Kutnick's Korner

I have been thinking about this famous Robert Frost quote for years, but the significance of it has picked up over the past several months. "Nothing gold can stay". Four words with such true and raw intensity. Things keep moving forward. Nothing can stay as they are. Especially age.  Today marks my 50th birthday. A half a century. The age that my mom was when I thought she was old. And, now-here I am. I remember a decade ago like it was yesterday, yet I can’t seem to remember what I did two days ago. I remember my first day of kindergarten (I wore red), but I have minimal recollection of last week. Clearly, the short-term memory can’t stay! Nothing gold can stay. Including my 40s. This past decade has been life-changing. Then again wouldn’t every 10 years of a life naturally be? 10 years. From 19-20, I was a rising junior in college (the same age as my oldest child now). And, when I was 29-30 I was pregnant. From 30-40, we raised babies into little kids. From 40-50 kids to te...

My name is Kimberly Tucker Kutnick. And, on February 8, 2021, I had bariatric (gastric bypass) surgery.  I am coming clean.  It's been over a year, and I am ready.  I have written and re-written this so many times because I wasn't sure I was going to post this. Or, how I was going to tee it up (that sounds so corporate America of me). But, a friend once told me that my superpower is writing. So, here I go. First, I want to clear myths. Bariatric surgery is not only for people with morbid obesity. More people who are not morbidly obese have the surgery vs. those who are morbidly obese. My BMI was "obese", but I was not categorized as morbidly obese.  Secondly, this is not the easy way out. This is not a "solution". This is a tool. This is one of the most challenging things I have ever endured. When you hear the expression "It takes a village"...for bariatric it certainly does...I have a team that consists of a surgeon, psychiatrist, therapist, di...

If you had been born on your due date, I would not be writing this. Why? Because you would have missed the cut-off, and you would be entering your Senior year in high school. Not Freshman year of college. But, you made the cut-off, and in two weeks, you will be spreading your wings as you enter the next chapter of your life. College. Over the past year as we entered the college application process, I have been running your life's timeline over and over again in my mind. Savoring, holding onto, and remembering the moments big and small. I keep trying to get those actual feels that I had in those actual moments, and sometimes I can actually feel that time. And, while it is hard to put it into actual words, that is how I have been processing this big life-changing experience, my son. You came into my life on August 20, 2003, at 36 weeks. And, you lived your first few weeks of life in the NICU. With every passing day, all I could think about was the time that was cutting into my matern...

Yes. We know. COVID sucks.  My kids are sick of me saying "this is all so (you can use your own adjective) weird."  Let's all agree that this whole year has been a total shit show. For everyone. Incredible amounts of Loss. Loneliness. Isolation. Weirdness. Challenge. Nobody has been exempt. Not from a newborn all the way through an elder. We will be talking about this for years. Documentaries will be made. Our kids will tell their grandchildren about this. It's big.  I have dug very deep since March trying to see how I could personally push through this as someone who suffers from General Anxiety Disorder (GAD) and a small side order of depression. I used to work from home before I came to my current company, 5 years ago. In my former life, I let myself become swept over by isolation. And, it was much worse in the winter. Sometimes I didn't even get the mail. So, I came into this Covid time with a different outlook, and I wanted to share some of my positives. Beca...

Let’s face it. There have been good days and bad. Nothing defines what it will or won’t be when I wake up. It just is all weird. Half of the US is seemingly business as usual. The other half...the one I am living in....not. Grocery shopping with a mask is weird. The fact that I haven’t been to a restaurant since the BEGINNING of March is weird. Haven’t been to my office since March 13. Weird. Can’t or don’t want to fly anywhere. Weird. Should be packing camp duffles and running around doing fun camp errands.....We aren’t. It. Is. All. So. Weird. And, blank. And, I feel uncomfortable. Like I wake up and still can’t believe it. Groundhog Day. I think to myself,  “Will life ever be normal again? Will people act how they used to in grocery stores? Not standing 6 feet apart? Afraid? Will there be live music in an open air stadium or arena? When will restaurants be packed with banter and pleasantries as a regular thing to do? When will we be a mask-less society? When...

