Weekly recap + what we ate: better late than never – April aspirations

So I had a realization this week that between April 2nd and April 25th, I will have had exactly ONE day off work. Actually for the whole month of April, I will have three days off. We work a six day week when we’re in rehearsal, so it’s not as out of the ordinary as it sounds to have only a handful of days off – and of course, some of these long weeks is self inflicted because on last week’s day off, I had to work my supertitle gig. But still. Ooof. If I ever wonder why I feel so behind this month, this is why. I find myself re-writing the same to do list week to week and never being able to cross anything off. I did make a March reflection/ April aspiration list while on the plane home from California from Spring Break- so even though April is over half way over, I thought I’d share the list – you know, just another thing that’s behind these days….

March highlights:
-Spring Break trip to Berkeley and San Francisco – this was for sure the high highlight. I promise to finish the recaps, including the details on the trip to the emergency room.
-Lenten Women’s Group. This group that met Tuesday nights during Lent provided so much connection and thoughtful reflection.
-Going to lots of theatre, but especially the local high school production of Beauty and the Beast.
-Watercolour class. I learned SO much in this class.
-a really quick trip to see the cherry blossoms – literally a 15 minute run before a work meeting. I used to think going to see the cherry blossoms was something for tourists, but I’ve grown to love the magical feeling of walking among the trees in bloom, and now I feel like they are a yearly must see.
-On the work front – figuring out a new sign in sheet system for performers. Something that’s needed a bit of reform for a while and I’m so relieved that we’ve started to implement the new system. There are still some things to work out, but it’s a start.
-Daylight Saving and longer days and warmer weather.
-Going running with the 12 year old. Once.
– Dinner with a beloved colleague.

Lowlights – I’m not sure if there are any specific lowlights in March. Well, maybe the Emergency Room trip with the four year old, but even that was pretty chill once we got there. There is the daily tediousness of kids and chores and screentime struggles. I guess for me also, not having time to journal, which then makes it feel like life is slipping by unremarked upon, which always, for some reason, makes me panic a little and sends me into an existential spiral. Looking back, the are mostly the same lowlights as last month. I wonder what that says – maybe I’m stuck in a rut?

April Aspirations:
– Taxes. Done by the end of the first week of April, which is early for us, but our tax guy had implemented an April 1st deadline for tax documents, which is helpful. Next year I need to do better accounting for our rental property, though. It was harder than it had to be this year.
-Research options to get rid of my car. (Still – have not made any progress on this one.)
-Process Amazon and Duluth Trading company returns. (The Amazon one is done. The Duluth one is complicated, so the box just sits forlornly in my bedroom.)
-Submit forms for the 4 year old’s early admittance to kindergarten.
-Purge the toy room.
-Finalize summer camp schedules. I think I forgot to sign up the 12 year old for basketball camp. I need to check on that one.
– Things that need replacing – 1) my purse/crossbody bag had a huge hole in the outside lining so needs to be replaced, 2) I need new sandals for summer, and 3) a new Yeti travel tumbler since I lost mine two months ago and it is nearing iced chai season for me, 4) maybe, for fun, new linen pants for the summer. Though I don’t find pants fun anymore.
-Decide on our Asia Trip.
-Mow the lawn twice. I promised that Husband that instead of hiring a yard service I would trade off mowing the lawn with him. He has now mowed twice and I have mowed not at all.

Okay, I am realizing that I’ve been blogging on and on about needing to get rid of my car and purge toys and what not for about five months now. I should make some movement on those so I can start griping about new things.

So the ironic thing is the Husband took the kids camping with friends this past weekend, and I didn’t go because I had to work. And I thought, “Great! House to myself! I’ll knock out some of those April Aspirations!” NOPE. The first night, I got home, picked up/tidied the living room, cleaned the kitchen, made baked chick peas, did a full load of laundry and then was too exhausted to even read my book. Saturday night was even worse, because for some reason I was soooooo tired, though I did manage to fold and put away that laundry that I started the night before. It’s so annoying how little life tasks got in the way of bigger life tasks.

Sunday morning, I drove up to the campground, which is only 40 minutes away, and hung out for an hour before having to head in to work. I had expected to show up in time to help the Husband break down the camp, but when I got there at 8:45am, he had already taken the whole thing down. My kids were eating breakfast out of red solo cups and barely said hello to me before running off into the woods with the other kids. Feeling pretty useless, I settled into a camp chair, wrapped in a blanket that my friend’s mom piled on me, pet the dog and just chatted with everyone until I had to go to work.

We had a weekend of really big rehearsals. The show I’m working on has a lot of people – 58 choristers, 12 supers, 10 dancers, 20 children, and 7 principal singers. That’s 107 people in the room. Well 100 on Sunday because some people were excused from that rehearsal. It is it’s own brand of organized chaos. I spent a lot of Sunday in dance rehearsals – the dancers set their choreography separately and then we merge them in with the singers. I find dance so fascinating – the process is mind boggling to me, how the choreographer says a few words, makes some slight movements, and out of it comes gorgeous feats of athleticism and movement. It’s such a different creative process and language from working with singers or actors. And how dancers remember all the steps and sequences – I am in awe.

