weekly menu – Page 2 – Life Off Headset

Weekly recap + what we ate: hello 2025! Snow! Jet lag!

I feel like this past week was truly the first week of 2025 for me since we were still in Asia until the 4th. Coming back was rough – our connection in Seattle was delayed by 2.5 hours, so we were at SEA for seven hours total. Here’s the math – we left our hotel in Kuala Lumpur at 9am local time on Friday January 3rd, which is 8pm on Thursday January 2nd in Maryland. We pulled into the driveway at home at 8:3oam on Saturday January 4th. That’s a freakin’ long time to travel. 36 hours – hotel to taxi to plane to plane to plane to car to home. The world is big, friends. (Although, Earth is the third smallest planet – I can’t imagine what travel would be like on Jupiter…)

When we got home, we unpacked and zombied our way through the rest of the day. I was determined to battle jetlag and keep the kids awake until 8pm, which would be close to their regular bedtime. I lost that battle badly. We did an okay job of staying up on Saturday – there was a brief nap Saturday afternoon and we went to bed around 10pm – I was hoping the late bedtimes would help the kids stay in bed later. Nope. Sunday morning the kids were up at 4am. Sunday afternoon, I tried to keep everyone awake and we were all passed out in the living room by 4pm. I was seriously worried about whether or not the kids would survive school the next day.

But guess what? I didn’t have to worry about that. Because … SNOW DAY!

There was one point the week before, when we were in Kuala Lumpur and it was 90 degrees outside and I said to my Husband, “Let’s remember this feeling because next week we will be COLD.” Sure enough late Sunday night it started to snow and before we went to bed, the schools had declared a snow day. Both the Husband and I were supposed to work on Monday. His work ended up being closed. I worked from home. (Thanks to the Husband who wisely told me to go get my laptop from my office on Sunday night.). Even though I was very much looking forward to sending the kids to school, – after all we were at Day 16 s of togetherness – I saw the snow day as a blessing in that the kids had one more day to get back on schedule.

It was a cozy day of puttering. Is there anything more cozy than a blanket of snow outside and warm tea and wool slippers inside? We shoveled some snow. The neighbors invited the kids over to play in their yard. I did some work, had a few meetings. In mid afternoon, I logged off work and we all went sledding with our neighbors. Sledding was super fun. I was at first a little nervous about the hill they chose because there are several trees on this hill and – well have you ever read Ethan Frome? I read it in high school and (spoiler alert) there is a gruesome accident that involves a sled a tree and the loss of hope and happiness. As one does in an Edith Wharton book. So I wasn’t terribly eager to go sledding on this hill.

But turns out, a hill full of trees is a great opportunity for kids to learn how to steer a sled. We did manage to put a hole in our sled, but I think it still works great. And there were several face plants into the snow and tears. Afterwards, the seven year old notes that “Stumps are worse than trees. If you hit stumps you’ll fly off. If you hit a tree, you’ll just fall over.” But all in all, nothing that couldn’t be solved by hot chocolate afterwards.

Tuesday – another snow day. Crisp and clear. Both the Husband and I worked from home. Around three, I took the kids out for a snowy walk. The house was starting to become a bit of a pit. Kids fell asleep around 4:30pm. We woke them up for dinner, which was kind of a sad lethargic affair.

Wednesday – yet ANOTHER snow day. It was no longer snowing, but I guess there were schools up county that were still treacherously icy, so all the schools remained closed. The kids had piano lessons – fortunately moved to 9:45am rather than the normal 7:15am. Though honestly the kids were already up at 5:30am, so we could have made a 7:15 lesson with bells on. I took the metro into work in the afternoon, since that seemed more relaxed an option than driving. Home in time for dinner. Kids and I passed out at the dinner table at 6:00pm.

The kids finally went to school on Thursday and Friday. THANK GOODNESS.

This weekend we’ve been back into the swing of kids’ activities. Basketball season has started for the oldest kid – she’s playing in the rec league as well as on her middle school team. The little kids have skating lessons, and then there’s agility class for the 5 year old and the 8 year old will be doing a goal tending clinic with his soccer league. It’s also football playoff season and college basketball season, so I think we’ll have a combination of out and about and home on the couch this winter.

Other news: We have a teenager! The oldest turned 13. Every year we get through the new year and I realize that I haven’t done anything to prepare for the oldest child’s birthday. Every year, I vow to do better. I did not do better this year. I did exactly nothing for her birthday. We sang happy birthday, we had a very long family scheduling meeting and then I went to work. The two little kids made her a card and the Husband bought her a cake which we ate later in the evening. On the one hand, I don’t love celebrating my own birthday, so other people’s birthdays don’t always register for me. On the other hand, I need to recognize that birthdays are special to some people and honour that. (Okay, typing that out, I’m realizing that maybe the day that I gave birth and we became parents for the first time should hold more significance for everyone. I know!)

The oldest actually got invited to another kids’ birthday party on her birthday. Our former neighbor’s kid was having a party and they invited our kid along, so she spent the day running errands with the Husband and then our former neighbors picked her up and took her to their kid’s party. When the other family found out it was her birthday too, they bought her a special dessert and then took her to Dave and Busters. How awesome is that?

I can’t believe that we have entered into teenage years! Okay, one thing now, though, I can legally leave all the kids at home. In Maryland, kids have to be 13 in order to stay home with other kids. (They have to 8 to stay home alone). I don’t want to take advantage of the now-13 year old, so I want to think through whether or not she should get paid if we ever do leave her at home with the other two kids.

Grateful For:

-Neighbors to spend snow days and birthdays. It was nice to hang out with our neighbors while sledding this week. They let us take a run down the hill on their toboggan and it was a wild ride. And I’m also grateful for our former neighbors who made sure the 13 year old had a good birthday even though they weren’t originally celebrating her.

-Base layers. I took the metro to work a couple of days last week so that I wouldn’t have to deal with driving in snow and slush. It’s about a ten minute walk on either end. I’m really grateful for wool/silk base layers to keep me warm.

-Hand me down winter coats and snow pants. While we’re on the topic of winter gear – I don’t think I’ve purchased a winter coat or pair of snow pants for the two little kids in four years because I have a friend with twins who passes down her winter coats and snow pants to us once her kids outgrow them.

-That my mom is okay still. My mother lives about 10 miles south of the Eaton fire in the LA Area. She is not concerned about having to evacuate because she isn’t in the mountains, but even still I’m worried. I also have an aunt and two uncles in the same area. I texted my mom to ask her how the air was and she said, “Bad.” The mass of humanity that the fires are affecting is heartbreaking.

Looking forward to:

-Filling out reflection workbooks. I was looking for a more concrete way to reflect on my 2024, and look forward to 2025, and I found two (free!) reflection work books online that looked interesting, so I’ve printed them up and want to work through them. One is Year Compass and one is by Susanna Conway called “Unravel Your Year“.

-A busy week at work – I have a recital that I’m doing titles for, and then a little semi-staged evening of newly commissioned 20 minute operas. It’s going to be a busy week, but I’m working with some great people, so I’m looking forward to being at the theatre.

-And then work downtime for a while – after this week, I don’t have another show to work on until the end of March. I do have to do some work for next opera season and there’s some paperwork I want to update, but it won’t be evenings and weekends. I’m looking forward to two months of working at a quieter pace.

-Library book stack – on the Sunday we got back, in an attempt to get out of the house and keep kids awake, we went to the library where I checked out this stack of books to start my 2025 reading. (Actually The Riddle of the Sphinx and This is So Awkward were renewals that I haven’t finished yet.) I love browsing books and just picking up what looks good:

What We Ate:
Saturday: Pizza and This Means War. We’re moving away from animated features for movie night. This 2012 movie stars Reese Witherspoon as a market researcher caught between two rival CIA partners/rivals, played by Chris Pine, and Tom Hardy. It was a lot of fun, perhaps a little risque for the littles – good popcorn entertainment.

Sunday: Sandwiches. I think we were all still really jetlagged and this was what the Husband fed the kids when we realized that even though everyone was falling asleep standing up, we should probably still make an effort to feed them. Thank goodness ehs’ here.

Monday: InstantPot Coq au Vin. Disappointingly more soup than stew, but still tasty. Though I think only 1 of the 3 kids stayed awake long enough to eat this.

Tuesday: Brussel Sprout Nasi Goreng, pan fried tofu on the side. We had a bunch of Brussel sprouts in the fridge from before we left on vacation so I made this -it’s my go to recipe for Brussel sprouts. I love this recipe from Meera Sodha. It’s really tasty and also a great way to get everyone to eat Brussel Sprouts. Vegan.

Wednesday; Coq au vin from Monday, reheated. Not what I originally planned, but quick easy meal on a busy snowy day. I think I’m going to lean into the cook once, eat twice meal this year. Although, we don’t have a microwave, so I need to figure out best methods of reheating food.

Thursday: Breakfast sandwiches. The Husband made dinner since I didn’t get home from work til 8pm.

Friday: Pizza take out. I worked, came home, and fell asleep before the Husband got back with the pizza.

Saturday: Pizza take out (take two) and Mr. and Mrs. Smith, the 2005 movie with Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie as assassins unknowingly married to each other. I got home when the family was half way through this movie and made the family watch it again from the beginning after we got to the end. I was hoping there would be some kind of plot if I watched it from the beginning. There is not plot. Just a premise. And lots of action sequences. The kids really loved this movie.

Weekly recap and other gratitudes- NaBloPoMo #18

It’s been a wild weekend in my opera world. I’m still processing, so perhaps I’ll give the run down next week. I’ve fallen off the NaBloPoMo routine this weekend because it’s been busy, so here’s kind of a catch all post. I haven’t had a proper weekly recap post in a while, so I thought I’d write some of the random things that have gone on this week:

– I did the supertitles for a voice recital last week. It was a really fun program, though the second song set was not performed in the order I was given, so that caused a bit of panic, but I was able to catch up and get the right translation slides in place. Also – fun story – the artists added a song the day before the recital and the pianist sent me the music and text so I could make slides.
“Sure, no problem. I’ll do it tonight.” I wrote in response.
“Thank you!” he replied. “Do you drink wine? :)”
“I don’t actually,” I wrote, “But I do eat chocolate.” Which, normally, I don’t make gratuitous grabs for chocolate, but I figured, why not?
Well the pianist brought me three bags of those Lindt chocolate balls. I thought that was super kind.
The coda to that story. A few days later, I noticed the five year old had chocolate peppermint breath. I didn’t think anything about it until I saw an empty bag of Lindt peppermint truffles on the kitchen floor. The sneaky kid had eaten an entire bag by herself. There were tears and sad faces. I can’t tell if I was more upset that she snuck chocolate, or that I didn’t get to eat my peppermint chocolates.
Oh, also during the recital, the singer sang a John Denver song, Perhaps Love, which was a little unusual, but this line made my heart contract every time he got to it:

-Friday I had the day off, and it coincided with the Thankgiving party at the 7 year old’s class. I was on the fence about going – there seems to be many demands on a parent’s time from the school, and it was my one day off. I will admit I am not the most involved parent – I don’t PTA, I don’t Room Parent, I didn’t make it to Parent-Teacher conferences this fall. But I figured it makes the 7 year old happy when I show up, so I can do it a couple times a year. I signed up to bring an activity. After some late night googling, I decided to bring in decorative gourd bowling. I bought several decorative gourds and 12 bottles of water. I put food colouring in the water bottles – red, orange, and yellow, for some fall flavor. And that was it. I think the whole thing cost $15. At the school, I set up the water bottle like bowling pins and let the kids bowl with the decorative gourds. It was surprisingly popular for the amount of effort I put into it. Maybe not so surprising, though. I mean what kid wouldn’t want to throw produce at things? The fun thing, then, was when the bowling started getting a little out of hand, I took the 7 year old and sprung him out of school early and we went home. It just feels fun to be able to leave school early on a Friday afternoon.

=And then that night we went to a middle school production of Charlie and the Chocolate Factory. It was a lot of fun. The weekend before we had gone to see A Year with Frog and Toad at the high school. Between those two productions, I’m realizing what an awesome thing school drama productions are. First of all, it’s a low key way to take my own kids to the theatre and that form of story-telling. And also, I love the sense of community- we had friends who were involved in both productions and it’s great to be able to support them.

-I haven’t written a dinner post lately, and that’s because I haven’t been home for dinner very much these past few weeks. One morning, I was packing all the snacks and food for everyone for the day and I think I packed more food to be eaten on the go than at home. I packed:

Three lunches (me, the seven year old, the four year old)
Two dinners (me and the seven year old since we both ahd a show that night)
Four snacks – two for the seven year old (one for school and one for the evening at the theatre), one for me, one for the 12 year old who had rehearsal that evening.

It seemed like a lot of portable food to pack for one day. Anyhow, the Husband has been making the majority of dinners this month. A few good dinners that I made, which I want to remember for the future:

Cornmeal waffles from the King Arthur Baking cookbook. These were savory and slightly spicy. The recipe suggested we top it with queso, which I might try next time. I actually mixed the dry ingredients ahead of time and the Husband did the rest when he got home.
Instant pot shrimp biryani from NYTimes Cooking. This was a pantry meal that I managed to make in thirty minutes one day when I had no plans for dinner.
Honey glazed mushrooms and udon noodles also from NYTimes Cooking – I had a head of cabbage to use up.
Happy hour dinner- crackers and charcuterie and I made a batch of Brazilian cheesy bread. Cut up veggies and fruit as well. The kids really love this kind of meal.
Not dinner, but my go-to lunch has been massaged kale salad. I prepped and washed a large container of kale ahead of time, and then in the morning, I massage a few handfuls with olive oil, sesame oil, and salt. Then I throw together with whatever I have on hand – roasted sweet potato, walnuts, daikon radish, avocado, apples… It’s sturdy so will keep in my lunchbox all day, and packed with vegetables so that it feels energizing to eat during long days at the theatre.

-I’ve been thinking lately about being nice. We have feedback sessions at the end of the each show with the stage management team. There was a comment at one point about someone not being very nice, having a very direct edge to their tone when they spoke to other people. I struggle with whether or not to pass this feedback along to that person. On the one hand, not someone being nice can have an effect on morale if you aren’t used to working with them. At the same time, I don’t believe that we all need to homogenous in our way of speaking or acting, and I do think we all need to learn to interact with people who have different styles of communication. And maybe it’s because I’ve worked with this person for many many years, that I have blinders as to whether the reports about them not being “nice” is a problem. Because they are one of the kindest people that I know. And to me, being kind is much more important than being nice. So I’ve been turning these ideas over in my head – about what place does personality have in work place culture and how to value different personalities as part of the whole package that someone is.

