Rafael is now 3! Where has the time gone?!? (If you’re thinking it doesn’t seem like three years to you, it may be because he joined the family when he was two months old. )
We had a family celebration and everyone got a snip at his first haircut. He is a very good-natured and fun little boy; the significant exception was every morning’s screaming session when I brushed his hair, so we are all very happy for him to have short hair now!
Rafael holding his ponytail the day after
My husband put together a repeating video slide show of Rafael that was playing throughout the evening on the computer; it was nice to see all the different stages and memories from the time he came home.
As always, it was SO nice to have all our our children together! After everyone left, my husband and I once again marveled at what a very wonderful group of people they are.
Our daughter in law, oldest daughter and second daughter. The older boys enjoy singing together (they sung at the chupa of one of their sisters); ds21 playing the guitar while ds17 accompanied him on the harmonica, our oldest son is standing, holding his sister’s baby. Our two sons-in-law were shmoozing together to the left.
It took me two days to look at Rafael with his new haircut and not feel sad that my little baby is gone. He seems so much older all of a sudden! After that I got used to it and now I don’t even notice it anymore!
On Facebook I see many people showcasing their talents, work and testimonials in casual, chatty posts about loving the work they do and sharing the value they add.
Sometimes I look at that and think, “I should be doing that.”
However, even though it might bring me more clients, even though it would expand my impact and visibility, I just don’t want to do it. Not right now.
Even though it’s really nice to be out there, to be speaking and teaching and earning and contributing and recognized. Really nice.
A year and a half ago I made a decision to consciously step back professionally. My days were full – with the kids all day, then right from the dinner table I would leave to meet clients or go out to teach. I loved the work I was doing, I loved the connections I was making and the differences I was able to help people create in their lives.
I recognized, though, that with all that was happening in my life, I needed to increase my quiet space for myself. When I talk about how critical self-care is, I really mean it; it’s not a theoretical concept for me. What previously had been sufficient margin no longer was enough.
I can’t tell you how hard it was for me to take this extended step back from doing things that I loved and valued, and to be okay with not doing anything special in lieu of that work. Creating more margin for myself to bewas something I knew was valuable but I still grappled with not having a commeasurate sense of accomplishment.
However, I stuck with this despite the ongoing discomfort I felt because I knew it was an opportunity for me to practice a higher level of self-acceptance, independent of my contributions to others. Without qualification, without needing to prove.
This has been so valuable. Yet there are still periodically those ‘I should do the things that other people are doing’ thoughts that pop into my mind.
To counter that, I recognized it would be helpful for me to clarify my goal for the year as a reminder not just what I didn’t want to be doing, but what I did want to do!
I picked up a book at a library sale last week called Simple Abundance. At the end of the foreword the author states: “I don’t have a million dollars in the bank, but I now realize that abundance and lack are parallel realities; every day I make the choice of which one to inhabit. Now I understand that all my hours aren’t billable; finding a quiet center in which to create and sustain an authentic life has become as essential as breathing.”
I so identified with this that I went back and re-read it several times. This sums up in a small way my inner process of the last few years!
And so, I’ve adapted and written on my vision page the following as my goal for the coming year:
“To maintain a quiet center, and continue to create and sustain an authentic life.”
I love getting this onto paper and unapologetically giving myself permission to keep this my focus!
Have you ever struggled between what you expect of yourself and what you really want to do? Do you have a goal for the coming year that is meaningful for you?
When my twenty year old son called from his dorm and said he was feeling so sick and achy that he was coming home, I knew he had the flu.
Just a few days before my son called, I happened to read a Pubmed abstract referencing the ‘vitamin D hammer’, a term and dosage that were unfamiliar to me. In it, the doctor writes, “A colleague of mine and I have introduced vitamin D at doses that have achieved greater than 100 nmol/L in most of our patients for the past number of years, and we now see very few patients in our clinics with the flu or influenzalike illness. In those patients who do have influenza, we have treated them with the vitamin D hammer, as coined by my colleague. This is a 1-time 50 000 IU dose of vitamin D3 or 10 000 IU 3 times daily for 2 to 3 days. The results are dramatic, with complete resolution of symptoms in 48 to 72 hours. One-time doses of vitamin D at this level have been used safely and have never been shown to be toxic.8 .”
