The Israel Adventure - One Day at a Time

Kids 'N Things

2013-10-07T10:11:00.001+03:00

Over the summer I watched the first Karate Kid movie with the kids. After that E couldn't stop talking about karate so I took him to a trial karate lesson at the community center in our neighborhood. He loved it so we signed him up. I was also thinking that a) it might be a good way for him to expend some energy in a controlled way and b) that the discipline of it would do him good. He's been to two lessons and he comes out of the room beaming each time. The lessons are twice a week for an hour. I sat in on the first lesson and was VERY impressed with the teacher. VERY.

There was another little boy there with his friend and at one point the friend had to leave the room to pee and the little boy started crying because his friend left for a minute. The teacher told the boy to come kneel by him at the front of the class. He put his arm around the boy's shoulders and told him to close his eyes. Then in the calmest, quietest voice he told the boy, "OK. I want you to take as much time as you need to find the quiet, still place inside you that will allow you to be brave and not cry even though your friend isn't here right now. When you find that place inside you, tell me that you found it." The teacher carried on instructing the class and after about a minute, the little boy who was still kneeling beside the teacher with his eyes closed said, "I found it!" And he had stopped crying. It was very impressive and the teacher handled it so well.

Y also went to a trial karate lesson and was considering it but then also went to a trial zumba lesson and like it better so I'm going to sign her up for that tonight. That is once a week for an hour. In addition, she is continuing this year to take private English lessons which she loves.

E has been having a fairly hard time going to gan in the mornings without being clingy or crying. I'm not sure why although I have my suspicions. Yesterday I made a weekly chore chart of sorts for both his morning routine and his evening routine. The morning routine includes: getting out of bed, getting dressed, putting on his shoes, eating breakfast and going to gan with a smile. I used clip art images to illustrate each thing. The evening routine includes: brushing teeth, pajamas, reading a story with me, getting in bed and going to sleep with a smile. I showed him these charts last night and he got really excited about them and it worked wonders last night and this morning. He loves doing each thing and then running to the fridge where the charts are hung to tick off each thing he accomplishes. Maybe at the end of the week if he keeps it up I will buy him a small treat/present but I haven't mentioned it to him.

The mornings and evenings are getting colder and it's getting dark earlier and earlier although THANK THE LORD the government made the decision to leave daylight savings in effect for a month longer than usual! Why they don't just leave us on daylight savings time year round beats me. I have never understood who the switch benefits. With the darker, colder nights I feel myself slipping into hibernation mode which is my least productive mode. Oh dear.

See you in the spring!

Post Holiday Re-cap

2013-10-06T13:16:00.000+03:00

We are now beyond the gazillion holidays of September, parents are back to work full-time and kids back in school.

E stayed on another year in the same gan where he was last year and I'm starting to think that wasn't a smart decision. Only 4 kids who were with him last year also stayed on this year and he's been having a hard time in the mornings saying goodbye to me without crying. He is also very sullen and pouty about going to gan most mornings. In addition to having "lost" most of his friends, I'm sensing that he's a bit bored maybe too. I spoke to his gannenet about it this morning and really didn't like her response at all. So I may look into switching him to the gan across the street from our house where most of his friends are.

T continues to have issues with getting up on time in the mornings early enough to get to school by bus on time. A call from her teacher features largely in most of my mornings these days. I urge T to get up earlier, take the earlier bus but she's not having any of it! I suggested to her teacher today that she require T to stay an hour late after school for being late. I'm out of ideas.

Mom is looking for a small apt somewhere to rent - somewhere with Anglos. This is going to be a tall order b/c her finances are so tight. But I am trying to help her look.

Things in the "friends department" (for me) are looking up. A number of new young moms have moved into the community and a couple of them have really reached out to me. One is very crafty like me and asked me to teach her what I know about beading and we have gotten together a couple of times to make jewelry. Much more fun with someone than without.

The weather has cooled off significantly and we can feel/smell fall just around the corner. I'm thinking that I won't be able to come to work any more with open shoes or short sleeves. The mornings and evenings are getting quite nippy for here.

On Friday, I did some more rearranging of major pieces of furniture in the living room (couch and 2 bookshelves) and I like the new configuration much better. It opens up the living room, which is very large, and gives me a place to sit near the window at the end and feel a bit like I'm sitting outside.

I'm feeling very draggy today. Guess it's the Sunday Blues. However the morning has flown by b/c I was busy with something. It's now lunchtime so I'm going to run.........

Is it Just Me?

2013-08-08T12:57:00.002+03:00

"He who dirties The Land, his prayers will not be answered for 40 days."

This was the quote from some text (the source of this quote was written there but I didn't make note of where it was excerpted from) and printed out on a paper and tacked up onto a tree near where the refreshments are served outside after Shabbat morning services at our synagogue.

The first thought that went through my head when I read it was,"WHAT?! Now you're THREATENING me?!"

The second thought was, "My MOTHER taught me not to litter!"

How utterly PATHETIC that this even has to be said!

I DUNNO, people. Is it just me or does that quote grab anyone else the same way?

Whatever happened to the old adage "Cleanliness is next to godliness."? Let me guess. Too many Xtian overtones in that adage for some, I suppose.

Me? Let's just say I think those Xtians are on to something.

Summer

2013-07-14T10:14:00.002+03:00

I have been very bad at keeping up with this, haven't I? Work has been hectic for a while and home....? Forget it!

I can say that the we are seeing light at the end of the tunnel when it comes to the renovations in the new apartment. We are once again a two toilet family as of last week! Hurrah. The smaller bathroom, which we expanded and remodeled, came out GREAT and is meant for the use of the two girls. The tiling in the kitchen and laundry room is being finished up today (I hope) and also looks great. There are a few other things that need finishing up but the major things are basically done. So hopefully all the workers will go home soon and I can do a deep clean.

S's 60th birthday is mid-August so we're hoping to make him a 60th birthday party and make it a housewarming party as well. Kill two birds with one stone.

I am taking Tuesday off work for Tisha B'Av and might pop into IKEA. They're having a huge sale right now and I need some curtains for the living room.

Desmond the Dove is still with us and turning into a beautiful bird. Y and I take him out of his cage whenever we have some spare time to handle him and let him fly around the living room.

I have been taking a beading workshop once a week for 6 weeks however the class has been cancelled for the last 3 weeks running for various reasons. The owner of the store said she would give me a free lesson as compensation! So I'm happy.

The kids are both in camp through the end of this week. The following week, 2 young teenage girls who live in the building next to ours are doing "camp" in the home of one of them for little kids so we are sending E there.

My Mom is coming to spend a few days with us next week and S and I have our 11th anniversary coming up on the 25th.

I really can't wait for camp to be over because once it is I will be working every other day through August. I've done this for the past 2 years and it works for us. I have a few ideas of things I want to do with the kids but haven't gone crazy planning down to the second what I'll do with them. We've been to the beach 3 times recently on Fridays. It's cheap, the kids have a ball and wear themselves out and sleep great afterwards. So we will probably do that a few more times too.

Desmond the Dove

2013-06-03T09:03:00.001+03:00

I have a new baby. Baby dove, that is.

He was "born" in the unused kitchen window box of our old apartment. The mother laid two eggs, sat on them and they hatched about 2 days before Shavuot. I wish now I'd kept better records so I'd know exactly how old Desmond is.

The mother looked after both birds until one of the babies died. Then she abandoned the other. I got home from work on Sunday 2 weeks ago at 5 pm and by 9 pm I hadn't seen the mother at all and it was dark and getting cool outside. Normally by nightfall she was sitting on them already to keep them warm. So the fact that I hadn't seen her by dark was very odd. This was 4 days before we moved to our new apartment and we were deep in the middle of packing up but I just could NOT focus knowing this little thing was out there and would die if he stayed out there all night. "He was just BORN and he's going to DIE and it's NOT FAIR!" He had no feathers and his eyes weren't even open yet. He would have fit in a tablespoon. So small but seemed strong. I was like, "That's it! I have to do something or try at least." I brought him inside, made a "nest" for him in a tiny tupperware container lined with multiple layers of tissues and tried to get him to take food and water but couldn't get him to open his beak.

