Weekly recap + what we ate: getting ready for tech week

Some fun and random happenings this past week:

Blueberries: There was an episode of Hidden Brain this week called The Curious Science of Cravings, and the guest is psychiatrist Judson Brewer who researches cravings. At the end of the episode, Brewer talks about replacing his craving for gummy worms with blueberries. It was a very a propos episode because there have been the most amazingly plump and sweet blueberries in the store lately. I’m not sure what genetically engineered magic is going on here, but they’ve been a highlight of my food life right now. I can easily eat half a pint at a time. I don’t want to get too attached, though, because I recognize that this is just a season.

Bring your Child to Work Day. I took the 7 year old to work with me on Thursday. This was exciting because it’s the first time since COVID that my work has allowed people to come into rehearsal. Well, officially. The 7 year old actually went with the Husband to work in the morning first. I thought this was pretty cool – the Husband’s work had a diesel bus come and take the kids on a ride, then they switched to an electric bus so the kids could feel the difference. For lunch, I met the Husband and the 7 year old for sushi lunch, then I took him to work with me. We didn’t have any special activities planned this year, but he watched me take a Teams call, sat with me in rehearsal, played with the set model, and helped us move props around. At one point, he even stood next to me and helped me cue performers onstage. Afterwards he said he had a good time, though whether it was from actually being at work with me, or just from not having to go to school… who knows?

Outfit of the week: We had some really chilly mornings and sunny afternoons, so it’s been about layering this week. I originally wanted to just wear my hooded sweatshirt dress, but I also wanted another layer because the dress looks kind of shapeless if worn just on its own. So I threw on this orange pullover – the pullover used to belong to the Husband, but it no longer fits, so I rescued it from the donation bin when I was looking for an oversized sweatshirt last winter. I kind of love the colour combination.

Of course it’s going to be blazing hot this week, so this might be the last I wear this outfit until the fall.

-Shopping for Annie – I might have mentioned that the 12 year old is in Annie Jr. at her school – she plays an orphan. Tessie. She gets to play an orphan with a name! And lines! A couple weeks ago she came home with the costume list of what she had to bring for her orphan costumes – basically a ragged dress, bloomer, ankle socks and flat shoes. I’m hoping to get bloomers form the costume shop at work, but the rest of it, I thought we would just go to the thrift store and see what we could get. We ended up finding a green plaid dress – something very much of the 1990s, but could probably also work for 1930s and also – it’s rayon and says Dry Clean Only, so I hope the 12 year old doesn’t make any messes on it – or maybe that would be okay for an orphan look), a cardigan, and some sensible brown shoes. I have something leftover from work that could work as a pinafore, though it’s going to require some cutting and sewing. And the dress too needs to be hemmed. Here’s the first pass with things pinned into place. I feel like as things go, “Orphan” is a pretty easy assignment for a first time theatre mom.

She opens the same week as I do – so we will both be in tech at the same time. How funny is that?

Speaking of tech – this week is the start of tech . Fortunately I have a day off before we move into the theatre, so I can do some prep for the long days. On the list:
-Pick out my outfits for the week, so I don’t have to think about it in the morning when I’m going to be tired.
-Grocery shopping so I have food.
-Meal prep – I have some zucchini to use up, so I’m planning to make a zucchini lasagna so that the family can have one meal taken care of, and I’ll have leftovers to pack. Also prep some kale salad – that’s nice and hearty and will keep in the fridge.
-Boil eggs (or rather, I make them in the InstantPot) so I have a quick, easy source of protein.
-make a batch of marinated beans – again, a quick and easy source of protein.
-buy some office snacks – I like to bring a sweet snack and a savory snack – usually gummy bears or twizzler or m&ms, and then popcorn or Whisps. We’ll see what strikes my fancy at Costco.
-meal plan the rest of the week – I have some soups in the freezer that I can just take out for the family to eat.
-pick out a nice light read, for when I need a brain break, and an audio book for the longer commutes. (I think I picked a book – see below.)
– plan running clothes so I can go on runs during my dinner break.
-make sure all the bills are paid. Sometimes during tech I forget.
-Laundry.

