Weekly recap + what we ate: Back to work and Six Things Sunday

I’m back in rehearsal for a show. I’m lukewarm on the show, but I’m having a really good time with the people I’m working with. I think if I got to choose, I’d rather work with good people than on good opera. It reminds me of something that I once read Nicole Kidman say where she picks projects based on the director rather than the material because she has very little control over what the final film will be like, so she prioritizes having a fulfilling working experience. All to say, I’m glad to be back in the rehearsal room creating opera with people with whom I look forward to seeing every day. At the same time, I’m feeling a little tapped right now. I really don’t know how people managed to work full time and take care of life at the same time. The good news is I’ve signed off on our taxes, so that pressing issue is finished. But all the little life admin stuff – registration, calendar checking, decluttering, organizing – all that has fallen by the wayside.

To be honest, though, when I look at my day, I don’t think my growing life admin list is because I don’t have the time to do these things. There is always time, right? It’s just what does my brain feel up to in those bits of time when I’m not at work or trying to get the kids fed and out the door? It certainly isn’t life admin. Take for example, sleep. I always tell myself that I will just go straight to bed when I come home late at night after a rehearsal, but lately I’ve been coming home, eating all the snacks and scrolling until 1am. I’m not even doing things that fill my bucket like reading or journaling or scrolling. Or really, I should just be sleeping. And then it makes the morning come too soon and I’m dragging. It’s kind of a bummer habit I need to get out of.

Another case in point, this was originally going to be a five thing Friday brain dump, but now it is a Six on a Sunday post because I decided to scroll rather than blog on Friday night. Which, I know I feel better writing than scrolling, but I just find it hard to find the motivation and get back into a rhythm when I have to be at work 8 or 9 hours a day.

Three Bummer Things:
-An awful commute. One day, I forgot my phone at home, so after school drop off, I went home to get it and decided to take the “short” way to work. The “short” way is the Google Maps way. It is usually shorter, but it goes through a busy area, so the route can also be not so short. (My usual way to work takes 17 minutes, and it is down a parkway so it is much more predictable. The “short” way takes 15 minutes, which, now that I’ve typed that out, I find myself thinking, “Do those two minutes really matter?” I guess in my head one is “15 minutes” and one is “almost 20 minutes.”). Anyhow, the “short” was not short that day – there was more traffic than usual, and I ended up being stuck behind a big white truck that moved slowly. I think that can be a metaphor for our times – Stuck behind a big white truck and unable to see what is ahead. Anyhow, I finally got to work, but since, in an effort to get out from behind that big white truck, I came at our parking lot in a different direction than I was used to and I hit an unseen small bit of fencing pole that was poking up from the ground. There is now a huge dent/scratch in the car. UGH! An excellent way to end a hideous commute. I’ve refrained from taking the “faster” route since then.

-Not being able to find Cadbury mini eggs anywhere. C’mon, World! It’s still a week before Easter- why is EVERYWHERE out of these?

-The soccer league I signed the eight year old up for still hasn’t put him on a team, and the season started three weeks ago. I’ve written and called and all I get is that they are still working on it. I would normally just ask for my money back, but the 8 year old really wants to play soccer this spring. The issue is that the team he played on last fall was disbanded because they couldn’t find a coach. I feel a little bit of guilt on this issue because 1) I did sign him up a month after registration opened (but still three weeks before the season), and 2) I didn’t volunteer to coach when they asked me. I work a lot of Saturdays so coaching would have been tough, but I could have coached practices.

Three Delightful things:

– Friday’s swim lessons- two things delightful: 1) the five year old moved up one swim level and I was able to get her in the next class. Registering for county swim class is a little like Hunger Games here, so I was amazed that I could get her into the class. And 2) I ran into a mom friend at the pool who I hadn’t seen in over a year. It was nice to catch up and we’ve made plans to make plans in May after my show closes.

-organizing my pencil pouch and post it box. Getting rid of all the writing implements that I don’t use and having only the things I know and love and find useful in my pencil pouch.

