Denise Resting

Author: Denise

  • Monday Gratitude

    Monday Gratitude

    What I’m thankful for going into this week:

    1. B has started going down slides again. We don’t know what sparked his fear of slides, but it’s been at least six months since he’s wanted to try one. This past week, whenever we were at a playground, I made a point to go down the slide over and over and make a big deal about how fun it was. I think he internalized that and has been thinking it over, because yesterday at the playground he spontaneously started going down the slide, and did it again and again.

    2. B tried a few other new things at the playground yesterday, too. Lately, playgrounds have basically just meant he sits in the baby swing. We’ve been trying to encourage him to at least try the regular swing, because he’s getting too big for the baby swing and some of them are really high off the ground and it’s nearly impossible to get him out once we’ve got him in. And yesterday he did try, and did really well! And he also started climbing across a rope bridge, which he had never interacted with before. But the most exciting development, to me, was that he fell on the rope bridge several times but kept trying. He’s had a tendency to get spooked by something and avoid it for months, like whatever happened with slides. I feel like we’ve unlocked much more play possibility with playgrounds heading into the summer.

    3. We had a very low-key mother’s day. Bagels for breakfast, swim class and grocery shopping in the morning, and in the afternoon we rode our bikes out to get ice cream. Then we went to a playground, where B did all those exciting new things, and we had a nice, child-free dinner on the porch after putting the kid to bed. Last mother’s day, under the spell of being told “happy mother’s day” by practically every stranger I passed, we euphorically brewery-hopped our way through the neighborhood and I awoke the next day with one of the worst hangovers I can remember and a toddler to take care of. I’m grateful that’s not the case this year.

    4. We had a fun, easy plan for this morning. On our way home from swim yesterday B noticed there’s a playground there, too, and he really wanted to go but we didn’t have time so I told him we could go today. I asked if he’d rather we take the car or the bus, and he said bus. The boy loves bus. And I love bus because even though it’s a short ride, it somehow turns an hour-long outing into a two, maybe three-hour-long outing. Our whole morning was taken up with absolutely zero thought required.

    5. Tonight is my final meeting for the committee I was assigned to as part of my co-op parent duties. I’ve found the experience really overwhelming. The last-minute nature of the tasks I’ve been responsible for doesn’t play well with my ADHD, and now the committee is working on raising literally millions of dollars to save an education program, and a campaign of that magnitude is absolutely not something I have the bandwidth to meaningfully engage with. And it has left me feeling like I’m not doing a good enough job, because somehow these other parents from other co-ops are able and willing to do the work, but I suspect they have day jobs and spend some of their work hours doing committee work. My job is chasing around a small criminal hell-bent on killing himself using even the unlikeliest of tools, and it doesn’t allow for the spontaneous creation of Instagram reels about an auction basket.

  • Thursday Thrifty Roundup

    Thursday Thrifty Roundup

    This week I…

    • Bought a transit pass loaded with $250 for $125 ($140 after administrative fees). I have student status at North Seattle College through my kid’s co-op preschool. I’m enrolled in one pass/fail credit each quarter. That one credit makes me eligible for some student perks, though, like a discounted transit pass. I wish I’d bought one each quarter this year, but it took several months to correct an error in my enrollment. I bought one last year and I still have about $65 left on it, so one pass lasts me a while.
    • Used my student status to get 5% off at Safeway for the next year. I tried setting this up earlier in the year, but was held up by that same enrollment issue. When I finally got it set up, I figured it would only be valid for the remainder of the quarter, and this is my last quarter in the program. I was so happy to see the discount is good for a whole year! We buy 95% of our groceries at Safeway, and this will save us hundreds of dollars.
    • Food prepped, of course. Before we went on vacation I froze some sweet potato and pinto bean taco filling, and I’ve been eating that on some corn tortillas, with broccoli on the side. I also made a big batch of oatmeal, some plain popcorn for snacking, and those roasted garbanzo beans went into a big pasta salad I made to get us a few easy dinners. I also made a big batch of Ethiopian red lentils with spinach. We ate some Tuesday night and have leftovers for later, and I also froze some in Souper Cubes to bring to some neighbors who have a new baby. Every time I cook for friends with a new baby I experience immense relief knowing it’s not us. Never again.
    • Packed a picnic dinner (some of that pasta salad) to bring to the farmer’s market so we didn’t have to buy food. They have booths with some fun snacks and treats, but their meal options are expensive and underwhelming, and the lines are crazy long. After I explained the concept to him, B was really excited about picnic. He talked all day about picnic. Then when picnic happened, he was uncooperative. So that’s another reason to bring food from home – at least it wasn’t a twenty Buddha bowl he kicked all over the blanket.
    • Found B a free bike. He has one of those glider bikes with no pedals and has never figured it out. Somebody put a toddler bike with training wheels out on the sidewalk with a “free” sign, and it looked like it was in good shape. I looked the bike up and it’s for age 3-5, which means it should be the right size for him. He’s used to seeing us pedal our bikes, so I’m hoping we’ll have better luck with this one. It’s also a pretty expensive little bike, so extra nice that I got it for free.

