Baby Watch: An Update

Well we are indeed fairly snowed in here in Neve Daniel, and I couldn't be happier because I love snow and have been jonesing for it hardcore. The precarious timing is, of course, amusing and the joke is that maybe I'll have a snow baby!

In the event the roads are all closed (as they have been), we will have to get creative and/or hope the local ambulance is snow-chained up! Luckily, this community is full of doulas and doctors and amazing people who will help everything along, so I'm not worried. 

I did anticipate this baby being born with a story, so who knows. 

With the snowfall I've been in crazy nesting mode. Gluten-free oatmeal-chocolate chip cookies, fish chowder, omelets (feta, basil, sundries tomato, and spinach), French toast, homemade hash-browns, and lasagna with homemade marinara all happened today. Tuesday it was challah for the boys and homemade granola bars. 

I think the reality of how much I love cooking and the impending birth have me concerned my workload and baby will mean less cooking/baking and more delivery and cereal. 

So for now that's all that's new. We are past our original due date, so here is hoping baby shows up soon. The world is ready, and by golly so am I. 

Also: Apologies for the hiatus/delay in new posts. I'll be back more consistently soon I hope!

A Snowy Israel

It has snowed in Israel! So far, I have yet to experience a non-snowy winter.

I have to give major props to Mr. T for schlepping around in this weather (yes, we went to Ikea). It turns out I'm great at coaching snowy driving and he's great at driving in the snow.

It also turns out that there's an amazing coffee shop nearby and that Israel tends to get more of the hail before the real snow comes (when it does).

Just consider me a happy camper who happens to be snowed in because this country has zero clue how to function in snow, sleet, hail, or ice.

New Work, New Food!

This was Taylor's farewell meal. He's off to Carmel, CA, for a week.
If you're curious, it's an African Peanut Stew with Pineapple and Kale.
I hope to post the recipe ... if y'all are interested!

What a week, folks! What a week ... and I've been mute for the whole of it. I was driving home yesterday from a meeting and realized that I hadn't written a single thing on the blog this week and began to wonder -- have I reached the ceiling? Am I done blogging? Then I thought, well, with some new changes, my schedule is becoming more regimented and I should have more time for things like blogging because, thanks to this blog, I've achieved great things and I want to continue on that road of blogomania.

So, first off I want to announce some news on the work front. After living in Denver for four months, and doing consulting work for three of those months, I'm happy to say that I'm now a full-time employee at the Colorado Agency for Jewish Education as a the Social Media and Website Manager. This means I get to do oodles of fun things like run amok on the website, come up with cool socially innovative projects, and more. It's seriously a dream job. I work in Jewish Education and Social Media -- for me, this is the best of both worlds. Also, I'm working as a part-time intern for Blogmutt, a startup based in Boulder, as their social media go-to. It's been oodles of fun, and I get to be just as creative and innovative as a girl could dream of being.

So much snow in Denver!

Basically, I'm on Cloud Nine as far as work goes! Patience is all it took for things to land on their feet.

Speaking of my work at CAJE, there was a most excellent d'var on Beshalah given at our weekly meeting that discussed the significance and importance of the items that the Israelites took out of Egypt -- the timbrels, matzo, and Joseph's bones. The discussion involved a question: If you had to pick up and leave, what one item would you take with you? After all, when it came time to take Joseph's bones out of Egypt, Moses searched and persisted for Joseph's bones. So, if you had to search and persist for a single item, what would it be?

At first, I thought, Nothing! There is Nothing! And then I realized, there is something. One thing, in fact. This thing is a photo of my Grandpa and Grandma Edwards standing with my father and uncle, a few years before my grandmother died. (I've written before about them. My grandmother and grandfather both died before my dad was 12 years old.) It's one of the only things that attaches me to a past and to people I never knew.

For what would you search high and far?

On that note, I want to wish you all a Shabbat Shalom from snowy, snowy Denver. Here, I offer you an image of my new attempt at gluten-free, vegan challah! I promise to let you know how it tastes.

There's More Than Lemons, Chavi

As I'm sure you can all tell, there's a lot of tension in my life these days. Divorce, moving, readjusting my entire idea of what it means to be me. It's weird how this life change, more so than any other I've experienced (and I've moved a lot and changed communities a lot) has really shaken me to the core, making me reconsider what I want, where I'm going, and what makes sense to me in life.

Don't worry, I'm still a committed Orthodox Jew. I'm just trying to figure out what that means.

After the divorce, a lot of people commented with gam zu l'tovah -- this too, is for good. I find myself saying it a lot, although I don't find myself saying it to others much. I think that the phrase can really confuse the emotions. Bad things happen to good people, life changes, and the world keeps spinning, but staying positive is the hardest part.

I'm infamous for focusing on the negative. My friends have told me that, my exes commented on it, and even my therapist says that I need to figure out a way to get out of it. I can't take compliments, and when the world hands me lemons, all I see is lemons; at least, all I focus on is the lemons. I might make lemonade, but I'll still be looking at those darn lemon peels.

Since September, I've gotten a speeding ticket, rear-ended a car, had my phone stolen, become quite broke, left my car windows open so my passenger seat was full of snow, and ... well, there's more. But again, I need to refocus.

When I went out to my car this morning and opened the driver's side door only to notice that I left the window cracked (this is Denver, it was warm yesterday, snowy today), I felt relieved that the wind blew the snow in the opposite direction. Then I looked at my passenger seat: snow everywhere. Yes, I'd left the passenger window open, too, and I wasn't so lucky. I stood there, in the snow, smiled, shook my head, facepalmed, and laughed at myself.

