Iris Ruth Pastor

  • About
  • Book
  • Speaking
  • Blog
  • Newsletter
  • Podcast
  • Contact

Author: Iris Ruth Pastor

I Don’t Give Up On People

May 9, 2025May 8, 2025 Iris Ruth Pastor

I don’t give up on people. I think: If only I try harder, she will like me. If I just interact with her in a caring way, the caring will be reciprocated. I take one of her rare positive reactions as a jumping-off point signifying the beginning of a new chapter for our relationship – one of Continue reading

Blog Leave a comment

Motherhood: It’s Complicated

May 2, 2025May 2, 2025 Iris Ruth Pastor

Mother’s Day is coming up fast. As a mother of five, I’m always searching for the quote I’ve never heard before – the quote that perfectly sums up our complicated feelings regarding Motherhood. And for those of us who are always looking for a good quote or two to add a personal touch to a card or Continue reading

Blog Leave a comment

Nothing in Moderation – EVER

April 25, 2025April 25, 2025 Iris Ruth Pastor

I never do anything in moderation. What is the fun of that???? Monday, April 22, 2025 6:20 pm I start my “little” clean-up project while watching national news. It entails removing the two towering piles of newspapers from under the rattan table, plopping them on the floor in front of the big TV in my family room Continue reading

Blog Leave a comment

Clutter is King

April 18, 2025April 18, 2025 Iris Ruth Pastor

My husband hates dirt and I hate clutter so we usually function pretty efficiently in the housekeeping arena. But I have noticed that the longer we live in our house, the more I am accumulating and the less I am giving away. Thus, I am producing the clutter I abhor. I am not alone. In Continue reading

Blog Leave a comment

The “Gift” That Keeps on Giving

April 11, 2025April 11, 2025 Iris Ruth Pastor

On April 14, 1975, I made a fateful decision. I decided to forego telling my very, very, very best friend that I was having a boob lift as an outpatient the very next day. Why? Because she had quite a yappy mouth. My boobs, after two pregnancis and a decade of wearing strechy, non-supportive bras, Continue reading

Blog Leave a comment

The Pitfalls of Everything

April 4, 2025April 4, 2025 Iris Ruth Pastor

Pick up a newspaper and you can be assured that it will it be filled with things to be avoided and things to brush-up on so that – G-d forbid – your quality of life will not suffer. Take the subject or Retirement: There seems to be a pervasive fear that those of us who Continue reading

Blog Leave a comment

Bonding Over Baseball

March 28, 2025March 28, 2025 Iris Ruth Pastor

Traditions are special to me.Traditions that involve my family are even more special to me.Not surprisingly, I loosely assume that is the case for most of us. Traditions are established or customary patterns of practices, customs, values and/or actions passed from generation to generation and usually not written down. The one I am focused on Continue reading

Blog Leave a comment

Wardrobe Woes and Other First World Problems

March 21, 2025March 21, 2025 Iris Ruth Pastor

Her name was Kara and she totally intimidated me. She was my roommate when I transferred to University of Florida as a broken-hearted sophomore. (That’s a whole other column!)  She was from Atlanta, an only child, seemingly spoiled rotten. I gauged this assumption based on the frequency and size of the care packages that arrived Continue reading

Blog Leave a comment

I Hate Everything

March 14, 2025March 14, 2025 Iris Ruth Pastor

Just like Alexander in the book Alexander and the Terrible, Horrible No Good, Very Bad Day, I am not having a good day. And I hate everything. I hate that this country is so divided.I hate that anti-Semitism is rising exponentially. I hate that all media outlets are biased.  I hate that my printer malfunctions and can only be replaced Continue reading

Blog Leave a comment

Keeping the Family Together In Spite of Distance

March 7, 2025March 6, 2025 Iris Ruth Pastor

My mom and dad kept the family together by hosting weekly dinners at their house on Sunday evenings during the years my husband and I were raising our kids. The menu didn’t vary much – the mainstay was grilled filet mignon steaks. A huge favorite for my kids was the “free samples” they got from my Continue reading

Blog Leave a comment

Posts navigation

Older posts

Recent Posts

  • I Don’t Give Up On People
  • Motherhood: It’s Complicated
  • Nothing in Moderation – EVER
  • Clutter is King
  • The “Gift” That Keeps on Giving
  • Popular
  • Recent
  • Never, Ever Underestimate The Power Of A Pin Apr 22, 2022
  • It All Sucks or Does It? May 29, 2020
  • Mother’s Day 1993 May 10, 2019
  • I Don’t Give Up On People May 9, 2025
  • Motherhood: It’s Complicated May 2, 2025
  • Nothing in Moderation – EVER Apr 25, 2025
  • Debbie Finn on Am I Really Too Old to do Cartwheels?

    I read this very interesting blog because I also want to do (...)

  • Jeff bi,yeu on Am I Really Too Old to do Cartwheels?

    72 and still doing cartwheels and Martial

  • onserio semba on New Beginnings are Tantalizing

    I am happy to meet you here. I need to help me to grow in (...)

Incidentally, Iris

For the past ten years, Iris’s “Incidentally Iris” column has appeared in The American Israelite, a weekly newspaper for Cincinnati’s Jewish community and the American Jewish community. Founded as The Israelite on July 15,1854, by Rabbi Isaac Mayer Wise, the paper today is the oldest English-Jewish weekly in America and the second oldest in the world. (The London Jewish Chronicle was founded in 1841.) Read Incidentally, Iris columns on The American Israelite