Yesterday I was in Manhattan and on my way to lunch at a fabulous restaurant, I passed a traffic cop at Broadway and Thirty Fourth Street. Now, I've always thought that of all the jobs a police officer could have, directing traffic was probably the worst. It's not exciting, and if it's bad weather, you're still stuck outside. I had decided that the directing traffic job was given to rookies or those that had somehow 'deserved it' as no one else would want it.

Well, this young police officer was directing traffic like it was the passion of his life! He was having fun with it - saying pleasantries to the people passing by, yelling 'happy... more

My whole week revolves around getting to Friday. Once it's Friday, Anna announces first thing in the morning that it's Friday-erev-Shabbos (Shabbat). Shabbat starts at sundown and I know that if I've managed to make it as far as Friday morning, I can certainly manage most of another day. Once Shabbat comes at sundown and I light my Sabbath candles, I breath a different kind of sigh - it's knowing that whatever I managed to get done that week got done, and whatever I forgot or didn't get to (generally most of what's left on my list) will wait until Saturday night at the earliest.... more

Here's my list of things I'm doing today....

- Looking at garden catalogs online - Deciding on how many varieties of garlic I really need to be growing this year - Deciding on how much to spend on bulbs for the garden this year - and how to rationalize spending said amount - Letting my kid watch too much television - Considering how much time I should devote to folding the massive tower of clean laundry occupying the only couch in the living room - Looking at Ikea furniture online and trying to decide realistically when construction on the attic will be finished - Catching up on emails - Playing outside with Anna on a tricycle... more

So a little bit ago, I wrote about filling out the 'Getting to know your child' form that Anna's new school sent home. And although I did have fun filling out the forms and playing with the pencils there on the bench there was something missing. With Anna's old school, there was a small section that was on adoption. It said "Is your child adopted? At what age was s/he adopted? Does your child know that s/he is adopted?" That was it, but it was enough to satisfy me that the adopted sector of the population gets recognized, and that in a classroom... more

Having had bad experiences in the past, I really prefer not to mix business and pleasure. Meaning if a friend is a real estate agent, I'd prefer to go with someone else because as much as I'd like to give her the business, I value the friendship more (and as all of us who have gone through the home-buying experience know, things can get sticky). But where do you draw the line? And is my line of reasoning fair?

There is an old saying that goes something like this, "Give a man a fish, he's fed for a day. Teach a man to fish, he's fed for life." Many interpret... more

What is it with men dealing with girls’ clothing?

I mean, is it really that hard? We were getting Anna out of the bath today and I asked my husband to get some clothes for her. He came back a few minutes later and asked if a shirt he was holding for her was clean and okay to wear. I answered that it was clean, but that it was my shirt. Um, how did he not see that?

When we first got married, one of the things that stick out in my mind about our first few months together is doing laundry. I hear that this is the same experience for a lot of people. My husband – who is freakish for safety pinning his socks together before they get thrown in the wash, and likes his shirts folded... more

So, I'm now up at 2:41 am because - well - for no good reason. I have a ton of stuff to do tomorrow, one would think I should be sleeping, but alas sleep has eluded me this evening and I'm therefore typing a semi-coherent blog post.

Things Anna has said today that made me smile:

"Daddy, where did your beard go?" (My husband gets frustrated from time to time by his, um, hairyness and nearly shaves his head and beard from time to time. Afterwords he forget how much it bothers him and grows it back. He's at the shaving point right now)

"Daddy, you still have haircuts."

"My skin is brown like my skirt but my feet are white on the bottom like my shirt! That's funny!"

"Your... more

Things I have done today so far:

- Laundry - More laundry - Mowed the lawn - Went out to lunch with an old friend of mine

Things I have gotten done today in preparation for our upcoming trip:

- Nothing

I'm a really good procrastinator. I could teach classes on how to be the best last minute person. While catching up with an old friend of mine today, we were talking about various people from high school that I'm still in touch with, and how they've changed or not over the past several years that she's not been in touch with them. It's funny how some people change,... more

So, no camera has been located as of yet. And I own both a digital camera (though, not really own...just supposedly in possession of) and a real camera (I happen to be one of those people who actually still likes real film). However I am encouraged by the fact that it is Memorial Day weekend coming up and my plan is to tear the house apart from top to bottom. (I really need to pay more attention to these... more

What is Family? Who are Friends? And how do we define Loss?

Family

A friend of mine defines "family" as follows: If you call people to help you in an emergency, whoever shows up - that's family.

I've always really liked that idea - that perhaps family can be defined by the situation or circumstance. I also have learned that people in adoptive families use the word "family" itself in different ways. For one thing, the word "family" is often preceeded by an adjective - adoptive family, birth family, first... more