where I went – Life Off Headset

Weekly recap + what we ate: Where I Went one week in June. Spoiler I’ve become one with my car….

School is finally over for the kids. We’re moving into summer mode and the weather has followed suit. Summer Solstice has come and gone so now the days are getting shorter, but still will hopefully be a while until they feel super short….

It’s been a while since I’ve done a “Where I went” post, and as I was sitting in my car last week, I thought it might be a fun to take a snapshot of my life from that lens. So this is where I went for one week in June 2026. Maybe it’s boring reading? I know some of my drives were boring….

MONDAY:
9am: Home—> bus stop. (4 mins)

9:15a: Bus stop —> Home (4 mins)

10:30a: Home —> work (20 mins- Amazing!!! Must be because it’s Monday and construction is light.)

5:00pm: Work —> the auditorium where the 14 year old’s promotion ceremony is. (1 hr. Ugh. Glad I left early)

8:45pm: Promotion ceremony –> Back to work for the rest of the evening rehearsal. (23 mins) No time to cry or be nostalgic about the fact that my oldest is now on to high school!

11:30pm Work –> Home (45 mins. Usually going home after work is a breeze because it’s late a night, but there is a bunch of midnight construction going on on the beltway that’s slowly killing my soul and the commute home took twice as long as it ought.)

Total time in car: 2h 36m

TUESDAY:
9:00am: Home –> Kids to bus stop (4 mins)

9:15am: Bus stop –> Home. (4 mins)

11:15am: Home –> Dentist’s office for a cleaning (8 minutes)

12:00pm: Dentist –> Home (8 mins)

12:45pm: Home –> Work (35 mins. Traffic is slow today – for about a 1/3 of the commute on the beltway I’m creeping at 10-15 mph, but this is in the normal range of slow.)

11:45pm: Work –> Home (45 mins. Another bout of soul sucking midnight construction)

Total time in car = 1 hr 36 mins

WEDNESDAY (Free Day)
7:09am home —> piano lessons (7 mins). Drop the 14 year old for her lesson.

Then piano lessons —> get gas (3 mins). I always get gas on piano lessons day; it saves me the mental energy of having to think about when I’ll get gas during the week if/when my take gets low.

Then Gas —> breakfast sandwich place (5 mins) I bribe the 9 year old with breakfast sandwiches to practice piano. This is a little hole in the wall place near piano lessons that we’ve been going to for 6 years or so – it’s run by this Korean couple and they are super friendly to us.

Breakfast sandwiches —> back to piano lessons (5 mins). Drop the 9 year old for his lesson. Pick up the 14 year old. I usually then drive the 14 year old to school, but since she’s had her promotion ceremony she’s opting out of the last three days of school. So instead of driving her to school, we….

Piano lessons —> park (2 mins). I often take the 6 year old to this park while her siblings are in piano lessons.. We often only stay for 15 minutes (piano lessons are 30 mins), but I always figure 15 minutes of running around is better than sitting in the car and waiting. Plus there’s a pretty decent Little Free Library at this park.

8:13am: Park —> piano lessons, pick up the 9 year old, then —> home (10 mins)

9:00am: home –> parking lot at trail next to school, then walk up the trail to school for drop off. Stop and chat with friends along the way. (15 mins)

9:20am: School –> walk back to car –> drive back home (15 mins)

10:15am: home –> Hair salon for a much needed haircut. The 14 year old tags along – yay for mommy daughter time. (12 mins.)

11:15am: Hair salon –> Uniqlo (15 mins). It’s my day off and I knew it was going to be a big errand day. I need to refresh my show blacks (the black clothes I wear backstage) and wanted to get some of Uniqlo’s shirts with built in bras because my next show is in an outdoor venue and it’s going to be hot and I find the built in bras less constricting to wear. I also bought a pair of black nylon culottes that will be nice and airy backstage.

12:30p: Uniqlo –> Running Store (15 mins). The 14 year old needed new running shoes and this family owned store has been recommended to me as a local gem, so I decided to check them out. The service and fitting was top notch. No fancy machines to measure your gait like at other running stores – just careful attention being paid to how you walk and run in different shoes and lots of questions about habits.

1:30pm: Running Store –> Quest for boba (15 mins) The running store was around the corner from one of my favorite boba places, T-Baar. I like them because they also sell onigiri and I needed a snack. BUT T-Baar turned out to be closed until 3pm. Wump wump. So we ended up at Gong Cha, which is fine, but not as exciting. They did have mochi donuts at Gong Cha and we ended up buying 6 of them to bring home.

