Leapin’ Liebster! Thank you so much to Lynn at Wanderlynn for nominating my blog for a Liebster Award. It’s so much fun to be part of the blogosphere despite my obvious dislike of that actual word (Hybrids). It means a lot to me that Lynn nominated me. Check out her blog, it’s honest, interesting and entertaining. I look forward to when she writes new posts and I can’t wait for a post on all the fun terms and language she has picked up while living in England. She would make a nice dialect coach to my kids! (Why, I do declare!)

So here’s how the nominations works:

– You must link back to the person who nominated you.
– You must answer the 11 questions given by the person who nominated you.
– You pick up to 11 nominees with under 200 followers (or 500 depending on which rules you follow) to answer your questions.
– You cannot nominate the person who nominated you.
– You must tell the nominees that they have been nominated by you.

And now, I present my answer’s to Lynn’s questions:

1.   What is the bravest thing you’ve ever done? Getting married. I did once get in a fight with a TSA agent, that was pretty ballsy of me. And I jumped on stage at a Samples concert…brave? I choose getting married because it involved me getting over a fear. My fear of commitment and the uncertainty of forever. I’m a very indecisive person and I always need all options researched and then some before making a decision. So when TH asked me to marry him, I was making the decision to choose one thing for the rest of my life. I was full of questions that in no way could be answered, such as will he be a good husband, a good dad, will I be enough for him for the rest of his life, will he be enough for me? I’m glad I abandoned my neurosis for just a moment to say yes, I just hope he doesn’t ever realize that he’s out of my league and he could have had landed the shiny trophy version over the blue ribbon.

2.   What’s a motto or quote that truly inspires you? There are two, but I’ll only elaborate on one. First: Be bold and courageous, when you look back on your life, you’ll regret the things you didn’t do more than the things you did. That is self explanatory. Second: Show up for my life, not my death. This was mentioned in my most recent post. Basically, this quote, which derives from my mom, reminds me to live life, show up for the people I love, be a genuine friend and never let words of love or inspiration go without being said. It’s sort of a live like you are dying motto.

3.   You’re visited by ambassadors of a small tribe that has had no contact with outsiders. What do you do to share your culture with them? My first thought is food. Remember, I’m Jewish. But the reason I choose some sort of meal or repast is because it represents my “village.” I will have my closest friends and family over with them and sit at a huge table, sharing in stories and brisket. My personal culture is about the village around me (even if that village doesn’t live where I live). I hope that while noshing on noodle kugel, the ambassadors will hear stories of family, tradition, holidays and history and this will be sufficient for them to understand who I am and why.

4.   Who, out of anyone who has ever lived, would you like to take a day trip with? Where would you go? My maternal grandpa, “Gramps.” I would love to spend one day with him as I am now so he can see who I grew up to really be. And I’d love to ask all the questions I was too young to think of when he was alive. We would spend the day in Orange County, California, sit on the cliffs of Newport Beach or walk along the sand and have a picnic (we’d sip on Dr. Brown’s Cream Soda and eat corned beef on rye and he’d get mad at me for putting mayonnaise on mine, telling me it was against the Jewish religion) and we would watch the sun set.

5.   Which of your blog posts is your favorite? This is a hard one to answer! I think it would have to be Khakis…and a Polo in conjunction with Eat your cheerio (since they kind of go together) because they were some of my first posts to kickstart this whole process. When I go back and reread them I still laugh out loud. They represent who I am, how I think and how I view the situations around me and write about them.

6.   Why do you blog? It feeds my soul. I blog because it’s one of the few things I’ve found that is solely for me. Since becoming a mom, my days are busy, filled with errands, activities, appointments, meetings and TALKING to or for the people in my family or my community. It took me awhile (and some good guidance from my therapist) to realize that I need to incorporate things for myself in my daily life. I got to a point where my daily Starbucks was the only thing I did “for me.” In Weird Blog Science I touch on my blogging history a little more, but what I don’t talk about is how important writing this blog has become to my sanity.

7.   What is one thing you never anticipated about the life you’re living? That I would live so far from family and friends and that all my favorite people would be scattered across the country. I always thought that even though you go away for college, you travel, take on new professional experiences and explore life, you always had a home base to come back to and settle down in with all the people you love. Because of all those experiences, I’ve been lucky to accumulate some wonderful people in my life. But unfortunately, those people don’t live in one single place. Even my immediate family doesn’t live in the same city anymore. I yearn for family and community now that I have kids. Raising a family is hard and you truly need a village. I’ve learned that at my age, it’s harder and takes longer to accumulate that village. Not only did I not know that, but I never expected to desire it or need it as much as I do.