  • Monday Gratitude

    Monday Gratitude

    What I’m thankful going into this week:

    1. To be back home. Traveling with a toddler is exhausting at best and sometimes it’s downright unpleasant, and anyway, I thrive in a routine. Call me boring. Call me inflexible. Just don’t call me on the phone because I haven’t planned for it and I’ll have a panic attack. We had a good time in San Diego but I’m happy we’ll be home for a while. Sometimes, but especially with a child, I wonder if the best part of travel is when it’s looming on the horizon, a thing in the future to look forward to. And I think that’s okay. We need things to look forward to.

    2. Seattle tap water. It’s legitimately good. Whenever we go somewhere else we miss it.

    3. That we swapped our gas stove for electric before B was born. That little shit turned on a gas burner not once but twice at our airbnb. There’s no doubt in my mind that we’d all be dead if we still had a gas stove in the house.

    4. That yesterday’s swim class went well. We started B in swim when he was just shy of two years old and he loved it. But then he had a bad experience at a splash pad and spent six months deathly afraid of water. Fortunately we’ve made it through that, but we still weren’t sure how swim would go this time around. He loved it!

    5. Farmers markets start up again this week. We really love community festivals, and the return of the farmer’s market in particular feels a little bit like life returning after another winter that feels like it will never end.

  • Thursday Thrifty Roundup

    Thursday Thrifty Roundup

    This week I…

    • Saved roughly 700 by not renting a car on vacation. We’ve spent about $45 on public transit so far, and it cost about $30 for me to Uber to and from Costco to get our Belmont Park passes.
    • Bought three sets of two-for-one passes to Belmont Park. This was enough for us to go for two days to ride unlimited rides. It saved us roughly $180. What we’ve learned since then, though, is that Kyle and I didn’t actually need passes at all – the rides B wanted to go on allow a free adult chaperone, so we could have just bought passes for him and not spent any more money. However, we did take advantage of our passes to go on a few rides solo that B couldn’t do.
    • Food prepped (some). I roasted broccoli and sweet potatoes on our first day so we’d have some veggies for the week.
    • Only ate food out once a day. Otherwise we’ve cooked easy things at our Airbnb (Trader Joe’s and Von’s were both around the corner) or packed sandwiches and snacks to take out with us. We also found a good bagel shop and bought half a dozen, so we’ve eaten good bagels at the house a few times.
    • Didn’t go to the Midway Museum. Nothing wrong with going – we went downtown today with the thought that maybe we’d go. It was $44 a person, though, and we decided a three-year-old is just as happy to look at the big ship from the outside, for free.
    • Went to a lot of parks. Free entertainment for the kid and some exercise for us just getting there.

    A few other notes:

    I thrifted his bright orange hat and sewed a strap (with breakaway clasps so he doesn’t dangle himself) onto it, and that has been KEY. It has protected his face, head and neck from the sun, the strap has kept it from blowing away, and I can always see him because he’s bright orange.

