My Sparkling Sister

Just because I can...

 

These are my dear friends who live in LA.

Dude, what is the deal with your blue face!?

xoxo love and miss you Adam and Ashira!

More from The Land of Purge

They make everything look neat, tidy, and current.

But do they know of the Whole Phamily? Nope. In the land of nod it's the whole family.  In the land of purge we are the Whole Phamily. 

A few weeks ago I got rid of 10 bags of unnecessary stuff, and yet the stuff keeps coming.  Aside from the fact that we might move later this year, I prefer to keep things minimal. I loathe when things pile up. I learned well from my mom  get rid of stuff you don't use.  I wish I could do better.  I admire friends who really do live minimally.  Less is more is powerful  Extra stuff isn't good for one's feng shui (wow, now that's a blast from the past!)

A tip of the hat to my blog title post

Goodbye to the following:  

I tried teaching Nistar how to make these classic barrettes from my childhood.  Ixnay on that one.

This is a kippah Nistar made at camp. Nice effort.  Stango wore it a few times.  She agreed to get rid of it. 

This is a wallhanging Nistar made for me.  Complete with an original baby picture of me she cut!  No, she didn't ask!  Don't have the heart to throw away yet.

This silly hat was sitting in the boy's kippa box for years.  It is now relegated to its proper spot:  the dress up box.  Which only gets used these days when we have preschoolers over.  

The hat maker is some famous company.   It is from my husband's youth.  Note the old school handwriting inside the hat, identifying my DH as its rightful owner.  As if other kids brought this type of thing to camp.  I guess Stango was long-outside the box.  

This isn't my house but our friend's where we recently visited.  Love this minimal, clutter-free room.  An

inspiration.  

Totally inspired now to finally get rid of my high school and college papers.  Over the years I have been whittling them down but it is finally the time to recycle it all.  Considering I was a poor writer in college, there is zero reason to save that junk.  Maybe I will keep one or two papers.  That is it!  

Boy that's gonna be an awesome feeling! 

Thank you Mrs Hollinger! And belated Happy Hanukkah

The best art teacher ever.  Hands down. My mom saved this for years.  And now I have saved it for years.  And now I put my 2nd or 1st or 3rd grade project in the garbage.  Wait wait. Maybe my children will say, "why don't I have some of mama's original artwork from when she was a kid,"

Nope.  Just asked the 10 year old.  "Yeah mama, put it on your blog. Perfect solution."

We Built This City...

On rock and roll, you hum?  No!  On compost.  Kudos, congrats, kol hakavod to New York City for running a pilot city compost program.

While visiting my sister Reba this week I saw the bins along her street.  Naturally the neighborhood is the perfect place to try it out:  she lives in a part of Brooklyn where you have a lot of organic food pushers.  So glad NYC is moving along with this.

Further to my music reference above, I am happy to report that my end of year visit to Manhattan was wonderful all around.  It was fueled by the music that I love best.  I saw friends and family both at the shows and in the times in between. We went to museums, consumed many a brunch, walked through Central Park with the kinderlach, and hung with the cousins. Levi did well with his mama out two nights in a row and I was grateful to my sister and brother in law for facilitating that.  Sadly I didn't allow my children to watch a movie on New Year's Eve, and that was a break with their tradition.  My children were acting way overtired so I just made them to to bed by 10.   Why I couldn't get it together for them to be sitting at a movie by 8 I don't know why.  Oh right I have a baby.  But what about my Stango help?  Obviously I failed in delegating and giving him some guidance.  Gotta work on that. 

While I would love to wax poetic about how Madison Square Garden is the most festive, fun, youthful, for-kids-of-all-ages-perhaps-15-and-over celebration in all of New York City, I gotta get dressed and make school lunches.

And just because you should see the greatness of what New Year's Eve could look like


 And here's to 30 years of Phish (didn't see it yet as I didn't go to the New Year's show)



If it was the secular New Year that means that Chinese New Year is coming up which means it's time to make Marci's "chinese New Year's cookies!"  I have had the ingredients for a while now.

