that I haven’t’ written out – mostly adulting things – not because they aren’t on my list, but rather because I feel like they are things that I do anyway, so they might not need special focus attention. Or they are things I don’t quite know how to articulate into a “goal”. Top on that list is that I would like to stop nagging the kids to do their chores. But, again, that is just the wearisome minutiae of day to day. And I think I wanted to focus on additive things and I don’t quite know what to add to my life in order for me not to lose my shit when my kids won’t pick up after dinner.

Anyhow, on to the list:

Physical Health:
–Take the stairs. Trying to incorporate more movement into my life, and this seems like a no brainer. I was talking to my cousins over the holidays and they said that being able to climb stairs is one of the first things that gets difficult as we age, but also that it’s really good exercise. So I’m going to take the stairs whenever possible.
– Daily yoga, with at least one 20+ minute session per week.
–Strength workout 2x a week. I know this is paltry, but I want to start somewhere, given that I’m past my mid 40s. I only have 5lb weights at home and want to get 7 or 10 lb weights to help with this goal.
–5 vegan dinners a month. This is a health aspiration, but also a creative one because I like the challenge and creativity of cooking vegan recipes that are new to us and which the family likes. (The 6 year old, always asks, “Is there chicken in this?” when I make dinner.)
–Set an alarm for bedtime and come up with a wind down routine. Sleep continues to be probably my worst personal health habit. But sleep feels so amazing. So I need to get myself there sooner.
–Find a PCP. This is probably second more egregious health deficit that I have. my gynecologist usually does my bloodwork and preventative tests, but I think I do need a proper PCP.

Family
–Date Night/ Activity with the Husband – Now that the kids can stay home on their own, I’m hoping the Husband and I will have more one on one time that isn’t at home in front of the TV. I think we do better when we have an activity to do together rather than just dinner, so I’m looking into some classes in the area.
–Go camping with the kids (and the Husband) – I would like to do a four night camping trip. I usually do three nights and I don’t feel like that is quite long enough to disconnect and reconnect.
–Road Trip. 2025 had a lot of international travel for us, so I think 2026 might be more in the realm of a family road trip.
–Go to the Philadelphia Flower Show. This is a big dream of the Husband’s and I would love to make it happen.
–Christmas at Home – after spending the past two Christmases in Taiwan, everyone has agreed that this Christmas will be at home.
–Weekly phone calls/photos to my parents – I’ve never gotten into the habit of calling my parents regularly. When we talk things tend to very often be about logistics – planning for trips, details with their rental, etc. However, on our trip to Taiwan, visiting my 100 year old grandfather, I realized that I want to know my parents better; I want my kids to know them better; I want them to know me better. This is somewhat hard for a variety of reasons that I probably need to unpack. But my family has been so supportive and I want to model good family relations for my kids as well.
–Family Game Nights, Family Reading Nights – mostly find ways to break out of the evening tv rut.
–Take more photos with the people I love and who love me. I realized when I was making a slide for my grandmother’s memorial service that I had only three pictures of her, and one of them was super blurry. While in Taiwan over the holidays, I tried to make sure to take photos with my grandfather and have my kids take photos with him – I think even when you can’t remember someone from your past, a photo can help you remember that you were loved.
–Set an alarm when I’m working to call the Husband to check in on my dinner breaks.

Social:
–Monthly Happy Hour with my Friends L and D.
–Monthly meet up with my friend K (who was my freshman year roommate!)
–Host one fun dinner party/gathering per quarter – Ideas for this- another soup party. Dumpling Party. Cookie Party. Invite another family for game night. Mom’s group reunion.

Work:
–Work ahead when putting calls and cues in my book. Put places calls in my score as we stage, so they are there before we move to stage.
–Come up with a timeline when I’m working on supertitles. And stick to it. I don’t like how last minute I am with my super title projects.
–Find more places to post when we are looking for interns. The past couple years we haven’t gotten a lot of people applying for our intern position. We’ve always filled the position with strong candidates, but I’d love to make more people aware of our internship because I think it’s a great program.
–Don’t Freak Out. Not really bloggable, but you might know about this if you’ve been following the arts news in DC. There is a lot of change happening for me at work. I’m going to try to keep focused and not freak out.

