Can I just say something, as a former reporter and someone who consumes like, A LOT of substacks: No one else is paying attention to your pub schedule. No one else is setting your deadlines. That may be problematic for deadline driven folks, but seriously, I enjoy reading the various substacks I read, whenever they pop into my in box. Deadlines and pub skeds are a by-product of being accountable to advertisers and print delivery mechanisms and I wish the many self-employed or at least self-supervised writers I read who all seem SO unnecessarily apologetic when they take time off would realize that. I don't know what day it is, never mind what day I'm supposed to get what substack. The real hard truth I want to say to ALL of them: I am glad you're back, but I can't say I like, noticed. I get way too many emails for that, but I did, if it softens the blow, immediately open this one when I saw it this morning!
thank you! I know this is true, I just get very set on my ‘systems’ and if I fall off then everything else falls apart. #normal (I also blame the newsletter biz for making you think if ppl don’t get their newsletters exactly at the same time at the same day they will all turn on you)
Seconding this! There’s always so much apologizing and I’m like… oh, you took some time off? Cool. Nice to have you back. But I would not notice at all if there wasn’t all the apologizing.
Same here. I did check once to make sure I wasn’t missing posts (because I like them), but I just sent you gratitude for that NYMag Strategist review in the Bed Jet and wished you well from afar. 💖
Thank you for saying this! I hear so much about sticking to workflow and editorial calendars, etc. And that's great! Structure works well for me most days. That said, most of us aren't on the wire for print deadlines and it's a great relief to know that, when life gets bonkers, the sky isn't going to fall if I don't post.
It's truly hard to know what is the right process b/c I interviewed a newsletter producer today who said about how it's a signature of his to send his email out EVERY. DAY. at 6:10 AM exactly. As someone who has sent the newsletter out often with a kid pressed against me I could not deal with that kind of expectation!
I only have an answer for #2. I would formally name my living quarters The House of Cheese and Crackers. I would only eat cheese and crackers - all different kinds, all different brands, there is enough variety in both categories to keep me happy for years.
My kid is allergic to organized activities (a relief, honestly) but is finally old enough at 6 to go for bike rides around town and it’s my dream. Kid talks to me nonstop from their bike and does not realize I can’t hear any of it. I get the wind in my hair and some endorphins and 30 solid minutes of a thing I enjoy and also, maybe my kid will sleep better too? One can hope.
I don’t let myself think about how differently I would cook/eat if I lived alone. I just… don’t. I’m grateful my wife does half the cooking but the menu is constrained by her preferences and our kids’ needs to the point where I don’t even know what I’d do alone. Try a lot of new recipes, for sure. Eat fancy sandwiches. Roast so much squash.
I FEEL this. Our kid is barely two but she loves to ride with me on my bike. We can bike along and chatter and there's no reading or bluey or don't-do-that or getting bossed around and it's lovely. I just get to enjoy the weather and her every new sentence and singing "wankle wankle wittle star".
When I took my weekend away for weaning I refused to tell my partner what I was doing... I was literally sitting in our friend's rental eating a sardine and arugula sandwich for lunch (both days). SO much more enjoyable when no one made a face at you for eating it.
Welcome back and glad you got some time off from the substacking grind! To answer your questions since I am waiting for a bed to be delivered--
1. My kids do zero organized activities and it's the best! (Well, wait, my oldest who is almost 13, does a tennis lesson Sunday mornings at 10 am but that's low stakes--we can skip as needed, there are two other kids there, and the moms and I chat, which is fun.) My kids aren't interested in joining a sports team and thank god for that. You sporty types are so dedicated! I salute you and I'm also scared of that lifestyle.
2. If I lived alone I'd eat depressing meals. My husband is a great cook who loves it, and he really takes pride in it. When he's out of town I cook everyone butter pasta or scrambled eggs for dinner, and when I'm on a retreat to write I'll make boring beans or one of those Amy's frozen enchiladas. When he's around I am eating things like braised pork shoulder with grilled raddicchio! I guess I'd probably eat more egg salad and nicoise salad, since he doesn't like those and I do. However, I think every person who has a family dreams of living alone and eating monastically. Just give me silence and a hunk of country bread on a stone plate, please.
