This is Iraq

Yes, ladies and gentlemen, this is Iraq - or more accurately, my husband in Iraq. This picture was taken at Abraham's Oasis, it's on the base he was stationed at, Al Asad. This is supposed to be where Abraham camped and received the promise that G-d would make him a great nation. Danny is wearing one of his favorite shirts featuring one of his favorite treats - peeps.
The shirt says "chillin' with my peeps" - which appears incorrect here - well there are a couple peeps chillin' behind the camera. Not sure who but this expedition was headed by the Jewish chaplin. So there you have it, peeps, in a war zone....and thusly I have piggybacked onto someone else's blog war.....

Unharvested Broccoli

Now you are probably wondering "what IS her blog about?" I'm wondering the same thing. I haven't really decided where to go with it and in the interim I've decided to at least pick out a photo a day and just write something. So here's today's shot. My broccoli. We left a lot of things behind when we moved from Virginia - friends we'd had for 10+ years, the neighborhood my son and daughter grew up in, furniture (3 rooms of it and we still needed 2 trucks - yes, this has been a massive de-cluttering expedition) and almost every day I wonder "where is...." only to realize it's among the left-behind. And this morning I add my unharvested broccoli crop to the list. It's not much of a crop, you're looking at the whole thing. But hey, I finally managed to coax my little broccoli from the ground and there it sits in frosty uneaten glory. I hope someone has steamed and savored it by now. Farewell little vegetable.

Marsh

Yeshi and I went on a bike ride around the neighborhood. I discovered a bridge to a little island just a couple blocks from our house. Unfortunately this will be a gated community so we'll just have to enjoy it in its formative stages. So today's post is primarily a look into the wetlands in my backyard... The view from the bridge

Sometimes I feel the need to pinch myself - I look around and say, wow, I live here.

Yeshi thinks it's cold...













I did not break the palm branch, it was like that...

Here are my babies - Atalya, Yeshi and little ROS still in the works. Yeshi has a broken left arm from falling off a scooter (some jumping was involved..) that was ER visit #3 of 6 this past year. This one was significant because it was the day after I had taken him to ER for visit #2 - sprained neck. Now THAT one was rough, some kid put him in a choke hold at a grappling tournament in Richmond, he felt his neck pop, got dizzy and then his neck went numb. Great - got to go to the hospital in the ambulance on the backboard in a neckbrace. And to make it even more fun, Dad was in Iraq at the time. Fortunately it turned out to be just a sprained neck. Hence the subsequent injury to the arm because he's a "get back on the horse" kind of guy. And there's Atalya, sitting there looking all maternal and uninjured. Nice. What can I say? Hashem is watching over my babies and I'm pretty relieved about that. I'll have to write another post on ER boy and my daughter the Uber-mommy.....

My view

Ah, this isn't what you thought it might be is it? Nothing profound here, just the view from the study at my house.

Heimlich Himmel

Baruch Hashem Adonai! (Blessed be the name of the L-rd) So yesterday my angel Yeshi had just finished his morning Quesadilla slathered in hot sauce (ok, maybe not the best breakfast but it must be better than anything out of a box and I'm certain the hot sauce he consumes in large quantities will prevent cancer) and all of a sudden he starts banging on the sink - he's choking and trying to get my attention. After a few whacks on the back and several forceful heimlich manuevers (ever try that on someone bigger than you with rock-hard abs?) I got him breathing again - jeez. That wasn't fun, I'm 4 miles from anything and have no car during the day. So now I've had to use that on both my kids - Atalya had a potato chip stuck when she was 4, that was a lot easier than yesterday's episode. So - 0 and 2 Mr. Death.

Atalya

I thought I'd put a random picture up here. This is my daughter Atalya when we were in NYC last April. She's 5 months pregnant with our little Ray of Sunshine. ROS was born on Aug. 9 and weighed in at TEN pounds! I have 2 other grandchildren from my stepdaughter Dusti - Izabella and Jacob. All three grandkids are (of course) the cutest babies you ever saw - I love being a Bubbe!

more rain

After raining pretty much all weekend it's sunny today - but cold. Supposed to be in the 20's tonight which is super cold when you have palm trees growing across the street. This is a nice view of the marsh from a dock that is about a block from our house. Yeshi likes to walk down here in the evenings and watch the sunset. This is him trying to duck my camera - but there is no escape!

Palms

Ah, the ubiquitous palm tree. So much of this area is similar to Virginia Beach but with LOTS of palm trees added in. And like a goofy northerner I can't stop looking at them and thinking - gee, another palm tree! Having lived the better part of my life in the north the first time I remember seeing a palm tree was in boot camp in Orlando, Florida (although I know there must have been some in California - but I was too little when we lived there to remember that). Marching around trying to look at them and yet NOT look like I'm looking at them. So I've always been kind of fascinated by them and it feels pretty exotic to be living in a place where they just grow by themselves. We moved here on December 28th (our 23rd anniversary and my 47th birthday) and I drove down here first to get the keys to the house, arriving around 6:30pm in our neighborhood. It was dark but many of the houses had their Christmas lights on and the temp was in the low 70's. I could hear people talking and laughing out on their porches. Pretty neat - two houses down from us they had a snow family made of lights with two lighted palm trees arching over them. Our house is pretty new, built within the last 5 years, and most of the neighborhood is about the same. We are at the very end of a new development with a small municpal airport behind us and marshland all around. Very pretty and QUIET. Our son Yeshi has the best view - he can see the marsh and airfield out his bedroom window. Sunsets are really pretty and Danny caught a nice picture of sunrise out our front door when he was leaving for work one day.

Rain

Another day of pouring rain. So we did some shopping and are just finishing up a few things around the house until dinner. We're going to try another Mexican place. It's not really home until we find the right Mexican restaurant.

The downstairs is almost together - at least we have the living room/kitchen looking pretty good.

Looks pretty homey but it really needs some color. The entire house is painted flat white. Really, I'm not kidding, FLAT WHITE. Even the bathrooms! Yeesh, try to get a fingerprint off THAT.