Home/Finance:
–Submit tax information to our tax person before March 31st.
–Track my spending. I’ve never done this, but I do want to get a handle on where our money is going. Maybe I’ll just start with one week.
-Monthly Financial meetings with the Husband.
–Declutter and come up with better organizational systems: Specifically the area under our console in the bedroom. My desk. The bathroom closet. My craft corner. The toy room and make it into a more usable guest room.

Self/Hobbies/ Mental Health:
–Less scrolling, more of the things below….
–Paint 26 pictures. I realized that 26 (as in 2026) is half of 52 (as in weeks in a year), so I thought a fun project to tie in to the year is to paint 26 pictures this year.
–Spend more time reading. I want to do this Classic Literature Challenge from the blog Tea and Ink Society.
– Write 52 haikus. This goal is about stopping to take time to notice things around me.
–Do the crossword puzzle every week. This is a goal to help me reduce my time scrolling. Also I like crossword puzzles.
– Write 64 Blog Posts. That’s one a week + 1 additional post a month. I think what I want this goal to be about is to be more disciplined in my writing. I would like to come up with a more regular posting schedule.
–Spend more time playing piano. learn some songs to sing with the family.
–Find time/routine for journaling.
–Go on 12 hikes. Take the kids and Husband with me on some.
–Visit ten museum, even if I have to pay.
–See 2 straight plays.
–Find a cooking project, TBD. Maybe bao again? Maybe croissants. I’ve done that once. Maybe revive my sourdough starter? Or some kind of stew?

Just for fun, here are three things that were on my list that I cut after contemplating what telic vs. atelic goals:
-Run 3 miles once a month. Okay, let’s be honest – I don’t love running. And now it is really cold outside. This is exactly the kind of achievement based goal that I realized didn’t serve me.
-Knit a hat – again, a telic goal that I feel like would just be a fail. I do have an enormous yarn stash that sits in my room (under that aforementioned area under the console table) and maybe a knitting project could be part of that decluttering. But putting a whole hat on my list seemed like an awful lot of pressure.
-Only pack meat for lunch if it is leftovers. This goes hand in hand with my desire to eat more plant based meals, but I realized mornings when I pack my lunch are really stressful times and this might just add to that stress.

Will I do everything on my list? I hope I can have regular progress at least. I read an interesting quote lately in the context of these yearly lists of goals – forgive me, I can’t remember where I read it, I think on some Substack:

“Failure is data.”

I think that’s a good way to look at when I don’t check off things from my 2026 list. Not doing something isn’t a sign of a weakness inherent in me; failure to is not objectively negative. It’s an opportunity to assess and see why things didn’t work, or if it even is something I want. If I don’t fail, I don’t have the information to move forward.

Grateful for:
-Fleece lined pants. The temperature has really dropped this week and will continue to do so. I had a conversation with a friend that went like this:
Me: What’s up with this weather. It’s so cold!
Friend: I think that’s called January.
Me: —
Which it’s true. It is January. I don’t know why I’m surprised that the weather is in the 30s. Anyhow, fleece lined pants for the win.

-Warm sunshine. Even in the bitter cold, the sun’s rays are still warm.

-That even though I messed up and booked my thyroid ultrasound for the wrong office, the people at the office I wanted to go to (because it’s five minutes from my house) managed to find a slot and get me in later in the day.

-My friend K. She came over for dinner and gave me a belated birthday card in which she had written the best message. We were college roommates and I love that we are still in each other’s lives, without judgement and without drama.

-My friend C – we had a lengthy coffee date of Saturday. I hadn’t seen her in a while and it was good to be able to be vulnerable for 90 minutes while sipping our hot drinks.

-That the 8 year old practiced piano. He does not like practicing piano. I bribe him with Switch time and he does it. I’m always glad when he does manage to practice because then I don’t feel like I’m throwing my money away on piano lessons.

-Free printing at the library. Our public libraries now have free black and white printing – up to 15 pages a day. We had to print some music for the 14 year old this week and it was so easy just to upload it online and then go to the library, swipe my library card and have the music printed. All for free. Well I guess my tax dollars and the cost of gas to get to the library.

-That the Chicago Bears had such a good season. Last night’s game was nail-biting and heart-wrenching. I don’t care much about football, but I do care about the Bears because the Husband cares about the Bears. The Bears had some magical moments during the game, despite ultimately losing. I know the Husband is disappointed that the Bears aren’t advancing, but this is the first season since I’ve known him that he has been truly hopeful for the next season. Being a fan is such emotional work.