3. I went back to dance class recently and I go every Saturday and Sunday afternoon...which I guess is another reason why no one can play sports or do a regular extracurricular: MOMMY IS DANCING.
My husband and I are not sporty types, we just ended up raising some! I didn't want you to think I was sporty. We do like that it makes them tired though.
I would eat a lot more macaroni and cheese without my family around. Nobody here likes it much weirdly.
Claire, I regret to inform you that you are now sporty by association! I do not make the rules, only enforce them!
(And I do get the sports thing--you probably don't have to say "Let's go move our bodies!" like I do...)
I love Annie's Mac n Cheese, which reminds me of college.
I go to ballet on Wednesdays (if I've done my writing), and then on Sat and Sun I take this sort of contemporary/jazz/modern mash-up class that has a 30 minute warmup and then we learn about a minute, minute and a half of choreography. It's so fun.
Yes, the bed arrived on time and it looks great, thank you! First bed (like, a headboard instead of a mattress and box spring on the floor) for the first time in...20 years!!!
HA HA HA. I read it that you were waiting on a bed to deliver a baby and I admired that you were taking the time to comment on the thread with all that going on. HA HA HA. I'm going back under my rock now.
The best activity is an African dance class on Saturday mornings. Both the 5 and 2 year old go (the teacher is a saint) and I can walk to the farmers market and eat donuts and dog-watch for 45 minutes.
I also started taking guitar lessons when I turned 40 last year!! 🎸🤘 I did a weekend rock camp for adults type thing last month and it was fun/really exhausting/reinforced the idea that I should find more ways to play with other people even if it's *embarrassing* because I'm *bad.* Maybe I need to find an ensemble too!
Also this is not an activity per se but the waiting room at our youngest's therapist's office has tea and comfy chairs and snacks and gentle Enya type white noise so sitting there for 45 minutes is therapy for me too 🧘♀️
I think the therapist’s office totally counts. I used to sit in the car and watch TV when my son was at a dropoff therapist (now we have a new one where we have to participate — boo.)
I like the ensemble a lot b/c nobody is paying attention to what YOU are doing—everyone’s worrying about their own thing. A lady got up and sang yesterday and I told her good job and she was like omg I was so nervous! But she was brave enough to do it which was all I noticed.
I love when my kid does swimming. I put in my headphones and listen to an audiobook or podcast all while getting points from my kid got paying attention to her lessons.
ohhh yes! we live near a huge public outdoor pool and the last two summers (son will be 13 this summer so starting at 11) I bring him and a friend there and don’t see them or hear them for hours, they can horse around and buy crap fron the concession stand and I can just float and lie in the sun and read a book - and younger child is at DAYCARE!!!
OMG me too! The lesson is chill. Usually I get some writing done during swimming. But the 30 minutes it takes to get dressed and walk to the car can do me in.
1. During the 1st post-lockdown year, my kid's dance studio closed the lobby area where parents could sit/wait/observe their kid on the tv monitors. It's since reopened, but I continue to just sit in my car eating snacks whilst reading/scrolling (or occasionally wandering the aisles at Target).
2. Before we all got married and had kids, my friend's husband once remarked to his wife -- with some genuine concern -- that I had a tendency to eat like an unsupervised 10y.o. boy.
He... maybe wasn't wrong, and I revert *hard* when left to my own, unobserved devices for a whole day or longer.
Ngl, my favorite (and, okay, probably most-frequent) move is to immediately hit the nearest Walgreens and grab one of those extra-large individual bags of Sour Cream & Cheddar Ruffles (like… they’re not an actual regular bag of chips, but they’re definitely bigger than the regular snack-size bags?).
Basically it’s a variation on feast-or-famine, where “famine” is the simplest food possible in the amounts necessary to sustain me and the “feast” is, like, almost a whole family-size bag of Cool Ranch Doritos, an entire frozen pizza, and/or a sleeve of Oreos.
1. Not sure we have found the best / most ideal activity yet, but anything that is "drop and go" works for me.
2. Before I was married and with kids, I tended to cook two meals a week and divide them up for lunches. I went out more for dinner. In the winter, I ate oatmeal for breakfast. In the summer, yogurt + berries + mini choco chips.
