Growing Up Savvy Posts

Our family is in the midst of celebrating my sister-in-law’s engagement. She is busy planning and all this wedding planning activity is making me reminisce about my own wedding. Fear not… I am not about to write countless entries about how I planned it all.

But I will share an interesting fact about hubby and I that only our siblings and parents and two witnesses know. Although most guests think that we were married on June 1st, 2008, we were really married on September 15th, 2007. Oh and we did it in-style — in Quaker Style.

Why? Because we got engaged in September 2006 and planned to marry in June 2008 and at some point decided that we were happy and in love and we wanted to be married … now… we didn’t need to wait. Because there was something incredibly appealing about doing it OUR way, very privately, with just two witnesses and only our parents in attendance. It was casual… my mother-in-law baked a wedding cake for us as a surprise. Here’s us cutting into it.

Quaker-Style

We didn’t tell anyone about it because we didn’t want to distract from the wedding planned on June 1st. It was a classy affair.

Courtesy of Shelley and Keith Photography
Courtesy of Shelley and Keith Photography
Courtesy of Shelley and Keith Photography
Courtesy of Shelley and Keith Photography

 

Life

We’ve heard quite a bit about the topic of telecommuting or working from home. Embraced by millions and their employees, it provides a welcome break from the countless hours spent in traffic. For those stuck in dark, cramped, hallogen-lit offices — it also provides an opportunity to work in a well-lit, windowed space with the decor of your choosing. On the other hand, some employers are not sure telecommuting is as beneficial as all those studies make it out to be. The CEO of Yahoo! announced that her company will no longer be supporting (permitting) telecommuting.

This may or may not be news for some of you: I telecommute two days a week and I almost always love the days I am working from home. Don’t get me wrong: I love going to the office. My work office is clean, well-lit, has lots of windows and great staff. I telecommute not to get away from a dark, dank space, but more so to avoid sitting in traffic on the Capital Beltway. I also get to spend more time with my daughter — the two hours of commuting I would otherwise spend on the road are devoted to her. Spending more time with Sophia equals spending less money on our nanny as I have to pay her 150% of her salary for any work over 40 hrs. Yikes! Trust me, YIKES!

So what is it like the days I telecommute? I get up, make breakfast for anyone who is present (me, hubby, nanny, Sophia). Sophia eats, I take my breakfast and coffee and go to my office at home — “the virtual office”. Meetings, teleconferences, project work, the dreaded powerpoint and masterminding how to take over the world take up the majority of my workday. I come out of the office to catch a glimpse of my child and grab lunch. Once my workday is done, I try my best not to check email or finish things up in the evening, but at times, that too is inevitable. Such is the new normal for professionals who enjoy their work and would like to make a worthwhile contribution to their team.

It may sound like a lot of time, but working from home lets me spend more time with Sophia — a welcome compromise to the decision of going back to work after her birth. Well, I feel like it was never really a choice given the cost of living where we live and my degree (a computer science degree will curdle faster than milk if you are not using it). Besides not having a real choice, I also believe that I am not cut out to be a stay at home mom. I have no patience and enjoy too much the company of peers. That is the simple truth and I salute stay-at-home moms because I just cannot imagine how they do what they do all day long, every day. That, and why do spouses feel like they have the right to come home to a clean house and a delicious meal when their counterpart is a stay-at-home parent? I do tell hubby that I am happy to be a stay at home mom when the kids are of school age :-). I can happily become a lady that works out and lunches :).

So today, on my second day of telecommuting this week, instead of getting up, showering, rushing, taking breakfast, lunch and snacks and coffee on the go (and looking like a crazy bag-lady), I put a brisket in the oven for my upcoming Passover Seder this Sunday. Let me tell you… the smell of thyme, bay, sweet onion and garlic is perfuming the entire house. That to me, is time well-managed and well-spent.

I encourage all who are able and willing to look into telecommuting to help reduce pollution, increase family time and continue promoting a work-life balance with their families and employer.

Life

{this moment} – A Friday ritual. A single photo – no words – capturing a moment from the week. A simple, special, extraordinary moment. A moment I want to pause, savor and remember.

Moment

Moments

We were stuck in a culinary rut it seems. Egg omelet, soup [squash, sweet potato, broccoli], baba’s blintzes, cereal were main staples in our house. How long will a child tolerate a monotonous diet like this?

I’ve been looking into new and exciting dishes to refresh Sophia’s palate and introduce new foods. Recent newcomers are sweet potato pudding (so good, I’d eat it), spinach and ricotta gnocchi, blueberry-lemon pancakes, and chicken fingers (homemade of course) with pasta sauce and ketchup.

The real challenge here isn’t that I am short on recipes, but rather that I am limited by Sophia’s dental, or more specifically lack thereof, situation. We’re working with just SIX teeth and we all know she won’t be digging into a fried chicken thigh anytime soon.

Have a good children’s menu repertoire? Please share.

Cookery Tiny Tastebuds

So Little TIme So Much To Say

Imagine being eleven years old and finding yourself suddenly blind, deaf and mute. That is exactly what it felt like when I moved to the United States. We landed at JFK in the afternoon of August 21st, 1994. Dusk had settled over the Big Apple by the time we exited immigration, customs and picked up our luggage. We drove to my aunt’s house in the suburbs of Philadelphia and began our new life.

