Author: Hettie D.

My name is Henrietta (Hettie) Dombrovskaya. I was born in Saint-Petersburg, Russian (actually, back then – Leningrad, USSR) in 1963, and immigrated to the United States in 1996. I love Saint Petersburg, the city I was born and raised in, and I think it’s one of the most beautiful places in the world. Similarly (but differently) I love Chicago, and can’t imagine myself moving somewhere else in the observable future. I have three children, Igor, Vlad and Anna, all adults living on their own, and one (so far) granddaughter Nadia. I also believe that my children are the best thing that happened in my life. As for my professional life, I am working in the field of Information Technologies. When I was twenty, I’ve declared that the databases are the coolest thing invented and that I want to do them for the rest of my life. Thirty plus years later, I still believe it’s true, and still, believe that the databases are the best. These two statements together imply that I think a person can have it all, and indeed, I think so! Keep reading my journals to find out how I did it.

How Much Christmas Costs?

ComEd sent me an email the other day stating that I am trending towards a high electric bill. Not super-high by their projection, but higher than the bill for the same period last year.
No wonder :). I was at home all December since the city officials asked us not to go in without the pressing need. And my Christmas tree and other indoor lights were lit up all day long for the whole month! The baking was more or less as usual in December :).

Still, I started to think about whether I should include my higher electric bill in my Christmas expenses. I started to track my Christmas expenses separately several years ago. My friends are aware of my smart Excel worksheet, which allows me to track my spendings and monitor the trends.

I have been doing it for so many years; I can’t even remember. But the idea of tracking all Christmas -related expenses through the year is relatively new in my personal finances. It’s not just presents and wrapping and Christmas decorations. It is also extra baking supplies, and my insane postage, and boxes for cookies. And more food. And buying Christmas chocolates in October. And in normal years, Christmas shows. And extra charitable donations. Since I started recording my Christmas expenses, I learned that they occur almost every month, with the bulk being obviously in November-December. I spend around 4.5 K on Christmas each year. That does not mean that I am a compulsive Christmas shopper, and it does not mean that I am looking to reduce these expenses. That’s budgeted every year, and every year, I reduce other expenses in December to accommodate this spike. Since I am not exactly a miracle worker, it costs money to have miracles happen, and I am happy to invest this money into the Christmas magic.

It is sad when people say that “this money could be used for some much-needed items.” It is sad that for several years now, we are not allowed to gift something nice to the adults in our “adopted families” and are asked for gift cards instead – I would be happy to do both. Adults need magic, same as kids :).

While I have the means, I will continue to do what I am doing now: being Mrs. Claus for many people all over the world.

It Was a Very Productive Weekend

And I completed a couple of important projects which were still holding me back in 2020. There were (and still are) several things to worry about. So I am not exactly in 2021 yet, but I hope to be there soon.

My Life As a Toddler: The Beginning Of 1964

I am moving back to the beginning of my timeline – to the first four months of 1964.

In the previous post, I showed the pictures from my first New Year, when I was just nineteen days short of my first birthday. As I already said, I remember some parts of that day, and I remember that I was learning to walk, and the walls were not exactly straight and reliable – sometimes they would suddenly start slipping, and I would end up on the floor :).

The first five pictures were taken in January. On the first three of them, I am in my crib, where I was placed so that adults could do something without me constantly falling on the floor. I have a couple of my toys there, but apparently, I am not interested in them.

Continue reading “My Life As a Toddler: The Beginning Of 1964” →

New Year’s Motivations

This year might be not exactly a year to have a resolution about going to the gym, because… well, everybody knows why. Still, trying to keep my tradition of motivating people to exercise, I am posting the pictures I took in my home gym with minimal equipment On December 31 and January 1. I am not saying, you can do it no matter what, but I am saying, you can definitely do something :).

Now I am back to maintaining this balance on both left and right side for 40 sec
Continue reading “New Year’s Motivations” →

The Year Is Not Finished For Me Yet

Not only because there are several more hours left, but also, because there are too many things “in flight” now. In course of the past three days I had several new experiences, including driving with the baby on board :), and overall, I am seen this year off not like I planned a couple of days ago.

This been said, I hope that in a week I will be finally able to say good bye to 2020. Until that, I have tons of things to do.

On the bright side, I have more presents! This mask was set to me from Michigan, and I love it!

And just today, I received the sweets from my friend from Ufa, which is not an alien settlement, but the capital of Bashkortostan. Which in turn is not an imaginary country, but a part of Russia, located on the border of Europe and Asia.

Continue reading “The Year Is Not Finished For Me Yet” →

Everything Is Falling Apart Again!

This year can’t finish without more calamities!