3. My kid is three, so I am not sure if I'm there yet, but I do update my blog (now substack) more regularly than I used to. :)
I would definitely be a vegetarian if my husband wasn't such a huge meat eater. His hobby is grilling/smoking meat so sadly, we're not going vegetarian anytime soon. Also I would probably just eat cereal every night for dinner. I have just really hit a point where I no longer care if we have an actual meal, but we're still making actual meals anyway!
My husband got a new grill and said "This summer *we* really need to cook out more" (meaning meat) and I was like "Well I support *you* as you do that."
My husband is always a little bummed that I refuse to learn how to do anything with the grill or smoker, but I am very supportive of him doing what HE wants out there.....in my opinion cooking is an inside activity.
Welcome back!! You accomplished so much! If my kids and husband weren’t a factor I’d order takeout every.single.night. I could not be more over cooking, and I used to cook as a hobby!
1 - My kid and I have been friends with another mom/kid since the kids were wee little babies (they're tweens now) and we frequently go to a park and the kids walk around and talk/pick up sticks while moms sit on a bench and drink iced coffees. It's glorious.
2 - I would eat a lot of cottage cheese accompanied by a Diet Coke (RIP Tab) bc I am a woman who aspires to be an early '80s mom. If only aerobics and station wagons (NOT SUVs or crossovers) would come back into fashion. (Or, honestly, if we could find out that smoking doesn't cause lung cancer.) Special mentions to some other foods that no one (but me) likes: tuna salad, pimento cheese, summer AND winter squashes not hidden in other foods, hard-boiled eggs...
3 - Hobbies! I love hobbies. I have always done some form of sewing-adjacent craft (currently needlepoint) and that comes and goes in waves. Currently learning pottery (I suck!) and how to play mah jong (it was inevitable).
It's so great when your kids can play together and you're in a place/friendship where you're not self conscious/too worried about what your kids are doing.
I have one and don’t know what I’ll replace it with bc there seem to be few options in the American market. I guess I’ll have to buy in Europe and ship it here!
I really enjoyed some living room Jazzercise YouTube during Covid.
Also IMHO the hard boiled eggs available at Costco are a godsend. Packed in sets of 2, already peeled. They don’t smell eggy and you don’t get to pick how cooked they are, but I’m a big fan.
I wore a Solar Escape hat from Costco for years until it got too droopy from in-the-pool use. This one caught my eye in Costco Connection. I had coffee & coworking with a friend this morning. She brought this hat for me! I felt so seen.
My son's OT and PT sessions are when I get all my writing done! It isn't ideal, but by now it's a routine and I can drop into that creative energy as soon as I get him settled.
Meals have always been a struggle for our family! We have allergies, personal preferences, and serious food aversions to contend with. Lately I've been making separate meals more often, and even though it might be slightly more work, it has lowered my stress a lot, so I'm taking it as a win.
anything that lowers YOUR stress is a win. My friend the other day was sort of dumping on herself for feeding her kids McD's in the car right before baseball, I was like hey are you kidding. That's why god invented McDonalds and cars.
Instead of gentle parenting or whatever, I wish there was a parenting theory that was basically “do whatever you need to do to not lose your cool even if that’s McDonald’s.”
Yes, when my kids were in OT-it was a great time for writing! And separate meals are great. I personally had to get over this and now it is so much easier. We got an air fryer-that made it easier to make more things at once. Everyone eats, we are all happier. And we have a handful of meals that everyone will eat something and other nights we do more separate meals.
Now that my kids are out of the house my meals are some version of carbs-only never-on-a-plate girl dinner. By 7:30 I realize my dreams of cooking the lovely fresh stuff in the fridge will never materialize and the snacking begins. 😁
Thank you! Man, cooking has ruined roto chicks for me. They used to be this savory greasy treat and now they’re things I pull apart so I can put the meat in other dishes.
A friend once came over to my bachelorette apartment and made fun of me for only having wine, milk, and various types of cheese and fruit. I looked at her like, uh, yea? A ploughman's lunch is my ideal meal.
When I lived alone (well, with a roommate, but we didn’t share food/cooking), I would eat the same thing for lunch or dinner for weeks in a row. I think my record was bringing the same baked chicken + steamed broccoli + baked potato for work lunches five days a week for six weeks. My husband (and to be fair, everyone else I know) does not want to eat the same thing every day for six weeks, but I’d start doing that again if I lived alone again.