Things I’m grateful for this week: We’re going into Thanksgiving week – there are so many things to be grateful for and I was going to write a whole week of gratitude posts. Here are some small ones to start off:

Handles – this feels kind of silly, but my laptop sleeve has a handle and it makes it super easy to carry when I also have four other bags to bring to work. Every time I pick up the laptop, I think, “Boy am I glad there’s a handle!” I mean think about all the handles in your life! Doors, boxes, coffee cups… Handles make life better.

My apple box, and the prop guy who gets it for me – The stage management console at the theatre was clearly designed for someone taller than me. When I stand at it, my score is chest height, which makes it uncomfortable to turn pages and turn my cue lights on and off. (The cue lights are the colored lights that I use to tell the crew when to execute a cue. They are at the back of my console.) So I stand on an apple box. It’s not literally an apple box – it’s a wooden box about the size of an apple crate, which is why it’s called an apple box. Every time I call in this theatre, I ask the prop head for my apple box and he finds it, only giving me a little bit of grief for being short.

The seven year old and me backstage – he’s standing on my apple box.

Rock Creek Parkway – This is the road I take to the theatre. The thing is, though, the traffic goes into the city in the morning and out of the city in the evening. I, however, go into the city in the evening, so I can’t use it. So I end up having to drive through D.C. during rush hour to get to an evening performance call. Driving through the city is tedious in normal times; during rush hours it is soul sucking. I’m grateful for whenever I can take the parkway and not have to drive through Dupont Circle.

Ten extra minutes in the morning – Because of the late nights, I’ve been sleeping in a little later than normal and the mornings have seemed a little more breathless than usual. One day we left the house a few minutes late and I realized that we were going to miss the bus, so I drove the kids straight to school, parking on the trail and walking up to the school. Turns out, if we choose to drive them walk to school, I can leave a little later, buying me an extra ten minutes in the morning and I also get a little walk in up to the school and back to the parking lot on the trail. Those ten extra minutes give me the space to breathe and think through everything that I need for the day.

How was your weekend? Who is the kindest person you know? What quotidian thing are you grateful for this week?

I’m writing this post as part of NaBloPoMo – click on the icon below to see who else if participating. You can also leave me questions for an upcoming “Ask me Anything” post via this link. Happy reading and writing everyone!

Weekly recap + what we ate: filling time

Bored and Brilliant Challenge #3 was to delete one app from your phone. I deleted Feedly. I’m trying to figure out what value different apps bring me, and I thought Feedly was one that I could delete because it’s a bit of a time suck and also doesn’t have any essential functions in my life. Interestingly, though, my screen time actually went UP last week. I think the main reason is that I started rehearsal and have been doing a lot more messaging via Teams on my phone for work communications. I could just bring my laptop to rehearsal and communicate that way, but the phone takes up less space. Also, I don’t have notifications turned on on my phone, so I have to pick up my phone and look at it to see if there are any new messages. Maybe I should just turn my notifications on? But also, I’m very much feeling the point that was mentioned in the first Bored and Brilliant Challenge about how a phone is a distraction even just sitting on a table. I don’t want distractions during rehearsals or I’ll miss something. I think this goes back to thinking about how my phone can add value to my life.

Here’s another thing I noticed when I deleted Feedly – if I’m mindlessly scrolling, it doesn’t matter how many apps I delete, I will find a way to mindlessly scroll. I stopped checking Facebook about three years ago because I felt like it was becoming a toxic time suck for me. But you know what I realized? There will always be other sites that are a toxic time suck for me. Two big time sucks for me currently are askamanager.org, and corporette.com. They have very active comment sections and when I’m bored, I often find myself there. It’s not as bottomless as reddit, but it does have the same appeal, I think, of people posting questions or comments, and other anonymous internet strangers weighing in. Why am I so obsessed with other people’s problems or questions? This is actually one of the reasons I quit Facebook is that there was generally a lot of anxiety on the various groups I was in. I get it – life is huge and confusing and hard and people want/need support and to know they’re doing the right thing. I definitely have looked things up or posted questions when grappling with something and on the flip side, I think there is something in me that likes to solve problems, so when I read posts where people are looking for advice, I find myself wanting to help them solve their problems. And in various FB groups, I just started finding anonymous internet venting to be an overwhelming input for me. I think reading and responding to internet comments becomes toxic for me when I find myself reading about other people’s problems and thinking more about their problems than my own. And then it gets to a point other people’s problems just seem so overwhelming that I no longer have empathy for a commenter/poster and just get disgusted with humanity.

Which is all to say, I’m not sure what deleting Feedly has accomplished. Maybe I’m more thoughtful about my mindless scrolling – I have to choose to go to a website rather than it just popping up on my feed. Deleting Feedly was a good experiment in figuring out what kind of internet consumption I find enriching rather than deflating. I’m finding that I’m not missing the influencer type blogs that I mostly read in Feedly. Those blogs always made me feel like I wasn’t doing a good job of wringing the full potential out of life. I think I’d much rather just use my internet browser and go visit blogs where I feel a sense of kinship – likely if you are reading this and have a blog, I’m talking about you. I do miss getting my daily dose of poetry show up in my Feedly. But I can just go to that website on my own every day. I might even set up a widget that just opens that website.

The other thing I’ve noticed this week about my phone usage is that I’ve been catching myself looking at my phone as I walk to/from the car this week. Breaking that habit was the whole point of Challenge #1! I think there have been some stressors at work, and I want the slight distraction of easy media consumption the minute I walk out the door in order to decompress a little. But checking the phone doesn’t make me feel less stressed, I’ve noticed. Checking my phone is just a way to distract myself from the discomfort of feeling unsettled and agitated at work and thinking about what is really bothering me. So I’ve been trying to think of things I can do to help clear my head and re-set while keeping my phone in my bag. Some ideas:
-hard copies of books. I’ve started putting a book in my lunchbox so that I read on my lunch break rather than scroll.
-write haikus in my head (or on paper)
-Listen to more music. I guess this technically is phone usage, although a couple of times while driving to work, I was feeling really stressed thinking about the day ahead, so I put on the classical music station and that helped calm me down a little. I think when I am feeling overwhelmed, I need to be in a wordless environment for a while. Chatter tends to interfere with my ability to think, even if it’s just the radio. I like classical music because I can think about the musical lines and instruments, in a more abstract way than if I were to listen to something with a lot of lyrics.
-walking meditations. I’ve never really gotten into meditation, but sometimes being ultra-mindful of each step I’m taking helps me feel more grounded.
-jigsaw puzzles. We have a 1500 piece jigsaw puzzle going on in our office. I’ve never done a puzzle with so many pieces before, and it’s certainly a challenge. I used to be of the school that one doesn’t look at the box when doing a jigsaw puzzle, but then someone brought in the 1500 piece puzzle and I’ve changed my stance.

Bored and Brilliant Challenge #4 is to take a faux-cation. Meaning dedicate a chunk o f time to be away from your phone. They even suggest setting an out of office message. That seems a little performative for me, so I don’t know if I’ll do that part. I’m not sure when I’ll take my faux-cation. I have friends visiting on my next free day and then I don’t have another day off for over a week. Maybe I can take a faux-cation morning before rehearsal? It’s a hard time in the work period to not be connected. Of course, it’s also the perfect time to be distraction free for a while since I have a lot of paperwork to get through. Maybe my faux-cation is just a couple hours to put my head down and plough through my paperwork?

A very nice free Day.
I had a great free day last Thursday! I got so much done. After dropping the kids at the bus, I took my car in for an oil change. I was going to run home while they changed my oil, but they said the car would be done in an hour so I went for a run by the mechanics instead, which was actually better because the mechanic is about a 1/4 mile from a trail and the fall leaves and crisp air made for a lovely run. I had forgotten my earphones, so I had to run i silence, which I thought was going to boring, but it wasn’t at all.

After I got my car back, I went to a consignment sale at a local pre-school (it’s their big fund raiser). I went to get pants for the 7 year old, but I also found this super cute t-Shirt for the 5 year old too:

Then I had lunch with the Husband at a really nice Mexican place by his work. The place had just gotten a nice write up in the paper, though the Husband has been coming since they were open. At the end of our meal, the owner offered us some grasshoppers! They were crunchy and spicy- like chips!

Then I went to the library because I had a hold come in and I also picked up a few other books:

The library is in the same building as the Rec center where early voting was taking place, so I also went to vote. It was the first day of early voting! The room was busy, but not crowded. I was in and out within ten minutes.

Then I picked up the 5 year old for gymnastics. I drafted a blog post while waiting for her class, which always feels super productive to me. Then we went home.

Next, I took the 7 year old for his costume fitting. I’ve never actually been in a costume fitting before, despite all these years of working in a theatre. It was fascinating. Costume people are amazing! The way they could look at a garment and know what seams to add or remove or take apart and put back together to make a garment fit was mesmerizing. It’s kind of surgical, the way they talk about clothes. Like you would never guess that this shirt was made for someone twice the size of the 7 year old, and since it was a rental shirt, they couldn’t cut it. So they just tuck and make a false cuff.

He looks a little like Fievel from An American Tail.

After we got home, though it all went downhill from there. The Husband was out with a friend, so I was solo parenting. No one wanted to help pick up or set the table or do homework. I was annoyed that I was making tasty pasta that no one seemed to care about. People yelled at me. I yelled at people. Then I told them not to yell at me, and I shut myself in my room until bedtime. On the bright side… when I was shut into my room the 12 year old dished up the pasta and fed the 2 younger kids. In front of the tv. I can’t decide if that’s a win or not.

But in an effort not to let one horrible hour torpedo the rest of a lovely productive and restful day, I cling to all the nice things and productive things that happened that day. And I did end the day by making a plum torte, so that was nice. Baking always helps, and this recipe (from New York Timing Cooking) was super easy to whip up. Apparently the recipe is run every fall. It’s legendary and people got mad when the Times didn’t publish it one year. It’s not the best thing I ever made, but the taste to effort ratio is pretty high.

Grateful For:
-Getting two runs in this week, on my dinner break and on my free day. Perfect cool fall weather for running. I can still wear shorts, but the sun isn’t torturous.

– My work BFF who is so so so smart and I can bounce thoughts off her when I’m trying to navigate a thorny issue. (She’s also a great friend not just at work, and our kids hang out together all the time. I joked with her the other day that one day one of us should go work somewhere else because between the two of us we have so many work-branded tote bags that we’re always getting our stuff mixed up when we hang out.)

-Leftovers. So glad to have leftovers for quick easy lunch and dinner packing last week.

-On that same note – grateful for past me for making a double batch of soup and freezing it for easy dinners last week.

-Wifi at activities. I’m really grateful that there is wifi in the waiting room at gymnastics so I can get some work or blogging done while I wait for them to get done activities. Maybe I should be watching them bounce on trampolines, but… the gym isn’t really set up to always be watching the kids.

Looking Forward To:
-A visit from a mentor, now friend.

-Hallowe’en. I think everyone’s costume is set. I actually have most of the day off, so I think I’ll get to go trick or treating from the beginning. I had originally been scheduled to work until 6:00pm or so, but now I’m going to try to get home by 5:00pm. I’ve been squeezing some costume sewing in when I can.

-Listening to this audio book – I wanted a cozy audiobook to get me through the next few weeks. The combination of an Alexis Hall novel read by Will Watt for 10 Things that Never Happened was the epitome of cozy romance for me (still disagree with you, Engie!), so I chose another Alexis Hall novel read by Will Watt, and it’s been the perfect, swoony and sweet audiobook for me right now:

What We Ate:

Monday: Turkey white bean soup from freezer

Tuesday: Fried perch and tater tots. The Husband cooked while I was at work. I ight have eaten the whole bowl of leftover Tater Tots when I got home at 11pm. It was just an excuse to use Trader Joe’s Dill Pickle seasoning.

Wednesday: Skillet pasta and sausage. The Husband cooked.

Thursday: Cheesy pumpkin pasta bake with kale. From NY Times Cooking. This was really tasty. I wanted leftovers, but the kids took them all for lunch. I actually froze half of it before baking because it only requires 15 mins at 500 degrees to bake so it will make an easy dinner. I added a can of cannellini beans for more protein, and made it with silken tofu instead of cream, so it would not be as rich.

Friday: leftover soup and pizza

Saturday: Dumplings and the Pokemon movie (for those at home), kale salad (for me at work)

Sunday: leftovers

How is your week going? Is there one app you would like to delete? What is your favorite way – your most bucket filling way – to spend time on your phone?

Weekly recap + what we ate: Haikus not photos

We started rehearsals last Thursday. Starting mid week is always a little tough because you get the momentum of the first day excitement and then bam, you have a day off and it feels a little like letting the air out of your own tires. Oh well, it’s the schedule and I’ll take any days off that I can get.

Bored and Brilliant Challenge #2– No Photo Day. The point of this challenge was to force you to really look at the things you might be tempted to take a picture of, rather than taking your phone out to snap a picture. Studies show that taking a picture of something actually could lead you to remember it less. This challenge kind of hit home when I remembered how a few weeks ago, I wrote about the bright purple flowers in our front walk on a gloomy day. When I was writing that post, I looked for a picture to post of those flowers, but I couldn’t find one. “Surely, I took a photo of that moment,” I thought. “I remember that flower so vividly!” But I hadn’t taken a photo – I had just seen the purple aster popping out on a grey grey day and that memory had embedded itself in my brain. Would I have had such a vivid memory of that flower if I had taken a photo? I don’t know.

Last week, I took exactly three pictures:

I sent this to the Husband as proof I was logging off my comouter and coming home.

Took this one for last week’s post on books I was reading- I’m enjoying both.

The seven year old doing his homework in rehearsal. I sent this to the Husband as proof that he does do his homework sometimes.

