Monthly Archives: May 2018

My son’s recent appearance in a new music video

parenting

A bit over a year ago, my son was a lead in a video ad for the Borsalino hat company that got an astonishing amount of airtime (I shared the video here). We didn’t expect that at all; we later found out it plays around the clock in the Borsalino hat stores and so tons of yeshiva students who would never see the video anywhere else have seen it.  My son assumed it would be posted on social media and hardly anyone would see it, definitely not anyone from the yeshiva he planned to enter the following fall – but it turned out he was recognized right away by many students.

He was asked to appear in another big ad following that video but refused; he didn’t want his face plastered on billboards lining the streets. But when he was asked to participate in the following music video by a friend, he agreed.

When he mentioned it to me, he said he would appear more prominently if he would be in the final scene, which they were shooting at the Kotel/Western Wall at 3 am, but was unsure if he wanted to give up so much time. He decided against it in the end, so you can only see him in brief flashes – he’s one of the two guys fixing the car.

Let me know if you spot him!

Avivah

Making Shavuos flower arrangements

frugal strategies, homemaking, personal development

I love greenery and flowers, and so yesterday I popped into the florist to buy a couple of bouquets in honor of Shavuos.

For my daughter’s wedding, I put together the flower arrangements (something I had never done before and I give my daughter a lot of credit for having faith in me). I ordered specific flowers that I wanted to use, then made two large arrangements for next to the kallah’s chair, a bridal bouquet and centerpieces for thirty tables. It was beautiful, it was very affordable, and I really enjoyed doing it!

Here’s the main arrangements below – you can see all the flowers to the side waiting to be turned into something! (I wrapped the top of each large white vase with a large bow of gauzy white material; this was still in process when the picture was taken.)Tehila's wedding flowers

I thought it would be fun to do a little flower arranging for Shavuos!

Although we love the look of large bouquets, they end up being so large when placed on the table that they block people from seeing one another. So I decided to make several table arrangements using the flowers that I bought.

This is what I started with – a bunch of white lysianthus and a mixed bouquet of lysianthus (each was 20 shekels):

shavuos flowers

I bought a couple of blocks of floral foam, called an oasis, and turned to my garden for additional clippingst.

So far I’ve only used one of the bouquets; I bought two because I didn’t want to be short of flowers but I really could have sufficed with just one. I haven’t decided what to do with the bouquet of white lysianthus; at this point I’m leaning toward mixing it with dusty miller (I have a lovely huge plant of it in my yard) in one big arrangement, using the large white flower urn that I used for the wedding arrangements.

Here’s what I made using the bouquet of mixed lysianthus:

shavuos flowers 2

I decided to mix the fresh flowers with some succulents as well as a few leaves and flowers from our passionfruit vine.  Total cost: 30 shekels for all three (the foam block was ten shekels, then I cut it into thirds).

I chose to put the cooking and baking to the side to spend some time doing this first, because it was something relaxing and enjoyable for me. I tend to push off the ‘fun’ things for last – honestly, flower arrangements are a total extra and who except me would care if I just stuck the original two bouquets in vases?

But when I push off the ‘want tos’ in favor of the ‘have tos’ I end up not doing the things that make me feel happy and cared for.

Whose job is it to make me happy? Mine!

So it’s important that I make time to do things that I enjoy, not just the things that everyone expects me to do. I consider taking the time to make these floral arrangements a form of self-care for me.

Avivah

When my son gave up his seat and was ignored instead of thanked

personal development

Yesterday I took some of my boys to the local homeschooling park meet. I don’t usually go because it is so exhausting for me to get a very tired five year old home on the bus afterward. And the tiredness isn’t just in my head – I went to bed before 9 and didn’t wake up until 6 am!

Anyway, when we got on the bus on the way home, my twelve year sat with the five year old in the back, and my nine year old sat next to me in the seat close to where there’s a space for strollers. I appreciated this one on one time with him, as he leaned against me and shared with me the storyline in the book he had just started reading. It was a really nice time of connection with him.

