a blended life

Crash. Burn. Rebuild. Rest. Repeat. Does anyone else feel this way about their lives? I've hesitated to blog for the past few weeks for several reasons. One is that our week or two after Thanksgiving was actually quite fun and exciting. I was afraid that if I didn't blog about, it didn't happen. But things got crazy. Another reason is that I don't have answers or explanations for why things have happened the way they have. Nor do I have a shortened, two sentence version. Like when people ask you how you met your husband and you shorten the story to a 15 second blip as the years go by. Another reason is that my health is not the greatest and I have spent many nights sleeping as soon as the girls go to bed. And waking up when they hunt me down in the morning. Excuses, excuses, right? But seriously, I'm trying to blog and my sister-in-law's cat keeps swishing her tail on the computer. This is after she jumped on the table and scattered my puzzle. So ins...

I'm sure you've seen this quote floating around Facebook, especially when horrible people do unthinkable things. If you're like me, you agree with and love the quote--and ADORE Mr. Rogers. And you might look at the quote and accompanying picture of thoughtful introspection with a minor degree of cynical cheesiness but you'd have enough social sense to not admit that publicly. Also, if you're like me, you don't know how to make sense of all the mayhem that has happened this month. In your personal world, in your religious world, in the outside world.  You walk your daughter through Times Square once a week, as usual, but this time it's heavily guarded with special forces and mounted policeman wearing deadly...things. And you're supposed to feel safer but really you don't.  And your husband is going through work trauma and your body is going through a complete transformation and your kids are falling apart.  But someone c...

I know I haven't posted in a few weeks. I hate posting about the dark, harsh, ugly realities that we're living, but then I hate posting about happy fun stuff when really we are barely making it through each day. Because then you'd think we don't struggle or have major issues. And I'd hate for someone to not have an accurate picture of my life. But then if I say what's REALLY going on, I might draw attention to myself (gasp!) and I don't know how to deal with that, either. See what a dilemma this is?! So here's the short version of what's really going on and let's all agree to not make a big deal out it.  Hannah--has broken her foot while playing on her gym mat. We've spent hours at the orthopedic surgeon's trying to get the right help. I'm going to waste space right now and say that this doctor (Dr Mara Karamitopoulis from Yale) was the best I've ever, ever had in all my years of meeting doctors, which has been extensive. ...

Halloween has been an evolving holiday for us since we left Utah, where our sleepy Mapleton trick-or-treating was very predictable, easy, and safe, albeit a bit cold. Last year, in Miami, our Halloween was unexpectedly fun. I made a great dinner (yay me!), we carved pumpkins, we trick-or-treated and partied and it was hot enough to fry an egg on the sidewalk. Sigh. What bliss. We all approached this Halloween with a bit of trepidation and not a lot of zest. Keep in mind that we live in a very foreign neighborhood that clearly does NOT celebrate Halloween. This is really hard to describe unless you've been here, and I think my parents now understand what I mean when I say we are TRULY minorities, swallowed up in a sea of Bengali Muslims and Orthodox Jews. So to do anything Halloween-y, we would have to leave our neighborhood and drive somewhere else.  So we went to Ditmas Park, a neighborhood known for its posh Victorian mansions. We had to park in meter parking (no...

The way I feel right now can best be described with this scene from Ferris Bueller : I have long periods of the day where I am not very mobile or functioning. My parents came to visit (yay!!) and they got to experience first hand what New York life is like, plus my failing body and how much time I spend laying down.  One of the hardest parts is trying to figure out food. Keeping in mind we have one extremely difficult grocery store, a few corner markets with inflated prices, no dishwasher, one sink, two kids, one husband who is gone practically all the time and one of me who is too sick/tired/nauseous to even think about food. So trying to get us fed in a way that is affordable, moderately healthy, easy to prepare and easy to cleanup is proving to be very tough to solve.  Also, blogger is acting up right now so I have to cut out early. Blah!