    Our Airbnb has been wild. When I booked it, it was obvious the photos were heavily airbrushed. But being here now, the yard looks absolutely nothing like the photos. In a good way, honestly. The listing photos somehow removed the trees that line the yard to insert a big, fake, beautiful sunset. However, I’m much happier with the trees that make the space private. Nobody needs to see my face while I sit in the hot tub and listen to the same song 30 times on my speaker. Speaking of the hot tub, the jets don’t work so it’s basically just a hot, tiny pool. That’s not ideal, but I don’t care that much. The couch is actually quite comfortable, which is rare for an Airbnb, but that barely matters because the living room TV doesn’t work. So when we put the kid to bed at 7, we can only watch 5 minutes of a movie before we get nothing but buffering. The house pops and crackles loudly all night as the temperatures drop and it contracts. We sleep comfortably in the bed if we’ve finished two bottles of wine, but not if we’ve finished zero or one (the bed’s fault) or three (our fault). The biggest thing, though, is that the light in B’s room turns on and off, all by itself. We’ve seen it happen several times now. Last night, in the middle of the night, it turned itself on. We have him sleeping in a little tent in there with a sound machine, trying our best to get him to sleep until 6am, and the fucking light turns on?? Disaster.

    So basically, I don’t know how to review this place. The location is great, and there’s so much going for it. But holy fuck, lights can’t just ghost themselves on and off. I’ll probably just not review it. Fuck it.

  • Monday Gratitude (on a vacation Tuesday)

    Monday Gratitude (on a vacation Tuesday)

    Because time isn’t real while traveling. What I’m grateful for going into this week:

    1. The three of us got to sit together on our flight to San Diego. When we changed our flight last week we couldn’t get seats together, although we were close. Kyle and B had the middle and aisle seats of one row, and I was in the middle seat in the row across the aisle. We had hoped the person sitting between us in the aisle would trade, but he wouldn’t. However, the window seat passenger in Kyle and B’s row never showed up, so I moved. Now, having said that, maybe it would have been better for me if I’d stayed on my own and let Kyle deal with the kid…

    2. For our airport lounge membership. We’re not always sure it’ll be “worth” the money, but we eat there before each flight and then we pack food from the lounge onto the flight, and Friday we’ll return to Sea-tac at dinnertime and will head straight to the lounge to get dinner instead of trying to keep B up late to eat after we get home (we have never done this before and confirmed that it’s allowed). We can usually find a little corner to occupy where B can spread out with some toys, and Kyle and I have a couple drinks, and it’s a great, low-stress version of waiting for a flight. I adore the airport lounge.

    3. B had a blast at Belmont Park. When he was one year old we took him on one ride there, a little boat ride for small kids, and he loved it. We have an adorable video of him shrieking with joy while riding it. So when we decided to come this time, we went all in on Belmont Park and bought wristbands for two days. We had a lot a lot to lose if he had decided on day one that he wanted nothing to do with the rides. But he loved it, and we did the same few rides about 30 times, and he doesn’t know it yet but we’re going back tomorrow to do it all over again.

    4. Our airbnb has a good yard for B. We knew there was a “grown up” outdoor space for hot tubbing and hanging out around a fire after he’s in bed, which isn’t a particularly toddler-friendly space (think fire pit full of little pieces of glass). But there’s a separate yard area, completely enclosed, with absolutely nothing in it and he’s been having a good time hanging out there. It’s also entirely in the shade during the second half of the day, when we’re most likely to be pulling our hair out trying to occupy him. It’s hideous – a mismatched quilt of different-colored patches of astroturf – but he doesn’t know yet about ugly.

    5. This has been an active trip. A lot of our recent trips have been to more rural areas to see family, which has its upsides, but it has meant much less walking than we like. Nowhere to go within walking distance, less access to sidewalks where we can walk safely, no public transportation which means driving everywhere, and coordinating with more people with varying interest in walking. We’ve been averaging 20,000 steps a day on this trip. The past couple years we’ve found ourselves returning from trips feeling like Elvis at the end of his life, and we’ve known it’s had something to do with the lack of walking. This trip has really crystalized it for us, though – even though we do our best, we don’t eat the same while traveling as we do at home. We know that and we’re okay with it. Fewer vegetables, more restaurant food, a few too many drinks. Walking a lot somewhat mitigates all that, though. Even with the overindulging, we still feel physically okay if we’re getting all that exercise. It has been really nice to have such an active trip again.

