HOW & WHEN DID THIS HAPPEN TO ME?!!!

Do you ever pause for a moment in time, look around at your life and think... HOW & WHEN DID THIS HAPPEN TO ME!!!

I think I do this every day. As I watch my husband leave for work, as I hear my children say things and think How did they compose that thought? As I pay bills, cook for shabbos, drive car pool, grocery shop. The list goes on, but I think you get the idea.

Somehow even though we make hundreds and thousands of decisions that land us where we are today.
At some point we find ourselves thinking, saying or screaming HOW & WHEN DID THIS HAPPEN TO ME!!!!

When it's the domino affect of our own decisions that got us there in the first place.
We accept a job, we get married, we buy a car...and so on.

Today let's take a different approach, let's do the best we can to pay the bills, stop and smell the food we are cooking, sing to car pool, take a peak into our stocked pantries, listen to the wacky things our children say, smile at your spouse and say....

THANK G-D THIS HAPPENED TO ME :-)

Have a wonderful Shabbos !

Upside Down Universe!

So in the continuous battle to loose weight and get into shape, there is one main issue that I have thought of

As I fight to decide what to eat and to keep the things I shouldn't eat out of my mouth and as I push myself to the gym through the work out and then limp to my car...

This whole process is backwards:
When we are eating we are savoring what we are doing, we enjoy every bite, we laugh and share with others and marvel over flavor ,color and smell, but beware the monday morning quarterback. As we finish eating, enjoying our tasty treat the doom and gloom begins.
Oh I shouldn't have eaten that, or UCH now I feel sick etc.

However when we work out we don't wanna be there, we curse and mutter through the work out and try to keep ourselves from quitting or passing out.
Yet as soon as we finish we are on a high, we feel like a million bucks and are certain that yes we must endure this again.

So why I ask you can't it be the other way around?
Wouldn't it be easier to not want to eat, but have to in order for survival purposes and love, enjoy and crave working out?

Really it is so simple I say as I eat my steel cut oats and exhale while pulling my gym clothes out of my draw...

Just another day in this upside down universe.

They've come to suck your blood

In my recent revisiting of my teenage years I watched a show about vampires, (laugh all you want, I can take it)
but when you watch things as an adult your thought process changes, just as everything else in the world changes as you become an adult, wife, mother... etc

As I drowned in vampire glory I found myself chuckling, what's so funny about a stupid vampire show you ask?
It's because I have decided that the creator of vampires must have been a nursing mother...

A vampire is a creature who sleeps by day and is up at night and physically sucks the life force right out of you.

It makes sense doesn't it! Babies completely exhaust us, they keep us up at night and suck us dry until we are left feeling totally devoid of energy.

Now here's the thing they start as babies, but just like vampires once you are a parent this feeling of exhaustion and drain, it lasts FOREVER, because they never tire and they just keep coming back for more.

Our children may be beautiful and smart and the best thing that ever happens to us, but let's be real here no matter how precious and wonderful they are...

They've come to suck your blood :-)

You don't bring me flowers Anymore

They say "Time Heals All"

What we choose not to discuss is the time before the healing comes. The time when we cannot fathom how the healing will happen, or how much time exactly it will take.

I have sat down to write this post several times over the last few days.
What I wanted to write about is the amazing power that my mother's soup has. No matter how sick achy or tired I am. It's Love Potion #9. It makes me feel better than tylenol, tea or any other remedies and it doesn't matter what kind of soup as long as she makes it.

For whatever reason I wasn't able to get the words out and what my mind kept lingering too was my Grandfather.
Growing up almost always when I was home sick even if it was just a runny nose he use to send me flowers.
Many times attached to a balloon or teddy bear just saying feel better and I love you.
It always made me smile and feel special.

I think the hardest part about loosing him, the hardest part of this healing process was that my Grandfather was the type of person that gave you love in such a way it made you feel like if no one else in this world loved you it didn't matter because his love was always more than enough.

So the last few days feeling sick and being at home it has been the kind of days where time has done nothing for me really and I find the lyrics to a song by one of his favorite singers Neil Diamond playing over and over in my mind...

"I remember all the things you taught me. I learned how to laugh and I learned how to cry,
well, I learned how to love and I learned how to lie.
So you think I could learn how to tell you goodbye...
You don't bring me flowers anymore."


Everyone should merit having someone in their life whose love transcends all boundaries and time.

Time may heal pain, but love remains forever.

You've got a friend in me

I wonder who the first friends were...

The best I can do is go in biblical order first came marriage (Adam & Chava) a pure relationship of one soul being split into two, which very quickly turned complicated. Then came siblings (cane & Abel) clearly flawed. The most popular friendship in Torah is Dovid and Yonatan an ideal relationship a love so pure that even in the face of controversy they remained loyal to each other.

It's interesting our family is who we are, the most important people in our lives. Family is the people that will be there for you and who you want to be there for through all, no matter what forever.
There is no question in my mind that there is no replacing family.

Still family is given to us.

A friend however is special in their own right. We choose them we get to know them, we let them get to know us and we decide to keep them anyway.
Friendship is hand picked. A loyal friend, a friend who knows you for better or worse and still loves you is a wonderful gift.

Friends help us laugh, listen to us cry and know us in a way only a friend can.

What a wonderful creation "The friend"

On that note I'd like to say thank you to all the friends out there who...don't judge, listen when we need to vent, hug us when we cry, shake us when we need a good shakIng and show up time and again loving us just the way we are :-)

Loving through it

This picture was taken by the very talented Rachel fellig & Scrapped by the also very talented Faygie Fellig
To see more of this incredible Mother Daughter Team click on their names. So appropriate for this post :-)


Before Oct, most commonly known as breast cancer awareness month ends I just wanted to take a moment.
To be grateful, and give thanks for my very own survivor; my Mom.
You are my rock and strength always I thank GD for giving you your strength and courage to survive, to go forward and for loving me through it.

I am not going to write very much in this post. There just aren't enough words, but you can watch this video in honor of all of the survivors and about to be survivors out there. It hits the spot.

Ma Love You A Bushel & A Peck

Learning Torah & coloring...

We plan and gd laughs ... who hasn't said this once or 10,000 times.

We have such good intentions with our limited time. We schedule ourselves in such a way that we can accomplish one task for a whole day and feel successful.
I.E. Monday I will pay the bills, Tuesday I will clean out the closets and get rid of the clothes that doesn't fit the kids, Wednesday I will do a mommy and me and Thursday back to the grocery store.

When what really happens is... Sunday at some point before dawn you have a vomiting child, by Monday another one has fever and something in the house malfunctions out of nowhere. On Wednesday your husband calls from work to say he feels miserable.
Therefore by the time Thursday rolls around you feel like a wet mop and your lucky if you can even get yourself dressed.

On one of these weeks,
as you desperately try to figure out how a week which was suppose to be so super productive has turned into a week where not one of your plans has come to fruition and your new plan consists of one word, SURVIVE.
You think I must have GD in stitches if this is his sense of humor.

Being that my week has become a week filled with a pure need to survive, I am humbled to say I was inspired by my four year old.

As I was getting him ready for bed and telling him he needed to calm down and start going into bed time mode, he looked at me and said with all the beautiful innocence of a child.
"Mami I did everything today, I learned Torah and I colored."

WOW maybe it is really that simple I look up to GD and say; my plans may have changed on me, but look I took care of my children and I survived that truly is everything.
Laugh Away :-)