Weekly recap + what we ate: Day in the Life

We are half way through tech week. I’m am exhausted, but it’s been a really smooth and productive tech process so far and everyone is working really well together, so that always feels good.

I was inspired by the Day in the Life post that Stephany (among others), so I thought I’d write one too. The last time I wrote one, it was a year ago, during tech week. This time, I thought I’d write about a typical rehearsal day – this is Monday April 21st. Of course it wasn’t a typical day because the kids were off school – they always get the Monday after Easter off.

7:15am – Wake up. This is a little later than usual, but I had stayed up way too late the night before to finish my book (Heartbreaker by Sarah McLean), and the kids didn’t have school, so there was no huge rush in the morning. The Husband took the day off to stay home with the kids today, so he was around. The kids get up pretty early on their own – usually 6:15a/6:30a. I have a vague early morning memory of one child standing next to the bed saying, “I’m hungry!” I told them to go to the kitchen and find something to eat. I get up, and make the bed. I’m not usually a linger in bed person. Once I’m done sleeping, I like to get out of bed. I pull clean sheets and put them on the bed because the cleaners are coming this morning and they will change the sheets.

7:30am- Family Meeting This s year we’ve started having weekly family meetings on Saturday at 7:30am, but the family was out of town last weekend, so we had our family meeting on Monday morning. Our family meeting format is:
-Shout outs
-Calendar
-Meal Planning
We used to also cover “agenda items” – issues that any family member wants to discuss. This would range from “Can I have X app on my phone?” to “Summer” to “My sister won’t play with me”, and often ended with someone storming off in anger. It was just a frustrating way to spend our Saturday morning, even though going over the calendar was important. Then I listened to this webinar on family meetings last week and picked up some good ideas to try: 1) shorter meetings, 2) shorter agenda, 3) take turning s leading the meeting. So we’ve taken problem solving agenda items off the family meeting plan in the hopes of making the meetings shorter, more efficient, and less emotionally fraught. The webinar said that family meetings are times to connect, and I really want to try to embrace that. (The webinar is from a local group called PEP – they lead all sorts of parenting classes and currently many of them are free to watch the webinar recording. I highly recommend them – I find their approach calming – they very much take a “parent as advisor/coach” approach to things.)

9:00 – Family meeting over, move on with morning. I pack lunch for myself. It will be a long day at work, so I pack lots of food. I think I also made toast for the kids here too. Or maybe I made toast for them to eat during the family meeting. The cleaning people have arrived by now and they start in the basement. Usually we’re not home when the cleaners are here, but since the kids are off school, we work around each other.

9:30am – yoga/stretch. I’ve been doing really well at daily yoga. I really like Charlie Follows yoga. Since the cleaners are the basement, I do my yoga in the kids’ room without my yoga mat – it’s the only room that has a clear floor at the moment. At one point the Husband comes in to talk about some life admin details, and the kids come running in and out. It’s not a relaxing 15 minutes of yoga, but I’m not a meditative yoga sort of person. I just really want to move and stretch.

10:00am – life admin – Since I don’t have to be a work until later, I take some time to catch up on some computer errands – registration, paying bills, blog reading and comments, emails. I get dressed.

10:30am – I convince the 13 year old to go on a walk with me. It’s like pulling teeth, but I feel like if I don’t get her out of the house, she might not leave the house all day. We walk down to the trail and around the neighborhood.

11:15a – back home and getting ready to go to work. When we get home I find the Husband in the backyard doing some gardening and the two little kids are hanging out with him. I start getting ready to go to work – since I don’t have to drive carpool today, I’ve decided to bike to work. I have to get my lunch box in my backpack, and an change of clothes. My sister in law calls while I’m packing to go to work. We talk two or three times a week – she lives in California and she usually calls as she’s walking to her bus which usually lines up with when I’m going to work if I have an afternoon rehearsal, so the time difference works out.

11:30a bike to work. I love that most of my bike commute is along a parkway, so the traffic is minimal and I can go for long stretches without a stop light. There is a big hill at the end. I don’t always make it up the hill, but this time I do! Yay!

12:00n – arrive at work. change clothes

Then start my work day with some work at my desk – email, paperwork, putting cues in my score. Also checking in with the other stage managers. We have two shows going on right now, and since I’m the head of the department, I like to check in with the SM team on the other show when I can.

2:00pm – 5:00pm – first rehearsal of the day. This is an exciting day because we get to have a guitarist in rehearsal. We don’t usually get this but the guitar part is quite prominent in our show, so the conductor requested a few rehearsals in the room with the guitarist. The show also features a large electronica part- electronic music that is played on a keyboard. I didn’t get a picture, but it’s a very involved set up. At this rehearsal we work through the whole show with Principal singers.

2:50pm- 15 minute rehearsal break. We typically rehearse 90 minutes then take a 15 minute break. Someone brought Levain cookies from New York and shares them during the break. My coworker and can’t decide which cookie to have so we each take one and split- oatmeal raisin and a chocolate chocolate chip.

