Weekly recap + what we ate: Things I track and FIGS Week #2

Scaling mountains of ice and snow to get to school.

The week ended with weather that was positively spring like with temperatures in the 50s and, more importantly, blinding sunlight and clear blue skies. I am of the opinion that the sun and sky have more effect on me then the actual temperature. So much light and colour, the world can’t help but to feel like it is warming up. I left the house without my bulky winter coat a couple times and it feel so freeing! But this coming week looks to be a little on the grey side. Today (Sunday) was oh so rainy and chilly.

Anyhow, it’s been a week back in the office. It was fine. Everyone is overwhelmed and doing three jobs, but morale is high and we are all excited to be doing opera again. I want to remember to carry this feeling and remember it when the show feels hard – we are so very very very lucky to continue to tell stories onstage for people.

Stephany had a post a few weeks ago about the how she tracks her habits and goals and I was inspired to write a similar post. I’m fascinated by the minutiae of other people’s planning/tracking, so maybe other people will be interested in my methods?

So my current planner stack features:
-Hobonichi Weeks for day to day planning. (this might get it’s own post some day…)
-Levenger Five Year Journal, which I try to write in every day, with varying results
-A moleskin notebook that I use to track my reading; I write books that I read, and a few comments on them. This isn’t always a moleskin- it’s generally whatever blank notebook I have on hand when I run out of pages in the last one.
-A Hobonichi Cousin that I use to track routines, life, habits, some longer form reflections.

This has pretty consistently been my stack for the past five or six years. Last year, I tried a different planner, trying to put the planning and reflection/tracking in the same book, but that lasted less then a month before I went back to my tried and true method. I’m mostly going to write about how I use the Hobonichi Cousin here.

First off – Meals, media, and time outside:

On the top I track tv and movies that we watch. A lot of these are family movie night movies. Hearts are things that I really enjoyed.
Below that, I write down each day what we have for dinner. If we eat out, it gets a pink dot. If it is a vegan dinner, it gets a green dot. If it’s a meal we made at home that went over really well, I draw a heart so that I can go back and remember what was a hit with the family and make it again.
The last section is where I track time outside – each box on the grid represents one hour. I started doing this when I was trying to do 1000 hours outside, but I don’t think I’ll ever get to that in one year, so I now just track to see what is trending.

The Weekly Spread – Here I time track, writing down what I did every day in 30 minute segements.

This was a very light week for paid work.

I have a loose colour coding:
Green = work that I get paid to do
Purple = unpaid labor and family time (ie chores, making dinner, driving carpool, hanging out as a family)
Orange= time that is just for me, where I ignore (or don’t have to think about) the kids or family
Blue = Sleep.
Also on the left hand side, I write the books that I’m reading.

This is the section i’m the most inconsistent in filling out; I find I have a lot of nebulous time that is not accounted for….

365 Day Tracker – this is where I log my daily yoga. Here I also colour code according to how much yoga I do – pink=10 mins, orange = 15 mins, yellow = 20 mins, green=25 mins, and blue = 25 mins. There is something really fun and satisfying about this page. I sometimes think I should track something else for 365 days, but I’m not sure what that would be.

Daily Pages – This is where I write longer reflections that don’t fit into the 5 year journal. When I travel, this is where I write daily travel reflections, gather ticket stubs and what not. If I go to a museum or see a play, musical, etc., this is where I write my thoughts about what I saw. If I need to do a larger brain dump to problem solve something it goes here. I write haikus here for my weekly haiku project.
These daily pages also have a blank page at the start of each month and that’s where I write my monthly highlights/ low lights/ lessons learned.

The Monthly Spread – This is where the bulk of my tracking is. The categories I track here are mostly inspired by things I learned when I took The Science of Well Being, a free course on Coursera that is also known as the Yale Happiness Course because it is taught by a Yale Professor, Laurie Santos. Each week of the course, Santos talked about one thing that has been scientifically proven to make people “happier”, and gives assignments based on that topic. I took this course during the pandemic and it was really helped me focused on little things that I could be mindful about that could make life feel fuller, especially at a time that was really felt like a stressful daily grind. A lot of what her findings show is that people are really bad at predicting what makes them happy- the things people think they want are often inflated in their minds, leading to disappointment if it doesn’t come about. People find the most contentment when they focus on personal connection and what is right in front of them.

blank at the beginning of the year.
January. The first eleven days are blank because we were in Taiwan/I was getting over jetlag/feeling overwhelmed.

I like tracking things here because I can write a little more on what each thing is, allowing for a bit more reflection.

So what I track here:
-Hours outside (yes, I know I put this in two places, but I wanted also to see how much time I was spending outside on a daily basis.)
-Gratitude: at least one thing I’m grateful for each day.
-Savoring: one thing I take time to slow down and savor each day.
-Connection: at least one person I connected with that day. Santos has a week where she talks about the benefits of positive interaction. Sometimes for me, this is a long conversation over dinner, sometimes it is small talk in the grocery line or just a text exchange with a friend.
-Brush/floss: Okay, this one isn’t from Laurie Santos, but I used to be terrible at brushing and flossing, so I started making myself check a box for it. I’m not usually a box-checker, but in this case it really worked for me. One check for brushing, one for flossing.
-Exercise – I take this to mean movement. So the daily yoga and any work outs or runs I do go here, but also if I take a walk at lunch time, go skating with the kids, etc.
-Create: Here I write if I do something creative that day. To me this means write a blog post, compose a haiku, play piano, spend time painting, cook a fancy new recipe – basically anything where I create something from nothing.
-Anticipation: I write something I’m looking forward to. This wasn’t part of Santos’ course, but I read a NYTimes article about how anticipation boosts happiness so I added it to the list.

Along the bottom I track some of the habits I want to do this year:
-Paint 26 pictures
-Write 1 haiku a week
-visit a museum
-go on a hike
-do the Post Sunday crossword puzzle every week.

As a side note, some things that Santos talks about which improve well-birng that I don’t track:
-Sleep. My sleep is shit. I’m working on this, but I’ve tried tracking sleep and tracking does not motivate me to go to bed earlier, so I stopped.
-Meditation. I’ve tried, Lord know I’ve really really really tried meditation. I just can’t figure it out.
-Acts of kindness. This one was really hard for me to do mindfully without feeling performative. Some days I feel like the kindest thing I can do is hug my children and tell them I love them every single day, so I try to at least do that.

So that’s my system. I’m not a box checker, as I mentioned, so I don’t necessarily do these things to cross them off the list. But I do find it useful to see what things I’m making room in my life for. If I’m looking at my tracking spread and I notice I didn’t write something in a particular column for several days in a row, I will make an effort to find time to do it. But also, it helps when I’m in really busy time of the year to remind myself that there are certain things I still manage to do, even if it is as simple as brushing my teeth.

Anyhow, speaking of creating – here are my paintings from January:

This was from our hotel room in Beitou, Taiwan. Picture’s blurry because I didn’t actually take a real picture of this one and now I don’t know where it is….
The top picture is an exercise from Everyday Watercolor by Jenna Rainey; it’s a book of daily watercolor exercises. The bottom picture uses the salt technique where you sprinkle salt on wet paint to create a blotchy effect- it’s loosely based on a tutorial I found on YouTube on painting snowflakes.

Grateful For (FIGs, Week 2) – shout out to Elisabeth’s February FIGS collective, where she is gathering people’s gratitudes this month. These are some of my FIGs from last week.

-Libraries and printing. We aren’t fully set up with our IT at work yet, and I needed to print our music scores. So I went to the library to print them out. The process is so easy – log into the website with my library card, upload the documents and then go to any library and print. There is a thing where I have to have the librarians put a “fine” on my card to pay for the printing, but once I print the job, I pay off the “fine”. Also, the first 15 pages are free. This is such a great service.

-Sunlight in the morning. On Tuesday, I did my daily morning yoga in my bedroom instead of the basement. I pulled up my shade, and as I was doing my upward dog, I noticed that I could see pink sky when I had been used to the sky still being inky black at 7am in the morning. The days are starting to get longer.

-On the other side of the day, I walked out of work at 5:30pm one day and it was still light outside. After all those days of being stuck at home with the snow, the longer stretches of daylight are like fingers of hope and growth and the end of the tunnel.

-Our tax guy. I had to fill out new tax paperwork as part of the transition at work, and I was so very confused by the form. So I sent my tax guy an email and he told me exactly what to write in. Thank goodness.

-Getting to watch the 14 year old play basketball twice -once for her middle school team and once on her rec team. Her face always lights up when she sees me at her games, and I hope mine does too.

-Getting to pick up the kids after school. That moment they get off the school bus lifts my heart. I hope I never get tired of my kids coming home.

-To that end – school bus drivers. Some of the roads still are barely passable because the snow has not been cleared out to the curb. Grateful for the bus drivers that navigate that and get our kids to and from school safely.

-That quiet sliver of time between getting home with the kids and starting dinner. A few times last week, the 6 year old and I got the watercolours out and made a piece of art or two. A relaxing transition from the work/school day into the evening.

-Crisp clean sheets to slide between after a long day.

-Birdsongs and fat robins hopping in the snow. Spring is coming.

-Leaving for school a little on the early side and not having to rush up the path. There was time for the kids to pause and throw sticks in the still frozen creek, to tromp through the snowier path to school, and to summit the ice mountain that still sits in the parking lot between our path and the doors to school. (see photo at the top of the post!)

-A quiet office before the rest of my team arrives. I try to get to work half an hour before the rest of the stage managers get in; I love the stillness of the office in the morning and the ability to knock off some tasks without interruption.

-The Husband for helping make a tough situation better. We found out this week that when the 14 year old filled out her high school choice form, she had forgotten to also apply for the high school program that she wanted. (It’s a program that allows high school seniors to take a full year of classes at the community college for free.) So she got assigned to the school, but not to the program. I have to admit that the whole process was kind of confusing; we had thought you filled out the interest for after getting assigned to the high school. We were wrong. There were tears. So many tears. And yelling. And despair. All the stages of grief. This program was the whole reason she wanted to go to the school. Well, the Husband did some digging and it turns out that if she goes to the school counselor in the first week of school, she can still fill out an interest form for the program. So all is not lost. Thank goodness. I’m grateful that the Husband was persistent and called and emailed until he got an answer on the issue.

Looking Forward To:

-Starting rehearsal this week. Ready to dive in.

-Lunar New Year. It’s Tuesday. I have to work in the evening so no big celebration for us (plus it’s Taco Tuesday), but I will wear red and I did buy pineapple cakes, so I’ll bring those to work.

-Just started this audiobook, a memoir of growing up in Derry as one of eleven children being raised by a single father. It’s funny in that stolidly ironic way. On of my favorite bits is that whenever anyone asks O’Reilly’s father how he managed to raise 11 children on his own, he says, “Well, which of them would you have me give back?”

-Also started reading this book – I feel like it’s going to be the perfect read as I wait out the last of the cold winter:

What We Ate:
Monday: Chinese leftovers from Super Bowl Sunday.

Taco Tuesday: Middle school tacos – basically ground beef tacos.

Wednesday: Curry chickpeas with scallion and cilantro. From Milk Street Fast and Slow, their Instant Pot cookbook. Eaten with rice and paratha. We’ve discovered this year paratha from the frozen section of HMart. You cook the paratha on the griddle and it’s magical. Vegan.

Thursday: Breakfast sandwiches.

Friday: Pizza (take out) and The Hitman’s Bodyguard. This 2017 film with Ryan Reynolds as a protection agent (bodyguard) who is hired to guard a notorious assassin played by Samuel L. Jackson. The movie was hilarious, with Reynolds and Jackson in top notch bantering form. Greatly enjoyed this movie. There is a lot of swearing and shooting in it, though.

Saturday: Dumplings and green beans.

Sunday: We went over to a friends’ house for a casual afternoon gathering, and ate lots of hummus and baba ganouj and fruit and Valentine’s candy. It was a lovely time – the big kids and little kids played together, then the tween/teens put on music and started performing K-Pop dance numbers. At one point, one of our hosts, who is a musician, started playing Part of Your World on the piano and the girls did an improv dance – I think they were all some form of seaweed. All in all, it was a lovely afternoon. But all to say, dinner was … undefined. I filled up on snacks so wasn’t hungry when we got home. Of course the little kids were, so I boiled some ravioli and doused it with olive oil and parmesan and that’s what they ate.

I hope you have a sunny week! We have a lot of evening rehearsals this week, so I’m girding my loins for that. But I’m excited to get started with rehearsals.

How/what do you track or record? How do you transition from work to home life in the evenings?

At the Top of the Hill

There was a moment a few weeks ago, while sledding- that moment where the sled is teetering at the top of the hill, a breath before gravity tips the sled forward and sends it swooshing down to the bottom of the hill. I’m sitting in the sled and that moment is fill of breathless anticipation. And dread. Some call it anticipation. But really it’s stomach churning dread.

Here’s the thing, I realized sitting at the top of the hill, though. When I’m in that sled teetering at the top of the hill, I look down and I see what is ahead of me. And there is one tiny path that is super smooth, and I know if I managed to go down that path, everything will be predictable, clockwork, as I expected. But all around that sliver of smooth clear path is lumpy bumpy snow. Snow with divots. Snow with footprints. And I know that hitting those spots will be jarring and even painful. It’s this not knowing what the ride will be like that makes me hate being at the top of the hill.

I was thinking about this moment a lot this week as I get ready to step back into the rehearsal room. I’ve been feeling a little off. There have been so many changes at work, and I feel as if I’m sitting in that sled, filled with dread, waiting to slide down the hill. I might be pushed, or I might push myself. Or gravity and physics might just do its thing and send me off before I know it.

This – perched at the top of the hill about to go down – is where I am today. I can see a path for the next few weeks where everything is frictionless and I avoid all obstacles, and at the same time I also see all the roadblocks and difficulties that lie ahead. And honestly, I don’t know until we get started if things will be nice and expected, or if I will hit all the potholes I see. And anyway, it’s more than likely there are bumps in the smooth way too because in the white sleekness of the path, the bright sunlight can hide all the bumpy parts. So there’s really no knowing. But there is fretting and resistance and reluctance.