I called up a friend who has had some very odd animals as pets in the past figuring she'd know of a vet I could consult with which she did. I phoned up the number she gave me and caught the vet still in at 9:30 pm. She said she was just leaving but how fast could I get there? I said, "10 minutes or less." Me and the bird and Y were there in 3 minutes flat. I had put the "nest" in the bottom of a large plastic bucket in case the bird jumped out he wouldn't have far to fall. The vet had two containers of food ready for me - one of baby bird "formula" that you mix with water and feed it with a syringe and another of bird seed for when he got bigger. She showed me how to feed him and I was shocked at how seemingly forceful she was with him. But it didn't seem to hurt him any and after that I was less timid about prying his beak open and dumping food down his throat. She wished us luck, didn't charge us for the visit and we went home. Luckily I was off work for 3 days prior to the move so I had the time to mother this bird. He seemed to thrive and ate with gusto. The first day I fed him the formula every 2 hours from dawn to dark. The 2nd day I stretched it to every 3 hours, the 4th day to every 4 hours, etc. The day AFTER we moved, the company I work for took all of the employees up north from 7 am for breakfast, rafting and jeeping and we didn't get home until 10:30 pm. There was no one at home who had time to look after this baby bird for me and feed him so I ended up taking him with me in his bucket nest on the bus! I had all of the equipment with me that I needed for his feedings and on the shorter stops like for breakfast I left him in his bucket on the bus. During the 3-4 hours that we were doing the rafting and jeeping, it was too hot to leave him on the bus. He would have cooked. So I ran to the offices of the rafting place and begged them to let me leave him there quietly in a corner of the office somewhere in the a/c. Somehow I think they'd never had such a request before.....but they let me. So WHEW for that! Being able to leave him in the a/c was a huge relief. So all told we made it through a long day just fine.

He's getting big and strong and doing all the right birdie things - except eating on his own. He's on purely bird seed now but still hasn't figured out how to pick the seeds up off the floor of his cage and eat them. I hope I won't be hand feeding him forever. I now have him in a normal bird cage since I'm not sure when he will start flying. He's already making short hopping flights. I'm bringing him to work with me still to make sure he eats. But can't figure out how to teach him to eat on his own.

It's an amazing thing to hold this little creature who is so unafraid of us. He sits in his cage on my desk making soft "weeeet! weeeet!" sounds at me all day.

O...Just....CRAP

2013-04-21T15:14:00.002+03:00

I'm in a bad mood. Therefore read the following whiny post at your own peril. This is one of those crappy days someone needs to do a "RESTART" to.

It's the WRONG time of the month. Let's just start with that.

Winter is baaaaaack. And it's DARK and COLD and WET outside. I wondered if I was in Seattle when I woke up this morning and DH wondered if he was in Manchester (the UK version of Seattle).

It's Sunday (start of the work week). Ugh.

I'm tired.

My sprained ankle still hurts.

I got to work today and the computers were down for the first 2 hours of the day. It's like being without air.

Some "outside people" are here at work today to review the filing for one of the studies I'm responsible for. I have a feeling it's not going well and I dread to hear what the findings are.

On the bright side....

A funny from DD8:

One night last week DH had gone out to pick up DD16 from a friend's house. I was getting the little ones in bed in the meantime.

DD8: "I hear Abba and T coming."

Me: "You do?"

DD8: "Yes. I have ears like an elephant. I can hear a fly fart in Africa." <giggle>

WHERE does she get her material from??

This week is "New Apartment Key Week"!!!!!!!!!!! Our sellers are moving out on Weds. so we should get the key to our new apartment on Thurs. or Fri. Hurrah! Then we are going to have to get in there and make some renovation decisions FAST. We have one month to go before we move in.

"Warts" - Live with 'Em? Or Change 'Em?

2013-04-15T09:43:00.000+03:00

Our city has an Internet message board which my husband started and of which he is the moderator. At times some heated exchanges take place on this board between residents of the city over various matters.

The newest gripe to be aired on this message board was started by someone complaining about the minuscule size of the new street signs - when street signs exist - and needing a telescope to even read them or the street signs being obscured by foliage that hasn't been cut back enough and the like. This was the start of the thread.

To which another woman (who I actually know and who lives on our street) responded today:
"Kvetch, kvetch, kvetch! In 65 short years has accomplished what no other nation has!!! We went from being nothing, to being a prosperous, strong, independent country. So what if street signs are not to everybody's
satisfaction? We excell in so many other fields. Let's be thankful for this piece of land that is ours! We're here by choice!!!!!!!!!!"

This post went unsigned by its author which irked me as did the tone of her post. She is right to some extent. I guess it's just how it was stated.

I am nothing if not a writer. I know this is a strong point of mine. Always has been. But this was only driven home to me yet again after receiving floods of thank yous from others on the message board for the following response which I dashed off to the anonymous poster above and posted publicly. Here's what I said:

"Yes we're here by choice but just because we are here by choice and glad of it does not mean we have to or should close our eyes to the place's "warts". It does not mean that we have to suffer the status quo in silence or refrain from trying to improving the place, refrain from requiring some streamlining of existing methods or refrain from introducing some good old fashioned niceties and conveniences! We Anglos have a lot to offer on all fronts since we know something different which is - dare I say it? - occasionally better."

I am glad I was able to respond respectfully and yet still say what I meant in a concise manner and it seems to have hit home with many who feel as I do.

Dogs...Hmmmmm

2013-04-11T12:59:00.000+03:00

The girls have begun pestering DH about wanting a dog. They had a good go at him on Shabbat. To the point where he said, "We have a lot of work coming up what with the move and getting settled and all. Let's get through that and talk again." Does that sound like a "maybe" to you?

Then this morning he came to me and whispered that the upstairs neighbor lady's daughter had found a German Shepherd and they were looking for a home for it. He said he was thinking of going to look at it just so he could say "Nah!" LOL

We had a quick whispered talk about it in the kitchen. I said I would tend not to go for a purebred. Plenty of mutts waiting for homes without breeding more. German Shepherds have genetic problems with their back legs and also since E is afraid of dogs probably best not to get a large one like that. If we ever got a dog and if the girls intend walking it, it needs to be a size that they can control on a leash. Also smaller dogs eat less and can get enough exercise in an apartment.

I have very mixed feelings about getting a dog. IF we ever did, I'm saying. Nice in theory but....they are a lot of work as well. I definitely would NOT get a puppy. I do not have time or energy to deal with housebreaking and getting my possessions chewed up. I do NOT have time to walk anything in the mornings. And thinking of having to walk it in the cold and rain and get up early on Shabbatot to walk it and up and down 4 flights of stairs on Shabbat.....Am I nuts?

The plus side could be that it would afford the kids hours of endless fun with no effort from me. Yeah. But it could also just add to the existing chaos in our house.

Can you tell I'm of two minds? I guess like DH says best to get through the move and then think again.

Pesach Vacation Summary

2013-04-02T10:58:00.001+03:00

Here I am back at work after being off work quite a lot due to Pesach (Passover). I've had a raging migraine since yesterday that still hasn't gone away even after taking something for it on two occasions since last night.

The kids were all off school for 2 1/2 weeks or so and I must be the only mom in the country who delights in school holidays. Just means the mornings are all my own for getting myself ready for work. They've been staying up WAAAAY later than I normally let them and therefore sleeping in later. So I have a full, delicious hour in the mornings during school holidays to shower, get dressed, do my makeup, etc. No kids to argue with over what they'll be wearing, no one's hair to fix, no homework to hound them about, no food fights in the morning over what, exactly, they will let me put in their pita and will actually agree to eat. Bliss!

The kids go back to school tomorrow. Which leaves me counting the minutes until the end of June and the start of summer vacation.

Pesach seemed to be all chag and no chol hamoed of which there were only 2 days. I worked one full day of chol hamoed and was off the other and that day was really nice. We all attended Y's acrobatics competition in the morning and then myself and my three offspring betook ourselves to the beach for about 3 hours followed up with a stop at IKEA for a cheap, kosher for Passover dinner out. The beach and the weather were heavenly. Cool breeze, warm sun. I think the water was too cold still to go in and I wasn't really interested in that anyway. Thankfully, the 2 little ones are getting old enough now where they are prepared to play in the surf themselves and I'm not too worried about them as long as they are in my line of vision. Far more relaxing for me this way than when they were younger and expected me to carry them into the surf, sit beside them, dig sand pits and tunnels with them. I hope to go back to the beach often but then again I say that every summer and it doesn't happen as often as I'd like somehow.

Shabbat of Pesach was....Shabbat. Nothing out of the ordinary. But then DH had the bright idea of inviting his mother BACK to us for chag sheini (last day of Passover) because his 2 married kids and 3 grandkids were coming for dinner and he thought his mom would like to see them all. Great in theory. Bad in reality. I was peopled out by this time. MIL is a nice lady and all but irks me no end. She lurks, hulks, hovers, whatever you want to call it. She's very critical in her dry British way which gets old and she's hard of hearing so it's impossible to have a conversation with her when you have to say everything 3 times before she gets it. In the end, I just left DH to deal with her and spent a lot of the day in bed in my room or out in the park with DS4. Just couldn't deal. I'm sure MIL thinks I'm the rudest person on the planet for ignoring her and goodness knows what she's told the rest of the family about me but.....too bad. I gotta do what I gotta do to cope, right?