Of course I knew about the importance of vitamin D for the flu since years ago when there was the swine flu panic I did some research on that. And I’m very, very comfortable and experienced with megadoses of vitamin C. But megadoses of vitamin D? Not something I had done.
I went straight to the pharmacy to pick up some vitamin D so I could have some ready for my son as soon as he got home. I was told the only options in Israel were for 400 iu or 1000 iu; I usually buy 5000 and 10,000 iu per capsule online. So I got more than one bottle.
Five minutes after he got home, I gave my son 25,000 iu and gave my other kids 5000 iu for prevention.Three hours later he took another 25,000 iu before going to sleep.
He was really sick and I expected he would be in for a rough night, and sure enough, he was. But by the morning, he was feeling much better; within 24 hours, the achiness and fever were completely gone (though he felt tired). Within 48 hours he was completely back to himself.
BOOM! The hammer was a winner for us!
It’s not coincidental that the flu comes around seasonally when it’s cold and dark, and most of us aren’t getting much sunlight (sunlight being the natural source of vitamin D). I read somewhere that the flu could be called a vitamin D deficiency; if you aren’t deficient in vitamin D, you aren’t going to catch the flu.
The day before this I was in the doctor’s waiting room with someone whose two children were just over the flu, and she told me how hard it had been for her to have nothing to do but let them suffer and wait for them to get better. That’s such a hard feeling for a parent. It’s so empowering when you know how to speed up a child’s recovery from an illness!
The amount I gave my son was for an adult, and I was wondering what a child’s dose would be. The formula I found to work out a weight based dosage is this: multiply a person’s weight (in kilograms) and then multiply that by 1000 to get each person’s dose. This dose would be the amount to take daily for only three days, then stop.
(Vitamin D is a fat soluble vitamin, unlike vitamin C, so megadoses are only for when sick. This isn’t an amount to take daily for an ongoing period!)
I love finding easy and effective ways to deal with seasonal illness! My son was certainly grateful.
I first discovered the song I Love Myself The Way I Am by Jai Joseph when I was hospitalized with burns to my entire face over five years ago. I listened to it a lot when I was in the hospital; I needed to hear these messages of loving myself as I was, at a time that I didn’t know if I would ever look normal again. (I shared the lyrics of the two stanzas that were especially powerful for me at the end of the post I wrote when I left the hospital.)
However, I didn’t continue to listen to it regularly, and when I recently rediscovered it, it was like finding a familiar wise friend.
The messages in these simple lyrics are so powerful and affirming. In the second stanza he succinctly sums up a concept I speak about a lot with clients and in my workshops.
“I love you the way you are there’s nothing you need to do When I feel the love inside myself it’s easy to love you Behind your fears, your rage and tears I see your shining star And I love you just the way you are.” (Jai Josephs)
In the last five years, I’ve done a lot of inner work focusing on self-love, and have experienced that when we can accept ourselves with all of our imperfections, this naturally filters into our relationships with our children (and everyone else in our lives). In every interaction we are always reflecting to others who we are, and the more forgiving you are to yourself, the more natural it is to be forgiving of your child. Since managing our own emotions are the hardest part of parenting, the more work of this sort a parent does, the easier parenting becomes.
While it’s valuable to do this kind of work, it doesn’t negate the need for something more in the most challenging moments! Often parents ask me how they can possibly be loving to a child who is acting in unloveable ways. How can you get past the frustration of the moment in order to feel your love for him, to communicate from a place of acceptance for who your child is?
The answer is to look beyond the behavior (remember, this is just communication) of the moment and reconnect with your love for him by appreciating the beautiful person he is at his core, to ‘see his shining star‘.
Yes, he has his challenges and unquestionably those are challenging for you to navigate, too. But if you can do this, you will begin to realize that this is the deepest, most powerful and effective thing you can do to positively impact your child’s behavior – even though on the outside it may not look like you’re addressing the behavior at all in the moment.
