Back from the U.S. and ...

Photo taken by my mom, Debbie, at the Omaha airport before

we hopped on the first of three legs of air travel back to Israel. 

Oh hello there blog. What? I've been neglecting you? Yes, yes I have. With traveling back and forth to the U.S., work, and raising the fastest growing bundle of cute ever, I haven't been as active here on the blog as I want to be. I've got a bucketload of book reviews (including a few cookbooks of mention), a book giveaway, and tons of pictures and insights about being back in the U.S. to share. It'll take some time, but I'll get it all up. I promise.

The first and quickest thing I have to say?

Flying back into Israel, I always felt a rush of "I'm home!" in the past. Every trip I got the same sensation. This was the first time since 2009 that I saw the coastline and my thoughts turned to, "Is this really home? Is this really where I'm happiest?" I then reminded myself that home is where the heart is, and for me, home is where Ash and Mr. T are. They're here, I'm here, and thus, that's where my happiness can be found (for now anyway).

The U.S. was a time of comfort, a time where I could go to any grocery store and easily find vegetarian, vegan, and gluten-free products worth eating. Where convenience foods were just that, and I didn't have to think about cooking something from absolute scratch in order to be able to eat. It seems like a shallow, superficial thing to care about, but with the diet I'm sporting these days (gluten free as always, but now without many eggs, and without any dairy) it's hard to live in Israel.

But more on that later.

Also? Adventures in breast feeding were fun. That's going to be a post, without a doubt.

Time to go snuggle with the hubsters and little one. We're all sick, so we make for good company. Happy company, that is.

From Webb City to the Gush

I'm such a weirdo. This absolutely made my day. Yes, a scale that measures in kilograms made my day. Why? I'll tell you why.

Mr. T and I went to the doctor to go over some blood test results as well as to discuss my ultrasound from last week. The baby is great ("Nothing spectacular," says the doctor) and growing at the right rate ("But why nothing spectacular," asks Mr. T) according to all of the measurements so far ("You don't want spectacular!" the doctor says with a smile). After getting referrals for a 32-week ultrasound and a dietician (if I happen to need it) and the three-hour glucose test (which, hopefully will come back negative for gestational diabetes so I can rip up the dietician referral), I decided to hop on the scale since I neglected to make an August appointment with the nurse to check my weight and all of that good and fun stuff.

Of course, I made Mr. T turn around (he went to the bathroom) and started moving the scale around to detect my weight. As I landed on the same figure (less one pound or 1/2 a kilo) that I had in July when I weighed in (huzzah!), I noticed -- next to the brand name of the scale -- ", MO U.S.A." so I moved the weights a bit and bam!

Webb City, MO U.S.A.

You guys, I practically squeeeed with joy at this. I know, I sound like a nutcase, but you have to understand: Webb City was right down the road from where I grew up in Joplin. Webb City was where I spent my summers going to the drive-in movie theater. Webb City was like a mini-vacation from Joplin.

From 1921 E. 33rd Street to the Drive-In Movie Theater!

[And, please note my devastation as I just discovered that the movie theater was torn down to build a Walmart Supercenter ... sigh ... ]

Seeing a little piece of "home" from so long ago in a medical center in Efrat, Israel is like ... wow it's a trip for me. A real trip. It makes me wonder how a scale made in Webb City (in kilograms at that) made it all the way to the Gush of Eretz Yisrael.

It really is a small world after all.

Chavi en Route: Part I

The thing about a nearly eight-hour drive across Western Illinois, the entire state of Iowa, and a smidgen of Nebraska, is that you have a lot of time to sit and think. Yes, the rental car is brand new (a 2009 Ford Focus), and yes it has a bajillion channels on Sirius Satellite radio, but that doesn't mean the wheels stop turning. The car lacks cruise control, so I had to spend a certain amount of energy making sure I wasn't breaking the sound barrier, but I made really good time and as I pulled into Nebraska a little after 10:15 last night, I felt a sense of nervous calm flush over me. I know that sounds contradictory, but I guess I have to explain.

Driving into Nebraska, you realize how dark and quiet everything is, and this is where the calm comes from. I miss being able to see every last star in the sky, to watch the moon shuffle behind dark clouds and it to be completely, utterly pitch black. The nervousness comes from being home again after eight months. Though, I don't know if I can really call it home anymore, since it isn't where I hang my hat and it is most definitely not where my heart it. Then again, my heart is on one coast and I'll soon be on the other coast. That was food for thought during the length of my trip, but I digress.

Have you ever been to Nebraska? Do you understand it's absolutely underrated beauty? The simplicity, the quiet, the dark, the complete and utter sanctuary-style life. This truly is G-d's country. 

I'm sitting at my favorite coffee shop in the entire world -- the Coffee House in Lincoln, Nebraska. Some call it Panache, but in truth they don't really get it. Panache is what the overhang reads, but it's the Coffee House. I started coming here in high school, and I lived for a long time off of their Irish Mocha before I was able to drink straight coffee without gagging. I've watched the furniture change from dingy couches to upscale plus chairs and couches you might find at Pier 1 Imports. But it still has that classy, collegiate coffee house vibe. The chalk board still hangs in the women's bathroom, and people have taken to writing on it in marker since, well, chalk in the bathroom isn't very sanitary.

But the best part?

I walked into the coffee shop and there, sitting in the big open first room were two classic regulars of the Coffee House -- the Russian who was always friendly and here more than I ever was, and the old man with tattoos all over his arm, sporting the sleeveless shirt I always knew him in. The guy at the counter is the same as it was those years ago when I'd spend eight hours a day studying Biblical Hebrew. Those days were more productive, too, because I didn't have a laptop and I actually had to focus on the work (sans distractions). It was like coming home. I mean really, really coming home.

So I haven't even been "home" for an entire 24 hours, but I notice the divide. Maybe when I go out with friends tomorrow and Saturday I'll start to feel like I'm back and like I'm floating right back into the place I once fit. But there are certain people who aren't here, who -- to me -- make this place feel like home. Thus, I'll drink my Irish Mocha and surf the web and eat at all my old haunts and watch little Timmy fill up his coin collecting book and watch people study and the regulars do their thing and I'll think about the long drive I have coming up.

If I thought the nearly eight-hour drive was long, my head just might implode during the 22-hour trek to Connecticut I have coming up.