I can try to steer to the narrow smooth sailing path. But, it’s a sled. It’s an imperfect vehicle and I can only do so much. Odds are – because of weather, weight, and physics – I will likely veer down the bumpy parts of the hill and all I can do is brace myself and try to keep myself (and the kids, and the show) inside the sled. And if we do fall out, I can just pick ourselves up and continue the journey, or carry the sled back up the hill to do it all again.

That moment at the top of the hill, though – it’s the worst and best moment. Teeth gritted, not knowing when the bumps will hit. But also knowing that if I don’t go tip down, I won’t know how amazing the ride will be.

Weekly recap + what we ate: A New York Adventure and FIGS

Two Strangers (Carry a Cake Through New York), I love a stage before a show!

This was my last week “off” before starting a new show. It wasn’t really “off” because I had emails and paperwork to go through and I’ve started thinking about staffing for next season and I had a supertitle gig on Sunday to prep for. But, I was able to work from home and I didn’t have to be in rehearsal so it was nice to have the flexibility. The kids were home Monday (no snow but the school district deemed the sidewalks and roads not sufficiently ploughed/shoveled for kids to make it to school safely), and then a delayed start Tuesday and Wednesday. Thursday and Friday, however, it was business as usual. The school year has been extended by one day and there is a no-school day in March that will now be a school day, but there is something like five days of school that need to be made up, so I’m curious where the other days will come from.

The highlight of the week was going to New York to see a musical with the 14 year old. It was Broadway Week so you can get 2 for 1 ticket deals. last year we had gone go see Hadestown during Broadway week and it was such a fun adventure that I decided to go again this year. This year I just took the 14 year old, as a birthday present, pulling her out of school on a Wednesday for a mid-week escape.

Sunrise over the Susquahanna.

We took the 8:10am train up, arriving in New York at 11:30am. The trip up was pretty smooth- I got some work done and had to take a meeting on the train. The best thing on the train was this group of senior women who were clearly on some kind of group trip. They settled into seats next to us and the proceeded to bring out the most lavish buffet I’d ever seen on a train – breakfast sandwiches (“bacon or sausage?” they asked each other), strawberries, grapes, homemade muffins. All on these eaten off delicate gold trimmed plates. They were most certainly living their best lives. I don’t know why they were going to New York or even if that was their final destination, but they were having such a good time.

Upon arriving in New York, our first stop was to get bagels from Best Bagels, four blocks from Penn Station. The bagels there are huge and fluffy, crispy on the outside and soft and chewy inside. I got a jalapeno everything bagel with bacon and scallion cream cheese and the 14 year old got an everything bagel with scallion cream cheese. We took our bagels to Bryant park and ate at the tables there. I was worried it would be too snowy to eat outside – the city was still ankle deep in snow in places and all over you could see work crews clearing the snow – but the tables and chairs in Bryant Park were clear and even though it was chilly, the sun was out and the day was cheery. (I took a lot of food pictures on this trip; when I first asked the 14 year old what she wanted to do besides see the show, she said she wanted to eat lots of tasty food. We certainly did our best.)

After we finished our bagels we went to Katagiri, a Japanese grocery store that had onigiri. Onigiri (Japanese rice balls wrapped in seaweed, often with meat or veggies stuffed inside) is one of the the 14 year old’s favorite food. We’ve always had them from grab and go places like 7-11 in Taiwan or from the boba tea shop or H-Mart. The onigiri at Katagiri made those pale in comparison. First of all they had so many different kinds – salmon, spicy tuna, veggie, eel…, a whole display case full. And they were huge – almost the size of my fist – and the rice was fluffy yet still sticky enough for the onigiri not to fall apart. I got a ume plum one and a shiso one and the 14 year old got a salmon one. They were so tasty and still a little warm.

We munched on the onigiri as we made our way to our next destination- Kinokuniya, the Japanese Manga/Book/Stationary store. We had visited here last year and I love popping in to see what they had. I didn’t end up buying anything, but it’s always fun to browse.

We left spent about twenty minutes in Kinokuniya before walking over to the theatre. Our seats at the theatre were next to a a bunch of theatre buffs. Next to us was a gay couple, one of whom had seen Wicked ten times. In front of us was two ladies in their thirties who had come from Buffalo and Florida for Broadway week. I loved listening to them talk and gossip about shows they’ve seen and Broadway stars.

We had seats in the second row of the balcony. Broadway theatres are smaller than the theatres where we see opera, so even though we sat in the balcony, I still felt like I was very close to everything. I will say, though, next time I might try sitting at a lower level, even if it’s farther back. I found with this show, the actors tended to direct their energy out in front of them, so I felt like I was watching much of the action from above rather than directly in the line of it. It’s not a big difference, but I’m curious how a show would feel from a different angle.

The show itself was wonderful. It’s a two person show, about a British guy and an New Yorker. His dad is marrying her sister and the whole situation is messy and complicated. The show was funny and sweet and moving – the best kind of rom com. The two performers brought so much energy and brilliance and heart to their performances. It must be a lot of pressure to have a two person show – so exposed, you know. I loved, though, how, even though it was just the two of them onstage, they made me believe that their world was full of so many other people.

The guy next to us said, “Someone wrote this. They put it on stage, and now it’s on Broadway. How amazing is that?” Amazing indeed.

After the show, we walked back to the train station. On the way, we picked up some Chinese food for dinner to eat on the train home (noodles and dumplings from The Handpulled Noodle in Hell’s Kitchen) and also got some boba tea as well (from Coco Bubble Tea). We also swung by a bakery to pick up some treats for the rest of the family. I had looked up bakeries near us and found Posh Pop Bake Shop, which had some beautiful desserts. I didn’t realize until later that it was a gluten free bakery. We came home with some apple cider donuts, a salted caramel brownie, and a birthday cake cookie.

I’m loving these little day trips into New York. To be honest, I find New York overwhelming – the people and the rush and all the things for sale, all the options for things to do, to see, to eat. Just walking down the street is an adventure filled with so many characters and stories. One of my favorite moments was in the evening as we were walking back to the train station. We heard a phone ring, I patted my phone, but it wasn’t mine. It was the guy next to me, slick looking guy in a business suit and long wool coat.

“Yeah,” he says impatiently into the phone. “I’m on my way. I’m nearly there. Look I’m on Seventh already.”

We were on Eighth.

Not that I’ve never fudged my location when running late….

Dusk in NYC. Something about all the tall buildings make the view of sky very precious. Golden, almost literally.

Anyhow, it was all in all a nice day. Next time I might opt for an earlier morning train. The 8:10am train was easy to get to, but also it didn’t quite leave us enough time to explore before the show. I had chosen the 8:10am train because it was $38 for that leg and the 7am train was $60. But I think the extra money is worth it to have more time at the beginning of the day. I’m hoping to make a Broadway Week trip to NYC an annual thing I do with one (or more) of the kids.

Grateful For: For the Month of February, Elisabeth is gathering people’s gratitudes for her gratitude collective, FIGS. I already regularly write a gratitude list in my weekly posts, but this month, I’m going to make an effort to write at least seven per week, though I’ve found that some days when I’m writing them out, I have so many more than one each day. Anyhow – some FIGS for this week that was:

-One more snow day. Yes, everyone was starting to get a little feral after ten days at home, but I was actually glad to have one more day cozy with the kids. We shoveled some snow, built up our snow fort, met the Husband for lunch, got boba, went to the library (got the 9 year old his own library card!), went to the park and slid down icy slopes on our butts (because I didn’t think to bring the sleds.). I work so many weekends, that I don’t often get an obligation-free day home with the kids, so the snow day felt like a gift of time with them.

She wanted the snow fort to be taller than she was when kneeling. Unfortunately I didn’t do a good job with the construction and on the next slightly warm day, the snow melted enough for the walls to fall in.

-A warm house after a cold walk.

– getting to go to New York with the 14 year old. I had such a good time, and I do genuinely like hanging out with my kid.

-Google for when I don’t know what I’m doing in PowerPoint, and people who provide tutorials to tell me how to do it. I use PowerPoint to my my supertitle slides, but I’ve never really learned it. Mostly just noodled around until it did what I wanted it to do. But for those times when noodling doesn’t work, I’m grateful that I can put what I’m trying to do and 90% of the time I will find a step by step tutorial that teaches me how to do it.

– Laughter. There was an article in the New York Times this week, The Evolutionary Brilliance of the Baby Giggle, that talked about the social importance of laughing. It’s an interesting read, but really what got me was the various videos in the article of babies laughing. I dare you to click over and not at least smile at the pure baby joy.
Laughter feels so good. I don’t often realize that I haven’t had a good belly laugh recently, until I do. One thing that made me belly laugh was last week – the 14 year old has a Bark Phone, through which we can set parental controls and also Bark will flag content that it thinks we should be aware of. Well, the latest thing is that Bark now give us a summary (clearly AI generated ) of the 14 year old. The Husband read it to me and we were rolling on the floor laughing. Apparently Bark knows our kid is well rounded because she spends equal amounts of time on Webtoons, listening to music, and on Libby. The kicker, though was when it told us that her most frequent contact was John Smith (not the real name!). “John Smith is often included in communication with ‘Mom’,” Bark relayed, “indicating that [14 year old] is open with her communication.”
Friends, “John Smith” is the Husband.
We howled with laughter, thinking about how Bark seemed to be hinting that John Smith was some nefarious stranger.

-Friends who help celebrate the Husband’s milestone birthday on Superbowl Sunday. I’m not the best at planning parties, so I’m glad that people come over and make it about the company and not the party. A few die hards did stay until the end of the game, including one friend from Boston who was holding out hope for the Patriots. We actually set up a second tv in another room to play the Olympics in case any of our friends weren’t into the Superbowl. I drifted between rooms, but I did watch the half time show. I wasn’t very familiar with Bad Bunny, and wow. It was unlike any half time show I’ve ever seen before – there was such specificity to the whole act, and it was full of people looking like they were having a great time. I kind of loved it.

-That dark chocolate quinoa crisps are back at Costco!

– All the people who make middle school sports possible. I got to catch the first half of the 14 year old’s basketball game this week, and I’m just so grateful for the Coach (who is the school nurse), and the people who put in time to ref the games, and our middle school sports coordinator. At a time when playing sports can be so expensive, I’m really grateful that through the schools there is a no/low cost way for kids to play sports.

-All the people out there who are steadily chipping away at the snowcrete, clearing sidewalks and cutaways that are thick with ice, even a week after the snow.

Looking Forward To:
-Contra Dancing this week. We’re going to try to go to the Thursday night contra dance.

-Familiar colleagues coming into town for my next show. I’m looking forward to seeing everyone again.

-Pomelo! We went to HMart and picked up some fruit – they had pomelos for Lunar New Year, so we bought one. They also had mangosteen, which we had in Malaysia last winter. It’s of course not as fresh as in Malaysia, but it’s still tasty. Also … I didn’t really look at the price when I put it in the cart, and ended up spending $37 dollars on 2.5 lbs of mangosteen. Ooops. Sorry/not sorry. I kind of look on it as an indulgence – some people buy fancy clothes and cars. I buy fruit.

Pomelo and mangosteen.

-A water heater/boiler! Not the HVAC kind; the making tea kind. We ordered a Zojurishi Hot water boiler to replace our kettle. It seems awfully fancy, but I’m excited. I’m most looking forward to not being late out the door because I’m waiting for hot water to fill my tea mug.

-Continuing to read the Washington Post. The news about the layoffs at the Post this week was devastating especially since I consider the Post my hometown newspaper. In addition to our online subscription, we get the Sunday paper delivered to our door every week- there is something I love about the newspaper appearing on our driveway, the kids immediately pulling out the comics while I look at the arts section, and then leafing through to the Metro, Travel, Book and Front page. As terrible as it feels to “support” Bezos and whatever he is doing to American journalism, it is inconceivable not to support the journalists. I felt very similar when people told me they were not coming to the opera anymore because the institution where we performed was being taken over and going in a direction they didn’t agree with. Look, I’m not going to tell people where to spend their money, but to me the art isn’t about the building it’s in, it’s about the stories that we can tell, the ways we connect and the work that is being done, day after day by the people who believe in the medium. So just as I hope people will continue to come to the opera and go to the Symphony (what another terrible blow there was this week for the Symphony), I will continue to read the Post and look forward to it appearing on my driveway every Sunday.

What We Ate:
Monday: Ethiopian food. I made misir watt and yellow lentils and then fried up some potatoes to go with since not all the kids like injera. (The injera I bought from the store). The yellow lentils were a little soupy when I first opened up the Instant Pot, but they thickened over time. Vegan.

Taco Tuesday: Shrimp Tacos

Wednesday: This was our New York adventure day. The Husband took the two younger kids out for Korean fried chicken while the 14 year old and I were away.

Thursday: Golden Potato Leek Soup from NY Times Cooking and biscuits. I had some potatoes to use up. I added corn and peas to the soup, to give it a little more variety. I also threw in the leftover yellow lentils from Monday to give it a bit of protein. Two family members loved this soup, two family members said it had too much stuff in it.

Friday: Pizza (The Husband made)+ Central Intelligence – a 2016 funny buddy caper/action movie starring Kevin Hart and the Rock. It was pretty funny and the performances were fun, though the plot was confusing. Afterwards we watched the Olympic opening ceremonies.

Saturday: Tortellini with red sauce and leftover salad.

Sunday: Super Bowl Sunday. Also a big milestone birthday for the Husband. We ordered Chinese food from his favorite take out place, pretzels, cake. And lots of other snacks and sweets.