Looking Forward to:
-MLK Day off with the family. We are going to go downtown to see a museum. Maybe in future years we can have a more service-oriented MLK Day.

-The 14 year old’s furniture arriving for her bedroom – bed, nightstand, and dresser. She can stop sleeping on a futon mattress. She can stop just shoving her clothes in the closet. And instead shove them under her bed.

-Walk with a friend next week.

-The 14 year old’s middle school basketball game. The first one is this coming week; the Husband will go to that. We can’t both go to the games because they happen at the same time as the bus drop off for the two elementary school kids. I’ll go to the home games. Last year I only went to one game and I want to go to more this year.

-Broadway Week! Last year the kids had a day off on a Wednesday in January, so we went to New York to see Hadestown. Well this year, we don’t have a mid week day off, but it is once again Broadway Week where tickets to select shows are 2 for 1, so as a birthday present for the 14 year old, I am pulling her from school and we are going to see Two Strangers (Carry a Cake Through New York). It wasn’t a show that was on my radar, but she loves the cast album for this show. I’m really excited! And train tickets for a Wednesday morning were less than $100 round trip. Something to look forward to in two weeks.

What We Ate:
Monday – Za’atar Roasted Tofu With Chickpeas, Tomatoes and Lemony Tahini from NY Times Cooking. I feel like this was very similar to the Masala Tofu and chickpea dinner I made last week, just with different seasonings, and made in the oven so it wasn’t as messy. Vegan.

Tuesday: Honey Adobo Chicken from NY Times Cooking. Taco Tuesday. This was actually kind of disastrous evening – one child made a really wise ass comment that was the last straw after a whole day of wise ass comments. I lost my shit and went into my room and proceeded to sulk and then fell asleep for three hours. When I woke up at 9:30pm, the 14 year old had fed the two little kids, cleaned the kitchen together, and put them to bed. I don’t deserve such a great kid.

Wednesday: Vegetable Soup and No-Knead Bread. A clean out the produce drawer affair. Vegan.

Thursday: Pork chops, steamed green beans and Greek Salad with Cannelilni Beans. Apple Pie. It was my late Father in law’s birthday so we had pork chops as we always do on his birthday. My friend K came over, but she is a vegetarian, so I added the Greek salad. She brought the apple pie. It was delicious.

Friday: Pizza (Take out) and movie night: Pride. It was my turn to choose the movie and I picked this 2014 movie based on the true story of a group of gay activists who, during the 1984 Miner’s strike in England, form Lesbians and Gays Support the Miners (LGSM), raising money and awareness to help the miner’s. It is a predictably heart-warming movie – one of those earnest and funny British films full of wonderful performances (Andrew Scott, Imelda Staunton, Bill Nighy, and more), with an uplifting message of perseverance and connection. I loved it.

Saturday: We checked out a Taiwanese restaurant that I had just heard about. We had beef noodle soup, fried calamari, fried tofu, braised beef over rice, popcorn chicken, and tomato chicken over rice. It was quite a feast and did very much remind me of Taiwan. Afterwards we all got boba (tea for me and the 14 year old, brown sugar milk for the two little kids), and the Husband got a red bean smoothie, one of his favorite things he had in Taiwan, but which I’ve never seen before on a menu here in the States.

Sunday: Leftover (me), Sausage sandwich (the 14 year old), Tortellini with red sauce and Caesar Salad (the rest of the family.)

Did you make a list of goals/aspirations/intentions for 2026? Anything you took off your list? What service does your library provide that you think is wonderful? (Other than the obvious, books) For any of you directly coping with any of the awful things happening in our country, I’m thinking of you.

Weekly recap + what we ate: Jet lag, Art by Women, airplane films

Ouf, it’s been a rough week for re-entry. I have not been able to get onto a regular sleep schedule. I’m by mid afternoon, struggle to stay awake, and end up taking three hour naps and then staying up until 2am and then sleeping til 8am, which is pretty late in our house. Overall not good for my goal of improving my sleep hygeine in 2026. The house continues to be a mess, the kids run amok on their own in the morning. On the bright side – the six year old got tired of waiting for me to wake up one morning and packed her own lunch…

I did manage to go to work – definitely not bloggable these days – make dinner a few times, meet up with my Lenten (okay, I guess Advent/Epiphany) reading group this week. But other than that, it was a whole lot of sleeping.

