Years ago, or what feels like a lifetime ago, I started a blog and I loved it.  It served as a creative outlet; as someone who was Journalism major in college but took a different turn into education, it was a way to keep my love of writing alive.

Next was marriage, followed by children.  Work kept going. Suddenly my summers off were no longer off, and even when I switched over to contractual work and had some control over my work schedule, the idea of going back to the blog was often buried under other things. Things like more kids, pumping, interrupted nights, more pumping (as in with a breast pump, not iron), managing aforementioned kids’ schedules as apparently as they grow up they become busy too, a skincare business, changes at work, deciding to have a third kid, living in NYC … the list could go on but I know I only have a little space to grab and keep your attention and by now, you get it.

The blog’s candle never quite went out.  It was like when the wick is nearly out but there’s that little tip of orange and you remind yourself you should not lick the bottom of the candle, despite being covered in delicious chocolate icing, because it’s still burning. I’d have ideas here and there, I’d even write down on my plan for the day  - Pick back up with blogging – and then it would be buried.  Or I’d talk myself out of it.  At one point vlogging became all the rage and I questioned if there continued to be space for a written blog.  My internal critic can be pretty convincing when she wants to be. 

Lucky for me the blog candle was a trick one, refusing to go out despite my many attempts to hide the light. My last entry on this blog was in December 2019, a few months before so much of what I knew came crashing down in the pandemic. One thing I’ve learned is that you can’t rely on a social media platform to become your creative home. My writing over the last couple of years has been in the form of social media posts, which I’ve transferred over here. My hope is to continue to write as the candle continues to burn, and to do so in a place not driven by algorithms.

So here I am.

If you’re new to me, here’s a little background for you.  I’m a 43-year-old woman living in Morningside Heights (a little known neighborhood in NYC, north of the Upper West Side and south of Harlem) with my husband.  Together we’ve grown our family to include three kids, all of whom weighed 9 pounds or more at birth (the third clocked in at 9 pounds, 12 ounces and you can imagine the physical repercussions of bringing that watermelon into this world). 

I lean towards sarcasm, my favorite food is a tie between bacon and Peanut M&Ms and I drink Cold Brew Coffee year round (yes, even in January).   I have no idea what the trendy restaurants or clubs are in the city but if you want the best cookie (Spoiler alert – it’s Levain Bakery’s Chocolate Chip Walnut and yes that should be capitalized because it is that amazing) or to know of a good playground in Riverside Park, I’ve got you.  My reading leans toward personal development, my viewing is more listening to podcasts instead of TV shows unless I’m sick and then I discover magic like Ted Lasso.

My family has recently made the transition from having a full time, or mostly full-time sitter to know needing a babysitter a few afternoons a week. That transition has been a difficult one for my girls, the repercussions acting like a rip current rather than a tidal wave.  My parents are superheroes and the kindest, most selfless people I know. For many years we interrupted their nights when they would take a scenic drive up 95 and then roll along the Turnpike to help us out twice a month. My in-laws fly in to take on our insanity as well, and we are incredibly fortunate to have neighbors who politely lie to us and tell us they can’t hear anything or if they do, it doesn’t bother them.

If you stick around, you’ll learn more about our NYC life, the chaos of parenthood, my own struggles and victories and maybe, just maybe, be able to name all the Levain Bakery locations in the city (and yes, there’s one in the Hamptons but we’re more Ocean City, MD people than we are Hamptons so I can’t speak to that one).