I could eat the same thing day after day. I live with my husband and three sons (2 teenagers, one 10-yr old) and, after preparing so much food for so many years, I'm out of brain power to come up with new meals that might please everyone. Now I just make what I like and if they eat it, great. Otherwise, they're on their own.
I would probably eat what I lunch most days for dinner. Baby carrots + peanut butter, a frozen entree and an apple or some other fruit. Like the tiniest amount of dishes.
Can I just say something, as a former reporter and someone who consumes like, A LOT of substacks: No one else is paying attention to your pub schedule. No one else is setting your deadlines. That may be problematic for deadline driven folks, but seriously, I enjoy reading the various substacks I read, whenever they pop into my in box. Deadlines and pub skeds are a by-product of being accountable to advertisers and print delivery mechanisms and I wish the many self-employed or at least self-supervised writers I read who all seem SO unnecessarily apologetic when they take time off would realize that. I don't know what day it is, never mind what day I'm supposed to get what substack. The real hard truth I want to say to ALL of them: I am glad you're back, but I can't say I like, noticed. I get way too many emails for that, but I did, if it softens the blow, immediately open this one when I saw it this morning!
thank you! I know this is true, I just get very set on my ‘systems’ and if I fall off then everything else falls apart. #normal (I also blame the newsletter biz for making you think if ppl don’t get their newsletters exactly at the same time at the same day they will all turn on you)
Seconding this! There’s always so much apologizing and I’m like… oh, you took some time off? Cool. Nice to have you back. But I would not notice at all if there wasn’t all the apologizing.
I for one would like substacks in general to be released more evenly throughout the day and week. It's more fun that way!
Same here. I did check once to make sure I wasn’t missing posts (because I like them), but I just sent you gratitude for that NYMag Strategist review in the Bed Jet and wished you well from afar. 💖
I am so glad that piece was useful! I love it. I've been traveling with it when I go out of town.
Thank you for saying this! I hear so much about sticking to workflow and editorial calendars, etc. And that's great! Structure works well for me most days. That said, most of us aren't on the wire for print deadlines and it's a great relief to know that, when life gets bonkers, the sky isn't going to fall if I don't post.
It's truly hard to know what is the right process b/c I interviewed a newsletter producer today who said about how it's a signature of his to send his email out EVERY. DAY. at 6:10 AM exactly. As someone who has sent the newsletter out often with a kid pressed against me I could not deal with that kind of expectation!
Late with this reply but ew. that is for an audience i do not understand.
I only have an answer for #2. I would formally name my living quarters The House of Cheese and Crackers. I would only eat cheese and crackers - all different kinds, all different brands, there is enough variety in both categories to keep me happy for years.
When I was alone I had vegetables with pimento dip for a meal for a few times because there was zero mess. Not doing dishes was the ultimate treat.
Also olives and popcorn in this rotation at my house.
Yes, I agree with this. A cheese plate would be a joyous meal for me.
My kid is allergic to organized activities (a relief, honestly) but is finally old enough at 6 to go for bike rides around town and it’s my dream. Kid talks to me nonstop from their bike and does not realize I can’t hear any of it. I get the wind in my hair and some endorphins and 30 solid minutes of a thing I enjoy and also, maybe my kid will sleep better too? One can hope.
I don’t let myself think about how differently I would cook/eat if I lived alone. I just… don’t. I’m grateful my wife does half the cooking but the menu is constrained by her preferences and our kids’ needs to the point where I don’t even know what I’d do alone. Try a lot of new recipes, for sure. Eat fancy sandwiches. Roast so much squash.
What did squash do to hurt our families?
"kid talks to me nonstop from their bike and does not realize i can't hear any of it" ahahahah honestly it sounds like a dream !!
I agree, witchy af
squash!!! yes - forgot about that one - i’d eat squash every day, what DID squash do to our families and why won’t anyone eat them!
I FEEL this. Our kid is barely two but she loves to ride with me on my bike. We can bike along and chatter and there's no reading or bluey or don't-do-that or getting bossed around and it's lovely. I just get to enjoy the weather and her every new sentence and singing "wankle wankle wittle star".
When I took my weekend away for weaning I refused to tell my partner what I was doing... I was literally sitting in our friend's rental eating a sardine and arugula sandwich for lunch (both days). SO much more enjoyable when no one made a face at you for eating it.
