Wednesday, August 8, 2012

Introduction and First Thoughts

Ok, so here we go.  Right now, no one can read this, so it is sorta silly to me a way to do this.  Anyway...


So who I am?  Why yet another blog?  It seems like everyone and their dog has one.  The truth is, I actually was blogging before "blog" was even a word.  I will get to that in a minute.  My name is Leah, and I am an Orthodox Jew.  I  have ka'h 7 kids (6 living, another thing I will get to), and a very interesting life.  In 1997, my oldest son Yossi (a'h) was diagnosed with leukemia, ALL.   Life was very hectic and it was extremely hard to spend time in the hospital and then come home and have to call a million people.  Everyone wanted updates.  The phone was crazy and I was going nuts.  I finally decided to use our free geocities site to keep people informed on how Yossi was doing.  In October, we started keeping a log of our cancer journey.  After Yossi died, my husband and I used the site as a way to express our feelings.  We kept writing until 5 years after his death.  A few years ago, geocities shut down the free part of their site.  A friend of mine is hosting his site.  You can read the full story here.  I will include it in a permanent link on the side of this blog.

So that is one aspect of my life.  I am a bereaved parent.  As I mentioned before, I am also an Orthodox Jew.  I was raised as reform Jew as a child.  In my early teenage years, I became connected with Chabad Lubavitch.  It is a branch of Orthodox Judaism that is chassidic.  My brother was also very involved, and the two of us turned our lives from upside down to right side up.  We started keeping the mitzvos of the Torah, and my mother reluctantly (ie- kicking and screaming) followed along.  Shabbos, check.  Kosher, check.  Jewish school, check.  Tzinus, check.  Nothing was too crazy or far out for us.  When I graduated from high school, I was supposed to go to Crown Heights, NY, for seminary.  My brother was already learning there for the past year in his high school.  Since my parents are divorced (since the time I was two), my mom felt that it was silly for her to stay in CA, thus paying rent in three locations.  So we packed up everything and moved to Crown Heights, Lubavitch capitol of the world.

Life in Crown Heights was great!  Everyone asks me if it was a culture shock to move to NY.  No way!!!  I loved it!  I was surrounded by people who thought like me, dressed like me, and believed like me.  There was the Lubavitcher Rebbe.  Farbrengins.  Kos Shel Bracha.  Yom tovim.  And of course, the shopping.  Yes, even back then I was a confirmed shop-a-holic.  Back in the days when Loehmans was a novelty.  (Remembering the first time you had to try on something in the shared dressing room???)  It was in NY that I cemented my beliefs.  It was there that I got my first and also my second teaching job.  I met my husband, and we had our first child there.  However, once Yossi was born, we felt that life in NY was not the same as when we grew up.  Brooklyn is great and it is a lot of fun, but we were missing the trees and grass.  We missed the small town that we both grew up in.

My husband and I are both very spontaneous type of people.  After being unable to decide where to live, we finally called my in-laws for help.  My father in law helped us pack up our small apartment.  One month before Yossi's first birthday, it was "Good bye NY, hello to the South".  Wanna talk about culture shock?  The Orthodox community here was TINY.  We moved into my in laws apartment.  Yeah, two families living in a two bedroom apartment with one bathroom.  My in laws are truly tzaddikim, if you ask me.  After a few months we got on our feet, got our own apartment and settled in.  Mind you, this was just a temporary move.  We never considered it to be our permanent location.  It was just until we decided where we wanted to live.

Along came our daughter.  Soon, we were caught up in the American Dream.  We wanted to own a house.  We tried to move near the Lubavitch community, but the house were out of our reach.  We moved to "the other side of town".  Lovely Jewish community.  There were kids galore.  Lots of other frum neighbors.  After we moved into our house, we had a son, and then a daughter.  Life seemed great, huh?  I was teaching a half day at the local day school just a few blocks from my house.  Preschool for the kids was just a two mile run from my house.  My husband's job was/is just five minutes away.  Literally, I rarely ventured more than six miles away from home. I also taught at a Conservative Hebrew school three times a week.  (Those Sunday mornings were KILLERS to me.)  I also ran a rapidly growing cake decorating business.  (In fact, delivering those cakes were the only times I went outside of my little radius.)

It was right around then that Yossi got sick.  Not going into the details.  He was diagnosed, and had a bone marrow transplant within four months.  He was inpatient, and then he was released.  For safety concerns, he went to live with my in laws.  (Our fantastic bone marrow doctor wanted him to avoid germs.)  See, didn't I tell you that my in laws are tzaddikim?  My mother in law worked, and when she came home, she showered off those germs.  She or my father in law graciously scrubbed his bathroom each and every day.  The did everything for him, and never once complained.  I mean, here it was years and years since they had had a child living at home, but they showed us through example that you just do what you have to do.  Our fifth child was born during this crazy time.  (G-d has a great sense of humor, if you ask me.)  Everyone was thrilled when Yossi was finally allowed to come home.  At two years post transplant, we were told he was cured.  To quote a (frum) doctor from St. Judes, he told me, "Go throw a party.  Paint your finger and toes."  Basically, don't worry, cancer is behind us.  I remember going to a Chai Lifeline retreat, and thinking we didn't fit in.  We were past cancer.

