Month: November 2019

by

Productive Home Tasks

I’ve been working from home a lot lately and have been very much enjoying it. I get to have a walking commute for daycare drop-off, go grocery shopping on my way home when the stores are empty, and look out onto trees while I work. I work all morning using my lightbox and get to stand up and walk around a lot.

I also love making a meal. Instead of taking 15 minutes to go to Sweetgreen and drop $15 on a salad, I’ve been making a giant mushroom, spinach, goat cheese omelet every day. I get to make my own delicious hazelnut iced coffee and drink it from a reusable cup with a stainless steel straw.

And instead of having 15-minute breaks between meetings when I only have time to refresh wapo.com, I get to wash a set of dishes or go put laundry in the washer, or chop some veggies.

And the focused work! I get to turn my email off and…work. Perfect working environment, good mindset, productive super focus.

This contrasts now to days when I am in the office and it is run, run. run all day but often without any real work to show for it.

by

Life Update

I have been wanting to write for a long time, but haven’t prioritized it. Life has been good. R and I are both back at work but it has been better than I thought it would be. I have become a drop-off pro, greatly facilitated by the fact that I work from home three days a week. MG is insanely cute, crawling around like a maniac and with very clear preferences. The whole world is her oyster.

I’ve been thinking a bit about the holidays and new traditions. I have a real aversion to traveling anywhere with MG. I firmly think travel is not for the baby, but for the parents (though in our case, mostly an obligation). Babies I think, at least our baby, really like sleeping in their own crib, being the masters of their own place, and spending a lot of time with people they like and know. With Thanksgiving coming up, I am very, very tempted to just bail and do what we want instead. There is something interesting to me about how grandparents (who are retired) get to be visited instead of visit, while working people with families have to cram that into already limited time off. Wow, how crotchety do I sound? I guess I have a sense that it’s not worth spending free time out of obligation. I’ve been very into the simpler life – a life where a good Saturday is making a delicious soup and eating it with bread and friends and taking a walk and watching The Americans while the baby naps. That to me, right now, is much more nourishing that going to check out the new MoMA or taking the train anywhere.