My INTRO:

Welcome to AAB and the very first show of Season 14. I am your host, LJI, IBCLC. I hope everyone has had a great start to their New Year. This show is going to deviate a bit from my usual ones. I thought it would be nice to give you an insider view into the Isenstadt household this holiday season, so the first half of this show is going to be newsy in that way. Then I will give you the lay of the land and talk to you about what shows you can expect from this Season.

As far as the New Year goes, well it has only been one week into the New Year, however, all is good here over at my house. As most of you know, I took a few weeks off so I could catch up on what I have been referring to as: life, love, family and the pursuit of happiness. I also told you that I needed to get some work done.

Well, with family coming and going and all the holiday cooking and family meals we had, I do feel that I was able to do the life, love, family and pursuit of happiness thing to my hearts content. There were plenty of impromptu hang outs where the free flow of conversation led to a lot of laughs, fun reminiscing, some political screaming matches and lots of kidding around.

This was another year that I felt like it would be nice to have all those cameras that follow the reality TV stars around as they go about their day. It would have captured the weird and unusual things like – This is the very first time since I can remember my husband Alan, ever cooking the potato latkes, all by himself. It use to be all the kids helping, then gradually it was just 1 or 2 helping. As they grew up and out of the house, there were a precious few times we had all 3 helping.

This year, Carly had a cold so we couldn’t have her helping – I wish the cameras could have captured her lower lip flanging outward as she begged for us to let her help anyway. Sorry Carly, with latke making is pretty hands on, literally, and we just could not have that. Number 1 daughter, Alisha slept through her alarm and by the time she called up to say she was on her way over, Alan said forgettaboutit as he was 3/4 of the way done. And my son Jesse, was thousands of miles away on the East Coast working that day, so forget about him!

So, there he was, all alone in the kitchen, just Alan and his flour, potatoes and onions and oil in his pan, slaving away at the stove. He tried to put a good spin on it as he blasted his hard rock music – which is definitely one of the most important ingredients that goes into latke making, and got his assembly line going and was in the groove. Wish the cameras could have caught this whole scene.

Partway through I could hear the sighs and noticed perhaps some latke making fatigue, so I offered my help, but nope, he said nope that he was doing fine. He was, but I could tell that latke making was not nearly as much fun for him this year as it usually is. There is usually a lot more dancing and singing and horsing around. Now, it was just straight forward, I gotta job to do and let’s get it done! So, message to my kids: Next year, get your act together, you better make it happen .. or else.

And how about the leaking. Yes, we had lots of leaking here these last few weeks. And no, I don’t mean breastmilk. We had a water heater blow, spewing hot water outside the house and leaking into the garage. Soon my house became like the money pit. It could not have been just a brand new heater installed to replace the old one.. Oh no, the leak caused dry wall damage. Once the dry wall was removed, we saw the dreaded termites. Which, of course, just grosses me out. Here in Arizona, termites are so prevalant that the saying goes: It is not IF you have termites, it is WHEN you find out you have termites. Fixing all of this should be fairly easy. costly, but easy. However, easy was not to be and through all sorts of weird circumstances, that again, I wish those cameras could have caught on tape, beginning from purchasing the wrong size heater and having our handyman die before he finished the job, well it took several weeks to have the job all done. And a lot of aggravation in between. And yes, you did hear me say – the handyman died before finishing the job. See why I think I might do well with a reality show!

While all of this is going on my mother, who lives just a mile away, is having her own leaking problems. First the automatic sprinklers sprung a leak, which also happens quite frequently here in AZ as they are working at full capacity all year round.Every year, my kids, mom and sister get together for what we call: Cookie Day. Each year we keep thinking we have all the organizational tips worked out and the day should go smoothly. It does get better, but rarely does it go smoothly, because when you put 5 or more women in the same room, each one thinks there newest idea is better than the old one.

We usually combine this day with a nice break for lunch and with some sort of community project., like putting together nice packets of toiletries for women in shelters or sometimes we make a financial donation to a cause.

I make my special Ravioli dish which everyone looks forward to as this happens once a year. The hard part here is to time the baking of cookies with the need to bake the ravioli and not have burned cookies and just barely warm ravioli. We did that part much better this year. There is nothing I love more than working hard all morning, on our feet, with the kitchen a big mess, and then in the midst of a kitchen that looked like who did it and ran, just putting it all aside for an hour and having some lunch with the cookie baking crew. Now that we are all relaxed and with full bellies, we usually need to push each other to get back to the baking!

