Hettie’s Reflections – Blog Posts

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Welcome to Hettie’s Reflections!

Hello! My name is Hettie, I was born and raised in Saint Petersburg, Russia, and I emigrated to the United States in October 1996. I live in Palatine, IL and work in Chicago.

I’ve been very active in the Russian blogosphere, and my American friends keep asking me when I am going to tell my story in English. Well, the time has come.

I am going to write my story for my granddaughter Nadia, and for all my American friends, who has been so supportive through all these years, and hope that my children, Igor, Vlad and Anna will help me through this journey.

My Russian blog used to have “a lot of everything”, because first, I just like to write a little something every day, reflecting on everything happening in the world around me, and second – because I believe that people trust me more knowing me as a person. Everything I’ve done in my life so far, and everything I am doing every day, made me – and still making me the person I am.

This being said, although this blog is intended mostly to record our family history, there will be still “a lot of everything” here. However, for those who is interested in the history solely, I will paste all the links to the Hettie’s Timeline page, which will hopefully allow to read all these entries in a chronological order.

The links to my interviews and videos (mostly professional) will be pasted on this page, and also for those who is interested what I am doing in my professional life, feel free to check out my blog The World of Data.

My blog Hettie’s Cooking is hardly a cooking blog, at least I do not update it often. However, some of my legendary recipes, like “Mom’s soup”, can be found there.

Enjoy 🙂

TIME Magazine: The Cost-of-Living Crisis Is Rewriting the Rules of Dating

I observed this trend of “postponing personal life while building stability,” but I didn’t think it was so widespread these days. Also, I am wondering why in my younger years we never thought about tough economic times being on the way when entering relationships and starting a family. Possibly because we didn’t have much even during the time of stability.

Source

Meehika Barua is a freelance journalist who is currently working on her memoir on friendships and love.

Jul 6, 2026 5:00 AM CT

zimmytws—Getty Images
Continue reading “TIME Magazine: The Cost-of-Living Crisis Is Rewriting the Rules of Dating” →

Biking With Anna And Other Saturday Activities

Anna sacrificed two extra hours of sleep to go on a Saturday morning bike ride with me. The air quality was significantly better than on Thursday and Friday, although the horizon was covered with clouds, so we couldn’t see a sunrise over the lake. Still, it was a beautiful sunrise.

Anna took a picture of me biking

When we came back, we tried to wake the rest of the family up, which took significantly longer than we expected, so we had to adjust the plans for the rest of the day. Still, the girls wanted to go to the Field Museum even if for a short time, so we did.

Now we are trying to figure out whether they will be able to come one more time before the end of summer.

Prairie Postgres Meetup

Prairie Postgres July Meetup: Proudly Sourced at Midwest!

Drama Camp

For the whole week of Drama Camp in the Lifeline Theater, the campers were creating a Time Voyage play. They came up with the script and all the dialogues, they built the set, made the props and costumes, and they rehearsed and finally presented the play to families and friends. Their teachers did an extraordinary job of guiding them through the process, supporting their creativity and making sure the show holds together 🙂

The Time Machine was made of a refrigerator box 🙂

Nadia rated this camp 10.99 out of 10 😀, and adults were definitely less stressed than last year. Kira said that she still liked the Field Museum camp better, but we think that’s just because she likes the Field Museum so much. Anyway, we have several options for next summer, and we’ll see what happens!

Oh, and I asked my mom’s caregiver to walk her to the theater for the play. She said that she was happy to see the girls, although she didn’t understand anything, and that even though she was tired, she was glad she went.

Air Quality Hazard

I never experienced anything like that! And from what I hear, it’s not just me – the hazardous air quality situation is the worst ever experienced in Chicago. It had dramatically worsened during the night, and I didn’t realize what was happening when I got out for the morning bike ride.

The smell of the air was awful, and I didn’t realize how “global” it was. The picture taken from one of my favorite spots shows a complete disappearance of the skyline.

When it was time for the girls to go to camp, they asked for masks, and they were not wrong. The situation became even worse later in the day, although I still hope that it will become better by Saturday, as the forecast promises!

Fruits And Berries

Anna & Fam traveled to Chicago from Michigan, which meant there was an abundance of fresh fruits and berries sold everywhere in mass quantities. Anna figured out it shouldn’t go to waste, and the four of us will consume it all, but it didn’t appear to be realistic, especially because I also stuffed the fridge with CSA delivery and other fruit and vegetable purchases.

I will check with Anna, but at first glance, there were at least 10 lb of perfectly ripe peaches, a box of at least 5 lb of blueberries (I actually think more), several pounds of both red and Rainier cherries, red currants, cucumbers, peppers, and raspberries. And most of them didn’t fit in the fridge!

It was only yesterday that I managed to fit the remaining goods into the fridge, and before that, I was making Finnish blueberry-rye cereal for breakfast for both of us, and we gave a lot of fruits to Igor and my neighbor downstairs. My next-door neighbor just returned from Michigan herself 🙂

Girls in Chicago

Nadia and Kira are attending the Drama Camp at the Lifeline Theater this week. Anna is trying to work from home, and I am trying to work whenever the opportunity presents itself 😂

The challenge is that the camp drop-off time is 8:50, and pickup time is at 3 PM, and it’s about a 15-minute walk from my house, so it’s only 5.5 hours of work in between. Yesterday, I worked from home and picked the girls up so that Anna could do more work during the day. Funny story: when I came for a pickup and the counselor asked for the kids’ names, I almost said, “Anna and Vlad” 😂. After the camp, we went to the beach, and when Anna was done, we switched :). I think the beach is the best thing in this whole arrangement! The water is warm, I bought two new bags of beach toys, so even the 90s (which is going to be the case for the whole week) feels manageable 🙂

Photos From Morning Biking

Injuries And Physical Therapy

While I was in Helsinki, I decided that my biking injuries were not healing fast enough, so after I returned, I went to physical therapy. Funny that I thought that my hip injury was healing slower and causing me more problems, but I soon realized that it was the opposite. Just after one visit to PT and doing exercises for a couple of days, I could run to catch the bus again:). It’s not healed completely, but the most important thing that affected my quality of life has improved.

The hand is healing more slowly, most likely because I use it all the time and often forget that I should be careful. When I went to PT for the second time (on Friday), my favorite physical therapist was in, and he did so many exercises with my hand, and it hurt the next morning. However, I see an improvement! It might still be a couple of weeks, and I still have bruises everywhere on my right side, but the progress is undeniable 🙂

Artists of the Wall 2026

Artists of the Wall is an annual Rogers Park event. I never participated in the actual painting, but I always loved what others had created. Anyone (although it is mostly local residents) can register to paint one of the sections of a 600-foot-long wall located by the lake near Loyola Beach. The Artists of the Wall Festival has been taking place since 1993, when neighbors banded together to cover up graffiti on the wall. Each year has its theme, but it’s usually broad enough to cover pretty much anything you want to paint.

This year’s theme is We Are All Neighbors.

First, last year’s paintings are covered with white (my mom’s photo), and all the slots are marked.

Then, for two days, participants create their paintings (sometimes, people come later to finish).

Continue reading “Artists of the Wall 2026” →