The old kitchen is fully taken apart and beginning to come together

Homemaking, Intentional Spending, Parenting

The electrician came back and put in the new outlets, and though there’s still more work for him to do, none of requires us to wait on installing the new kitchen.

New outlets in, the island before it was dismantled

Having the go ahead to get busy taking apart the kitchen unleashed my sons’ energy and they all got to work. While I cleaned up all of the kitchen so the boys could dissemble it all, they took apart the countertop from the island. This wasn’t easy because it was securely glued down on all sides, but perserverance is a good quality to have and they got it off.

Ds17 – left; ds15 – center, ds18 – right

Once that was done, they took the countertop outside – it’s a huge and heavy piece of stone – and then then turned to dissembling the final part of the kitchen. The hardest part of a kitchen renovation is when the sink is taken out because that’s the heart of cleanup and food preparation. Here they are soon after they began.

The kitchen countertop was much easier to remove than the island countertop – it’s always nice when it happens that you’ve done the harder thing first and the second time around it’s easier. They removed it from the base cabinets while separating the two sections that had been seamed together.

The kitchen is almost completely taken apart! All that’s left to move are the top hanging cabinets.

I had to change my original (exhaustively thought out) plans after finding out how expensive it would be to have a professional refabricate our existing countertops. We decided we would try to cut the countertop ourselves, and to keep the current double sink that is already installed in the countertop rather than have two separate sinks along two different walls. (Cutting the sink spaces would require specialty equipment that we don’t have.)

That meant big changes to the intended layout. It was a little stressful to make big changes at this point since the gas installation had already been done, the plumbing already begun, and I had told the electrician my plans (which I then needed to adjust). It will be different but it will be great.

Here are the cabinets reassembled in their new location.

The countertop to the left is what used to be on the island, but cut down to fit these cabinets

Ds17 enjoys working with the router (remember my last post when he was the one to take apart the metal pergola?), so the other boys said he should be the one to cut down the countertop from the island. After they took apart and rebuilt the cabinets, ds17 cut down the large piece that topped the island, so that it’s the right depth. He told me after doing it that it made him feel like he could do anything, and there was nothing about renovating a kitchen that was hard.

You can’t give a child confidence, but you can give them opportunities to stretch and learn new skills, and the resulting competence builds confidence.

For tomorrow the focus will be to continue working on the countertop – the sides of this piece needs to be cut flat – they’re currently rounded slightly since they were the edges of the island. Then there are two more pieces to cut. One is for the area to the right of the sink, which has a curved wall next to it. The second piece will be to cover the 20 cm gap between the end of the counter and the appliance garage on the left.

The plumber was supposed to come later in the afternoon to connect the water pipes, but then called to say he forgot he had a dentist appointment so he couldn’t make it. I told him it was fine, but if he had even a little time to stop over after his appointment, we’d be glad to be able to use the water. I didn’t expect him to come until the next day, but he showed up and our water is now connected!

I’m so grateful and delighted that the hardest part of the renovation, not having a sink, lasted just a few hours. It’s been uncomfortable living with things in disorder for the last two and I’ve felt some discomfort about having to continually remind workmen about coming, but having the sink back in use so quickly makes the entire renovation feel so much easier. I’m not yet using the sink because the counters aren’t in and it’s not sealed for water, so I don’t want to damage anything with water leaking through. But just being able to get a drink of water is helpful.

And of course, one more important piece that needed to be finished is off my mental list.

Tomorrow I’m going to make a trip with ds18 to Beit Shemesh. He’s going to meet with someone there, while I go to the carpentry shop and buy toekicks (the covering for the area under the cabinets). If you’re wondering why I’m not buying closer to home, I went to a carpentry shop locally and he didn’t have the size I needed, and the Beit Shemesh store has what I need and will cut it to size while I wait. I know from experience that when you delay finishing touches while using your kitchen, you may never get to them – we never put toekicks on the part of the old kitchen where the sink was – and I didn’t want to make that mistake again. Hence a long trip at a busy time when there are many other things requiring my attention.

