Portrait of a Satisfying Day and More

Qahwa Cafe

Portrait of a Satisfying Day

• Out for my walk/run/walk; meditation and beauty. 
• Breakfast and Crumbl cookies
• A crossword with my coffee
• Zach is keen to spend time with Frank. Reading his Ricky Ricotta books and listening to stories. 
• We headed out for the farmer’s market and picked up asparagus, strawberries, and mushrooms. Hello to Dania and granola. 🙂
• We made it to our lice appointment, just 5 mins late! No lice. Yay!
• Dropped off compost and then went to a coffee shop in a mosque! Near St. Matt’s. 
• We arrived early in Sterling, so went into the Cascades Library. 
• The nicest librarian! She helped us get Loudoun County Public Library cards. A - Mazing!
• Zach talked about how much he liked the Cascades library and said he’d like to come here with me after school. I could work and he could hang out at the library. So cool. 
• Off to Sky Zone and a very small party; got to chat with the families; and they have fun hand washers in the party rooms. Kids want to wash their hands!
• I ordered salmon from Local Provisions and had that with pasta for dinner
• After Sky Zone, Zach wanted to go back to the library. A dream come true. I shared with the librarians. 
• At home, we rested and had dinner as a family and watched The Empire Strikes Back!

Zach of Note

• Zach really does try hard things. He goes skiing and tries the alpine slide. He did those jumps at Bolton, and he wiped out and he tried again. He is not a kid who shies away from hard things. Zach’s chocolate chip cake stand with Cora and the discussion that they need to be there “every week” for “consistency.” He talked about making a sign and having a poster with when they would be out there and what they would serve. Very impressive. I challenged to think about how they could help others with their profits.
• A Spring Break day off with Beckett. Thank you to his mom!
• He asked about doing book club again with Domingo, a sleepover with Beckett, and he had a playdate with Tom for the first time in a while.
• He is still into other languages (Turkish, German, French) on Duolingo, and his Swedish pronunciation is spot on. Teehee!
• Zach’s interest in adopting a cat

Zach at School

• Typing Club introduced to the kids via technology
• Despite my concern, his Q3 results were terrific. Apparently, only “sometimes” demonstrates proficiency with writing conventions. He is not a fan of writing and consumes content via audio books, so it makes sense that spelling and punctuation are lagging a bit.
• Mrs. V had her baby, so the kids now have the long-term sub. It sounds like she makes Zach do more writing than he likes/is used to, and that is not a bad thing.
• He has been on fire with some recent Jiji. Very driven and motivated! He shared on Thursday that he’s number 1 in the class. 
• Zach knows what bartering and scarcity mean. Woah!
• He’s enjoying his after school club, Piano Keys

Soccer

• Z is goalie!
• Carlos saying, “Zach’s saving your butts.” Inappropriate? Maybe and too funny! 
• GFR FC Loudoun game and team camaraderie! Owen, Owen, Josh, Riso, Alex, and Zach. Nice!
• Tim trying to convince Owen to sign up for goalie training and when OE found out Zach would be there, he was all about it. Tim said, “thrilled”! Love it!
• Tryouts for 2024-25, and I’m not a fan, and it will be fine.

S&Z

• Zach’s games at the tournament and in Manassas
• African dance class at the Kennedy Center + Tazzo’s
• Trip to Sperryville and Washington, VA: muffins, Before and After lunch and treats, Hazel River hike, and Inn at Little Washington walk
• Lauren’s performance of Cinderella
• After Frank’s surgery, Zach and I spent Saturday together. Farmer’s market, lice check, coffee at a cafe in a mosque, the Cascades library and Loudoun County library cards, Keira’s party at Sky Zone (and new families to get to know), and back to the library. My dream!