(It’s hard to shift to this approach because we want to feel like we’re activelydoing something to change the situation. But trying to control or manipulate the child’s behavior is counterproductive.)
We live in a world that is constantly projecting messages that focus on consumerism and competition; this song is a helpful reminder for me of the responses I strive for.
Sometimes it seems there’s no way to get what you want within the parameters you’re working with. And then something like today happens and reminds me that I don’t have to try so hard, I have to allow things to unfold. It’s quite marvelous how what seems impossible can happen with so easily with so little effort.
A few months ago I bought a new car after my previous car being totaled in an accident. So why was I once again looking for a new vehicle?
Here in Israel there’s an interesting phenomenon: families with several children will often choose to buy a smaller vehicle that doesn’t seat all their family members when traveling at one time, rather than getting a minivan. When living in the US, I never heard of anyone making a choice like this, but it’s very, very common in Israel.
The reason this is done here is because the costs of buying and fueling a larger vehicle are significantly higher. Often, families will rent a second car to travel together during vacation but keep their daily mode of transportation a smaller and more affordable car.
We made a similar decision when we bought our first car over a year and a half ago. Though we’re a large family and in the US I drove a full size 12 passenger van, I mostly needed something to get around locally for errands, and for that a small car was fine. We have great bus transportation and sending older kids on buses if we don’t have room for everyone is an option, as strange as that might sound to those who don’t live in Israel!
However, with our decision to move to northern Israel came a realization that we would need a larger vehicle. (We didn’t know we’d be moving to the north when we bought the replacement car or we would have made a different choice.) Public transportation where we’ll be living is weak and having a couple more seats will make a big difference.
I didn’t want to leave the selling and buying of a car for when we’re moving since there will be plenty of other things to do, so I decided to do this now. Almost three weeks ago, I sold our five seater.
Prior to selling and since then, I’ve spent waaaaay too long reading every bit of data I could get on various makes and models. The more I read, the fewer choices I seemed to have. I wanted a number of features and when considering my very conservative budget, even a basic functional car of that size looked completely unrealistic. It as also complicated by the fact that every time I found something suitable, my husband would raise concerns.
I would have been totally discouraged and overwhelmed if I didn’t continually remind myself that somehow we would find something that would work for us no matter how unlikely it seemed. (And I also reminded my husband he could trust me to buy the car as I’ve always done it and it’s always been fine.)
The choices that were the most affordable, spacious and gas efficient were all made by French manufacturers. None of these companies have a reputation for long lasting/hard wearing vehicles, and I was concerned that my lower acquisition costs would be more than offset by ongoing repair costs. When a mechanic for one of these companies dealerships told me to stay away from them, that finalized my decision to look at other options.
I thought and thought and thought some more about what was most important to me, and finally edited my original list to the following priorities:
Japanese manufactured
well-maintained
decent fuel efficiency
non-diesel engine (because I want to convert the engine to run on propane fuel and diesel vehicles can’t be converted)
price below xxx shekels (this is so low that I don’t feel comfortable writing it :))
Last night I decided to look at a car model I hadn’t previously considered due to a concern that the very back two seats wouldn’t be be comfortable for my hulking sons. 🙂 When I checked out the listings online for sale by private owner (I don’t buy from dealers), one stood out to me among a number of listings for the same model, year, mileage and price.
Sometimes I get a feeling about things; from just the wording of the ad I’d be hard pressed to explain why one listing calls to me and similar one doesn’t. I do think there’s an element of logic mixed in with it; it’s not all based on my gut feeling.
This car had slightly higher mileage than most of them, but there was nothing in my price range that wasn’t high mileage. My biggest concerns about buying vehicles that were older and high mileage was that it we might have to replace the engine or transmission in the near future, both very big expenses.
One of the things I debated with myself is if it would be more financially prudent to spend more on a newer car upfront to minimize the possible repair costs. However, we would have to dramatically jump up in price and of course there’s never any guarantee that even a newer car with lower mileage won’t need expensive repairs – in my reading in different forums I read a number of worrying stories like that. So I stayed with my original low price point.