On that – can I say some random thoughts on the Opening Ceremonies –
-I missed the first ten minutes and was super confused by the Opening Ceremonies taking place in three different locations. It took me a while to realize that those weren’t just different sets that people were parading through, but actually different parts of Italy.
-I want to vacation in a small Italian city now. I mean, yeah, there is clearly part of the Olympics that is one big travel ad for the country hosting. And tell you what – it works on me.
-Can we talk about the opening ceremony country looks? How cozy were some of the team sweaters? I’m looking at you Norway and Ireland. Also those thick scarves worn by Great Britain – I want one. I also wondered if people wear their outfits after the Olympics. I certainly would. The Canadian puffer vests looked very impractical but such a fun statement. (though maybe not impractical – I read that they can also be used as pillows!) Oh and the French contingent all looked like they were on Hoth.
-I was VERY annoyed when Guinea-Bissou and Haiti was marching and NBC split the screen over to talk to the American athletes waiting to march. I mean Haiti had TWO athletes and Guinea-Bissou had ONE. The network couldn’t give them our full attention?
-How fun was all the choreography? All I could think about was, “How do you even rehearse something that big???” I loved how it was clearly designed to be impactful from far away – what looks on the camera to be chaotic mass of swirling people, when seen from a gazillion steps back, is a beautiful purposeful swirl of color. Also – shout out to the few times you saw the crew pop out to move things. I always get excited when I see stagehands.
-The nine year old is participating in his school Geobowl. The theme this year is Europe and the opening ceremonies was a fun chance to get him to start thinking about all the different countries. When a European country marched, I would point it out on the map and tell him the capital. It’s okay to stay up til 11am if it’s educational, right?
-The Olympic flame coming through and lighting the cauldron. Made me tear up. Thinking about journey and history and past becoming present…. gets me every single time.

Well that’s the news from this end. The snow continues to blanket our world here, but I hear sunshine and warmer weather is around the corner.

What makes you laugh? Did you watch any Olympics? The Super Bowl?

2025 Reading + 2026 Reading Challenge

OMG – it’s February. Does anyone care about my 2025 reading life? Well, here are some thoughts on it anyhow…

In 2025, I read 67 books. (seems appropriate…). I don’t do extensive tracking of statistics; I keep a reading journal where I write down the name of each book and my thoughts on it. If I really liked a book, I put a little heart by it in my book journal. Sometimes I write down quotes, but I also record quotes in my Highlighted app because it automatically finds your book by scanning the ISBN number and then I can just use my camera to pull quotes. Highlighted also makes it easy to paste quotes into a blog post if I want.

Over all, 67 books is a lot for me – usually I average 50 or so. Not sure how I read so many books. Many of them were audio, which makes it easy to fit in a book when I had a long commute. But, out of the 67, only 12 books earned a little “heart” next to them in my journal – that’s about 18 percent. I would like to love more than 18% of the books that I read. It doesn’t mean that the other 82% were bad, just that only these 12 made me sigh with blissful satisfaction when I finished reading them, this feeling of wanting more, but also of having had a perfect reading (or listening) experience.

Anyhow, on to…

MY “HEART” READS 2026


My three top reads were memoirs, and each one gave me a quote that stuck with me all year. I listened to all of these on audio, and then loved them so much I re-visited them in print.
What the Dead Know: Learning about Life as a New York City Death Investigator by Barbara Butcher. “When you leave here [autopsy work] each day, surround yourself with things of beauty. Enjoy nature and art and food and music and love. Just do it, and don’t skip a day. Seriously.”
The grisly yet human details about dealing with death every single day sucked me in.

-Shakespeare, or the Man who Pays the Rent by Judy Dench and Brenden O’Hea. “Everyone is nervous. It’s not your business to make more of it.” (said, regarding the first day of rehearsal.)
I loved this book, a series of interviews with Dame Judy Dench where she deep dives into the Shakespeare characters she has played while musing on her life in theatre. If you are interested in Shakespeare or life in the theatre, I highly recommend this book.

–Mailman: My Wild Life Delivering Mail in Appalachia and Finally Finding Home by Stephen Starring Grant “Don’t quit today. Finish your route, but don’t quite today.”, advice given him on a particularly bad day at work.
This book featured so many fascinating peeks at how the postal system works as well as Starring’s thoughts on how Americans live day to day.

Other Favorites:
-My Season of Scandal by Julie Anne Long – romance. I really loved how the two main characters develop first as friends and had a real rapport. The “sophisticated world weary hero brought down by the girl fresh from the country” is the trope, but this story feels like so much more.
-The Seven Year Slip by Ashely Potson – Time travel romance that just sucked me in even though I don’t usually like time travel. Novel that also explores grief and timing and pushing through life.
-The Finest Print by Erin Langston – Lovely romance, rich in detail about running a printing press and a main characters who are sensible and not stupid.
-Clear by Carys Davies – This book about the last man left on a Scottish island and the minister who is sent to evict him really drew me in and took me by surprise.
-Hail Mary by Andy Weir – Science Fiction, not usually my thing, but what a beautifully human story.
-The Woman Next Door by Yewande Omotoso – novel set in Cape Town about two cantankerous old women who think they’ve settled into life but then are thrown a curve ball.
-Long Walk to Freedom by Nelson Mandela + Winnie and Nelson by -The former book was so inspirational and the latter book showed that even the most inspirational figures can be deeply flawed.
-The Mysterious Affair at Styles by Agatha Christie, adapted into a stunning audioplay for Amazon Studios.

On to Next This Year: One of my Reading aspirations for 2026 was to read more classics – I felt like I read a lot of the same genre last year, namely memoir and romance. I wanted to read more books that were a little less in my vernacular, that might be a bit of a challenge. I found this Classics Reading Challenge from The Tea and Ink Society and I like the prompts. I like that “Classics” means anything written before 1975, so it’s not just dense Victorian tomes. Most of Agatha Christie was written before 1975! I’m looking forward to reading a few Golden Age mysteries. I’m not going to do the challenges in the month order listed, but I think I’ll get through them by the end of the year all the same – it’s only 12 books, surely I can fit that in.

Here are some of my thoughts of what to read:

January: A “serial novel” you read throughout the course of the year
-I think I’m going to read either Anthony Trollope or Elizabeth Gaskell for this. I just discovered the Serial app that will send you a novel in serial form, one chunk every day. I love that idea, though I don’t love the idea of reading on my phone.

February: A nonfiction journal or diary
– I have Ned Rorem’s New York Diaries in my TBR for about 20 years now, and I also have Martha Ballard’s A Midwife’s Tale on hold.

March: A book from the classics section of your local library
-Okay, so there is no “classics” section at my library – it’s all in the fiction. Also, the play section of the library is paltry, barely even a third of a shelf. Which is all to say… not quite sure what I’ll do for this one.

This is the shamefully paltry drama section at my library.

April: A classic Western novel or short story collection
No clue what to read for this one – I’ll take suggestions.

May: An Edith Wharton novel
The Age of Innocence – thanks to Engie’s Cool Blogger’s Book Club for filling this slot.

June: A book set in Africa
Things Fall Apart if the obvious one. I also just put a hold on So Long a Letter by Mariama Bâ, translated by Modupé Bodé-Thomas. I want to read a book by an African author for this one, not a colonizer.

July: A classic thriller
I’ve recently read about an Australian author named Mary Fortune who was one of the earliest female writers of detective fiction. Other ideas: Lady Audley’s Secret by Mary Elizabeth Braddon. Something by Ngaio Marsh? I want to read a female author for this.

August: A book written under a pseudonym
-James Herriott? George Orwell (I haven’t read 1984 yet)? Maya Angelou?

September: A short classic under 200 pages
I think for this, I might read a play. I picked up a copy of Lillian Hellman’s The Children’s Hour from the Library’s bookstore. Or maybe I should read/listen to a Shakespeare that I haven’t experienced before.

October: A classic novel featuring brothers
-This will be East of Eden; it’s been on my TBR for a very long time.

November: A classic novel featuring sisters
Well I’ve read the obvious ones (Little Women, Sense and Sensibility, Pride and Prejudice, Howards End [one of my favorite books!], the Little House books), so I’m on the look out for other literary sisters. Edith Wharton wrote a novella called Bunner Sisters. The Penderwicks? Chekov’s The Three Sisters? We Have Always Lived in the Castle? Daughter’s and Wives?

December: A wintry mystery
No clue what to read for this one – I’ll take suggestions.

Are you doing a reading challenge this year? Any favorite Classics that you would recommend for any of these categories?

Weekly recap + what we ate: January recap!

Hello, February!

January felt a very much like I was existing in a liminal space. There was upheaval at work. There was re-entry from our trip to Taiwan. There was snow and snow days and being inside, waiting for things to clear. It felt like a slow start to the new year. Wait, not slow… how about gentle? A bit of way finding, a bit of tweaking routines.

Even though we didn’t have any more snow after Monday, the world was super icy and buried quite deep. On top of the snow was a two inch thick frozen layer and everyone walked two inches taller this week as you could walk on top of that frozen layer. It was a bit like Russian roulette, being able to walk on top of the snow, but every so often hitting a week spot and plunging shin deep into powder. Even after our street was ploughed, there was still limited parking as the snow piles were feet from the curb. On Thursday night, two friends and I went out for a previously scheduled Happy Hour and parking was quite challenging to find. Once we finally got in the pub, it was a 30 minute wait for a table. It seemed everyone was eager to emerge for a warm room and beer and pizza. I don’t blame them. We stayed til almost 10pm and it was so nice to catch up and socialize and not have to wrangle our children.

The schools ended up being closed all week. A couple times, the 6 and 9 year old called their friends around the corner and set up play dates. It’s kind of fun to see them use the landline to arrange their own lives. One day our kids went over, one afternoon their kids came over to our house. One day we divided the kids up – two at one house and two at the other. Thursday I invited them over for a movie night. We watched Shaolin Soccer and ate popcorn. Have you seen Shaolin Soccer? It’s a fantastic movie, about kung fu warriors who start a soccer team. I could only find it in Cantonese/Mandarin, so I relied on the older kids to read the subtitiles aloud to the kindergarteners. Which they did for the first half. But then they lost steam, and you know what? it turned out it didn’t matter. I love that the older kids can watch movies in a foreign language and I love that the movie tells such a good story that the younger kids didn’t need to understand everything that was being spoken.

We ended up going sledding three times. The first time we walked to the nearby park that had some small slopes. The next day, I drove the 6 and 9 year old to the elementary school that was next to a big hill. The hill was quite icy and there had been a bump built into the snow so that if you hit it at the right angle, you would go sailing through the air. The kids sledded for about an hour and had so much fun that we went back yesterday as well. This time the Husband came. He originally said he was going to just drop us, but he ended up staying and went down the hill a couple of times. And so did I. Speeding down the hill, getting launched in the air and then over turning into the snow – it was winter fun all bottled up. We all had so much fun – I can’t remember laughing so much in a long long time.

There will likely be a two hour delay on Monday.

(breaking news: School has been cancelled on Monday because many roads are deemed unsafe still. So not a snow day, but a hazardous to walk to school day, I guess. It isn’t so much the snow, but the ice and the fact that a lot of streets/ sidewalks still haven’t been cleared. It reminds me of a section I read in the book Invisible Women: Exposing Data Bias in a World Designed for Men, about how there was a city in Sweden where they prioritized clearing side streets and sidewalks first then clearing the major roads, and they found that it hugely decreased injures and accidents. But of course clearing the sidewalks and side streets first wasn’t the default because those were pathways primarily used by women, while it was men who used the major roads. I’m thinking about this a lot this week as I walked in the street to and from the Metro, or the park with my kids, or to the grocery store, walking in the street because the sidewalks aren’t cleared yet. )

I have to say, coming out on this end, I didn’t mind the snow days. I can see how snow days can really derail life for people who have to show up for their jobs. Luckily I didn’t have to be in the office and worked from home in spare pockets of time when the kids were occupied and not fighting or eating.
The snow day good:
-Slower mornings, no rushing.
-Snow adventures. Sledding. Snow forts. Shovelling – tedious, but good work out.
-Being able to savor being inside and cozy.
-having time together as a family without having to worry about carpools or activities
-having time for playdates. I think with school the kids don’t get enough time to play with their friends on a day to day basis. I think they need time to learn how to be kind humans out in the wild.

The Snow day challenges:
-bored kids who nag at me.
-bored kids who push each other’s buttons.
-bone chilling cold and having to wear many many layers outside.
-not knowing when it will end.
-“Didn’t I just feed you?”
-the mess of everyone being home all. the. time. I don’t think our house was meant to be occupied 24/7. There were constantly dishes in the sink, the kitchen to be cleaned, pick up pick up pick up. It’s hard to be motivated to keep things tidy, to find a resting neat condition for the house when I know that with all of us constantly in the house, there is no “resting condition” – just constant movement and needs and wants and impulses. I think I need to think a little bit about what the “resting condition” of the house is like when we live in it every single moment of every single day.

January 2026 Recap – on to a big picture look at the month that was:

Highlights:
– The rest of our trip to Taiwan. Two nights at the hots springs in Beitou. Family. A long yet uneventful flight home.
-Birthdays for the two older kids.
– Two freelance jobs – one a title job of Brahms Choral Music, which I love. Another a stage management gig as support for a play based on interviews conducted with Israelis about October 7th 2023; regardless of your politics, it was a pretty powerful piece.
-The 14 year old getting the lead in the middle school musical.
– Visiting the National Museum of Women in the Arts
-Visiting the State Fair exhibit at the Renwick Gallery, then going to our favorite cheap Chinese restaurant and browsing the nearby bookstore.
– Visiting/ Hanging/ connecting with friends – Advent book group, Happy Hour, Lunch with mom friend, Having friends over for dinner, going over to their house for dinner.
-Watching the 14 year old play rec basketball
-Discovering a new Taiwanese cafe nearby. The boba was very good and they had the red bean smoothie that the Husband loves.
-getting in the habit of reading every morning.
-Writing down some gentle aspirations for 2026, and being mindful about carrying through with them.
-New bedroom furniture for the 8th grader. We bought this last fall, but it finally arrived this month.
-Snow. Going sledding with the kids. The Husband joining us sledding.
-Five Star new to us recipes: M&M cookies, Leek and Potato Focaccia, Masala Chickpeas with Tofu and Blistered Tomatoes.
-Favorite meal cooked: Marcella Hazan’s Tomato Sauce w/ pasta and Turkey Meatballs. Eaten with Leek and Potato Focaccia and salad (from a bag)

Lowlights:
-The state of the world. The state of the United States.
-Big changes at work. It will all lead to good things, but it’s been a rough transition.
-having to say good-bye to so many people at work because of the transitions.
– Not getting my life together enough to plan birthday parties for the two older kids. wump wump. This happens every year, and I need to figure out how to combat this one.
-The heat going out at my parents’ rental the first day of the big snow storm.
-My sleep hygiene has been terrible. At first it was jet lag, but then I think it was revenge bedtime procrastination. I went to bed well well well past midnight most nights, then would take a three hour nap in the afternoon. I got a little bit better at this by the end of the month.
-Too much scrolling.