Welcome back and glad you got some time off from the substacking grind! To answer your questions since I am waiting for a bed to be delivered--
1. My kids do zero organized activities and it's the best! (Well, wait, my oldest who is almost 13, does a tennis lesson Sunday mornings at 10 am but that's low stakes--we can skip as needed, there are two other kids there, and the moms and I chat, which is fun.) My kids aren't interested in joining a sports team and thank god for that. You sporty types are so dedicated! I salute you and I'm also scared of that lifestyle.
2. If I lived alone I'd eat depressing meals. My husband is a great cook who loves it, and he really takes pride in it. When he's out of town I cook everyone butter pasta or scrambled eggs for dinner, and when I'm on a retreat to write I'll make boring beans or one of those Amy's frozen enchiladas. When he's around I am eating things like braised pork shoulder with grilled raddicchio! I guess I'd probably eat more egg salad and nicoise salad, since he doesn't like those and I do. However, I think every person who has a family dreams of living alone and eating monastically. Just give me silence and a hunk of country bread on a stone plate, please.
3. I went back to dance class recently and I go every Saturday and Sunday afternoon...which I guess is another reason why no one can play sports or do a regular extracurricular: MOMMY IS DANCING.
My husband and I are not sporty types, we just ended up raising some! I didn't want you to think I was sporty. We do like that it makes them tired though.
I would eat a lot more macaroni and cheese without my family around. Nobody here likes it much weirdly.
What kind of dance??!
Claire, I regret to inform you that you are now sporty by association! I do not make the rules, only enforce them!
(And I do get the sports thing--you probably don't have to say "Let's go move our bodies!" like I do...)
I love Annie's Mac n Cheese, which reminds me of college.
I go to ballet on Wednesdays (if I've done my writing), and then on Sat and Sun I take this sort of contemporary/jazz/modern mash-up class that has a 30 minute warmup and then we learn about a minute, minute and a half of choreography. It's so fun.
lol wow damn. I feel like I was just seen for the first time. I need to think some things over.
Hope all goes well with the delivery!
Yes, the bed arrived on time and it looks great, thank you! First bed (like, a headboard instead of a mattress and box spring on the floor) for the first time in...20 years!!!
HA HA HA. I read it that you were waiting on a bed to deliver a baby and I admired that you were taking the time to comment on the thread with all that going on. HA HA HA. I'm going back under my rock now.
LOLLL, I see where this happened! And here I thought you were just as excited about my bed as I was! :)
This is my dream!! MOMMY IS DANCING!
The best activity is an African dance class on Saturday mornings. Both the 5 and 2 year old go (the teacher is a saint) and I can walk to the farmers market and eat donuts and dog-watch for 45 minutes.
Ooh that sounds wonderful!
It is amazing. And the teacher doesn't charge us for the 2 year old! Saint!!
I also started taking guitar lessons when I turned 40 last year!! 🎸🤘 I did a weekend rock camp for adults type thing last month and it was fun/really exhausting/reinforced the idea that I should find more ways to play with other people even if it's *embarrassing* because I'm *bad.* Maybe I need to find an ensemble too!
Also this is not an activity per se but the waiting room at our youngest's therapist's office has tea and comfy chairs and snacks and gentle Enya type white noise so sitting there for 45 minutes is therapy for me too 🧘♀️
I think the therapist’s office totally counts. I used to sit in the car and watch TV when my son was at a dropoff therapist (now we have a new one where we have to participate — boo.)
I like the ensemble a lot b/c nobody is paying attention to what YOU are doing—everyone’s worrying about their own thing. A lady got up and sang yesterday and I told her good job and she was like omg I was so nervous! But she was brave enough to do it which was all I noticed.
I love when my kid does swimming. I put in my headphones and listen to an audiobook or podcast all while getting points from my kid got paying attention to her lessons.
Man when the kids get old enough to swim AND get themselves dressed afterwards--it's a great level to get to.
ohhh yes! we live near a huge public outdoor pool and the last two summers (son will be 13 this summer so starting at 11) I bring him and a friend there and don’t see them or hear them for hours, they can horse around and buy crap fron the concession stand and I can just float and lie in the sun and read a book - and younger child is at DAYCARE!!!