Gam zu l'tovah. 

It's taken everything -- all the lemons -- over the past several months to bring me to a point where I can laugh at my misfortune.

My place in life has always been as a caretaker. I take care of people, I help them, I guide them, I counsel them. This is both my greatest attribute, I think, and my greatest flaw. Why? Because I forget that I'm here, that I'm also on a journey and that my problems, my concerns, my feelings are just as valid as those who I am here to protect, guide, and speak out for.

I have a lot going on, and I want to than you all for your patience, your kindness, your outreach, your love. I'm trying to get over the lemons, but it's going to take a while. But as long as I can figure out how to laugh at myself, I think I'm going to be okay.

It's SNOW Good!

Explodingdog.com, I love you.

I love snow. I really do. Growing up, we lived in Southern Missouri where snow wasn't a huge thing, but Tornados and violent thunderstorms were. I also lived in Iowa as a very young child, which meant crazy snow and being bundled up in snow suites. And then? Nebraska. Talk about frozen tundra. The thing about Nebraska and winter is that it's completely flat and mostly tree-less, so covers from snow drifts and wind are nonexistent. I learned to love snow, to drive in snow, to really rejoice in the still and beauty of a slow snowfall. And now? Living in New Jersey, and with the most recent perpetual snowfall (19 inches in Central Park?!), I continue to love snow. It's a pain to drive in, especially with my little Toyota Yaris with its tiny wheels, but it's a trooper and it gets the job done. I love walking in the falling snow, schlepping through the piles, dreaming of snow ice cream, flying through stand-still snow falling on the highway, and relishing over a hot cup of coffee while it falls still outside. Call me nuts, but snow is part of what makes me most happy. Most get stressed about it, but I don't. (Okay, except when Tuvia is forced to drive to work and spins out on the highway and ... grrr ... )

So here's to snow, beautiful, fluffy, everywhere-all-the-time snow! (Which, I might add, we schlepped around in around midnight tonight on our way back home hanging out with the awesome Modestly Fashioned and Mr. Modestly Fashioned. We were blown away by how much snow was out there ... )

Creating an Army of Kindness

I'm not one for strict copying and pasting, but this came through my email and I'm a big fan of what Shabbat.com does, so I thought I'd share. Enjoy!

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New York - It was Shabbat.com flexing it's muscle that set a kindness train in motion that was just as powerful as the mega blizzard that blew through the New York area this past Sunday night.

Benzion Klatzko, the founder of Shabbat.com was at JFK Monday morning, along with 225 students who spent nine hours on the tarmac Sunday night after their El Al flight was unable to take off or return to the terminal. Many of the students who were traveling to Israel on various programs to experience their Jewish heritage in the Holy Land learned a great deal about what it means to be part of the Jewish nation well before they ever left the ground.

Klatzko used Shabbat.com to message every host on the website who lived within 20 miles of JFK airport asking them to please lend a hand, by either taking some of the students home for a meal and a hot shower or to bring food to JFK. In no time at all the message was forwarded around and the Five Towns community immediately swung into action buying food, getting into their SUVs and heading to JFK.

While many of the students elected to stay at JFK, others took advantage of the opportunity to find refuge in the Five Towns, with boys heading to Shor Yoshuv and girls enjoying the warmth and hospitality of the Wolfson, Safier and Stahler families. Yanky Brach of Brach’s Supermarket, a mainstay of the Five Town’s community, put together a full breakfast for all the students in their various locations, personally delivering breakfast to the students who were still at the airport, along with Eli Shapiro of the White Shul and Phil Goldfeder, a friend who works for Senator Schumer.

“My phone kept ringing while I was at the airport,” said Brach. “People kept asking if they should bring more food. I kept getting calls from the store, hearing how people were leaving donations to help defray the cost of feeding all those people.”

Other Five Towns residents brought bourekas and twenty pizzas from David’s Pizza in Cedarhurst. Supper was a joint effort, with so much food delivered to the airport from both Brach’s and Carlos and Gabby’s in Cedarhurst that Brach said they literally walked around the airport terminal offering food to any Jewish person they saw.

"When you galvanize the collective good will of the Jewish people, miracles can happen" says Klatzko. "And that's why Shabbat.com is such a revolution. It is the facebook of Jewish kindness where our true colors proudly shine."

Snow Day!

It's not that I'm trying to complain, but in Nebraska? It would take about five feet of snow and gale-force winds for them to cancel school. I'm serious. People wouldn't always go to class, but it took a LOT more than what it took the University of Connecticut to cancel school today. Okay, so maybe I'm a little upset that I was up till 2:30 in the morning reading and actually enjoying myself and now classes are canceled. Nu? I could have been sleeping.

Anyway, I suppose I should say "Hooray for Snow Day!"

For everyone else who is covered is snow like our little squirrelly friend over here? Please drive safe and stay warm today. No need to become a human snowman.

The beauty!

ברוך אתה הי אלקינו מלך העולם שככה לו בעולמו

Baruch atah Adonai, Elohenu melech ha'olam shekahcha lo baolamo!

This prayer translates typically as "Blessed are you, our God, King of the Universe, who has such beautiful things in His universe." It is a prayer for beauty and I recite it today because for the first time this winter, it is SNOWING!!!!

Amen.