After a while, a woman with a stroller got on, and though we both would have enjoyed continuing to sit together, I told my son it would be a nice thing to get up and offer his seat to her. Though this wasn’t expected, it’s important to me that my children learn to be considerate and aware of others.

He willingly got up and before he had even moved away, the woman was already sliding into his spot, oblivious to his presence.

Have you ever regretted doing something nice for someone because of their unpleasant response? That was my feeling at that moment, and my first thought was to be critical of how self-centered and entitled she seemed.

I have no idea why she was so abrupt and dismissive in her body language. Maybe she was distracted, maybe she was thinking about something else, maybe she expected to have the seat and didn’t feel thanks were in order. I don’t know about what she was or wasn’t thinking.

But I know when I feel any negativity toward someone else, I benefit when I first check in with myself. Have I been responsible for my part of this interaction? And the answer in this case was, no. I recognized that my choice was to stew in silence or I could respectfully communicate, and if I were to say nothing, I would be making the choice to be resentful.

So I smiled at her and said, “You know, my son was happy to give you his seat, and though it’s not necessary, I’m sure he’d appreciate if you acknowledged him.”

She looked startled, as if just that second she realized that she was sitting in a seat vacated for her, said, ‘Oh, of course!’ and then got out her cell phone and made a call.

About five minutes later she finished her phone conversation, looked around and asked, “Where is that cute kid?” I pointed out my son, and she thanked him for giving her his seat. That was a nice bonus. He wasn’t expecting it and I wasn’t expecting it.

—————–

For most of my life, when people would do things that would bother me I would feel my only role was to feel insulted, offended, wounded, or to ignore them. It wasn’t my problem, right? After all, I wasn’t the person being rude or obnoxious or irritable.

But now I’ve realized that I need to be honest with myself and with others, and if I haven’t done that, then I have no right to be annoyed by them. It’s unfair of me to be resentful with someone else for what goes on in my own head.

It’s nice that this woman ended up thanking my son, but it didn’t look like that was what was going to happen.  How would I have felt if she hadn’t thanked him? Once I had respectfully stated my truth, I was okay with whatever she did or didn’t do.

It’s a small choice in the moment but it’s amazing how taking that small action and speaking up made a huge difference in my feeling about her and myself!

Avivah

Weekly menu plan

frugal strategies, menu plans

I like to plan my menu for the week on Saturday nights; otherwise, a few days into the week I’d be figuring out the meals as I went along and wondering why I didn’t do some advance planning to keep mealtimes running smoothly!  Posting it here helps me feel more accountable to myself to get it done at the beginning of the week.

I start my planning by taking a look at what I have in the fridge, freezer and pantry (this includes leftovers).

Breakfast at this point is just about always eggs, oatmeal or polenta so it doesn’t require any planning.  Snacks are usually vegetables, sometimes fruit. I usually include some kind of vegetable with dinner if the dish that I plan doesn’t include any but I don’t plan that in advance – it’s pretty easy to chop up a plate of cucumber rounds.

I avoid gluten (no pasta and bread) and dairy.

Sunday: lunch – Shabbos leftovers; dinner – lima beans with chicken

Monday: l – chicken minestrone soup ; dinner – hot dogs, potatoes and green beans

Tuesday: l – lentil loaf, chummus, tomatoes ; d – chicken breast, rice, roasted summer vegetables

Weds: l – Spanish chickpeas and rice; d – baked sweet potatoes, chicken wings, salad

Thurs – l – chickpea and peanut stew; d –  kasha, ground meat sauce

Last week I made lentil loaf and made four pans; I stuck two of them in the freezer. I usually don’t like to serve the same dish two weeks in a row but this week my freezer is jam packed since my husband generously stocked us up on chicken. Combining that with the large amount of donor milk that I suddenly received in a two day period for Rafael (I never say no to donor milk, it is so vital to his health and it always gets priority for freezer space!), I want to get whatever I can out to make room for holiday cooking.

Here are some examples of how I integrate what I have in the house along with planned leftovers into this week’s menu:

I don’t have lima beans but chose the lima beans with chicken recipe since my planned experiment to roast broad beans for a snack didn’t work out. I overcooked the beans and then they were too soft. They don’t taste the same as limas but I think they’re similar enough that it will work.

