Family Friday

Every morning before my Monday-Wednesday-Friday Arabic class, I have the same little routine. I wake up at 8am, I throw on my gym clothes, I make my bed, I brew some coffee & make some toast, and then I sit down to enjoy my breakfast in front of the Today Show.

This morning, one of the featured stories involved an interview with a woman named Elina Furman, who recently wrote this book:


As I sat glued to my television, I made a pretty quick self-diagnosis. I am a female commitment-phobe.

I checked out the Today Show's website and discovered this checklist:

Top 10 signs you’re commitment-phobic:

1. You have a long and elaborate list of requirements for your ideal mate.
2. You go from one short-lived relationship to the next.
3. You have a habit of dating "unavailable" men.
4. You consider your married friends’ lives boring and think they settled for less.
5. You stay in relationships that are rocky and offer little hope of commitment.
6. You back out of plans at the last minute and have trouble setting a time for dates.
7. You cultivate large networks of friends at the expense of a single romantic relationship.
8. You have a lot of relationship trauma in your past.
9. Your career is very important to you and you often choose work over relationships.
10. You are constantly blowing “hot” and “cold” in your relationships.

With the exception of numbers six and nine, I fit pretty much every bill. Agggghhhh!!!!

So now that I have come to terms with my commitment-phobia and assorted psychological issues, it's time for Family Friday, and a shout out to all of my friends who don't have similar commitment problems, or at least to those who have overcome them or ignored them in order to further their magnificent genetics...

My friends are all pretty good about giving me baby photo updates via the ol' digital camera... so here is the latest collection of baby/tot pics:

First up... the newest baby on the block...

Mia (Luis & Nichole)

And the rest of the gang...

Leah (George & Julianne)


Jack (Josh & Kelly)


Carson (Mark & Jo)


Zosia (Rick & Victoria)


Daniel (John & Kerry)


Nathan (Dave & Steph)


My niece, Isabella.

Although my niece looks identical to her mother, my sister-in-law recently sent my mom and me this photo to prove to us that Isabella is actually my brother's personality twin. Apparently she has an obsession with maps... just like him.

As a child, my brother was obsessed with atlases, almanacs, and maps of all sorts. In fact, he still takes the weekly "geographic quiz" in the newspaper (reveling in his ability to defeat everyone with answers like "The Ural Sea" and "The Mandab Strait") and can recite every world capital in the blink of an eye.

On car rides when he was a kid, he would sit for hours staring at road maps while I just stared out the window looking for cows or tombstones to check off on my McDonald's bingo card and wishing someone would play "20 Questions" with me again.

I'm pretty happy he's found his map loving soul mate in his daughter.