On Christmas Eve morning, I felt like the hot water was cooler than it should be and that it took longer for it to get warm. However, since the weather was exceptionally cold, I attributed the water temperature to that fact. By evening, however, I’ve grown a suspicion that something is wrong with the water heater.

My water heater can keep the water warm for a long time, and I am not sure when it actually stopped heating. I thought that I would survive a Christmas Day (nobody would come out anyway), and I could call Allied Saturday morning.

On Saturday morning, the water was still warm enough for me to take a quick shower. Then, I called Allied. It was 6 AM, so I didn’t expect anybody to be in, but I wanted to leave a voice message. Following the prompts, I reach to the technician on call only to find out that they are not picking up, and their mailbox is full. When I call at 7-30 AM, the message was that the office is closed for the holidays. They suggested another company for emergency service.

I called and texted them, and there was no answer. I started to look on the internet for alternatives and quickly found one. I called them, and they said that they will come over within two hours.
By that time, the first company replied, saying that they are swamped with work and won’t come on Saturday, but they can come on Monday. I replied: no problem, somebody is coming.

Continue reading “Everything Is Falling Apart Again!” →

Soviet Propaganda (Almost Forgotten)

Suddenly, I remembered this episode; I didn’t think about it for years until yesterday, when it suddenly popped up in my mind.

Back when I was a child, not only did we not know anything about Christmas, we didn’t even know how Santa looks like. Grandfather Frost, who was in charge of presents, looked very different from Santa, except for the beard. And even his beard looked different from Santa’s 🙂

So, we didn’t know how Santa looks like, and that’s what once happened.

I must have been in grade school, probably the 5th or the sixth grade. It was a winter break, and I was at the Yubileyniy Palace of Sports watching the New Year show on ice.

In all these shows, the scenario is more or less the same: Grandfather Frost is in danger, or got lost, or lost his granddaughter Snowgirl. And some good guys help him (most often, animals) and bad guys trying to prevent him from finding Snowgirl or take him hostage, or something else.

This time around, a villain was Santa Claus! He didn’t look like Sant at all, but we didn’t know. He was short and thin and wriggling, hunching most of the time. He wore a purple robe, which was too big for him, and a dark purple hat that looked very much like a night hat. He wore sunglasses (because spies wear sunglasses!). He had packs of chewing gum in his pockets, which he was using to bribe the good guys. There was no chewing gum in the Soviet Union, and it was labeled as bourgeois plague, and yet kids loved it, as one can love forbidden fruit.

This Santa Claus was trying to turn people away from Grandfather Frost and accept him as a main figure for the New Year celebration. In the end, he was defeated and sent away.
It was a long (two acts) and a beautiful ice skating show, and it ran twice a day through the whole winter break. The Yubileyniy arena was huge, so I won’t be surprised if most of the city’s grade school students saw this show. I didn’t feel anything wrong about it. I thought it was funny. And it was so along the lines of what we were told back then that I forgot about it entirely.
Now I think: it’s no surprise that so many people in Russia think about the US as their enemy. That concept was imprinted in people’s minds so early that they can’t even remember that.

My historical posts are being published in random order. Please refer to the page Hettie’s timeline to find where exactly each post belongs and what was before and after.

My Christmas Ornaments

People keep asking about my Christmas ornaments – yet another tour of my tree 🙂

Time To Give Gifts, And Time To Receive Gifts

Almost all f my parcels, except for one, already reached their destinations, which delights me. I haven’t heard from two people who have received my parcels according to the USPS, but I hope to hear from them soon.

And now finally the packages which were sent to me started to Arrive.
That’s the gift I received from Kentucky.

The vanilla body lotion is heavenly, and the ornament is beautiful. When I realized that my new friend sent me the components to mix, add the liquid components, and bake-it-myself, I had mixed feelings, which might be understandable after 774 cookies :).

Continue reading “Time To Give Gifts, And Time To Receive Gifts” →

All Is Right

And all of a sudden, the rush is over. I can’t stop smiling since last evening.
I had just two and a half workdays this week – we were dismissed at 1 PM yesterday, and since more than half of the company is on vacation, plus we have a code freeze, I was able to do work at work! That felt great – I was able to close all my tickets for the current sprint, the first time in I do not know how long!

Granted, there is still a lot of work with the book, we have ten days to finish, and there is still a substantial amount of writing. However, since I have so many days off, I am confident we will finish on time.

Yesterday, I stopped at the post office to drop off my cookies. Like with my nail spa and physical therapy, I packed small individual boxes rather than one box or a tray. I chose really pretty cookies for them because shipping for many years, I know first-hand how hard they work and how under-appreciated they are.

Their supervisor was on the shift, and I stopped aside, waited for a customer to complete their transactions, and told her: that’s for you guys, thank you!!! She was so happy I can’t even describe it:).

Continue reading “All Is Right” →