  • Thrifty Thursday Roundup

    Thrifty Thursday Roundup

    This week I…

    • Food prepped. I’ve been wanting to keep things really easy and I don’t mind eating the same things on repeat, so I made another batch of sweet potato and pinto bean filling to eat with corn tortillas. I actually eat this for breakfast with a green vegetable (this week collard greens I’ve been stashing in the freezer), and I eat oatmeal for lunch. For me, eating some veggies first thing in the morning feels like the best start to the day, and then lunch feels like dessert which is also fun. People look at me like I’m a goddamn pervert when they see me doing this, though, which is wild. Anyway, I also made big batches of blueberry pancakes and quesadillas (potato, bell pepper, black bean and cheese) to keep in the freezer for the kid.
    • Made another tamale pie to use up ingredients. When I made the first one last week I was left with half of several ingredients – cheese, sour cream, buttermilk and frozen corn. So I made another one this week to use everything up, and since we already had the dried beans and the canned tomatoes I hardly had to buy a thing and we ate it for three days.
    • Moved our upcoming flight slightly later in the day (closer to the flight time we initially booked before they started adjusting it to be earlier and earlier in the day) and received $105 toward a future booking for our trouble. I remember when airlines offered hundreds for switching from an overbooked flight. So when I saw they were offering $35/person I laughed at how low the amount was, muttered “absolutely not” to myself, and then happened to see we could get a better flight out of it. That’s the real prize. Now we’ll have a more relaxed morning and we won’t need to wait around until we can check into our accommodations.
    • I went somewhere free instead of the bakery for the kid’s preschool drop-off day this week. Mostly I did this because I’m going out for cake tomorrow, but saving a few dollars is nice too.
    • Thrifted a sun hat and a new warm-weather sleep sack for my kid instead of new. The sun hat is a bit too big, so I’m going to try to sew a chin strap onto it so it doesn’t blow into the ocean next week. The real money-saver would be forcing him to learn to use a blanket instead of buying a new sleep sack, but here we are.
  • Monday Gratitude

    Monday Gratitude

    What I’m grateful for going into this week:

    1. My husband, and how aligned we are in how we want our lives to look. It’s really important to both of us that we make time for what matters, for joy and rest, rather than working all the time. I know so many people who are always busy with some obligation or another and never think they have time for themselves or for doing anything fun, and we both refuse to live that way. In general, I think it’s far more important for two people to have values in common than to have interests in common. We do have a lot of similar interests, but we also have interests that aren’t shared. Our values, though, are pretty in sync and I’m grateful for that. He’s a sweetie, too.

    2. The zoo has brought back our favorite event, and my mom is going to watch our kid so we can go. Back before the pandemic the zoo used to have an annual wine tasting event, where they shut the door to all those annoying kids and let those over 21 stumble around drooling and crying and dropping their Cheez-its. And this year they’re bringing it back!

    3. The weather seems to have really, really turned a corner. No more false spring, no more secret second winter. Even our rainy days are over 50 degrees now. We’re home free. It’ll never be cold again.

    4. I have a few friends who still invite me to their parties. I almost never go. I’m almost always on kid duty, and I choose not to take him to things that would just be difficult. And if the kid’s in bed I’m exhausted and just want to sit my ass down. Everyone knows I’m not going. But a few friends invite me anyway, and that feels good.

    5. I finished crocheting my sweater. It was a really ambitious project and I didn’t find it very enjoyable. On several occasions I let weeks go by without working on it. But I finally finished it, and now I’m looking forward to working on something that feels fun again. And considering the sweater was my first big crochet project, I’m pretty happy with how it turned out. Several strangers have stopped me on the street to compliment it, and somebody even took a picture. How fun!