Quote of the Month: “Failure is Data.” I wish I knew where I first heard this phrase.

Looking Forward to in February:
-Going to New York with the 14 year old to see Two Strangers Carry a Cake through New York. I’m really glad I booked the tickets for the first week of February and not the last week of January.

-Superbowl Sunday. Which coincides with the Husband’s birthday. Unfortunately he is not getting the present of the Chicago Bears going to the Super Bowl, but we will celebrate with cake at half time all the same.

-The Olympics. I’m excited for this. I just learned about, Ski Mountaineering where the skiers hike up a mountain then ski down. I really want to catch that, it sound intense. I mean it’s all intense. Also looking forward to figure skating, hockey, and the Zen of curling.

-Lunar New Year. It’s the Year of the Horse, my birth year. I expect there will be dumplings, noodles, and red envelopes.

-A couple of get togethers already planned – lunch with friends, family hang outs with other families.

-the 14 year old’s Middle School basketball games. I think I can make one or two.

-Starting rehearsal for a new show. I’m actually a little nervous about this – it’s the company’s first show since our big shake-up, and the show is a new production, so I think the rehearsal process will be intense. It’s also going to be a lot of evenings. So I guess I’m more “girding my loins” than “eagerly anticipating” this one.

Grateful For This Week:
-Aquaphor, for protecting my lips and my skin from the bitter cold elements.

-The stage crew at work.

-Hoopla. There have been a couple times when I’ve wanted to watch a movie, but then it’s only available on Netflix, which we don’t have, or I would have to rent the movie from Amazon. But then I search in Hoopla and there it is! Hoopla also has the ability to check out a Hallmark bingepass, so I can watch ALL the Hallmark movies that I want in a one week period.

-Our stove top griddle that has enough space for me to make eight pancakes at a time.

-Hills on which to go sledding.

-Our freezer full of food.

-The “send later” function in iMessage. I often have a thought I want to share with someone, and this thought often strikes me at midnight or later. Well, if they have an iPhone, like I do, I can write a text and set it to send later. Then the thought is not taking up space in my brain anymore. I love anything that allows me to open some space in my brain.

-Hand Me Downs. As we frolicked in the snow last week, I realized that almost every piece of outerwear and winter gear the 9 year old and the 6 year old were wearing was a hand me down, either from their older sister or from a friend. It felt really good not to have to spend money on cold weather layers for the kids.

-That our school district is having snow days rather than remote/online learning days. Online learning just didn’t work for our family during COVID. There are a couple schools in our area that had remote/online learning days last week. I don’t know how I would have managed three kids with online learning. I don’t think I even have that many devices for them to use. I’m so glad we haven’t gone (back) there.

What We Ate:

Monday: mac and cheese from a box. This was the day we were at my parents’ rental all evening dealing with the lack of heat. The 14 year old was supposed to make them dinner, but halfway though making dinner, she said she felt faint, so she turned off the stove and went to bed. The Husband and I came home, finished up dinner, and served it with some cut up cucumbers and apples.

Taco Tuesday: Re-fried Bean tacos. I was originally going to make black beans for this pantry meal, but then I realized we were out of black beans. So I made refried beans instead, only I had just one can of pinto beans. So I threw in a can of cannellini beans and added some frozen corn, and voila! Dinner from pantry ingredients. This was tasty. I also made a pico de gallo from some sad leftover tomatoes and tossed some coleslaw cabbage in a bowl and called it done.

Wednesday: I had to work this evening and I brought leftovers. The Husband defrosted soup and made BLTs. Bacon is so tasty.

Thursday: Tofu Stir fy with Udon Noodles. The Husband cooked. This is the night I went out for Happy Hour. I had a half club sandwich and half Greek salad and an order of fries.

Friday: Pizza and Tangled. It was the 6 year old’s turn to choose the movie. Can we just say what a perfect romantic movie Tangled is? The songs are top notch, the action moves along with humour and heart, but at the same time the movie takes time to linger on emotional moments that need a bit of space. The slow unfurling of Rapunzel and Flynn’s relationship is wonderful to watch, and even better, both Flynn and Rapunzel have a character arc with true growth. Sigh and swoon.

Saturday: We were originally going to order out, but then ran out of steam and couldn’t agree on something everyone wanted, so I just raided the freezer and we had dumplings, bao, endamame, and steamed green beans. The Husband made milk shakes.

Sunday: tortellini and steamed green beans. Keeping it simple on Sundays.

Welp that’s what the world is like over here. Hopefully the kids will go back to school soon and we can carry on with business as usual…

What are you looking forward to in February? What’s your favorite/ least favorite part of a snow day – either a self imposed snow day or one imposed by outside forces?

Weekly recap + what we ate: Another museum, another birthday! And Snow.

Our world is blanketed with snow so thick and frozen that you can walk on it. We’re on Day Three of the schools being closed and they’ve already announced that they will be closed tomorrow (Thursday) as well. The kids were super excited. The six year old made this to do list:

For those who aren’t fluent in six year old pictogram, the list reads:
1. Build snowman
2. Throw snowballs at the snowman
3. Go sledding
4. Make snow angels
5. Build and igloo
6. Have a snowball fight
7. Shovel Snow.

The weekend featured the usual runs of voice lesson and a basketball game for the 14 year old. The two little kids were invited to a playdate so they didn’t come to the game. The 14 year old won her game so we stopped to get fries from McDonalds on the way home. Why are fries SO tasty? I had to work Saturday night, and took the Metro in, just in case the snow came early. The Metro costs $2.50 more than parking, and takes 15 minutes longer (though in rush hour, it’s actually faster to Metro). I figure the extra time and money is worth the stress I save from having to drive through the city. I got to read my book, and truth to tell, the walk to and from the Metro Station is always a welcome opportunity to move.

Sunday, we woke to several inches of snow on the ground, with more coming down. We hunkered, and shovelled a little. The two older kids and I walked down to the park- I live seeing it blanketed with snow. The snow was almost sand like, making it quite a workout to walk through it.

Sunday evening we had some neighbors over for dinner – our kids swim together, but since swim was cancelled, we thought it was a good opportunity to get together. It was a lovely evening- I made pasta with Marcella Hazan’s tomato sauce, foccaccia, and we had bagged salad. Our neighbors brought cookies and cannoli. Afterwards one of their daughters introduced us to Imposter. Have you played? It’s loads of fun; there’s an app where everyone secretly gets a word (the same word) except one person who is the imposter. Then everyone goes around and says one word related to the main word, including the imposter who has to try to figure out what word to add without giving away that they don’t know the word. There was a lot of laughing.

On the bummer side, the heat at my parents’ rental went out o n Sunday and since the Husband and I manage the property for them, we were the ones who had to deal with it. Monday morning we managed to get our car out and drive over to their neighborhood. They hadn’t been ploughed out yet, so we parked two blocks away and walked up to the house with space heaters for the tenants. I dropped the Husband and drove back home, and I’m pretty sure I burned the clutch on our car getting it back home over the unploughed streets. (We have two cars, but the van does not have all wheel drive, so we had to drive the manual Impreza). Later that evening, we headed to the rental house to see if we could troubleshoot and open the faucets since we didn’t want the pipes to freeze; the tenants had checked into a hotel by that point. Given the lack of parking at the rental, the Husband and I decided that the easiest thing would be to walk over. So the Husband and I walked the mile there, some of it on the road since the sidewalks hadn’t been cleared. I pulled on my wool and silk underlayers, bundled up and it turned out not to be so bad of a walk. The streets were pretty quiet and the sun was setting and the snow was still white and smooth. As we turned the corner to the house, I looked up and it was golden hour. The Husband said, “At least the light is beautiful.”

We finally were able to find an HVAC company that could come out on Tuesday – most places were saying Wednesday or Friday at the earliest. The heating and gas were fixed, thankfully and we could all breathe easier.

Before all that happened, though… the previous Monday was MLK Day and we went on a family museum adventure to the Renwick Gallery. The Renwick is a Smithsonian museum dedicated to the art of crafts and handiwork. There is currently an exhibit called State Fair: Growing American Craft. It features work that was created and displayed at State Fairs around the country from the early twentieth century to today. I loved this exhibit. It was a great reminder that art is not purely the domain of the artists whose work hangs in the big museums, who have highly publicized exhibits. Art can come from the farmer’s wife, who collects fabric scraps and sews them into a beautiful quilt after the kids go to bed, or the insurance agent who takes up knitting as a hobby, or the art student who is just learning how to throw pottery.

I think this exhibit was one of the most diverse exhibits I’ve ever seen – it celebrated the work of people from a wide variety of cultures and races and backgrounds. While I was going through this exhibit, I thought of the Amish Quilt exhibit at the American Art Museum I had seen a few years ago and how all those quilts were made by “unknown.” I loved that the pieces in this exhibit all were able to credit the creators.

Some of my favorite pieces:

This quilt was made by Grace Snyder (1882-1982) of Nebraska. She learned to quilt when she was six to keep herself occupied while she watched the cattle. The quilt is made up of 87,000 small triangles. It’s almost like a Grecian mosaic.
Butter Cow! by Sarah Pratt and her daughters Hannah and Grace. I’ve never seen one of these before, and this made me super excited.
Hair wreath by Josephine Daly (1860-1939). This was made over the course of eight years, from real hair. I find this beautiful and creepy,.
Pyramid of preserves, canned by Rod Zeitler of Iowa City. . All I could think about when looking at this was, that’s a lot of toast. Also – are they going to eat it all?
Seed art by Linda Paulson. This is art made by gluing tiny seeds one by one. So meticulous – look at the detail!

I picked up a few things from the gift shop. I don’t often buy things from Museum Gift Shops, but more and more I’m feeling like since our museums are free, I should support them in some way. Especially these days. I got a hand made bud vase – I don’t like cut flowers, but a sprig of something or a single flower could be nice. I also picked up this this beautiful book of stickers:

How beautiful are these stickers? I almost don’t want to use the stickers, they are so gorgeous, but I think it would bring people a lot of joy to see them, making them perfect for including in mail.

Afterward the museum, we walked up to Dupont Circle and had lunch at our favorite cheap Chinese restaurant. When the Husband and I started dating, he worked within walking distance from this place and we would often meet here for lunch, usually ordering the same thing – kung pao chicken for him, chicken and green beans for me. We order all that along with orange chicken, combination lo mien, and Mongolian Beef. It was all so tasty.

After lunch, we walked back to the metro, popping briefly into Second Story Books to browse. I mean with this sign out front, who could resist:

In other news from last week, it was also the middle child’s birthday. He is now 9 years old! Happy birthday to this imaginative kid who loves stories and puzzles and thinking about life. You can always find him reading – he’s recently really gotten Plants vs. Zombies – playing with his swords and nerf guns. He likes making up adventure stories in his head and enacting them with his little sister. He loves to build, be outside, ride his bike, kick a soccer ball, and play Mario Kart. He doesn’t like practicing piano, being told to put his book down, or when his sister takes his Lego creations apart.

Grateful for (The Snowy Snowy January Edition):

-The people in Minneapolis who go out in the cold and protest and protect and bear witness to the sad and heavy things happening there.

-The beauty and quiet of a world covered in snow.

-people who clear their side walks.

-Snow plough drivers. Our street didn’t get ploughed until Tuesday afternoon, and boy was I happy to see the snow plough when it arrived.

-The magical alchemy that is baking – flour, levener, liquid. Butter. All that combines to make magical cozy things that comfort us by the mouthful. In addition to focaccia I also made M&M cookies (this recipe, really good!), and thumb print cookies (from Cook’s Illustrated – a little bland, TBH), which I made with pepper jelly and blueberry jam.

-That our heat works.

-That our Metro stop is underground. A lot of Metro stops in the suburbs are above ground, which makes it very cold when waiting for the train. Our metro stop and the metro stop at my work are both underground so I can wait for the train without being exposed to the elements.

-Hot chocolate. When we heard a storm was coming, I told the Husband we had to stock up on butter, eggs, and hot chocolate. These are the important things.

-the back up electric kettle. Last week, our electric kettle meet an unfortunate fate when someone tried to move the cart it was sitting on without unplugging the kettle. There was broken glass and tears. For as much tea as I drink, being without an electric kettle is DIRE. Luckily we had an old kettle in our basement that I pulled out. It’s not ideal – it’s plastic, for one – but it will do until we get a new one. OR… I’m really considering upgrading to one of these electric water boilers. It would be a splurge, but all the Taiwanese people have them – it keeps water at a constant temperature. How many times have I been late to work because I was waiting for hot water so I could fill my coffee mug and take it to go?

Looking Forward to:

-Cool Blogger’s Book Club! Reading The Age of Innocence. This is a re-read for me, but knowing how it end, has made some things in the first few chapters really pop for me. I stopped at our library’s used bookstore to find a copy, and there is was! I also picked up a few other fun things:

I got the Far Side and the Get Fuzzy for the 9 year old – they were two of my favorite Sunday comics when I was growing up and I wanted to share them with him. He reports that Far Side is “funny, but scary.” Upon re-reading it, I can see what he means.