Some good news (since so much of it is shit these days):
We found out which high school our daughter is going to. She got assigned to her #1 pick, which is great. The results are kind of based on home school/lottery/random assignments, so it was a little up to chance. The school she is assigned to is not actually our home school, but it is closer to us, which is nice – actually in most of the redistricting maps that have been drawn, it would probably be our new home school in the future, so chances are the two other kids will also go there. I’m excited because the school is getting rebuilt – so next year she will be at at a holding school that is a little far away, but the new building will open up her sophomore year. I can’t quite believe my baby is going to HIGH SCHOOL next year.

Speaking of my baby – it is also her birthday week. It’s been a little low key because her birthday comes so soon after the holidays that I’m always negligent at planning anything. Oh well – we’ll gather with some family friends and have cake, and I think we’ll plan something for her and her friends at some point. She’s on the fence as to whether she wants a big birthday party or anything, so we’ll see what she wants to do. But oh wow… This little baby made us first time parents and now she is 14!!!!

She was such an itty bitty thing! Born at 34 weeks, just under 5lbs – we were completely unprepared for her arrival. Some day I might get around to writing her birth story here.

And look at us now!

A Museum Visit– I went to a new to me museum – The National Museum for Women in the Arts, where aside from a few exceptions, all the art in the museum is by women or non-binary artists. The NMWA is in DC, but not a Smithsonian, so I did actually *gasp* pay money to go. It was well worth the $16 (They do have two free community days a month, and I was going to wait, but the exhibit I wanted to see was closing soon, so I figured I would just pay…. such a foreign concept for me. I feel so entitled.) I had known about the museum, though given all the free museums, this museum was never high up on my list of museums to visit. But during the last government shut down, when the Smithsonian closed, the NMWA was on a list of alternative museums to visit – they even had free admission for federal workers – and I made a note to check it out.

The exhibit that prompted me to visit was called Women Artists from Antwerp to Amsterdam, showcasing female artist from the time of the Dutch Masters. The exhibit was about to close and I didn’t want to miss it. 1600-1750 was such a prolific time for art, but all the artists you hear about from the time are men – Rembrandt, Vermeer, etc. I never thought to wonder fi there were also women artists, and of course there were. Many of them were sisters, daughters, or spouses of artists and they were mostly from upper middle and upper class families. The exhibit featured not just paintings, but also scientific drawings, book illustrations, and – most fascinating to me – samples of lace. The exhibit talked about how lace-making is such an art, but lacemakers are never credited by name or even known. It kind of reminded me of the exhibit of quilts that I saw at the Smithsonian a few years ago – the idea of handicraft as art, but art that does not credit the artist, likely because it’s done by women.

Another artform that was largely women’s domain was paper-cutting. It’s not really on people’s radar because the finished project is so fragile that it seldom survives to be passed down. Of course there are painting of paper cuttings, delicate mobiles with intricate designs. One papercutting adjacent work they had was this portrait – how amazingly skillful is that cutting?

I particularly liked the art by Rachel Ruysch – her paintings featured such detail and sense of life:

(Also – I just googled Ryusch, and she had ten children while being one of the most in demand still life painters of her time. I feel conflicted as to whether one’s identity as a mother should be part of an artist’s biography, but, man just thinking of her having ten kids is just as impressive as her paintings. Or maybe no – maybe she was a shit mom who left her kids with their nanny all the time. But still… she gave birth ten times. That’s kind of bad ass.)

After I saw the Dutch Masters exhibit, I wandered the other galleries – the main collection, was interestingly enough, arranged by themes (Red, Lavender, Domesticity), rather than by era. I thought that was a really interesting way to look a pieces in a larger context. I particularly was awed by these huge watercolor paintings:

Painting watercolours this large is amazing.

Then on the third level there was another exhibit called Tawny Chatmon: Sanctuaries of Truth, Dissolution of Lies, featuring work by Black photographer Chatmon. She embroiders her photographs with richly colored threads, making a striking textured visual. Her work seeks to reclaim objects that have been used to stereotype African Americans by restoring them to objects of meaning and significance. For example this photograph of a woman with a watermelon where the fruit is given a place of royalty rather than ridicule.

There is also her project “The Restoration” where she finds racist antique dolls and re-draws the offensively exaggerated facial features and dresses them in rich African textiles.

I left the exhibit awed by the courage and creativity Chatmon has to change the narrative that surrounds her. The whole museum, in general was pretty satisfying to visit. Highly recommend.