  • Thursday Thrifty Roundup

    Thursday Thrifty Roundup

    This week I…

    • Ate homemade food. I wanted to keep things as simple and quick as possible, so I made a big batch of roasted broccoli and some pinto bean and sweet potato taco filling for my entree. I also made the usual big pot of oatmeal. Monday evenings my husband does his weekly food prep so the kid and I fend for ourselves for dinner, and we ate something from the freezer. Tuesday I made a Mediterranean kale salad and roasted potatoes (kale and potatoes were both on sale this week). Yesterday I made a big tamale pie and some sautéed some garlicky kale, and we’ll eat that tonight too. Tomorrow I’ll make a white bean and kale soup to get us through the weekend. It’s not typical that I do all the cooking – we are not that kind of household – but it just worked that way this week, and that’s okay with me because whoever isn’t cooking dinner has to figure out what to do with the kid and after a whole day of that, I’m all set.
    • Took the kid to the aquarium over the weekend, where we have a membership. We brought lunch from home. This means the entire half-day outing only cost us our train fare.
    • Bought bulk chili powder at PCC for $2.85 (it was on sale and bulk spices are generally cheaper) and also got a free mango for the kid. Kids get a free piece of produce each PCC visit, and we take advantage of that every time, whether we’re spending $30 or $3.
    • Made my own play dough. It’s super easy and hardly costs a thing. I have yet to buy play dough.
    • Fought with Abercrombie & Fitch until they gave me the full refund their policy promises. This is so stupid, but I ordered some jeans because well-fitting jeans are hard for me to find (I feel like they’re hard for everyone?) and I have a pair I bought from them last year that I really like. I bought the same size in the same style, but the fit was completely different. I drove them back to the store to avoid paying for return shipping, but they only refunded me the subtotal and not the sales tax. When I contacted customer service I was told that’s their policy. This feels like a class action lawsuit waiting to happen – they literally cannot keep sales tax once an order has been returned. Anyway, it took a week of back-and-forth emails and another trip to the store but I did get the money back. And it wasn’t a wasted trip back down there, since I needed to stop at Michael’s nearby anyway to get some ribbon for altering a hat for my kid. I’m gonna go ahead and not shop with A&F again, not like I ever did much to begin with. I’ve taken it as a sign just be happy with the jeans I have for now.
  • Monday Gratitude

    Monday Gratitude

    What I’m grateful for going into this week:

    1. I’m starting the week with food prepped, thanks to my husband taking B out for a couple hours yesterday afternoon. My week always feels less hectic when my ability to eat healthy food doesn’t depend on finding the time to cook it while my toddler cries because I’m not drawing him pictures of stingrays and manta rays and spotted eagle rays.

    2. My little backyard. It’s small, but it’s big enough for a few chairs, a few things for B to play with and a little bit of space for him to run around. We basically don’t step foot out there from November through March, so when spring comes around it’s like our house suddenly gets bigger – we have one more space we can occupy without actually going anywhere.

    3. The number of playgrounds we can walk to. I grew up in a very small town and there were two playgrounds – one in the “downtown” park, and one at the elementary school. We live within reasonable walking distance of at least ten. The other day I drove to a nearby house to pick up something that someone was giving away, and saw yet another playground that I hadn’t even known was there, just a mile from our house.

    4. The cardigan I’ve been crocheting since September is almost finished. It has been such a slog, has felt like it would never end, that my motivation to keep working on it has been basically nonexistent. But yesterday I finished the ribbing on one of the wrists, and today I should be able to finish the other wrist. That will leave the ribbing along the bottom, the front and the neck, and it’s the same technique as the wrists so I feel like I have it figured out now. I’m starting to think maybe I can finish it before our trip at the end of the month? Possibly? It’s a nice thought, anyway. It’ll keep me picking up that treacherous hook.

    5. Spring flowers. There are so many beautiful flowering trees everywhere I look right now, and tulips have finally been opening this past week. It all feels so cheerful. I know these particular flowers will be short-lived, and then it will be irises and whatever else comes next, and those will be beautiful too, but the first flowers of spring are my absolute favorite because, in Seattle, they come after a stretch of cold, wet darkness so long it feels endless. Spring flowers feel like a beautiful sigh of relief. “You made it,” cherry blossoms say. “You didn’t throw yourself in front of the train this year,” daffodils say.