Also on our break, we work on our team jigsaw puzzle. We usually have a puzzle going in the stage management office. We actually just started this one today:- it’s beautiful, the pieces are whimsical shapes:

Then we’re back at rehearsal, working through the show.

5:00pm – End of first rehearsal, Production meeting via Teams. Today is load in- when the tech team starts putting the set into the theatre. We have a brief meeting to check in to make sure all departments are on track for the final push to opening night.

5:30pm – Dinner. i eat my packed food, talk a walk, read a little bit of my book and do a ittle bit of the puzzle. Per union regulations, I get one hour for meal breaks which sometimes feels like a lot of time. (And some days not enough time…)

6:30pm – 9:45pm – Second rehearsal. The evening rehearsal is with chorus. We only have 16 people in the chorus so it’s not too hectic. We work through all the chorus scenes.

8:30p- rehearsal break! Puzzle and snacks. Then back to rehearsal.

9:45pm – 10:30pm – notes. After rehearsal the stage management team gathers to go over any notes that need to be relayed to other departments and then talk over the next day’s schedule. Tomorrow is a really light day- only one rehearsal in the evening.

10:30pm – Take metro home with my bike. I appreciate that I can take my bike on the metro outside of rush hour. I don’t appreciate that the metro elevator smells like pee.

11:00am – home. The metro is only four blocks home. It’s a beautifully warm evening and the road to the house is downhill and I love speeding down fast and coasting around the corner onto our street. So I do it twice. Two laps around the block with the wind in my face and then I pull in home.

I put away my lunch box, kiss the sleeping children, oil the cutting board, and spend a few minutes writing in my journal. Resisting the urge to revenge bedtime procrastinate I’m in bed by midnight.

Cool Bloggers’ Walking Club -I’m going to loosely interpret Elisabeth’s CBWC criteria as “get out of the house and move” because I didn’t do a lot of walking, per se, but I did:

Monday: bike to work + walk with the 13 year old (as detailed above)

Tuesday: bike to work

Wednesday: running

Thursday: dinner break walk the rooftop terrace at work (yet another picture of the Washington Monument)

Friday: Running on my dinner break.

Saturday: walk while the 13 year old was at voice lesson. There’s a meandering wooded trail. But if you look to the left, you’ll see we are right on a busy road.

Sunday: went ice skating while the kids were at lessons:

Grateful for:
-My work BFF brought me dill pickle chips! I might have eaten the whole bag in one sitting.

-The thirteen year old went on a walk with me!

-Beautiful weather.

-Parks and trails where I can enjoy the beautiful weather.

-Getting home safely at the end of a long rehearsal day. I’m going to be honest, driving home at 11:30/midnight is TOUGH.

-All the stage managers at work who gathered for an “Ask Me Anything” session with our two Production Assistants and shared their wisdom. The PAs are basically interns at the beginning of their career, so I like to have an AMA for them with the stage managers during their time with us. It’s voluntary for my staff, and I’m so grateful that all eight of the stage managers/assistant directors who were in town showed up to shared and support the PAs. Also they were all brutally honest about work life balance and the hard parts of being a stage manager, but also talked about why they loved the job too.

-My bike.

-Freezer leftovers for a low mental energy dinner. Thank you to past me.

-School and Teachers. Nothing makes one more grateful for schools and teachers than ten days at home with the kids over spring break. To be fair, I worked for much of those ten days.

-On that note, I’m also really grateful to the Husband for spending 10 days with the kids while trying to work from home and having a truly terrible hotel experience when he tried to take the kids out of town. (What kind of hotel still claims the rooms are unavailable because they are being cleaned at 8PM??!??!?!?) Also – grateful to the Husband who took the 8 year old to his soccer game, finally. And a shouting match broke out between the parent coaches. He says it was wild. I’m glad I wasn’t there, but also part of me wishes I had brought popcorn. The Husband had all the fun things to deal with last week.

Looking Forward To:
-Sleeping. Once tech week is over, I’m going to take a long nap.

-Evenings at home. I get to be home two nights next week. Yay!

-Mystery reader. You can sign up to read to my 5 year old’s preschool class. So we are doing that this week. I’m actually going to have the 8 year old and the 13 year old read. It’s not a big mystery because the 8 year old was so excited he has already told his sister.

-listening to this book on my commute:

What We Ate: I’m going to be honest – I ate mostly leftovers from the fridge because I was at work most nights. This is what I think the family ate, big thanks to the Husband.

Monday: Cabbage Soup from the freezer. Thank you Past Me.

Tuesday: Taco Tuesday. Carnitas from the freezer. Thank you Past Me.

Wednesday: No idea.

Thursday: Tofu and noodles. I prepped tofu crumbles for the Husband in the morning and he sauteed vegetables to go with it.

Friday: Pizza (take out) and Frozen.

Saturday: Nachos with the leftover carnitas from Tuesday.

Sunday: Bahn Mi bowls, using the leftover tofu crumbles. This recipe, but with tofu instead of pork, and noodles instead of cauliflower rice. Love this recipe – it is tasty and comes together super quickly.