Mom and some Torah wisdom

I am officially on staff teaching prenatal yoga at Yoga Noho!  I teach Mondays and Saturdays at 10 a.m! The Monday class I am currently subbing for a friend on mat leave but the Saturday class I'm taking over and am so excited about this!  It's my first official class! Gratitude, gratitude, gratitude!

For the last 10 days my mom and aunt Lisa were here visiting in LA.  They just left on Saturday.  We had an awesome time but saying goodbye is always hard. I'm going back to Toronto for the holidays though so I'm comforted in knowing it won't be too long until I see them again.

One thing I've learned is that not every daughter has a great relationship with their mother.  I have to say I always have.  Even when I was a teenager and my mom was chasing me down the street in her housecoat in the middle of the night when I tried to sneak out.  Or anytime we've had yelling matches (my mother likes to use her voice) I've always still loved her so fiercely and been aware of that.  After my husband, she is the first person I speak to when I have a problem.  She is the first person I want to call when I have joyous news to share.  And most of the time I just need to connect with her — through Facetime, in person, on the phone — just because.  I know in my heart that our spirits are connected, that we've been loving each other for way longer than just this life.  And I am so, so grateful.  I am thankful for what she's taught me.  I am thankful for how she's always encouraged me not to give up on my dreams, even if they haven't been making me any money, even if the realization of my dreams is a long shot.  All I wish for her is health and happiness and a long life.  Selfishly, I want to share as much of mine as possible with her, loving her, expressing my gratitude for her and just being together.  Love you Mom!  The picture below is us before we sat as audience members of The Talk TV show.  We had a blast.

Now I thought I would leave you with just a nugget of wisdom from my Jewish roots.  I came across this carved box in a gift shop in Burbank when my Mom was visiting and the words just hit home.  For those of you who have been reading my blog, even though my posting has been so sporadic for the latter half of this year, this one's for you.  And for the rest of you, it's also yours for the taking.

Laser printers are better than pistachio gelato

My family came to LA to visit me last week.
Those are my two sisters, Shayna and Kari, and my Dad.

I made them dinner.

At first my Dad and Shayna told me that only the two of them would be coming to visit and that my littlest sister, Kari, would be too busy with schoolwork to make the trip. But when I met my Dad and Shayna at their hotel (surprise!) Kari was there too!  Then us three gals were all together again. 

(Yes, much of what my family does revolves around food.  Much of what I do, too.  You'll learn this.  Soon).

They left on Saturday and by Monday I was feeling pretty lonely (and if it wasn't for my husband I'd be feeling VERY lonely).  Maybe that’s what I should expect to feel being home alone during the days after three weeks in India with one of my best friends, a week in Vancouver with part of my family and a week in LA with another part?

Don’t get me wrong, I’m not complaining about being almost alone in LA.  I'm grateful for this new adventure with the love of my life (Tom) and this day-in-day-out sunshine.  I NEED this time.  I get distracted very easily and family is more important to me than pretty much anything.  So being away, as hard as it is, is probably what I need right now to, you know, do what I said I'd do. 

I didn’t hit the ground running on Monday either.  I'm not in a crazy writer’s frenzy (yet!) but really that's because before I do any new writing I need to read the draft I finished in December — and to do that, I need one of these:

Mine came yesterday.

(Yay!)

I never realized how much I would need a laser printer until I tried to print my last draft on an inkjet and um, yeah, it SUCKED!

So I took Jackson Pierce's advice (see below).  As for the rest of the advice in this video (offered by 28 other YA authors). Yeah, I'm taking that too.