-This is more of a “Some day in the future” rather than concrete plans, but when we were in Dupont Circle, II was thinking that I would love to take a child-free Dupont Circle Day some day. I do love spending time with my kids, but they don’t really do leisurely meandering. If I had a child-free day in Dupont Circle, I would go to the Phillips Collection, then spend some time browsing the various stationary and book stores along Connecticut Ave., and then find some tasty food or a refreshing beverage (Maybe from the Afghan Chai truck??) and sit on the circle and people watch. I think I will put this on my list of fun things to do this spring.

-Radishes. We had two bags of radishes passed along to us from our friend with the CSA – he doesn’t like radishes. So I’m determined to eat one a day so that they don’t go to waste. There are beautiful watermelon radishes that I’ve been slicing thin and eating with salt, pepper, red wine vinegar and olive oil for breakfast. There are also some black radishes that have a very spicy bite. I ate one sliced with salt and pepper and decided that I couldn’t eat them raw, so I cut one up and put it in congee. I might miso-roast the other black radishes.

-the kids going back to school. Monday was a grading day so we weren’t supposed to have school anyway, but now school has been cancelled through to Thursday because of the weather. On the one hand I’ve been enjoying the cozy time with the kids, and I dread going back to routine – it’s like having a second winter break.- , but on the other hand, it is really hard to keep up with the dishes and the house hold chores when everyone is home all the time.

-Just started this audiobook, a historical fantasy set in WWI; it’s just gotten a bit creepy…

What We Ate:

Monday: I was going to make Ethiopian food this day, but then I fell asleep after getting home from the Museum. So the Husband raided the freezer and assembled a dinner of dumplings, soup, and edamame.

Taco Tuesday: reheated the honey adobo chicken from last week. (I had to go to work this evening, so I wrapped some of the chicken in a soft tortilla and took it with me.)

Wednesday: Butternut Squash and Leek Za’atar Pie, Ottolenghi recipe for NY Times Cooking. I made this in an effort to use up some delicata squash, leeks, and chard that our friend had given us from their CSA when they were out of town. This seems like a fancy dish, because it’s all wrapped up in puff pastry, but it was actually pretty fast and easy to put together. Puff pastry makes anything feel fancy. I thought it was rather tasty – the kids didn’t care for the fact that I didn’t peel the squash beforehand, but once the Husband took off the skin (I was at work), they ate it. Made for good leftovers.

Thursday: Pasta and red sauce. Simple fast dinner for a night when I had to work and the Husband had evening plans.

Friday: The family had dinner out with a friend (I think they had burgers). I was at work. Can’t remember what I ate, probably leftovers.

Saturday: Pizza Hut (the 9 year old’s special birthday request) and The Music Man. The 14 year old got the lead in the middle school production of Music Man. I’m so excited and proud for her! Although after seeing the movie, she’s decided that Marian doesn’t make sense – she spends the first half of the show yelling at Harold Hill and then suddenly has a change of heart. It told her that that’s the actor’s challenge, isn’t it?
(I had to work. I think I had leftovers before heading to the theatre again)

Sunday: Marcella Hazan’s oh so easy famous Tomato Sauce w/ pasta, Turkey meatballs (This recipe, but baked instead of fried), potato and leek frittata, and salad (from a bag)

Hope those of you in the path of winter weather remain safe and warm. Here’s hoping there is sunshine and clear roads in your future.

Do you go to your State Fair? Have you ever entered anything into a State Fair? If you could, what would it be? What was your favorite Sunday comic growing up? What do you panic buy make sure you stock up for when bad weather is coming?

Books Read – October, November, and December 2025

Rounding out my 2025 reading, here are the books I read in the last quarter of 2025. Most of the reading for these three months were cozy, comfort reads – lots of romance and good people and happy ever afters. Life was busy and this was just what I needed in my reading life.

Whalefall by Elizabeth O’Connor, read by Dyfrig Morris, Gabrielle Glaister, Gwyneth Keyworth, Jot Davies, Nick Griffiths– This book is about the inhabitants of a remote Welsh island where a dead whale washes up on shore (hence the title), followed soon after by a pair of English researchers. Those two incidents are not related, but parallel each other throughout the story. The story is told through the eyes of Manfred, a teenager who lives on the island with her father and younger sister. Even as Manfred wants to leave the island there are many things holding her there, and the book talks a lot about that pull between life on the island and the world beyond. (Incidentally, this is the third “Island” book I’ve read this year, after Clear and Emily Wilde’s Encyclopaedia of Faeries.) I thought this book was fascinating – I really liked the characters and learning about their life on the Island. I had to google some things, which I also like. I also liked that the parts of the book that were supposed to be from the researcher’s recordings, were engineered in the audiobook to sound like they were being played on an old gramophone, giving it a real sense of time and place. My one thing about this audiobook, though, is that the narrators’ voices and accents were so beautiful, that sometimes I would get lost in the lilting cadence of the narration and would lose track of the plot.

Consider Yourself Kissed by Jessica Stanley – well written novel that follows Coralie, an Australian writer who moves to London, falls in love and marries a single father Adam, and the domestic path their life together takes, all set against the backdrop of Brexit then COVID. On the scale of plot vs. character, this book solidly falls into the character driven. It’s not about big exciting developments, but about how the actions of every day can erode one’s sense of self. So much of what Coralie felt really resonated with me, and I found myself highlighting so many passages. I have to be honest, though, ultimately this book felt a little flat – I liked the parts more than the whole. Maybe it felt too much like my life?

for example:
“She was like a sandcastle, and Adam and the kids were like the sea, eroding her and flattening her with their proximity and demands. If she went for a walk, or listened to a podcast, she could begin rebuilding her ramparts, only to get knocked down again by wave after wave of needs.” p. 278

“It appeared she had breached the anger/sadness barrier. She’d become sad enough for Adam to care about her more than he hated conflict.” p. 74
As a mildly conflict avoidant person, I think I’m Adam in this scenario.

or this one:
“On Saturday, when Adam texted “Ready”, she let herself into the house, hurried upstairs, and threw herself onto Florence’s bed. Her children jumped on her, comb marks in their wet hair, hair beautiful faces shining. She read to them and cuddled them. She put them in bed, then back into bad when they got out. She shushed them when they chatted. She sat in the corner until they slept. This was shat she’d thought being a mother would be like. Doing one thing at a time, and kindly.” p. 311
One thing at at time, and kindly – I think that’s what I aspire too, and so rarely achieve.

The Housekeeper and the Professor by Yoko Ogawa- The Professor can’t remember anything for more than 80 minutes. The Housekeeper comes to work for him, bringing her ten year old son along. The professor the housekeeper, and the son for a bond. I thought the premise of this book was charming – and it initially was, but I think I’ve come to the conclusion that I find Japanese Fiction a little cold and distant for my tastes. The characters all come to have great affection for each other, but when they are pulled apart no one seems to fight for the relationship. The Japanese fiction that I’ve read this year (and I’ve read three or four novels by Japanese authors), all read very fable-like, and the characters never seem to grow on me – they all seem to be going through the motions of living, checking boxes, even when they have existential crises. I’m happy to be proven wrong if someone wants to suggest a Japanese novel where the character have a little bit of self awareness.

Anna in the Tropics by Nilo Cruz, production by LA TheatreWorks – I realized that many of LA Theatreworks’ recordings of plays can be found on Libby, so I’ve decided to listen to as many Pulitzer Prize winners as I can. I love plays, but I think part of what makes them come alive is the different voices, something that I don’t get when I jsut read them. Anna and the Tropics is about a family that works/runs a cigar factory. They hire a Lector to come in to read to the workers while they roll cigars. The play centers around how the lives in the family shifts when a new charismatic lector comes and reads them Anna Karenina. I remember when this play came out – there was a lot of buzz surrounding it, and Nilo Cruz. The audio version is a little hard for me to keep all the characters and relationships straight in my head, but ultimately it was a pretty gripping drama. Made me want to read Anna Karenina. I had read it once in high school, but I don’t think it really stuck with me.

The First Time at Firelight Falls by Julie Anne Long – I really love Julie Anne Long’s historical romance novels, so I thought I’d read one of her contemporary romances. This small town romance tells the story of single mom Eden and ex-Navy SEAL now school principal Gabe who keep running into each other and having cute and witty banter. It’s pretty typical small town romance stuff with a resourceful independent business owner (Eden is a florist), the competence porn school principal, and lots of fun side characters, some of whom turn out to surprise me in a nice way. I did find the “getting involved with the school principal” bit a little… icky, but I guess it’s a small town and the hot single school principal deserves love too. The plot itself is kind of nothing too exciting, but I thought the writing was pretty good. I’m on the fence as to whether or not I want to read the other books in the series as I wait for Long to come out with another Palace of Rogue book; this book was absolutely a solid read, but I think there is something about Long’s historicals that just feel more exciting to me.

The Joy Luck Club by Amy Tan – Read for Engie’s Cool Blogger’s Book Club. This was a re-read for me, and I got behind and didn’t participate too much in the book club, though I had lots of thoughts. I think it was interesting for me to read this twenty years after I read it the first time. There are parts of it that seem a little dated, but also parts where I wondered if Tan (or her editors) felt the need to kind of dumb things down because a lot of Chinese culture wasn’t mainstream. For example, there is one part where one character talks about large grapefruits, and I knew instantly this was a pomelo. I feel that nowadays, you would just write “pomelo” and expect the reader to either know what that is or to look it up. Or an author would write something like, “grapefruit like pomelo.” It seemed like everything had to be written so that non-Chinese people could read it without feeling like the things were too foreign. Exotic okay, but not foreign.
The Book Riot podcast Zero to Well-Read just did a whole episode on this book. They gave a lot of context as to why this book has been so groundbreaking; the background on where the publishing industry was in the mid-late 80s was really fascinating for me. I don’t know that I agree with everything they say – I do think the book is more dated than they do, and also I think they see a bigger arc in the stories than I did – but it was interesting to hear thoughts about the book.

Charm City Rocks: A Love Story, by Matthew Norman, read by Kristen DiMercurio – This novel tells about single dad music teacher Billy Perkins who gets to meet his rock-star crush, drummer Margot Hammer. His teenage son, knowing of his dad’s crush, tricks Margo into coming to Baltimore to meet them, awkwardness and romance ensues. The book takes place in Baltimore, which was very much a character in the novel; I wanted to go visit all the areas that are mentioned in this book. I thought this book was really charming. I liked the super niche glimpses into the world of rock music; I liked how specific each detail in the book is; I liked how I was rooting for all the characters, even the oblivious cheating ex-husband. I also really liked that the two main characters are older – Billy’s son is a senior in high school – and there are so many layers in their lives that they have to balance. Billy’s a very nice person. Margot is also a very nice person. I like romance novels about very nice people where there is chemistry from the start and they are just trying to live life and figure out how to be together and get over their baggage. And the book is funny. I laughed out loud many times as I listened. This book had such affection for it’s characters, for Baltimore, for music, and for music educators.

Mailman: My Wild Ride Delivering the Mail in Appalachia and Finally Finding Home by Stephen Starring Grant, read by the author – Back in 2020, Grant lost his corporate job at the beginning of the COVID pandemic. In order to get health insurance, he takes a job as a rural mail carrier in West Virginia, where he lives. I loved this book. I loved the fascinating minutia about being a mail carrier, the details he goes into about how mail is sorted so that it can be delivered efficiently and correctly, the chapter where he writes about what he carries with him on the route, the details like how Slim Jims become magical greasy goodness when left on the dashboard and how Frosted Cherry Gatorade is the flavor of choice of postal carriers. But also I loved how Grant writes about the things he learns, the wild stories of mail deliveries gone wrong, the people he meets, and the existential questions that he contemplates, about what divides us and what brings us together. Looking at America through the lens of the Postal Service offers a unique perspective on all the many layers of humanity in this country. Some of my favorite quotes that I read all year comes from this book, like when Grant has a truly awful day on his route and calls a co-worker to bail him out and his co-worker tells him (and I’m paraphrasing), “Don’t quit today. Go back, finish your route and you can quit tomorrow, but don’t quit today.” Don’t quit today. I want to engrave that on a pillow.

Also this observation about why he was never worried, during election season about people stealing the mail from him: “Why grab a few ballots when you can grab the whole US Capitol?”

The Finest Print by Erin Langston read by Mary Jane Wells and Will Watt – Will Watt! I didn’t love Langston’s previous novel, but then this one was narrated by Will Watt, so I had to give it a try. I ended up really loving this book. This novel, set in Victorian London, tells the story of Belle, an aspiring writer and Nathaniel an American journalist. Nathaniel inherits an printing press, but needs to make money fast in order to save it from being repossessed by creditors. He convinces Belle to write Penny Bloods (more commonly known as Penny Dreadfuls) which start selling like hotcakes. I really liked how the relationship between Belle and Nathaniel progressed, their easy banter, and their devotion to each other from the beginning. There was a mature kind of romantic tension between them which is refreshing in a romance novel – no coy will they or won’t they. They very much will, and do. I also loved all the details about the printing press and how Penny Bloods got printed – there was such a strong sense of place in this book – you could feel the effort it took to work the presses, smell the grease, see the ink smudges everywhere. Very much enjoyed this one. Also that cover is terrible. I get a back ache just looking at it.

Some Winter’s Evening by Erin Langston – I read this after finishing The Finest Print because I wanted to continue the warm fuzzy feeling of that book. This is a novella about Belle’s parents, Cora and Gavin. They meet one evening when snowbound at an Inn. Cora is on her way to start a new position as a governess; Gavin is on her way to her sister’s house. Surprise surprise, Cora’s new employer is Gavin’s sister. (That sister, also turns out to be the heroine of Langston’s first book Forever Your Rogue.) This book was .. fine. I mean I feel like shagging your employer’s brother in the conservatory isn’t a great thing to do, but hey, it’s a romance novel.