When I called about the car I was pleasantly surprised to learn that the engine had been replaced three months ago – there was no mention of this in the ad.
Both the wife who took my initial phone call and the husband who showed me the car were very honest and forthcoming with information. Before I went to check out the car, I was pretty sure that unless something was really wrong when I saw it that I would be driving it back home with me. 🙂
(When I buy a car, I’m buying in large part based on my feeling about the seller. Buying a used car is unpredictable and I need to trust the person who is selling it and what they are telling me. Yesterday I looked at a car and within one minute of meeting the seller knew I wouldn’t buy the car. Not because of the car, but because of the seller. )
It was only because of a specific question while test driving the car today that I asked that I learned that the transmission was replaced six weeks ago! In two conversations with the sellers, neither of them thought of mentioning that to me, even though that was a very positive factor in favor of the car.
After the sale was completed, I looked at my long list of things I wanted that I had put aside so I could focus on the basics, and I got every single thing. Every single one.
Here’s the longer list:
Seller location – since I was traveling by bus to check out the potential options, I was hoping to find something not too far from home even though I was looking online at cars across the country. These sellers listed their location as the city where the wife works, which would have been very time consuming and difficult for me to access by public transportation. Another reason I shouldn’t have called them. They live just a a 25 minute bus ride from here and that’s where I saw the car.
Roof rack – knowing we’d have a small trunk, I wanted to have a space to load up for trips
Trailer hitch – this seemed an unlikely feature to find in the class of vehicles I was looking at but a previous owner had it installed
Tinted windows – this cuts down on the heat quite a bit in the summer and one of my kids requested it
Driver seating position – I prefer sitting higher up to have a better view, with my legs more vertical than horizontal
Head space – my last car didn’t have much and I missed having that
Feel of driving a car rather than a minivan
Propane system – this was complicated because I didn’t want to spend the money to put in the system on an old engine, and I didn’t want to buy a car already converted since a poorly done conversion can shorten the engine life. In any case, only a very small percentage of cars are converted to run on propane. This car had a propane system installed by a reputable installer, then it was reinstalled on the new engine.
This last point was the one that made the entire buying effort seem impossible. I wanted a newish engine already converted to run on propane by a reputable installer that I recognized (which totals three names in the entire country) at a ridiculously low price, or as a very much less appealing distant second option that I almost don’t want to mention because I really didn’t want to do this, a car so cheap I could afford to replace the engine and put in the propane system (adding lots of aggravation and at least 11,000 shekels to my purchase cost).
Was that situation with the propane alone extremely unlikely? Yes. Combined with all these other things, it was very, very, very unlikely.
And yet, that’s exactly what I got!
How could I have gotten all of this for the very low price I had budgeted?
Here’s an amazing bit of synchronicity regarding the price! (This is when in my house I burst into song, G-d Loves Me!!! Yes, I really do that.No, my children don’t always deeply appreciate my constant singing about everything but that’s the mother they have. :))
After having their vehicle on the market at fair market value for a month and not seeing movement, the sellers decided to get it sold and dramatically cut the price yesterday. It was last night when I decided to consider this model and saw the listing.
They listed it for 100 shekels less than my budgeted amount (remember, with none of the information about the very recent and expensive work they had done – they just wrote ‘excellent condition’).
I heard a statement somewhere (I wish I remember where so I could credit it): “Whatever you are looking for is looking for you.” I felt that so much with this purchase.
No, the car isn’t perfect. I didn’t have that on either of my lists! But it’s a really good fit for me and it’s been really wonderful to see this manifest in this way.
I don’t wear much makeup on a daily basis, but I do wear lipstick. Or I used to.
At some point over a year ago, I stopped wearing lipstick. I had a couple tubes of shades that I really liked but they no longer glided on smoothly. I had another tube that was way too pale, and a fourth was too thick and uneven. I tried applying one and then the other to get a blended color but it wasn’t effective, so I just stopped wearing lipstick.
After making antibiotic salve last week, it occurred to me that it might be very simple to create new lipstick from these unusable ones. That’s what I did!