From there, I intend to look for wall tiles at an outlet store in Petach Tikva, as well as another large item for another project that we definitely won’t begin until after Pesach. I’m going to leave right after the kids go to school, with the hope I’ll be back before they get home. With Pesach so close, I want to get this done now because otherwise I’ll have to wait until after Pesach to make the trip.

I’m not planning to do the tiling before Pesach – my focus will be on taking down the tiling in the old kitchen area and at least getting the area spackled and ready for painting before Pesach. It may get painted before then, I’m not sure. The most important thing is to complete the kitchen and open up the space for hosting. I can take care of the many cosmetic details afterward.

Avivah

My teens are home and things are getting done!

Homemaking, Intentional Spending

My three teen boys all have vacation and I just love when they’re home together!

The hazard of having them home is they like to all congregate together in my room at night to hang out so it’s hard to do any writing or go to sleep. The years go by quickly and I don’t want to lose this time with them.

Yesterday was the first day of them working together; it’s so, so nice because first of all, I love seeing them together, and secondly, every single one of them is really helpful and knows how to get things done. When they work together, they’re an amazing team. When I ask them to do something, they do what I want in the time frame that I want. I have yet to find anyone I can pay who works nearly as well as them; my daughter who lives here has had the same experience.

The progress of my kitchen renovation has been very delayed. The first stage of the electric work needed to be completed before any cabinets could be put in place, and the electrician finally came two weeks after he said he would come. That’s pushed everything off, and though I’ve felt some impatience to get this going and get it done so I can move on to Pesach preparations, it’s been okay that it’s taken longer.

This is how it’s looked for almost two weeks while we waited for him to come; there’s a light switch and outlet behind where the wall units that needed to be moved.

Once the electrician came and moved the light switch, ds15 and ds17 were finally able to put together the wall units. It was so nice to have them in place.

I still need outlets above where the new counter area will be, before moving the base cabinets and countertops into place; the electrician said he would come back in a few days.

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I had to go out for a few hours in the morning and since they didn’t want to take apart the kitchen if I wasn’t there, the boys found constructive activities to busy themselves with.

Our porch upstairs is a nice size but as a porch it doesn’t get much use (other than the teens sleeping there at night since they like the fresh air) since we have so much outdoor space downstairs. As the families of our married children grow, it’s harder and harder for parents to share a room with all of their children. When they come on a weekend when no other married siblings are here, it’s no problem to give them two bedrooms, but when we have other guests, we don’t have that option.

For the last five years we’ve been paying higher property tax for the open porch as if it’s an enclosed part of the house and that’s kind of annoying, so I’ve often thought there’s some additional incentive there to rebalance things (ie and close in the porch) so we have the benefit of what we’re being taxed for.

My mother-in-law and sister-in-law will be coming from the US to stay with us for all of Pesach. This year we had four married children who wanted to come for the Pesach seder but even after the teens agreeing to vacate their room for my mother-in-law and sister-in-law to stay in, we only had two more guest rooms. Obviously the math doesn’t work out for everyone to be here at once!

I didn’t want to tell anyone not to come but we just didn’t have space for everyone at one time. This is the first time I’ve been unable to accomodate everyone, since my local daughter has guest space and was able to host our overflow guests for sleeping.

After several weeks of feeling stymied, I finally decided that we’ll split the hosting of the married kids. Two of them will come for the seder, and the other two will come for the end of Pesach. One family will come for the middle days of Pesach. One has lived locally until this week (they’re moving to RBS-D near my oldest son’s family) so they aren’t coming for Pesach. Then next year, those who came for the last days this year will come for the seder, and those who came for the seder will come for the end of Pesach. So the plan is to alternate guests for the seder every year, instead of having everyone at once.

You can see that we can use some additional sleeping space!

My teens were enthused about closing in the porch but my husband requested a pause on it, explaining that when there’s a project with details he wants to be able to oversee it. With the kitchen renovation still very much in progress, he asked that we not have two big projects simultaneously taking place.

I could see the logic in that but felt it was a shame to waste all of the manpower available during this very short period of time, since if we don’t do it now, they won’t be available until the summer. With so much family coming for Pesach it would be nice to have more hosting space but I respected my husband’s preference and we put the porch project to the side.