So here we are back at work, catching up on 5 days worth of emails and slowly getting back into the swing.

The Morning After

2013-03-27T11:30:00.001+02:00

After a long hiatus where life got the better of me, I am making a new resolution to return to blogging - at least semi-regularly.

Happy Pesach (Passover) to everyone who observes it!

Seder was held at our house as usual with my Mom and DH's Mom in attendance and DD16 was with us this year for a change. DD16 was such a big help with the cooking! She loves to cook and she's very good at it and adventurous too.

We begged off of doing the big extended family bash this year by using our impending move to get out of it. It sorta worked. DH's married daughter tried to invite herself and her family (that's 4 people) AND her husband's family (another 4 people) to us for the seder. And when do you suppose we got this phone call?? TWO evenings before the seder!! I heard DH on the phone with her and figured out what she was trying to pull. I rushed into the kitchen where he was on the phone with her and started dramatically drawing my index finger across my throat. As in "if you agree to them coming at this late stage I will kill you, her or myself.....or maybe all three". So it seems her story was that they COULD go to her mil's for seder but she would prefer to come to us so that her kids will have ours to play with! I said to DH, "O I see. So she's gone from telling us that a gay couple having a kids was more normal that us having kids together to actually realizing that her Dad having young kids is a plus for her." In the end DH told her that if going to her mil's was an option then she should take it because we wanted a quiet seder this year but that next year we would be inviting everyone. We will be in the new apartment and it's big enough that if any one wants to get away from anyone else, they can. ;-)

So. Speaking of apartments, thank G-d we finally bought a larger place. Our street is two blocks long so it's just down the block from us. Kinda funny to be moving one block down but it's good. We won't need to change the shul we attend or the kids' schools. We are SO EXCITED about moving. We had been looking like CRAZY for about 10 months and had seen this place last summer. They were asking WAY too much for it at the time and their taste in furnishings/decorating had kinda put us off. We carried on looking at other things and then on Election Day which I had off work, I saw on the internet that they were still trying to sell and I suggested to DH that we go back and take a 2nd look. By this time they were desperate since they'd already bought something else and still had no buyer. This time the place struck us totally differently and we were able to look past the decorating style and see the place's potential. We came home and straight away made a silly offer which was significantly lower than they were expecting to get for it. Man, were we on pins and needles all day long! It was so hard to concentrate on anything, wondering if they'd accept our offer. But they did!

About 2 months before we found the place to move to, a serious buyer for our current apartment had come along and he liked it so much that he was willing to wait until we found something else we wanted to buy. We ended up signing both the sale and purchase contracts on the same day.

The "new" apartment is in a building that is actually about 40 years old but very well looked after. The building is set way back off the street and behind another building so we're hopeful that it will be quieter than where we are now.

The apartment is on the fourth floor of the building and faces east, south and west so it's very bright. Whatever sun is going, we're going to get. I swore I would never again live in an apartment that didn't face south. And I think this is the only apartment we saw that DID face south. Our current apartment is ~100 sq. meters (~1000 sq. ft.). The new apartment is ~160 sq. meters (~1700 sq. ft.). Heaven! It is four bedrooms so the extra bedroom will serve as DH's office and guest room. His work space will FINALLY be out of the way and out of sight. The kitchen is large and an older style and we will be redoing it, at least partially. The apartment only has 1 1/2 baths. DH thinks we need to figure out how and where to stick another shower but I hate to start dividing the place up into little bits just for a shower and ruin the effect of all that gorgeous SPACE! We looked at what other people in the building have done about adding another shower. Everyone did something different and I wasn't crazy about any of the ideas. We may just not do anything straight away and live with it as is until we see what our needs really are.

Our sellers were supposed to be in their new place by Pesach but they don't have the key to their new place yet. So until they get it we can't schedule a moving date. However according to the contract they HAVE to be out by May 1 at the latest and we have to be out of our current place by May 23 at the latest. That gives us a 3 week window to do whatever we're going to do to the new place.

On other matters.....
Mr. Ex has been giving me fits over 5 years of child support that he hasn't paid. I finally took a VERY difficult step and turned off his checks and credit cards. This was about 2 months ago. And since then, with my lawyer's help, we have been trying to negotiate a payment plan for him to pay off the debt of back support that has accrued as well as how he's going to pay going forward.

After I had his money "turned off", the idiot phoned up DD16 and told her I'd done that. WHY?? We weren't home at the time when he spoke to her and when we got home she was sizzling mad - at me. Her take on it is, "Poor Abba. How could you be so cruel?" DD16 has known that he and I had a money issue but I never gave her particulars. But since he'd already put her squarely in the middle, I decided she might as well have all the facts so I laid it out for her and said a few choice things to her about the situation. She said she didn't care and she was going to live with him. The next morning I left the house to do errands and when I got home she was gone. I was a WRECK for about 3 days. The feelings of being betrayed by her were overwhelming. You know, you give and give and give and give and do and do and do and do for your kid and she slaps you in the face by running off to the parent who has done - I won't say nothing - but, as I see it, SO little for her. I'm the one who sat up nights with her when she was sick and dealt with her tantrums when she was little and handled school issues which have been many and ongoing and I'm the one who worried about her mental health through the years (there were two long periods at different times where I felt she needed someone other than me to talk to about stuff she was dealing with, fallout from the divorce and other things, and I sent her to weekly sessions with a child psychologist), etc. And for some of her growing up years, I did all this on my own until I remarried. Her Dad hasn't been involved in any of this.

Long story short, she missed 2 weeks of school to live with him as a means of punishing me for my "cruelty" to her Dad. And while she was there, he was threatening to enroll her in a school near him. It was two weeks of stress that I wouldn't like to relive but in the end she came back. I had gotten myself together enough so that when she did walk back through the door, I said hi and gave her a hug and said NOTHING. I think she was expecting me to make a scene because when I hugged her she gave a huge sigh. Relief?

Two days later I felt there was a lot hanging in the air unsaid so I suggested she and I go out for a coffee and talk and she agreed. We talked for an hour. Both talked, both listened. We obviously don't agree about her Dad but that's ok. She apologized for hurting me by running away to him and she admitted that she probably took too much of the situation on herself by trying to be the mediator between me and him. So all in all, I think/hope she learned some things from the experience and I am proud of myself for handling it the way I did.

Now it's left for her Dad and I to either agree about the money or not. My lawyer has turned out to be pretty useless, much to my disappointment. If he and I can't agree, then I have no idea what will happen or more importantly what he can or will do about it. I hate to think.

My secret weapon is just to keep thinking happy apartment thoughts.

One of my FB friends posted the following yesterday which I found helpful: "Please keep in mind that whatever you're going through, this challenging time in your life is merely IN your life. It is NOT your WHOLE life. So be sure to keep this SLICE of your life in perspective and don't let it overwhelm you. Remember nothing is everything. The part is not greater than the whole."

See What I Mean by "Adventure"?

2012-11-19T13:06:00.002+02:00

I did entitle this blog "The Israel Adventure". Yep. That's a good name for it, alright!

Israel is in it's 6th day of Operation Pillar of Cloud - fighting Hamas after how many? - SEVEN years did someone say? - of daily rocket attacks on our southern cities. Enough is enough. Gilad Shalit is no longer being held captive there and there is no longer any reason NOT to do something to stop the attacks. I still wonder what took us so long to spring into action.....

I just got back from the U.S. a month ago (more about that in another post) and while I was there I was trying not to think about the possibility that "something" would happen while I was there with a husband and 3 kids here and of me not being able to get home. Thankfully, it didn't happen while I was so far away but it sure is happening now!

We and all our friends knew that we would all be in range "next time around" and sure enough we are which is a first. Thankfully, we've still been getting uninterrupted nights' sleep and haven't had ONE air raid siren alert yet. However, we have been hearing plenty of "booms" throughout the last 6 days which I can only assume is our Iron Dome anti-missile defense system intercepting the rockets that were headed our way.

Last Thursday night I left work at 4:45 with a co-worker and just as we left the building we heard 3 booms. We looked up in the sky and saw three black puffs of smoke hanging in the air basically right over our heads. O-KAAAAAAAAAY! This isn't something happening in "the south" anymore. This isn't fun and games. This is REAL. Now when I'm driving, my eyes are scanning the sky and my heart leaps at every bird flapping by until I realize it's JUST a bird.

