This was supposed to be one of the few weeks this fall where everyone had a five full days of school. But… there was the unfortunate incident of the plane in the electrical tower which caused a huge power outage and resulted in school being cancelled on Monday. Then Tuesday and Wednesday, the baby was sick so she stayed home. So it was a lot of unexpected child care this week.
On Monday, I decided to take advantage of the no school day to take the five year old and the neighbor’s kid down to the Botanical Gardens to see the model trains. It actually worked out well – when we have gone to see the Botanical Garden trains in the past, we’ve had to go on the weekend and it’s always been really crowded. This time, the crowds were very light so we could easily see all the displays. I’m glad we went during the week because the train display was smaller than in the past, and probably would not have been as relaxed an experience if I had to fight the crowds to see it.
Also – there were baby pineapple plants in the bathroom at the Botanical Gardens. I was so charmed by it, I had to snap a picture:
Monday night the baby started running fever, so I kept her home on Tuesday. She spent a lot of time sleeping, thank goodness, and I got some work done. Other than one incident of vomiting in my bed, she was a pretty low maintenance patient. Even still, she ran a fever again on Tuesday night so we kept her home on Wednesday too. Of course she was more her normal, curious, active self on Wednesday, so I didn’t get as much work done. I actually didn’t mind, though – I was reminded of how during the pandemic I was home and it was just me and the kids and we just kind of hung out and went on walks and baked and read books while cuddling on the couch. And while there was a voice in my head that said, “You really should be working on those supertitle slides!” I think hanging out with my kid is important too – for both of us.
Fun new thing – I’m working on supertitle slides for a concert next week, and one of the songs is in Arabic. I’ve never had to work in Arabic before, so it’s been interesting for sure to match up the translation I was given with the text of the song. Thank goodness for Google and Google translate. At first I was so daunted by the whole things and I kept putting off working on this one song, and I had to remind myself that it’s good to have new work challenges.
Moment to savor: One nice thing about earlier winter sunsets is that when I’m waiting for the school bus in the afternoon I get to see beautiful pink and gold skies. Even as I shiver in the cold there some something breathtaking to see.
I’ve been thinking about my morning routine lately, mostly because there’s been no morning routine this past week and a half. And when there’s no morning routine, habits fall through the cracks.
I’ve been reading B.J. Fogg’s Tiny Habits, and he has developed a method for building habits that can be summed up as:
1) finding the smallest things you can do,
2) finding a prompt to do that small thing,
3) celebrate doing that small thing to make yourself feel good for doing it.
The part I’ve found most helpful is 2), finding a prompt and I’ve been trying to incorporate more prompts in my daily life. There are lots of good behaviours I want to encourage, but I struggle with finding a routine. So I’ve latched on to the idea of finding prompts for things as a reminder to do (or not do) something. For example:
1) The five year old used to wet the bed at night at least once a week. This was mostly because we forget to tell him to go the the bathroom before bed. Also- the ten year old was always leaving things in her pockets, causing havoc on laundry day. So now, after we brush our teeth (prompt – more specifically, after we put our toothbrushes back), the five year old goes to the bathroom and the ten year old empties her pockets.
2) I have a terrible habit of checking my phone at stop lights, and I decided I needed an alternative activity. So now every time I get to a stoplight (prompt), I do kegels until the light turns green to keep me off my phone.
Anyhow, I had set up a series of prompts in my head for the morning, and for a variety of reasons (holidays, the oldest has a morning writing club, just being tired), I hadn’t been doing these things. Rather I was just relying on memory and instinct to do them. My ideal morning prompt/habits would be:
– The Husband leaves for work. The moment the door shuts behind him, we all go do our morning teeth brushing.
-The ten year old leaves to walk the baby to the neighbor’s so they can take her to school. The moment she leaves, I do a ten minute yoga video. (In Fogg’s world, the tiny habit would be – the moment the door closes (prompt), I lay out my yoga mat (tiny action.)) I particularly liked this one because the five year old would do it with me.
-I take the kids to the school bus. When I pull in wherever I need to go after (work or home), as soon as I turn off the car, I do my daily Wordle and Duolingo.
(I still would love to figure out a prompt for journaling… maybe I need to put the journal by my bed and do it as soon as I wake up? I think this is also where routines and habits blend into each other.)
Anyhow, the morning brushing, yoga, Wordle, and Duolingo weren’t getting done this past week. Partly because not having to catch a school bus sucks the urgency out of the morning, and also a couple days, the ten year old’s before school writing club meant that there was no prompt for #2. Wordle and Duolingo usually got done at some point in the day, but I did have to use a couple streak freezes for the Duolingo because I would just forget. And granted none of this stuff was IMPERITIVE, but the morning feels better when I just automatically do things. I feel like when I know that these things will automatically happen after a prompt, I don’t spend mental energy on trying to figure when or if they will happen. (Contrast that with exercise/running – I don’t have a prompt for that because what with the weather and darker days and my current more flexible schedule, exercise doesn’t always happen at the same time and I like to look at my whole day in order to decide where it will happen. )
So I’ve been contemplating the difference between having a morning routine, where the morning is time blocked (ie. 7:00a teeth, 7:15 breakfast, 7:45 get dressed, etc…), versus just having prompts and habits and knowing the rest of the morning activities (pack lunch, get dressed, prep dinner, make breakfast – the essentials) will fall in place around it. I will say we have a luxuriously long morning – the kids are usually up by 6:30/6:45a and the baby goes to the neighbors’ at 8:10pm and the rest of us leave for the school bus at 8:50a. So nothing feels rushed, really. I just think I feel like the morning gets off to a better start when I do more than just the essential survival tasks of food and clothing. Anyhow, here’s hoping the next few weeks I can get back to my tiny habit mornings.
