Big list of STUFF that is helpful PART 1: Pregnancy and Postpartum mom items

I have a 14 month old tiny toddler She is amazing, wonderful, fun, and has been a very easy baby. I can’t take credit for her being easy, we just got lucky, but I’d like to think not being stressed out because we felt well prepared have helped.

This is as messy as I ever let the living room get. Otherwise I’d go BONKERS!

Here are some items that have helped us feel like prepared, confident new parents. I’ll try to list them in age order of when they’re most useful :)

My baby eats food

Here are some of her favorite foods at 10 months old:

Cheerios

Raisins

Pears or apples cut into 1 cm pieces with a crinkle cut knife

Grapes or cherry tomatoes (cut into quarters the long way)

Turkey and spinach meatballs

Glazed carrots

Matzo balls made with real schmaltz

The veggies that cooked with brisket or pot roast

Spinach kugel or spanikopita filler

Chicken soup (not the broth, just the stuff)

Tsimmies with chunks of turkey thigh

Roasted cauliflower and/or sweet potatoes

Baked ziti

Stewed prunes

Chewing on a roasted green bean at 6 months

She never really ate purees/baby food, but has always sat at the table with us for meals in her Stokke high chair and played with toys and we’d sometimes let her play with food too (like the green bean above). At 7 months she grabbed a pizza crust off my plate while I was out with my mom and I thought she’d just gum on it, but she ATE 2 INCHES OF PIZZA CRUST! I thought it was fluke, so when Ben came home a few days later and we went out for Indian food we gave her a piece of naan to chew on and she ate that too and flapped her little arms for more! She ended up eating naan, raisins from the saffron rice, and some peas from my curry that night.

Haven’t written in a loooong, time. Here I am!

Let’s see, last time I blogged here we were in the process of moving to Albuquerque. Well, now we live here! We bought a house after a few months of renting a room from another local Jewish gal (who has since moved to Houston). I found a job at a contact public defender’s firm within just 2 weeks of being here full time, was there for about a year, got pregnant and it was awful and I miscarried, I got well again and found a supplement that really helps me, we went on vacation to the North Island of New Zealand for 2 weeks, hosted an exchange student for a semester, got pregnant again, it was wonderful and I spent a lot of time doing Pilates and yoga, had a beautiful baby girl, got postpartum preeclampsia, got better but was very weak for a long time, stayed home with baby, and now she’s 10 months and I’m trying to find ME again!

So, this is happening rather quickly…

Ben has accepted employment with Air Force Research Laboratory (AFRL) and it looks like we’re heading out West to Albuquerque, NM in about a month (he starts on the 20th)!

Shira’s soon-to-bloom cactus flowers

The loose plan right now is that we’ll drive out together on July 14th and then I’ll fly back here and will stay at my job (in DC) through Labor Day– unless something interesting comes up sooner for me out there.

the Big Red Arrow, with a fresh coat of red paint

About 2 months ago we moved almost everything we own into a 10×15′ climate-controled storage unit (if I’d been OK with stacking things higher, we could have gotten away with a 10×10′) and are now staying in the guest room at my parents’ house with just our summer clothes, toiletries, and any food/pantry items we couldn’t pack into our storage unit. We moved because our lease ended shortly after Passover and Ben has been looking for a new job since the beginning of the year and didn’t want to be saddled with a month-to-month lease “convenience fee,” effectively increasing our rent by 40%. Since moving in we’ve taken over the rec room as our own living area, and do miss having our own kitchen but are happy to have access to a grill and people to share the chores with.

Ghostbusters car at an airport carpark

I am so glad to have things more sorted and less abstract. We had a really great visit to ABQ two weeks ago and I am feeling much less anxious about moving now that I know that Ben is so excited about his job and there are jobs for me to apply to there and nice (Jewish and not) folks to befriend. While we were there we visited Old Town, visited the synagogue we’ll be joining, met other folks in our Jewish cohort, fell in love with the Nob Hill area, ate some great food (red or green? Christmas, please), were shown around by a realtor, and drove by more museums we want to visit than we knew even existed in ABQ. We’re going to have lots of things to keep us busy out there, including attending the Balloon Fiesta, joining the ABQ model rocket club and learning how to grow a vegetable garden in the high desert. It’s going to be an adventure and I’ll try and keep you all posted!