On Friday, Y said to me, "Ima, the principal came into our class and told us the bomb shelter was open and if we have time we should run there if there's a siren but if not we should find a wall and lie down next to it with our hands over our heads. If a bomb goes "pop" on me, what good is having my hands over my head going to do?" I didn't know whether to laugh or cry. Why does an 8-year-old have to think these things??? Nuts. Just nuts. But she's taking it very much in stride.

My prayer is that we do NOT give up before the job is finished, that we do NOT cave in to pressure. Otherwise we'll be in the same or worse situation a few years down the road. I also hope they don't jump the gun and send in the ground troups prematurely. IMO, they can do a hell of a lot more damage from the air without endangering anyone. They should send in the ground troups at the end to sweep up the pieces when it's all over.

Diary of an Aliyah-nik blog

2012-09-05T09:18:00.003+03:00

I stumbled across this blog today by chance called Diary of an Aliyah-nik which looks wonderful and I look forward to perusing it more in depth. Many of her posts look good but in particular her post from August 28th jumped up and bit me on the tush. I couldn't agree with her more and I wanted to stand up on the table and CHEER after reading it. Good for her! Take a look.....

A New School Year Begins

2012-08-30T08:35:00.001+03:00

After an eventful, fun-filled summer, Israeli kids started back to school on August 27th - 5 days earlier than the usual September 1st start date. This, obviously, made many working parents (except for me) happy, as it meant 5 fewer days that they had to scramble to find and pay for child care coverage.

In our house, we now have an 11th grader, 3rd grader and E started in a new gan which, happily, is walking distance from home, unlike the gan he was in for the past 2 years. The first day of gan he walked in like he owned the place and didn't cry at all but on every subsequent morning he has been clingy and cried. It's ok. I know it's a phase and he'll get used to it but it does send me off to work with a not-very-nice feeling in my tummy knowing I've left him there crying.

After the craziness of this morning, I've decided I have to get up a bit earlier at 6 am and get myself ready first otherwise it ain't gonna happen.

Apropo of which, I received by email these tips from the Sara Silber Psychological-Educational Clinic in Raanana for how to get your child organized for school. I thought there were some very good ideas here so I'm passing it along

1) Color code the child's schedule and subject materials with specifically colored covers and stickers. If math is red then all math books, notebooks, and workbooks should either be covered with red book covers or have a big red sticker on them. If there are 4 math items to be taken to school then write the number 4 on each item so that the child knows that when he has to pack up math materials he has to count 4 items . On the child's chart of his schedule of subjects, the subject of math should also be outlined in red so that he knows that he has to pack all the red items.

2) Put in your child's schoolbag 2 differently colored big folders. One will say on it "take home and show parents". The other will say on it "give to teacher". Explain to your child to put in the first envelope all the notes that he has to show parents regarding school trips, money requested, etc. In the second folder he puts completed assignments, and the envelopes containing the signed letters, money, etc that he has to give back to teacher. For kids who do not yet read put a photo of yourselves on the show parents folder to help them differentiate. This will serve other purposes too as the child can look at it if
missing you during the school day.

3) Child should have a big bulletin board in his room for notices he needs to refer to such as birthday party invites, school trips info, etc. You can make vertical divisions with strips of colored paper on the bulletin board to demarcate sections of now, this week,next week,this month, and child adjusts the position of notices with the thumb tacks as time goes by and he sees what he has to attend to now.

4) Teach your child how to make lists and checklists for daily routines and place them in strategic spots. Also, children need to be taught how to manage a diary efficiently and how to organize their belongings. If you yourself are not an organized person it will be difficult for you to teach your children so get someone else to help you with this. Organizational skills improve self-confidence and will help your child succeed in school.

5) Teach your child early on how to wake himself up with his own alarm clock and to get ready on his own with minimum physical assistance. Give lots of reinforcement for being ready on time for
school. Good habits should be instilled early.

6) Morning time is usually very hectic so anything that can be done the day before should be. This includes preparation of sandwich, fruit, and water. Each child should have his personal colored bin in the fridge for his own items. Child can help prepare this himself when all the food is out on the table at dinnertime, just supply the baggies and give some guidance. Also to be prepared the night before are the child's schoolbag, according to the color-coded system outlined above, and the child's clothes, which he can lay out himself. All this should be done before the child is allowed to watch his last television show for the day.

7) Make sure your child gets to bed at a reasonable time for her age and has available a nutritious breakfast. If she is not hungry in the morning then give a fruit drink and healthy snacks to eat on
the way or at school.

8) Be available when your child returns home to see her mood, give emotional support and troubleshoot any difficulties early on. If you are a working mom and are not home when the child returns, then give this needed attention after returning home. Children will not open up as readily on the telephone and you cannot see the child's body language and facial cues so it is best to have your conversations with your child in person than trying to do it from the office by phone. Small problems can become bigger problems if not attended to.

Too Pooped to Pop

2012-07-09T11:58:00.000+03:00

I feel like so much has happened, my days have been full to overflowing, stress levels have been high and I've gotten out of the sshhhhvung of writing. I've been too pooped to pop.

Things at home have been zoo-y as usual. I thought with the start of the summer vacation the pace would slow. Haha. Silly me. Y and E are in "camp" for 3 weeks - every day until 13:00. After that I'm working every other day so as to share the load of entertaining the kids as fairly as possible with DH. I did the same last summer and it worked out very well.

About 3 weeks ago DH said, "Let's sell this apartment and look for something bigger." He didn't have to tell me twice! We started looking for a 4 bedroom place (the idea being that one room with become an office for him) about 3 weeks ago - 1-5 apartments per day! Don't ask me how we've found the time for this on top of everything else we have to juggle. We found something relatively quickly that we all liked and made an offer that was accepted however the seller is turning out to be a real stinker. Luckily we haven't signed anything yet. DH has a meeting at 10 a.m. this morning with the seller and his lawyer, our lawyer and the agent to try to progress the deal but neither of us have high hopes. DH's background is property evaluation and he tried being a real estate agent here for about 4 years before he got into translations so he definitely knows properties and what to look (out) for. The seller told us he'd replumbed the entire apartment and after DH brought someone in to check, it turned out he hadn't. The seller is also continuing to advertise the place for sale through a different real estate agency than the one we found it through AND he's also advertised it for sale himself on an internet message board. I suppose until we've signed a contract he's entitled legally to continue to advertise but it's not decent IMO and he's the sort that would sell it out from under our noses if someone came along who offered him more. I told DH to do his best in the meeting but not to act desperate. If the answer is no, then it's no and we'll keep looking. We have a young couple coming tonight to take a 2nd look at our place so maybe that's a good sign? All of this has been taking up a lot of time and energy. It's fun looking at places, seeing what's out there, what the possibilities are, what people have done to their places.

During June, Y was enrolled in two extracurricular activities - gymnastics, which she'd been doing since the start of the year, and in June she added soccer. Both activities are offered by the community center which is directly opposite our building. After she said she wanted to try soccer (there are no all girl teams around here that I'm aware of) I took her for a trial lesson. She was the only girl there! I thought that would be a deterrent. She was a bit shy about it at first but I told her how special it was and that she should show those boys what she could do! After that trial lesson she said she wanted to enroll so we signed her up for the last month. And she wants to carry on with only soccer next year too. This kid is NOT lacking in self-confidence in the least. She said, "Gymnastics is boring. I need something with action!" LOL She's very fast and very athletic but very girly at the same time. It's a scream watching skinny, dainty, feminine her rushing around after that ball in her flowery jeans and earrings and bows in her hair next to all the noisy, dirty, smelly little boys. But whatever. If she's ok with it, so am I. She'll tell me when she's had enough for whatever reason.
I had about 2 months of atomic stress at work. Everything got dumped on me at once, huge projects, everything was urgent, deadlines. I flipped out at my boss about it once or twice even. I was close to just giving up. But it's slowed down dramatically. Probably because things generally go quiet once the summer vacation begins. The whole country is on vacation it seems. My sense is that under the surface things in the company are going downhill. The frustration level in all the employees over the workload seems to be very high. Yesterday another person in management announced that she was leaving which took a lot of people by surprise. And I've heard rumors that others are also unhappy and thinking of leaving. I don't want to leave but it may come to that. I don't know. By and large, I'm very happy here. I feel they appreciate me and that I have quite a lot of autonomy. I come, do my work and they leave me alone. Which is how it should be. No one is standing over me with a stop watch. If I have a sick kid or have a doctor's appointment or need to go to the bank before work, no one makes faces about it. There are only 3 men in the company. The rest are women with young kids for the most part. So it's just a given that those kinds of situations are going to come up. And somehow it works. It's very refreshing. I guess time will tell.