F&Z: FC Loudoun game with Beckett

Family Fun

• Easter egg hunt
• The eclipse
• $8 burger night at Glory Days
• Star Trek the Next Generation
• Great Falls hike

Good Food

• Mod Pizza’s cauliflower crust
• Crumbl cookies
• Popcorn
• Croutons with bread
• Rhubarb cooked down with apple juice worked well
• Paneer, spinach, tomato, chickpeas w/ garam masala
• Broccoli pesto
• Local Provisions salmon

Connection

• Auntie Em
• Walks with Mary
• Jess W. at work
• Random gathering of neighbors on Easter
• Zach had a day out with Grandad for his Eid holiday
• Dania and Firas and Dania’s parents live in Golf Course Island + Dania’s granola won an award! Yay Dania!
• Walk with Katie and called Vero on her birthday
• Paige
• French with Agathe
• Auntie Em and Esther Perel event. In a huge crowd using words like “erotic.” Not what I was hoping for! Dinner at Immigrant Food and an evening out with Auntie Em were awesome!
• GC Athena and culture OB and Hailey and Anita and Amanda and Dave and Carrie. So great! 🙂
• Loving the Spanish Pimsleur program with Liesl. Love it! Zach says I’m “obsessed.”
• Video chat with Kate, Kathleen, and Mary Kay
• Soccer families, particularly Jenny, Dania and Firas
• Nolan’s family at FC Loudoun game AND soccer tryouts
• Catch up with Sofia
• Good Inside and GI Whatsapp group for parents of onlies
• Regions 117 with Zach, Mom, and Dad

Grateful: Rachel, Teddy, and Jewelle picked Zach up from the bus on Frank’s surgery day. Zach had a blast, and she took them to get Chick Fil A. Z had a blast!

Empathy Corner

• Zach asking me how my day was!
• Post in Wins and Gems: Yesterday, I read an email from Dr. Becky reminding us to ask our kids how things feel. This morning I asked my 8 yo son how it felt to play goalie for his soccer team. (He played goalie for the team for the first time this weekend and had a good game where he prevented a lot of the other team’s attempts.) The first thing he said: “It felt good.” I thought it would end there, but then he said, “It made me feel like a hero, saving those goals from going in for my team.” I loved it!
• Notes exchanged - mostly from me to Zach in the notebook Nikki gave us. Zach told me to “stop writing in cursive!”

Health Corner

• Breast cancer surgeon, dermatologist, and ears cleaned out for me
• Frank and sports hernia surgery

Fun Stuff (and Not So Fun) Stuff Personal and Professional

• Some huge wins in the emotional regulation category. I am actively noticing and choosing not to respond from a place of irritation. Sure something annoying happened, but this is not who I want to be, and I’m becoming more aware and meta cognitive and thinking about my thinking. Yay!
• I’m also thinking about my responses and whether they’re needed. Not everything is a task to ace. Sometimes it’s okay to let it go. It doesn’t have to be about more or Zach. My dad noted that Zach is very adaptable. That’s a skill and it’s okay for him to flex it. That’s how it will get stronger. 
• Quiddler and crosswords
• Auntie Em’s mama cat and kittens
• Hanging art
• Reading
• Reading the Authenticity Project, and it reminds me that discomfort is growth. It’s a good thing!
• Finished Groundskeeper
• Reading Kate Bowler’s Good Enough
• The People We Meet on Vacation (I love this title)
• Adam Grant’s Human Potential
• Watching/Learning
• Underground Railroad
• Dismal Swamp and people living there; the water was drinkable b/c of so much tannic acid
• The church in Cumberland, MD, and ringing the bell four times at 3am to indicate safe to pass
• Town in Missouri to help in getting to Illinois
• From Detroit to cross the Detroit River to Canada
• LinkedIn Learning on Generative AI
• Finished Black-ish
• Abbott Elementary
• Podcasts
• Brene Brown is back w/ Unlocking Us
• Ezra Klein and AI
• Simon Sinek on loneliness

Professional

• I really enjoy DEIB, Aspiring Leaders and Leadership Institute

Not So Fun

• Emily and Andrew’s baby shower canceled and Emily in the hospital on bed rest. Baby should be fine, but will be very early.
• Flat Retreat scandal. It makes me sad on so many levels. My event last year was amazing.
• Frank’s sports hernia surgery and recovery; not fun, but a good thing and recovery has gone smoothly and as expected

Great Habits

• Sunday gratitude
• Search Inside Yourself teaching to get me to meditate 5 mins for 5 out of 7 days/week
• Arthur Brooks generally and his strengths conversation with Jon Clifton
• Spanish
  

Spring Break = Homage to Winter

On Sunday, March 24, we headed to Vermont. North of Albany, we headed off along Lake George and crossed over Lake Champlain into Vermont. With fresh snow, the drive was beautiful. On the way back, heading west from Bolton Valley, the views of the Adirondacks were gorgeous as we traveled the same route home on Friday, March 29.