I took the four tubes of lipstick that I’m not using, and pushed the applicator to the very top. I broke off each lipstick at the base, then scraped out the remaining contents into a glass jar. I then boiled a small pot of water and put the glass jar into the pot (creating a makeshift double boiler). I added some petroleum jelly, then waited a few minutes while it all gently melted together.
The easiest thing would have been to pour the mixture into a small round glass container but I wanted to try to use the original lipstick holders. This made a little more mess and took a bit more time, but was worth it.
I adjusted each empty lipstick applicator to the lowest position, then poured the liquid mixture in until it was just about flush with the top. I let it set in an upright position until it completely cooled. I didn’t get a nice smooth pointed shape like lipsticks in the store, but with use it will smooth out.
I am so delighted with the results of this little experiment! Instead of four tubes of unusable lipstick, I now have four tubes of a color that I love. It’s the perfect shade for me, and amazingly, it not only goes on smoothly but it stays on longer than my old lipsticks used to.
Not only that, I don’t need to blot it to prevent it from getting on my teeth. I always thought it was a waste to apply lipstick, then blot it and have half of what I just applied be thrown away on a tissue! I don’t know what is different now, but practically it means my new upcycled lipsticks are easier to use and will last longer.
If this sounds time consuming and difficult, it really wasn’t. It didn’t require any special skills – just melt and pour. The entire project took somewhere between 15 – 20 minutes from start to finish.
It’s that time of year when there are the yearly payments to cover my website expenses, so I do a bit of online juggling to make sure money is in the right places for the various automatic withdrawals. Tonight I got a message in my email inbox, notifying me know that the transfer I had made from my bank to my Paypal account didn’t go through due to lack of funds.
I was taken aback since there was plenty of money in the transferring account so I quickly logged onto my bank account and saw that I had mistakenly done the transfer from one of my two accounts (one is savings, one is checking). Though the accounts are linked, rather than automatically transfer the necessary funds from one account to the other, the transfer was denied.
I didn’t mind that, but I did mind that I was charged a $29 non-sufficient funds fee for the transfer that didn’t go through. I didn’t think that I should be charged for a failed transfer from one of my accounts to another. I called my bank to explain what happened; the representative very courteously heard me out and said she understood. (She can also look at my 13 years of banking history at their bank and see that I don’t have a history of insufficient funds fees – if I don’t have money for something, I don’t buy it. My secret for staying debt-free. :))
Then she asked me a very interesting question: “Well, Ms. Werner, what would you like us to do about this fee?” Isn’t that a nice response?
I told her I wanted the $29 fee waived; she agreed that would be appropriate and she would take care of it while I was on the phone.
Well, that was easy!
While I waited for two minutes for her to refund the fee, I explained to my son who was impatiently waiting to know what I was talking to her about what happened. I explained that it’s our responsibility to be aware of what happens to our money. No one cares what happens to your finances like you do.
Was it worth the few minutes on the phone to get $29/110 shekels refunded? Yes, I thought so!
Similarly, I check my receipts before leaving the store when I shop – I have found so many errors and almost none of them were favorable to me. (Of course, I notified them when I was undercharged as well.)
Winter is here (well, kinda of – it’s been very warm and one son was wearing shorts and a short sleeved shirt yesterday), and we’ve been having fun with some diy health related kind of projects.
Eight years ago before moving to Israel, I traded 50 pounds of spelt berries for a few small, lightweight bottles of essential oils. I didn’t use the oils regularly because even though essential oils are great, you have to: 1) know how and when to use them, and 2) make them easy to use or you’re not going to use them regularly.
Thanks to the diffuser I was gifted by my mom last year, it’s now easy for me to regularly diffuse oils, which I love to do! With the recent free shipping option to Israel from Amazon, I was able to buy a set of roller ball applicator bottles, which I filled with essential oil blends. I made a blend for cuts and bruises (easy to slip into my purse), and one for germ fighting to apply to the younger boys before they head out in the morning to their classrooms.
