Three things that brought joy this past week:
-Outside of the swim center where I take the baby for swim classes, there are hammocks. They are part of kind of public/private art space. After swim lessons last week, we spent a good ninety minutes on the playground, then wandered over to the hammocks and cuddled and swung the in the crisp autumn air. There is a beautiful timeless quality to be found in a good hammock.
-Night time walks. The sun is setting earlier and earlier these days. But some days, dinner is done and put away and we still have half an hour until bed time. In the summer we would take and evening walk, and Sunday night, I thought, “Why not?” So I got out the flashlights and we took an evening flashlight walk.
-On the flip side – the sun rise is also later, and Friday brought this beautiful sky. It certainly made it worth my while to take the trash out.
Three things I’m cautiously optimistic about:
-I’ve started running. Running has never been my thing. To be honest, exercise has never been my thing. But something about turning forty made me realize that while I’m actually a pretty healthy eater, there is probably more that I could be doing to stay physically strong. Particularly these days when life is rather sedentary. I credit the “on your feet” nature of being a stage manager with a lot of my passive good health. So anyhow, I’ve started running while I’m waiting for the four year old’s soccer and Mandarin sessions. By running, I mean I walk for 30 seconds, jog for 1 minute, and repeat until the voice in my head tells me to stop. By “voice in my head” I mean the Audible training program that I downloaded.
– The kid’s toy room is passably tidy these days. We had a moment a few weekends ago where the mess – or rather the lack of picking up of said mess – really got to me. So I told the four year old – because let’s be honest, it’s mostly his mess – that he could only have two of his four bins of building toys and he could chose what. He chose the tracks and the Magnaformers. The Duplos and the small blocks went away to the highest shelf in the closet, along with a small box of Barbie clothes and accessories. I’m not sure if removing two bins of toys has lead to a tidier toy room, but I can now walk into the room without the searing pain of stepping on small toys, so I’m calling that a win. I had a thought the other day as to whether letting the toys have a separate toy/ play room is actually a good thing, or whether it discourages family togetherness. I should probably just stop reading parenting books and do whatever keeps me sane and my feet pain free. So far, it hasn’t been as awful as I’d always imagined running would be. I go nice and slow and I don’t push myself to breathlessness, except maybe the last sprint of the run.
-I’ve decided to quite Facebook for a little bit. Facebook went offline a couple weeks ago, and it was kind of the nudge I needed to quit. Or at least to sit with not having it in my life for a little bit. I found myself spending way too much time on all the random groups I had joined – and while I miss being on the groups for the fountain of opinions and thoughts and information that I could find there, and also as a forum for me to share my opinions, thoughts, and information – some of them could be incredibly toxic, and judgmental. And I found myself getting very judgmental as well. So I just stopped. And interestingly, my screen time hasn’t gone down, but that’s because I’m reading a lot more. I mean I still spend a lot of time scrolling random blogs and websites, but even still, I finished five books last week. I’m still trying to figure out if there is a replacement for Facebook groups, but maybe I should just learn to live with a smaller sphere of voices vying for my attention.
Okay – one thing I’m not optimistic about: the door knob cover that I had put on the pantry to prevent the baby from getting into the spices has proved… ineffective. It took her about two days to figure it out. Sigh.
And a mixed blessing: Beautiful weather. Freakishly warm weather for mid October. So while I am basking in golden temperatures to accompany the golden leaves, I worry for the global environmental conditions that allow this.
And this moment of beauty:
We’ve been reading some Robert Frost and the other day, walking from the park to drop the kids to school, I looked back and the sunlight shimmering through the leaves and breathlessly thought of the Frost poem “Nothing Gold Can Stay”:
Nature’s first green is gold,
Her hardest hue to hold.
Her early leaf’s a flower;
But only so an hour.
Then leaf subsides to leaf.
So Eden sank to grief,
So dawn goes down to day.
Nothing gold can stay.
What We Ate:
Saturday: Takeout from our favorite Burmese restaurant, which, tragically, is closing at the end of the month. I will miss their green tealeaf salad.
Sunday: Leftovers.
Monday: Zucchini with Bucatini, inspired after I listened to Stanly Tucci’s interview on Fresh Air.
Tuesday: Sausage and Peppers. Forgot to defrost the sausage, so cooked them in the Instant Pot, though the Husband pointed out you can grill frozen sausages.
Wednesday: The Husband made fettuccini alfredo. It was his mother’s favorite dish, and Wednesday would have been her birthday.
Thursday: Tamarind Chickpeas with Greens from Milk Street’s Tuesday Night Dinners. I really liked this dish. The baby loved the chickpeas.
Friday: Pizza (purchased because we forgot to defrost the pizza dough) and Baketopia (again) because last week’s Baketopia got cut short.