Oh, so much to do...
And just because

Blues Brothers On New Year's Eve Would be Fun!

So many people were disappointed that Phish didn't cover a whole album, as has been their custom for the past many years, on Halloween this year in Atlantic City.   Well, why not stay broken from tradition and make up for this on New Year's Eve as part of their annual "prank?"

And do a cover of the Blues Brothers soundtrack?




At the gym today I listened to it, and yep, it could totally fly!

Maybe they should do an abridged format.

But I can just picture it:  bring out the Giant Country Horns



Who would cover Aretha, though?





If Clapton and Jeff Beck already covered Shake Your Moneymaker, why can't Phish?





And how about Shake a Tail Feather...the ultimate!



I mean, pulease!  Isn't that just custom-made for Fish?

Phish is My Church, With Some Sweat To Boot!

That's a line I have heard so many times over at shows.
Said mostly by people who don't go to church.
At least regularly.

Not the choice of words I would use, but I like to be provocative.
You actually thought I would say that?

But you could fill in other words, too.

Phish is My Zen.
Phish is My Temple.
Phish is My Services.
Phish is My Child's Pose.
Phish is My Creme Brulee.
Phish is My Monastery.
Phish is My 30 Foot Yacht.
Phish is My Minaret.
Phish is My Delicious Dish.

For those who go or don't go to houses of worship, one thing that those who see Phish repeatedly over the years have in common with prayer services is a set liturgy.  We know the songs, we love the music, we know the words (or don't, and just hum along).  It is a familiar feeling of coming home, a sense of happiness and elevation to a more meaningful level of life that draws us again and again to see this great band.

And for the newbies, the uninitiated among us, that first show can also be a sense of homeyness, comfort, joy.

And this is one of many reasons why I am so grateful for Phish.  I plan to run the Midnight Run (um...Just learned the fee is $65!  Fer realz!?!?  I could get to a show for just a little bit more $!  Alas, I really am looking forward to running in Central Park.  It's been a long time)  next week on New Year's eve (no NYE Phish show for me; but I'll be there for some shows earlier in the NYE run).

I haven't run a 5K in a while.  So at the gym just now I gave it a test run.  I played some Live Bait and I was set.  All I needed was a Wilson, Tweezer and YEM and I got there with minimal pain, and maximum gain.  So happy to listen to my favorite music and do a leisurely 5k on the treadmill.

And if you caught my SNL reference above, check out Mr. Alec Baldwin.  'Tis the season, after all.





I imagine that link won't last long. Lorne, I hear ya on protecting your Intellectual Property, but can you give this mama a break?

My Husband Finally Watched Netflix!

There is limited time to devote to a show or movie, but I enjoy kicking back and watching something good.  Lately, it is "Freaks and Geeks."  How embarrased would I be if I met Judd Apatow and Paul Feig, the creators of that show, and was like, um yeah 14 years later I am watching your show and it's totally rad; you guys are da bomb; I wanna be from Lake Winnipesaukee and tell you that you're wicked cool.  Good thing I have no meeting set in the near future at my local Coffee Bean to chat with Judd. 

 My husband is more selective. He rarely watches anything. He misses the good old Eddie Murphy comedies, he says. Most evenings he is at the computer reading a research article on the brain.  I guess I have it ok.  Better that then action movies or ball games.  Stango loves his work in the field of Neurology and doesn't stop learning after-hours.

So you might imagine my excitement when I saw the Netflix screen opened to something new!  Here's what I saw:

Seriously?  A brain talk?

I hope my husband enjoyed what he saw, and I hope it not only contributed towards his bettering the world but also, ultimately, our bank account!

Don't Pretzel My Buttons

And don't think I'm so clever, either: it's the name of the OPI nail polish I just got.  Kudos to the witty nail polish color writers.  Takes on a whole new definition of Hallmark card writer.  It was Concealed Light, Levi and I at the nail salon.