T told me that she wanted to work this summer. A lot of the kids in her class have jobs of one sort or another. She got herself hired waiting tables at a wedding hall in town. She went for two nights of training and then the manager didn't assign her a night to actually work so I think she's given up on that idea. Legal working age is 16 which she isn't yet so maybe that's why. In any case, she's been working a lot as a mother's helper for a new, young friend of mine who just had her 2nd baby. T is AMAZING with little kids and babies - a real natural. So this is keeping her very busy and she's making some money that way which is good. I'm happy to see her putting in some effort and DOING something with herself rather than spending the summer in front of the TV and computer and moaning about how bored she is.

E's two new words this week were "halleluyah" and "confused". LOL. In case you're wondering WHY "halleluyah", let me explain. DH was listening to a piece of classical music in which the word "halleluyah" appeared. DH asked E if he could say "halleluyeh". E made a few unsuccessful attempts. So then DH broke the word down into syllables for him and he got it perfectly. So then he went around saying "halleluyah" for the rest of the day. So funny. Also, he is a huge fan of chocolate which until recently has come out as "chok-at". Then last Saturday morning we were discussing chocolate and all of a sudden I saw the realization dawn on his face that "hey, there's an 'L' in there!". So he made a huge, conscious effort to put the "L" in there but he put it in the wrong place so now the word comes out as "CHLOK-at". LOL.
The weather here has finally turned H.O.T. and H.U.M.I.D. Big ewwwww! Hot I love. Humid? Mmmmmm. NOT so much. You want to know how hot hell is? Just come to Israel in July-August! We try not to run the a/c very much - too expensive - so we end up turning it on around 8 pm when we're all finally home to benefit from it and we turn it off around 11 pm. Just enough to allow everyone to get to sleep.
DH's uncle (Mom's brother) passed away in England just over a week ago on the same day that DH's sister had invited everyone to her house for her birthday party. The party got cancelled, of course. There were three siblings - DH's Mom and her brother and sister. DH's mom is now the last one left and she is the oldest of the 3. She will be 89 in October and she is still quite healthy and "with it" although getting hard of hearing. DH and Y stayed with his uncle when they were in England in February. Lucky they went then and saw him! DHwas always very close with this uncle so it was a bit hard for him.
My trip to the U.S. is coming up - October 9. I can't wait. Two whole weeks to myself! It's going to be an INTENSE trip I think but I hope it will be good. I hope it won't be so jam packed with running and doing and seeing that it flies by in a blur and I will hardly feel like I've been away.

Anyway, not much else new here. Just trying to stay COOL and get through the summer vacation in a way that resembles sanity. And find an apartment to buy....

Cracking Up

2012-06-17T15:49:00.001+03:00

I seriously feel like I'm cracking up. SO stressed! Let's start off with the fact that my schedule after work every day this week has been INSANE and looks like it will be that way until the end of the month. Not a second to myself except late at night when I'm exhausted.

I'm venting here ok?

How is a working Mom with 2 little kids at home supposed to get a minute alone? When are we supposed to get recreation time either alone or as a family? My life seems to be full of "have tos" and I'm totally beyond FED UP. It's either the work week or Friday/Shabbat which isn't restful by any stretch of the imagination. It's one long marathon. Something to be "got through". When do we have time to go as a family and visit friends during the week? When do we have time to take a day trip up north or down south? In the lunch room at work on Sunday I am regaled with stories of what everyone did over the weekend: "Oh we went hiking in Nachal X with the kids on Shabbat and the spring flowers were so beautiful!" one woman gushes. Another woman, "We took the kids to Zoo Such and Such!" or "We went scuba diving in Eilat!" I also would like to be able to come back with stories about the adventures we had over the weekend. Nobody wants to hear, "Well, we went to shul. Again. We had friends over for lunch. Again. I took a nap. Again." Boooooorrring!

This Friday I just. could. not. deal. and said to hell with the cooking and cleaning. Just........NO! I ain't doin' it. After I dropped the kids off at gan and school, I went to the beach for 2 1/2 hours until I had to pick E up from gan. It was sorely needed and far too short and just left me feeling resentful that these moments of recreation are taken on stolen time and are so rushed and that Shabbat impinges on them. HAVE TO rush back to get the cleaning and cooking done. HAVE TO rush back because Shabbat is coming. I'm ashamed to say it but I'm really having a hard time with this right now. I came home and told DH, "This Shabbat thing is NOT NORMAL. It's either work or Shabbat, Shabbat or work. No Sunday even where we can take a deep breath - where I can do something FOR MYSELF - and recover from Shabbat before jumping back into the work week. Work isn't about ME. It's about me jumping through hoops for someone else. Shabbat isn't about me. It's about Hashem. The I, the ME, has nowhere to express itself and just be, just do something purely for enjoyment's sake."

For an adventurous, creative person like me, the monotony of the Friday routine is just a killer. A KILLER.

Then there's work......

I'm losing my motivation at work fast. Lately I've been very involved in the translation process (Hebrew to English ) of no less than 130 documents. I'm the contact person for the person who actually does the translation. I send them to him, he translates, sends them back to me, I have to check the English translation against the original Hebrew, mark any corrections or mistakes I find with "track changes" in WORD and send them back to him to either accept my corrections or not. If he doesn't then we have this back-and-forth by phone or email about it until we agree. Fine. So yesterday I sent him 9 WORD documents with small corrections marked with tracking that I wanted him to accept. Today he sends me back those exact same 9 files which the tracked changes still marked in red. When I expressed surprise, he said, "Oh yeah. I had a teleconference about it with Orly and Tamar in your company and this is what was agreed." I wrote him back and ccd those two women he'd referred to and I said to him, "No one informed me as to what was agreed in the conference call." This Orly jumped all over me about "airing the company's dirty laundry" and that if I have questions or need a clarification I need to inquire internally. OK. Fair enough. I said ok and apologized to her. I did tell her that it really bothers me that I have to hear from her THROUGH HIM what the outcome of the conference call was. Like, until now all my dealings with him have been handled one way and then all of a sudden he's telling me, "Noooooo, your people told me that now it has to be done THIS way." He sounded shocked - and rightly so - that I wasn't in the loop. I felt like such an idiot. I told this Orly that I have NO problem switching my modus operandi with our translation people but I just need to know what the new rules are and NOT hear it from someone outside the company. So that set me off to a bad start today. I was ticked.

Then, for a different study I'm responsible for administering, there are these bi-weekly T/Cs that are recorded and then the next day I listen to the recording and transcribe the meeting minutes. It's a PAIN IN THE BUTT but hopefully this won't be going on much longer. Not sure. Anyway, I spent TWO HOURS on Thursday transcribing, every minute of it is torture and then another girl came into my office and asked me to quickly help her edit a document of hers and in doing so she shut down my document with the meeting minutes that I'd worked on for two hours. I lost the whole thing. It's my fault for not saving it before starting to type. But still. I hate when people come in and help themselves to my computer even if I'm sitting right here. I wanted to STRANGLE her but I had to be nice and say, "Don't worry about it. It doesn't matter. I'll just spend ANOTHER TWO HOURS on Sunday redoing the WHOLE BLOODY THING!" I was this close to crying. Especially after the thing about the translator. I feel like I got NOTHING done at work Thursday. Just one of those awful, awful days.
Don't get me wrong. It's a good company - a lot going for it - and good people but like I've been saying for a few weeks now, someone is starting to make some really bad management decisions and it's affecting not just me badly. It's really hard to keep the motivation up long-term under these conditions. I wish I could quit. I have to close my eyes a few times a day and grit my teeth and just say thank you that I even have a job. I spent 2 years at home under atomic financial pressure and that was enough to last me the rest of my life.

Y has an end of year school party to go to for which the kids have to wear ALL black from head to toe which means I have to rush out and buy her black everything - more stress - which she'll never wear again. (I do NOT dress my kids in black! Why? Who died?)

Y has been taking gynmastics two times a week this year. Then recently she said she's bored with it and wants to try soccer. So we stupidly signed her up for soccer in addition to gymnastics through the end of this month. Which means she has an after-school activity that she has to be schlepped to FOUR nights a week! WHAT were we thinking???

Then on the 28th she has an end of year party for her gynmastics class AND the end of year party for soccer was also scheduled for the same night so we told her she has to go to the gymnastics party since she's invested a lot more time in gymnastics this year.

But wait. It gets better. DH popped me a message on Skype today that we have been invited to his sister's house, also on the evening of the 28th, to help her celebrate her birthday! I nearly lost it. You've GOT to be joking! I desperately need to clear my schedule, not double book on the same night!