Whew. It seems like a lot to try to get done in one free day. Plus get that Annie costume done. And I have another super titles gig that I have to prep the titles for. However, most likely on that one free day, I’ll go to Costco after the morning school bus run and then be exhausted for the rest of the day.

My goals for tech week – well my self-care goals for tech week:
-eat well (well, I mean eat the tasty junk food but also eat just as much, if not more, healthy stuff)
-sleep. Go straight to be when I get home late at night.
-find time to go outside – ideally running, but even just a ten minute walk around the building on a dinner break would be great.
-journal and reflect on how each day of tech went and what to do better. Tech can be a really stressful, and I always feel like I don’t have time to process all the stressors and inputs, but this time around, I do want to make sure I think about each day in a more mindful manner so that I don’t internalize the pain points in an unproductive way.
-remember to hug the Husband and my children. Remember to call home when I can. Find ways to connect even though I’m tired and never home at night or on weekends.

Grateful for:
-A cancelled music lesson and unexpected time with the 12 year old. On Friday, I had to take the 12 year old to her 4:00pm voice lesson. The lesson is usually on Saturday at 1pm, but her voice teacher is also in my show and we had rehearsals on Saturday, so we rescheduled it. It is a bit of a trek, and it was Friday rush hour, so I was a little anxious about being late. (side note – I’ve been trying to be less anxious about being late because lateness anxiety makes me a really bad driver and that is just dangerous. So now, I just tell myself, “The worst that can happen if you are careful is that you are late. The worst that can happen if you are not careful is that you get in a car accident.” And then I decide it’s okay to drive carefully and be a little late. Not that I’m being late in a cavalier kind of way, but in a “Just breathe” kind of way.) Anyhow, we were about half way to lessons when the voice teacher called and told me she had accidentally double booked us, and so sorry but can we re-schedule. Well, I wasn’t going to complain about not having to continue on around the beltway at 4pm on a Friday. So I impulsively got off at the next exit and the 12 year old and I went to get boba teas. And while we waited, we had some nice conversations and played War with a deck of cards a the boba tea shop and it turned out to be a really nice way to spend a newly granted 30 minutes of time.

-The local bike repair shop. There is a bike shop near work, so I took my bike in one day to see if it needed a tune up. The person working there, put it up on a rack, spun wheels, squeezed brakes, looked and squinted and prodded and then declared the bike was in great shape and I didn’t need a tune up. “You just need to remember to clean your chain,” he told me. And he suggested a cleaner to use. And I said, “How do I use that?” And he gave me a sideways glance because I’m pretty sure he was supposed to charge me if he was going to do maintenance on my bike. But then he said, “I’ll show you this one time.” And he cleaned my bike chain. And now my bike shifts much more smoothly. I did buy the cleaner and also two bike lights. My last bike lights went missing, so now I have new ones which is great because I can bike more safely in the evenings now. Since the bike was at work, a couple of evenings I went for a bike ride rather than a run on my dinner break – it’s just much more fun, zipping along, wind in my hair, than running. The terrain where I work can be a little hilly and as much as biking uphill is a pain, it was exhilarating.

-Wearing my running shoes to work. On Sunday I wore my running shoes to work because I wanted to bike home afterwards, and I hate wearing/ packing two pairs of shoes, even if it means doing something as unfashionable as wearing running shoes with a shirtdress. Anyhow – it ended up being a doozy of a rehearsal with us rehearsing in two rooms, having to move props back and forth, changing of original rehearsal plans, tracking down people… I logged over 10 000 steps in that day. At one point, I was rushing back and forth between the two rooms for the umpteenth time (side note – someone once told me that Stage Managers never run. I don’t know if I subscribe to that philosophy.), and I thought, “Hey, my feet feel pretty comfy!” And I looked down and remembered that I was wearing running shoes. I’m really glad that I made a sensible shoe choice that morning.