I don’t know what changed when I was out for just four hours – my husband said when he was watching the boys work he saw how competent they were and that made him more comfortable with them doing the porch now. But when I came back, I heard very loud noises from the porch and as I came into our yard, looked up to see my sons taking apart the metal pergola.

That took me by surprise! It was a huge job, since it’s constructed of heavy duty metal pieces welded in place, and it took several hours to cut it down. The three of them started working on it together but then ds17 did most of the work to cut it apart. They recognize their strengths and tend to assign jobs according to who is best at/ enjoys what the most. They joke that ds17 is best at deconstructing and ds18 is best at constructing, but the truth is they’re all good at everything.


Here’s what it looks like once the metal pergola was taken down:

Now we have a large amount of high quality metal to work with – believe it or not, I don’t yet have any projects in mind for them

The next step is to order the building materials to close in the porch. My husband spent a couple of days working out the specifics on exactly what we need, and will place the order tomorrow (assuming they have what we need in stock – if they don’t, they said we’ll have to wait until after Pesach).

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While ds17 was working on that, ds18 and ds15 began building a new chicken coop for the Brahmas that we bought a few weeks ago. I planned to build it in our small backyard but then I changed my mind, and decided they’ll need more room than we have there since we’re planning to expand the Brahma flock.

Our first three Brahma chicks hatched a few days ago – ds17 had been planning to incubate a new batch of eggs at the end of the week they arrived, so we stuck in the few eggs they had laid along with the rest. Now we have a batch of 70 new chicks. We’ll start incubating another batch of eggs probably this week, this time mostly Brahma eggs, and in all likelihood that will be the final batch of chicks that we’ll hatch out until next year.

They made great progress on the coop and it’s looking good. They needed more supplies and weren’t able to complete it, but in the next couple of days I’ll make a run to the hardware store to get what’s missing so they can finish it.

But before that, tomorrow I want to work on the kitchen, and take out the sinks, counter, base cabinets, detach the top of the island from the cabinet part, then cut down the stone counters and hopefully reassemble it all together. That’s the plan!

Avivah



I feel so angry when he destroys my things and I hate feeling like this

Foster Care

Sometimes I watch ds7 and think it would be fascinating to document what he does and the time he does each thing – he moves incessantly from one thing to another, never stopping. Often I can detach emotionally and find it interesting and even laugh about the endless damages, but sometimes I feel frustrated and even furious. Over a year ago I stopped counting when he reached 12,000 shekels of damage. I may have stopped counting but the damages continue.

Within a day of the foster care agency representatives coming, the wall that was scrubbed was rescribbled on. A couple of days later, he colored on a different wall with a marker.

He climbed up to the pergola and unscrewed and took down some of the cross boards. He picked up a permanent marker and began coloring on a wall painting – fortunately the marker was a bit dried and I stopped him before there was damage.

He regularly throws his nighttime pullup in the toilet; sometimes I see it before anything else happens but a couple of mornings ago someone else did their business on top of it and by 6:30 am I was unblocking a nasty mess. He tugs and pulls and rips and dissassembles everything he touches, unremittingly.

After three months of no visitation with the children’s bio parents, visitation resumed three weeks ago in a mediation center an hour away. Our time slot is 5:30, so we leave at 4:30 and get back at 7:30.

On the way there dd7 began playing with a card game I keep in the car. When I heard ds7 in the seat behind me laughing over it together with her, I took a moment to ask myself if I was okay with that, since the likelihood it would be ripped into small pieces was about one hundred percent. I decided it was okay, that if he ripped a few of the cards it wouldn’t ruin the game.

What I wasn’t prepared for was for him to find a decorative pin in a storage compartment of the car (that he isn’t allowed to go into and that he can’t access with a seat belt on) and use it to gouge deep scratches on the inside of the car window while we were driving. When I realized what he did (thanks to dd7 alerting me – “Mommy, ds is breaking the window and making lines on it!”) – I felt angry, really angry. I pulled over, looked at the window, and asked what he used to make the scratches – he claimed he didn’t do anything after quickly dropping the pin between the seats to conceal the evidence.

