a blended life

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...