Shout out to all you fabulous moms out there!! Hope your Mothers Day is filled with love and happiness --- if you're spending it with a luxurious sleep-in and a complimentary breakfast in bed, or bike riding the shoreline boardwalk alongside your beautiful brood --- I hope it's just lovely! Enjoy the honorary day, it comes around but once a year... take advantage, ladies! : )
Apparently Bugaboo thinks they have the same consumers as Apple (they are probably right). Their newest stroller accessory is an iPhone holder for your handlebar! Talk about distraction - Apple wants to offer us moms-on-go a way to text and browse while steering our brood around town. The holder turns your phone into a mini computer screen, freeing up our hand, enabling us to text without holding the phone (or the stroller?!). Alright, I'll drop the sarcasm - I guess it is pretty awesome for listening to music on a Strollercize. (But wouldn't that be called an iPod holder....?)
Either way, the new accessory is available here.
And because I feel it's important (and somewhat connected)... for those of you who are not Oprah affluent - please, please, please check out the "distracted driving" (i.e texting while driving) tragedy statistics here.
I wrote this when I was 19, on a birthright trip through Israel... felt like the land was restored but the people still wandering:
A bag is planted upon his shoulders, torn sandals grace his blistered feet. he walks the desert, sun scorching his wounds, his pulse in rhythm – a pitiful beat.
His memory bleeds of peaceful times, His mind is warped and tired, And all the wandering starts to drown The faith that once inspired.
It’s been too long since palace days, His senses mucked and tampered, The textures of that sacred home, The scents that filled that tabern…
And now that night seems far away, His daughters – raped, and lost and gone, His house was trampled, and lit aflame, He fled into the crack of dawn.
He walks the earth - the sand, the stars; All witness to the scenes, A tapestry of golden threads, Was ripped out at the seams
His sons – they fought with hearts on fire, Too zealous for their own good, They beat their drums against the code, And die – he knew they would.
His hands reach out to touch the sun, his eyes too blank to wander, through desert, and from town to town each man he meets he squanders
The sands of time, blow by and by, In sunshine and in sorrow, Kingdoms come and go and come, He still awaits tomorrow
His princes thrown into the deep, Their ashes burned of crimson ribbon, His clothing soaked in years of pain, Bloodstains now drench the sacred linen.
He comes, once more, to one more village, He begs to stay the night, the week, He swears in the name of his Holy father, To live again, for peace to seek…
He works his hands, and sweats his brow, He sews their worthless lot of land, His culture pays, his intellect shows - Oasis from their spot of sand
And while his mind still feels the blows The searing of the flesh – it stings, Visions of his burning home, Memories of faithful kings
And martyrdom of many ways, And zealots who established wrecks, And those who forged the tumbling crown, Now lay in dust – in retrospect
He doesn’t stop, he walks; he runs, He pays his fees, more than his fare, His hands are wrinkled, cracked and pained, The spinning wheel turns on from here
Yet visions of the future still too far from thimbled thumb to touch, with nothing but a stitch in time, self-righteousness if nothing much
And yet he works, he lives, he thrives… For in his mind a future bright, With history far behind him now, Yet, tyrants not quite out of sight.
And, still he knows the time will come, His wandering will reach it’s end, The past will then be turned to play, The promise just around the bend
He believes, yes he believes, His father told him long ago – This family’s name will bear the shame, Of sinners purposely gone below
And with that shame, they bare the name, Of fathers, sons, and heroines The wandering will come to close, The end of time will zero in…
A promise not yet lost beneath, The curtains layering the pain, Alive inside – a fire bright! Redemption of his fathers fame
And so he works, he knows it still, On the promise he’ll depend He sweats his soul, and reaps no gain, Not gain until the very end……
No gain that he can see or touch, No end of exile – horizon clear, Yet, he moves on, his body slow, Just one more step, just one more blow…
Just one more day, one more night, One more action, one more light, One more memory, of just more pain, A wandering old man – gone insane.
A chosen people – lost in vain.
When we were little there weren't many dollhouses on the market, options ranged from Little Tyke to Fisher Price (which I adored, for the record). I have a special memory (circa, 1989) of my father sitting outside on the back patio applying glue to tiny little shingles for the roof of a beautiful wooden dollhouse he built for my older sister. I don't have many memories of my older sister using it, but I do remember making a trip years later with my mother and grandmother to a downtown store that specialized in "minatures" to fully furnish the dollhouse for my younger sister (somehow in all my tomboy-ish-ness, it skipped me). They carpeted the living room, tiled the kitchen and bathrooms, hung framed art on the walls etc. I even remember a tray of spoon-dropped cookie dough that resided on the kitchen table! While in Chicago last week, I sought to recover the wooden masterpiece with intentions of shipping it to California for little Freida to have some future dollhouse fun. Amazingly, other than a few missing shingles, and a broken banister (couldn't find much of the furniture) - the thing is in great condition (shout out to my folks)! Being that the interior is seriously dated and it would need furnishing, I browsed some dollhouse shopping for the first time and discovered a teeny tiny world filled with hip architecture and awesome interior decor! Happened upon these adorable photos from the New York Times Home & Garden, featured in a slideshow called Modernist Dollhouses. I mean, seriously - look at that 4 inch Eames lounge chair and that tiny Expedit bookcase!!
I also came across this Emerson dollhouse and living room by, Brinca Dada.
I must admit, it does feel a bit weird to be drawing design inspiration from something that can house a family of inchworms, but the bottom line is that apparently this century's dollhouse options are endless!!
Been dealing with a death in the family... my husband's grandfather was recently diagnosed with a terminal illness and passed away over Pesach (we flew back immediately to make it for the funeral). When we went to visit him before leaving town, I had a really hard time processing the "goodbye" stage, and after a few sleepless nights I picked up a copy of Tuesdays with Morrie. I'm sure many (or most) of you have read this book at some point (for a high school english class perhaps?), but it was very different reading it when it was actually pertinent. The book explores the Life and Death phenomenon so deeply and honestly that you can't help but come to terms with death. Peaceful terms. It lends a new meaning to everyday life and inspires the reader to breathe each breath with a clearer understanding of purpose. As I consumed the wisdom through those chapters, I couldn't help but feel that this is precisely the sort of advice and guidance his grandfather would've wished to part us with - the intense wisdom that comes only through life and age... We'll miss you Gramps.