Speaking of leaks again… my mother also had a leak from her kitchen sink and had taken everything out of the cabinet. It would have been nice for her to tell us this ahead of time as it really put a damper in our ability to wash, rinse and repeat using all the cooking utensils and bowls and mixer parts. We could only use a little water at a time, and, oy vey, I hope my mother forgives me for saying this, but, my goodness she can be so cheap about things sometimes. You know the square sponges that we use for washing dishes? Well, my mother cuts that sponge up into 6 little pieces, each one about the size of my thumb… I kid you not! I know you probably think she uses this for some kind of craft. Nope! This is what she uses to wash dishes. So here we are using just a trickle of water because we don’t want the bucket under the sink to fill up so fast, and a little baby sponge to clean bowls of flour and dough and chocolate and syrup. Getting inside all of those prongs and attachments that are used for the mixer…. well we started off laughing and making fun of it all, but it did get old real quickly.

So here we are, baking dozens and dozens of cookies. I veered away from my usual pecan tassies ( I use Trisha Yearwoods recipe and it is delicious), to make simple, but oh so delicous chocolate chip cookies ( Mrs. Fields recipes). We have thumbprint cookies going and butter cookies going. Alisha made these delicious no bake chocolate cherry gluten free cookies and Carly made for the first time Lemon Cookies that were a huge hit.

We each make about 6 dozen cookies, so at the end of a very long day, which typically starts about 8:00 am, we now have 30 or so dozen cookies to divvy up. There is a whole art and science to making sure we each get the same amount of cookies and oh,, I forgot, the HOUSE gets cookies to. Meaning, my mothers house is where we hold our Channukah celebration and we need several dozen for the house.

Divvying up the cookies went smoothly the first year or two, until my mother said she saw Alisha taking more than her fair share. As hard as we insisted this did not happen, my mother swears it did. So, we decided to put the whole dividing up the cookies amongst us job, all to her. The last few years, I am not sure whether it is age, she is going to be 87 or fatigue at the end of the day, but my mother has screwed this part of royally.

So, lately, There is usually some fighting and arguing about how we divvy up the cookies. It seems like someone always has a bright idea on how to do this part better. In the midst of all this, we had a few weird things happen. First, Alisha slipped while walking from the living room table – where we are all divying up the cookies. We kind of laughed and made fun of her…… breaking in those new boots, ey alisha? Then a few minutes later, Carly slipped and fell. Well, my girls and I are clutsy, but 2 spills in a row.

We all start blaming the dog for having peed and now we are slipping on this pee,, gross! Then my sister, who owns the dog, gets all huffy and insisting that it is not her dogs pee and that Carly must have spilled her drink on the floor and doesn’t want to cop to it. Carly insists it is not her and then me, the mother, comes in to defend her. As I walk into the living room, I feel my foot sink into the carpet a little bit, which makes me look down. I don’t see anything, but take another few steps and yup,,, the carpeting is definitely wet, feeling kind of like a sponge. Must be the dog I say! I take a few more steps and keep going and going and going.. all along the wet carpeting. I now get on my hands and knees and follow the soaked carpeting.

Oh my goodness… I yell – could a pipe have blown. This is a leak coming from somewhere. I know have commanded everyone’s attention! Through further investigation, it takes us about 10 minutes to find the source. The refrigerator that is on the other side of the wall. Pulling out the fridge, and some more investigating, we realize it is coming from one of the hoses. This definitely could have been much worse as the fridge was able to continue working as this was the hose connected to the icemaker.

It is now about 7:00 pm. We are all tired and getting quite cranky. My poor mother… leaking outside in her yard, leaking underneath her sink and now a leaky refrigerator. Please don’t hate me for my warped sense of humor but as my mother talked about having another major expense, I could not help but think to myself: Well, thank goodness she keeps good control over those sponges as the savings will surely help her pay for these repairs. Perhaps not so nice…. but I was tired and cranky,,, and besides, I still do think the whole thing is funny. So, what do you all think? Should I pitch the Isenstadt Reality show to the big movie Execs? Nahhh,,, I becha you all have a few stories to tell yourself. All in all, it was a great holiday season and I hope you had an excellent one also.