And truth to tell, I had to look back at my camera roll to remember what pictures I had taken. on reflection, I think I took pictures to communicate something to someone else. These were not photos of things I wanted to remember for myself. I don’t know if this “No Photo” thing will stick. I do take a lot of pictures for practical reasons – to remember parking spots and grocery lists, to use at work when it is easier to take a picture than try to find the words to explain what I mean when I’m trying to give a note about a prop of some such. And I do like having photos of my family with me, capturing moments we have together. But I think because it is so easy to take photos, I have a higher expectation of these images I capture- I want them to be perfect, I want moments to be perfect. And some are. Sunsets, laughter, getting to the end of a hike. But also – I don’t need a million pictures of these things. I don’t need to take picture after picture, holding the camera between me and the things I want to capture. I can just take one, and maybe it’s imperfect, maybe not everyone is looking at the camera. But that’s the moment too. (Actually, the 7 year old is notorious for turning his back to the camera when I want to take a group picture – at least it’s honest of where we are.) Of course, when it comes to a family picture for the Christmas card, I reserve the right to try to get a nice one.

So last week, as part of the No Photo challenge, I challenged myself to write a haiku every time (well not every time) that I wanted to take a photo, as a way to think about why I’m struck by something. Here are some of the haikus I came up with:

This one is about those purple flowers on our front walk:
On a gloomy day
Purple asters line the walk.
Such bright drops of joy.

Inspired by the first signs of fall foliage that I saw:
Orange dappled leaves
Flaming amidst still green trees.
The first to welcome Fall.

Another one for fall:
Dropping temperatures
bring sartorial changes –
Cozy clothes season!

They play, chattering
Sharing imaginations.
Worlds only they see.

Full moon shines. The clouds
drift lie widow’s weeds across
transcendent beauty.

I will say, last week my phone pick ups did go down 21% from the week previous. (from 98 average pick ups per day to 78). And my daily screentime average was down 25% from the week before (2 h 42 m m vs. 3h 37 mins). I don’t think lower numbers is the ultimate goal in and of itself, but rather what I do with the time, that additional 55 minutes.

Bored and Brilliant Challenge #3 is to delete one app. I’m not sure which one that would be. I no longer check social media and I don’t play any phone games. My most used apps are text/messages, Feedly, and Safari. Safari is probably mostly reading blogs. So I guess that would mean deleting Feedly. Will report back.

Other goings ons–
-Speaking of phones. We got the 12 year old her first phone this week. It has been a huge decision and it’s actually a little earlier than I had wanted to give her a phone. Let’s be honest, if I could have waited until college, I would have. I’m kind of late to technology adoption and late to change. But with activities ramping up and with her being in a show this fall, I felt like for safety and communication, it was best to give her a phone so she could move around more independently. We got her a Bark Phone – the Husband did the research – and it seems like a low commitment way to get her a phone that had lots of parental controls on it. I had briefly contemplated a smart watch, but I wanted her to have something that she could leave in her locker and that wouldn’t be attached to her wrist and constantly monitoring her or sending her physical notifications. Before we got the phone, we all agreed to each come up with three rules about phone usage. If anyone else has guidelines or thoughts on phones and kids, I’d love to hear it. Right now we’re trying to figure out how we decide which apps she can download. I’m not opposed to her having some fun things to do on her phone, but I don’t want her to have so many apps that she is constantly switching between apps looking for that dopamine hit one gets when exposed to new and fresh things. Like you know when you constantly re-fresh apps looking for something new? Anyhow… lots to think about here.

-Soup Party at Work. This was a lot of fun. I make Chinese Corn and Egg Drop Soup. We also had Baked Potato Soup, Lasagna Soup, Sausage Kale Soup, Chicken and White Bean Soup, chicken orzo soup. Lots of bread and carbs too. It was a nice cozy way to gather. I want to have a soup party in the new year, maybe February? It seems like February would be a nice month to have a gathering.

-Family time on a beautiful fall Sunday afternoon. My days off are all over the place this month. I had last Sunday off. I took the 12 year old to buy fabric for her Hallowe’en costume then we were home. We had lunch together outside on our back patio and then later we went together to the park where we played basketball together. The 7 year old and the 5 year old are comically unskilled at basketball, and it made for a lopsided game with people changing sides on a whim. But it was a lot of fun for all five of us to be doing something together, and the weather was perfect.

-I’ve been thinking about NaBloWriMo. (Thanks, San, for organizing!). November is legit bonkers busy for me, but I love the idea of a collective flooding of the internet of good old fashioned blogging. Maybe I’ll write shorter posts? My weekly posts have four parts – life update, gratitude, anticipation, what we ate – maybe I can concentrate on writing/posting one part per day?

Grateful for:
-Hand me down winter coats. I have a friends who gives us all her kids’ outgrown winter coats. She has three kids and each kid always has two or three coats, so it’s a lot of coats. I think between the two little kids, I’ve only ever had to buy one or two winter coats since they were born. (The oldest always gets a new (or thrifted) winter coat.) One day last week it was quite chilly and I needed winter coats for the kids, and I was really grateful that I had a whole closet of winter coats to pull from. The first onset of cold weather is always a scramble for appropriate winter gear, and it’s nice to know that I’m covered on the coat front for a few more years at least.

-Fall apple season. I think apples might be my favorite part of fall. There are so many kinds of apples at the farmer’s market and every apple is a kind of adventure of discovery. Is there anything more satisfying than biting into a perfectly crisp, tart-sweet apple.

-Cookbooks on Libby. For the Soup Party, I wanted to make a recipe from a book I had borrowed from the library, but I didn’t have time to get it from the library, so I checked Libby, and there it was! I find that cookbooks on Libby aren’t always formatted to easy to browse and read, but when I’m just looking for a recipe, it’s a good way to find cookbooks.

Looking forward to:
I have to be honest the next few weeks look like kind of a grind of work and activities, so I don’t have anything fun planned. This all hit home when I tried to schedule dentist appointments for the kids and there was literally no weekday until mid December where I could take all three kids at once to the dentist. It was hard enough getting two kids to back to back appointments.
– Fall walks. I’m going to try to go on a walk every day at lunch. On days when I’m working an evening rehearsal, I’m going to try to fit in a run since I have 90 minutes between rehearsals. I’ve packed my running clothes and shoes and they are at my office right now, so hopefully it will prompt me to go run.

-2025 calendar. Our 2025 wall calendar arrived! Can I tell you how much I LOVE this wall calendar? It’s the At a Glance Move A Page Three Month Calendar. It’s designed so you move each month up as you go so that you can always see the next two months as well as the current one. A lot of 3 month calendars that I looked at were just four pages of three months each, so you’d have to flip back and forth to see adjacent months if you were on, say, March. Or they were all three months on one page, so you’d have to re-write future months as they became present months. There is no re-writing necessary with this calendar. Also – this calendar has lines in the date blocks so it makes writing in it neater. I bought several different 4 colour pens, so everyone in the family gets their own colour on the calendar.

-Free Day to run errands. I have a free say mid week, so I’m hoping to get some errands done. I’ve scheduled an oil change, want to return library books, run, lunch with the Husband, and visit a local consignment sale- the 7 year old is in dire need of pants.

-oh the most important thing I’m hoping to do on my free day is VOTE! Early voting starts this upcoming week. I have a little trepidation and a little hope about the elections. I don’t trust the polling so I feel like anything could happen. I feel like we’ve been here before- is it just me, or has every election seemed nail bitingly unpredictable?

What We Ate: it was soup week here! Partly because of fall weather, partly because it’s an easy thing to make ahead of time when things get busy.

Monday: Chicken rice soup. Made in the Instant Pot. I’m trying to use up things in the freezer, and we had a bunch of chicken breasts, so I put them in the Instant Pot with celery, onions, butternut squash, turnips, brown rice, and chicken broth. It was really tasty and there were leftovers for all week.

Tuesday: Corn and egg drop soup and dumplings. I made a double batch of the corn and egg drop soup so that I could bring to the Soup Party at work. I used the recipe from Vegetarian Chinese Soul Food by Hsiao-Ching Chou. It’s actually just a corn soup in the recipe, and I added the egg drop part to up the protein. The dumplings were pulled from the freezer – we had bought from the Farmer’s market last month.

Wednesday: Soup Party at work! I brought the Corn and Egg Drop Soup. It was even more ginger-y because I had added ginger slices and let them sit overnight.

Thursday: Chili- the Husband made this on Sunday night. It was super tasty.

Friday: Pizza (takeout) and IF. I had to work this night and had leftovers.

Saturday: I had to work, so I had leftovers. Not sure what the rest of the family ate.

Sunday: Toast and leftovers. Sunday is usually simple supper/ clean out the fridge night.

How is fall in your area? If you are in the States – are you voting in person or by mail? Early or on Election day? What’s the last photo you took? What’s the last photo you sent someone?

Weekly recap + what we ate: September Review/October Aspirations

I was feeling kind of “meh” about September. We had a big goal of doing a lot of decluttering, but we had one major win (the attic), and one kind of fail (the toy room.) We have a plan for the foyer to manage our shoes and socks and drop zones, but it requires ordering new shoe storage. I’m excited about the shoe storage that we have picked out, but it is pricy, so I’m not sure when we’ll order it. And then on top of it all, the start of school and activities just feels overwhelming – totally my own doing, of course, but it’s stressful.

But when I went to journal about my September, I found there were some highlights tucked in there.

September Highlights:
– My parents came to visit.
-The youngest kid turned five!!! We had cake at home and also a birthday party for her with friends at the small local aquarium.
-The kids and I went to the Renaissance Faire. It was so much fun. I’m glad we went early because it’s been sold out for the rest of the season since mid September.
-Going through the attic and throwing out/donating/ passing along so much stuff. The space that this has opened up is amazing.
-Family Game Night. A wonderful, quieter alternative to big adventures.
-Discovered some tasty food near us – a Balkan restaurant and an Indonesian one.
-The County’s Friendship picnic – tasty falafel and bounce houses.
-On the work front – working a corporate gig (a new to me experience), and doing super titles for a Vocal Recital (familiar gig, nice to return to).
-We found out that the 12 year old got into the children’s chorus for the holiday opera that I’m working on. She was so excited. I took this picture of her reading the offer:

September Lowlights – funny how many of these lowlights are tied to the highlights:
-Trying to figure out the logistics of getting the 12 year old to opera rehearsals. Rehearsals start at 4pm, and that’s kind of a logistical nightmare. She doesn’t start until November, but it’s causing a lot of stress.
-My parents came to visit, but I barely saw them because I was working most nights that they were here.
– Not managing to work through the toy room declutter.
-Not having a chance to go on any hikes or visit any museums all month. This might be the first month all year where I didn’t fit in either a hike or a museum visit.

October Aspirations:
Okay, I had written a big long list for October aspirations, but I think I’ll just whittle it down to a few essentials:
– Survive our schedule, making sure everyone stays fed, rested, and gets where they are scheduled to be. In addition to the kids’ usual activities, the 7 year old is going to be a supernumerary (non-speaking extra) in the opera I’m working on. I might regret signing him up – it will be several late nights and will take thoughtful logistics, but he’s excited to do it, and I’m excited to have him in the show.
-Hallowe’en. I think we have costumes sorted out. I need to make them, but I’ve penciled costume work days into my calendar.
– Another effort on the toy room purge.
-VOTE. This is a big one. Early voting starts in ten days. If I don’t do anything else, I need to do this.
-Remember to hug the Husband and children every day.
-Daily time outside. Even the low bar of the Cool Bloggers Walking Club seems high to me right now, but here’s a reminder to step outside and breath the fall air every day.
-I had a bunch of other aspirations written down – the perpetual “get rid of car” project, planning for our Asia Trip, hike, museum, exercise, no-spend month, social plans… I think those are going on the “really, maybe, probably not this month” list. I’m setting expectations low here.

Other Things This Week:
-Contra-dancing! The Husband suggested we go contra-dancing this week. There is a new-ish contra dance about two miles down the road from us on the second Thursday of the month. The Husband and I met contra-dancing and we used to go several times a month. In our area you used to be able to go to a contra dance on Friday Nights and Sunday nights, and if you were willing to drive to Baltimore, you could also go to one on Saturday nights as well. It’s a pretty popular activity here. The Sunday night dance no longer runs now, thanks COVID. And we also haven’t been for a while, thanks, kids. I don’t think we’ve been since before the 7 year old could walk. Anyhow, the Husband told me about this Thursday night dance and we went, taking all the kids, and we all had such a great time. The music was amazing, the people friendly. There were several people that remembered us from when we used to attend the dance regularly. I laughed, I spun really fast, I moved my feet to the music, I swung my kids around, I made small talk with nice people. It was a really great time.

Blurry screen capture from video the 12 year old took of the Husband and me.

-Good talk with a teacher – One of the kids has been struggling in school so we set up a meeting with the teacher to talk about strategies. I’ve always been a little hands off with my kids’ schools, but this year, I’m realizing that there is a an element of collaboration that is needed – teachers and administrators want to know when kids are struggling, and it’s better to ask the questions rather than assume things will work out. I’ve always felt bad about emailing teachers about issues, and taking their time, but I’m seeing that there is a time and a tone for these communications, especially in the elementary/middle school years. I’m sure high school is a whole different ball game.

-Matching Overalls! We went to Duluth Trading Company on Saturday – the Husband needed some new shirts and pants. I’m doing a casual, no-pressure Buy Nothing month (inspired by Stephany!), so I didn’t buy anything for myself, but I did try on some jeans and they weren’t terrible. I might buy myself a pair in November. I haven’t worn jeans in two years and it’s hard to go back, but they are a really versatile piece of clothing and good for running around backstage. So I will marinate on that. But in the mean time, I couldn’t resist picking up a pair of overalls for the 5 year old. They have a super cute fox print pattern on them. And… the overalls come in adult sizes as well. The 12 year old and I both tried them on together. I was sooooo tempted to buy us all matching overalls, but they are on the pricy side and the 12 year old found a pair of ivory corduroy overalls she liked better, and I decided to resist the temptation and stick to my “no buy” intentions. But look how cute we all are!

-We finally finished watching a TV series! This is very rare for us – we often peter out of energy when watching something together, or if I’m watching something on my own, I am often reluctant to watch the series finale because I don’t want the show to end (I’m looking at you, This is Us). We watched the last episode of Ted Lasso over the weekend. (Though there are rumors of a Season 4…?). The last episode was predictably sentimental and heart-tugging to the point of manipulative, but I kind of loved it. I feel like it’s not “cool” to wear your emotions on your sleeve anymore – there is so much television about people being mean to each other, or being irrevocably lonely, or trying to get ahead, or having terrible things happen, and blood and sex and gore and ironic wise assery. And Ted Lasso’s big hearted optimism is the antidote to that. This last season – sure it was predictable and it seemed like they were box checking plot points, but dammit if there weren’t some genuinely touching moments and I might have been a little teary eyed.

