I talk about the pandemic a lot, but the pandemic is a lot. Even without becoming sick ourselves, every aspect of our lives over these past two years has been impacted by it. It drastically changed my job, and access to our family, all of whom live on the east coast. We bought our townhouse […]
Archive for the ‘family’ Category
Hanukkah 2021
December 6th, 2021 by pleia2
Another Hanukkah with us fully in California. So many years had us splitting Hanukkah between San Francisco and Philadelphia, so it’s still a little unusual for us to spend it all here, with no plans to head back east. On the bright side, my father-in-law and his wife are coming to visit this week, so […]
Another Thanksgiving in California
November 29th, 2021 by pleia2
For Thanksgiving in 2020, we did our first California Thanksgiving in several years, and prior to that we did the child-free thing of just going out to fancy restaurants on Thanksgiving. But when we got the townhouse back east, we started to celebrate in Philadelphia with our extended family. The pandemic made for quite the […]
Trains, baby sleep, the zoo, and holiday planning
November 24th, 2021 by pleia2
Several weeks back, Adam and I had a train day. We put on our matching train t-shirts and had a nice stroll around the local BART station. Up and down stairs, and lots of checking out the local buses. From there, we went home and unpacked our Union Pacific O-scale train set. We normally wouldn’t […]
Exclusively Pumping: Round 2
November 14th, 2021 by pleia2
As I began preparing for motherhood three and a half years ago, breastfeeding wasn’t really on my radar. It’s natural, it’s what is best for our child, so I’d do it, close the book. I had no idea how challenging it could be or how emotional I’d be about all of it. I guess I […]
Halloween 2021
November 7th, 2021 by pleia2
Halloween is certainly different when you have kids in your life. And different again during a pandemic! First, there’s decorations. I am not a crafty person and decorating for holidays was never really my thing. But I now have a toddler who loves making art, and holidays are the perfect inspiration. Plus, when I was […]
Autumn harvest, a hammock, and a radio
October 27th, 2021 by pleia2
Last weekend we had one of the biggest rain storms I’ve ever seen here in northern California. Admittedly, the bar is pretty low. Even on “rainy” days the rain tends to be little more than a drizzle, and sporadic at that. This storm brought winds and about three inches of rain, which meant we spent […]
My 40th Birthday
October 10th, 2021 by pleia2
I turned 40 last month. I’ve never been super bothered by getting older, and have found that in general, I’ve enjoyed life more as time has gone on. Still, it is a mid-life milestone, and I had few things pegged to it. I wanted to be done having children by the time I was 40 […]
Seasonal smoke, high holidays, and getting back outside
September 18th, 2021 by pleia2
We were having a delightful summer. Back yard tidied up enough to play outside. Regular cadence of farmer’s market on Saturday morning and playground on Sunday morning. Every weekend we’d also look up local garage/yard sales to walk to. Then the smoke started to roll in on August 18th. Our cars and outdoor furnishings quickly […]
On motherhood
August 27th, 2021 by pleia2
Motherhood was not a foregone conclusion for me. People talk a lot about biological clocks and a “natural urge” for adults to become parents, but that never came for me. While I enjoyed spending time with kids (we share a lot of interests!), I’ve never been a “baby person” and I even worried that I’d […]