Speaking of consuming art– Here is a list of all the movies I watched on the plane on our flights to and from Taiwan, most of them foreign films. I like to watch international movies on international flights. I very rarely watch foreign language films at home, but something about being on a flight, being held hostage for hours – I don’t want to watch popcorn movies, I want to watch movies that feel a little challenging.

This is my strategy on international flights – I first go through the menu and favorite all the movies that look interesting to me. Some of my movie catnip: films set in Taiwan (or the country I’m going to visit), films in Mandarin (so I can practice my language skills. French also.), films with romantic story lines, films that say “Award winning performance”, films that don’t look too dark, heavy, or gory (I don’t need to watch violence on a plane… or ever, really), films with an ensemble cast on the poster, films with people looking happy on the poster, film with women and not just men on the poster, films that are set on planet Earth, period films, films that are less than 120 minutes long. Then after favoriting movies, I just see what speaks to me in the moment. I don’t put on a movie until at least an hour into the flight. I like to watch a movie with my meal, and then see what else I have time for.

Here are the seven movies I watched over 30 some hours in a plane to Taiwan and back:

*The Family Stone – USA 2005: This movie is on so many “Classic Holiday Movie” lists, but I had never seen it, so I decided to put it on. Let me tell you – The Family Stone will definitely not be on any of my “Holiday Movie” lists. It’s full of terrible toxic people, and not even in a good, fun to watch way. I mean aside from the one “Check all the DEI boxes” couple (gay, interracial, and Deaf), everyone is kind of just clueless and unkind, and that in and of itself feels cliched. Holiday movies are supposed to fill me with warm fuzzies and hope for humanity. I just wanted to read all these folks the riot act.

*OMG! Mom’s Big News – Malaysia, 2025: This movie is about a couple in their 50s, with grown kids who discover that the wife is pregnant just as they are planning for retirement. I thought this was a cute movie – funny, warm, and full of quirky characters. It kind of felt like a Hallmark movie in the best ways.

*Mumu – China 2025: A film about a Deaf man who works odd jobs while raising his six year old daughter (Mumu) only to have their life together threatened when his ex comes back for custody of the child. The movie starts out as a heartwarming, quirky almost-comedy about a father and his child, but then bam! Mumu turns real dark and becomes a noir thriller as the father, in order to make money, gets involved in an insurance fraud scheme that requires him to recklessly crash cars, and then… well no spoilers. (I do find with a lot of Chinese and Taiwanese movies they tend to have both light and dark moments. There is no one way to categorize a movie often.) Its the kind of movie that on paper sounds as if it will be peddling in emotional cliches – and it does – but the performances are so genuine and delightful, the relationships so real, that I was just sucked right in. Worth a watch if you can find it, I think.

Tic Talk – Taiwan, 2024: A teenage boy with Tourette’s syndrome dreams of being a singer and also of finding his mother. One day, he meets a travelling singer and hitches a ride on his truck, travelling throughout Taiwan and helping him with his stage and sound set up. The cynical singer and the shy teenager bond. A buddy road trip movie. I really enjoyed the music, seeing the life on the road, and seeing the scenery of Taiwan in this movie. Taiwan is a very outdoors country. This movie has catchy tunes and sweet performances.

Road’s End in Taiwan – Switzerland/Taiwan 2025: Swiss Damien receives a letter that his father – whom his mother had told him died years ago – has just recently passed away in Taiwan. He travels to Taiwan for his inheritance and meets Steve, his Taiwanese half brother. Damien and Steve embark on a road trip through Taiwan to find the other two people named in the will so that the will might be read. Yes, another Taiwan Road Trip movie, though this one travels down the East Coast, so a little different scenery. This movie was kind of sad and bleak (Spoiler – the dead father was NOT a good person), but I was pretty invested in the story.

*Montages of a Modern Motherhood– Hong Kong, 2024: New mother Jing struggles with balancing childcare, work, in-laws, and her marriage in this unflinching look at early motherhood. There were so many moments in this movie that I felt very deeply – the bone dead tiredness of having an infant; the sense of not knowing what to do coupled with undeniable instinct for what your child needs; the crying, constant crying. Watching it made me feel angry on behlaf of Jing, but also I felt so lucky that I had the post-partum support that I did. The movie is bleak, but also those first few months with a baby can be so isolating and intense that I’m glad this movie puts out there how hard it can be.