-Bored and Brilliant Challenge. As I mentioned in the last post, I’m trying to work my way through the Bored and Brilliant Challenge – six challenges put together by the podcast New Tech City/ Note to Self in 2015 to help one re-set phone habits. The first challenge was to keep your phone in your pocket (or your bag) when you are in transit. As part of the episode, the host sat on a New York City street and counted how many people walking by were interacting with their phone. Of the 1000 people she counted, 30% of people were interacting with their phones, which actually seems low to me – but the episode was from 2015, so maybe people were less attached to their phones nine years ago? At any rate, one of the main points of this first challenge is how even when you don’t look at your phone, even having it out is a distraction and keeps you from truly connecting – with others, with your surroundings, with yourself.
I’ve been doing this “phone in pocket” challenge, and at the beginning I noticed that I would, out of habit, pull my phone out after work as I walked to my car. This wasn’t great, especially since I often left work late at night when it was dark out. But it was also something that I wasn’t even thinking about. What was interesting to me about this challenge, too, is that one would think that a behavior that requires effort (pulling out one’s phone) comes against more friction than something that requires no effort (leaving the phone in my bag). But that itch to check my phone – the discomfort of being bored – clearly was winning out over the inertia of leaving the phone in my bag. So when I started finding myself reaching for my phone while walking or in the car or wanting to take it with me when I walked down the hall to talk to someone at work, I tried to acknowledge the discomfort of being bored, the urge of wanting to be entertained, and sat with that a little bit. Like seriously, what is so boring about walking to the car that I feel like I need to be looking at my phone? I’m sure there are scientific studies that look at how the brain processes content from the phone vs. other inputs. Maybe this “challenge” will just become a habit.

Challenge #2 is to have a Photo Free Day, where you don’t use your phone yo take any pictures for a whole day. I do like to take pictures to remember things, and capture moments. Will report back on how this challenge goes.

Grateful For:
-Walking trails to school. Twice last week, I drove the 7 year old and his friend to school. The first time, was because we missed the bus, so I drove and parked along the trail that goes to the school and we walked the rest of the way – I kind of loathe sitting in the carpool line and thought this would be nicer. The 7 year old said to me, “It’s nice to start the day with a walk!” So on Friday, I asked if he wanted to walk to school again, and he did, so we once again parked on the trail and walked up to the school. I’m grateful that for living in a pretty urban suburb, there are still lots of ways to walk.

-Being home for dinner. Opera season is starting for me, which means a lot of nights and weekends. I’m grateful when I get the evening off and can be home for dinner. I love family dinners.

-Parks and playgrounds. On Saturday, the 12 year old had a birthday party. It was about 25-30 minutes away from home, and we didn’t think it would be efficient to drop off then return, so we took the opportunity to go grocery shopping and to take the two little kids to a playground. I feel so lucky that there are so many parks and playgrounds in our area. You can often find one (or two or three) within a 10 or 15 minute drive of wherever you are in our part of our county. So if ever we need to kill some time, going to a playground is usually a good solution. I’m also grateful that the kids still like playgrounds.

-Not quite getting rid of my car yet. Our van had to go into the shop and we were down one car for a week, so I ended up driving my 20 year old car while my husband drove the Impreza until the van was fixed. I know we are lucky to have three cars for situations like this – even if one car is 12 years old and the other car is 20 years old. Part of me thinks, maybe we don’t need to get rid of my car – it’s good to have an extra car for instances like this. But it is silly and expensive and hard to justify keeping a third car for emergencies when we live a 10 minute walk to public transportation.

Looking forward to:
-Hallowe’en. I’m not working on Hallowe’en this year, so I get to take the kids trick or treating. The costumes have all been chosen. There were some last minute changes, but I stuck firm that I wasn’t making different Hallowe’en costumes, so any changes had to be able to be sourced/purchased.

-Starting rehearsals. We’ve been prepping for the start of rehearsals. It’s always exciting to learn a new score and wrap my brain around new sets and costumes (well, new to me – the costumes are rented and the set takes parts of previous shows and uses them together). At a certain point, however, I am itching to move from the show being in my head to see how it is going to get up on its feet, to see what the singers and creative team is like, to hear the music sung by real live people.

-Soup Party! I’ve organized a soup party for my department at work. I’m excited – and the weather is just starting to turn chilly enough for soup weather. I think I’ll make Chinese corn soup – it’s easy to put together and very tasty. Not sure if I’ll make it vegan (tofu instead of eggs).

-Just started these two books:

In busy seasons, I try to find books that are fun to read and engagingly written right off the bat, and these two books are that, in very different ways. One is about navigating puberty- it gives the science behind the changes that happen and also gives ideas on how to kids about the changes in a wonderfully non-judgmental way.. The other book is a love story that straddles two eras.

What We Ate:
Monday: Pasta Salad. Made before I went to work in the afternoon. Jenny Rosenstrach’s marinated beans, pasta, cucumbers, tomatoes, peppers. Vegan.

Tuesday: Soba and herb salad with roasted eggplants and plums. This was simpler than it sounds, but boy was it tasty. I ate it for leftovers the rest of the week. Vegan.

Wednesday: Leftover pizza from the 5 year old’s birthday party.

Thursday: Leftovers

Friday: pizza (take out) and Glee

Saturday: The 12 year old was at a birthday party. The husband and I weren’t terribly hungry after a big lunch, so we didn’t eat, but we did buy the two little kids a sandwich to split from the grocery store.

Sunday: Leftovers for me. Yogurt with berries and honey. Toast (again) – PB&J on English muffins for one kid, melted cheese on English muffins for the other kid. Cut up veggies on the side.

How is your October going so far?

(bi)Weekly recap + what we ate: Needs met, then unmet

Sometimes my writing schedule gets off and then I realize it’s been two weeks since and update even though my last post was just last week. Time can be funny like that…

I recently read this beautiful poem : I Remember the Carrots by Ada Limon. It starts with the lines:

I haven’t given up on trying to live a good life,
a really good one even, sitting in the kitchen
in Kentucky, imagining how agreeable I’ll be—
the advance of fulfillment, and of desire—
all these needs met, then unmet again.

Those words- “all these needs met, then unmet again.” has stuck with me. I’ve been thinking lately with regards to many things, work and life. In regards ot work, how there will never be a perfect system. We go through reorganizations and departmental changes, each time hoping that this is the optimal way to run things, but it is never a forever solution. People come and go and bring different talents, fill different holes with their different strengths. Different stressors come up, different duties, tasks to be done. You check the boxes then more things come up on the list. So there is no ultimate system, just a meeting today’s needs.

And in other parts of life – we adjust our lives and patterns to meet needs and then before we know it, things shift and once again there are unmet needs. Kids too. And oneself. Feed ourselves until we are no longer hungry, but then we will be hungry again. File the paperwork so that we get that insurance reimbursement then we have to go to the doctor again. But also things like, tell someone you love them, and then tell them again, because we can continue to meet that need of those around us to be loved. It is an exhausting cycle to think about. But also – there is some wonder in the thought that we can meet needs, that perhaps this is life’ work – to continue to meet needs – physical and emotional. Perhaps that’s the “good life” of the poem?

So along those lines –

It was a really busy few weeks for me. What week isn’t? (Side note – One of my favorite quotes is from an essay by Ursula Le Guin, who, when asked what she does in her spare time, says:
“In my case I still don’t know what spare time is because all my time is occupied. It always has been and it is now. It’s occupied by living.”
I never want to imply that the things that occupy my life and make my life feel frantic, this busyness of a hamster wheel that I feel stuck in sometimes – I would never want to imply that my personal busyness is morally superior than that which occupies anyone else’s time – we all of us occupy our time by living. When did being busy become a virtue? Or is that just the narrative I’ve internalized somewhere? )

Anyhow, the week before last, I took on an event gig, which required me to be at work at 8am. I know many people show up at work at 8am (or even earlier!), and props to them. 8am is a whole new world for me. I basically wake up at 6:00am, eat breakfast, pack lunches, get dressed and leave for work by 7:00am. It feels so much more efficient than my typical mornings which stretch longer (6:45am wake up to 8:50am leave for school bus) and where all those things seem to take up two hours rather than one. I mean, I do sometimes get a yoga stretch in, a bit or reading, a moment to journal. Or sometimes those stretches are occupied by looking for permission slips, or socks, or prepping dinner, or when I’m lucky a couch cuddle with a kid and a picture book. A 7am out the door, however, does not allow for those extra things, though.

The event was a two day affair, a symposium on mental health, and it went pretty smoothly. I was there mostly to help out the stage manager that the producing organization brought, facilitating communication with the crew. There was a lot of setting water glasses onstage and chairs and side tables for the different panels and speakers. Events are interesting to me because the stakes feel so high since you only get one go at it, but also at the same time you only get one try at it, often with minimal/no rehearsal, so the stakes somehow simultaneously feel oddly low. Like you just have to do the best you can to get people where they need to be when they need to be there and if it isn’t 100% smooth, it’s very rarely your fault. Event work is good money, to be honest, and I know many people who just do event work for a living.

But… I think I would miss rehearsal. I like going to rehearsal and creating something and being part of that process. I like taking a hundred people and stirring them all together to make a story onstage. I like watching artists discover how they tell stories and doing my part to make that story happen. And I like working somewhere where I know whom I’m working with and I don’t have to wonder if so and so is going to show up or if they have to cancel at the last minute to testify before congress. Or we have to re-arrange the PowerPoint last minute because the speaker cancelled. There is certainly a thrilling rush of adrenaline to work under the fast paced scenario of an event, but I think it would be exhausting to do that every. single. gig. Maybe I’m too comfortable where I am?

Which, on that note, I did finally move my cubicle at work, so I guess that’s a step towards discomfort. I’d been putting this off since I don’t like change and have been sitting at my original desk for almost twenty years. But someone pointed out that the desk of my predecessor in the Production Stage Manager role was probably better suited for, well, being the PSM since it was in a corner and was bigger and had a couch for sitting and chatting, which is something that happens more now that I have more work responsibilities. I’d delayed and delayed but then we were all getting new computers at work, so I figured it was as good a time as any to move cubicles. I don’t love it – I can’t see when people are in the office because of the way the cubicle walls are set up, but maybe I can move the cubicle walls.

Other fun things:
– Family game night. We often have pizza and movie on Fridays, and sometimes also on Saturdays as well. One week, though, the 7 year old demanded game night. So we had a Saturday game night. Everyone had different ideas for what they wanted to do, so we did all of it – we started by playing King of Tokyo, then we spent some time playing with the marble run and building domino topplings (is that a word?), and then we ended the evening by playing Uno. It was a great time – even with some sore losing and sore winning antics. I’m hopeful we’ll do more game nights.

You can sort of see the 12 year old in the chair at the top of the picture – she’s listening to an audiobook with her earphones on. But hey, she’s in the same room as the rest of us, so it’s still family time, right?

-FIVE! The youngest officially turned five. (Despite the unicorn cake of the last post, her birthday wasn’t until the next day.) They don’t get any younger, I suppose. This past weekend we had her birthday party at a nearby aquarium. It’s a small aquarium mostly focused on local marine life, with one room of tanks and then a huge play space outside. The kids got a tour of all the fish, and got to feed some of them, and also touch some of the animals in the touch tank. Then there was pizza and snacks and cupcakes and play time. I feel like 90% of the reason the 5 year old wanted to have the party at the aquarium was that the outdoor play space is in the shape of a pirate ship.

-No School Day/ Car Free Day. The two older kids had last Thursday off school for Rosh Hashanah. (I mean the calendar doesn’t say that – it just says Non-Instructional Day, but the school calendar doesn’t call it Christmas Break either…) It’s my last no school day with the kids for a while, and I wanted to have an adventure, but the 12 year old was reluctant to visit a museum or go on a hike (the two things I would have done), so we stayed close to home and it ended up being mostly a lovely day. In the morning we “ran” to a cafe and had special drinks and pastries. The run was the 7 year old’s idea. It was a very slow run, punctuated by much walking, but I think both kids felt good about it. At one point, the 7 year old was losing steam and the 12 year old grabbed his hand to encourage him along, telling him we just needed to make it to the next light.

We shared earbuds and listened to musical theatre soundtracks, singing along at the top of our lungs, which got a lot of smiles from other people on the path. After our special drinks and pastries, we walked home (still singing loudly) and had lunch. At some point during the walk home, I had it in my head that I wanted to have a car-free day. So after lunch, we took the metro to my work as an exercise for the 12 year old on how to take the metro on her own. I mean we were with her, but I had her lead the way. Then we went to the library near work, got some books – including Dogman books in French (Super-Chien!) – and then came home. The rest of the day, I baked Brazilian Cheesy Bread and brownies and we watched some tv as a family. It was a pretty low key day, but it was nice to spend time with the two big kids.

Side note: the library we went to was a DC Library, which we don’t often go to since we live in Maryland. I snapped this photo for their Busy Person’s Book Club- I love that idea.

-a new Costco snack. I went to Costco to pick up food for the 5 year old’s birthday party, hoping to also grab another bag of those Chocolate Quinoa Crisps, but they were no where to be found!!!!! Typical of Costco to lure me in with a fabulous snack and then not carry it any more. No worries! Costco does not lack for snacks, and I found a new one – These crunchy savory rice cakes – all my favorite Thai food flavor profiles in a bite sized morsel!

One Not Fun Thing:
-The decluttering has kind of hit a roadblock. I gave away the kids’ play tent on Freecycle. Several mistakes here – I should have double triple checked that they were okay with my giving it away, even though they said okay initially – but the biggest one was giving it away while the youngest was at home. There were tear. So many tears. Heart-wrenching sobs. Our youngest kid is perhaps our most pragmatic child and is the least likely to get upset or feed into melodrama. So when she does get upset, it feels so so heart-breaking. Anyhow, I feel terrible about giving away the tent now and am kind of petrified of giving away anymore toys from the toy room. So much for the toy room purge progress. This definitely needs to get back on track, though.