Some day I will write a super geeky post about all my favorite office supplies I use for work.

-The clean smell of laundry coming from the dryer vents. As I was walking up the front walk late one night after work, the air smelled of clean clothes and soap- our dryer vents to the front of the house. I always love the smell of clean laundry coming from a dryer vent. Even when I’m out on a walk, and I smell warm laundry air from a random house, I inhale and feel so peaceful.

– One bonus thing ( which will make it Seven for Sunday, even though it’s now Monday)- the eight year old doing laundry. He has a favorite outfit, and one day we came home to laundry going. In the machine was a single pair of pants and a single shirt. Delight at him doing his own laundry co-existed with annoyance that he did a whole cycle for two items of clothing. It was a teaching moment for sure.

Grateful For:

-Group efforts to move a desk. Last fall, I realized that we had 11 stage managers coming in this spring and only 10 desks. But Fall 2024 Diane said to herself, “I’ll worry about that later” Welp a week and half ago “later” came and I realized that I would have to figure out how to get an 11th desk into the Stage Management Office. I’m really grateful for my work colleagues who helped me find a desk and rearrange the office to make room for the desk (while at the same time doing a major purge and decluttering of our space.). Also – the new desk is kind of small and doesn’t have drawers, so one of my co-workers made a drawer:

-People who plant flowers in their yards, bringing colour and beauty to my walks around the neighborhood. The tulips are coming out in full vibrant force and I love it.

-An evening at home. They will be few and far between in April, so I’m grateful for the few evenings I do get to come home before bedtime.

-The Husband for covering the evenings and the day the kids were off school.

-Past me for freezing soup. That feeling of panic and despair when I realize there is nothing in the fridge to take for lunch. Then the feeling of relief and excitement when I realize there is soup from January frozen in pint sized mason jars, ready to be tossed into my lunchbox and taken to work for lunch.

– My coworker who put air in my bike tires. My bike has been sitting at work for the past six months. I rode it to work one day and then for whatever reason did ‘t ride it home. And then it was winter. But now it is nice enough for me to bike again so 8’m looking forward to getting on the Ike again, only the tires were flat. I could bring my pump fr9m home, but my coworker said she had an electric pump in her car, so she pumped up my tires for me, Yay!

-Cool Blogger’s Walking Club, thanks to Elisabeth. I haven’t really officially declared participation because I don’t like failing at things I vow to do publicly, and this month is kind of optimal month for me to fail at walking every day. But knowing that CBWC is happening is a little bit of extra motivation to walk. Last week, my walks were mostly a quick walk around the block on my dinner break, or a walk to get coffee before rehearsal. A couple times, I embraced the “9pm post kids in bed” walk and walked loops around my block after dark. One time I even convinced the 13 year old to come on one of those late night walks. One day I walked one loop around the running track at school after drop off. Another day I meant to walk after I dropped the kids at the bus, but then I crossed paths with a fellow parent friend who used to work for USAID and I figured catching up with him was more important than a walk. (Though I guess I could have suggested that he walk with me.) And then today my uncle and mother are in town and we went down to the Mall and walked from the Lincoln Memorial all the way to the Air and Space Museum – DC is such a pretty city to walk in.

Looking Forward To:
-Kielbasa. The oldest and I stopped at The Kielbasa factory on Sunday. It’s a small mom and pop kind of place in a strip mall, just wide enough for one line of people to the deli/kielbasa case and one line of people at the cash register. We brought home three different kinds of Kielbasa. So looking forward to eating it. (Note – we did eat it, and it was delicious. I still have a tub of sauerkraut in the fridge, though. Some nights I come home and just eat that out of the container, it’s so good.)

-Spring Break. This coming up week is Spring Break. I have to work, so I’m not going anywhere, but the Husband is taking the kids away on an overnight. I’ll have the house blissfully quiet to myself for 36 hours or so. Of course I have to work for 20 of those hours, and sleep for 7 of those hours, so it’s not a wide swath of alone time. But it’s something. Certainly more than the Husband is getting.