T's cousin is having his Bar Mitzvah next Shabbat so she wants to go out to buy a new outfit for it. I seriously have ZERO time to go shopping with her and the thought of dragging E with us while we do it doesn't bear thinking about. I told her last night she should go shopping with a girlfriend, find something nice and ask the store to hold it for her and I will go in a pay for it. I told her to take a picture of whatever it is she finds to show me when she gets home. We'll see if she remembers that bit.

I feel like crying just thinking how frazzling these next two weeks are going to be..........I haven't even told you the half of it but.......duty calls.

Long Time No.....Blog

2012-06-07T15:30:00.001+03:00

I'm back after an unplanned blogging absence. Life got away from me for a while. Again.

No, but seriously.....about 2 months ago my workload increased about 10 fold at work. I won't bore you with the details but suffice to say someone around here has very unrealistic expectations and their sense of how long our (my and the two other admin girls') tasks take us is very "off". When I voiced some complaints recently about this insane workload to my boss, she said after the summer vacation we'll all sit down and raise problems, reassess, etc. OK. I'm prepared to give it that long but something's gotta change and if it doesn't, I'm NOT sticking around here for 6 years like I did in my last job. It's a shame because the people here are NOT bad people. The company's been around for 20+ years and you'd think by now they'd get people management and company management down pat - but nooooooooo. Someone around here is making some really bad management decisions and employees are starting to leave because of it. One employee has already announced that she's leaving and 3 others in the past week have said they're thinking of looking for something else. But what?

DH has been out late 4 nights a week for the past month and a half at play rehearsals. He was in 3 performances last week so now that's finished with, thank goodness. On the one hand, he's very dramatic and TALENTED when it comes to acting (how come acting comes to naturally to Brits?) and needs an outlet for it and it's nice having him out from under foot in the evenings so I can conduct my evening and do what I need to do with the kids without interference from him but........I barely saw him the whole 6 weeks except on weekends which was hard.

I've booked my ticket to the U.S. for 2 weeks in October. I'm going to meet for the first time my half-sister who I found on Facebook a year ago February. This is my Dad's daughter from his first short-lived marriage. The plan is that while I'm staying with her in the Seattle area, Dad and his wife will drive up to see me and meet his daughter and her family for the first time as well. Needless to say it's going to be a VERY intense trip. So I'm looking forward to the trip and having a break. I just hope DH will manage with the kids while I'm away.

I'm taking T to a play at the theater in Tel Aviv tonight. It's a comedy and came highly recommended by a few people I work with so hope it will be good and that she'll enjoy it.

The summer is fast approaching.....Y will be in the camp run by her school for the first three weeks of the summer.

T is looking for a job waitressing in one of the many wedding halls around town although since she's not 16 yet (legally employable), she's not sure anyone will hire her. In lieu of that, she has been asked to work as a mother's helper for a friend of mine who just had her 2nd baby but I'm not sure how full-time that will be. In addition, she was asked by another friend of mine to babysit her three kids for three weeks, 4 days a week from 9-1. Not sure how she's planning to coordinate those two child minding jobs but it's nice to be in demand. She wants to work as much as possible this summer which I am very glad to see. She said over half the kids in her class have jobs of one kind or another and I guess it's rubbing off on her so......something positive. Yay!

I have completed another set of earrings from a new beading book that was just published and which I ordered off the internet. These patterns are more complicated than anything I've done until now and I wasn't sure I'd be able to follow the written instructions so I started off with the earrings. I figured if they didn't turn out, I wouldn't have wasted a lot of money on a huge quantity of beads such as the bigger projects call for. Anyway, they came out AMAZINGLY and I've started a BIG necklace project that will take me some time to complete.

Y lost her 3rd tooth on Tuesday and found a nice letter AND 10 NIS from the tooth fairy in an envelope under her pillow yesterday morning. :-) That tooth was a loooooooooong time in falling - whew!

I am SO happy to announce that E seems to have FINALLY cottoned on to pooping in the pot and hasn't missed once in the last 8 or 9 days. All of a sudden it clicked for him. Of course the first few times we all made a huge deal over it and him and danced and cheered and gave him treats afterwards. We told him, "See? Abba's smiling and Ima's smiling and T is smiling and Y is smiling and your teacher is smiling. EVERYONE is smiling." He likes when he's pooping for me to sit on the edge of our bed and talk to him. So this morning he was pooping and we were talking. Then with his two index fingers he pushed the corners of his own mouth into a smile and said, "Ima! Smile! You're not SMILING!" LOL

And another funny....On Friday E said he had to pee. He pulls his pants down and....um....he had a little erection. So he sits down on the pot and he's trying to explain what's going on. He's like, "Ima? Um....Ima?....um....my willie (DH's word for penis).....hu ("he's" or "it's" in Hebrew) GROWING!" LOLOLOL. OMG, now WHAT do you do with a statement like THAT???

And a funny from Y....she said, "Ima, does the hospital have clowns who come to make the children happy when they come for a vaccination?" I said they might have clowns who come to make children who are very ill and who have to be in the hospital for a LONG time happy and help them to forget for a little while how bad they feel. I said, "Would you like to have a job like that of being a clown who makes ill children happy?" She said, "Nah. I want to be a policewoman." When I asked why she said, "I need a job with more action - riding in the a police car, chasing people......" She kills me!

Y also informed us that she is bored with gynmastics and wants to take soccer next year. I took her for a trial lesson (she is the ONLY girl there!!!!) at the community center across the street from us where it is offered and she said she definitely wants to sign up for next year. (I thought her being the only girl would be a deterrent but no. She's ok with it! The girl has so much self-confidence it's not even funny.) And I'm the last one who's going to discourage her. I asked at the center if she could join the team already this year even though there's only a month left in this school year and they said yes. DH and I figured that will give her a month to try it on a twice weekly basis and then she'll have to decide between soccer and gynmastics for next year.

Kindness

2012-04-23T10:33:00.000+03:00

My friend, Pesha, who lives 2 long blocks down and around the corner from me and who made aliyah with her Israeli husband and 2 boys about 3 years ago from FL, has started holding a Rosh Chodesh gathering for women at her house. She, herself, spoke once where she told how she got her Hebrew name when she was a baby. Truly an amazing story. On other occasions she has had other people speak to the group as she did last night.

Pesha had asked all of us in her invitation email to also bring along a story of a kindness that someone had done for us. She said that when we're speaking to each other on the phone or on FB as friends, we tend to do a LOT of complaining whether it be about the weather, our husbands, our kids, about how mcuh we miss America, how messy our houses are and how we never seem to catch up, etc.

And this is the story I shared which happened very recently.

It was about 2 days after Passover. Normally we set the alarm for 6 am but don't really have to get the kids up and get everyone moving until 6:45. This way we have 45 minutes to ourselves to talk, listen to the English news on the radio at 6:30, etc. Well, the alarm went off at 6 am on this particular morning and when it did, I was so tired I just burst into tears.

DH took a very (for him) novel approach. He got up, left the bedroom, closed the door behind him, went to get the kids up and ready for school and left me alone in a quiet bedroom for those 45 minutes before I had to get up and get showered. I couldn't exactly go back to sleep but at least I could stay in bed and didn't have to move. When I came out, expecting to have to deal with the kids, everything was done. Kids dressed, sandwiches made. He'd done everything from A to Z. All I had to do was get myself ready.

That was a WOW moment for me because it was so uncharacteristic of him, shall we say. And it was very very appreciated. Space and time to myself is something I value almost more than anything else and that's what he was giving me. So.....big thank you to him!

Pesach Pics

2012-04-15T09:56:00.000+03:00

The view from my office on a very rare, foggy morning recently.

Killing time waiting for the movie to start.

Is that a teen pose or what?

BAD picture of me.....

In Toys R Us......

Outside the mall where the movie was, they have all these life-size statues of real and fictional animals.......

Mr. T Rex

Monday afternoon we went to the Passover festival on the Carlebach moshav. LOVE this setting!

Face painting....

Families picnicing, visiting, listening to the live bands......

They had people there selling their crafts on tables under the trees - pottery, jewelry, clothing, aromatherapy oils.....

Stage where one band after another performed....

Hair braiding and decorating with beads, flowers......right up Y's alley!

Soul food

The road out of the moshav - doesn't it just make you want to slow down and MOSEY?

Chava's Farm - tractor ride

Petting corner - chick.

Guinea pig

Duck

Mr. Camel

Mr. Donkey

Getting ready to ride the donkey.

Mr. Bull

HOT!

One of several picnic areas.

One of two or three NICE and HUGE parks near us. This one is about a 3 minute drive away.