Then Gong cha –> Giant for groceries. (5 mins).

2:25pm: Giant –> Home (15 mins)

4:45pm: Home –> pool for Swim Meet (12 mins)

9:00pm Swim Meet over: Pool –> Home. (12 mins) Finally. Today was a lot of time in the car and not a lot of time at home, which is not ideal for a free day.

Total time in car = 2 hr, 43 mins

THURSDAY:
9:00am: Home –> parking lot on trail near school –> walk to school for the last drop off of the school year!! (15 mins)

9:20am: Run along trail. (19 mins + 30 min walk) I guess technically I’m not really going anywhere here, but I thought I’d throw it in anyway.

10:15am: Trail parking lot –> Whole Foods to pick up some groceries. (10 minutes – which is way longer than this needs to be for a 1 mile trip, but I took the route with a massive construction project going on.)

11:00am: Whole Foods –> walk to polling station for the last day of Early Voting.

11:20am: Walk back to car, then –> home. (12 mins)

1:40pm: home –> walk to bus stop to pick up the kids. The last day of school is always a half day. We are slightly late and the bus is waiting for us. I hate it when we make the bus driver wait. Then we walk home.

3:3pm: home –> work. (30 mins. Ugh. I guess 30 minutes isn’t bad, but that really slow stretch is really draining.) It’s opening night!!

12:00 midnight: Work –> Home (20 mins. yay!). There was an opening night party after the show so I stayed for that before driving home. There were tacos and cookies!

Time spent in car: 1 hr, 27 mins

FRIDAY: Another Free Day for Juneteenth.
12:00pm: Home –> walk to the newly opened Royal Farms. Buy fried chicken and slushies for lunch then –> walk home (45 mins). Royal Farms is a gas station/convenience store that apparently has amazing fried chicken. It was pretty tasty. A little soggy, but the flavor was good.

4:00pm: Home –> pool for swim team practice (12 mins)

7:00pm: Pool –> Trader Joe’s to pick up some groceries, then –> pick up pizza for dinner –> then Home (45 mins). The Husband drives all these stop. Whenever we go anywhere as a family, the Husband drives. When I offer to drive, he always says, “No!” with a tone of certain horror. The 14 year old’s practice wasn’t over yet, but our neighbor who is at our same pool gave her a ride home afterwards.

Time in car = 42 mins

SATURDAY:
8:45am: Home –> Pretzel pick up (12 mins). We were having a picnic with friends later on and I offered to bring the carbs because I love any excuse to order pretzels from DC Pretzel Company. The pretzel guy knows me by sight now and he threw in an additional pretzel – “One for the road.” I was delighted.

9:00am: Pretzel pick up –> Aldi’s to pick up some groceries, then — > home. (15)

9:45am: Home –> Voice lesson for the 14 year old. (23 mins)

10:15am: Voice lesson –> quick hike along nearby trail with the two younger kids while the oldest is in her lesson, then went back to the voice lesson to pick her up. (30 mins)

11:00am: Voice Lesson –> Park for picnic with my friends from college. (30 mins). We haven’t had a meet up since before COVID. That was the time when we were all excited because our 20th college reunion was coming up and we were going to go together. That was February 2020. Hah hah. I can’t believe it’s taken us six years to get together again!

2:30pm: Park picnic –> home. (15 mins)

5:00pm: Home –> Dumpling house (20 mins) to pick up dumplings for dinner.

5:25pm: Dumpling House –> Nature Center for Shakespeare in the Park performance, where we ate dumplings while enjoying a play. (15 mins).

Shakespeare in the park! Notice the ginger ale in the shoes…

Every summer, there’s a group that does free Shakespeare performances in local parks and nature centers. This year’s play was As You Like It, which is one of my favorite plays. (I tend to prefer Shakespeare’s comedies.) The set was simple and the costumes modern and the performances full of energy and there was a band providing live music to sometimes hilarious sometimes touching effect. (Like when they played “We are the Champions” during the wrestling scene.) I always love seeing how theatre can be done with a variety of budgets and every day things like camping lanterns can be used to an audience-gasping effect. I was disappointed that they cut Rosalind’s closing monologue, but I did appreciate that the performance was two hours including intermission.

9:00pm: Nature Center –> Home (25 mins)

Time in Car: 3 hr, 5 mins

SUNDAY
8:45am: Home –> Agility Center with the 6 year old for her Agility classes (12 mins)

10:05am: Agility Center –> Home (12 mins)

10:50am: Home –> Work – we had a matinee performance (25 mins – yay for light-ish weekend traffic)

6:15pm done with work: Work –> Home (20 mins)

7:30pm: Home –> walk around the neighborhood with the 14 year old. (1 hr.) I realized when I got home that I hadn’t had any outdoor time yet, and after sitting in the car I needed to get out and move, so I convinced the 14 year old to go on a walk with me. I love getting out on a summer evening when the sun is still up but no longer blazing and the air has shifted a little cooler and the fireflies are out.