We hear about the bad stuff. Pittsburgh, Paris, England and the KKK. We watch it on the news. We read about it on Twitter. We see the posts on Facebook. It's real and it's happening all around us. But, yesterday, for the first time in my 45 1/2 years I was personally victimized by pure hatred and antisemitism. To say I was shocked would be a complete understatement. To say I was beyond words in the moment would be the truth. I have never experienced such direct, personal malice as a Jew-until yesterday. Here's what happened. I was looking for someone to help clean my house. And, in the process a friend of mine from college  recommended a nice woman who could help with laundry and other household tasks. While I would love to say I am the best homemaker in the world, that wouldn't be true. I am busy. I need help in the home. The woman she referred me to didn't speak clear English. And, her husband is the person you contact to coordinate estimates. When we firs...

I think there's a saying something like....the days go slow and the years go fast. Even if it's not an official saying, that's how I feel. About a minute ago, or what it seems, we rushed our lives from the city to the burbs in an effort to educate and raise our kids. My son was a week shy of 5 and my daughter was 2. We have been here almost 9 years. I remember sitting on the bus for Kindergarten orientation day with my son and my husband. We stopped at all of the houses to pick up the kindergartners on our route. One by one the little 5 year olds excitedly climbed aboard the bus followed by their parents. These were my general thoughts......"I can't believe my little man is going to Kindergarten. Will he be friends with any of these kids on the bus? Will he be okay? I can't believe how big he is! How did he get to be so grown up?" He was off to the biggest chapter yet of his five year old life. I am having a parallel experience exactly 2 months short...

Written in February 2017. Publishing now: As my 10 year old daughter inches her way closer to age 11, I can't help but think that I was just a few months older than she is today when I got my period. And, I am happy to report it's a different world in 2017 than it was in 1983. Devastating in that glimpse of a moment would be an understatement as I woke up on May 7th of 1983 to my new monthly visitor which was visibly my period as I peered into the pink ceramic toilet. I was only 10! I was about to turn 11 in July. I hid tampons and pads in my Members Only jacket. I was absolutely horrified. Nobody could know this. So embarrassing. Only my mom. Sleepovers became a challenge in that I had to hide my "products" deep in my overnight bag. Bottom line-it totally sucked. And, I am still scared by the memories of 6th grade bathroom horror stories. So, as a mom we are approaching this very differently. I hope with the organic milk and the lack of Vitamin D in the wint...

Written last July. I never published it, but I am about to release a bunch of blog posts I have never published..... July 2016: Yesterday for the second year in a row, BOTH of my kids left for sleep away camp. Last year I cried as my youngest (daughter) got on the bus, alone, new without any friends. I knew she'd be okay, but it just seemed so hard and sad and overwhelming as a mom to watch this unfold right before my eyes. Suffice to say it worked out. She loved camp. And, it was a very positive experience for her from 10 minutes into the bus ride until the minute she got home. My son, well he's a veteran. He has been going to camp since the summer after 3rd grade. He will be in 8th grade in the fall. Yesterday came. And, I promised my daughter that I wouldn't cry. I would remain strong. That I would be her rock. And, that she wouldn't cry because I would not cry. And, I succeeded. I held it back. Extremely hard for me to do this as I am a crier (I cried for th...

This blog entry is about my unhealthy relationship with food and how diets have created it. At 43 years old, I long for the day where I will have a perfectly normal relationship with food again. And, I say "again" because I didn't have true food relationship issues until post college when I moved to Chicago in 1995. I know if you are a woman reading this who is equally as screwed up as me.....you get it when I say that I know exactly what size and weight I have been for the past 20 years. Wedding day, pre children, post babies, first day of my new job. The year. Things like that. I know exactly what size I was. And, what I weighed. That's some totally Fucked. Up. Shit. For 1 1/2 years I have been obsessing about the way I will look at my son's Bar Mitzvah which is now 6 days away. How will I look in the pictures?  He has worked SO INCREDIBLY hard on this, and I in parallel have worked hard to put a nice event together. I also worked hard to have my Bat Mitzvah...