Bat Aliyah: How To Bank (More) Like An Israeli

2012-04-11T11:51:00.001+03:00

I found this over at Bat Aliyah's blog. Maybe others will find it helpful. Or at the least, interesting, to read how something like banking is done in another country.

Bat Aliyah: How To Bank (More) Like An Israeli: There are many surprises (and yes, some horror stories) for former Americans who make aliyah and open a bank account in Israel. For exam...

Recap

2012-04-11T11:34:00.000+03:00

So our seder was short and to the point. DH went to shul early Friday evening and we got the seder underway at the earliest permitted time (7:23 in Rehovot). We were done by 10 pm.

Friday morning I started the cooking around 7:30 and was done by 1:30 and since we only had one guest (my Mom) huge quantities of each dish weren't necessary so I was more able to enjoy what I was doing - even though cooking isn't my "thing" - rather than kill myself cooking right up to candle lighting. It really was in the realm of enjoyable and manageable.

My Mom hadn't been well and wasn't sure until the last minute whether she'd feel up to coming but she did. She was our only guest which also helped us keep it short and sweet. The more people, the more chaotic it tends to be. Y and E were good but I spent a lot of time in the living room just listening to DH read from the Haggadah while playing with E. You know 3 year olds and attention spans......Both kids were awake until the end. In fact, E had napped so he was bouncing around LONG after we'd finished and washed up the dishes. He didn't go down until 11:30 pm!

After we'd finished, we all were recalling many a seder we'd attended before moving to Israel and wondering HOW on EARTH families managed to schlepp out the story telling until 2, 3 and even 4 a.m. HOW is it possible? That is just pure torture, IMO. A read of the Haggadah really doesn't take THAT long. <head shaking> Not only that, those who don't live here have to conduct TWO seders one night after the next. Reason #3, 756, 872 to move to Israel, if you ask me.

The next day after going to shul in the morning and a quick, light lunch, I took the kids to a nice park a 5 minute walk from us for a couple of hours so DH could nap. My Mom came with. She and I sat on a bench on the side and read while the kids amused themselves on the equipment and in the sand. Y ended up getting her foot bitten by some microscopic creature of some sort in the sand. We never saw what it was and there was no bite or sting mark but it was painful and her foot swelled up and was red and hot for the next three days and very very itchy. Just like when she gets a mosquito bite. That kinda ended the stint in the park so we packed up and went home.

DH then took over with the kids and had them back out in the park next to our building for the rest of the afternoon while I napped. This way we keep E going all day and don't allow him to nap so by evening he's exhausted and we don't have any battles over bedtime.

Sunday I worked a full day.

Monday I took the kids and popped into the bead store in Rishon to get some beads for a bracelet I want to make. Then I took them to see the movie The Lorax. Excellent movie! I like the ecological message of it. We have and love the book as well. The kids were good through the movie. We came home after the movie to pick up DH and went off to the Passover festival on Rabbi Carlebach's moshav. Some friends of mine had gone in previous years and somehow I'd always missed the boat so I wanted to go check it out this year. I am so in love with this moshav. I have been there on quite a few other occasions and every time I go I never want to leave. I love the setting (it's very rural), I love how laid back the people are - lots of tofu and brown rice eating, organic eating, tree hugging ex-hippies - I love that everyone there speaks English, I love that their shul is a gigantic army tent, I love the earthy smell of the place. (I grew up a 30 minute drive from Santa Cruz, CA in the 1970s. Nuff said. That should tell you why this place feels so much like I've come home.)

They had activities for the kids (helium balloons, face painting, hair braiding, etc.), they had a whole line-up of different bands, they had food for sale, they had various artists selling their wares (clothing, ceramics, jewelry, aromatherapy oils, etc.). Something for everyone. There were a lot of people there of all ages and it was nice to see such a variety of religious types. My friend, Pesha, was there with her family and we bumped into a mutual friend with her husband and we saw a few other Rehovot families that we know less well but we connected with them too.

Yesterday we got a late start but around 11:30 I took the kids to a place called Chava's Farm. It's about a 30 minute drive south of us. I'd heard a few people recommend it and it wasn't hugely expensive. The kids and I had a blast. So nice to be somewhere so low-tech. It's like a kiddie zoo - gazelles and ostriches and a bull and donkey rides for the kids and a petting corner with baby chicks and ducks and mice and hamsters and guinea pigs and turtles and inflatable trampolines and a goat milking demonstration and monkeys and giant tortoises and a tractor ride to visit the nearby kibbutz's cow shed, etc. It was truly a place to spend the day. People in the know bring blankets and a picnic lunch and make a day of it. They had huge grassy expanses with covered picnic areas with chairs and tables. Really nice. We were there until 5 pm. As soon as we got in the car to go home, E yawned and told me he was tired and CRASHED. If he'd have been standing, you'd have heard him fall flat on his face. As soon as we got home I dumped him in bed and he slept through the night!!

Today I'm at work for the whole day and - as you can see - getting SO much work done. LOL. There are only about 4 other employees here today. Not sure if I'm going to have the car tonight or what to do with the kids after work if I do. I had wanted to get to the beach but ran out of time.

And tomorrow's erev chag and since we're having only a gazillion guests (mil and DH's two married kids and 2 grandkids), the madness will begin once again tomorrow morning with THE COOKING. O joy!

I have lots of pics to post from the past 2 days but put my camera's battery in to charge last night and of course forgot it at home this morning so....pics to follow.

Passover Countdown

2012-04-02T14:34:00.000+03:00

Now I'm really starting to feel the pre-Seder night pressure start to build. I'm sitting at work making lists of things I need to do, places to go, things to buy. Luckily, work is very quiet for me again and I have time to give some thought to these things. I'm also pacing myself with the remaining cleaning that still needs doing and bargaining with DH, "I'll clean this if you clean that." LOL.

I was wondering what we can do this year, now that E is three and understands a little more than last year, to make the Seder more real for them. When Y was younger, DH and I went into our bedroom at one point in the telling of the story and dressed up as if we'd just left Egypt. Something along these lines.

DH used a broom handle as a walking stick. At the time, we had a sheep-sized dog with white, wooly fur and we used him as our "sheep". All present thought it was funny and clever.

We could do a repeat of this but I was wondering what ideas others have come up with and quickly Googled "passover seder tips". Here's a short list of sites that had some cute ideas:

http://www.aish.com/h/pes/f/g/48967161.html
http://knowledgehound.com/topics/passover.htm
http://sedersforyou.tripod.com/
http://www.myjewishlearning.com/holidays/Jewish_Holidays/Passover/The_Seder/Making_the_Seder_Memorable.shtml
http://www.jewishfederations.org/page.aspx?id=901
http://www.threejews.net/2010/03/innovative-passover-seder-ideas.html
http://www.matankids.org/2012/02/29/ideas-for-an-interactive-passover-seder/
http://www.jr.co.il/humor/passover.htm
http://holidays.juda.com/passover-songs.shtml
http://www.mazornet.com/holidays/passover/funnysongs.htm

Chag Sameach everyone!

Things and Pics

2012-03-27T11:45:00.000+02:00

It's seems like ages since I last wrote. Life just seems to get away from me sometimes. Let's see. What's been going on?

Pesach (Passover) is looming. I'm very proud of myself because one evening last week, T and I cleaned the shelves of all the upper kitchen cabinets. Not a small job. This evening I hope to get the lower drawers and cabinets cleaned out with her help. I think this is the earliest I've ever started Pesach cleaning! I also need to make the menu and do the food shopping soon in the hopes of beating the crowds. It looks like just my Mom will be joining us this year for the Seder. DH's married kids and mother all asked to come for Chag Sheini (last day) so that's going to be more of a strain for me than the seder itself.

For my Mom's birthday at the beginning of this month, I made her a beautiful Swarovski bracelet which was time consuming to make and not cheap. She wore it for an hour and managed to lose it! Very bummed about that. I told her I'd make her another one as soon as I can.

T is due to start taking her math "matkonot" tests in school starting right after Passover. These tests are every few days over the course of a month. Math has always been her bug-a-boo subject. I told her I do NOT want her attempting to study for these tests without a private teacher to guide her/help her study. The father of E's best friend in gan is a high school math teacher and the family lives down the block from us. I know the father tutors students. A lovely, lovely man. I spoke to him yesterday about possibly tutoring T in preparation for these tests. He asked if she needs teaching - in which case he wouldn't have time to take her on - or just practice. I told him I thought she needed teaching. He said to send her over to their house last night at 9 pm so he could talk to her and draw his own conclusions. T was there until 10:15. I spoke to the father, Ronen, after she got back. He said she definitely needs teaching. The way he put it was "her head works, the math doesn't". He teaches math in three local high schools and said in every class he's ever taught he's had 2-3 students like T. After orinigally saying he didn't have time to teach her, he said he would tutor her but that I needed to speak to the school's counsellor and see if the school would be willing to let T take the "Moed B" (a 2nd test for those who didn't pass the first one) in July which will allow T more time for lessons with Ronen to bring her up to speed. I spoke to the counsellor and she agreed without hesitation. She didn't even blink at my request which was a HUGE relief. So it looks like it's a green light for weekly lessons for T until July.