Other fun things this week:
-Carpet of blossoms at the bus stop. The Kwanzan cherry blossoms, which bloom about two weeks after the Yoshina blossoms on the Mall. I love their huge puffs of pinkness. At our school bus stop, there is a Kwanzan cherry tree and the petals are starting to shed, making a bubble gum pink carpet on the green grass. I love the colour palette they make up:

And the four year old likes throwing the petals in the air like confetti:

– The vocal recital that I did the supertitles for this week featured the world premiere of a new song cycle. I thought it a beautiful piece, and especially loved the poetry. The text is by poet Jeanne Minahan, and a lot of the poems were about new parenthood. I loved these lines from a poem called After:

They say I gave you birth,
I think they may be wrong,
you bore me from that place
of no return, you pulled me
from myself, I’ve learned.

Sometimes I feel like that – like I don’t feel like the same person I was before I had kids – that they unearthed something in me, or perhaps because of them I’ve had to find a little bit more focus in myself.

-On the day of the recital, I had a really long dinner break. The weather was gorgeous – blazingly hot and sunny, and almost summer like, only without the oppressive humidity of deep summer. So I took a walk to Georgetown and treated myself to a boba tea. There are three or four boba places in Georgetown and I’m determined to try them all. I didn’t get out on a walk every day this week, so taking a walk on my dinner break felt amazing. I passed a guy playing bagpipes on a corner:

Outside the boba place was this fun mural:

The actual boba place was okay- I liked that you could get your tea black and they had lychee jelly. I ordered a black oolong tea, 30% sugar, with boba and lychee jelly. It was fine, except the tea was still warm – a good sign because that meant it was freshly brewed and not powder- but I did want a cold drink and it took a while for the tea to chill because it had been hot. The other funny thing was that the place insisted that you order via a kiosk. When I got there , there was a group of college girls there (I think they were college age – I can’t tell how old anyone is anymore). They were all speaking French so i guessed that they were exchange students or something. But they apparently couldn’t pay via credit card and were super confused and ended up going to the counter and asking the lady at the register how to pay since they only had cash. The lady at the register took their order and payment at the register. Which made me feel like, “Why do I have to use a kiosk?” I hate using kiosks. Oh well. But watching these young ladies, I was full of admiration – I had badly wanted to study abroad in college and I didn’t manage to work up the courage to do so – but what a great adventure it must be for them to be living in a foreign country and have to navigate things like kiosks at the boba place. There is so much to learn about navigating life that I now take for granted, but I know that when I was young, the world was bewildering.

Grateful For:
-Windows in our rehearsal hall. I’m pretty sure this has been on my list before, but it is still a wonderful thing. I’ve spent many a rehearsal process in windowless rooms, so to be able to rehearse in a room with floor to ceiling windows feels so luxurious. The other day, during a particularly tedious rehearsal, I was able to look out the window and see all the beautiful pink clouds of sunset and it was such a stunning little pick me up.

-The monitor set up that the Husband put in our guest room for when one of us has to work from home. When the Husband first set up two external monitors and a set of speakers on our little Ikea desk, i thought it was overkill. But now I fully admit, it is an awesome set up. When I had to format supertitles this week, it was amazing to be able to run the slides on one screen, edit them on another and have the original text up for comparison on a third. Plus, I can play the music via the speakers and actually give the titles a test run. It’s all so much more efficient than clicking back and forth, minimizing and maximizing screens when I need to look at one thing or another.

-Living walking distance to a Metro station. On Saturday, I biked to work, but then when I left it was dark and I still don’t have lights on my bike, so I was able to take the Metro home. It was really nice not to have to worry about how I was going to get home.
Although, on my way out of the Metro, I saw a sign:

Our stop is going to be closed basically ALL SUMMER. That is going to really suck.

Looking Forward To:
– Lunch with some people from my Mom’s group. Only one person could make it to the April meet up, but I think two or three can make it this time. It will be nice to catch up.
-Mowing the lawn. I actually don’t mind mowing the lawn, especially since we now have an electric lawnmower and it isn’t as loud or smelly as the gas one we used to have. And it is an excuse to be outside. I don’t do much yardwork – the mosquitoes and the fear of pulling up the wrong plants keep me away. But mowing… I actually look forward to.
-Just started this audiobook – picked because Richard Armitage (who was oh so dreamy in North and South) narrates it. The novel is gripping and feels appropriate reading for the time/times, but so very sad so far. I don’t know if I’ll make it all the way through right now – I think I may need a lighter audiobook to get through tech week. (I’m open to suggestions for audio books!)

-mornings off. Our rehearsal schedule is entering a period when we mostly work afternoon and evenings, so I’ll have a couple mornings off this week. Goals – take care of some of those April aspirations, run, meal prep. Of course this means that the Husband will be home almost every night on his own with the kids. I think a room full of 100 performers is much easier than 3 kids. At least when I tell the chorus what to do, they just do it and don’t argue with me.

What We Ate: I didn’t really meal plan this week because there were a lot of variables going on. I’ll need to do some prep this week and next, since I’ll be going into tech week the first week of May. (Also – how is next week the first week of MAY already?!?!?!)

Monday: Bean and parmesan soup, made in the InstantPot, with leftovers which I was able to freeze.

Tuesday: The Husband made pasta and green beans for the kids. I worked and ate leftovers.

Wednesday: The Husband and the kids went to dinner with a friend while I worked. I had leftovers again. And a massaged Kale salad with cheddar, apples, avocados, and pepitas.

Thursday: The Husband made mac and cheese from scratch for the kids. I was working this night and had a salad from the canteen at work.

Friday: I had leftovers (soup), the Husband and kids were camping and ate camp food, not sure what. .

Saturday: I had a kale salad and the leftover Mac and cheese – basically scrounge around in the salad and leftover-eating.

Sunday: The Husband brought home pizza. I had leftover pizza when I got home from work.