NyStateOfMind

Yesterday was probably the most uncomfortable but at the same time interesting day I have had in a very long time. Matthew had his bris and I was there to celebrate with the whole family.

It took place at 9am at his grandparent’s house where 20 family members had gathered around the tiny baby in the living room. As the Rabbi walked in all the men put on their yamakas and the room became quiet. The ceremony began and since most of it was in Hebrew I didn’t understand a thing. I was in charge on taking pictures and therefore kept to myself hiding behind the big camera. A napkin was soaked in red wine and while Matthew sucked out every last drop the Rabbi did what he was there to do, the circumcision. I thought I was going to be strong but realized pretty quickly that looking out the window was probably the best way for me to get through the next 15 seconds. Tears were rolling down my cheeks as I heard what was going on and a feeling of pain went through my whole body.

The next Hebrew song was sung and people clapped their hands while the grandmother danced around the room with Matthew in her arms.

Bagels, fruit and pastries were served along with champagne and mimosas. 2 hours after I walked through the door, the party was over.

           
   

American Idol is over and I'm pretty happy with the winner. Since I, more than once, said I was going to stop watching I really shouldn’t care who wins. Even so, I watched pretty much every episode and considering that, I think Lee definitely deserved to win. Now that Simon Cowell left the show I know for a fact that next season will not be played on my TV.

Little Matthew is now 7 days old and still so small. I have been working all week and I keep looking at him sleeping wishing it was me. I have been so tired from working twice as much as normally and sleeping only a few hours a night. Since summer is officially here and it has been 90F outside and extremely humid it doesn’t make sleeping very easy. One more day of work and then I will welcome Memorial Day Weekend with open arms.

After sleeping in on Saturday morning we drove down to Jones Beach. Tons of people were there, flying kites, building sand castles, having picnics and a few brave people were even swimming. For me it was enough to walk with my feet in the water. Since it was no more than 65F outside the water was cold and there was no sun to warm you back up. Feeling the sand in between your toes must be the best summer feeling there is, and hearing the oceans big waves hit the beach makes it even better. We walked along the beach until our stomachs were gurgling telling us it was dinner time. Had dinner at an Italian restaurant before we ended the night watching Pirates of the Caribbean.

Three eventful days…

Thursday I went to see my three munchkins and we spent the day out in the sun. We played, ate ice pops and had a hula-hoop competition. At one point they all wanted to wear my sunglasses and it turned in to a game. Pictures were taken and silly faces were made. After a few loud and crazy hours I left and headed home. Made Swedish pie for dinner and then went straight to yoga to burn off the calories again.

Friday afternoon yet another baby was born and this time it was my boss who gave birth to a baby boy! He arrived 2 weeks early weighing 7lb and was 18in long. Syd is finally a big sister which she has been exited about for the past 9 months and I am of course excited to meet the little munchkin on Monday.
Happy Birthday little Matthew Nate.

Friday night I spent with my old host family. We had dinner together and then went to see Nikki's dance recital. This is her last recital so I’m very happy that I got to see it. All the girls were good but after three hours I was wondering how many more routines they could come up with or was there going to be a duplicate of some routines? After the recital me and Carol sat up until 12.30 reading weightwatchers books and talking about our lives. 

Tuesday morning my friend Jaclyn went into the hospital ready to have her baby boy. 11 hours later Alex decided to pop out and weighing in at 9lb and 21in long he was considered a pretty big baby.
Today after work me and Mike headed straight for the hospital to see the proud mommy and daddy. Thinking that baby Alex would be behind the glass window we were happily surprised when we walked in to the room and saw him sleeping in a friends arms. She handed him over to me right away and for the next 20 minutes I was staring at his tiny little fingers and blond hair while chatting with the new proud parents.