8.   When was the last time you laughed so hard that you cried? I mean, could’ve been last night. But actually it was last Friday night while out to dinner with two of my best friends (one who I’m lucky lives 10 minutes from me and the other was in town for work and lives on the other side of the country…see #7). There may have been a few glasses of Pinot Gris helping along that night but I think I cry from laughing on a weekly basis. Though I’m able to amuse myself, I find that the people around me are just as amusing, providing many opportunities for me to pee my pants from laughing. And if it’s been awhile, all I need to do is watch an episode of Impractical Jokers and I’m a goner.

9.  Describe a perfect morning. Makes me smile just thinking of this. A perfect morning is waking up early on a Sunday in the summer (after some Sunday cuddles with the family), when the sun is out but it’s still a little chilly, and people are either sleeping off the night before or at church, so the streets are empty. I take a walk (in my utopia this walk would be along the beach) to the nearest coffee shop and sit outside just observing everything around me, sipping my hot mocha, being silent and still.

10.   What is the most beautiful place you have ever visited? Australia’s Great Barrier Reef, specifically Whitehaven Beach. It was magical. I could waste my life away there.

11.   What book will you never get tired of reading? The Harry Potter Series. I can’t wait to read it to my kids and experience the adventures all over again!

And now, I nominate:

Here’s What Works

This Is The Corner We Pee In

A Little Fleurish

And here are my 11 questions for you wonderful bloggers!

1. First and foremost, Why do you blog?

2. Which of your blog posts is your favorite?

3. If you could choose a super power, what would it be and why? (Or do you already have one and what is it?)

4. What’s one of your biggest fears?

5. Where would you retire if money was not an issue?

6. What’s the best piece of advice you’ve ever received?

7. What’s the best piece of advice you’ve ever given someone else?

8. If you could be or do anything in the world (any “profession” or whatever with no regards to training, money, time, family responsibilities etc.) what would you be or do?

9.  What movie do you never get tired of watching?

10. What is one quality or characteristic about yourself that you truly admire and respect?

11. Where is one place you’ve always wanted to travel to?

These past two weeks have been very interesting, the kind where you obsess your thoughts about the past. Do you ever do that? You pick a period of time and run through it over and over in your mind? Sometimes you try to change the events to see what you would have maybe changed or done differently (a bit like choose your own adventure only with no real ending). Of course there’s a bit of nostalgia, the good times, the easier times. I’m thinking for the mid-30’s BRW type, the time period that is most popular to relive is around the time of meeting the spouse. Pre-kids, going out, hooking up, butterflies. Maybe it’s pre-potential spouse and it’s high school or college time, reliving the moments around your crush, wishing you had taken some risks you didn’t feel comfortable taking at the time. It’s all hindsight, it’s all “shoulda coulda woulda.” But anything you change would not have been you anyway. It all goes the way it’s supposed to.

But in this case, for me, I’ve been reminiscing about my grandparents. I love my grandparents. They are all gone now. I have no negative memory associated with my grandparents. I probably have false and romanticized memories actually because grandparents aren’t real people to grandkids, they are prototypes and heroes. Or at least, mine were. None of them did anything that spectacularly changed the course of the world, but then again, we don’t really know that to be true. No one really knows the influence or change their life has caused for the future after they are gone. Maybe my spawn will be a President of the U.S., in which case, that couldn’t have happened without my grandparents.

I have a very good friend who reminds me that when people we love die, their spirit continues to exist and guide us. I’ve never doubted that concept for a moment. I know my grandparents’ spirits are here with me, but I’m not always conscious, aware or thinking about it. Except for the past couple of weeks.

The kick start moment was when I went to Starbucks (shocker) and saw 2 kids with their 2 grandmas. The grandmas were talking to each other because the kids (preteen age) were buried in their iPhones. At that moment, I would have given anything to be sitting with my grandmas chatting over my daily mocha. Yes, I grew up with video games, so I understand the appeal. But I didn’t have them at the tip of my fingers anywhere I went. I’d go places with my grandparents and talk to them, play with them, live life with them. I didn’t have the option to text my friends; I didn’t need the option, I’d see them at school the next day. That moment was so powerful for me. I made a promise to myself and my kids at that moment to never let them miss an opportunity to talk to their grandparents.

Lately, I keep coming home to a smell in my house that smells like my grandparents’ house. It’s usually just a waft, but it’s a powerful moment. The aroma is a combination of onions and matzah ball soup. It’s a weird smell, but it’s perfect for remembering.