Two OMG things that I’m probably the last person on earth to have discovered:
– Shaking out the floor mats. Every Wednesday morning, I take the kids to piano lessons. While the 12 year old has lessons, I go get gas. I’ve gotten in the habit of throwing out the trash while I pump gas, and it’s such a simple way to keep the car tidy. Well lately, I’ve also been shaking out the floor mats as well, and what a difference that makes! Vacuuming the car seems like a lot of work, but shaking out the floor mats? With a quick flick, i get rid off all the grass and dirt and what not and the car looks almost like I vacuumed, even though under the floor mat is still covered in grass and dirt and whatnot. I guess this isn’t earth shattering, and I don’t know why it had never occurred to me before to do this, but it makes a huge difference.

-USB plugs! Despite using a computer almost every day of my life for the past thirty years, and having to plug in and unplug USB plugs, and often plugging them in upside down and getting frustrated and wondering if I was missing something – well, you know what? I was missing something. USB plugs are marked! The marked part of the plug is the top. What???? I feel like such an idiot not to have known this. I’ll never try to plug in a mouse upside down again.

Grateful For:

-Flowers in the front walk- a splash of colour during a grey week. The sun has come out now, but last week was so grey and drizzly. Coming home in the rain, I just wanted to rush into the house, but the purple flowers that line our front walk, poking their heads out reminded me to take a moment and savor beautiful things.

-The Husband booking the 5 year olds’ birthday party venue. I will admit I am not a birthday person. Witness the 7 year old not getting a party last year because I just couldn’t get it together. So this year for the youngest kid’s birthday, the Husband took it up on himself to research venues, run the options by the 5 year old, and then book the venue she picked. Done. Once a venue is booked, I’m good at food and other logistics. It’s that first push of the boulder that I’m not good at.

-The guy (D) who comes and fixes things for us. I am not a DIY/ Fix it myself kind of person. I might paint a room, and I have changed a light switch, and I did tile the basement of our first house. But in general, while I like the idea of doing my own DIY projects, I wouldn’t work on a timeline that is acceptable to other people in the house. Enter D, who comes in and will do both small and large jobs for us. He is careful and also honest – if something isn’t in his wheelhouse, he’ll tell us rather than try to figure it out. Anyhow, he was here to paint our new front door, and he’s done such a smooth job that every time I close the front door, I give it door an extra stroke because it’s just so glossy and pretty. He also replaced a light fixture in the kids’ room – I had always hated the fixture that was in the room when we moved it – everything was always so dark. Oh also installed a new medicine cabinet. Now the room is full of light. I’m grateful to D for making out home nicer bit by bit.

Looking Forward To:
-Starting a new opera. This week I’ll start prep for my next show. I’m excited to get back to a rehearsal room, but also kind of dreading it. The calendar is very full these next few months and I get overwhelmed thinking about it. One week, one day, one hour at a time, I suppose.

-Going contra dancing! The Husband sent me a link to a contradance that is ten minutes away and suggested that we go. It’s on a Thursday night and there are a million reasons we shouldn’t go – we haven’t been contra-dancing in years, and it might be a disastrously late night for everyone, the kids might hate it – but I’m looking forward to going. The Husband and I met at a contradance, so there’s a special place in my heart for dancing.

-re-setting my phone habits. I was listening to this 2015 episode of Note To Self with Sherry Turkle where she talks about how the mere presence of one’s phone is a huge distraction and I do find that it’s true for me. There are for sure things that I find valuable from having my phone, but also lots that just makes me fell sluggish. I want to be more thoughtful about how my phone plays in my life, so I’m trying this Bored and Brilliant challenge to re-set some habits. It’s supposed to be a 7 day challenge, but some of the challenges I think I’ll do more more than one day. The first challenge was to put one’s phone away while in transit – while driving, walking, on public transportation – and I’m trying to make that a longer habit. I think my goal is not necessarily to reduce time on my phone, but to reduce the number of times I pick up my phone.

– We started this tv show:

It’s sharply hilarious and skewers everyone on the political spectrum, as one might expect of a show about a gay public high school teacher in a school in Austin, TX. As I have a kid who is spitting distance to high school, this show fills me with dread and hope.

What We Ate (two weeks’ worth): I’m going to be real honest. I don’t know what the family ate while I worked the event. Upshot they were fed. Thank you to the Husband and my mother. We’re going into full on opera season, so I want to start thinking through more meals that can be made ahead or that the husband can make quickly.

Monday: Chicken wings and green beans. These are my mother’s chicken wings that the kids always ask her to make. It involves marinating the wings in garlic and soy sauce, pan frying and then baking with honey and more garlic. I could eat a whole panful by myself. Here’s the recipe:

Tuesday: no clue

Wednesday: no idea.

Thursday: Zucchini boats. The Husband cooked. Zucchini stuffed with ground turkey and topped with cheese. I told the seven year old to label the leftovers:

Friday: Pizza (take out) and Glee

Saturday: Toast. We had a lot going on this weekend and we wanted to make sure we had time for game night, so we had the ultimate simple supper. Toast. Some of us had toast and peanut butter, some had toast and jam. There was probably fruit and cut up veggies to go with, but I can’t be sure.

Sunday: Toast again. It was that kind of weekend.

Monday: Sandwiches (grilled cheese) and leftovers. Monday is very activity heavy so we usually have soup or sandwiches on Monday.

Tuesday: Eggplant Dan Dan Noodles, a Hetty Lui McKinnon recipe from the New York Times. Tasty and surprisingly fast, using Japanese eggplant from the farmer’s market. I added tofu, just fried it the same as the eggplant. VEgan.

Wednesday: Lemony White Bean Soup with Turkey and Greens from the NY Times Cooking site. This was really tasty – I started it on teh stove and the finished it in the InstantPot so it would be ready to eat when we got back from gymnastics. I didn’t have ground turkey, but in an effort to clean out our freezer, I took some chicken breasts and chopped it in the food processor. I also chopped up the chayote squash that came in our Hungry Harvest box and which had been confounding me, and threw that in too. After dinner, there was only two or three servings left, so I added another can of beans, a quart of chicken broth and the leftover ground turkey from the zucchini boats, cooked it in the InstantPot for another 15 minutes and then presto! had soup to go into the freezer for a quick leftover meal later this month.

Thursday: Chickpea Sweet Potato Stew when I read this recipe on Suzanne’s site, I immediately screenshot it to make since I had some sweet potatoes to use up. The twelve year old and I thought this was delicious. The rest of the family didn’t love it. The Husband doesn’t like too much coconut milk in his food. Maybe if I had made it with chicken they would have liked it more.

Friday: Pizza (take out) and Rush Hour. I had never seen this movie before, and it was very entertaining. For those who are unfamiliar, Rush Hour is a buddy cop movie featuring Jackie Chan as a police officer from China who comes to China when his bosses daughter is kidnapped, and gets paired with a Black LAPD officer played by Chris Tucker to solve the case. I was kind of afraid before we watched that there would be cringe-y Asian stereotypes in it, something that I’m kind of sensitive to the kids seeing. (I had to turn off All Dogs Go To Heaven within the first ten minutes because my kids really don’t need to see a buck toothed slanty eyed dog from “Siam”. Same reason I’ll probably not show my kids Breakfast at Tiffany’s any time soon, even though Audrey Hepburn is sublime in that movie. I wouldn’t say “never” but there would have to be some conversations first.) But Rush Hour was surprisingly free of bad Asian stereotypes and racist jokes. There were definitely “race” jokes, but I do think there’s a fine line between jokes about race and jokes that are racist. And the whole Black Cop/ Asian Cop thing – I don’t know if my kids will ever get how really cool and revolutionary that pairing of Chris Tucker and Jackie Chan was. Also -now I want to show them Shaolin Soccer.

Saturday: Leftovers and Bahn mi sandwiches. (I worked this evening)

Sunday: Pizza leftover from the 5 year old’s birthday party. I brought way too much food to the party, but it’s not a bad thing because now I have fruit salad and cut up veggies and chip and guac to last all week. And pizza. I froze one whole pizza for later – I’ve never done this, so I’m excited to try it out.

And now we are into October. Fall and Hallowe’en and all the things! And then the slide into the end of the year. Hope you are having a lovely week, that you are staying safe and dry where you are.

Weekly recap + what we ate: Where I went

First off – I hope people who were in Hurricane Helene’s path are doing okay. My friend’s parents are in North Carolina and luckily they are fine, but there are so many around them who are facing enormous challenges. The devastation is huge and heartbreaking.

We did not do any decluttering last week (though now two weeks ago – you know when you write a post and it kind of sits in your folder because you don’t have time to finish it? Yeah… that was the past couple of days. Which means there will probably be another weekly recap post less than a week after this one) Anyhow, decluttering took a backseat because my parents came into town and I had to work most of Sunday. But for the upcoming week, things on my list:

-List toys on freecycle that we are going to get rid of.
-Take car seats to Wider Circle [note – this is done!]
-Find seam ripper and deal with purple Fort cushions
-Sit in the toy room and imagine what it would take to make it functional
-Maybe tackle the mess under the console table in my bedroom.

We did clean out a large chunk of the fridge- the jars of random condiments, dressings, pickles, kimchi…. It was a little concerning some of the things I found. It seems as if somethings never go bad- I’m looking at you, cranberry relish from Thanksgiving. Though I feel like there was some fermentation happening. Also I have a lot of jars of sourdough starter. Maybe I need to see if there is still life there. I think I need to also do a freezer clean out soon too and eat it down a little.

While I contemplate those things, I thought I’d write another account of where I went this past week. I did this once last Spring, when I was prepping for a show. It’s an interesting journaling technique I read about, which is exactly what it sounds like – recording where I went – and I thought it would be interesting to see what I’m doing now in one of my slower work periods- I’m on a 20 hour per week contract right now.

Monday
8:55am home –> School bus drop off (4 mins)
9:15am school bus drop –> friends’ house. Their kids were sick and I went over to hang out for a little bit with their kids since my friends had to be at work. (5 mins)
2:00pm friends’ house –> trail for a run (3 min drive + 25 min run)
2:30apm trail –> Library to drop off books (10 mins)
3:00pm library –> home (10 mins)
4:00pm home –> pick up 4 year old from daycare –> home again (10 minute walk x 2)
6:45pm home –>12 year old’s basketball clinic the –> home. The gym is walking distance, so I like to have her walk when possible. When she is reluctant, I offer the inducement of going with her and listening to our audiobook together. Right now we’re listening to Permanent Record by Mary H. K. Choi. (15 mins x2)

Tuesday
8:55am home –> school bus drop off (4 mins)
9:3oam school bus drop off –> Target (pick up deodorant and shaving cream) (10 mins)
10:15am Target –> Library –> home (yes! Twice in one week! I had an exciting hold come in, see below) (5 mins/ 15 mins)
11:30am home –> work (15 mins)
7:30pm work –> home (15 mins)

Wednesday
7:05am home —> piano lessons (7 mins)
7:15am piano lessons —> gas station —> bagels shop —> back to piano lessons (25 mins)
7:45am piano lessons —> middle school —> piano lessons (20 mins)
8:20am piano lessons —> home (7 mins)
9:00am home —> bus stop (4 mins)
9:30 am bus stop –> trail –> run/walk (3 mins drive/ 25 min run/ 20 min walk)
10:30am trail –> Hmart to pick up groceries for dinner (10 mins)
11:30am Hmart –> home (10 mins)
12:30pm home –> work (15 mins)
3:00pm work –> pick up 4 year old –> gymnastics class (30 mins)
4:30pm gymnastics –> home (10 mins)
5:30pm home –> work (15 mins)
10:30pm work –> home (15 mins)
THAT WAS A LONG DAY!

Thursday
9:00am home —> school bus stop (4 mins)
9:20am school bus stop -> home (4 mins)
11:30am Home —> work (bike, 25 mins)
3:30pm Work —> home (bike 30 mins)
6:50pm Home—> friend’s house to drop off the two little kids so we can go to —> back to school night at 7 year old’s school (20 mins)
8:30pm school —> friend to pick up littles —> home (20 mins)

Friday
9:00 am home —> school bus (4 mins)
9:20 am school bus —> work (15 mins)
3:50pm work —> 7 year old’s school – he missed his afternoon bus home (10 mins)
4:10 pm school —> home (10 mins)
5:45pm home —> grocery store, to pick up supplies to make a cake (meanwhile, the Husband and the 7 year old went to sewing class) (10 mins)
6:30pm grocery store —> home for the night. (10 mins)

Saturday
10:30a: home —> 7 year olds’s soccer game (15 mins)
12:15pm Soccer game —> home (15 mins)
5:30pm Home —> airport to pick up my parents, or rather cell phone lot. (40 mins)
6:15pm Cell phone lot —> arrivals —> silver diner for dinner (20 mins)
8:15pm Silver Diner —> home (30 mins)

Sunday –
8:55pm Home —> agility class for four year old (15 mins)
10:00am Agility class —> home (15 mins)
11:00a home —> work (15 mins)
11:15am- work —> farmer’s market nearby (5 minute walk)
11:45 am farmer’s market —> work (5 min walk)
3:00pm- work —> coffee run —> back to work (25 min walk)
6:00pm work —> home (20 min drive)

Thoughts from this week’s account of going places: Not a lot of driving this week for myself – just mostly to the bus stop and to work. I’m glad I live near our rehearsal studios and that my commute is usually 15-20 minutes. Proximity is also key for kids’ activities – no activity is more than 15/20 minutes away. My friend’s kid got placed on a soccer team that practices 30 minutes away on a weekday afternoon- getting on the beltway at rush hour would get tiresome really fast.
-That’s 3.5 hours in the car this week. Not bad. that’s 2% of my week. The less time I have to spend in my car, the better.
-I’m glad I got to get on my bike and did some walking.
-For a week on a reduced work schedule I went into work 4 out of 7 days, which feels like a lot. I’m still trying to figure out if I need to find a better rhythm when I have 20 hour weeks – like do I need to work from home more? Do I need to be more efficient with my hours? But each week is unique – different meetings and things to cover, so it’s hard to have a set consistent schedule. (Which reminds me, I need to remove my Out of Office message from this summer…)
-I find having to run errands irksome – Target, grocery store, etc. But I also don’t love constantly ordering from Amazon. Why do we always need stuff?
-We live pretty close to three airports, but I always prefer picking up people at BWI because it’s the simplest to get to. DCA is close to the city so the traffic patterns can be funky, and Dulles has waaaaaay too much traffic to get there. On paper it looks 30 minutes away, but in reality it can take up to an hour. I like picking people up/ dropping them off at the airport whenever we can – I love seeing them on the curb waiting, I love that first happy wave and hug, I love the sense of arrival. Though I’m always reminded of the scene in When Harry Met Sally… where Harry says he never takes people to the airport at the beginning of a relationship because he never wants to get to the stage where they say, “How come you never take me to the airport anymore?” Even in this age of Uber, Lyft, and public transportation, that sentiment still feels applicable today.