Time in car = 1 hr 9 mins.

And that’s a week of where I went. A few observations:
1) Total Time in Car this week: 13 hrs and 9 mins, which is about 13% of my week. That seems like a lot. And I didn’t even do most of the driving to kids’ activities.

2) I didn’t use public transportation or my bike all week. My summer job is not close enough that I can do that. (My job for the rest of the year is reachable both on bike and Metro.)

3) I find that since my summer job is so far away, I spend a lot of time commuting and that really cuts into time I can spend doing other things. I really love my summer opera company, but I’m glad I don’t have to drive to Virginia all year round.

4) I do like the fact that a lot of things in my every day life is not more than 15 minutes away – it makes going to the dentist or taking kids to activities seem like an easier effort.

5) I like to bundle my errands so that I don’t have to leave my house more than I have to. I find coming home and leaving again saps my energy and momentum.

Grateful For:

– That the 14 year old went to a pretty diverse middle school. Never having seen all of the 14 year old’s class at once before, I was noticing during the promotion ceremony how diverse the student body was. It was really great to see. I mentioned this to the Husband and he said that earlier that week, our neighbor, on learning which high school the 14 year old chose to go to, seemed to indicate that she had made a poor choice. “There are so many Black and Hispanic kids at that school,” the neighbor said to the Husband. What the what????!!! I was FLOORED when the Husband told me this story. Diversity is a feature not a bug. I for one am glad that she’s going to a school where people don’t all look like her and she already had that experience in middle school.

-Cool summer days. It can get pretty hot and humid here in DC during the summer, but we’ve actually had really lovely days – 70/80 degrees, dry and sunny with a hint of breeze. I would be happy if this were summer all year round, but I know that we’re just at the beginning of summer and the heat and humidity is coming.

-My Show Opened and everything went smoothly.

-That I got to go on a walk with the 14 year old. Gotta savor those moments when I can.

-Sunlight late into the evening. Makes the days seem longer and more full of possibility.

-That my dental Hyegenist is gentle and no one guilts me about anything to do with my teeth.

Looking Forward To:
–Sail 250! It’s Fleet Week and we’re going to Baltimore to see the Tall Ships and maybe some of the airshow practice! (Spoiler – we did this today and it was a great time – more in next week’s recap!)

-Reading retreat with the Husband coming up. I’m researching bookstores and restaurants in Harrisburg, PA and getting excited about our visit. Let me know if you have any recs for Harrisburg, PA.

-We booked a place to stay in Niagara on the Lake for August! Because I took this additional gig, we had to shift our vacation a little bit; we were originally going to go to Chicago and Niagara Falls, but we’re just going to do three day in Niagara. I haven’t been to Niagara Falls since i was a child growing up in Ontario. Also let me know if you have any recs for Niagara on the Lake!

-Reading more of this book:

This was recommended to me by one of my interns this summer. We were having a conversation about how I noticed that a lot of the candidates I interviewed for our internship this year were very up front about their ADHD or other mental challenges and, to be quite honest, I just didn’t know what to do with that information or how to react. She is writing her Masters thesis on how to be more inclusive as a stage manager and said this book has been really helpful.

What We Ate:

Monday: Pasta Bake. There was leftover pasta in red sauce from Sunday night’s dinner, so I threw it in a pan with some sausage and cheese and made a pasta bake. Frugal dinner for the win.

Tuesday: Chicken Salad Sandwiches for the pool

Wednesday: Baked Chicken Drumsticks from NY Times Cooking, and steamed green beans. This baked chicken recipe was super easy and also easy to eat at the pool during the swim meet. I’m putting this recipe on repeat.

Thursday: Hot dogs and watermelon at the pool

Friday: Pizza (take out) and World Cup.

Saturday: Dumplings and Shakespeare

Sunday: Pasta and red sauce for the family. I had leftovers out of the fridge when I got home from work.

That’s the week! I have a few lighter weeks of work and I’m looking forward to spending time with my family this weekend. Hopefully the weather will hold!

If you have a spouse/partner, do you take turns driving, or is there always a default driver? Do you like to vote early, by mail, or in person on the day? Favorite Shakespeare play? Give me your best advice to pass along to the 14 year old for high school!

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.