The Seven Year Slip by Ashley Poston: This novel tells about Clementine who wakes up in her apartment one day to find there is a man in there. And not just any man, a man from seven years in the past. A cute, charming, man from seven years in the past. I really loved this book; I stayed up until 4am reading it because I just had to know how it ended. I didn’t used to think I liked time travel type books, but I think there is an element of angsty longing inherent in the plot device that I love sinking into. Aside from the romance, though, I just really enjoyed getting to know these characters and their friends and struggles with life, work, and the sadnesses with which they live. I want to read more by Poston now – I had previously found her supernatural elements in her novels unappealing, but her writing and her characters might have won me over.

Grace and Henry’s Holiday Movie Marathon by Matthew Norman – A second Matthew Norman book for me. Grace and Henry are both mourning the loss of their respective spouses. Their family tries to set them up, and while neither are ready to move on yet, they fall into a sympathetic friendship, bonding over holiday movies and the awkward social reality of losing a spouse. Like Charm City Rocks, this book takes place in Baltimore and Norman’s love for the city really shines through. I really enjoyed this book – it’s funny, fully of good people, and a vibrant sense of place. There is a little less conflict/ drama than in Charm City Rocks, so the plot isn’t as taut, but I still felt invested in the characters. It’s a cozy read, like hanging out in your pajamas with your best friend. And all the Holiday movie references were a lot of fun. (After reading this book, I finally decided to watch The Family Stone, and I have to say, what an awful movie! I don’t know why it’s on so many Best Holiday Movies Lists.)

Brightly Shining by Ingvild Rishoi – a slight novella about two sisters trying to survive the Christmas season (and life) despite their alcoholic father’s constant unemployment. This started off as one of those books narrated by a clear eyed and resourceful child surviving hard times and I was really rooting for good things to happen to them, then the ending went a little bizarre for me.

Taiwan Travelogue by Yang Shuang-Zi, translated by Lin King – I picked up this National Book Award-winning book to read while in Taiwan because I like linking my reading to my travel. This book is a little bit of a trompe l’oeil effect – it is told in the form of non fiction travel writing- there is even a prologue where a professor tells a little about the history of the “Travelogue”. But the book is very much fiction. (I read that some people were so taken in by the framing device that they thought it was indeed a non-fiction book and were upset to find that it wasn’t, leading to a redesign of the cover.). Beneath the descriptions of food — and oh boy the food writing is excellent – and places in Taiwan, there is the story of the novelist Aoyama Chizuko and her relationship with her translator and guide Chizuru. I think I liked the concept of this book more than the actual substance of it. The framework of writing a travelogue of Taiwan was interesting and I felt like I learned a lot about Taiwanese food and history. However, much as I was interested in what happened to the two main characters, I ultimately found their relationship one dimensional, which made that part of the book a little unsatisfying. I did really enjoy the translator’s notes at the end- another meta twist that I thought was really thoughtful and interesting.

On my Proverbial Night Stand:

Say Nothing: A True Story of Murder and Memory in Northern Ireland by Patrick Radden Keefe – almost done this book. It’s been gripping and sad. The stuff that goes down after the Good Friday Agreement is wild.

Good Spirits by B.K. Borison – such a lovely cozy romance. On audio.

House of Earth and Blood by Sara J. Maas – Not my usual fare, but reading it because the 14 year old loves this series.

Weekly recap + What we ate: 2026 Gentle Aspirations

Well it’s been an odd odd week. The sleep hasn’t gotten any better. At this point I don’t think it’s jetlag. I think it’s just revenge bedtime procrastination and the revenge is super working. Work has been in kind of a holding pattern, which has made me incredibly restless. I keep checking my phone for news. One day this week, I logged 12 hours on my phone. TWELVE. There were a couple nights when I couldn’t summon the will to go to bed, only finally turning in when my phone and table both ran out of battery. This is not good. And on top of that, the events foreign and domestic continue to be shit – I’m sure that doom scrolling was part of the 12 hours of battery draining screen time.

In and amidst all that, I made a list. A list of goals and aspirations for 2026. I’ve been brainstorming the list for a while, and last week I spent some time living with that list and seeing if it felt true to what I wanted to do, who I wanted to be.

As I was looking at the list, however, I felt that some of my goals were focused on the wrong thing. I think some goals and aspirations are focused on an end goal, but many are really about the process or the inherent pleasure of doing the thing. A few years ago, I read “Midlife: A Philosophical Guide” and he talks about how activities can be telic or atelic. Telic are activities with and end point; atelic activities are activities without an end point. This idea has stuck with me a lot. One of my biggest takeaways from that book is that as we enter the latter part of one’s life = and, let’s be honest, once you’re past your mid 40s, there are likely fewer years ahead of you than behind – we might not see the end point of everything we do, so perhaps there is value in focussing on atelic activities rather than telic ones.

So for example, one of the goals I had originally written was “Read 70 books.” Yet when I really thought about this goal, I realized that I didn’t want to read more books; I wanted to spend more time reading. If I just wanted to read more books, I could read shorter books; I could just read books that were easy and fluffy (which I do love); I could skim more books. But looking at my goal, I realized those things aren’t how I want to read. I want to read books that make me feel and make me think. I want to read books that are immersive and that spin a longer tale. I want to read books that tell good stories, fiction or non-fiction. I want to read books to learn. I want to read prose that sings, that I can savor. And these things, don’t mean more books. It means more time. I will never read all the books I want; I will probably die with a very lengthy TBR. But hopefully I will die having been enriched by the books that I do get to read.

Which is all to say, i think I’ve been going about some of my goals the wrong way. It’s not about what I want to accomplish, but about how I want to spend my time. I don’t want to do yoga every day so that I can check boxes off to have a streak – I want to do yoga every day because it feels good to move and stretch my body. I think sometimes when I make goals that are focused on hitting a number goal, I forget why I get enjoyment or growth or benefit from putting the thing on the list in the first place. In past years, I would say I want to do X Y number of times and then I would feel very disappointed not to get there. This year I want to flip the script – putting a number on certain goals is motivation to do it regularly, a reminder that these are things that fill my cup. It’s not about how many times I ultimately do the thing, but that I make time to do it.

So anyhow, here is my list of 2026 goals gentle aspirations. There are also things that I haven’t’ written out – mostly adulting things – not because they aren’t on my list, but rather because I feel like they are things that I do anyway, so they might not need special focus attention. Or they are things I don’t quite know how to articulate into a “goal”. Top on that list is that I would like to stop nagging the kids to do their chores. But, again, that is just the wearisome minutiae of day to day. And I think I wanted to focus on additive things and I don’t quite know what to add to my life in order for me not to lose my shit when my kids won’t pick up after dinner.

Anyhow, on to the list:

Physical Health:
–Take the stairs. Trying to incorporate more movement into my life, and this seems like a no brainer. I was talking to my cousins over the holidays and they said that being able to climb stairs is one of the first things that gets difficult as we age, but also that it’s really good exercise. So I’m going to take the stairs whenever possible.
– Daily yoga, with at least one 20+ minute session per week.
–Strength workout 2x a week. I know this is paltry, but I want to start somewhere, given that I’m past my mid 40s. I only have 5lb weights at home and want to get 7 or 10 lb weights to help with this goal.
–5 vegan dinners a month. This is a health aspiration, but also a creative one because I like the challenge and creativity of cooking vegan recipes that are new to us and which the family likes. (The 6 year old, always asks, “Is there chicken in this?” when I make dinner.)
–Set an alarm for bedtime and come up with a wind down routine. Sleep continues to be probably my worst personal health habit. But sleep feels so amazing. So I need to get myself there sooner.
–Find a PCP. This is probably second more egregious health deficit that I have. my gynecologist usually does my bloodwork and preventative tests, but I think I do need a proper PCP.

Family
–Date Night/ Activity with the Husband – Now that the kids can stay home on their own, I’m hoping the Husband and I will have more one on one time that isn’t at home in front of the TV. I think we do better when we have an activity to do together rather than just dinner, so I’m looking into some classes in the area.
–Go camping with the kids (and the Husband) – I would like to do a four night camping trip. I usually do three nights and I don’t feel like that is quite long enough to disconnect and reconnect.
–Road Trip. 2025 had a lot of international travel for us, so I think 2026 might be more in the realm of a family road trip.
–Go to the Philadelphia Flower Show. This is a big dream of the Husband’s and I would love to make it happen.
–Christmas at Home – after spending the past two Christmases in Taiwan, everyone has agreed that this Christmas will be at home.
–Weekly phone calls/photos to my parents – I’ve never gotten into the habit of calling my parents regularly. When we talk things tend to very often be about logistics – planning for trips, details with their rental, etc. However, on our trip to Taiwan, visiting my 100 year old grandfather, I realized that I want to know my parents better; I want my kids to know them better; I want them to know me better. This is somewhat hard for a variety of reasons that I probably need to unpack. But my family has been so supportive and I want to model good family relations for my kids as well.
–Family Game Nights, Family Reading Nights – mostly find ways to break out of the evening tv rut.
–Take more photos with the people I love and who love me. I realized when I was making a slide for my grandmother’s memorial service that I had only three pictures of her, and one of them was super blurry. While in Taiwan over the holidays, I tried to make sure to take photos with my grandfather and have my kids take photos with him – I think even when you can’t remember someone from your past, a photo can help you remember that you were loved.
–Set an alarm when I’m working to call the Husband to check in on my dinner breaks.

Social:
–Monthly Happy Hour with my Friends L and D.
–Monthly meet up with my friend K (who was my freshman year roommate!)
–Host one fun dinner party/gathering per quarter – Ideas for this- another soup party. Dumpling Party. Cookie Party. Invite another family for game night. Mom’s group reunion.

Work:
–Work ahead when putting calls and cues in my book. Put places calls in my score as we stage, so they are there before we move to stage.
–Come up with a timeline when I’m working on supertitles. And stick to it. I don’t like how last minute I am with my super title projects.
–Find more places to post when we are looking for interns. The past couple years we haven’t gotten a lot of people applying for our intern position. We’ve always filled the position with strong candidates, but I’d love to make more people aware of our internship because I think it’s a great program.
–Don’t Freak Out. Not really bloggable, but you might know about this if you’ve been following the arts news in DC. There is a lot of change happening for me at work. I’m going to try to keep focused and not freak out.

Home/Finance:
–Submit tax information to our tax person before March 31st.
–Track my spending. I’ve never done this, but I do want to get a handle on where our money is going. Maybe I’ll just start with one week.
-Monthly Financial meetings with the Husband.
–Declutter and come up with better organizational systems: Specifically the area under our console in the bedroom. My desk. The bathroom closet. My craft corner. The toy room and make it into a more usable guest room.

Self/Hobbies/ Mental Health:
–Less scrolling, more of the things below….
–Paint 26 pictures. I realized that 26 (as in 2026) is half of 52 (as in weeks in a year), so I thought a fun project to tie in to the year is to paint 26 pictures this year.
–Spend more time reading. I want to do this Classic Literature Challenge from the blog Tea and Ink Society.
– Write 52 haikus. This goal is about stopping to take time to notice things around me.
–Do the crossword puzzle every week. This is a goal to help me reduce my time scrolling. Also I like crossword puzzles.
– Write 64 Blog Posts. That’s one a week + 1 additional post a month. I think what I want this goal to be about is to be more disciplined in my writing. I would like to come up with a more regular posting schedule.
–Spend more time playing piano. learn some songs to sing with the family.
–Find time/routine for journaling.
–Go on 12 hikes. Take the kids and Husband with me on some.
–Visit ten museum, even if I have to pay.
–See 2 straight plays.
–Find a cooking project, TBD. Maybe bao again? Maybe croissants. I’ve done that once. Maybe revive my sourdough starter? Or some kind of stew?

Just for fun, here are three things that were on my list that I cut after contemplating what telic vs. atelic goals:
-Run 3 miles once a month. Okay, let’s be honest – I don’t love running. And now it is really cold outside. This is exactly the kind of achievement based goal that I realized didn’t serve me.
-Knit a hat – again, a telic goal that I feel like would just be a fail. I do have an enormous yarn stash that sits in my room (under that aforementioned area under the console table) and maybe a knitting project could be part of that decluttering. But putting a whole hat on my list seemed like an awful lot of pressure.
-Only pack meat for lunch if it is leftovers. This goes hand in hand with my desire to eat more plant based meals, but I realized mornings when I pack my lunch are really stressful times and this might just add to that stress.

Will I do everything on my list? I hope I can have regular progress at least. I read an interesting quote lately in the context of these yearly lists of goals – forgive me, I can’t remember where I read it, I think on some Substack:

“Failure is data.”

I think that’s a good way to look at when I don’t check off things from my 2026 list. Not doing something isn’t a sign of a weakness inherent in me; failure to is not objectively negative. It’s an opportunity to assess and see why things didn’t work, or if it even is something I want. If I don’t fail, I don’t have the information to move forward.

Grateful for:
-Fleece lined pants. The temperature has really dropped this week and will continue to do so. I had a conversation with a friend that went like this:
Me: What’s up with this weather. It’s so cold!
Friend: I think that’s called January.
Me: —
Which it’s true. It is January. I don’t know why I’m surprised that the weather is in the 30s. Anyhow, fleece lined pants for the win.

-Warm sunshine. Even in the bitter cold, the sun’s rays are still warm.

-That even though I messed up and booked my thyroid ultrasound for the wrong office, the people at the office I wanted to go to (because it’s five minutes from my house) managed to find a slot and get me in later in the day.

-My friend K. She came over for dinner and gave me a belated birthday card in which she had written the best message. We were college roommates and I love that we are still in each other’s lives, without judgement and without drama.

-My friend C – we had a lengthy coffee date of Saturday. I hadn’t seen her in a while and it was good to be able to be vulnerable for 90 minutes while sipping our hot drinks.

-That the 8 year old practiced piano. He does not like practicing piano. I bribe him with Switch time and he does it. I’m always glad when he does manage to practice because then I don’t feel like I’m throwing my money away on piano lessons.

-Free printing at the library. Our public libraries now have free black and white printing – up to 15 pages a day. We had to print some music for the 14 year old this week and it was so easy just to upload it online and then go to the library, swipe my library card and have the music printed. All for free. Well I guess my tax dollars and the cost of gas to get to the library.