For Monday’s lunch, I’ll be using whatever is left of Sunday’s dinner of broad beans and chicken, and add vegetables to make a soup similar to minestrone. That way I won’t have an odd container of dinner leftovers sitting around in the fridge growing mold while I forget that I put it there and don’t recognize it when I finally open it up.  (No, that has never happened to me. :))

When I cook rice for Tuesday night’s dinner, I’ll double the recipe and use half of what I make for the next day’s lunch of Spanish chickpeas and rice.

I’ll use any leftover roasted summer vegetables from Tuesday night’s dinner in the chickpea peanut stew for Thursday lunch, since those are the vegetables the recipe calls for.

By the way, I don’t buy canned beans so I soak and then cook all beans that are in any of the recipes I use. Very frugal and super easy.

On Tuesday night I’ll soak a large package of dried chickpeas, then will cook them first thing Weds. morning.  They’ll be ready to use in time for lunch, and I’ll have enough for lunch the next day of chickpea peanut stew, too.  Often I’ll freeze a large amount of cooked beans, and later I can quickly pull them out to add to a dish.

Most weeks I make a double recipe of a dish and then put half of it in the freezer for another week. This cuts down on how many meals I’m making from scratch and simplifies my day. We all prefer this to what I used to do, which was to make something for dinner, then serve it again for lunch the next day.  I’ll empty my freezer a bit at the end of the week when I cook for Shavuos and then in the coming week I’ll get back to freezing meals for dinner.

I haven’t been careful to record all the food expenses separately so I can’t tell you exactly what our monthly food bill is at this time. We budget 1100 shekels a week for food, transportation and miscellaneous expenses.

Have a great week!

Avivah

The Magic of Ordinary Days

homemaking, homeschooling, marriage

The Magic Of Ordinary Days – that could have been a good title for my blog in years past. For years I shared about our daily lives, the hows and whys of what I did, how I managed, my feelings about it all.

Often people asked me how I found the time to write so frequently, and my answer was that I loved it.It was something I did for myself just as much as for all of you.  I loved connecting with others and sharing ideas, and the blogosphere was a place of personal connection for me and many others during those years.

And then something changed. Something in the culture changed, something that I couldn’t put my finger on for a long time. I could feel the shift happen but wasn’t able to verbalize what was happening or why it was happening.

But understanding it or not, my blogging changed over the last few years. As the invisible energy of social media and blogging has shifted, the nature of what I write about and how I share changed to reflect that. I still mentally compose blog posts in my head almost daily, just as I did for so long…but instead of being written up at the end of the day, most of those thoughts and experiences stay with me.

As both a blogger and blog reader I miss what the blogosphere used to be and while I’m not wishing to turn back the clock, today I gave myself permission to feel that missing-ness of what once was.

In the ‘old days’, today I might have shared about my son’s reaction when one of his silkworms escaped the box he was in and got stuck on a piece of tape, and how I responded to his sadness. He was so agitated that it was suffering but didn’t want to be the one to put it out of his suffering. And then the discussion continued to the possibility of sharing some of his silkworms with others, as he told me that he realizes it’s getting to be a big job to take care of so many and he’s not enjoying it anymore. We have to help our kids recognize and verbalize their needs.

Or I might have shared about roasting a large bunch of red peppers that I got an amazing price on  and different ways to preserve red peppers in the case of a windfall like mine (I made roasted red pepper dip with ground walnuts, some for Shabbos and some for the freezer); I would have shared the recipe, too.

I might have shared about chatting with my ten year old son as I worked in the kitchen, enjoying time with him as he peeled the large fava beans that I soaked. I really love the energy of the conversations that happen when there’s just one child and me working together.  We’re planning an experiment with the fava beans this week – to roast them with savory spices for a Shabbos snack.

I might have told you what I said to my five year old when he picked up his little brother in an awkward way and brought him to me, framing what he did positively and verbalizing what a loving and helpful older brother he is. Our children rise to our expectations; we can scold them and make them feel bad or we can look for the good intent in their actions and respond to that.

