Weekly recap + what we ate: did/done/to do

This was a very light work week, so I tried to shake off my post tech malaise and get some life admin done. I liked Elisabeth’s comment earlier this week about only putting five things on the to do list, moreover some of those five things can be entirely routine things… I always had thought that the to do list was above and beyond the routine things I do, but putting the everyday things seem to sort of help kick start the list with some low hanging fruit. So this week, my low hanging fruit was “get outside or exercise for at least 15 minutes every day,” and “Make dinner for the family.”

On top of that, things that got checked off my list this week:
– Paid the bills. One of them quite late. I need a better system.
– Scheduled parent teacher conference for all three kids. I think we will have to do them online this year, which I don’t love, but I had to schedule them at times when I would have to find a sitter for the kids if we went in person. I’m grateful that we are offered both a virtual and in person option, though.
– Zappos return on shoes that I had been on the fence about.
-Zappos order on black shoes to try.
-ordered leggings, since the one pair I currently have won’t cut it for the whole winter.
-VOTED! Voting feels pretty perfunctory where I am because my county leans so heavily Democratic. Most of the tough decisions are during the primary. There were a few items that I had to do some reading up on – ballot measures (including legalizing cannabis) and Board of Education seats, which are non-partisan. Overall it took the better half of a day to read up on candidates and watch some forums, filled out my mail in ballot and dropped it off at a polling center. I used to just do early voting, but even then I would always leave it for the very last minute and on that last day the lines were always so long. I like the mail in ballot because I can take my time and fill it in while having the internet in front of me and do my research as I fill out my bubbles. Also – this time they sent and “I Voted” sticker with the mail in ballot. Not gonna lie, but for me, the sticker was a huge perk of voting in person and I was always sad not to get one when voted by mail.
-used this website to measure myself for a bra. Which is just step one to my bigger goal of actually getting new bras.
-Hosting a friend for dinner. I had forgotten how nice it is to have a friend over for dinner. Moreover, a friend that doesn’t judge your messy, post-Hallowe’en house that is never quite picked up, and who also engages with your kids in real conversations.

Things that weren’t on a list, but I’m glad I made time for:
-Getting my car an oil change, and then running part of the way home. I think I only ended up running 1.5 miles out of the 3 miles between home and the mechanics, but I did run all of that 1.5 miles in one go, which is the longest stretch I’ve run since I started running a year ago. The car was probably 900 miles overdue for an oil change, and when i went to pick it up my mechanic said, “You’re still driving that thing?”
“Yeah,” I said, “I hope I get to drive it for a while longer.”
And he said, “People love their Subarus. Well just keep bringing it in to me for oil changes regularly and it will last a while longer.”
The car is 179K and 19 years old. The Husband tells me that it is worse for the environment than getting a new car.
-Walk with friend to a cafe for lunch then walk home. Good conversations, an iced chai, lunch and fall colour. Seems like a pretty good fall morning.
-Trip to library. I initially went to pick up some holds, but then started browsing and before I knew it, I had an armful of books to bring home. I do a lot of reading via the Libby app, and I forget that there is something so wonderful about browsing the library, pulling books off the bookshelves, reading the jacket, flipping through them while inhaling the smell of paper and past readers. eBooks just don’t that that softly worn community feeling that hard copy books off a library bookshelf do.
– Post library trip to Botanical Gardens where I sat for an hour and scrolled and read two chapters of a freshly borrowed book in 70 degree weather. This felt very indulgent.

-Walk with Husband. One day, I suggested to the Husband we do something in the scant half hour between him getting off work and the school bus pick up. We decided to go for a walk at a nearby trail where we took our picture at the selfie stand there:

Things that didn’t get checked off my to do list:
– make/ formulate a plan for camping next week.
– sweater return from last year. Last Christmas, the Husband had bought me some Irish wool sweaters, but they were too small. There is a 365 day return window, but the customs forms to return them are so daunting that I haven’t done this yet.
-Mail thank you present to a friend.
– Some financial things that I just need to square away, but which is tedious and requires a bit of research and persistence and gathering of information. This is under the category of important but not urgent, so I procrastinate. But I know if I procrastinate too much it will fall under the category of “urgent” so I just need to get over that hump.