-That the Chicago Bears had such a good season. Last night’s game was nail-biting and heart-wrenching. I don’t care much about football, but I do care about the Bears because the Husband cares about the Bears. The Bears had some magical moments during the game, despite ultimately losing. I know the Husband is disappointed that the Bears aren’t advancing, but this is the first season since I’ve known him that he has been truly hopeful for the next season. Being a fan is such emotional work.

Looking Forward to:
-MLK Day off with the family. We are going to go downtown to see a museum. Maybe in future years we can have a more service-oriented MLK Day.

-The 14 year old’s furniture arriving for her bedroom – bed, nightstand, and dresser. She can stop sleeping on a futon mattress. She can stop just shoving her clothes in the closet. And instead shove them under her bed.

-Walk with a friend next week.

-The 14 year old’s middle school basketball game. The first one is this coming week; the Husband will go to that. We can’t both go to the games because they happen at the same time as the bus drop off for the two elementary school kids. I’ll go to the home games. Last year I only went to one game and I want to go to more this year.

-Broadway Week! Last year the kids had a day off on a Wednesday in January, so we went to New York to see Hadestown. Well this year, we don’t have a mid week day off, but it is once again Broadway Week where tickets to select shows are 2 for 1, so as a birthday present for the 14 year old, I am pulling her from school and we are going to see Two Strangers (Carry a Cake Through New York). It wasn’t a show that was on my radar, but she loves the cast album for this show. I’m really excited! And train tickets for a Wednesday morning were less than $100 round trip. Something to look forward to in two weeks.

What We Ate:
Monday – Za’atar Roasted Tofu With Chickpeas, Tomatoes and Lemony Tahini from NY Times Cooking. I feel like this was very similar to the Masala Tofu and chickpea dinner I made last week, just with different seasonings, and made in the oven so it wasn’t as messy. Vegan.

Tuesday: Honey Adobo Chicken from NY Times Cooking. Taco Tuesday. This was actually kind of disastrous evening – one child made a really wise ass comment that was the last straw after a whole day of wise ass comments. I lost my shit and went into my room and proceeded to sulk and then fell asleep for three hours. When I woke up at 9:30pm, the 14 year old had fed the two little kids, cleaned the kitchen together, and put them to bed. I don’t deserve such a great kid.

Wednesday: Vegetable Soup and No-Knead Bread. A clean out the produce drawer affair. Vegan.

Thursday: Pork chops, steamed green beans and Greek Salad with Cannelilni Beans. Apple Pie. It was my late Father in law’s birthday so we had pork chops as we always do on his birthday. My friend K came over, but she is a vegetarian, so I added the Greek salad. She brought the apple pie. It was delicious.

Friday: Pizza (Take out) and movie night: Pride. It was my turn to choose the movie and I picked this 2014 movie based on the true story of a group of gay activists who, during the 1984 Miner’s strike in England, form Lesbians and Gays Support the Miners (LGSM), raising money and awareness to help the miner’s. It is a predictably heart-warming movie – one of those earnest and funny British films full of wonderful performances (Andrew Scott, Imelda Staunton, Bill Nighy, and more), with an uplifting message of perseverance and connection. I loved it.

Saturday: We checked out a Taiwanese restaurant that I had just heard about. We had beef noodle soup, fried calamari, fried tofu, braised beef over rice, popcorn chicken, and tomato chicken over rice. It was quite a feast and did very much remind me of Taiwan. Afterwards we all got boba (tea for me and the 14 year old, brown sugar milk for the two little kids), and the Husband got a red bean smoothie, one of his favorite things he had in Taiwan, but which I’ve never seen before on a menu here in the States.

Sunday: Leftover (me), Sausage sandwich (the 14 year old), Tortellini with red sauce and Caesar Salad (the rest of the family.)

Did you make a list of goals/aspirations/intentions for 2026? Anything you took off your list? What service does your library provide that you think is wonderful? (Other than the obvious, books) For any of you directly coping with any of the awful things happening in our country, I’m thinking of you.

Weekly recap + what we ate: Jet lag, Art by Women, airplane films

Ouf, it’s been a rough week for re-entry. I have not been able to get onto a regular sleep schedule. I’m by mid afternoon, struggle to stay awake, and end up taking three hour naps and then staying up until 2am and then sleeping til 8am, which is pretty late in our house. Overall not good for my goal of improving my sleep hygeine in 2026. The house continues to be a mess, the kids run amok on their own in the morning. On the bright side – the six year old got tired of waiting for me to wake up one morning and packed her own lunch…

I did manage to go to work – definitely not bloggable these days – make dinner a few times, meet up with my Lenten (okay, I guess Advent/Epiphany) reading group this week. But other than that, it was a whole lot of sleeping.

Some good news (since so much of it is shit these days):
We found out which high school our daughter is going to. She got assigned to her #1 pick, which is great. The results are kind of based on home school/lottery/random assignments, so it was a little up to chance. The school she is assigned to is not actually our home school, but it is closer to us, which is nice – actually in most of the redistricting maps that have been drawn, it would probably be our new home school in the future, so chances are the two other kids will also go there. I’m excited because the school is getting rebuilt – so next year she will be at at a holding school that is a little far away, but the new building will open up her sophomore year. I can’t quite believe my baby is going to HIGH SCHOOL next year.

Speaking of my baby – it is also her birthday week. It’s been a little low key because her birthday comes so soon after the holidays that I’m always negligent at planning anything. Oh well – we’ll gather with some family friends and have cake, and I think we’ll plan something for her and her friends at some point. She’s on the fence as to whether she wants a big birthday party or anything, so we’ll see what she wants to do. But oh wow… This little baby made us first time parents and now she is 14!!!!

She was such an itty bitty thing! Born at 34 weeks, just under 5lbs – we were completely unprepared for her arrival. Some day I might get around to writing her birth story here.

And look at us now!

A Museum Visit– I went to a new to me museum – The National Museum for Women in the Arts, where aside from a few exceptions, all the art in the museum is by women or non-binary artists. The NMWA is in DC, but not a Smithsonian, so I did actually *gasp* pay money to go. It was well worth the $16 (They do have two free community days a month, and I was going to wait, but the exhibit I wanted to see was closing soon, so I figured I would just pay…. such a foreign concept for me. I feel so entitled.) I had known about the museum, though given all the free museums, this museum was never high up on my list of museums to visit. But during the last government shut down, when the Smithsonian closed, the NMWA was on a list of alternative museums to visit – they even had free admission for federal workers – and I made a note to check it out.

The exhibit that prompted me to visit was called Women Artists from Antwerp to Amsterdam, showcasing female artist from the time of the Dutch Masters. The exhibit was about to close and I didn’t want to miss it. 1600-1750 was such a prolific time for art, but all the artists you hear about from the time are men – Rembrandt, Vermeer, etc. I never thought to wonder fi there were also women artists, and of course there were. Many of them were sisters, daughters, or spouses of artists and they were mostly from upper middle and upper class families. The exhibit featured not just paintings, but also scientific drawings, book illustrations, and – most fascinating to me – samples of lace. The exhibit talked about how lace-making is such an art, but lacemakers are never credited by name or even known. It kind of reminded me of the exhibit of quilts that I saw at the Smithsonian a few years ago – the idea of handicraft as art, but art that does not credit the artist, likely because it’s done by women.

Another artform that was largely women’s domain was paper-cutting. It’s not really on people’s radar because the finished project is so fragile that it seldom survives to be passed down. Of course there are painting of paper cuttings, delicate mobiles with intricate designs. One papercutting adjacent work they had was this portrait – how amazingly skillful is that cutting?

I particularly liked the art by Rachel Ruysch – her paintings featured such detail and sense of life:

One detail from the above painting.

(Also – I just googled Ryusch, and she had ten children while being one of the most in demand still life painters of her time. I feel conflicted as to whether one’s identity as a mother should be part of an artist’s biography, but, man just thinking of her having ten kids is just as impressive as her paintings. Or maybe no – maybe she was a shit mom who left her kids with their nanny all the time. But still… she gave birth ten times. That’s kind of bad ass.)

After I saw the Dutch Masters exhibit, I wandered the other galleries – the main collection, was interestingly enough, arranged by themes (Red, Lavender, Domesticity), rather than by era. I thought that was a really interesting way to look a pieces in a larger context. I particularly was awed by these huge watercolor paintings:

Painting watercolours this large is amazing.
love the detail.

Then on the third level there was another exhibit called Tawny Chatmon: Sanctuaries of Truth, Dissolution of Lies, featuring work by Black photographer Chatmon. She embroiders her photographs with richly colored threads, making a striking textured visual. Her work seeks to reclaim objects that have been used to stereotype African Americans by restoring them to objects of meaning and significance. For example this photograph of a woman with a watermelon where the fruit is given a place of royalty rather than ridicule.

There is also her project “The Restoration” where she finds racist antique dolls and re-draws the offensively exaggerated facial features and dresses them in rich African textiles.

I left the exhibit awed by the courage and creativity Chatmon has to change the narrative that surrounds her. The whole museum, in general was pretty satisfying to visit. Highly recommend.

Speaking of consuming art– Here is a list of all the movies I watched on the plane on our flights to and from Taiwan, most of them foreign films. I like to watch international movies on international flights. I very rarely watch foreign language films at home, but something about being on a flight, being held hostage for hours – I don’t want to watch popcorn movies, I want to watch movies that feel a little challenging.

This is my strategy on international flights – I first go through the menu and favorite all the movies that look interesting to me. Some of my movie catnip: films set in Taiwan (or the country I’m going to visit), films in Mandarin (so I can practice my language skills. French also.), films with romantic story lines, films that say “Award winning performance”, films that don’t look too dark, heavy, or gory (I don’t need to watch violence on a plane… or ever, really), films with an ensemble cast on the poster, films with people looking happy on the poster, film with women and not just men on the poster, films that are set on planet Earth, period films, films that are less than 120 minutes long. Then after favoriting movies, I just see what speaks to me in the moment. I don’t put on a movie until at least an hour into the flight. I like to watch a movie with my meal, and then see what else I have time for.

Here are the seven movies I watched over 30 some hours in a plane to Taiwan and back:

*The Family Stone – USA 2005: This movie is on so many “Classic Holiday Movie” lists, but I had never seen it, so I decided to put it on. Let me tell you – The Family Stone will definitely not be on any of my “Holiday Movie” lists. It’s full of terrible toxic people, and not even in a good, fun to watch way. I mean aside from the one “Check all the DEI boxes” couple (gay, interracial, and Deaf), everyone is kind of just clueless and unkind, and that in and of itself feels cliched. Holiday movies are supposed to fill me with warm fuzzies and hope for humanity. I just wanted to read all these folks the riot act.

*OMG! Mom’s Big News – Malaysia, 2025: This movie is about a couple in their 50s, with grown kids who discover that the wife is pregnant just as they are planning for retirement. I thought this was a cute movie – funny, warm, and full of quirky characters. It kind of felt like a Hallmark movie in the best ways.

*Mumu – China 2025: A film about a Deaf man who works odd jobs while raising his six year old daughter (Mumu) only to have their life together threatened when his ex comes back for custody of the child. The movie starts out as a heartwarming, quirky almost-comedy about a father and his child, but then bam! Mumu turns real dark and becomes a noir thriller as the father, in order to make money, gets involved in an insurance fraud scheme that requires him to recklessly crash cars, and then… well no spoilers. (I do find with a lot of Chinese and Taiwanese movies they tend to have both light and dark moments. There is no one way to categorize a movie often.) Its the kind of movie that on paper sounds as if it will be peddling in emotional cliches – and it does – but the performances are so genuine and delightful, the relationships so real, that I was just sucked right in. Worth a watch if you can find it, I think.

Tic Talk – Taiwan, 2024: A teenage boy with Tourette’s syndrome dreams of being a singer and also of finding his mother. One day, he meets a travelling singer and hitches a ride on his truck, travelling throughout Taiwan and helping him with his stage and sound set up. The cynical singer and the shy teenager bond. A buddy road trip movie. I really enjoyed the music, seeing the life on the road, and seeing the scenery of Taiwan in this movie. Taiwan is a very outdoors country. This movie has catchy tunes and sweet performances.

Road’s End in Taiwan – Switzerland/Taiwan 2025: Swiss Damien receives a letter that his father – whom his mother had told him died years ago – has just recently passed away in Taiwan. He travels to Taiwan for his inheritance and meets Steve, his Taiwanese half brother. Damien and Steve embark on a road trip through Taiwan to find the other two people named in the will so that the will might be read. Yes, another Taiwan Road Trip movie, though this one travels down the East Coast, so a little different scenery. This movie was kind of sad and bleak (Spoiler – the dead father was NOT a good person), but I was pretty invested in the story.

*Montages of a Modern Motherhood– Hong Kong, 2024: New mother Jing struggles with balancing childcare, work, in-laws, and her marriage in this unflinching look at early motherhood. There were so many moments in this movie that I felt very deeply – the bone dead tiredness of having an infant; the sense of not knowing what to do coupled with undeniable instinct for what your child needs; the crying, constant crying. Watching it made me feel angry on behlaf of Jing, but also I felt so lucky that I had the post-partum support that I did. The movie is bleak, but also those first few months with a baby can be so isolating and intense that I’m glad this movie puts out there how hard it can be.

*A Family Knight-Mare (Sin cobertura – literally “no coverage”) – Spain 2025: Fed up with her family constantly being on their phones, young Rita asks a fortune teller at a Medieval fair to make their phone disappear. Before they know it, the family is transported to the real Medieval Times. Will the family be able to get home before they are stuck in the past forever? After watching two bleak movies, I wanted something lighter. This is the kind of family friendly live action movie that Disney used to make all the time. I thought it was entertaining, cute, and fluffy. Not the most memorable or subtle film, but still pretty entertaining.

Grateful For this week:

-The Bears having an unbelievable season. It makes the Husband really happy.

-The Husband for picking up the slack when all I could do was sleep.