As soon as I asked him what happened, his jaw went slack and his mouth hung open with his tongue partially hanging out while his eyes glazed over at half mast. I realize he’s emotionally shutting down because he feels scared – I’m sure there’s a trauma term for this – but it’s not endearing. He regularly responds as if I’m terrorizing him and while I know he has deep fears that are triggered by what seems like minimal stimulus to an outsider, his response doesn’t inspire compassion.

I looked at him very steadily for what felt like a long minute. Then I told him when I see him break things on purpose it’s not a good feeling for me and that I felt angry. I asked him what do we do when we’re angry? Do we hit someone? No, he shook his head. Do we yell at someone? No, he shook his head.

“Right, I’m not going to hit you and I’m not going to yell at you, but right now I feel really angry about what you did.” I took the pin he used, put it away and we continued driving.

Often I’ll catch him doing something, and calmly help him get conscious about what he’s doing: “What are you doing? Do you think coloring on the wall is a good idea? Let’s think, where would be a good place to color?” And then I redirect him to a piece of paper. And that’s fine until ten minutes later when he’s doing something else like using a screwdriver or knife to gauge a hole in a wall or the couch. Or Shabbos morning using scissors to cut the window screen and then ripping it wide open. (We’ve already replaced the screen on the screen door twice due to his gouging.) Or Shabbos afternoon pouring cement powder down into the new sewage lines.

As we drove I asked myself why I felt so upset in the moment about the scratches to the car window. I have patience most of the time, but sometimes the constant breakage and damage is so frustrating and I don’t feel a shred of tolerance left in that moment. I don’t expect a home with children to look perfect and mine certainly doesn’t! – but I’ve never experienced anything like this. The therapist said he’s like an infant in a big body, but I told her she’s wrong – an infant learns after a few reminders not to do it again. Even with all of the oversight and reminders, after almost two years he continues to do these things. It’s not as bad as it was in the early months but it’s still quite a lot.

He regularly smuggles house tools and knives out of the house and if I come upon him in the process I can tell just from the look on his face that he’s trying to conceal something from me.

At the meeting a couple of weeks ago one of the supervisors mentioned he has a disorganized attachment style. The moment she said that, it made perfect sense to me and it reminded me that I suspected it from the first time I heard his description, but I also had a feeling of, ‘Oh, no, not that!’ to have it be official. The disorganized attachment style is the most difficult to live with and is associated with the worst outcomes. The bigger surprise was that that despite knowing about the different unhealthy attachment styles, I never consciously identified the attachment styles of the twins.

I’ve always assumed ds does these actions without thinking, having almost no impulse control, but I’m increasingly wondering if it’s an unconscious self-sabotaging strategy to keep people from getting too close to him or liking him. I’m going to be meeting with someone to discuss it, because I feel like there’s more to what is going on than what I’m seeing. I wonder if maybe I have to do some deep healing of my inner child or something like that to move beyond my current emotional capacity because I’m not used to feeling this kind of anger and it really bothers me.

At the same time, I don’t want to shame myself for getting upset, because it’s challenging (I didn’t mention all of his other behaviors that are going on at the same time) and sometimes I wonder how anyone can be expected to stay calm all the time in the face of all that.

Avivah

She can’t handle when I’m not there

Foster Care

At the end of the week I attended my oldest granddaughter’s siddur party in Beit Shemesh. It was an impressive production. I had attended my daughter’s siddur party here in the north just two weeks earlier and I expected something similar, and it was interesting to notice the differences. I wonder if there’s more of a need to ‘wow’ people near the center of the country.

I’ve traveled a couple of times in the last year to the center of the country for the day – each time I got the kids ready for school and put them on their school bus. To prepare them I told them in advance that I’d be going to Jerusalem/Beit Shemesh, that I’d be home at night, and that my husband would put them to bed. He almost always put the boys to bed, and sometimes dd7 requests he put her to bed instead of me, so that’s not uncommon. He works from home most days of the week so he’s actively involved in their day to day lives.