In case you’re wondering about costs, I buy large 4 ounce bottles of the essential oils I consider most important (NOT from the name brand companies), then use recipes found online for the issues I want to address and make blends at a fraction of what it would cost to buy them. For example, I made an athlete’s foot blend (castor oil, tea tree, lavender) – I call it ‘Foot Freshener” for one of my sons, conveniently stored in a plastic dispenser with a roller top.
I also recently discovered the amazingness of shea butter! I know, how could I have walked through the world all these decades and been oblivious, right? I’m remedying that right now! I ordered a pound of raw shea butter to play with in making my own salves. I haven’t made salves for quite some time but still have beeswax around from the last go around, so it was pretty simple and fun to put together a few mixes.
In the past, I used olive oil infused with herbs as a base for my salves (http://avivahwerner.com/2009/09/25/making-first-aid-salve/ ). This time, I used shea butter with essential oils and made: a vapor rub (similar to Vicks or Unkers- I like to use this when the kids over age 6 are congested or have a sore throat – I used eucalyptus, lavender, frankincense, rosemary); a general antibiotic salve (tea tree, helichyrsum, lavender, frankincense) and a facial moisturizer.
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Last night I pulled out my capsule filler, which I haven’t used for years. The boys enjoyed figuring out how to use it and filled a bunch of capsules with vitamin C. If you’re wondering how I happen to have empty vegetarian capsules, loads of powdered vitamin C and a capsule filler on hand, you haven’t read my blog long enough. 🙂 Seriously, though, these are the kind of things I keep around.
Vitamin C is a wonderful support for when your immune system is down with whatever is going around, big or small. We generally give our kids powdered vitamin c in water and some kind of sweetener, like juice or xylitol. That’s perfect for the younger kids but the older ones prefer the capsules, and so do I! (Here is my post with guidelines on how much to dose – http://avivahwerner.com/2010/01/27/vitamin-c-for-health/ .)
I’ve hardly ever needed to give any of our eleven kids antibiotics, since vitamin C has been so effective and isn’t accompanied by all the potential side effects. Why isn’t this cheap, easy and super effective remedy for literally just about everything widely known?
In any case, it’s so easy and gratifying to create something people tend to think has to come from a store, right in my own kitchen!
Gosh, it’s been a busy time! The holidays, putting our current home on the market, and … dum, dum, dum, dum….
We have a house under contract!
My husband was surprised that I didn’t write about this already – I’ve been trying to write this post for over two weeks. I have a lot of resistance to sharing about this, but here goes!
Over the last few months I’ve written about being honest with myself about what I want (integrating more nature into my daily life), clarifying what it looked like and moving toward that vision. It culminated with us making an offer on a home that seemed to have been drawn to us magnetically (seriously, no hyperbole intended). Then the house was pulled off the market.
This entire process has been very spiritual and expansive for me, as I’ve consciously had to allow for shifts in my way of being.
It’s been take action and let go, take action and let go, take action and let go. Much more letting go than taking action, actually. That isn’t historically my strong point. No, I tend to hold on with my fingernails dug in, thinking that something should happen the way I want it to happen, just because I want it. (Can anyone relate? :))
So this letting go has been really powerful for me because it’s taken a lot of conscious releasing of my will on a continual basis, and trusting that G-d will take care of things better than I can, so I can let Him do what is best without trying so hard to make it happen.
Alright, let me get to what has happened as a result of all of this letting go because I know that’s what you want to hear. 🙂
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After the house fell through, our motivation and commitment to make the move took a big hit. My husband and I agreed it would be helpful to keep us emotionally connected to the idea of living there if we did something active towards that goal.
When we had an opportunity to be in that general area, I suggested to my husband that we might as well go spend a few more hours there and look at some other properties.
We contacted the agent and made plans to check out a few interesting properties. He set everything up and we agreed to an approximate time to meet. When we checked in with him a half hour before our arrival, he asked us to call him once we were there and ready for him to pick us up.
Since the car accident a few months ago when I was rear ended, I have some symptoms that make traveling taxing for me, so I arranged to stay in a friend’s guest room to rest before looking at properties. That’s where I was when my husband went to call the agent, and as I stood by the window that happened to overlook the house that we had made the offer on, a strong feeling went through me.