Trip Superlatives
Best Breakfast Treat: August First's warm-out-of-the-oven blueberry muffin (All)
Runner up: Power muffin from Toast and Eggs (S&Z)

Best Meal (not at a ski resort): Fit to be Thai'd (Frank), Mad Taco (Zach), The Sweet Spot's eggplant sandwich (Susan)

Best Meal at a ski resort: Japanese wrap (Frank) and chicken tenders (Zach) at Bolton Valley.

Best Leftovers: potatoes, baba ganoush, kale, etc. from The Grey Jay

Best Hot Chocolate: Starbucks (Zach) and Bolton Valley (Frank)

Best Downhill Skiing: Tied for first: Bolton and Sugarbush (Zach) and Bolton (Frank)

Best Run: Bolton Swing at Bolton Valley

Best Cross Country: Ole's, particularly Trail 3

Most Fun (after skiing): Pool and hot tub (F&Z) and exploring/walking around Waitsfield, VT (Susan)

Best Game: Quiddler (All)

Best Latte: The Sweet Spot and August First (Susan)

Best Purchase: Bolton Valley stickers and Zach's new jacket

Best Movie: Willow

Worst Night of Sleep: Courtyard by Marriott in Kingston, NY

Pictures here.

Back in the Groove

Zach of Note

• Solo activities + chore chart
• He’s into Duolingo; I’ve heard he’s doing French, Turkish, and more!
• Basketball ended and soccer is gearing back up! 
• Zach went to Day 1 of the Icebreaker Tournament. The gang was all there (almost). Most families and siblings. The two new teammates, Charley and Andrew. The team won both Saturday games and were elated! Zach and Andrew were really sweet together! :) 

Zach's Words and Music

• Stories: Spy School and Harry Potter
• I Survived
• Zach had to sing “This Land Is Your Land” by himself in music class 🙂
• Remarkable: stories listening

Zach at school

• Loves being in charge of the calendar; there is some opportunity to talk about the weather and somehow someone gets to “dj” and rap in a microphone - What?!
• Writing realistic fiction with characters: theo and Beckett; setting: at Hershey Park for Z’s birthday; problem: Beckett is afraid of heights; solution: start on smaller coasters and comfort him as they work their way up to the big coasters
• Lexia and the stories with answers that are not at all clear. Zach seemed to like the Q&A style of an interview
• We’ve also worked through an assessment from the teachers that he needs to work on his self control and time management. This led to a lot, a lot, a lot of growth and examining my triggers around perfectionism. Woah! More gowth!
• Zach and Beckett were twins on twin day at school

Zach’s health

• Lice checks came out clear for Feb, though they thought they found nits at the first check. No more surfaced, luckily and March was clean!
• Virus flaring up and medication application for this virus that could take months and months to resolve

Sleep Update 

Time change was harder this year than it's seemed in the last few years

Empathy Corner

• We’ve been asking about who was helpful and who we saw that was helpful. 
• Books for Mrs. Vargas’ baby boy - Dear Zoo and Little Blue Truck! :)
• Sat with Zach this morning when he was frustrated about his video games. Sometimes I worry that he’s “too much,” and I know that’s okay, but I know the goal is to build the social and emotional skills to manage his tough emotions as he gets older. I forget that he has to learn to manage them and for right now, it seems more explosive that the goal is for him long term, but he has to express and feel able to express them and not feel that he is “too much,” so that he can learn to manage them. Did you follow?!
• I’m really proud of Frank and Zach. Zach came home with symmetry work to do on Jiji, and he said it was hard for him. Beckett and Jackson were really good at it. Frank helped him and reiterated that he wasn’t upset b/c Zach didn’t know the concept, he was upset that Zach was guessing. They got through it, and it seemed that Zach was “getting it.” He’s now moving on to 3rd grade level work in Jiji. 