The first time I made this trip, I got home around 8 pm and found my daughter crying that her ears hurt. My husband told me she had been crying and inconsolable for almost two hours. He had given her ear drops and a hot water bottle, but nothing was helping.

I asked her if she wanted to lay on the bed while I sat next to her doing some computer work, and she agreed. She stopped crying, fell asleep almost instantly and stayed asleep the entire night. She had no ear pain when she woke up in the morning.

After she went to school, I commented to my husband that she must have been worn out by the pain and crying to have stopped crying so quickly. He said he had a strong suspicion that her ear wasn’t hurting, that what was really happening is she was having a hard time coping emotionally with my absence.

The next time I came back from my long day, I found out she had been complaining nonstop at bedtime about some other pain.

Last week we had a meeting with her play therapist, and I mentioned that every single night since the twins came twenty two months ago, she wakes up and opens the door to our bedroom to check that we’re there, usually around 4 – 5 am. If it’s closer to 4, she looks in for a long moment, then closes the door and goes back to bed. If it’s about 5, she comes to me to get a hug and kiss and with some reluctance goes back to bed. (In the earlier months she came more than once a night and needed physical reassurance each time. The door had to be constantly open or she got hysterical, but for many months now she’s been able to close the door behind herself so there’s been tremendous progress.)

Ds7 comes to check in the night as well, but not every single night and he never comes in, just looks to make sure we’re there.

I shared with the therapist about what happened the last two times I wasn’t there for bedtime, and told her our speculation that she can’t handle me not physically being in the house when she goes to sleep, and was wondering about what to do when I traveled for the party. She agreed that was the likely cause and suggested that I call dd before bedtime. That’s what I did, and she went to sleep fine.

Going back to the party – I turned off my phone before I went into the building, and didn’t look at it until I came out two and a half hours later. When I did, I saw two missed calls from my daughter’s teacher and another missed call from the school advisor. They never call me during the school day. I called the teacher back but by then it was after the school day was over, and the teacher didn’t answer. I wondered about why I had gotten all of those calls, and I found out the next morning.

When dd was getting dressed, she talked about having spoken with me the night before on the phone. Then she told me she had asked her teacher to call me from school the day before, but I didn’t answer. I didn’t speak to the teacher so I don’t know what happened exactly, but I suspect dd didn’t just want to talk to me. I think it’s likely she was complaining something was intensely hurting her.

All of this is a reminder to us that as much as the twins have had significant progress, dd’s emotional security is heavily dependent on my presence and she can’t yet cope if she thinks I won’t be here, even if I’ve prepared her in advance. It’s important for us to remember and respect that there are deep traumas and fears that don’t go away even after a long time in a safe environment.

From when I first heard of the engagement of my daughter-in-law’s brother, I’ve been planning to attend the wedding in Jerusalem. The wedding was last night, but coming on the heels of being away for the siddur party, we realized my absence at the wedding last night would be too much for dd to handle. I thought about leaving after putting her to bed but wouldn’t get to the wedding until 9 pm and then would still have the long drive home. In the end, I didn’t go.

Avivah

Kitchen renovation -Opening up the space even more

Homemaking, Intentional Spending

Here’s where we were up to in my last post – the kitchen island was taken out, the wall units were dissembled and moved, the tile backsplash for the stove was taken down, and the small wall and doorway to the stairs was removed entirely.

My teens told me that the drywall was badly damaged when taking down the tile wall, and I told them it’s not a big deal, we’ll replace it. They had a different suggestion – why not take down the entire wall closing in the staircase?

I had to pause to think about that. One advantage of having the door and the walls there is it makes it much easier to heat and cool the main living area. If it’s wide open to the second floor, that’s going to be much more challenging (read: expensive).

The door and wall made the two floors of our house more separate from one another, and provides our guests with a lot of privacy when they come to visit. We sometimes host guests of others for sleeping and the guests appreciate how much privacy they have, with a separate entrance to a completely separate apartment. But with the door already gone, the privacy and separation our guests had was already diminished.

Taking down the wall wouldn’t give us any additional space. The only thing it would do is make our living area feel more spacious.