“That’s my house.”
Now this wasn’t logical since obviously it wasn’t our house; we had detached ourselves from that as an option and were moving on by looking at other properties. But it wasn’t a matter of logic; it was more like an instinctive knowing flashed through me. Which of course I immediately dismissed, because that’s what I do – I ignore illogical things and give them logical names like wishful thinking. But it wasn’t wishful thinking.
My husband came back in a few minutes later with a strange look on his face, and announced, ‘I just spoke to the agent.’
Well, since he had gone out to call the agent that was no surprise, but the look on his face was. I said, “Okaaaay, but why do you look like that?”
It turns out that just before my husband called, the agent had been on the phone with the seller of the first house.The seller announced he would sell his house to us if we would agree to a higher price to match an offer he got from someone else.
With suppressed excitement, my husband asked, “So what should we tell him??”
Feeling more irritated than excited, I responded with very measured tones, “We’re going to look at the other properties because that’s what we came here for. Very nice that he’s ready to sell all of a sudden but that doesn’t mean that we’re ready or interested; I’m not interested in him yanking our chain and playing games with us.”
We agreed to set aside the first house mentally and to consider it only after looking at the other properties scheduled.
Off we went to look at other homes. There was one that was particularly interesting and financially would have been a really smart move, but there wasn’t enough air and light for my preferences, and no view from the first floor. If I were moving to better my situation financially it would have been perfect but I want to upgrade my quality of life and that house didn’t match in that regard.
When we finally finished looking at all the properties, we sat down to analyze the ins and outs of each one. They were each interesting in very different ways, and clarifying how each one fit into our vision was very important.
Finally, we agreed that even at the higher price point, the first house would still best meet our needs and would be a good value for us.
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Our new home is now under contract, with the closing scheduled for March!
What’s the house like? A reader who got the early scoop in a private conversation asked me for more details, and was hoping I would share pictures. Honestly, the house isn’t too exciting to look at, especially since it’s been split into two apartments and rented out. (Remember I said in a past post that I’m good at seeing behind the mess?)
Me before walking into house for the first time
Here’s the quick story behind the picture above. When my husband wanted to take a picture I thought, ‘This is going to be my house one day and then I’ll appreciate a picture of the first time I was there.’ Yes, that was my thought before I ever walked in!
Here are the basics – it’s a nice sized house that we can easily convert to a single family. We’ll have additional bedrooms for hosting our married couples (we have no guest room right now). It has what in many cities in Israel would be considered a large yard; at 350 meters, it’s massive compared to my current garden of 28 meters! (It’s about 1/12 of an acre, so it’s a very small yard by US terms!) Right now it’s a mass of dirt and weeds. There is a porch upstairs that is smaller than my current porch, but at 40 meters is still a very good size.
(I’m sharing a video we took but it automatically uploaded in a much larger format and I don’t know how to change that. If it’s too frustrating to watch it, the most important part is what you hear (the wind and animal sounds) – or don’t hear (traffic)- in the background. :))
It’s centrally located and a short walk (6 minutes) to the synagogue and supermarket, which is important to us since we have a child who is a reluctant walker and that has been very limiting.
There are renovations we plan to do to make the space work better for us (obviously in addition to general sprucing up and updating). I kept looking at the video we took of the kitchen when we walked through and saying, something doesn’t make sense about this layout – why in the world did they put the kitchen here?!?
I decided we would move the kitchen to a different area and what do you know? When I got a copy of the building plans I saw the kitchen was supposed to be built right where I want to move it! Its seems the contractor decided it would be more cost efficient to dump it into a small awkwardly located area that the front door opens directly onto. (When looking at the picture above, it’s located on the left behind me. We plan to move it to the right, where the four windows are.)
Are you wondering you wondering why I felt pulled to this house in particular?
Location, location, location.
Since it’s the last house on the block, it has lots of open space all around. (Pic taken by agent in the early summer when everything was still green.) You can see the palm grove running along the side of the house.
Looking out the front door we have this beautiful view.
Where is it? This is located in a small district in northern Israel called Yavne’el.