Family Fun

• Day trip to Massanutten. Beautiful. 
• Lunch at Ted’s Bulletin
• Harry Potter Year 6 game
• Lake Anne v. Forest Edge basketball game. LA teachers lost the relay and the girls lost their basketball game, but the boys won. Glad it wasn’t a total blow out. Zach sat with Beckett, Athena, Keira, Theo, and Jermiah

Susan and Zach

• Crosswords, Kahoot
• State Arboretum
• Walking to school some; Zach wants to walk on his own to the bus stop and to school part of the way, but he wants a buddy, like Adina. He biked and I walked his bike home. 
• I read an entire “I Survived” book to Zach on a rainy Saturday
• Pizza at Mod after lice checks

Frank and Zach

• Skiing at Massanutten and Canaan
• Sky Zone
• Chess
• Soccer
• Math and Literacy Night at school

Frank & Susan

• Walks 
• Date night weekend!

Connection 

• Calls with Paige
• Lunches with Mom and Dad at Melting Pot pizza and Regions 117
• Auntie Em
• Check-ins with Liesl and some great photos from her 30th birthday
• Walks with Mary
• Ian! He made me laugh and laugh!
• Enjoyed seeing the soccer families here and there and a walk with Jen
• Building stronger relationships with the basketball families at the end of season party
• Jess at work <3 
• Lauren 

Good Food

• Broccoli pesto
• Zingerman’s chocolate bread
• Jen’s great food at the end of basketball party (Spinach strada and chocolate croissant bake)
• Enchilada casserole
• Pisco y Nazca
• Emily's soups
• Bakery Tatte goodies and the winter salmon salad from Bakery Tatte. I added black beans. AMAZING!

Fun and Not So Fun Stuff (Personal and Professional)

Health Corner

• Clear checks in Feb and March for me
• Bloodwork for annual physical - everything looks better; A1C is the same at 5.7
• Celebration of 2 years cancer-free to The Melting Pot; our server was amazing

Personal 

Fun

• Crosswords
• Hanging art at LAES
• Good Inside membership and connecting with another NoVa family
• Adina said I was “kind.” Awww
• More dreams lately, not sure it’s a good thing
• Auntie Em worked hard, prepared, and got the Deputy job!
• Listened to St. Matt’s service online. It was great!
• I got kudos for the lice fact sheet! 

Watching

• High on the Hog (1 episode)
• Blackish
• Bourne Ultimatum
• Underground Railroad on the History Channel

Reading 

• Finished The Year of Living Danishly and We All Want Impossible Things
• Started YA novel, I’m Not Dying with You; Edith Eager’s The Choice; In Memoriam - all very intense, so started The Turner House

Listening

Adam Grant; Simon Sinek, esp on the Blue Zones; Coaching for Leaders; Geeks, Geezers, and Googlization; Brene Brown is back!

Not So Fun, but Growth

Planning the Spring Break trip was hard and required a lot of growth. We were in the growing! We all wanted to do different things, and we talked about it a lot!

Professional Fun and Not So Fun

Fun

• Aspiring Leaders, Leadership Institute are fantastic; dove into Search Inside Yourself and strengths
• Professional network expansion with Rachel D.
• Kevin at work gave me a shout out for quickly and nimbly turning out product training level 2 for his new hire. Yes!

What’s on my mind/Insights

• Good Inside videos and membership = so good
• Story, Mantra, Unconditional Love
• Susan David and Adam Grant podcast and insights on emotion; added it to Aspiring Leaders
• Arthur Brooks and the 7 things to be happiest (no smoking; limit drinking or quit altogether; maintain a healthy weight; exercise daily, particularly walk; adopt adaptive coping style; practice continuous education; foster love)
• Takeaways from Search Inside Yourself | Chade-Meng Tan | Talks at Google

• Mindfulness; focus on the breath

• Notice how you’re feeling and choose to feel it or not. 

• Habit of human similarity - This person is just like me…

• This person 

• Is a human being, just like me

• Wants to be happy, just like me

• Free from suffering, just like me

• Random intention of kindness - pick people and think I want this person to be happy

• The question from Shunise is: Did you do your best? 
• Blue Zones and Happiness are so intertwined; build those relationships and invest in them!

