My Jenn-eration

Friends, we’re up on The Washington Post tonight. Let me just pause and say that again because I really can’t believe it myself. My Jenn-eration is up on The Washington Post! I am filled with gratitude this evening for the opportunity to share our story about the power of broken roads with their audience. You can read more here .

The other day I went for one of those really great walks. It wasn’t one with purpose or the sweaty, blood pumping to the heart kind of walks. It was just one of those rolling about the neighborhood with the iPod in my ears and my mind on shuffle. As I walked, one of my favorite songs came on: Rascal Flatts “Bless the Broken Road.” I’m not usually a country person but this song just breaks me open in all the best possible ways every time I hear it. Ruby calls it the sad song because the piano intro sounds slightly melancholy to four year old, relatively happy go-lucky untarnished ears. But I always explain that in fact it is a beautiful, if not joyous song about finding and treasuring love because it was earned on a hard path. I was walking a pretty hard path when I arrived in New York City on September 8, 2001. My parents dropped me off at an illegal sublet with approximately six weeks’ worth of my own savings to live on and no job. If I didn’t find one before the cash ran out, I ha...

You know all those glossy Instagram photos that show up all over your twitter and Facebook feeds and you find yourself secretly feeling a little bit bad about yourself or your house or your body or your kids or what you are feeding your kids or whatever?   This is for you.   You’re welcome. (ps – this doesn’t even bother me! Because I am looking at this horrific picture of my kitchen at 6:30pm on a Tuesday with what Glennon Melton at Momastery calls perspectacles . Who cares about the mountain of filth in my kitchen? Check out that awesome baby eating dirt off my floor?! Have a great Wednesday people. Feel grateful J )

Hi Friends. We're up on Kveller this evening discussing Dylan's bris, and our intention to create a very different ritual for naming the girls that better suited us spiritually. Read more HERE .

It all started a few weeks ago. Creatively, I was struggling. I felt my writing slipping; the quality, the motivation. Every time I would log on to Facebook, so much of my newsfeed would be a dialogue about who was published where, when their next post, next book, next big thing was coming. I was starting to feel crushed by the weight of other people’s next big things. I blamed Facebook for my not having big things lined up and for feeling angst toward people who did have big things lined up. So I decided to take a Facebook-acation. The thing about giving up Facebook is that it is both freeing and frustrating. It is way more challenging than it should be. When I went off the site, I wasn’t exactly sure how long it would be for though I was almost certain it wouldn’t be terribly protracted and that I would be back. In general, I don’t believe in cutting stuff completely out of my life. I was never a big fan of no meat, no dairy, no TV, no anything. I fancy myself more of a moderation...

My egg cracks and bubbles in the pan. I’m the last one to eat breakfast. I pour too much water in the mini Keurig and it overflows, again. I look at the puddles on the counter and turn it on. The coffee it promises seems like a greater priority than the spill. I hear the baby crying, fighting her morning nap. I struggle with whether to go to her or flip the egg. I think I can do both. I run upstairs to quickly give her a binky and soothe her, back down to flip the egg. Acoustic sunrise is on the radio and even though I can barely here it over the bubbling egg and the whirring coffee machine and the crying baby, I keep it on because I know there is a small part of me somewhere in there that likes it, and should honor that. Ruby is watching the Mickey Mouse Club. She is answering all of Mickey’s questions. Dylan is reading the second installment of Harry Potter. These are the sounds of our Sunday morning. For some reason I want to write that down, record them. I want to remember what ...

I believe in many things. Most importantly, I believe that faith and organized religion are two entirely different things.   I want my children to have faith in themselves and in a guiding set of principles and beliefs that generally speaking encourages them to almost always choose what is right even when that is the harder choice. I want them to find peace in the knowledge that there is someone or thing in this world that is greater than themselves. I hope that they will find this in Judaism. But more than that, I just want them to find that space. My youngest baby, Hope, is fast approaching 7 months old. Though we are not currently members of any synagogue, our lack of shul membership doesn’t necessarily translate into a lack of faith. My husband and I are Jewish and we want to raise our children Jewish. One of their first introductions to this faith is the ceremony where we give them their Hebrew name. Though I expect we should’ve done this months ago when she was newly minte...