Dear readers,
Please take a look at a delightful new children’s book published by my adopted sister, Rabbi Galina Trefil. In short, this book teaches kids that it’s ok to be different and that in fact, being different is beautiful! I will be reviewing it later this month!
Filed under Future Reviews, Reblogs
Just a quicky Hi to you guys! I am so honored that so many of you are still sticking with me even though I’ve been on a bit of a radio silence for a while.I want you to know that I am doing better and although I miss my mom every moment, I am learning to move forward. I am starting to read again at my usual pace and have actually a book in mind that was given to me during my mourning that I would love to comment on here. Alice Hoffman does wonderful nonfiction, you guys!
Anyway, I will be back soon, hopefully after this weekend’s birthday celebration. That would be my own, and I think I might be ready to celebrate myself even though I feel rather wistful at the same time.
Love,
Eugenia
Filed under Personal Reflections
One month ago, my mommy had gotten diagnosed with diffused large b cell lymphoma. Two weeks ago, she began her first chemo cycle. Thirty eight hours ago my beloved mommy passed away. She handled chemo like a trouper, didn’t complain or ask for anything. For several days after chemo ended, she felt fine. Then the fatigue set in and things unraveled from there. On Tuesday she ended up in the ER and eventually ICU as everything got worse. On Friday, early in the morning despite putting up an insanely hard fight given how sick she became, my mother went back to her first family: her mother, father and older sister.
You may ask me how I can write right now. With a great amount of difficulty but full clarity of mind. I am the younger of two, and the daughter and I don’t think I grasped even the millimeter of how much I love my mother until now, how close I was with her. This blog is important to me and I feel like I’ve bonded with you all to the point where I can share my real life with you. My mom is (and I think I am going to be saying is for a long time) a very private, old fashioned person, I don’t think she understood what a blog really was and I seem to recall her pretty much rolling her eyes at me when I told her about it. But she cared about what made me happy and having this outlet makes me happy. She had the same attitude towards Facebook.
She instilled the love of reading and books in me which led me to this blog in the first place. As many kids, I didn’t share myself fully with mom and though I know she was often hurt by it, she understood. She raised me to be loyal and independent, stubborn and private like she was. I wasn’t always the easiest daughter but I know she always knew how much I loved her and how much she meant to me. On her last day, I started reading to her from a book she shared with me as a child, a book we both read as kids. And I know she was happy to hear me read to her, maybe she thought it was cheesy but I know she heard me and it comforts me that we could share this even when she was asleep.
I love you мама. 
Filed under Personal Reflections
What personal belongings do you hold most dear?
Most of my mom’s jewelry even if I can’t wear some of it like her rings because her fingers were smaller.
Some of my books from childhood that I brought over when we came from Ukraine.
My old journals.
My kids’ hospital tags and random clothes
My entire wedding outfit and my bouquet because it sadly rotted.
Filed under Personal Reflections
I am a mom every single day because of my babies. Yeah, it’s nice there is a randomly picked day in May to celebrate us, probably because it’s pretty? But our work, our babies are a constant job, a constant source of love, joy and frustration.
Just as we love and take care of our babies every day( be it human babies, or fur babies), we deserve to be celebrated each and every day.
,
Filed under Personal Reflections
Makes for a busy mom and wife. It’s been a minute….and while I don’t have much down time to post reviews. I do enjoy updating y’all on bits of my life.
I’m now a mom of two!!! Something that will probably take a year or so to fully absorb into my essence.
I have two wonderful boys: my big guy Raphi is almost five and a half, and my little guy, Stellan is 7 months old! I adore them. They make it ok to not have enough time to write 😝
Filed under Fun stuff!, Personal Reflections
What is your favorite holiday? Why is it your favorite?
I am a good Jewish girl in the sense that I will love any holiday that involves lots of good food and presents but really, food is sufficient. So if it’s a Jewish holiday or a Christian one, or any other religious tradition, if there’s food, then I’m there. And if there is food and I get leftovers AND presents, I am there with an extra bag 😎
Filed under Fun stuff!
What topics do you like to discuss?
Books
History
Pop culture
Jot down the first thing that comes to your mind.
God
God I need sleep.
What are 5 everyday things that bring you happiness?
My boys
Books
Coffee
Baths
Good tv
72nd National Jewish Book Award Winners | Jewish Book Council
— Read on www.jewishbookcouncil.org/pb-daily/72nd-national-jewish-book-award-winners
I think this was probably the best book I’ve read this year, perhaps one of my very favorite Jewish stories of the last few years. . As an Ashkenazi Jew, my knowledge of pre war and Holocaust Sephardi Jewish experience has been sadly lacking and frankly, barely existent, One Hundred Saturdays made a great way in changing that, I don’t think I can find a single thing to complain about, dislike, or otherwise negatively speak about his absolute gem of a book. I desperately want to meet Stella, or at least listen to her speak because Michael Frank was able to make her voice shine through every single word of this book, he was able to paint such a vivid portrait of Jewish life in Rhodes that I physically hurt when the timeline moved the pendulum closer and closer to the war years.
This is a must read for any person who has any humanity and desire to learn about Jews as real, vibrant citizens of the world and to truly understand what we lost in our world with the Holocaust and all the death that it wrought on the world. Read it, read it, read it. Also, Stella is amazing.
READING INTO THE PAST .....
What they never taught me in teacher school.
New Jewish Books
Exploring what it means to be Jewish
Jewish Books Are Awesome 