  • This Year’s Thrifted Clothes

    This Year’s Thrifted Clothes

    I love clothes. It feels good to wear beautiful things that fit well. It brings me joy to wear pretty florals and rich colors, and likewise to feel warm enough when it’s cold and cool enough when it’s warm. I’ve been wearing linen pants this week as the temps have finally started going up, and the breeze through a pair of linen pants on a sunny day is truly delightful.

    For the past few years I’ve made an effort to buy secondhand clothing instead of new whenever possible. When I do buy new, I try to stick to ethically-made clothes in natural fibers, which can be a bit pricey and they should be. A new shirt should never cost ten dollars, and few things irritate me more than seeing a review where somebody claims they didn’t get their money’s worth from a $20 sweater. Ma’am, if you put three of your fingers in that sweater one time then you got your money’s worth. Having spent the past eight months crocheting most of a sweater, something I will likely never do again, and having watched my husband knit a few sweaters, I can assure you that no sweater should cost anything close to $20 simply due to the labor that goes into it. A $20 sweater is going to be junk and it should be junk. And we shouldn’t be buying junk and supporting the constant cranking out of new junk, so please at least just know all of that if you still decide to buy the $20 sweater. Of course, the high prices of ethically made garments are not in everyone’s budget. Fortunately there’s a nearly inexhaustible supply of clothing on the secondhand market.

    Whether new or used, I also try to follow the rule of buying only things I see myself still wearing in five years. This means avoiding trends I’ll no longer want to wear in five years (although shopping secondhand is a great way to try trends), avoiding low-quality pieces unlikely to last five years, and choosing only items that complement my existing wardrobe well enough that I’m unlikely to decide to get rid of it on account of never actually wearing it. With thrifted items, though, I’m willing to accept that sometimes something that seemed really great might not end up working out, and I don’t feel so bad since I was simply giving new life to an already-existing item anyway. In that case, I find a new home for the item and move on.

    I don’t actually love the act of going to a store and browsing, and with a toddler yanking things off hangers it’s damn near impossible to do, so I often turn to Poshmark and Mercari when I’m looking for something. I’m a big fan of these platforms, as well as eBay, because they help unite used items with people who want to continue their use. I also sell on Poshmark and Mercari when I decide something I’ve purchased doesn’t work for me.

    But I have found so many INCREDIBLE items secondhand, and this winter I cashed in some Poshmark earnings on some things I’ve been having a lot of fun wearing. So in the spirit of celebrating secondhand fashion, here the little darlings are:

    Ralph Lauren quilted denim jacket
    Black Mountain fleece jacket
    Woolrich wool cardigan
    Northern Reflections cotton sweater (a favorite brand to find secondhand)
    Northern Reflections wool cardigan
    Northern Reflections wool cardigan
    Northern Reflections cotton cardigan
    Eddie Bauer wool sweater
    Sezane wool cardigan (a favorite modern brand)
    Cat sweatshirt, idk if this thing is homemade or what but I love it

    Usually my interactions on these secondhand platforms are very positive, with lovely people enthusiastic about keeping things out of landfill. I save packing materials and reuse them when I sell something, and people often send nice messages about that. Not every interaction is wonderful, though. Occasionally you run into somebody who inexplicably feels entitled to a luxury shopping experience at half the price. After never receiving a negative review before, I recently received the following review after selling somebody a new-with-tags shirt I bought secondhand but didn’t like the fit of:

    I can say a lot about this woman. I can say she was a pain in the ass from the very beginning, sending me message after message asking what the lowest price I’d take was, and then asking for a lower price even than that. I can say her decision to keep the item rather than dispute the purchase is at odds with her grossly inaccurate review (still three stars though!). I can say her desire for brand-new packaging means she has absolutely zero regard for the environmental impact of anything she does. I can say she has nothing but disdain for the unhoused. But mostly, I can say this review is the most incredible self-own I’ve ever seen. It honestly could have been lifted from an I Think You Should Leave sketch. I only hope that, in time, she’s able to enjoy and love transactions again.