Maybe I would have told you about my vegetable order that included a larger than number of fruits. The two boys who came out to help me bring the order in exclaimed when they saw what I got and asked what the occasion was. Since we’re moving away from desserts that have a lot of sugar in them, recently I’ve been serving canned/baked/fresh fruit, nuts, seeds and munchy things like that. The kids are enjoying it and all said they don’t miss the sweet baked desserts. This week I’ll make baked apples, and got kiwis, grapes and apricots to serve fresh.

Or I might have shared my thoughts about some of the marriage related questions that have been coming my way in parenting discussions, and why I think the best thing you can do for your child is to love your spouse (or in the case of divorce to be positive and respectful of your ex-spouse). And how to positively interact with your spouse when they annoy you and you just can’t see much to appreciate about them.

Or maybe I would have told you that after many weeks of no videos, why I allowed the boys to watch two educational cartoons on the occasion of my son’s ninth birthday tomorrow. (Remember when he was born? He’s the one who was three weeks late!)

Or maybe I would have shared about consciously making time and space in my life to do things just for pleasure, not outcome related at all. I loaded my Kindle for the first time in a long time with books and it’s so renewing for me to open it up and have really good selections in it. I’ve been doing a little bit of reading in bed before I go to sleep. I haven’t done that for years.

Or maybe I would share with you about our current family read aloud, about why I love it and how much my boys love it. How reading together is a special bonding time for us. And about how to use books with great values and storylines to stimulate their minds and build character, without any heavy moralistic messages.

Or maybe I would have told you about a phone conversation with someone visiting Israel right now – a friend I told you about meeting eleven years ago on this blog, when we met in line at a grocery store in Amish country. They were in front of us and one of my kids whispered to me, “They have seven kids just like us!” We weren’t used to seeing mothers with lots of kids shopping together in the morning hours.  Turned out we were both homeschooling and expecting baby #8 (who were later born within a few weeks of each other).  Our brief conversation continued outside in the parking lot, and when I learned this lovely Christian woman was Jewish, I invited her family to our home – just a two hour drive away! And they accepted, coming for Chanuka and for Shabbos; we visited them at their home in PA as well. We became friends and after all these years we’re still in touch! They’ll be coming with their youngest two children for dinner next week.

These were things I thought about sharing with you today.

In years past, I would have shared about all of these things and more.

And for today I’m enjoying sharing all of this with you.

Not because I’m planning to change how I blog or explain why I don’t do this anymore or why I should or shouldn’t or anything else.

Just because I felt like sharing with you –  just like the old days. 🙂

Avivah

Chocolate Peanut Butter Oatmeal Bars

recipes,

I like trying new recipes out, and this week I made these chocolate peanut butter oatmeal bars for the first time and they were a hit! Honestly, you don’t have to work too hard to make something taste amazing when you put chocolate and peanut butter together. 🙂

(I didn’t remember when I first saw this recipe and am glad that it didn’t take too much time searching online to find the website so that I can give the creator of this yumminess credit! She has lots of other great recipes, too.) I hardly adapted it at all.

It’s also a fun recipe to put together with kids – since it’s a no-bake recipe, it’s ready for tasting very soon after you make it!

Chocolate Peanut Butter Oatmeal Bars

  • 1/2 cup honey
  • 1/4 cup peanut butter
  • 1 tbsp coconut oil
  • 1 tsp vanilla
  • 2 3/4 cup quick oats
  • 1/2 tsp salt
  • 4 to 5 oz chocolate chips or baking chocolate
  • 1/2 cup peanut butter

Mix the honey, 1/4 c. peanut butter, coconut oil and vanilla. Stir in the oats and salt. Transfer 2/3 of the mixture to a greased 8×8 pan (put aside 1/3 for the topping) and press down very well.

In a separate bowl, carefully melt the chocolate and 1/2 cup peanut butter and stir until smooth. Pour this on top of the crust in the pan. Crumble the remaining oat mixture on top of the chocolate layer, then press down. Refrigerate or freeze until firm enough to cut squares.

So easy, so good!

Avivah