jennifer patel

When I reflected on 2015, searching for inspiration to write an end of year post, I think the thing that surprised me the most about this particular year was...back fat. Used to have a little now I have a lot, No matter where I go, I know where I came from - Jenny from the block Even Pinterest knew. I didn't get on Pinterest from August until now and this is what showed up when I returned on my 'suggested for me' pins. Another memory that stands out is at the local park in my neighborhood back in October. There were two boys sitting on top of a tunnel and talking. They couldn't have been older than 4th or 5th grade. I started eavesdropping their conversation. One boy said to the other, "Have you ever noticed that the older you get, the worse life is?..." Conversations were getting deep at the park that day. The idea that these two boys were talking philosophy at the park was cute enough to burst my heart...and a bursting heart was the theme of t...

Most people, especially parents, know of the famous children's book, Goodnight Moon by Margaret Wise Brown. What you might not know is that she wrote hundreds of children's stories in her short life. When Alex and I went to the library a few weeks ago to get Christmas books, the library had all the Christmas books displayed on top of the shelves. We picked up Brown's The Little Fir Tree and added it to our stack. Since we also got Star Wars books, the less appealing  The Little Fir Tree did not get read until the day before the books were due. Even the Hanukkah book got read twice before The Little Fir Tree . Alex is not an inquisitive child during book reading. He doesn't stop us to ask questions and he only talks if we ask him a question, which we occasionally do to gauge brain activity. I saw the word coming up on the page and decided that I hated the word (a truly disgusting word when used to describe a body part) but would read it anyway...You know, to st...

Dear Hertz, My family only owns sedans. To accommodate our combined numbers, we rented a larger vehicle from your establishment (DFW Airport location) for a day trip to visit my grandparents. We have rented several cars from your company across the U.S. and have always been pleased with the service. We have also been fairly responsible about our belongings until this Christmas Eve. When we returned on Christmas Eve night everyone grabbed stuff and headed into the house, weary from travel. My husband still had to run presents to nearby family and it was nearing 10 P.M. He was rushing to return the car and we did sort of the equivalent of the McCallister family counting the neighbor kid instead of their son, Kevin. Only instead of leaving a child at home, we left some of our belongings in the rental. So not really like that at all; I just wanted to reference Home Alone . Once I realized our mistake, I drove back to DFW Airport hoping that since we just dropped it off half an hour ...

Daylight walks though... Nothing brings a week of great weather to an end like the Dallas Marathon weekend. E and I got to take a rare walk in the daylight today. It was muggy and disgusting, but beautiful. I love when I realize that after driving to and from work day in and day out, the trees have gone from green to autumn. Actually, compared to our 5 AM walks, I love being able to enjoy not worrying about being abducted or killed. (as much) On our walk, I saw three children raking leaves in their yard. It took me back to the time when my Mom would make us rake leaves...which would have been fine. But my Mom made us rake leaves before they had all fallen off the tree. I remember arguing, vehemently, my logic that it would be better to wait until the tree was bare before raking. Why waste multiple days raking when you could just do it all in one day?! Obviously, I ended up raking leaves before the tree was bare. It was infuriating and one time I threw the rake up in the tree...