-The people at church who acknowledged 14 year old’s birthday. At our church at the end of Mass, they take time to acknowledge birthday and anniversaries. The 13–>14 year old didn’t want to stand up, and instead sunk down even further in the pew, which I think the priest saw and realized something was up. He came up after and wished her a happy birthday, and so did a few other people. I think she didn’t want a public airing of her birthday, but the quiet individual wishes really made her smile.

-Good books and Libby. I just finished the Daughters of Shandong and could instantly have another book to read.

-Raincoats for the soggy soggy week we’ve been having.

-my colleagues at work.

-The now 14 year old. What a bright, kind, empathetic, unfussy human being she is. She makes me laugh by sending me silly YouTube Shorts, eats salad, looks out for her siblings, always tries to do the right thing and notices when people aren’t doing likewise, avoids drama, and is there for her friends. She likes cuddles, food, Coke, and music. I’m so glad she’s in our lives.

Looking Forward to:

-Bao buns. We went to a new to us Asian grocery store – a small little shop full of wonderful things. We were looking for a restaurant, but it was closed and this grocery store was next to it so we wandered inside, thinking maybe the restaurant was inside the grocery store. Well it wasn’t but the store was a little mom and pop affair so it felt awkward to just go in and leave again, so we wandered the aisles and picked up some fun things – curry puffs, canned rambutan, home made pork bao, tapioca flour, and some cookies for the kids. I noticed they have a boba counter in the back, so we’ll have to make a return trip some time!

-Fencing! We signed up the 8 year old for fencing lessons. He’s always running around with his light saber and Ren Faire sword, so we figured we should try to channel that energy.

-Figuring out how to get on a regular sleep cycle.

-My goals gentle aspirations for 2026. Two weeks into the new year and I’ve finally taken a moment to think about these things. I’m definitely of the “New year can start any time” school. I do think I need some adulting type goals, though – something financial. I need to sit with these for a bit and then maybe I’ll share them here.

-Just started this book. Interesting concept but pretty sad in the first few chapters:

-Listening to this audio book – Two of my catnips – Christmas Carol-inspired and Will Watt as one of the narrators! It’s pretty funny and charming so far.

What We Ate:
Monday: Half Price Burgers

Tuesday: Taco Tuesday – I made Tofu Chorizo from the NY Times Cooking. It was a little too spicy. Not sure if it’s worth my effort to make again – I have a recipe for soy ground beef that is easier and the family likes better. But otherwise we had tostadas instead of hard shell tacos, and those were well enjoyed.

Wednesday: Pasta with red sauce. I was supposed to cook this night, but I got home from work and fell asleep in our reading chair. When the Hsuband couldn’t wake me, he made dinner instead.

Thursday: Masala Chickpeas with Tofu and Blistered Tomatoes, from NY Times Cooking, served with Paratha (bought frozen from HMart and cooked on the griddle.) This was a huge hit. It was drier than I thought it would be – next time, I might add a can of diced tomatoes as well. Vegan (I used coconut oil instead of ghee.)

Friday: Pizza and movie night. Only we watched Indiana University football instead.

Saturday: We went out for Indian Food, the 13 (now 14) year old’s choice as her birthday dinner out.

Sunday: We went over to a friend’s house and they made pizza on the grill for us. We brought bagged salad and cupcakes.

Welp that’s some of what’s been going on here – hope you’ve had a great weekend and that the week ahead brings some wonderful things even when the big picture is bleak.

Do you have a method for picking movies on a flight? Or picking movies to watch in general? How many women artists can you name? (They sell buttons with this written on them at teh National Museum of Women in the Arts. I think I used to be just able to name Georgia O’Keefe and Frida Kahlo off the top of my head.. Now I have more!) Do you have any adulting financial goals? I need some inspiration.

Welcome Home and to a New Year. Hello, 2026!

We got back from Taiwan yesterday morning, leaving Taipe at 11:45pm on Saturday night and pulling into our driveway in Maryland at 7:30am on Sunday morning. International travel across the date line is kind of a mind warp, right? On paper, it only took eight hours to get home from Taiwan, but really it was twenty hours of travel. I mean we landed in Seattle, our connecting city, at 6:00pm on Saturday, which is before we left in Taipei. It’s almost like getting time back. But those hours gained are jet-lagged discombobulated hours; I can’t say it did us much good or that any of us were at our best…

The journey home was full of mishaps – we lost a beloved teddy bear and a travel pillow, the last leg of our flight (SEA —> BWI) was delayed an hour, and one of our suitcases came off baggage claim with a wheel missing. We were too exhausted to deal with trying to find someone to file a claim or a lost item report. The cost of exhaustion seems to be apathy mixed with helpless despair, it seems. International travel does not bring out my best ability to deal with a crisis. (Unlike my cousin, who didn’t realize until he was checking in for his flight that he and his family needed Visas for Vietnam. It’s a wild story, but they ended up in Singapore instead. I admire their sense of calm and ability to pivot.)

Anyhow, we got home and, despite my best intentions to unpack and try to get us back on Eastern Time, we all fell asleep around 11am and slept for several hours. I did get up before the others and started unpacking the suitcases. The rest of the day, between us, the Husband and I did six loads of laundry (folding most of it!), I made waffles for dinner, the Husband did a quick essentials only grocery shop (did you know Lemon Oreos are essential?), we watched Indiana play basketball before pouring the kids back into bed. Despite having taken that enormous nap in the middle of the day, they were so very tired by 10pm. (Which was 11am Taiwan time).

Of course, not so very tired that they weren’t up at 3am, coming into our bedroom.

“I’m bored,” the six year old said.

“Go play in the toy room,” the Husband suggested groggily, half asleep. 

She went away.

Around 5:15am, there was some kind of sibling squabble. One child wanted to play, one child wanted to read. (The 13 year old slept on… teenagers and their sleep…) I told the 6 year old she could come cuddle in our bed.

“How long?” She asks. 

“Until six o’clock,” I say, snuggling her down and going back to sleep. 

Then every five minutes she sat up to look at the clock. Until… 

“It’s six o’clock!” And she springs out of bed.

“Go see if your brother wants to play,” I murmur sleepily. 

Off she goes and I go back to sleep. In my dreams I hear them playing with the 8 year old’s new chess set – are they really playing? Who knows? And foot steps up and down stairs. And no more fighting.

Some indeterminate time later, I hear some one shout, “Bloody nose!!!”

Then the 8 year old: “Go to the bathroom! I’ll help you!”

And he did. When I woke up another indeterminate time later, there were bloody tissues in the trash can and on the floor in the bathroom and the Clorox wipes sitting open on the counter. I did step on a gob of blood, but you know… getting to sleep through a bloody nose is kind of a win in my book.

And then it was morning. Going to school 24.5 hours after getting off an international flight is hard, so I drove the 13 year old to school instead of having her walk. And 90 minutes later, I took the 6 year old and the 8 year old to school, though we were pretty late, squeaking in just as the doors were closing. The 8 year old has school testing this week, and we were a little concerned about him being able to stay awake and focus in class, so we wrote the teacher and she agreed to let him take the test on the make-up days. (Who schedules school testing for the week after vacation???).

I, on the other hand had grand plans of setting up my planners and journals, logging a few hours of work, picking up the house, and folding more laundry, and hanging out with the Husband since he had taken the day off. But… I got home, had breakfast and then ended up taking a three hour nap on the couch. I do feel a little guilty that I made my kids go to school while I came home and napped, but that’s a perk, of being a semi-employed adult. We’ll see how long it takes to get people back on schedule. We went out to an early dinner tonight since it was half price burger night, and the kids ate half their burgers then were like:

Trip Highlights
Here are some photo highlights of our time in Taiwan, in case I don’t get around to doing trip recaps (My track record for trip recaps is pretty paltry.)

*Sunset at Tamsui, a coastal suburb of Taipei. It’s at the end of the trainline, and where my cousin lives.

+So much food! Dumplings on Christmas Day:

*Visiting the cemetery where my grandmother’s ashes are buried.

Night Market – this one in Chia yi, where my family is originally from:

Lucid red tracksuits!

*View from our boat tour of the coastal waters off Tainan, where we learned about fishing, and spoonbills:

*Fish Market in Kaoshiong:

*Dragon Fruit at a produce vendor’s stall:

*More Night Market Food – this one also in Kaoshiong.

*Selfie with my grandfather – he is 100 years old and the reason for this family reunion:

*We took a two night trip to Bietou, where there are hot springs and hiking. (Though it ended up being to wet and windy to really hike.)

Thermal Valley.

And on our last day, we followed a string of red lanterns and found a moment of calm in the gardens of a Buddhist Temple:

Photo taken by the 8 year old.

The photos don’t really capture how full each an every day was – full of family, full of new sights/smells/tastes, full of new discoveries of how life on this island nation work. Also, though, full of chaos and noise, full of long bus rides, full of feeling lost in a language that I don’t quite speak, a culture I don’t quite belong to. Yet ultimately, full of love and bonding, meories and conversations, and that kind of discomfort that opens my eyes to other ways lives can be lived.

Oh so fittingly of the universe, this poem by John Updike showed up in my apoemaday feed yesterday:

How beautifully Updike captures the return to the mundane – I, too, feel like I’ve put the yoke back on, even while knowing that the world is not so small as it once felt and sometimes still feels.

Return Trip Gratitudes:

-That the kids kind of slept on the flight home, and that they are pretty good travelers in general.  I feel so lucky – they didn’t complain, went where we asked them too, didn’t get lost, carried their own backpacks, pulled their own suitcases.

-Airport play areas. I am so grateful for these areas for kids to run off some energy while waiting for flights. (The play area in Taiwan has a baby’s area attached that comes with a hot water dispenser, a fully stocked wipes warmer, and extra diapers!) I think the eight year old is technically too tall for the play area, but we let him play there until there were too many toddlers as well. And in SEA, they made some friends and played tag and said “Six seven” to each other.

-Wifi at the airport. The 13 year old definitely is not into airport play areas, but luckily in each airport she had wifi and a comfy seat so she was well occupied.

-That our fruit didn’t get taken away when we got home. Before we went to the airport, we bought a bunch of fruit and snacks for the trip home, remembering the time last year when we were stuck in Seattle for nine hours. Taiwan is super strict about letting fruit and vegetables into the couttry, so I half expected that the US would be the same. I declared them and everything, but no one took them from us. We came home with a bag of bananas, three passion fruits, and six or seven wax apples. Wax apples are one of my favorite Taiwanese fruits, and you can’t get them in the US. I cut them up for a late night snack last night, and the crisp juicy slices were a wonderful reminder of our trip. The 13 year old ate the rest of the passionfruit this morning. I’m a little annoyed I didn’t get one of the last two, but I reminded myself how much I love it for her that she easily slices and scoops out and eats this fruit that was so foreign to her a week ago.

-The Mobile Passport Control app, allowing for easy re-entry into the country. We don’t have TSA Pre-Check or Global entry or anything like that, but I found that airport security lines are pretty streamlined these days and moved pretty fast. The nice thing in Seattle, too, is that even though we submitted our info via the app, there was still an agent who directed us to the right line and scanned us through and said, “Welcome home.” Having someone say, “Welcome home” is one of my favorite parts of international travel.

-That the Qdoba in the Seattle airport is open 24 hours. After that nine hour at SEATAC episode last year, when were were in a tiny terminal without any food, I was really glad we decided to stay in Terminal B where there was a Qdoba and it was still open at 7:30pm. I don’t know if it was the two weeks away from America or what (seriously, I think we had cheese maybe twice the whole ten days), but the 13 year old declared Qdoba “even better than Chipotle.” This is quite a statement from her.

-That the Husband had the foresight to pack the kids’ winter coats in the car for the ride home. Also – he went to pick up the car while the kids and I tackled baggage claim, so that when we got in the car with our luggage, the car was toasty warm. In Taiwan, the 50 degree weather was considered frigid, so coming back to 30 degree weather in Baltimore was quite a shock.

-That it didn’t snow at home, so we didn’t have to shovel out the driveway or anything to get back in the house.

-That the house was clean and the fish were alive when we got home. Our cleaner was scheduled to come while we were away, and it was so nice to come home to a clean house – which admittedly was not the state it was left in when we departed two weeks ago. Also, our friends came over to feed our fish and also played Santa. The Husband, like he did last year, left our friends with a box of Christmas presents and some holiday decorations, and while we were gone, they decorated the little potted fir tree we keep in our living room, and put the presents out. The look of delight and wonder from the 6 and 8 year old when they realized that Santa still found a way to us was absolutely precious.

-That eggs and buttermilk keep for up to two weeks in the fridge. Before we left we had two dozen eggs and half a container of buttermilk in the fridge I contemplated throwing them out, not knowing if they would keep. I’m glad I didn’t throw them out. They did indeed keep and we had waffles for dinner. There is definitely stuff in the fridge that didn’t survive the two weeks, and throwing it out will be a project for tomorrow.

=That we even got to go on this trip at all (BIG thank you to my parents) and that we went to the other side of the globe and back safely. I mean I believe in science and physics and all that, but sometimes I look at air travel and think, “Oooooookay… I’m just going to have to really trust that this is huge hunk of metal is going to stay up in the air.”

Looking Forward To:

– All the planner, journalling, and 2026 goal setting that I meant to do today, but napped instead. I’ve started Susannah Conway’s Find Your Word 2026 workbook – I’ve never really been one about having a word for the year, but I see a lot of chaos and uncertainty coming up, so I do find my self drawn to creating grounding principal for myself. (Conaway also has a 2025 end of year/2026 monthly reflection workbook that I really enjoy working through – I discovered them last year, and they are free to download.)

– Firepit date with friends. 

= Lenten Reading Group happy Hour.

-Cooking food, doing laundry (not in a laundromat), Taco Tuesday, Family movie night, Sunday night football… basically all the every day things that we didn’t get to do in Taiwan. I asked my cousin what she was most looking forward to when we got home and she said, “Doing laundry when I want and not having to drag my clothes five blocks.” So true

– enjoying all the snacks I brought home from Taiwan.

-A New Year! Yay 2026!