Bahaha, man plans and G-d laughs.  Two years and nine months post transplant, Yossi relapsed.  No one could understand it.  Once again, he didn't respond to treatment and we headed off to MN for a second transplant.  Sadly, Yossi died there from a fungus infection.

That begins what I consider the second part of my life.  I think that before Yossi died, I was a girl.  I never referred to myself or my friends as women.  We were still girls.  Losing Yossi made me grow up.  I turned very inward, and began a journey of WHY.  Not why he died, but why did WE, those left behind, have to suffer.  Two more girls rounded out family.

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One day, while in Old Navy, I saw a simple skirt.  They wanted twenty bucks for it.  It was just a waste band and a  hem.  Straight skirt.  I figured, "Hey, I can make this for a lot less."  Famous last words, huh?  I picked up a sewing machine at Costco, and bought two books on how to sew.  Armed with a pattern and some fabric, I started sewing.  I won't bore non-sewers with the details, but suffice it to say, this unleashed a new creative beast.    I sold all my cake decorating supplies.  I bought a serger.  I joined an online sewing group, NMSL. I got a small embroidery machine.  Sewing, embroidery, quilting. You name it, I love it

Next up, a camera.  I got really good at sewing, and at one point, I was selling outfits on Ebay.  Custom Boutique outfits.  I had a gorgeous model, and great outfits.  I had a horrible camera.  I needed a better camera.  I thought and breathed about a new camera.  I wanted a DSLR camera.  One that would take gorgeous stunning pictures.  A surprise gift from my dad one day, and Nikon's new beginner DSLR priced for people as a starter camera, and I was in love.  The Nikon D40 was great!  Now I had yet another new hobby to add to my lists of interests.  An SLR is way different than a point and shoot camera.  There is a lot to learn, and I was determined to do it.  (BTW, I still haven't mastered my camera at all.  I would love, love, love to take a photography class.)

This brings me up to the 2008 election.  I was studying the issues.  I happened to some information on gun control.  You have to understand this -- I was raised by two very liberal Democrat Jews.  I was told from a young age, "Jews always vote Democrat".  Not being one to just do what I am told, I always think things through.  Ronald Reagan was my first presidential election.  I used to call myself a Republican.  My mom, dad, in-laws, all Democrats.  I was also taught, guns are bad.  Guns kill people.  I raised the kids with no guns in the house, just like I was brought up.  Yossi's first day at preschool, and what did he learn?  If you take a big lego and put it on a small lego it makes a small gun.  Yeah, right.  No Yossi, you can't do that in my house.  My in laws asked me so many times if they can get the kids gun.  No way.  Not happening.  Guns are bad.  But there was one line that stood out as not making any sense.  It basically said something to the affect that, if you take legal guns from honest citizens, it will prevent illegal guns from reaching the hands of criminals. What????  This didn't make any sense to me at all. I started doing research, and everything I was taught about guns turns out to be a load of rubbish.  Which brings me to yet another hobby that I acquired ... shooting!  Yup, who would have ever thought, huh?  It's pretty funny.  I am the girl who got hit on the head with a fake rifle when I was a kid.  I remember someone busting the rifle in half, and tossing it in the garbage.  Yup, guns are dangerous, cuz they kill people.  One of the biggest lies the gun control people keep saying.  When gun sales go up, crime goes down.
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Last summer, I finally got motivated to exercise.  I dropped the extra that I have been carrying around since I was a teenager.  I started making healthier choices.  More vegetables.  I started learning about our food, and what goes into it.  Which brings me up to today.  Who am I?  I am a woman who has very strong religious feelings.  I love Lubavitch chassidus.  I thrive on learning and growing.  I love being Jewish.  I love Israel with all my heart and soul, even though I have never been there.  It is my life dream to go there.  I love family. 

I always wanted to have a big family, and feel very blessed with the family I have.  I have very strong opinions about things, and I have a very big mouth.  I am not afraid to use my mouth either.  I am a fiscal conservative who is frustrated at the way the country is going today.  I worry about my kids.  I am scared that socialism will rise, and my kids will left living in poverty.  I worry about the taxes they will be forced to pay for the mistakes the government is making today.  I am very, very worried about their bodies and the poison that is going into food.  No one knows for sure what all this stuff does long term to human bodies.  I want to be here to enjoy IY"H grand kids and great-grand kids.  I am terrified that chas v'shalom there should ever be another Holocaust, and I refuse to be a victim.  I love the Constitution and feel that this country is a great place.  (But it isn't home.  Sorry, only Israel holds that place in my heart.)  I love reading.  I love fabric.  The feel of it, the way it drapes, or the way it looks.  I love taking some ideas and making them into something.  Whether it is a dress or quilt or even perfecting a recipe.  I am very, very curious about people.  I want to understand WHY a person thinks the way they do.  I enjoy good discussions.  I love when friends can have different opinions, and we can talk about them.  I don't need to agree with them, or even change their mind.  As long as they respect me and MY ideas, and don't try to change me or who I am.  I love, love, love baking.  I enjoy cooking and playing with recipes.  I love trying new things.  I am very spontaneous, but I am also cautious.  (You will never find me bungee jumping or sailing the ocean in a tiny boat.)  I am who I am and this is me.

And if you made it this far, you deserve a medal because this is a LOT!

MUAH!  xxoo,
Leah