Sandias from the Sunport (it’s too sunny to be an airport!)

Planes!

Hello blog-y people! I haven’t blogged in FOOOOOOOREEEEEEVVVVEEEEEEEER (now, go watch Goonies again if you need to). Apparently when I’m gainfully employed and not lonely (i.e. have enough friends/social activities to keep me from getting restless), I just don’t blog much.

Yep. Living in Rockville, Maryland and working in aviation regulatory law in DC has been good for me. Currently we are living in Northern Virginia, in my parents’ house (but in the guest room, not my old room, that would be weird) while Ben works on securing continual funding for more AMO physics research. Dr. Smarty-Pants!

Anyway, the real reason I’m blogging today is to dump all the photos and a few videos I took of today’s flyover off of Ben’s phone (we swapped today because I left the big camera at home, even though I’d gotten it out to take to work with me today).

Want more info about the WWII war plan flyover to celebrate the 70th anniversary of VE day?

Schedule and route:       http://ww2flyover.org/general-information/flyover-schedule-and-route/

Great write-up of some of the pilots and their planes:     http://www.washingtonexaminer.com/pilots-prepare-for-historic-wwii-flyover-of-mall/article/2563250

Here are the photos from the lower terrace of the Kennedy Center (no filter, just a Moto G cell phone doing whatever it wants), I know they’re not the best, but PLANES! (There is a video on my Facebook page, but not on here because I’m cheap.)

Rape Jokes and The Oatmeal

Just sharing a well written critique of current humor threads (PS- I usually like The Oatmeal, but it does toe the line of funny and raunchy)

The Belle Jar

Yesterday, Matthew Inman from The Oatmeal wrote a comic about the “delicate relationship” that he has with his keyboard.  This was the final panel of the comic:

The comic in its entirety was about how he feels and behaves towards the various keys in his keyboard. This panel specifically was about trying to get a webpage to load when you have a slow connection, with the joke centering around Matt “raping” his F5 key in order to make the page load faster. Yes, it’s a rape joke. No, I’m not surprised. Yes, it’s supposed to be funny. No, no one would ever  actually “rape” a computer key. Yes, in spite of all that, I’m still grossed out. Now that all that is out of the way, can we talk about how terrible this is? Because it’s terrible. Really, really terrible.

The panel above is the type of joke that normalizes…

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Warm beef bacon and spinach salad

Here’s a quick weeknight meal, inspired by The Pioneer Woman’s “Best Spinach Salad Ever.” 

Where can you find kosher beef bacon? Both Grow and Behold and KOL Foods carry it. Some kosher grocery stores may carry it too. Sometimes beef bacon is called “beef fry” instead of beef bacon (and may look like fatty porcine bacon or be more processed, like turkey bacon). I can’t eat the grocery store kind, at least the kind that Kosher Mart carries, it has carrageenan in it (which gives foods a thicker/creamy mouth feel but also gives me sad tummy in moderate doses).

Oh, you don’t want an rant about my food issues, you want a recipe, right? Here I am, teasing you with a messy kitchen table photo of my dinner that I started to eat before photographing it (this salad is best eaten immediately after all).

Deena’s warm spinach and beef bacon salad

INGREDIENTS

• 3 slices BEEF BACON
• 1-2 Tbls good olive oil, as needed
• 1/2 small red onion
• 4 oz white button mushrooms
• 8 ounces, clean, dry, baby spinach
• 1 1/2 Tbs. reserved BEEF BACON grease (or beef bacon fat + olive oil to reach the correct volume)
• 1 1/2 Tbs. red wine vinegar
• 1/2 tsp. honey
• 1/2 tsp Dijon mustard
• small sprinkle of kosher salt
• freshly ground pepper
• OPTIONAL: 3 hard boiled eggs
• OPTIONAL: chopped cherry tomatoes (I had some from my garden)

DIRECTIONS

In a tiny bit of oil, fry the beef bacon until crispy/chewy. Set aside on a paper towel.