I was just sitting here at the kitchen table doing some work. Thinking about the fact that it's almost 7:00pm, and I haven't started dinner. After years and years and years of beating myself up, I think I have finally come to terms with the fact that I loathe figuring out dinner. And, I loathe making it even more. It's not that I don't like to cook. I do. Give me an unlimited budget and unlimited time. Or, a holiday and I will have at it with pure joy and skill. But, on your average Wednesday night....after a long day at work...all I want to do is NOT make dinner. All I want to do is NOTHING. And, 12 1/2+ years ago, that would have been fine. Skip making dinner. Let's eat cereal. Except that now I have this job called  "mom", and part of this job is feeding my children with good nutrition and calcium so that they will grow. I am a planner in life. I am a total type A. I've been planning my son's Bar Mitzvah for a long time, and it's still...

I'm no Oprah....but I do have a list of some of my favorite "products" to share. .....here they are. Not in order: Kiehl's hand and body, aloe vera & oatmeal lotion. This is the best! I forgot how much I loved it-until I replenished last week. Great for hands, feet, elbows and legs. Won't leave you greasy or over scented.  Trish McEvoy black curling mascara. I've used this for 13+ years. It goes on like butter. And, it comes off with soap and water. You don't need to scrub and you don't need make up remover.  Senna golden brown eyebrow gel. Sometimes my brows get dull and drab. This product helps shape them and give them a nice color lift. I know it sounds weird, but it really is good stuff. Lasts a long time too! Skinceuticals Antioxidant Lip Repair. I suffer from chapped lips every winter. I have 10 different chapsticks, and nothing has truly solved the issue. Until I found this! It has saved me all winter. Doesn't smell. Isn...

I was listing to a podcast yesterday (Death Sex & Money). It was their 1 year anniversary episode and part of it was dedicated to capturing peoples' answers to the below question: "What has changed in your life in the past year?" And, I listened to what people had to say. Some fell in love. Some got married. Some got divorced. Some lost someone special. Some had babies. Some moved. Some were happier than a year ago. Some were now more depressed. But, regardless-nothing stayed exactly the same. 365 days is a significant amount of time to reflect back. And, then this morning when I looked at my husband and realized that it is June 12th....I started thinking about myself. Not where I was 1 year ago...but where I was 17 years ago. June 12, 1998. On Friday, June 12th, 1998 my then boyfriend...now husband proposed. Looking out at Lake Michigan. Dinner at Spiaggia later that evening. It was magical. I remember it so very clearly. That was 17 years ago. Today. So mu...

Just about a month ago, I said goodbye to the house I grew up in. I really don't mean to be overly dramatic about it, but it's kind of a big deal to me. Some of my belongings came with me to college in 1991. And, others have trickled to Chicagoland in boxes over the years. Yearbooks, trophies, collectibles....etc. And, very few things remained in "my growing up house". I always had a green and white stuffed turtle in my room. She sat wherever she was placed. Sometimes on a rocking chair. Sometimes on a shelf. But, regardless she was always there. And, truthfully, I never really thought about her all that much. She was an ornament. A part of my room. But, when I was in LA last month I confiscated her because she needed to be with my daughter. It's like I didn't have a choice. It had to happen. So, she got shipped home. I brought her to the dry cleaners to get fixed and cleaned. And, yesterday I picked up the turtle. I was literally beaming (the lady at the ...

The front doors of my parent's house have been a integral place of capturing photographic moments for over 40 years. They are doors. Every house has them. But, for some odd reason...these have been very special. So, why am I now thinking and even writing about the front doors of my parent's house? Good question. There are two places that I call home. My house. Where I live with my husband and two children in the northern suburbs of Chicago. And, my parent's house in Sherman Oaks, California. Technically my parent's house isn't my house anymore. But, it's home. It's where I grew up. Where I had multiple phone conversations with friends, where I did my homework for years, where I fought with my parents as a teenager, where I had sleepovers as a child and where I slept the night before I got married. Home. Where I lived from 1973-1991 until I ventured off to college. It's not very often that a 41 year old's parents live in the same house for 40+...