More specifically, I was at my cousin’s house for Passover this past week and about 10 minutes after I arrived, I heard a very distinct sound, one I haven’t heard in maybe 15 years. A chime. And at that moment, I was immediately transformed into my grandparents’ house, standing in front of that clock, excitedly waiting for it to strike the hour and play it’s song followed by it’s chime…me always counting to make sure it was singing the correct hour…and it always did.

When my grandparents died, my cousin (who is 12 years older than me and so got to spend 12 more years with some of my favorite people on Earth) said all he wanted was that clock. And so the clock hangs on his wall. When he looks at it, he is reminded. But even better, if he happens to be living his daily life, they sing him a song to remind him as he goes.

The moment I heard the song, I immediately looked at TH and just said to him, “That sound you just heard, that’s M&G.” 1.0 heard me and even though I make it a point to talk about all my grandparents with them, 1.0 is very in tune when she hears my maternal grandpa’s name because she is named after him (and therefore has the privilege of living with a traditionally male middle name). She immediately wanted to know what I was talking about and how she could hear them too. I walked her and 2.0 over to the clock and they just stood there, silent, still, wide-eyed, waiting to hear M&G. When the chime went off (and I again counted to make sure it was accurate), 2.0 danced and 1.0 just looked at me, smiled and said, “M&G.” Right.

When you are lucky to see your grandparents live into old age, you feel a sense of closure when they pass away. However, it’s not ever really okay when someone dies, you can still cry and miss them no matter how right and inevitable death is. When someone at the age of 90 passes away, people say, they lived a full life. Does that mean that someone taken early didn’t live a full life? Didn’t they live their full life and we just wish we could have spent more time with them? I think so.

Because I tend to be an overly thinking type of person, when my first grandma passed away, I immediately had to make sure I said everything I ever wanted to say to my remaining grandparents. I wrote and read a poem for that grandma’s service; but shouldn’t I have written it before and read it directly to her? Yes. So I wrote something for my grandpa. I didn’t send it to him; instead, I made him sit with me in person and I read it out loud to him. He needed to hear in my voice what I would say at his service one day in the future. And I read that same note at his service 10 years later while pregnant with 1.0 who was going to bear his name no matter what gender 1.0 ended up being (and before he died he was told that bit of information as well).

So even though I sit and reminisce about times with all my grandparents, all the thoughts always end with the scene of me telling them in person exactly what they meant to me. It’s the only gift I could give them after they had given me so much. I hope it was enough. And I hope you do the same.

My mom once said to me that she would rather people show up to her parties and celebrations where she can enjoy their company, rather than at her funeral. I’ve shortened that concept to “show up for my life, not my death.” It’s a good motto.

What’s a motto? Nothing, what’s a motto with you? (Sorry, joke from Lion King, had to).

And btw, Happy Easter to all that celebrate. Yes, just like Christmas carols, Jews love Easter egg hunts.

TH said the other day, “It’s triple points day at Nordstrom, will you come with me and go shopping so we can pick some stuff out for me?”

To which I replied, “Ugh…sounds awful…”

To which he replied, “You are the only woman I know who wouldn’t jump at the chance to go shopping for her man.”

Wait, let’s all take a moment of silence…no, a moment of laughter at “her man.”

I replied, “I don’t like shopping for myself, can you imagine how much more painful it would be to shop for someone else?”

TH, “Point taken.”

But I decided that is sad for him. Of course a trophy wife picks out her spouse’s wardrobe. But a BRW? If given the chance to pick out an outfit here or there, I should take the opportunity to have him look the way I want him to…after all, he’s my trophy, so I should dress him up in any shiny way I want right?

This post is a plea for help. How does one start to understand men’s fashion (and understand it affordably)? I could easily go into a nice men’s store and buy something right off the mannequin, but I imagine that isn’t the most efficient way to go about this since when I went to Nordstrom to check out the men-aquins, this is what I witnessed:

What the…? How do I unsee this? That is elastic at the bottom of these pants.

This statue has an eating disorder.

So I’m asking you, my dear friends, to help me learn to shop for TH. Do you have fashion blogs you recommend I read? Should I flip through mags? Do I need to know what looks good with his body type? For instance, he’s not narrow, so all those slim shirts wouldn’t fit right. And am I picking out clothes for a casual Sunday or Saturday night clubbing?

Let’s take another moment of laughter for that one.

Okay, so please comment, give me your advice on how a Blue Ribbon Wife goes about shopping for her Trophy Husband!

Except when 2.0 gets out of the car, goes up to my cousin and says, “Look at my new g-d damn water bottle.”

That’s on me.

I appreciate people who understand that my kids are going to say inappropriate things loudly at the most inconvenient times and not because of me but despite me.

Kids don’t learn everything from their parents.