Some people like cozy little spaces. I don’t.

I love, love, love open space. I don’t like to feel crowded. A friend visited a couple of years ago and commented that ever since she knows me (about twenty years), I’m always finding ways to maximize our space and make it more open. I had never been conscious of how consistent I’ve been about that.

Interestingly, since taking down the little wall that was behind our kitchen sinks, it’s much easier for me to keep the dishes washed. It wasn’t until that wall was down that I realized I had reluctance to stand in an area that felt constricting for me to wash the dishes and would therefore put it off.

Here’s a view of the stairs and the wall in question.


Having a feeling of more space was a gain for me – I gave the go ahead to take the wall down!

My boys were delighted. There’s a feeling of accomplishment that’s different than doing a little repair or hanging a picture when there’s a big project like completely rehauling the kitchen.

Assessing what needs to be done to release the top of the wall

The bottom of the wall separated readily but the top wasn’t coming down so easily!

Teen boys need a lot of physical activity and challenge. During their last vacation, our three teens organized a two day bike trip around the perimeter of the Kinneret/Sea of Galillee with a few friends, and I was very supportive of a trip like this. Teens need meaningful activity and challenge; they get bored and into trouble when they don’t have it.

“One, two, three, push!”

I left them figuring out what to do to get the wall down while I ran a couple of errands. When I came back, the wall was gone, the rubble was removed and the floor was swept. And they felt very accomplished!

View from one side
View from the other side

I am so happy with how this changes our space. Most of the year I keep my front door open to allow light and air in, but I’m now keeping the side door open instead. I have a nice view of our yard, great airflow and it feels much more spacious.

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Now that the wall is down we have another project. As nice and open as it now is, we can’t have a staircase with no railing! So ‘install staircase railing’ has gone onto the to do list.

I found a railing that I wanted on Yad2, a second hand site, but it was in a location I wasn’t comfortable driving alone to. And it was a huge heavy piece of railing that even with help I was afraid I couldn’t load onto my car. And once it was on, I was concerned about getting it securely lashed down. And then once it was tied down, I was worried about driving with it.

I don’t usually worry much about getting things done but once I had found and called about it, all of the other parts of it were outside of my comfort zone.

Bless my husband, who agreed to leave at 4:15 in the morning to drive there and get it, and then come back home and get to work.

So the first big part of the railing project is done – buying the railing. The next step will be installing it, and metal work unfortunately isn’t something the Werner family knows how to do. We asked the person doing the plumbing if he can help us get this done and he agreed. He said he’ll try to do it on Friday morning, when a friend of his who is a metal worker is available to help him.

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The new gas line has been laid and the stove moved from next to the staircase to its new location, and we were able to move the loveseat into the area that will be our new living room.

Here’s what it looked like before
Here’s what it looks like now. In addition to putting up a railing, we need to reorganize the under the staircase storage and move the shelving that’s still there.

Here’s the stove in its new location, in what used to be our living room. The island next to it is temporary; there will be a long counter with a sink in it once we’re done. It’s nice to have the stove piece finished. Right now we’re keeping the curtains tied back so there’s no fire hazard; I’m going to replace them with blinds but that’s still on the list.


Yesterday afternoon the plumber began digging and drilling to put in new outlet points for the sink drainage to the main sewage line. Each of the two kitchen sinks will need their own lines. The sewage line for the first sink is finished.

Tomorrow I’ll be going to Beit Shemesh to attend the siddur party for my oldest granddaughter. I got notice this afternoon that ds7 will not be allowed on the school bus tomorrow and will have to stay home. Usually I don’t mind – he’s not hard to have around when it’s just the two of us – but tomorrow I won’t be here. I was feeling stressed trying to figure out what to do. I didn’t tell my granddaughter I’m coming, but I’ve had it on my calendar for weeks since she first told me about it and it’s a priority for me.

My husband can’t work and supervise ds7 (he needs constant supervision, it’s almost unbelievable how much he gets into and how quickly it happens). Our original plan was that he would take over for me at 2 pm when ds12 and ds8 got home – he can set them up with an educational video while he works. (Between the drive there, the party and then the drive back, that’s most of my day.) Then at 3 the twins come and at that point he would be fully available and take off of work.