When are we moving? We plan to move when the school year ends; this is somewhat flexible and could be a bit earlier depending on the buyers of our current home.
So it’s really happening! It’s been so amazing to watch this stage of our lives unfold and I’m continue to look forward to how other pieces fall into place!
Yesterday was my birthday, and I feel incredibly grateful to be living a life that is so meaningful and expansive. I sat down to think about the elements that are leading to that outcome, and want to share with you what has been pivotal for me in dramatically increasing my sense of well-being!
It’s not because my life is problem-free; I have annoying things to deal with but I just prefer not to focus on them.
Here’s the question I ask myself: What do I want my life to look and feel like?
Asked another way: if you had all the resources available to live your dream life, what would you do?
These kind of questions are part of the ongoing vision work that I do, and my answers always help me better direct my energies toward what I really want.
When I thought about the components that make me happy, I realized I can integrate them in small ways every day, and that makes a huge difference. I don’t have to wait for the ‘one day when..then’ to happen.
Here are some personal examples of things that are important to me. My schedule means I’m at home with my children most of the time, and I don’t have large blocks of the self-time that I had associated with some of these things:
An unhurried and serene schedule
Time in the outdoors
Time for prayer and meditation
Physical movement
When I thought about having these things, I would think, ‘One day.’ I had an ideal vision of what that would look like and I assumed I’d have to wait until my children were much older.
I imagined long, uninterrupted blocks of time until I realized, if I wait to have huge blocks of time for perfect, I’m never going to have the things that I want! Instead, I’m going to spend way too much time being frustrated and longing for something that I don’t have.
So here’s my solution: do today – in a small way – the things that you care about most.
There are a number of very small choices I’ve made over time; here’s some of what that looks like on a daily basis. See if you can spot the elements that make my day feel amazing!
I wake up between 5 – 6 so that I have quiet time before anyone else is up. Sometimes my kids start waking up by 5:15, but I sometimes have until as late as 6:30 when the house is quiet. (Right now it’s 6:11 and Yirmi is awake and snuggling next to me on the porch swing as I write this.)
During part of that time, I sit outside on my porch and enjoy listening to the birds chirping. I feel the quietness of the early morning. I try to take time for some prayer at this point, and get in what I can. My ideal is about 30 minutes, but sometimes it’s just 5 minutes and that’s fine, too.
I then have plenty of time to get Yirmi and Rafael ready for school without rushing and tension.
Rafael (2 3/4) just started preschool last week (after being home for 3 months – yay for bureaucratic inefficiency!!) , and now part of my new schedule has prompted more opportunities for doing things I love!
After Yirmi goes on his van to school, Rafael and I immediately walk to the bus stop. He qualifies for a school van but I love having this time with him in the morning. Instead of rushing to get him ready for an early morning van and him having several transitions between leaving the house and being in school, we’re able to spend that time together.
I’ve chosen to take him by bus rather than drive so that we have the chance to walk together. In addition to the together time, walking is important to build his stamina as well as for overall general health and well-being. It’s so nice to start the day with something that is high on my list of priorities.
After I drop him off, I walk home. It’s so nice to be outside and moving in the morning!
I’ve begun stopping at a local park that has a large grassy area. My kids at home don’t yet expect me to be back, and thirty minutes sitting or laying on the grass, watching the trees sway in the breeze while listening to a meditation or inspiring talk is incredibly expansive for me.
It looks like me being in a regular park, but it feels like this!
By this time it’s 9:30 and I’m feeling like I have the most amazing life on the planet! Pure bliss.
But it’s just a regular morning doing the same kind of things as all the parents around me.Don’t think my mornings are absent any challenges! The extreme feelings of well-being come from doing the little things that align with what I want my life to look like.
The exciting thing is that anyone can do the same things! You may not be able to go for a week long vacation to Europe or live next to a nature reserve, but you can find small ways to integrate the elements you want most into your life.
Ask yourself what you want your life to look like, make a small shift in your daily schedule or behavior, then keep asking yourself the same question and keep making little, little changes over time. The more I do this, the more awesome life feels! And the best part is, it’s not dependent on anything outside of you to change.