-Carpool and safe walking streets. Having kids in activities means getting people to places. And having a 4 year old and a 7 year old and a 12 year old means that when there is only one parent at home in the evenings, the little kids have to ride along to the big kid’s activities. Luckily, we’ve been able to find solutions for a lot of the 12 year old’s activities. Our neighbors also have kids in the same swim clinic as the 12 year old, so we alternate driving on Sunday nights. And knowing that I’m working most Sunday nights this month and next, the neighbors will be driving several weeks in a row – I’m grateful that they are happy to drive even when they drive more than we do. Also – the 12 year old can walk to her basketball workouts – it’s a 15 minute walk and now that it’s light outside in the evenings, it’s an easy walk; when it got dark at 5:30pm, I was nervous and would walk with her since even though there are lighted crosswalks, sometimes the cars drive faster than I would like. And then also grateful that the 12 year old’s school is doing Annie – I was disappointed when the 12 year old didn’t make it into the children’s chorus for my show, but I’m now realizing that logistically it is much easier for her to be in Annie because it rehearses directly after school and she can just walk home. (Being in my opera would have required a lot of really hard commuting and late nights.) I also just found out that the school has activity buses, so even if we hadn’t lived in walking distance to school, she still could have gotten home after rehearsal. So grateful that the school provides those buses for the other kids.

Looking Forward To:
-Getting to the other side of Tech. There is a lot of I love about tech and being in the theatre and creating moments on stage and helping people backstage. But also there is a lot that is exhausting and this is a big big big show (for an opera) and I am really looking forward to being on the other side and knowing that it all worked out. And going to Old Ebbits for late night happy hour oysters, which we always do to celebrate at some point.

-Making plans to make plans for a date with one of my friends from my mom’s group. I had lunch with a couple women from my mom’s group, but one in particular just had a baby and I always like chatting with her, and that’s kind of hard in a group setting. I had run to the restaurant for lunch so she offered to drive me home and we agreed to get together after tech and before her maternity leave was over. So I put a reminder in my calendar for the day after final dress rehearsal: “Ask T for a date next week.” I find it kind of silly to have to plan to plan, but I don’t always know what’s going to pop up in my calendar after opening, so didn’t want to schedule it right away. But I’ve scheduled scheduling it!

-I just started this book – I got it for Mother/Daughter book club – it checked the 12 year old’s boxes for romance and theatre. Seems perhaps apt reading for me in this next week. Kind of like when I read Milddlemarch while in Rome:

What We Ate:

Monday: Tofu tacos – the Husband cooked. I don’t know what recipe he used but they were tasty. There was even cilantro lime rice to go with it.

Tuesday: Sheet pan chicken and mustard glazed cabbage, from the New York Times Cooking. I prepped this in the morning and the Husband just popped it in the oven when he got home. Some family members did not like the cabbage, but the chicken was a big hit.

Wednesday: Grilled cheese sandwiches – the Husband cooked a variety.

Thursday: Pasta salad with marinated beans. My favorite marinated beans recipe mixed with pasta, chopped peppers, cucumbers and tomatoes. I make the beans and chopped the veggies in the morning, and the Husband made the pasta and mixed everything together when he got home. Bonus – I got to eat marinated beans with avocado and eggs for breakfast one morning:

Friday: Pizza (take out) and Legally Blonde. It was my turn to choose the movie, and luckily it was my one night home. Sometimes if I’m not home, they skip over me and I don’t get to choose until the list cycles through again. I wanted a classic, fun movie. Legally Blonde was definitely that – I mean I guess classic for a kid of the 90s – what a fun movie – and more thoughtful than I had remembered. There’s some good empowering messages going on here.

Saturday: I was working, the family ordered wings.

Sunday: Leftovers – whatever people could find in the fridge.