CL was such a great helper with the baby and reminded me of Miriam in this week's Torah portion, Exodus (Shnmot in Hebrew) who was a midwife and helped out her own mother as well.  Okay okay my daughter isn't quite catching babies as they exit the womb, but she did hold my baby while I was getting the mani.  

Coco, the ever chic Korean proprietor of my nail salon, questioned if it was ok that my 10 year old was holding him.  Clearly she didn't know that Jewish girls (and boys in my home) are employed at a young age to assist in childcare!  Let me give credit where credit is due and say that Coco was also an awesome helper.  She held Levi while I was getting my pedi and Concealed Light was getting her manicure.

Ultimately it was because of Miriam's prophecy that she and her mother Yocheved cared for, in secret, the Jewish baby boys, and saved the entire Jewish people.

Go girl power right from the start.

Like the color?

What's a Whole Phamily blog post without some music.  So, enjoy Bob Marley's Exodus," have a great Shabbes and enjoy your manicure if you got one this week!

Bottega Veneta can be Hippy Chic

Or, in Case You Thought I Was a Card-Carrying Hippy Chick...

My mother has good taste.  She told me about Bottega Veneta when I was a young girl, and when their store opened in our mall she told me that it was a fine place to shop for handbags.  I am so grateful to my mother for planting the seeds of the finest of taste.

Only recently have I learned about the company's history and the workmanship that goes into each piece.  That's what you get for reading The New Yorker.  No, I can't post a link to the great article, as Conde Nast is highly protective of their Intellectual Property.  Ya know what, good for them!

Bottega's classic butter-soft leather woven bags have a distinctive look which has been copied many times over.  You know the look, but you just don't know that it's Bottega.  These bags are the ultimate understated elegance.  One need simply only to say Bottega and nothing else.  No flashy labels, no flashy logos, no flashy nothing.  Their artisans, working out of a small town in Italy, are trained and apprenticed to hand-craft their bags.

Indeed, their company motto is "When your own initials are enough."

I don't want a Kelly bag.
I don't want a classic quilted Chanel bag.
Louis Vuitton totes?  So passe!
One day I would love a big ole Bottega.

Advertisement from back of  a recent New York Magazine 

 I was blown away to see the above ad.  Just as my 5th grade teacher taught me, if the ad is on the back of the magazine you know it's important.  Check out how they are making home furnishings now.  And look at that pillow.  I'd take just the pillow alone!

Last spring I had the opportunity to visit their Manhattan store on 5th Avenue.  What a lovely ambience.  Some older women were in there buying Bottega luggage.  As if!

Take a guess as to who now owns the Bottega company?

Gucci.

How Bout Dem Apples?

Earlier this fall I went into Ezra's class to do a taste test of various types of apples with the first graders.  I brought in Granny Smith, Honeycrisp, Gala, Fuji and Braeburn (note my executive decision to capitalize the Names of the Apples).  I got the idea because in a conversation with Ezra, the Wolfman's Brother, I realized he didn't know that there were different kinds of apples.  Plus I wanted to find a reason to do something in his class.  It's good when your mama comes into your class to do something.  In 1982 or so my friend Rachel's mother came in to my 3rd grade class to make something called moon bars.  It coincided with a Space Shuttle launch.  They were yummy and chocolatey.  And then my classmate Marlene's mother came and made what was called ambrosia.  It coincided with nothing.  It was coconutty with oranges and marshmallows.  It was gross.

Surprisingly the kids chose Granny Smith as their overall favorite. I thought it would be Honeycrisp.  A little boy named David, one of Ezra's friends with a huge head of black curly hair, was wearing green that day.  He kept wanting more Granny Smith.  He was even wearing a green kipa.  It was so funny!  Coincidence or not?  Who knows.

  And now I can declutter by posting a photo of the lovely thank you note from the class.  I especially love how Nate, a soft spoken boy with light brown curly hair, signed his name.  First grade is so sweet and Ezra is fortunate to have Mrs. Laytin as his teacher.