Looking forward to:
– The end of Daylights saving! My kids are naturally early risers so I hold no illusion that I will get another hour of sleep. What really excites me about the clocks falling back is that it will no longer be dark outside when I take the ten year old to her 7:15am piano lessons.
-Date day next week with the Husband. In September I went to Glenstone Museum with my mother and cousin and liked it so much that when tickets were released for this month, I immediately snagged two tickets for November 11th, which the Husband has off as it is Veteran’s Day. The kids will be in school, so we will have a child free date day!
– On the issue of dates- we are having a new sitter come this weekend to watch the kids while I’m at work since the Husband is going to be away. I’m excited for the potential of finding a regular sitter. We haven’t hired childcare help since the baby was six months old. I never know where to begin with hiring help, so I waffle and don’t do it. But I knew we would need a sitter for the kids this weekend so I asked the moms in my mom’s group and someone recommended this person. I hope it works out because the Husband and I need more date nights.
-Two days of no school. The kids have two days off school next week. One day is an end of quarter planning day for teachers and the next day is Election Day. I know it’s a strange thing to be excited for two days with the kids at home, but ever since they all started at school I’ve missed having adventures with them.

Something I read this week that made me think:
I found this blog post from 2009 by Arts Administrator Adam Thurman “An Open Letter to Arts Administrators” very inspiring (h/t to Butts in Seats, a very thoughtful blog about arts administration and how the arts fits into the lives of everyone.) Thurman presents some thoughts and advice on how arts administrators, often an invisible presence and often taken for granted, need to stand up for themselves.
Thurman’s post is from 2009, but it still feels really relevant, especially in the post COVID world when we are seeing a lot of attrition in the arts world (and I’m sure many industries). Now I’m not an arts administrator and I’m not really an artist, so I do feel like I straddle this line between creating the art and producing the art – that is to say developing an environment in which people can bring art to stage, and being part of the art itself. I think people on both sides of the equation are burnt out and need change, but change is hard in an industry drenched in tradition and convention. Yet, as Thurman writes:
“It doesn’t have to be like that. I know you’ve probably convinced yourself that all the garbage you deal with is just the cost of being in the field.
It isn’t.”
Also this thought:
“This thing you love, the arts . . . it is your world too. It’s your world just as much as it belongs to any poet, any dancer, any actor.“
This is a good reminder – I think, as a stage manager, I often feel like what I do is in service of the product onstage, but I need to remind myself that I am also “the talent”. I might not be a big opera star, but I am a person brought in to do a very specific thing and the “service” portion of my job does not negate the “arts” portion of my job. I do this because I believe that opera should be presented for an audience. I don’t do this just to be a cog in the opera machine.
I think what struck me the most about Thurman’s article is his insistence that you can love working in the arts, believe passionately in what you do, but also make a living wage and have a good work/life balance. He really challenges the idea of suffering for one’s art.

Something amazing: While grocery shopping the other day, I wandered into the “British aisle.” This is where I get my sub-par winegums. But also on the shelf was:

Now I have never seen a Coffee Crisp in a grocery store in the US so this was pretty special. I immediately texted the Husband. He asked if I bought some. I said no because the Coffee Crisp we brought back from Montreal two months ago was still sitting in our shelf. That was a bad move, though. When the Husband popped in after work, there were none left.

Something beautiful. The foggy weather continues, and this morning the fog was so thick I had to drive super slow. Fog is such a pain to drive through, but it is so fleetingly beautiful.

What We Ate:

Saturday: Opening night. I had a salad from the work Canteen. The family ordered sushi.

Sunday: I can’t remember, though I do think it involved scrounging through the fridge and a bit ingenuity.

Monday: Hallowe’en and I had to work. I think the kids had wings and candy at our friend’s house. I had leftover sushi.

Tuesday: Taco Tuesday. I made carnitas in the slow cooker, finished off under the broiler. We ate this with lots of toppings: red cabbage slaw, picked red onions, guacamole, salsa, cilantro. The carnitas recipe was adapted from the cookbook Taco Loco, even though the recipe called for roasting in the oven for four hours, I had to go to work, so I threw it in the slow cooker, and it turned out perfectly.

Wednesday: Warm Winter Vegetable Salad with Halloumi. From this Bon Appetit recipe. This was a really simple and tasty recipe. Good way to use up the squash. Basically toss squash, cabbage, onions together with olive oil and Aleppo pepper (I just used paprika and chipotle pepper). Roast on high heat for 20 mins. Add cubed Halloumi and torn up pieces of pita. Roast another 15 minutes util the pita is crispy. Garnish with mint and a drizzle of red wine vinegar. Enjoy.

Thursday: Curry Noodles and Terriyaki veggies from the Bad Manner Cookbook. Also some pan fried tofu alongside. Vegan.

Friday: Pizza and Movie, I’m guessing? I had to work so had leftover curry noodles for dinner.