                                     Welcome to the world Alexander Quinn

              

              

My new work schedule has started since my boss is now on maternity leave. This gave me three shorter days instead of two long ones. It is way harder to get Syd to follow my rules and want to be with me when her mother is sitting in the room next door. Hopefully as soon as the baby comes it will get easier. If this is not stressful enough I called immigration last night. First of all it’s not the easiest thing to understand all the different terms and words they use and I therefore wanted Mike to talk to them. This was not acceptable since I’m the one applying and I had no other choice than to understand as much as possible. I told them that I passed my test back in February and I was wondering where my papers are. He told me that since I went back with my last papers on March 22 that is the day they start counting from. I need to let it go 90 days before they can tell me anything and IF the approve my application it can take an additionally 120 days before I get called for the ceremony!!!! So now something that was going to take 4-5 months from beginning to end is now taking almost 1 ½ years!!!

Frustrated as can be I headed over to take a Core Yoga Class to get my nerves to calm down. It worked and when I came back home I took a shower and went right to bed.

After working a few hours on Saturday morning we drove in to Manhattan to meet our friend Justin. Parked in Chinatown and headed straight for the Chinese deli that we found the other week. Got some pork buns and pineapple buns before meeting Justin. Both Mike and Justin had seen a show on TV about doughnuts and the place was a few blocks from where we were so we decided to try finding it. The line was out the door, hoping that this was going to be the best doughnut place in the world we stood in the line like all the other hungry Americans. Bought a bunch of different flavors took ONE bit of each and then threw them out. Way to sweet and not any better than Dunkin Doughnuts.
Headed back to Justin’s apartment where we hung out for a while before we decided that some real food might be good after a day filled with sugary treats. Had dinner at a restaurant called 7A where we sat outside enjoying the beautiful weather. After dinner we walked back downtown to The New Design High School where we had tickets to something called Rooftop Films. This is in different places all over Manhattan, Brooklyn, Queens and The Bronx every weekend all summer long. You get to see a band play for 30 minutes and then you watch and independent film that is being shown for the first time ever. Last night’s film was Holy Rollers a movie about an Orthodox Jew from Brooklyn who gets himself involved in dealing drugs from Amsterdam. After the movie the director and some of the actors gets on stage to answer questions from the audience. I liked the movie and the whole experience that you sit outside o a rooftop looking over Manhattan.


The doughnut place

Mike and Justin at the restaurant

Rooftop films





We could see the Empire State Building from our seats

American Idol is down to the final 3 and I’m happy with the finalists. I know I said, more than once, that I was going to stop watching but still I seem to be dragged to the TV every Tuesday and Wednesday Night. After performances from Daughtry and Bon Jovi, Big Mike got voted off and the show was over. The news came on and I started listening with only half an ear. That was until they started talking about a 6^th grader that sings and plays the piano like Lady Gaga. I quickly searched the clip on YouTube and listened to it twice, and sure enough he was really really good. So good in fact that I needed to post the clip on here.

Spent all day in the studio today with Mike. Tried to finish recording the song Africa which Mike started a few months ago. It’s really coming together and I can’t wait until it’s done. We also had time to barbecue, play kubb, shot bb guns at empty bottles and play air hockey. Mike won at every game of kubb but I destroyed him in air hockey. Its only 6pm now and we are back home waiting for our Chinese food to arrive. Yes we got home delivery, sometimes you have to splurge.

Yesterday all the mothers, grandmothers, godmothers and mother-in-laws were celebrated here on the west side of the Atlantic Ocean. I’m none of the above but still was wished Happy Mother’s day and given a beautiful plant. As everything else here we celebrated with a whole lot of food, wine and the whole big Italian family. It was sunny and blue skies, but you can’t always trust what you see. It was so cold and windy that eating outside was out of the question. Still we had a great time with great company and after yet another day out with alcohol involved we were happy to be home and in bed by 8.30pm.


Our adorable nephew

Me and my cute niece Julia

One of many desserts, fruit dipped in chocolate

The flowers I got

Got some pictures from the Birthday Girl herself from Saturdays Party.