I am WAITING. I feel like I’ve run a marathon post-lesson.
OMG me too! The lesson is chill. Usually I get some writing done during swimming. But the 30 minutes it takes to get dressed and walk to the car can do me in.
nothing like trying to get dry clothes on a damp child
Cringing at the thought
Hard same.
Aha, thank you for this tip! I can no longer read the New Yorker during swim time because my child gave me sad looks about "not paying attention."
Watching your kid learn to swim is much more interesting than I would ever have imagined before having a child. But still.
It's good to practice a generic "WOW" that does the bare minimum acknowledgement wise but doesn't give them too much satisfaction
I get those looks too sometimes! 🙊
1. During the 1st post-lockdown year, my kid's dance studio closed the lobby area where parents could sit/wait/observe their kid on the tv monitors. It's since reopened, but I continue to just sit in my car eating snacks whilst reading/scrolling (or occasionally wandering the aisles at Target).
2. Before we all got married and had kids, my friend's husband once remarked to his wife -- with some genuine concern -- that I had a tendency to eat like an unsupervised 10y.o. boy.
He... maybe wasn't wrong, and I revert *hard* when left to my own, unobserved devices for a whole day or longer.
I want to hear examples (to see if I get any good ideas for snacks)
Ngl, my favorite (and, okay, probably most-frequent) move is to immediately hit the nearest Walgreens and grab one of those extra-large individual bags of Sour Cream & Cheddar Ruffles (like… they’re not an actual regular bag of chips, but they’re definitely bigger than the regular snack-size bags?).
I assume that means lots of cereal and noodles for dinner?
YES. Exactly.
Cereal, noodles, and/or straight garbage-food.
Sometimes some apples. (Sometimes.)
Basically it’s a variation on feast-or-famine, where “famine” is the simplest food possible in the amounts necessary to sustain me and the “feast” is, like, almost a whole family-size bag of Cool Ranch Doritos, an entire frozen pizza, and/or a sleeve of Oreos.
😁😁😁
1. Not sure we have found the best / most ideal activity yet, but anything that is "drop and go" works for me.
2. Before I was married and with kids, I tended to cook two meals a week and divide them up for lunches. I went out more for dinner. In the winter, I ate oatmeal for breakfast. In the summer, yogurt + berries + mini choco chips.
3. My kid is three, so I am not sure if I'm there yet, but I do update my blog (now substack) more regularly than I used to. :)
Good! I hope that gives hope to the other newer moms that things like this can happen.
I would definitely be a vegetarian if my husband wasn't such a huge meat eater. His hobby is grilling/smoking meat so sadly, we're not going vegetarian anytime soon. Also I would probably just eat cereal every night for dinner. I have just really hit a point where I no longer care if we have an actual meal, but we're still making actual meals anyway!
My husband got a new grill and said "This summer *we* really need to cook out more" (meaning meat) and I was like "Well I support *you* as you do that."
My husband is always a little bummed that I refuse to learn how to do anything with the grill or smoker, but I am very supportive of him doing what HE wants out there.....in my opinion cooking is an inside activity.
somebody had a disused smoker and my husband offered to take it. Proud to say that finally after many years we put it in the alley. Never once used.
Welcome back!! You accomplished so much! If my kids and husband weren’t a factor I’d order takeout every.single.night. I could not be more over cooking, and I used to cook as a hobby!
thank you! And COVID especially broke my already tenuous relationship with forever cooking and meal planning.
Welcome back!
1 - My kid and I have been friends with another mom/kid since the kids were wee little babies (they're tweens now) and we frequently go to a park and the kids walk around and talk/pick up sticks while moms sit on a bench and drink iced coffees. It's glorious.
2 - I would eat a lot of cottage cheese accompanied by a Diet Coke (RIP Tab) bc I am a woman who aspires to be an early '80s mom. If only aerobics and station wagons (NOT SUVs or crossovers) would come back into fashion. (Or, honestly, if we could find out that smoking doesn't cause lung cancer.) Special mentions to some other foods that no one (but me) likes: tuna salad, pimento cheese, summer AND winter squashes not hidden in other foods, hard-boiled eggs...
3 - Hobbies! I love hobbies. I have always done some form of sewing-adjacent craft (currently needlepoint) and that comes and goes in waves. Currently learning pottery (I suck!) and how to play mah jong (it was inevitable).
if I were smart I would learn how to sew. If I were really REALLY smart I would get my kids to learn to sew so they could sew for me.