We are potty training E. Again. A few months ago he was half trained (peepee) but I got tired of washing poop out of his pants 4 times a day. We figured he wasn't ready yet so put him back in diapers. Now the weather's a tad warmer and Passover vacation is coming up where I'll be off work a lot more and can deal with him so starting last Shabbat we've foregone the diapers - cold turkey. Even at night. We've covered the couch and rolled up the carpets. Geesh! It's like housebreaking a dog.

Last Monday they finally moved me into my new office at work. I'm in love! Small, cute, compact office with two HUGE windows. You almost need sunglasses in here. I now have a door, too, so most days I've got baroque classical music playing softly in the background or streaming nature sounds (burbling creek and forest birds cheeping - I'm always looking for ways to bring the outdoors inside....). So many people have told me my office is the nicest. I've had repeat visitors of other employees who just walk in and want to go ooooo and ahhhhh. O yeah! Lots of atmos in here! I went to the nursery the evening before they moved me over and treated myself to a really pretty plant for the office. I hope I don't kill it.

It's supposed to rain tomorrow and Friday. A spring storm. It's been a very wet winter with lots of snow up north so the Kinneret (Sea of Galilee) is filling up nicely. I hope the weather over Pesach vacation will be decent. I'm working 2 full days during chol hamoed and I'm off the rest. I hope to do lots of outdoorsy stuff with the kids - maybe take them camping for one night on the beach near here. I really don't feel like being on the roads with the rest of the country so we'll probably just stick close to home.

Here are a bunch of misc pics that I found on my camera:

Me on Purim. I wore this hat and nose to work the day before Purim. The CEO loved it and came into my office a few times for 2nd and 3rd looks.

E hiding the the kitchen garbage can's insert.

A lemon!

The start of the Rehovot Walk a few Fridays ago.

The fields on the eastern edge of Rehovot.

A tower used in the early days of the State of Israel as a lookout point to protect Rehovot from the surrounding Arabs.

DH.

Feasting on strawberries!

And THAT....believe it or not....is the backside of T.

AWWW. Sweet boychik.

Holidays

2012-03-06T11:14:00.000+02:00

The girls went to school today dressed up for Purim. All the schools are having their Purim parties today and then everyone's off school until Sunday. Long weekend.

Here's my Minnie Mouse....

And here's my Hawaiian girl....

Sunshine

2012-03-05T16:03:00.000+02:00

After nearly a full week of rain, thank G-d, today is the first day we've seen the sun for more than a few minutes at a time and we are promised warmer than normal temps this week. Maybe I will be able to catch up on the laundry and not have to use the dryer so much. The Kinneret (Sea of Galilee) is filling up nicely after being at dangerously low levels for years. We still have a long way to go before we can say it's full but still. We're headed in the right direction.

DH and Y got back from the UK about 2 weeks ago. 2 days after they got back, S and I agreed on my going to see MY family (and meet the sister who I've never met) in October for two weeks BY MYSELF. Hurrah! So I have that to look forward to. I also want to see my Dad while I'm there and am trying to decide whether to drive or fly down to CA to see him or have him come up to WA where I'll be which probably makes more sense.

Work is still deathly quiet and boring for me. If they don't mind, I don't mind. I can keep myself occupied. There are just so many more productive things I could be doing at home.

Speaking of which, I finished this bracelet last night which I am giving to my Mom as today is her birthday and we are going to her place tonight with pizza for a small party.

Loooooooooooong skinnnnnnnnnnny picture!

And I've branched out and last night tried my hand at these glass tile necklaces which I am sending to my two neices for their birthdays.

I would like to try to sell some of the jewelry I'm making and have opened a Facebook page where I post pics and details about every piece I've made: https://www.facebook.com/#!/pages/Avigayils-Baubles/185513491557176. I have lots of ideas for more designs that I want to try so keep checking back.

Purim starts this week on Wednesday night. There has been a lot of lead-up to it in the kids' schools and E's gan. One day E came home like this:

I think the gannenet (daycare teacher) used green permanent marker to make those green circles around his eyes. It didn't really come off completely in the bath that night and the next morning he woke up with a green, shmeary face.

Another day he came home like this:

I plan to come to work on Wednesday with some sort of silly hat or something to get people into the spirit. E had a penguin costume already that DH's older son had bought for him last year and which was miles too big so E is wearing it this year.

I took the girls last night to buy costumes. Y is going as Minnie Mouse and T as a Hawaiian girl. Pics will follow. I spent 130 NIS ($34) for both girls and count myself lucky that I got off so cheaply. What they charge for costumes is shocking!

Purim being upon us means that Pesach is around the corner and at lunch today we were talking about it and it was pointed out to me that Pesach begins in exactly a month and that it starts on a Friday night. O joy! Extra complicated from a family point of view for us.......

Misc. Pics 'n Stuff

2012-02-20T09:44:00.001+02:00

The battery of my camera, which I've had since we went to Crete almost 4 years ago, stopped holding its charge completely. So, logically, I bought a new battery. As soon as I put the new battery in, my camera went haywire. Won't focus. The lens won't retract when I turn it off. Etc. I took it back to the shop where I'd bought the battery and explained the problem and the owner said the camera has had it. Kaput. I use my camera SO much! The GOOD news is that the price of cameras has come down and something comparable to the one I have runs 450-590 NIS (~$120-160) and we're talking 14 mega pixels rather than my puny 8 mega pixel one. He also said he would deduct the cost of the new battery from the purchase price of the new camera. Can't ask for more than that. Just have to wait for payday.

DH and Y are coming back from the UK today. I popped DH a text message first thing this morning about the death of my camera and he said they are just about to head out the door for the airport and he will see what he can do about picking up a new camera for me in duty free that is compatible with the new battery I just bought! So....... finger's crossed.

I was thinking that I'd better offload all of the pics from my old camera before it won't let me do even that. And I came across a whole smattering of pictures that I'd forgotten were even on it.

Follows a real mish-mash of stuff that I thought was photo-worthy........

Israeli milk. It's sold in bags. Just another one of "those things" you have to get used to when moving to another country. You put it in one of these milk pitchers, snip the corner of the bag and it pours beautifully. You CAN buy "real" milk i.e. cartons - at nearly twice the price.

T and I were sitting in the bus station in Rehovot not long ago waiting for a bus and we saw this elderly woman walking through the station dragging 12 boxes on "leashes". What are they? Gas masks! We got on the same bus as she did and we heard someone else commenting about how many she had. She said she'd picked them up for her and her family and a neighbor too.

Taken way back during Chanukkah. Some people place the menorah outside their homes or apartment buildings in these glass, aquarium-like boxes because we are supposed to "advertise" the miracle of Chanukkah. I thought it was so pretty sitting outside this apartment building.

Me. On a rare good hair + makeup day. Sorry about the boring background though. Taken at work.

Guess who?

The kidlets in the park next to our building. Doing the "Spider".

Taken last Thursday on my way to IKEA. You can see the rain storm rolling in. Look at those BLACK clouds. O MY!

More black clouds! (In case you're wondering, yes, I did snap this while driving. I know I know. Bad, bad me.)

Here comes the rain. Driving straight into it!

Once we got on the open freeway, it was pelting down. I was creeping along. I could see the white lane markings and tail lights of other cars but not much else. Didn't last long though.

I, inexplicably, woke "too" early this morning at 5:10 am and couldn't go back to sleep. But there are advantages to that. I got to see the sun come up and snapped this through our dining room door that leads out onto our postage-stamp size balcony.

T and I have been shopping for curtains for the 2 windows in her room. We can't find anything ready-made that we like. The styles here! UGH! Vomit! And to have curtains made is for rich people. So I had a brainwave and schlepped T down the block to the remnant fabric store and we both spotted a fabric we loved immediately. I told her I would attempt to make her some simple curtains or die trying. If it works, we've saved a bundle. If not, we won't be out a fortune. This is the fabric we chose. We thought we wanted sheer fabric but surprisingly, this isn't. It's a thicker, stiffer cotton.

My boychik! Happy little face......