Let There Be Light

This weekend, I ran Leg 3 (6.9 miles — though the leg was supposed to be 6.7?) of the Detroit Free Press Marathon. I did the marathon relay with my good friend Greathen and three of her fellow teacher friends, one of whom happens to be Maya’s first grade teacher!

For those unfamiliar, this marathon is especially cool and unique because it’s an international one: Leg 1 goes over the bridge into Windsor, Canada, and Leg 2 runs through the tunnel back into the U.S. The race itself is super-organized, and I loved the long-sleeved New Balance (VML client!) tech shirts we got. They were the perfect throw-on after the race.

And though Saturday had been the worst rain storm I’d ever seen, by Sunday morning blue skies were breaking through the clouds. It was HOT for mid-October, and the humidity was insane. The temp probably was 70 but it felt like 90 and I immediately regretted our team T-shirts (cute as they were!). I wanted to take off my shirt to reveal my tank underneath, but my bib was pinned to my shirt and I did not want to waste any time undressing after I got going. More on that later.

Continue reading “I Really Ran a Relay! I Did, I Did!” →

Allow me to shout it from the rooftops that the girl who has had a love/hate/love relationship with running just tackled 10 miles on her own this morning. The run was brought to life by Brooks sneaks, my Strava running app, Pandora’s Zumba station, lulu of course for gear, cold sprinkler systems and the wafting smells of bacon and coffee pushing me down one of Kalamazoo’s busiest streets on a humid, 60 degree morning.

I am only down 7.8 pounds (not only, but only, YKWIM?), but I swear I feel eons stronger and fiercer than two months ago and though nothing is loose yet, I know my body is appreciating all I’m putting into my training.

Continue reading “10 Miles — Who AM I?!” →

In the past year and a half, I’ve rediscovered my Jewish identity. Of course, it was always there — I was born Jewish, had a Bat-Mitzvah, have always celebrated the key holidays and tried to instill our values in our children. But my commitment to my faith has ebbed and flowed over the years.

So I don’t know if it was the fact that Maya was going to be starting Hebrew School or that I began writing on the side for Kveller.com (a parenting site that is Jewish-focused but not exclusively so) but either way, I have come full circle in my appreciation for my religion, my culture, and my people.

I always find it hard to explain to my devout Catholic husband or other non-Jews why it’s perfectly OK that I don’t regularly attend temple but yet I feel deeply Jewish in my bones. This makes sense to me — many Jews are nonpracticing but feel tethered (in the best sense of the word) to our heritage, lineage, customs and traditions.

As such, I wrote a post for Kveller about my favorite Rosh Hashanah tradition, preparing my great-grandma’s brisket recipe for my own little family. Writing it was therapeutic and I want to share it with you today. ❤

I wrote this piece for Kveller.com and it’s being included in a series supported by MJHS Health System and UJA-Federation of New York to raise awareness and facilitate conversations about end of life care in a Jewish context. To learn more about the role of hospice and its value to patients and families click here.

When My Kids Ask, “What Would Happen to Me If You Died.”

I don’t know about you, but the only thing making me smile on social media these days is seeing everyone’s end-of-summer and back-to-school pics. Kids, puppies and va-k pics are beyond welcome right now.

Everything else around me just feels heavy. The political landscape sickens me more and more by the day. Charlottesville and the ugliness it brought to light. Hurricane Harvey’s devastation. Five local teenagers going 100 mph this past weekend killed as they hit a tree, days before they would have begun their next year of high school. The senseless end of #DACA. (As with healthcare, why not try to improve something instead of upending it and leaving everyone in a lurch?!). Continue reading “Calming the Anxious Mind” →

I’ve shared my love of the singer P!nk here on numerous occasions – she’s a bad-ass mom who keeps it real, she’s an amazing singer, and she is a body image role model.  Today, I am singing her praises once again over on Kveller for an entirely different reason — her words in the aftermath of Charlottesville. Take a peek here.

Every time I try to put into words how angry, sad, and heartbroken I feel about what happened in Charlottesville this weekend, I find myself in tears. How, in 2017, is it OK for neo-Nazis, white supremacists and KKK members to take to the streets of a Virginia city to spew hate and injure and kill people in the name of “free speech”? These bigots aren’t cloaked behind white sheets anymore — their hate was on full display in street clothes. But ordinary Americans, they are not. David Duke and his ilk are a disgrace and a stain on mankind.

Continue reading “Staring Hate in the Eye” →

Some readers may know this, but I’ve been freelancing at Kveller.com — a parenting blog with a Jewish spin (though it’s not “Jewy” and anyone can read it) for over a year now.

I’ve loved writing there — it’s given me a much bigger platform by which to express my thoughts on parenting, body image, politics, love and loss, interfaith families, etc.

I don’t necessarily share out every single published post on my social channels, so here’s a link to my published posts in case something sounds interesting. (Sort by date for the most current topics).

Happy reading!

Like many women out there, I have loved and loathed my body at different times in my life. I’ve hated it when I felt like the biggest girl in the group growing up (everywhere I went, even though I wasn’t actually big then–as I see, looking back at photos). I’ve marveled at it during my two beautiful pregnancies. I’ve been empowered by it when I was able to breastfeed my kids (not exclusively–but still–I couldn’t believe I could do it at all!). I’ve loved it when I was thin and trim and felt like I could dominate the world. But I’ve also loved it when I was heavier and still felt like I could dominate the world. I’ve cared for it intensely by being ridiculously careful about what I ate, to the point of being borderline orthorexic and being obnoxious to everyone around me.  And I’ve abused it by over-exercising to the tune of multiple workouts a day in an effort to stay thin at all costs.

I don’t do any of that anymore. Continue reading “Balancing the Pendulum” →

Sometimes, I start a post and then stop halfway through. Why? It’s usually for two reasons. I either think no one would be interested in what I have to say, or I am taking a controversial position and back away because I worry about what others will think.

Um, yea, that grade-school mentality didn’t exactly disappear into adulthood as I hoped it would! Continue reading “Writing … when it comes naturally” →