The Happy Birthday Girl


Me and 2 ( 3 if you count mark in the background) friends


Setting up BeerPong

BeerPong


Me and the Birthday Girl

It’s been a few really long days here which gives me the excuse not to sit in front of the computer. Plus I have never been the person to update 3 times a day or even every day and I probably never will be. My normal 2 day workweek was turned in to 5 days this week and I finally realize how exhausting it is to work fulltime. Friday night we played Phase10 while having a couple of beers and quickly moved on to Beer Pong. I love playing beer pong and I consider myself to be pretty good. But when you are only two people playing it doesn’t really matter how good or bad you are you have to play in every round.

Saturday morning I spent watching my old munchkin play soccer. It was raining and pretty cold but I enjoyed seeing their team win. After the game I went back to their house where helped them bake cookies, make pizza dough and get ready for Mothers day. I love visiting them and they will always have a big place in my heart. Once home I showered and got ready for Meagan’s Party. She is finally turning 21 and she had arranged for a big house party. Tons of food, balloons, sangria, beer, wine and everything else you can think of was there and we were all ready to party. About 30 people came to celebrate and the party was a success. 
As always our camera was left at home and the only picture I have was taken before we headed out.

Getting ready for the party

Happy Cinco de Mayo!! A holiday that is celebrated pretty big here since we have a big population of Hispanic people. I personally like the holiday, it’s a reason to eat delicious tacos, dip chips into guacamole and drink cold coronas with lime.
The sun is shining today and its way over 80F. Dropped Syd off at school this morning and headed over to Starbucks for my daily caffeine fix. Ordered an Iced Coffee and sat down to look at all kinds of people around me who bravely had taken most of their clothes off and were now showing their pale winter skin.
I looked like a fool in my long sleeve sweater.

Starbucks got a new Raspberry Swirl Pound Cake and it had my name written in BIG letters all over it. All I saw in front of me was the calorie filled cake and my two piece bathing suit and I quickly decided to skip the cake. I have been a great guest at the gym and I’m working hard to go from looking like a whale to a somewhat slimmer animal, perhaps a giraffe. After all, the coffee is enough calories for one day.


Looks good, right?

As the thermometer rose to 86F we drove in to the city with the air condition on full speed. Parked by Chinatown and started our day with flavored bread from a tiny sweaty Chinese deli. We tried pineapple and coconut bread and both of them were delicious. Definitely a place I would go back to. Started walking downtown for our destination of the day, South Street Seaport. After being in New York almost 6 years it’s hard to believe that I still haven’t seen this part of the city.
With cobblestone streets where no cars are allowed, a boardwalk with a view over the Brooklyn Bridge and a mall designed to look like a boat I fell in love right away. Walked around for a while but as the sun was beating on us we were in need of something to cool us off. Found a brewery on the cobblestone street where we sat down and enjoyed some cold beers and ciders for the next few hours.

On our way back up towards Chinatown we made a few stops; Starbucks was one of them and a street vendor where I bought I pair of sunglasses were another. We ended our day at Sorrento’s in Little Italy where we had a nice dinner before we headed back to the Island.


The spaceships from the movie Men in black


The Mall

Brooklyn Bridge

At Starbucks with my new glasses

I’m happy to say that I kept my promise about going to the gym on my days off. I spent almost an hour doing cardio yesterday; the treadmill and the elliptical machine are becoming my friends. After the gym I headed straight for yoga. After yet another hour I walked out of there with shaking legs. This morning my whole body was sore and it felt great!

Today I spent all morning in Eisenhower Park with two friends and their kids. Jessica had bought us all bagels and breakfast bars that we enjoyed in between chasing 4 kids. The park was crowded and the kids were cranky so after one hour we decided it was enough for one day and drove home. Spontaneous as she is, Jessica decided that she was going to have a garage sale this afternoon. Packed up her car and headed over to her sister’s house where the garage sale were to take place. Sat down in our beach chairs with a coffee in one hand and a piña colada in the other and as the sun was burning our skin we waited for someone to buy something. After 3 hours and a sold car seat we packed up the car and headed home. Long day with lots of driving and I’m looking forward to dinner out with Mike.

This song is played during savasana in yoga and it makes me so relaxed.

                                  Jeff Buckley - Hallelujah