Creative project of the week: I baked a cake! I had to work on the youngest kids’ birthday, so we celebrated the night before. She wanted a unicorn cake. The Husband works next to a store that sells cake and cookie decorating supplies, so he popped over there to see if they had unicorn figurines or sprinkles or anything that we could put on a cake. The people who run the shop are very creative and helpful and love to give advice. From the store, the Husband texted me these pictures:

I’ve never done a shaped cake before, so I was a little skeptical, but I decided to give it a go anyway. The 4 (now 5!) year old helped to make the cake, and even though we lost a small chunk of cake as it came out of the pan, I just stuck the chunk back on and frosted away. I was going to pipe the decorations, but by the time I started it was late so I instead really leaned into using the sprinkles:

Interesting podcast episode that I listened to: This episode of House Calls where Surgeon General Vivek Murthy interviews Adam Grant, and organizational psychologist who specializes in work place culture. I listened to this book while mowing the lawn. There was one part that was a little off-putting where Grant talks about finding ways to admit mistakes and be vulnerable at work, and in a lot of ways, I think this is a luxury men are afforded more than women. Why can men admit mistakes and it comes across as being strong but when women do it, it’s perceived as flaky? Is it a tone thing? or an attitude thing? Or my own preconceptions? Not sure on that one…

But aside from that I thought it was was great episode. Grant talks about defining success as process and values based rather than product or achievement based – I thought that was a great point. And about half way through the episode, a really interesting conversation about parenting evolved. Grant talks a lot about getting your children’s buy in. I really liked his suggestion of asking your kids for advice as a way to make them feel important. I’ve started doing this sometimes and I’m surprised by how direct their solutions can be. Usually they say something like, “Do something else.” Inspired by that episode, though, I talked to the Husband and I think we want to implement weekly family meetings. A time for everyone to look at the week ahead and know where everyone is going and see if anyone has any larger family topics to bring up.

When my aunt was visiting a few weeks ago, she made the comment about how nice it was that everyone has a chance to speak at our dinner table. She was referencing how we go around at most dinners and everyone says their Rose, Buds, and Thorns. (ie something good, something they’re looking forward to, and something hard.) My aunt said when her kids were little, they weren’t allowed to speak at the dinner table – they lived with her in laws and dinner was a time for the matriarch of the family to pontificate on what a good family they are and tell the kids how important it was for them to do well in school and activities. So I guess the idea of my kids all getting a turn to speak was novel to my aunt. Dinner is certainly a loud and unchecked affair at our house. There is talking and shouting and getting up and sitting in laps (still)… I don’t know… I kind of love it, this communal chaos. I mean maybe not 100% of the time – sometimes I do just want them to sit down and eat dinner – that’s when we have silent eating time – but I miss out on so many dinners because of my work schedule that I feel like when I can be home for dinner, I want it to feel like a time where we can share and bond. With everyone’s different activities and stresses, I think we will only feel more fractured as a family as the kids get older, so I want to put in structures and routines now – dinner rituals, family meetings, pizza and movie nights – that can feel grounding.

Grateful For
– My parents coming to visit. They are so good about entertaining the kids.

-School adjacent activities. The 12 year old joined the cross country team and the 7 year old is taking programming classes after school. I love that they get to fit in extracurriculars that they can go to straight after school, and I don’t have to drive them. I feel lucky that we live somewhere where they have these opportunities.

– All of you who validated my high school feelings about the preschool WhatsApp group last week. I’m glad I have a place to vent these stressors. So it turns out that the invite to the party went to the whole Whatsapp group the week before I joined, so I guess if I had joined the group earlier, my child would have been invited to the party. So it wasn’t purposefully excluding my kids. I think I’m still trying to figure out if there is anything of value in staying in the group. I do believe in parenting as a community and that we can all support each other, but is being in this group the way to do it?

Looking forward to:
-A new month! It’s October! I feel like after Hallowe’en begins the slow slide towards the end of the year, so October is my one month to enjoy fall. It’s also a really buys time work-wise. I’ve seen some trees with leaves tipped in red and gold already, and on the one hand I feel like it’s too soon, but on the other hand I can’t wait to see all the beautiful fall colour.

-The (now) 5 year old’s birthday party. By the time we got around to booking a place, the only time slots were two weeks after her birthday. Oh well. I’m hoping to keep it super simple – pizza, cake, snacks, fruit, applesauce pouches, juice, and water. Maybe something for the grown ups to snack on too? The party is from 3p-5pm, so hearty snacks are definitely in order. The venue doesn’t allow balloons, so I’m taking this as an opportunity to eschew decor.

-Reading this book, the sequel to The House in The Cerulean Sea.

I loved The House in The Cerulean Sea so much. Some might accuse it of being a slight bit twee, but it was one of my favorite reads the year that it came out. I got a notification from the library that my hold for this book, its sequel, had come in. I had put a hold on this book the moment I could, even before it was released, but even still, I was surprised that my copy had come in so quickly. I went to the library to pick it up, only to discover that I had accidentally put the audiobook on hold, not the paper book. There was a case of CDs waiting for me on my holds shelf. Oh no. I knew the waitlist for this book would be on the longer side, so I sighed sadly and took the book back to the check out desk and asked if they could take the CDs back and put me on the holds list for the book. The librarian looked up the book.
“You know,” he said, pointing behind me, “This book might be over there on the Lucky Day shelf.” The Lucky Day shelf is for books that you can borrow for just three weeks, with no renewal period.
I walked over, and yes, indeed! There was a brand new shiny copy of the book. I might have squealed with delight as I went to check it out. Next to me at the self check out, a man looked at me knowingly and said, “Isn’t it the best feeling when the exact book you want is on the shelf?”
Yes, yes, it is.

What we ate:
Monday: Olive Garden Vegan Gnocchi Soup. This is one of my favorite soups to make – it’s super easy and vegan! Made ahead since I wasn’t home that night.

Tuesday: Fried fish and green beans. The Husband cooked.

Wednesday: Quinoa Black Bean and Mango Salad from America’s Test Kitchen’s Vegan for Everyone. I should get this cookbook out from the library again – it has lots of easy vegan recipes. I made this ahead of time since again, I had to work that night.

Thursday: Baked chicken breasts and steamed green beans. The 12 year old had wanted to make dinner (Cornflake chicken), but she ended up being sick, so I threw this meal together.

Friday: Pizza (ordered from a new to us place that does Detroit style pizza. It was tasty, but apparently getting there is tricky because it involved going into a residential complex.) and movie (Hotel Transylvania. Not one that I need to watch again.)

Saturday: Silver Diner on the way home from the airport. I got the liver and onions.

Sunday: We celebrated the 4–> 5 year old’s birthday early because I had to work on her actual birthday. She got to pick the dinner and she chose Dino chicken nuggets, green beans, and tater tots. And of course the cake.

She did take the Elsa dress off before we had cake. She’s really sensible like that.

Weekly recap + what we ate: September Stressors

Declutter-palooza continues. This past weekend it was the toy/play room. Toy room before:

After:

It’s still pretty bad, but at least you can see the floor!

Decluttering the toy room felt a lot harder than the attic. I think partly because the toy room needs to become a hybrid toy room/guest room/office/ craft room, we’re going to have to really think about functionality and efficiency of space. Also a lot of the toys have sentimental value. The tabletop kitchen was something the prop crew head at one of my summer gigs helped me make one summer when the oldest kid was two or three. A lot of the trucks were from the Husband’s childhood. The Barbie apartment was a much beloved toy and even though it’s missing the balcony and is probably a safety hazard of exposed screws, the 12 year old does not want to get rid of it.

The black bin is full of toys to donate or Freecycle, so that will get moved out. We threw out two bags of toys but it was mostly small plastic trinkets and things that were broken or missing pieces. A lot of the bigger items and sets still remain. This is my struggle with the toy room – most of the stuff is the bigger things. We can throw out all the small plastic party favors and fidget toys and broken Barbies, but that barely makes a dent.

What I think is still in the “keep pile”:
-Wooden Train Track set
– Magnaformers
-Wooden blocks
-A box of matchbox cars and similar small vehicles
-Trucks, School bus, recycle truck, Jumbo jet, space ship, remote control car
-box of puzzles.
-Domino set – where you can set up dominos to topple.
-A box of stuffed animals
-Play shopping cart and dolls
-Play grocery stand
-Two doll houses and furniture (why two?? They’re both from the Husband’s childhood)
-a container of figurines
-the aforementioned play kitchen, food, pots and pans
-Nugget play cushions
-Dress up clothes. So many dress up clothes.
-Lincoln Logs. Genuine wooden ones from the Husband’s childhood.
-Lego set and Barbie paraphernalia, but this will go into the 12 year old’s room eventually so I don’t have to decide what to do with it.
-Four stomp cars.

On the “TBD” pile:
-Fort play cushions. These are huge cushions you can use to build forts. We bought it as part of a Kickstarter. Only the thing got recalled because there are magnets that hold the cushions together and the magnets can fall out. But I figure if I can take the magnets out, we can still use the cushions. But I can’t find my seam ripper. So TBD on that.

All in all, I’m finding this decluttering process rather stressful. Not just the decluttering, but also the figuring out of new systems, trying to set a baseline clean level that can be easily achieved. It’s the kind of thing where I can’t really see right now where the solutions are. So even though I think we’ve whittled down the toys by a lot, the room still looks really cluttered and messy.

I felt a lot of latent stressors percolating last week. Just a general feeling of overwhelm and restlessness. I wouldn’t necessarily call myself an anxious person, but I did have some moments of feeling absolutely swamped. Things that were simmering in my stress cauldron last week:

-Mom guilt – signing my kids up for too many extracurriculars. Originally we had Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday without activities, but then opportunities came up and now we have activities on Wednesday and later in October Tuesday too. Each kid is doing at least three activities. Is it too much?

-Mom guilt – signing my kids up for not enough extra extracurriculars. And on the flip side, I’m getting notices of other things the kids could take part in, and I know that they are things that the kids would enjoy and I wonder, are they missing out?

– Not keeping track of all the different sign ups and what not. This is sort of related to the above, but there are a couple of things that we missed out on because I just couldn’t get my head together to do the sign ups or submit medical forms. And I keep double booking things and missing meetings. And it just makes me feel like things are falling through the cracks.

-Starting back at work and not quite knowing everything that’s going on. I have this feeling in the back of my mind that I’m missing something. I’m just going to have to fake it until I figure out what’s going on.

-Are we going to have a good time in Malaysia this winter? It’s an awful lot of money to spend to not have a good trip.

-WhatsApp group insecurities. So there’s a WhatsApp group for the 4 year old’s pre-school class. When my friend first added me, I thought it would be a nice way to get to know other parents. I even thought I’d reach out and invite people over for a happy hour since we live very close to the school. BUT then people started posting pictures and “Thanks for having us!” and “What a great time!” and “Thanks for coming!” messages for a party that my kid was not invited to. And I got really upset about it. I mean if you are going to a party that not every kid in the class was invited to, then maybe don’t mention it on the WhatsApp group? And then someone mentioned getting drinks on another person’s porch and I just started to feel very – well I’d say “high school” but I didn’t go through this in high school, so not sure what to call this feeling of being left out. And really, I’m probably reading too much into it – no one is being malicious or mean or anything. Just a little exclusive and insensitive about who all might be on the group. What I really want to do is to drop a message introducing myself, and ask if other people could do the same since most of the phone numbers in the group are unfamiliar to me. But… there are 40 names on the chain, so asking for introductions seems a little impractical. I was also reading an article last week about how people are more likely to connect during the beginning stages of an activity, and it’s made me realized that I feel like I’ve missed the boat on making friends within this WhatsApp group. Anyhow, I kind of need to get over my feelings about this list. This is not something that I need to spend mental energy on.

And then there is the things that are perpetually on my list of stressors – namely my ancient car and the window treatments for the living room. I feel like around last year at this time I wrote a post about things making me stressed- so maybe it’s just September that brings it on? I have to remind myself either I will fix some of these issues and they will stop stressing me out, or I will just decide they aren’t worth the real estate they are taking up in my head and leave things to resolve themselves.

Well, on the other hand – some fun things that happened last week.
-I had one of my supertitle gigs (more on that below!), and on my dinner break got to walk around the performing arts center and see some beautiful evening sky and listen to some music.

-We started weekend activities. One child had a soccer game on Saturday. On Sunday there was the usual Agility class for the 4 year old, and then skating for the the 4 and 7 year old. Since the skating lessons are back to back time slots, I will take the kid who is not in a lesson to public skate and then switch. Skating is so much fun!

-Friendship Picnic. After skating on Sunday, we had to have lunch, and I remembered that the County was having a Friendship Picnic at a nearby park where they would be serving free lunch. The shuttle to the picnic left from the ice rink parking lot, so I figured we could go check out the picnic.
I was so impressed by the whole affair! The Friendship Picnic has been going on for ten years and I never went because I always thought it would be a madhouse. Surely, anything that promised free food and bounce houses was going to be chaotic, and I don’t like being in chaotic crowds. But the whole thing was actually really well organized. When you arrived, if you wanted lunch, you picked up a wristband for a lunch option – the choices were vegetarian/kosher, Halal, and vegan, and there were wristbands for ice cream. There were also multiple coolers full of bottled water all over for people to grab. I picked the vegetarian/kosher option and we went to the tent that matched our wristband and got falafel in pita with fries. It was so delicious – the pita in particular was fluffy and not dry. The kids (I only had the two younger ones with me) didn’t eat much of their falafel, but they ate the fries. Oh well.
We sat in the shade and ate our lunch while listening to some county officials give speeches and when that was over, a band started playing music. When the kids were done eating, we went to the bounce houses. The 7 year old in particular loved this basketball connect four game and spent a while at it. When the kids got tired of the bounce houses, they went to the playground. All in all it was a lovely event. I’ll have to remember to mark my calendar for the Friendship Picnic next year.