A Poet Month

Zach of Note

• Birthdays continued with Tom’s and Riso’s parties
• Playdates with Domingo and Tom and a trip to Sky Zone with Theo
• Winter weather and illness has kept basketball and soccer pretty disrupted
• Chess! “Cheating at chess with Zachary Dammann”
• Hotcho stand again
• Playing chess with Theo at the YMCA
• Zach got a dog-like, squishy toy, Dexter, and he’s enjoying taking care of him. 
• We introduced him to typing tutorials/games - need to find a better option since the ones we tried didn’t save his progress

Zach's Words and Music

• Brutal spelled broodle
• Tried out a book club with Domingo
• Zach talked about the two girls who have a crush on each other in Spy School just like he would a boy/girl love interest! <3
• Reading: Harry Potter, Garfield, Bad Kitty, Cat Ninja, some Minecraft

Zach at school

Not feeling like there is much to report about school…

Zach’s health

• Missed four days of school for a stomach bug (early Jan) and then a low fever + cold. 
• Between days off for snow, illness, and the normal days off school, there have hardly been any 5-day weeks. Sigh
• Swollen finger from picking his nails…again! He did not have to go to the doctor this time and get antibiotics!

Sleep Update 

• Nights are getting shorter and we’re getting up earlier
• Bedtime is closer to 8:30pm now

Empathy Corner

• We helped Lindy and family and Mary and family
• Zach chose and wrote his Valentine’s
• I’m really working on growth with chess. It is hard and I am a sore loser. Zach is also a sore loser. Losing 12 - 34 at basketball. Woah! I am that way too. Frank suggested playing both sides together or concentrating on one piece at a time - explore the bishop or Queen or rook
• Cora had my back! She told Zach that “Cleaning is a part of life,” and reminded him when he fussed about brushing his teeth, that she has to “brush her teeth and her hair every day.” Zach is very affronted by the things he has to do EVERY. DAY. (including having breakfast with me. Sniff.)

Family Fun

• The rest of our two-day weekend to Canaan Valley
• Dinner at the Cheesecake Factory
• We played Harry Potter Clue and Ticket to Ride
• We watched Ghostbusters and Indiana Jones
• We went to see Migration
• Family dinner at Ted’s Bulletin
• We had hoped to go on a family trip in late Jan when Zach was off school and on President’s Day weekend, but the weather did not cooperate, and/or someone was sick!

Susan and Zach

• Played 9 Arches and had a day that included: a cafe (we love them), daredevil (hiking in the snow), playing football in the snow (clown)
• Walking to school some with Cora and Adina at times
• Zach and I went to St. Matthew’s Church; Zach enjoyed it, and Angela, Zach’s former daycare director, and her daughter, who was in Zach’s class, attend!
• Bella and the Bulldogs with Zach made me laugh
• Down to the mall to the Portrait Gallery and Zaytinya. One of our fave exhibits had moved on. 🙁

Frank and Zach

• Skiing at Canaan twice + Bryce, Massanutten, and Blue Knob
• Sky Zone
• Pokemon Battle

Frank & Susan

• Walks 
• Tried for a repeat of our successful date night, but Frank was sick, and I got nauseous playing the video game because he was managing the controller solo this time.  

Connection 

• Time with the Uber Ladies at the Portrait Gallery and Zaytinya
• Calls with Paige
• Calls with Mom and Dad
• Video chats and breakfast at Bakery Tatte with Auntie Em
• Check-ins with Liesl
• Walks with Mary
• Supporting Bettie on her health journeys
• Call with Amy Madsen
• Connected with Cordi and Michelle
• Messaged with Jolene
• Afternoon with Emily and Andrew who are expecting their baby girl in June!
• Enjoyed seeing the soccer families here and there
• Chat with Siga
• Chats with Elieen at Tom’s birthday party and at the Zach/Domingo book club play date