One the List This Weekend:
– Birthday Party (adult)
-Birthday Party x2 (kids)
-Decorate for Christmas/ go get our tree
– Tidy/ Pick up since cleaners are coming on Monday.
-Order Christmas Cards
-Christmas movie
-Bake Cookies (hopefully)
-World Cup Watching.
-Meal Plan for next week.
Grateful for This Week:
– That the pilot and passenger who flew into the electrical tower were able to be rescued safely. I don’t know them, but it must have been horrifically scary. I’m really glad that there were people who knew how to get them down safely.
-All the bloggers who participated in NnBloPoMo – I’ve really enjoyed reading all the thoughts they put into the world this month, such honesty, realness and humor. And now I feel like I have new blogs to pop in and read and the (virtual) world has opened up a little.
-That I’m not working right now and can just roll with the school cancellations and sick days. This week would have been difficult if I had been working because before/after care, which I usually would have used for school closures, was also closed due to the plane/power outage issue. I know so many parents that had to majorly scramble for coverage on Monday.
– Hoopla and my library card. The kids have been listening to Dear Evan Hansen a lot these days. (Also Taylor Swift.) I thought it might be fun to get some music from the show so we can sing it, so rather than buying the sheet music, I put a bunch of music books on hold at the library. When I was loading up my holds list, I noticed that a bunch of these music books were also available as eBooks via Hoopla, so I downloaded those and have been trying to learn Waving Through the Window. There was a lot of music available and I’m eager to dip into more!
Looking forward to:
– Helping my friend celebrate her birthday tonight.
– Supertitle gig next week.
– Getting my teeth cleaned. I know going to the dentist isn’t something people look forward to but, 1) next week is relatively quiet for adventures, and 2) I really like my dentist and hygienist – they are so nice, make me feel taken care of, and make me laugh even while suctioning spit out of my mouth.
What We Ate – This managed to be an eat-from-the-pantry/fridge/freezer week, which is always good the week after Thanksgiving:
Monday: Broccoli Pasta from Bad Manners cookbook. Vegan. This is really tasty for how simple it is. Boil pasta, drain. Sear broccoli in a pan, add garlic and red pepper flakes. Mix pasta in with broccoli. At the table, top with panko parmesan (Panko, nutritional yeast, garlic powder, paprika.) Yes, it’s essentially carbs topped on carbs, but the crunchy savory topping is what really makes this dish for me.
Tuesday: Spicy Salmon Tacos – I used the Korean Pork Taco recipe from Dinners Illustrated but subbed in Salmon and Shrimp for the pork.
Wednesday: Comedy night with my friend – I had a vegan mushroom risotto. The Husband stayed home with the kids and they had breakfast sandwiches and hash browns
Thursday: Butternut Squash Soup from Weeknight Vegetarian. Vegan version that used coconut milk to make it creamy. This was simple and tasty.
Friday: Meatball subs from the deli, wolfed down before the 10 year old’s piano recital. No movie this night – the piano recital was followed immediately by basketball practice.
Making new habits instinctive is so hard! I like this idea of small prompts. One of my successes is that I have a five-year journal that I like to do every night, so I put it by where I feed the cat: I always feed her right before bed, so they pair well together! Other things I am trying to make stick, but they are remaining unstuck so far; it’s a work in progress, life.
Cat + Journal sounds like a nice pairing.
You know, reading your comment, I just realized that the key word in “Work in progress” – is it progress? Or is it work?
Mornings are so hard. If I’m whipping through things, it still takes me hours from the time I wake until I can leave the house. It’s ridiculous. I’ve timed it.
20 minutes SAD lamp
20-40 minutes walk the dog
10 minutes cat stuff (clean her chin and brush her teeth)
5 minutes dog stuff (feed her and brush her teeth)
20 minutes shower and dress
20 minutes breakfast/get lunch packed
20 minutes dry hair and do makeup
115-135 minutes depending on what mood the dog wakes up in. AND I DON’T HAVE CHILDREN.
I don’t know how you do it.
That’s a very full morning! I feel like your pet stuff takes up as much time as kid stuff. And… eventually the kids can feed themselves and brush their own teeth and go to the bathroom on their own.
I tried sooo hard to get into Tiny Habits and I just…couldn’t do it. I love this sort of self-improvement/minor behavioural modification stuff, but I found the book repetitive and oddly configured? Hearing you talk about it again makes me feel like I should give it another shot down the line, though!!
Honestly, with Tiny Habits, I think you could just do a Google search and find his method distilled into the action steps on some book summary or YouTube video. I agree – I didn’t need ten different examples of how someone implemented each step because it was pretty clear after the first example how his method was supposed to work. I’m a bit of a “uestioner” and I did wish that there was more about the psychology and science behind his method.
My favorite part was the lists he had in the back of “ways to celebrate” and then various examples of “prompts” that one might find in life – I thought was a good starting point for implementing his methods.