Remove the warm grease from the pan with a spoon, add olive oil as needed to come up to 1 and 1/2 tablespoons, and set aside.

Add 1 tablespoon of olive oil to the warm skillet and return to medium heat.

Slice red onions very thinly, add to skillet. Slowly cook the onions until they’re caramelized and reduced. Set aside on a plate.

Slice mushrooms and add to the same skillet. Slowly cook the mushrooms until they’re caramelized and reduced. Set aside with the onions.

Chop up beef bacon into little nibbles.

OPTIONAL: Peel and slice eggs.

Make hot beef bacon dressing! Add the 1 1/2 set aside bacon grease/oil, vinegar, honey, and Dijon to the skillet over medium-low heat. Whisk to combine and heat through.

Place spinach in a large bowl. Add onions, mushrooms, and beef bacon on top. Pour hot dressing over everything; toss to combine.

Top with optional eggs and/or tomatoes and serve immediately. Serve with focaccia or other fresh bread.

18 Struggles Of Having An Outgoing Personality But Actually Being Shy And Introverted

Has someone been following me to write up this list?

Land of the stately pines

Every summer, without a doubt, I get a little homesick for camp. I miss the lake, I miss the fact that someone else will do all the cooking and dishes, I miss the order/structure (same wake-up time, play amazing orchestral music, music theory, lunch, classes in theater, piano, art, Alexander Technique, etc./chamber music/practice time and viola lessons/activities, dinner time, concerts or free time, and the same bed time 6 days/week, no classes on Sunday and only AM classes on Monday). I miss the immersion in all of arts and the weather. Today’s relatively low humidity (~50%) and high of 80F are much more Michigan-y feeling than DC. 

Green Lake from the deck of the Maddy Cabin, Summer 2012

I don’t miss performing (yet?), but I miss being immersed in art and having it available in all forms to fill me up. Feeling whimsical? Visit the sculpture studio. Feeling contemplative? Shakespeare or ballet. Restless? Ultimate Frisbee or free swim, or sailing (if you remembered to re-up your open water training). Feeling lonely? Poetry reading, organ recital, or new music ensemble! The smaller performances always had such a warmth to them, and usually some really friendly older patrons who love to chat during intermission.

The business was the best thing for me. Long, days filled with lounging make me restless.

HS Concert Orchestra, conducted by Mr. Holland, with Mrs. Holland’s 9 harps

I guess what I’m saying is that I need more activities in my life. 4th of July weekend and last weekend were GREAT, we did something everyday and I felt wonderful!

This year’s camp stats. It seems like the kids get more and more amazing each year. Or I’m just getting older and further removed. I was amazed by my peers when I was there too. It could just be that kids are amazing.

Recomended reading: How the Micro World of Summer Camp Prepared Me for Full Inclusion in Society

“This is not to say that camp is a panacea for socially isolated people with disabilities. ” Nope, but for me it was a panacea for someone who didn’t know they were socially isolated (until they weren’t) who has no major disabilities.

Matan's Musings

“Holy sh**, that’s Matan” – Unknown shmirah (on-duty counselor) late July 1994.

These were the words I heard during the execution phase of a critical step in trying to sneak me across camp, from boys’ camp to girls’ camp on the last night of the first session of Eisner Camp in 1994.

Sneaking across camp, or raiding, was a time-honored tradition, especially on the last night.  I like to think that it was a little more innocent when I was a child than it is now, with the stories that I hear of rampant teenage sexuality, but there is no question that hormones were a motivating factor.

Despite being as motivated as any other 12-year-old boy, there were some significant complexities in the idea that I would participate.  The first was that sneaking across camp involved, well, sneaking, and I was in a large and very loud power wheelchair. …

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