Picture a snow globe. I saw everything that was going on inside of it... but I wasn’t a part of it because I was on the outside looking in. That’s how I've always felt about Judaism. I was going to take on this Bat Mitzvah challenge in my 50s as an empty nester. But, when I spoke to Rabbi Kedar at a Lincolnshire party a few years ago-she encouraged me to do this BEFORE my kids. I didn’t want to steal their thunder, I told her. And, she said one of the best things I can do for my kids is set an example. And, not surprisingly, she was right. My family has heard me chanting my Torah Portion over and over again (they all know it now). They have occasionally come with me to Saturday Kol Shabbat services (my favorite service!). My kids know that on Tuesdays I won’t be home at 7pm when they get home from Hebrew school... Because I am at Hebrew School! My son and I even have the same teacher. They've seen my dedication, I am so glad it taught my kids a little something about accou...

It's February 3, 2014. Here I am. 40 1/2 years old. Mother of two. Wife. Daughter. Friend. Account Executive. Membership Director at the local swim club. If you look at my life, all of these things define me. My role in this world right now. They are all good things. But, just as many middle aged, women find...sometimes it's just not enough when you are giving so much of yourself to the world around you and so very little to yourself. I drop my kids off at Sunday school. I carpool to Hebrew School for my 5th grader. He goes every Tuesday evening begrudgingly. I consistently attend services for the High Holy Days since we've joined our temple. I started going in college. And, when I moved to Chicago I continued to go with the exception of when my son was an infant. I celebrate Passover. I understand that I am Jewish. I was born to two Jewish parents. And, they too, were born to two Jewish parents. My parents didn't have temple affiliation. And, I never went through ...

It's been 6 years since I jumped on the bandwagon of Facebook. January 2008. I first went on because my British camp friends told me about it after I wrote them a "Hi How Are You?" email.  The beginning was really fun. Seeing people grow from 5th grade to 34. It was fun connecting......And, I believe a lot of great things have come from it....reconnecting with old friends. The ability to see my friends' kids grow up from babies to toddles to children. The ability to post my photos so that my friends can see my kids and dogs...my exposed life. Facebook birthdays are fun too, but keeping up with them is hard also! I believe it is now time for me to take a break. I woke up today feeling blue. For a variety of reasons. Endless snow. My husband's grandma died Monday at 92 only two days after we visited with her. I am grateful that we had that visit, but I feel sad that she died. She was 92, and that's amazing. But, she was alive. And, now she's not. That kind...

Last year I posted a list of the things that I wanted to accomplish by the time I turned 40. I have to say that my over-thinking and equally dramatic build up to this number.... might be actually softening the blow. However, I will be honest when I say that I am exiting my 30s with a conscious over indulgent explosion of celebration...from a girls weekend in Mexico, several special nights out planned with my husband (yay Book of Mormon finally), my parents coming in for the "actual" event of 40 and some other celebrations with girlfriends. I haven't looked at this list all year. I have decided now with less than 2 weeks to go, I can check in and see where I fell. Accept change-I was better at this than I thought I would be. There's been a lot of change this year. I have dealt with it the best I can. Be the best mom I can-My kids seem to like me, so I think I am doing okay. Then again, it depends on the day. Especially when you have a daughter......

I always find myself extremely introspective when life change happens. Today I found myself thinking a lot about my past and the present because school starts tomorrow. Summer is over. Not the season but the vacation away from school life. Schedules happen. Bedtimes matter. Homework begins. In these moments I think about my own personal experiences in grade school as I watch my kids move up the #s each year. This year actually marks the first time in 9 years that school is essentially free (aside from property taxes aka suburban tuition, school supplies, lunch and a small registration fee), and it also marks a time where both of my kids are in an official numbered "grade", 4th and 1st. I remember every one of my teachers K-6. I remember feeling like a big kid on my first day of kindergarten. I also had a lot of reflection today when I thought about 1st and 4th grade because I had the same teacher, Mrs. Ermilio, for both. Mrs. Ermilio was a demanding teacher, but she was m...