It's so great when your kids can play together and you're in a place/friendship where you're not self conscious/too worried about what your kids are doing.
I love our two station wagons, who cares that they’re not in fashion, they are perfect cars!!
I have one and don’t know what I’ll replace it with bc there seem to be few options in the American market. I guess I’ll have to buy in Europe and ship it here!
🙌🙌🙌How I would LOVE a station wagon. . .
I really enjoyed some living room Jazzercise YouTube during Covid.
Also IMHO the hard boiled eggs available at Costco are a godsend. Packed in sets of 2, already peeled. They don’t smell eggy and you don’t get to pick how cooked they are, but I’m a big fan.
wow! I have not heard about the Costco hardboiled eggs! Fascinating. Maybe next time I do deviled eggs
They are a dream.
Also this fedora currently at Costco.
https://www.costco.com/solar-escape-fedora.product.4000188924.html
I wore a Solar Escape hat from Costco for years until it got too droopy from in-the-pool use. This one caught my eye in Costco Connection. I had coffee & coworking with a friend this morning. She brought this hat for me! I felt so seen.
My son's OT and PT sessions are when I get all my writing done! It isn't ideal, but by now it's a routine and I can drop into that creative energy as soon as I get him settled.
Meals have always been a struggle for our family! We have allergies, personal preferences, and serious food aversions to contend with. Lately I've been making separate meals more often, and even though it might be slightly more work, it has lowered my stress a lot, so I'm taking it as a win.
anything that lowers YOUR stress is a win. My friend the other day was sort of dumping on herself for feeding her kids McD's in the car right before baseball, I was like hey are you kidding. That's why god invented McDonalds and cars.
Instead of gentle parenting or whatever, I wish there was a parenting theory that was basically “do whatever you need to do to not lose your cool even if that’s McDonald’s.”
Yes, when my kids were in OT-it was a great time for writing! And separate meals are great. I personally had to get over this and now it is so much easier. We got an air fryer-that made it easier to make more things at once. Everyone eats, we are all happier. And we have a handful of meals that everyone will eat something and other nights we do more separate meals.
Such a relief! The we-all-eat-one-meal goal makes perfect sense in theory, but causes so much stress in practice.
Using OT to write just blew my mind, what an amazing idea.
Even if the rest of the day is blown, I can look forward to that time!
Now that my kids are out of the house my meals are some version of carbs-only never-on-a-plate girl dinner. By 7:30 I realize my dreams of cooking the lovely fresh stuff in the fridge will never materialize and the snacking begins. 😁
1. I like when my kid plays basketball, they enjoy it, and the gym has a nice walking trail by it!
2. I would probably buy a rotisserie chicken and just eat that throughout the week, and order Indian takeout.
3. Trying to hike and ride up big hills when time allows.
So glad you're back and had a break!
Thank you! Man, cooking has ruined roto chicks for me. They used to be this savory greasy treat and now they’re things I pull apart so I can put the meat in other dishes.
A friend once came over to my bachelorette apartment and made fun of me for only having wine, milk, and various types of cheese and fruit. I looked at her like, uh, yea? A ploughman's lunch is my ideal meal.
Ploughman’s lunch makes it sound so noble! I love that.
That sounds so good. I'd have olives too and maybe some greens on hand. Delicious, low effort, balanced, and no cooking involved. Perfection.
When I lived alone (well, with a roommate, but we didn’t share food/cooking), I would eat the same thing for lunch or dinner for weeks in a row. I think my record was bringing the same baked chicken + steamed broccoli + baked potato for work lunches five days a week for six weeks. My husband (and to be fair, everyone else I know) does not want to eat the same thing every day for six weeks, but I’d start doing that again if I lived alone again.
I could eat the same thing day after day. I live with my husband and three sons (2 teenagers, one 10-yr old) and, after preparing so much food for so many years, I'm out of brain power to come up with new meals that might please everyone. Now I just make what I like and if they eat it, great. Otherwise, they're on their own.
I would probably eat what I lunch most days for dinner. Baby carrots + peanut butter, a frozen entree and an apple or some other fruit. Like the tiniest amount of dishes.