-An interesting comment – I had posted a few weeks ago about how my biracial kids were the norm not the exception at school these days. I often think, with my kids, how important it is to see themselves reflected in mainstream media. I remember growing up in a small city in Canada where there were only a handful of Asian families. In my K-8 elementary school, our family and one other family from India were the only non-white families. There were no Black families. I remember wanting to be blond when I was a child; I thought you had to be blond to be pretty because that was what was around me and what I saw in the mainstream media. Anyhow, I was musing in that post about how long we’ve come – how my kids don’t have to be the only half-Asian kids in their class and how they see so much more diversity in their lives than I did growing up. And then we were watching a trailer for the first Transformers movie and the 12 year old sees Megan Fox on the screen and suddenly exclaims, “She’s really hot. And she’s not blond! Mom, she has dark hair like me and she’s so pretty!” And I didn’t know whether to feel thankful/happy that my 12 year old realizes that she didn’t have to be blond to be pretty, or to be sad that she ever even felt that way.

-Fun contrasting picture – I feel like this is the modern day equivalent to throwing everything in the dishwasher to hide the mess when guests come over – I had to jump on a work call one day while at home and I frantically pushed everything to one end of the dining room table to make room for my computer at the other end. This is what you saw on my screen:

This is what was behind the computer:

I’m not one to have a super curated zoom background for sure, but I’m going to at least pretend that my house is not a disaster.

Grateful For:
-Middle School Administrators. The 12 year old had an incident in school – not my story to tell, but even though I’m a pretty hands off parent, it was something I felt had to be addressed by the teacher. So I wrote an email to the teacher and the next morning, the Assistant Principal called me and told me the matter had been forwarded to him and the issue had been addressed. He was patient and told me what he did on his end and answered all my questions. I’m so grateful for the quick and compassionate response. I feel like middle schoolers can be so mercurial and confusing to deal with as they try to figure out how to navigate independence and making good choices – I’m so thankful for the administrators and teachers who are there to support tweens and their parents.

-Being able to print at the Library. We don’t have a printer at home. Usually when I need to print something the Husband or I will do it at work, but neither of us were at work the day I needed to submit medical forms for the 12 year old to join the cross country team at school. So I went to the library, loaded money on my library card and printed the forms off there. It was $1.50 for ten pages and very easy to do. while at the library, I looked at all the people working at the four rows of public computers and I thought of all the people who don’t have internet access at home and who need to go online for whatever reason – it seems like so many things have to be done online these days. What a wonderful thing the library is!

-My dentist and having dental insurance. I had a dentist appointment for a cleaning. It’s been over a year since my last cleaning, but I had to cancel my last appointment and the next availability was three months away, so it got away from me. I love my dentist and hygienist. They are nice, funny, they remember me. The aren’t in my insurance network, but they submit the paperwork to get everything reimbursed. And now my teeth feel smooth and clean!

-Good diction and imslp.com. Okay – this will be one of those “in the weeds” work type things, so apologies if it’s boring or if don’t explain it very well, but .. I had a supertitle gig for a voice recital last week. The first piece on the program was Franz Liszt’s Three Songs on Petrarch Sonnets. So the recital starts, the pianist starts playing and I’m following along in my music so that I can bring up the right translation slides at the right time to coincide with the singing. And suddenly I don’t quite know what is going on, because I can’t seem to follow the music. I think, maybe I can’t hear the pianist that well since I’m sitting in a booth at the back of the theatre? Maybe it’s because she’s playing too quietly? Maybe I’ve forgotten how to read music? Then the singer starts singing and it is definitely not what is on the page in front of me. The words are correct, but not the notes. At this point, I’m starting to panic a little bit because I’m realizing that I don’t have the right music in front of me. Which is concerning because I now don’t know when to advance the slides to the next bit of text since I don’t know when the next sung line is coming. So with one hand, I keep trying to keep the slides going to correspond to the words coming out of the singer’s mouth, with my other hand, I get out my phone and google “Liszt Petrarch songs”. And…
Did you know that Franz Liszt wrote two sets of songs based on the sonnets of Petrarch?
And I had the music for the wrong set in front of me.
Luckily the words are the same, and the singer has very clear diction, so I could keep up with the titles, though they were each a half beat late so that I could figure out which line he was on at any given time. And on my phone, I was able to go to this amazing website IMSLP (International Music Score Library Project, where they have legions of scores that are in the public domain) and pull up the right score and by the middle of the second song I was back on track – looking at the right music on my phone, while looking at the slide translations and numbers on my computer and iPad as the singer sang the set. So… I am grateful that the singer had good diction so I could follow the words when I couldn’t follow the music, and I’m grateful for imslp that i could quickly find the music. Isn’t the internet amazing?

Looking Forward To:

-My parents are coming for a visit!

– Baking a cake! The 4 year old turns five next week and I’m going to bake her a cake. She has also requested dino chicken nuggets for dinner. I need to find those.

-I mentioned this book in my books post, and it’s so much fun I can’t wait to read it every day. Sometimes I feel like my life is a suburban mom cliche and this novel plays into those cliches hilariously. There is a line about Old Navy Pixie Pants that made me snort with laughter.

What We Ate:

Monday: Zucchini, tofu and udon by Hetty Lui McKinnon from New York Times Cooking. Super easy -stir fry crumbled tofu, add sliced zucchini and garlic, add cooked udon noodles and a miso butter sauce. Grind lots of pepper over it. The 7 year old really loved this. vegan because I used olive oil instead of butter for the sauce.

Tuesday: Chicken with Apples and Curry from Dinner a Love Story. The flavors were good, but I have never been able to cook chicken breasts without the bieng stringy and tough. Tips?

Wednesday: Sandwiches from the Deli. The 7 year old had soccer practice at 6pm and we’re still trying to figure out how best to handle dinner on those days.

Thursday: Mac n Cheese, Waffles, and green beans. The Husband cooked and he had leftover waffles which we could have for breakfast, which is one of my favorite parts about making waffles. I worked this night and had a salad from the work Canteen.

Friday: Pizza (Store bought, Detroit style), and Hotel Transylvania. This movie did not do anything for me.

Saturday: We had dinner at a friend’s house – he smoked some meat and made some amazing baked beans. Apple pie for dessert.

Sunday: Eggs and leftovers. There was a Bears game on this night which we were planning to watch. At some point I looked at the Husband and said, “What are we going to feed the kids for dinner?” And he said, “I was going to make popcorn.” I must have given him a disapproving wife look because he then said, “I’ll make some eggs.”

How was your week? Does your zoom background belie the true chaos of your home? What were your three favorite toys growing up?

Weekly recap + what we ate: September 2024 aspirations and Declutter-palooza update

First weekend of Declutter-palooza happened!

Here is the Attic BEFORE:

No attic is complete with out a naked Cabbage Patch Doll!

Here is the Attic currently:

We (I) tried to use the “No Mess Declutter method” which is, honestly one of those things like “time blocking” where I think… well isn’t that just how people do things anyway? (How is “dedicate blocks of time to work on each task” revolutionary? It totally seems like a productivity bro trying to sell something people (women) have been doing for years…) Anyhow the method is – pick up one thing. Decide if it goes in trash, donate, or has another home in the house. If it’s the two former choices, put it in the correct pile. If it’s the last choice, go put it in that better place. Come back. Pick up another object. Rinse. Repeat. I kind of wanted to avoid taking everything out of the attic and then having it take over the house while we dealt with it. So this method seemed to make sense. It wasn’t perfect – there are definitely meandering piles of things around the house that we are still thinking about – but at least you can walk from one end of the attic to another now.

A lot of our stuff just got moved to a better space in the house, but a lot of it legit left the house. I took five bags of clothes to Goodwill, we put a bunch of stuff out for bulk trash pick up, I took the toddler bed, a stroller, and some more clothes to an organization (A Wider Circle) that helps people furnish their homes. They also have started taking baby supplies and clothes, so any clothes smaller than a size 3 went to Wider Circle. I learned that they also take car seats so three of our four car seats are going there next week too.

Things we got rid of that I’m sad about:
-The stroller. We had a fancy stroller – an UppaBaby Vista which we got on super discount because it was the floor model at Buy Buy Baby. The Husband really loved this stroller. It got us through three kids and lasted ten years before the frame broke. It’s been to England. It’s been all over the country. It’s been pushed down stairs. One summer, in the middle of a trip to Dutch Wonderland, the frame just broke. The youngest was almost three at the time and that was when we stopped using strollers.
-The twin mattress. It was a crappy mattress, but I feel like maybe I should have tried to take it to Wider Circle rather than leave it for bulk pick up.
– And I can’t think of anything else really. Maybe a couple items of baby clothes? Of course there are things that we kept for sentimental reasons that we aren’t quite ready to move out of the house yet. But it’s a process, right?

One thing that felt really cathartic to toss:
-breastmilk containers. I had an entire 18 gallon bin full of breastmilk containers and bottles. Why???? I haven’t pumped in three years. I think in my mind I’d find some use for all those teeny tiny bottles. Hah. I put them all in recycling. Bonus: I got an 18 gallon bin back!

Things I’m a little perplexed about, but which will probably just get thrown in the trash:
-The stroller attachments – so we put the broken stroller out on the curbe, but we still have all the attachments – the car seat frame, the rumble seat, the scooter board, the bassinet. Most of the this stuff I scoured craigslist (remember that… does anyone use craigslist anymore?) to get. Only we have a Vista v. 1, which they don’t make anymore so our attachments won’t fit current Vista stroller. I’m going to email UppaBaby and see if there is any way these attachments are still useful. I makes me a little sad to just junk it because the attachments weren’t actually used all that much.
-Baby bottles. What to do with all these? Do they even sell nipples for these anymore? I might put them on Freecycle to see if anyone wants them. Also this process has hammered home to me how much plastic is involved in having a baby.

One thing that was destined for the trash until a child found it:
-my father in law’s briefcase. The 7 year old found it and loves it. He keeps his nerf gun and light saber in it, like some kind of toy mafia gangster or something.

Next stop – the Toy Room….

The toy room will definitely be harder because everything in it has some kind of sentimental value for someone. We had thought about doing it without the kids, but I feel like that would some kind of betrayal of the kids’ trust. So we will do it together. Or try.

In other musings – turn of the calendar page to a new month, brings reflection and aspirations.

Side note – I really liked this article about the three types of “ritual days” one should incorporate into their month:
-“Get your ducks in a row” day to take care of life admin tasks
-“Idle Hands” day without any plans or commitments to unplug and rest and refresh.
-“Monthly Recap of the Mind” day to reflect on the last month and plan for anything upcoming. I feel like I take time to do this already, but I could be more mindful about it.
I feel like I have moments of each of those days, sometimes all in one day. But I like the idea of purposefully setting dates for each of those things in the calendar and letting each task take the focus for one day (or even 4-8 hours of one day.)

August highlights:
– Working on a wonderful show. I’m terrible at lying and when people ask me how a show went, sometimes I give a half grin and say, “It was fiiiiiiiine….” And then you know it was kind of a shit show. BUT – people have been asking me about this last show I worked on and I immediately light up and say, “It was great, really, really great.” And I mean it.
– Camping with the two younger kids.
-Solo weekend when I went hiking with a friend and to the Cassatt exhibit at the Philadelphia Museum of Art.
-meeting up with a friend whom I haven’t seen for five or six years at that Cassatt exhibit.
-First day of School!
-Visit from my mom and my aunt.
-Booking medical check ups and finding out that my uterii are fine.
-Peach Truck and other trips to the farmers market for fresh produce. (note to self – do more of this next summer)

August Low Lights:
-The 4 year old not getting into kindergarten. Made especially tough to swallow by the tuition increase at her daycare.
-Not having time to exercise – I only ran 7 times the whole month.
-hemorrhaging money a little bit for back to school things and activities.

September Aspirations – I realize looking back on August’s list that many of these things were on August’s list as well.
Home/Family Life:
-Declutter-palooza. See above.
– Settle into new patterns for the school year. Try to establish some good habits and routines.
– Get rid of my car. Clearly I’m making no progress on this since it shows up on this list every month. Micro goal – fill our the paperwork to donate the car to the high school trade program.
-Window treatments for the living room. Ditto above. Micro goal: Schedule appointment with the window people.
– Do some planning for a day trip to take while in Kuala Lumpur. (I’m feeling a little like we chose Kuala Lumpur too hastily because the parts of Malaysia that people say are worth visiting are outside of Kuala Lumpur, but with only four days, it might be too much for us to try to arrange to visit those places and get in the relaxing time that we want. But then part of me feels like any foreign country is worth seeing, right? I don’t really understand when people say “such and such place isn’t worth visiting.” It sounds so snobbish. The world is bigger than just the top ten sights, right?)
-Plan the 4 year old’s birthday party. (The Husband actually has booked the place already – I just have to make the invite and plan the food.)
-Make Cheesy bread. When we were visiting my friend in August, she made these really easy gluten-free cheesy buns, which she had learned about on her trip to Brazil. They were delicious. Fall is coming – I want to do more baking!
– make 2 vegan dinners a week.
-Figure out Hallowe’en costumes. October will be super busy for me, so I want to get this settled as soon as possible. So far, the 7 year old wants to wear his Darth Vader costume again and the 4 year old wants to be a fairy. Not sure about the 12 year old. Is 12 too old to go trick or treating?
-Schedule dentist appointments for the kids.
-Hike now that the weather is starting to cool off a little maybe I can convince the family to go for a hike. If not, maybe I can go on my own.
-Ride the Metro! Our metro station has re-opened after being closed all summer.

Me:
– 10 minutes of yoga or strength exercises 5/7 days a week.
– run 3/7 days a week
– Paint and send two cards.
– Blog – goal for 8 posts this month.
– Make time to journal and read in the morning.
-Schedule eye doctor appointment.
-To buy – purse (still), running/sports bras (I currently have three, but I only do laundry every two weeks, so I need more sports bras if I’m to run 3X a week.), a Fall jacket that isn’t my raincoat.
-see my friend K.
-Museum – maybe not this month, but writing it down so I don’t forget – there’s an exhibit on Impressionism at the National Gallery of Art until January. I want to make sure to go see it. There’s also a couple exhibits at the Freer and Sackler Museums (The Smithsonian’s Asian Art Collections) that look interesting too. There’s also a Lego exhibit at the Building Museum that would be fun with the kids.

Work:
-move desks at work.
-put all my contracted work dates into the calendar.
-update the production assistant guidebook.