*A Family Knight-Mare (Sin cobertura – literally “no coverage”) – Spain 2025: Fed up with her family constantly being on their phones, young Rita asks a fortune teller at a Medieval fair to make their phone disappear. Before they know it, the family is transported to the real Medieval Times. Will the family be able to get home before they are stuck in the past forever? After watching two bleak movies, I wanted something lighter. This is the kind of family friendly live action movie that Disney used to make all the time. I thought it was entertaining, cute, and fluffy. Not the most memorable or subtle film, but still pretty entertaining.

Grateful For this week:

-The Bears having an unbelievable season. It makes the Husband really happy.

-The Husband for picking up the slack when all I could do was sleep.

-The people at church who acknowledged 14 year old’s birthday. At our church at the end of Mass, they take time to acknowledge birthday and anniversaries. The 13–>14 year old didn’t want to stand up, and instead sunk down even further in the pew, which I think the priest saw and realized something was up. He came up after and wished her a happy birthday, and so did a few other people. I think she didn’t want a public airing of her birthday, but the quiet individual wishes really made her smile.

-Good books and Libby. I just finished the Daughters of Shandong and could instantly have another book to read.

-Raincoats for the soggy soggy week we’ve been having.

-my colleagues at work.

-The now 14 year old. What a bright, kind, empathetic, unfussy human being she is. She makes me laugh by sending me silly YouTube Shorts, eats salad, looks out for her siblings, always tries to do the right thing and notices when people aren’t doing likewise, avoids drama, and is there for her friends. She likes cuddles, food, Coke, and music. I’m so glad she’s in our lives.

Looking Forward to:

-Bao buns. We went to a new to us Asian grocery store – a small little shop full of wonderful things. We were looking for a restaurant, but it was closed and this grocery store was next to it so we wandered inside, thinking maybe the restaurant was inside the grocery store. Well it wasn’t but the store was a little mom and pop affair so it felt awkward to just go in and leave again, so we wandered the aisles and picked up some fun things – curry puffs, canned rambutan, home made pork bao, tapioca flour, and some cookies for the kids. I noticed they have a boba counter in the back, so we’ll have to make a return trip some time!

-Fencing! We signed up the 8 year old for fencing lessons. He’s always running around with his light saber and Ren Faire sword, so we figured we should try to channel that energy.

-Figuring out how to get on a regular sleep cycle.

-My ~~goals~~ gentle aspirations for 2026. Two weeks into the new year and I’ve finally taken a moment to think about these things. I’m definitely of the “New year can start any time” school. I do think I need some adulting type goals, though – something financial. I need to sit with these for a bit and then maybe I’ll share them here.

-Just started this book. Interesting concept but pretty sad in the first few chapters:

-Listening to this audio book – Two of my catnips – Christmas Carol-inspired and Will Watt as one of the narrators! It’s pretty funny and charming so far.

What We Ate:
Monday: Half Price Burgers

Tuesday: Taco Tuesday – I made Tofu Chorizo from the NY Times Cooking. It was a little too spicy. Not sure if it’s worth my effort to make again – I have a recipe for soy ground beef that is easier and the family likes better. But otherwise we had tostadas instead of hard shell tacos, and those were well enjoyed.

Wednesday: Pasta with red sauce. I was supposed to cook this night, but I got home from work and fell asleep in our reading chair. When the Hsuband couldn’t wake me, he made dinner instead.

Thursday: Masala Chickpeas with Tofu and Blistered Tomatoes, from NY Times Cooking, served with Paratha (bought frozen from HMart and cooked on the griddle.) This was a huge hit. It was drier than I thought it would be – next time, I might add a can of diced tomatoes as well. Vegan (I used coconut oil instead of ghee.)

Friday: Pizza and movie night. Only we watched Indiana University football instead.

Saturday: We went out for Indian Food, the 13 (now 14) year old’s choice as her birthday dinner out.

Sunday: We went over to a friend’s house and they made pizza on the grill for us. We brought bagged salad and cupcakes.

Welp that’s some of what’s been going on here – hope you’ve had a great weekend and that the week ahead brings some wonderful things even when the big picture is bleak.

Do you have a method for picking movies on a flight? Or picking movies to watch in general? How many women artists can you name? (They sell buttons with this written on them at teh National Museum of Women in the Arts. I think I used to be just able to name Georgia O’Keefe and Frida Kahlo off the top of my head.. Now I have more!) Do you have any adulting financial goals? I need some inspiration.