Good Food

• Zaytinya twice in Feb!
• Bakery Tatte goodies
• Meals from Lake Anne Coffee House
• Zingerman’s bread
• Tahini maple cookies
• Chinese feast, included peanut noodles made delicious with additions of chili sauce and tamari
• Eileen and Nacho’s and then my own breakfast burrito - yum!
• Rachel’s family's Valentine sugar cookies

Fun and Not So Fun Stuff (Personal and Professional)

Health Corner

• We got checked for lice in Jan
• Went to see the new GYN at Saville and liked her a lot
• I caught the cold in Feb

Personal 

Fun

• Cross-country skiing at Whitegrass!
• Hanging art at LAES
• Shunise, my therapist, makes me laugh
• Art and Science of Happiness course work - lessons 5-8
• Good Inside membership - took the re-parenting class + joined a podcast club
• Beautiful snowy walks
• Pushing myself with drawing trees and drawing in general + Rubik’s cube
• Running into young men at CVS, the young man who backed into me, and also the young man working at the Dulles Sportsplex, who apologized that my birthday party wasn’t happening even though it was me who got the day wrong!
• More dreams lately, not sure it’s a good thing
• Pulled together a Black History timeline to include major world events and family connections

Not So Fun

• Having to think about and nail down summer plans in January. 
• A young man backed into me/we backed into each other in a parking lot. He was very respectful and polite.
• Just generally an emotional net negative month, and that's normal and okay

Watching

• High on the Hog (2 episodes)
• Watched Love on the Spectrum, but I did not like it, despite raves by my DEIB peeps
• Blackish
• History Channel on the Tulsa Race Massacre of 1921
• Some History Channel episodes on the Underground Railroad

Reading

• Finished South to America by Imani Perry
• The Year of Living Danishly
• We All Want Impossible Things

Listening

• Adam Grant (your brain on art!); Simon Sinek; Coaching for Leaders; Geeks, Geezers, and Googlization
• The Art and Science of Happiness - Talks about how important the knowledge is about romantic love so that you can avoid starting down a path with someone you work with that you are attracted to. The key is to avoid the start of “passionate love” and the cascade of emotions that have you acting like an addict. 25% of people have a relationship at work where one of the people is married. 
• Listened to Arthur Brooks interviewed by WebMD, and the connection of health to happiness is that if you invest in health it increases your chances of being less unhappy, and being less unhappy gives you more time to focus on the pillars of happiness: faith, family, friends, and work with purpose. 

Professional Fun and Not So Fun

Fun

• 5 years at GoCanvas - the longest I’ve every worked anywhere!
• Chat with Jessica Pisano on LinkedIn around my work anniversary
• Loving LinkedIn curation
• Loving collaboration with Athena on Cultural Awareness and Belonging Culture sessions
• Raise and a bonus
• People over Perks community from Leapsome
• Talked with Amy about whether nonprofits would pay for culture audits and recommendations and discussed with Eileen that it might be good to work with board members in companies that value culture as a way in…
• Joining Pinnacle’s Customer Advisory Board

Not So Fun

• As we move into 2024, it’s weird again with more M&A and reorganizations. 
• Wondering about a possible need to move on. It doesn't feel authentic to stay, AND I need good health insurance, and I am a culture carrier.

What’s on my mind/Insights

• Love the ideas of how we all need to take care of each other. It’s the Nagoski sisters, Simon Sinek, and Zach Mercurio. Take care of yourselves; take care of each other. 
• Reviewing my Annual Goals weekly which keeps me in tune with the four pillars: family, friends, faith, and work with purpose
• Concept of Acknowledge, Validate, Permit
• Lots of tough emotions these past 5 weeks. These emotions are normal and accepting them is uncomfortable and an act of growth!
• Art and Science of Happiness meditation on the fear of career failure. Meditated for 18 minutes for ~7 days on questions like: I feel my skills slipping away. People feel sorry for me (related to what I do for work).
• Susan David and emotional intelligence: 1. In every hard choice there is loss 2. Think of the choices as different but equal, not better or worse 3. Make the choice in line with your values. Which choice will get you closer to who you want to be?
• Good Inside: I notice I’m crying; my body is signaling something to me, and I want to listen!
• PRISM - Prospection, Resilience, Innovation, Social Connection, and Meaning/Mattering