Amazing Food Combination Discovery:
A little while ago, I wrote about discovering these chocolate quinoa crisps at Costco. Well, last week, I just made them better but spreading peanut butter on them. AMAZING. You’re welcome.

Grateful For:
-Cooler weather. Of course I wrote that then we got a row of 80 degree days. The mornings have been cooler at least. I’m excited for fall weather!

-Co-worker M who retired last week. She’s been at the Opera twice as longa s I’ve been there and has been so inspirational to me. She can be firm and gracious at the same time, and always makes sure that everyone is doing okay. There was a farewell party for her at work last week. I hate saying good-bye to people, but I had to tell her how amazing she has been. And she said the kindest thing to me – “You are proof that if you do consistent good work, you can get to the top of your department.” That almost made me cry. She also said she feels like the stage management department is a lot calmer since I took over. I don’t know that that is my doing, but I was so touched that she said that. I made her a card, because I thought she deserved a bouquet of flowers:

I’m really happy with how that purple ribbon turned out. That dark green Venus fly trap-ish leaf at the top, though… what even is that?

-Free dances and a lovely Sunday afternoon. We took the family to a Barn Dance last weekend at Glen Echo park. These are family friendly dances put on by the same group that organizes contra dances. (The Husband and I met at a contra dance at this same park.) Glen Echo is a former amusement park that is now kind of an arts/theatre/music/social dance venue. The Barn Dance takes place in the former Bumper Car Pavilion and it was free. There was a caller, live music and easy social dances. The kids all danced at least two dances and afterwards we went for a carousel ride ($2/ride or $5 to ride all day – one of the best deals in town!). Afterwards we went for ice cream at a new-to-me creamery. I had a scoop of the Guava ice cream and a scoop of the Old Bay Caramel. They were both really really really good. I was skeptical about the Old Bay Caramel, but if you like spice, savory, and sweet all in one – and I do – this might be right up your alley.

Looking Forward To:

-Public transportation. Like I mentioned above, our metro stop was closed all summer, and it has now re-opened. I’m looking forward to taking it places. I even took it to work once last week.

-Getting back to work. I’m feeling a little fractured right now – I’m starting to go to work meetings even though rehearsals don’t start for two weeks, so I know enough to know just how much I don’t know. But I’m looking forward to getting back in the swing of things and setting a more regular schedule.

-Watching this documentary:

It’s been out for a while, but I haven’t gotten a chance to watch it yet, so I’m putting it on the list. Drama and backstage machinations at a Ren Faire!!!! I’m there for it.

What We Ate:
Monday: Grilled Cheese and Apples. This was the day from the last post, when we went to the Renaissance Festival. We got home so late that no one felt like cooking, so we just had something super simple for dinner.

Tuesday: Cheesy Green Chili Bean Bake, from NY Times Cooking. I was looking for a way to used up some poblano peppers I had. This was really tasty. I used black beans instead of pinto because that’s what I had. The 7 year old, when I told him we were having Cheesy beans for dinner opted to make himself a peanut butter and jelly sandwich. But then half way through dinner, he said, “I think I’ll try the cheesy beans.” and he did and he said, “These are good! You didn’t tell me they would be good!” Sigh. (I made cornbread to go with it, but it wasn’t done in time so we just ate it with tortillas)

Wednesday – Eggplant and pork stir fry – the Husband cooked.

Thursday: Spiced Chickpea Stew with Coconut and Turmeric, though it’s more of a curry. This was also very tasty and it used a bunch of kale. Would make again. Vegan.

Friday: Pizza (take out – tasty but the restaurant is slow) and Glee.

Saturday: Eggs/Leftovers. This was Declutter-palooza day. I kind of forgot to feed the kids this day -the Husband threw together some eggs for them. Thank goodness.

Sunday: Kale pesto and gnocchi (from frozen) and leftover sausage. This was another day where we didn’t have anything planned but I had a little bit of kale leftover from Thursday’s chickpea stew. I’d never made kale pesto before, and was skeptical that the kids would like it, but they did!

How is your week? What have you thrown out lately? How old is too old for Trick or Treating?

Weekly recap + what we ate: Back to school 2024!

Well we’re off to the races with the 2024-2025 school year. And a new month. Whew. It was a pretty uneventful first week. The kids went to school. They came home. Extracurricular activities haven’t yet started, and I’m not yet working on a show, so it does feel like we are easing into the new school year.

First day of school celebratory boba run coupled with an Hmart trip.

Right out of the gate, though, the 7th grader’s middle school had their Back to School Night on Thursday. It felt a little soon to have a Back To School Night the fourth day of school, but oh well. I was glad of a chance to go – aside from the school plays and some early pick ups in the office, I haven’t really seen her middle school yet; last year it seemed as if every school event was on an evening when I had to work. At Back to School Night, the majority of the evening had the parents/guardians going to their student’s classes in order, with six minutes in each class and four minutes to get from one period to the other. Each student has seven classes a day, plus advisory and homeroom- down hallways, up stairs, from one end of school to another. I don’t know how the 12 year old manages this every day. I was exhausted by the end of the evening, but it was nice to put faces to the teachers and get a sense of what school is like for her. Last year I found middle school to be a huge black hole – the kid went to school. There were weekly newsletters that came home – all good things though. Once in a while a message from the Principal about an incident, or a form for me to sign. A few times a year, I saw grades. I suppose middle school is just one more step to independence and not knowing what my kid is up to.

My mother and my aunt were still in town most of last week. They had gone to New York City, but came back mid week. We did some less obvious touristy things. One day we went downtown to the Kennedy Center. We didn’t see a show or anything, but it’s just a beautiful building to walk around, and we had lunch at the Cafe on the roof, where there is a wonderful view of DC. There is an exhibit on JFK and his role in the arts. On that day, since we were already in the city, we went to the Portrait Gallery. I mainly picked the Portrait Gallery because it’s an easy metro ride and also I love sitting in its courtyard. There was an exhibit on Hollywood portraits, what I really liked seeing.

One of the portraits was of Merle Oberon, which I found fascinating because I didn’t realize that she was half South Asian. The blurb next to her portrait talked about how she had to hide her mixed race identity because of discrimination. I think of how I have half Asian kids and how it’s kind of no big deal because being mixed race a) is kind of a meaningless term – what is “race” anyhow? and b) is so common these days. I once read a statistic that the majority of kids will be of mixed race in the next ten years. (Or something like that – don’t quote me – it’s one of those statistics that’s stuck in my head, but I don’t remember where I heard it.) So thinking about being a mixed race person when it wasn’t so common and even considered scandalous is one of those things that I find really interesting to read about.

The day after that, we went to The National Museum of Health and Medicine, which is just a mile from my house. It’s a collection of body parts and medical equipment and photos and artifacts and such things related to the human body and how it can fall apart. The collection was started during the Civil War when doctors were encouraged to keep specimens of body parts and what not for research purposes. The most famous thing about it is that it has the bullet that killed Lincoln, along with some of his hair and the bloody cuffs of the doctor who operated on him. I didn’t realize this, but it also has a piece of President Garfield’s spine as well, from when he was shot. I kind of feel like you need to have a very strong stomach and sense of curiosity to go to this museum. It was especially interesting to go to the museum with my aunt who is a physician. She reminisced about her medical school days and pointed out the body parts and organs that were on display and told me all about what they did. The lady is amazing – she is 77 years old and still sees patients three days a week.

The last day of my Aunt’s visit, we took a trip to Longwood Gardens. What a beautiful riot of summer colour! I’m always glad for a visit to Longwood Gardens.

Labor Day Monday I took the three kids to the Renaissance Festival. I hadn’t originally planned to go over Labor Day weekend, but on Sunday our friends told us they were planning on going the next day, so it seemed like as good a time as any to go. Plus our other weekends in September were going to be full of kids’ activities. We had a great time. We saw the jousting (twice!), fencing shows, acrobats, Shakespeare parodies. We listened to loud feet-stomping, heart expanding music, ate turkey legs, reveled in people watching. The weather was gorgeous – warm and sunny with a breeze at just the right moments. The kids got sticky with melted ice cream and dirty with playground mulch. We laughed and wandered and had an all around great time.

Dressed up in all the layers. You can’t see it, but she’s also wearing fairy wings.

I think I did really well pacing our day. Once I (like Oliver Burkeman says) get used to the idea that you can’t see everything, then I think I could enjoy the things I did see without the sense that I should be somewhere else. I had each of the kids pick one thing they really wanted to do, and then planned around that. The 12 year old wanted to eat fried food, the 7 year old wanted to see the jousting, the 4 year old wanted to ride the pony, I wanted to see shows and laugh. So I looked at the schedule and map and plotted it out as soon as I got there. I picked four shows to anchor our day – 12 noon jousting, 2:00pm Death Scenes from Shakespeare, 3:30p Vixes En Garde, 5pm Piper Jones show. Then in and around we ate turkey legs (side note – these have gotten really expensive! They are now $12 a pop. I guess I’m okay with it, but it’s a little alarming), went to the pirate playground, shopped, and went on the Pony ride. It also helped that we met up with our friends who had three kids, so the older kids could take off together while I stuck with the little kids.

Coordinating with my friends was a little difficult at first because with all the mass of humanity at the Ren Faire – and it was very crowded – my cell phone couldn’t find a way to make calls or send text messages. I think next time I need a better, more concrete plan ahead of time of where to meet people. One we met up with my friends, though, I really enjoyed Ren Fairing with friends.

Food on a stick- the 7 year old has sausage, the four year old has mac n cheese.

Oh, and the one thing I was the MOST excited about – they’ve put in water bottle fillers at our Ren Faire! For years, I’ve carted so four full Nalgenes with me to the Faire, because I’m too cheap to pay for water at the Faire. Well this year, there were three water bottle fillers (labelled “drinking water from the well”) Yay. Ren Faire gets better and better every year!

Inspirational Thought of the week: We are due for a huge decluttering effort at our house, so I’ve been listening to Decluttering and organizational podcasts for inspiration. Last week I was listening to A Slob Comes Clean’s episode called “How to Get Motivated” and she said

“There is no way to fail at better.”

Whoa. Her point is that even throwing away one piece of trash makes things better, and as long as you are moving towards “better” no matter how small the steps, you are not failing. I have to remember that when the prospect of decluttering (or anything large) feels overwhelming.

Kid Quote of the Moment:
The 7 year old can be a bit of a stubborn grumpy bear. But when something goes the way he wants it too, his delight is unparalleled. His latest catch phrase when something goes well – “Perfection wins again!”
I have no idea where he got that phrase from, but it makes me really happy every time he says it.

Grateful For:
-School Buses and school bus drivers. Amazingly, the school bus was on time in both the morning and the afternoon last week. Well except for one day when the bus broke down and they had to get a replacement. Even so, the bus ended up only being thirty minutes late, which seems pretty efficient given that they had to go find a whole other bus and driver. So I’m grateful for the school bus and school bud driver that takes my kid to school safely.

-A nice visit with my mom and my aunt. I don’t get to see my aunt very often, so it was lovely to have her stay with us for five nights.

– The kids’ piano teacher. A few weeks ago, while out for a walk with my 12 year old, she said to me, “You know what? Piano is my favorite extracurricular activity!” This made me really happy to hear because she loves music so much but there were a couple of years where we fought a lot about lessons and practicing. I give a lot of credit for this to her piano teacher who is so patient and positive with her but also challenges her.

Looking Forward To:

-Lunch with a friend. I start working on a show in October, with some hours here and there the next couple of weeks, so I want to schedule some fun social weekday things in September before my schedule makes that difficult.

-Planning our trip to Malaysia. On the way to Longwood Gardens, we listened to some podcasts about travel to Malaysia. (I like listening to destination/ travel podcasts for trip inspiration.) It really got me eager to start researching and planning the activities we will do with our four days there. It seems like all the really beautiful beaches are a bit farther than we want to go with just four days, so we’ll probably just stay in Kuala Lumpur.

-September declutter-palooza! As I mentioned above, we’ve decided that September will be a big month for decluttering since I will have a lighter schedule and am home more. The main areas are the attic and the current toy room, which needs to be cleaned out so we can put the guest bed in there and make the guest bedroom into the 12 year old’s room. The 12 year old currently shares a room with her two younger siblings. It’s partly because I can’t wrap my brain around setting up a room for her (so many logistics! Need to buy new furniture!), also partly because I like having all the kids on the same floor as us and giving the 12 year old her own room would mean putting her downstairs. Anyhow – I know I need to just get over this because a 12 year old should not have to share a room with her 7 year old brother and 5 year old sister if she can help it. (Although part of me thinks – my father shared a room with 7 siblings. But he lived in rural Taiwan. Life was different… Everyone looks at me like I’m a horrible mother when I tell them my 12 year old still shares a room with her siblings.) Anyhow, I’m excited about/dreading declutter-palooza. I know our house will be a lot better once we go through things and purge and shift. But… so much work, and I get attached to things. Hence listening to decluttering podcasts for inspiration. Maybe I should document the efforts here for some accountability.

What We Ate:

Monday: Stir fried eggplant with black bean sauce and tofu.

Tuesday: Tortellini with sausage. Fruit on the side.

Wednesday: Grilled chicken drumsticks and cucumber and cabbage noodle salad with black bean sauce.

Thursday: Pasta Salad. This was a kitchen sink meal. We came home on the late side and I didn’t have anything planned, so I chopped a bunch of tomatoes, cucumbers and peppers, and threw them in a bowl with some cooked pasta and canned tuna. Added a red wine vinegar vinegrette. It was much tastier than I thought it would be.

Friday: Pizza (the Husband made) and Young Woman and the Sea, a recent film about Trudy Ederle, who in 1926 was the first woman to swim the English Channel, and she did it faster than any of the men before her. Disney sport movies are always predictably sentimental, and I am a sucker for that. I really liked this movie. I thought the story was inspiring and performances delightful to watch.

Saturday: Dinner out at The Olive Lounge after our trip to Longwood Gardens. I had a really delicious truffle pasta.

Sunday: Burgers and hot dogs and grilled zucchini. We had some friends over to grill- one of those super casual impromptu gatherings that you can have when you know your friends won’t judge you for not cleaning.

Monday: Grilled cheese and fruit. We didn’t get hime from the Ren Faire until almost 8pm so dinner was something quick and easy.

Onward to September! How was your holiday weekend? Have you ever had to share a room with a sibling? Pluses or minuses?