Decidedly, the girls don't like NYC. I feel bad that it hasn't been a very good experience for them so far. We have no friends minus a few acquaintances at church. Thanks to lack of child support, I haven't been able to put them in dance or sports. We are home all day, unless I shoo them out of the house and insist that we go to Prospect Park or ride scooters to the market.  Our neighborhood is about as un-tourist-y as you can get. It's true, raw Brooklyn. But when we go to Manhattan we see people from every country imaginable, usually walking very slow, getting on the wrong train, and stopping in the middle of the road to take a picture of another building.  I tried to explain to the girls that some people save up their whole lives to come here. I say, Look at them! They travel from across the world to visit Times Square and the Empire State Building. And they laugh at me, saying, Why would someone do that when they could go to Miami?  So I say, Someday yo...

Remember all those health problems that started in Utah and blew up in Miami? And all those scans and blood work and months of bedridden madness? And there was a nodule on my thyroid and all kinds of messed up weirdness? And then I moved to NY and stopped having all the issues? We never expected to have kids. It was assumed that we were a four person family and we were happy this way.. He's good with the girls. I knew I was pregnant for full weekend before I told anyone. I needed a good three days to silently panic, curse (not really, I never curse), elate, sleep, and repeat the cycle a million times throughout those days. We were in the middle of impossible circumstances that I couldn't see anyway out of.  So I came clean on Monday morning. A week or two ago. And it was met with a pretty emotional reaction on all sides.  All Jacob has ever secretly wanted was a baby. But he won't admit it. Hannah has been wanting something to take care of. To dress...

One of the things I love most about Brooklyn is only about 1 mile from our apartment: Green-wood Cemetery, hyphen necessary. I dragged Hannah here the other day for some much needed walking. This is main gate, also the place where a flock of green parrots has mysteriously made its home.  Hannah was quite taken with the concept of the American Revolution. This is Battle Hill, where the Battle of Brooklyn took place. It was the biggest battle of the Revolutionary War. Some of the headstones are that old. We paid homage to one of my musical heroes, Leonard Bernstein. Think: West Side Story. Side note: I had a rare afternoon to myself and decided to check out JP Morgan Library. They had an exhibit on Alice In Wonderland--original drawings, writings, etc. I love the story and I loved seeing all the history.  Other side note: If you are a literary lover and find yourself in Manhattan, I strongly recommend this place. It was some rich guy's old hou...

Remember how last week was difficult? And I didn't think it would get worse? And then I looked at the pictures from the week and remembered that we live in a pretty cool place and all isn't in the toilet? This week was worse. By a lot. Without the awkwardness of over disclosure and to preserve the dignity of the those not reading my blog (i.e. my husband and kids), let's just say that every area of our lives has suffered at least a little this week. School, finances, med school, work, finances, relationships, plus there's no chocolate in the house. I mention this so you don't think my life consists solely of world class museums, parks and pizza. Because those feel like afterthoughts, or sometimes tender mercies. Things are hard. The pizza is good. We will survive. HOMESCHOOL UPDATE: Surprisingly, we love homeschool. I've seen big changes in both girls the past few weeks. Leah has less anxiety and more problem solving ability. She laughs more a...

When I think about how to teach kids the value of hard work, I picture a very cliche farm scene in which we all wear overalls and shovel cow dung into buckets. Or at least do our own gardening and I'm making my kids weed the vegetables the way my parents made me weed (and I'm so grateful because now I love gardening and think weeding is fun. What happened to me....)  I had never considered that moving to NY would be a great opportunity for us to learn hard work skillz. The effort we have to put into menial tasks still surprises me sometimes and we are constantly trying to figure out what we absolutely have to get done and what we can do without. I won't go into the horrors of grocery shopping because I'll get worked up and lose sleep. Short version: I'm learning a LOT of vegetarian meals. None of them very good, but beans, rice and potatoes are becoming staples in every meal practically.  We have to wash clothes in a laundromat, which requires hauling the 1...