I started this blog today. It’s something I have been thinking about for a long time, but I am not sure I want to really do it. For one thing, when I post something, it’s out there forever. This definitely requires careful censoring and is more than a little intimidating. But I have just joined the rest of the world in 2009–er, make that 2010, and started reading a few blogs. And you know what? I really like what they have to offer!

I have no mission with this blog–for now, at least. I could keep up with friends and family this way, which would be a major bonus. Especially because we move around every few years. Or I could focus on my personal strategies for making life work in general, clarifying for myself and adding something to someone else’s life in the way that other bloggers have added to mine. Or maybe both–or neither. Can you tell I’m new to this?

So what could I write about…well, this past week, I got 20 boxes of Morningstar Farms veggie “meats” for $3.70 total. (I bought a set of $2 off each box coupons on Ebay (that’s the $3.70) and then printed off a Target coupon for $1 off each box. When combined with the sale price of $2.99 each, I only had to pay for the coupons!) But to be honest, while I would love to have more deals like that, I don’t have them so often, and certainly not enough to make it a major focus. I can’t spend so much time looking for the deals AND I can’t get just any old “free” food to feed my family, especially the heavily processed foods that this often involves. I have dietary restrictions (kosher) and then there is my family’s health, too–no small thing. So, what else?

I have three small boys, ages 5, 3, and almost 5 months. They are the “blessings” part of my name. Yes, they keep me extremely busy, and yes, they can be a handful, but even in the crazy times where there are several bodily fluids from several kids involved–like, oh yes, this morning–I am incredibly, incredibly grateful for them. They are amazing. We are working out how to manage schooling (both theirs and mine) and life, and because our circumstances aren’t those of the masses, if there can be any such generalization, that may be of some interest to others.

I am fairly organized, or at least I used to be before all of these small people arrived and started moving independently. Of course, a move from another country and the purchase of our first home shortly followed by a new baby had something to do with the fraying of my organizational prowess. My biweekly meal plans have somewhat fallen by the wayside, although weekly plans usually happen. My Shabbat (Sabbath) meal plans are creative and homemade, and they are something worth writing about, in my humble opinion. So, too, my major cooking plans to handle large amounts of food and prep it for entry into my freezer and those aforementioned meal plans. But my freezer inventory is still in mid-2009 right now. So I’m getting things back on track, unpacked, and put away a few steps at a time. My solutions are creative and useful–and others might benefit, too.

I am a person, a woman, a wife, a Mommy, a doctoral candidate (ABD, and oh, how I wish that D was done!), a work at home mom, and a chef and chauffeur extraordinaire. I am a daughter, a big sister, an aunt, and a granddaughter. I am the mainstay, the foundation and CEO of my observant Jewish home. I paint when I can, I teach college classes, I play the piano and several other instruments, I love my family. Somehow, I’ve gotten a little “crunchy” in there, too. And more, of course. To sum up any person requires some distillation of their essential qualities, but the other “stuff” that is left over is part of the whole as well.

So we’ll see if I continue with this blog. I’m kind of apprehensive, both about putting some of myself out there for others to see and about making these musings part of a permanent record. But if I don’t try it out, I’ll never know…and I sure like to know.