I was enrolled into a local middle school and started 6th grade on September 6th, 1994. That would be a short two weeks after we arrived here. Here are a few facts about me on my first day of school:

I did not speak any English. I did not know anyone. I had never used a school locker or seen a locker lock before. I was 11 and most other 6th graders were 12-13 years old. I was enrolled into ESL (English as a Second Language). I was also enrolled in Spanish class — and why not? It was all the same for my brain… English, Spanish… they could have added Mandarin and it wouldn’t have mattered to me. I had to take a test to be admitted into 6th grade. My math level was that of a 9th grader.

I was sad, nervous, anxious, relentlessly teased by my classmates for anything and everything. I could not complain to my parents or my sister; They were busy getting on their feet so that we could move out of my aunt’s house and begin rebuilding our lives in our new homeland. My parents and sister had to get drivers’ licenses, jobs, and find an apartment.

… and move out we did a scant three months later. My mom and sister got jobs first, my dad followed. My sister enrolled into Drexel University. My parents worked hard, incredibly hard — all the time. My dad worked three jobs initially and my mom two. They helped pay for my sister’s college education (though like me, she paid part of the way herself).

Fast forward four years — my sister married and my parents were homeowners working normal jobs and saving for retirement, for my college education. We were comfortable…

Fast forward two more years and I was attending Drexel University on a merit-based scholarship.

Fast forward five more years and my parents were attending my graduation from college.

Fast forward three years and we celebrated my marriage to an amazing man.

Fast forward three more years and my parents were helping my husband and I move into our first house. Fast forward another six months and my parents were helping us bring Sophia back home from the hospital.

This is the truth. This.. this is a story of determination, of hard work, of not being spoiled. This is a story of immigration, of the American dream. This story isn’t really about me. It is about my parents. It is and always was just about them. I dedicate this story, this series to them.

Life Past Present

Uncategorized

There has been much discussion and many emails reaching out about the entries where I detail the possessions we left behind when my family left for America. Now that my life’s possessions need not fit into two suitcases every time I move, I have put together collections of precious, valuable pieces. I have a set of rules and preferences that define what I buy, keep and like. These rules are one of those things (like traveling) that my husband and I agree on.

  • I buy and own very few clothes. In fact, my husband has more clothes than I do. I like quality pieces and prefer to own fewer, better quality articles that last and remain timeless through the years.
  • I, like many other Americans love a good bargain. That said, I don’t care about how good the bargain is if the article in question is not exactly what I want. Durable and stylish, else the retailer cannot pay me enough money to take it out of the store or put it on myself.
  • Bargain or not, if it looks good, it is a good piece and I like it, I’ll likely get it. Good things are like good men — they don’t come around too often. 🙂
  • Leather, not pleather. Wool, not polyester. Murano wool, cashmere and all things soft, breathable, fair trade, as organic as possible.
  • Shoes — Italy and Brazil
  • Purses — France and Italy
  • Wool — Ireland, Scotland, Iceland

Perhaps more important than clothes, are things that can and do last a lifetime if not more: purses, belts, and fine jewelry. I have a special place in my heart for brooches and purses. These are pieces that I have long collected, researched and will pass on to Sophia. Among my great, unique discoveries and finds are Alexis Bittar about 10 years ago — before he started to mass produce and wasn’t yet sold in Nordstrom and the likes. My pieces were hand-made by him and a small team of artisans and purchased for a quarter of the price.

These values are special, instilled in me by my mother who learned them from her mother and so on. These values I will instill into Sophia and pass on beautiful, timeless pieces too. She will know quality over quantity.

Style

We’ve been busy weekending and getting ready to host Passover at our house. I felt like I was cooking to feed a quite a crowd when I made home-made chicken stock from not one, but two chickens and the great balls of goodness (matzo balls). Well, they are still cooking so I pray that I don’t come to the great used-to-be-balls of matzo goodness in the pot.

Passover and cooking aside, we are instilling Sophia with proper weekending traditions by treating her to a pancake breakfast of cornmeal and lemon-blueberry pancakes. That… and of course plenty of love and cuddles from Baba (and Deda). Evidence…


Weekending Pancakes

Weekending with Baba

 

Culinary Adventures Life

2 suitcases per person. Your whole life, your children’s lives — all in 8 suitcases. Memories, special mementos, family heirlooms — all in 8 precious suitcases. I don’t remember those suitcases — I don’t want to remember those suitcases.

I do remember my parents sorting through hundreds, maybe thousands of family pictures and albums and selecting a precious few. I remember the rest were burned … no other option. Perhaps more tragic than the fact they were burned, is the fact that each and everyone one of them, my dad took. He enjoyed photography as his hobby and would take, develop and print every picture. He let me “help” him when I was a little bit older and it was such an amazing treat.

I remember amazing pictures he took of my mom when they were dating. I remember pictures he took of my sister and me, of my family, my aunt when she and her family came to visit in 1988. They’re all gone. In fact, and I am sorry I missed seeing some that my aunt has from when my grandmother would post them to her. I want to see them, I want them. It made me very sad.

Life Past Present