The Baal Teshuva Diaries

I'm a real adult now, guys.  I have a Costco membership.  We held out for awhile.  Basically, my husband and I are both very cheap and spent roughly the past year of our married life debating whether Costco would end up saving us money or losing us money.  We're also not in the best financial place right now. But we finally decided that Costco would probably save us money.  And bit the bullet.  Our family is now a card-carrying Costco family. And let it be said that I do not understand Costco at all.  Growing up, my mother was very anti-superstore.  I'm not saying I agree with this mentality. But she preferred to spend her money on very specific things.  She would have hated the idea of Costco.  Probably still does.  Maybe that's part of my fascination with places where you can get everything.  (Target, CostCo, the Pittsburgh International Airport...)  There's also something to do with scarcity.  Growing up, we were w...

 (Warning- This post is absolutely all over the place. I take stream of conscience writing to a whole new level of depravity. Watch out Holden Caulfield, I’m not intimidated by your teen angst).  My husband took the baby to minyan. I have a weird baby, in that she mostly behaves at minyan. People don’t take their babies to minyan. It’s not done. I know this. Babies don’t belong in shul. Countless posters on imamother have made this point .  As I’ve mentioned, imamother is one of my main sources of information. Part of my field guide, if you will.  So why is my baby at shul? And why is she so good at shul?  Better behaved than she is most other places, actually. Let me tell you a story.  My baby, who is now definitely a toddler, as evidenced by some grade A+ toddling, was born at 37 weeks to the day. She has IUGR and was small for her gestational age. They were going to induce on the very day I went into labor naturally, because the placenta was deterioratin...

 My TAG filter is a litvak.  I know because it won’t let me open images in an email from Chabad.org  😂

1: Is it weird that the thing I miss most when I'm pregnant (aside from beer.  I like the taste and carbonation of beer, ok?) is working out?  Yes, I know plenty of women work out when pregnant. And I try, too.  It's just at this point in the pregnancy and feeling as terrible as I do, I can barely get off the couch.    2: Related- I am VERY annoyed about the lack of women's pools/ pools with women's only hours in the area. There used to be exactly one, at the JCC, but from what I can tell, they cut those hours.* 3: Do NOT get me started on the JCC  4: Also related, if any frum women in Boston want to learn how to row, please message me.  I'm a US Rowing Certified coach with about ten years of experience coaching and coxing and a lot more with rowing in general.  I'm seriously thinking of putting together a frum women's only club. Maybe at some time in the future… I always forget how long it takes to recover from pregnancy 😭😭😭 5: oops, I gave aw...