Leah's Life: Pearls and Oysters

A Week in Phrases: Dance Moms & Idioms

This week has been about phrases, the dance kind and phrases as in sayings. If you’ve taken dance classes ever or you’ve become a closet Dance Moms lover, then you know that dances are split into phrases. I’d say I’m definitely not a dance mom, but until recently a mom that used to dance. Now…

Yom Kippur: Variations on a theme

Family photo taken at Mass MoCA (artist – Sol LeWitt photographer – me) This year, as I do every year, I am fasting for Yom Kippur. Isabelle asks why we fast. I explain that we fast to feel discomfort and do something hard. Then reflect on how, in our particular lives, we rarely have discomfort…

Being Pampered: Wet Paint Nail Spa & Corbu

I don’t get my nails done often, but I do appreciate a good manicure. The other day as I was sitting at Wet Paint Nail Spa waiting for my nails to dry, a very pregnant mama or mama-to-be waddled into the spa. I reminisced about how I felt I had to have a pedicure before…

Reflections on a birthday

So today is my birthday and it’s nice to get the calls, the cards, and the facebook wall wishes, but I think about what is so often said, “Do you feel any different?” The good news is that you don’t have to wait a year to feel different on one day. The other good news…

Hot and Spicy on a Sunday Morning

I know, I know, its not exactly the image you were hoping for given the heading, but if you need to recover, just go turn on the Olympics. This is just the result of an unusual Sunday morning and the goop on my face is just a mud mask. But let me start from the…

Zen Lessons on the CSA Farm

This week we’re picking blueberries and sugar snaps. It is hotter than hot, but somehow it’s almost always just a little bit cooler on the farm. After a week of city heat, and sloth with everyone’s nerves growing together like tangled weeds it feels good to leave the kids on the stone wall to eat…

In the Seaweeds: Knitidiot to Knitter

So my daughter suggested I learn to knit with her one Saturday morning while we were at the Knitter’s Brunch at Gather Here. I’d been hiding behind my embroidery while Isabelle knitted along and the kind knitters helped her through any snafus. So I decided to pick it up and give it a try. My…

Trying New Things: Feet, Feats, Fibers and Food

I’ve noticed recently, as my daughter gets older and more reflective, not only do I feel like I’m more and more under a microscope as a mother, a person, and a parent, but I feel like I am learning more about myself because of the comments she makes or questions she asks. My children are…

Boston Brunchers: Farm Brunch in the City

The Boston Brunchers have been on my radar for a while now. As a freelance writer, who writes primarily about food, I follow a lot of local bloggers and am a member of various blogging groups and receive regular updates from freelance writing groups as well. I am also, by nature, a person who likes…

The Blue Bistro – (mom’s read)

I love to read and I’m picky about what I read, but I’m not a literary snob. Since time is short and my day full of heated debates about why I only packed granola bars, raspberries, tortilla chips, peanut butter and banana sandwiches and carrot sticks as the option for snack on the 5 minute…

This is so yummy!

Last night I made a roasted chicken (http://www.onceuponachef.com/2011/01/the-family-dinner.html). I’ve made roasted chicken before not very often but often enough. When Dan said, “This is so yummy!” and I replied “Thanks, I got it on Pinterest.” It just sounded so strange. I’ve been searching for recipes from my Bon Appetit and Gourmet magazines and cooking online with…