-Final meeting of my women’s Lenten group – This also already happened, and it was such a wonderful meeting. They are talking about making this into a monthly meet up, which I would love. Would also give me time to actually finish the Lenten readings. I do think they are meaningful all year round, not just at Lent.

-Using my new Boba straw. We went for boba tonight and we got a free gift with our order! A reusable boba straw. I’ve been wanting one for a while now and I’m so excited to get to use it!

What We Ate (I seem to have two weeks of meals to account for…):
Monday: Butter pasta and green beans. I would like for the 13 year old to help with dinner more, so I asked her to make dinner one night this week. Monday seemed like a good choice since there wasn’t any school anyway. She wanted to make butter pasta, which in my mind is very similar to the blue box of mac n cheese she frequently makes. I asked if she had a recipe and she said, “I was going to cook the pasta and add butter until it looked good.” I understand there was also copious amounts of parmesan cheese as well. I didn’t get any because it was all gone by the time I got home from work. So I guess that’s good? The green beans were take out from our favorite dumpling restaurant. (On the plus side, even though there was no butter pasta left for me, the family did save me dumplings and noodles from the dumpling place.)

Tuesday: Middle School Tacos. I found the name of this recipe to be hilarious, and these were legit delicious. This is the classics taco in the hard shell with sour cream, ice berg lettuce, tomatoes and cheese. Funny story – I wrote “lettuce” on the grocery list, and the Husband asked, “What kind of lettuce?” and I said, “Taco lettuce” and he came home with a cabbage. Because every other taco Tuesday we’ve had cabbage with our tacos. But middle school tacos demand iceberg lettuce. So the Husband brought home an head of iceberg lettuce which, not to be a snob, but I don’t remember the last time we had ice berg lettuce. But once we tasted the tacos, we all agreed, ice berg lettuce was the right and only choice.

Wednesday: Waffles and eggs. The Husband cooked because I worked late.

Thursday: Tortilla soup from last week, taken from the freezer.

Friday: Pizza (the Husband made) and National Treasure. I hadn’t seen all of National Treasure before – what a fun movie. Plot holes galore, but very entertaining nonetheless.

Saturday: The kids had pizza at a Chuck E. Cheese birthday party. The Husband had take out. Not sure what the 13 year old ate. I ate last week’s salmon and miso rice leftovers from the fridge when I got home from work.

Sunday: Chicken salad and apple slices. Our typical snack/scrounge Sunday dinner. I also had a beet and cucumber salad – diced raw beets, diced cucumber, olive oil, lemon, salt and pepper, and dill. It was a tasty salad. We have some beets to use up from our friend’s CSA – I might packed this salad for many lunches this week.

Monday: White Bean Parmesan Soup. From the freezer. I can’t remember when I originally made it. Tasty and hearty.

Tuesday: Turkey Tacos – The Husband cooked since I was at work.

Wednesday: Tortellini and Kielbasa. I had leftovers at work, but when I came home there was a two inch piece of Kielbasa on the counter that the family had left for me.

Thursday: Dinner out with a friend at a local Mexican restaurant. I had ceviche and a horchata.

Friday: Pizza (ordered out) and movie night. They watched one of the Star Wars movies. I had the beet and cucumber salad at work, adding chickpeas for bulk.

Saturday: Kielbasa, green beans, and pan fried gnocchi. The Husband cooked and I think sometimes his strategy is “Put yummy food on the table and get it out of the fridge.” It was still tasty. My mother and uncle arrived later that evening, so I boiled some dumplings for them.

Sunday: Hot Pot. My uncle and mother are visiting so we went to our favorite hot pot place. I tried a new to me spicy broth – it was really tasty, but I don’t think I want all my food to be spicy, so I might not order it again. We really like this hot pot place – it’s our go to restaurant when we have visitors from out of town because it feels kind of special and it can accommodate a variety of diets.

Hope you have a sunny week!
Do you have a go to restaurant where you take guests when they come visit? Are you participating in the Cool Blogger’s Walking Club? If you blog, do you have a rhythm or routine to writing?