Knowing how important it is to me to go to this party, he’s going to take the entire day off of work.

The electrician said if it rains he’ll come tomorrow and do some work for us. I’m the one taking care of the this project so I’d really rather be here when he’s doing the work, but I’ll leave detailed instructions for my husband in case the electrician shows up – it’s hard to get him here, and once he’s here I want him to be able to make progress! I have one place where if he can move a light switch, it will enable us to reassemble and attach all of the wall units so if he has even a small amount of time and can do that, it would help us move forward with putting things in order.

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I’ve had a question come up about my plans for the countertops. It turns out I need a small piece less than a meter long to cover a blind corner (the one to the left of the stove above). I contacted the business I bought the countertops from and he no longer does the cutting and installation. He does have the design that we bought so we can buy another piece, but we need to have a different company cut it to size and install the sink in the island countertop for the opposite wall. This has thrown a wrench into my plans.

I went to see the other company today to get a quote for the work and it’s going to be much more costly than I expected. That leaves me with a dilemma. It would be great if laminate countertops were an easily available option in Israel, but they’re not since stone countertops are the norm. I don’t want to spend this amount of money adding on to used countertops; the purpose of using the countertops was to keep costs down. Now we’re considering if we would be better off spending more and getting new countertops put in. Well, I’m considering it – my husband thinks stone countertops are a rip off.

Whether I add on to the current countertops or get new ones, the factory that cuts them won’t be able to have them ready until a few days before Pesach. I can find a way to work with that, but it delays finishing the kitchen well beyond my latest projected target date.

Avivah

My new project – kitchen renovation

Homemaking, Intentional Spending, Parenting

Over five years ago we were house hunting, and one thing that struck me as not making sense about the house we ended up buying when we saw it was the location of the kitchen. I couldn’t figure out why in the world the builder had made it the room you entered into when you open the front door.

I decided we would swap the kitchen and living room locations. (I later saw the floor plans and it was supposed to built in the area we wanted to move it to – apparently the contractor took a shortcut and placed it where he did because it was easier.) We intended to do these renovations before we moved in.

But then covid happened, and that changed all of my plans. We moved from Ramat Beit Shemesh extremely abruptly, arriving on the first day of the most draconian lockdown that Israel was to experience. Instead of the freshly renovated home we had planned to move into, we moved into a home in need of a lot of work. We got busy working on that as soon as we got here. However, it then became complicated to do a kitchen renovation of the scale that I previously planned while we were living there.

Additionally, it was a time of extreme physical isolation and getting workers to do the work we weren’t qualified to do was difficult. When I had the gas line moved, we all had to vacate the house so the worker could do the work – he said that was the covid guideline that he had to work under.

That was work that took less than an hour, but we couldn’t stand outside for hours a day, for days on end, in order to have new plumbing laid and new flooring put down. Additionally, one wall in the adjoining room where I wanted to move it to is asymetrically curved, and I was having a hard time figuring out how to use it well. Taking into account the reality and constraints of the world at the time, we decided to keep it simple, and put in and extend the kitchen in the area where it was already located.

This was the fifth of the kitchens that we’ve renovated and it was the hardest to figure out the design for because of the awkward space we had to work with, but it’s been a very functional kitchen and served us well. But I’ve never been able to make my peace with people entering our home directly into the kitchen, especially since our kitchen is very heavily used. There’s always some kind of cooking or eating or project going on, so there’s always some kind of activity in progress. It never looks like a still life photo for more than ten minutes at the very most, and you know the likelihood of visitors coming in during those ten minutes, right?

I’ve finally decided to do something about the ongoing discomfort I feel about this set up. I’ve gone back and forth about how to renovate – once we’re doing the work, it would be nice to change the cabinet color and style (what we got was also a covid decision) to something that is more my preference. But I have a financial goal of paying down my mortgage and a major renovation would definitely set that back.

My reasons for doing this renovation are two fold: having a more private kitchen and opening up the floor space so there’s more room for hosting. When I reminded myself what my priorities were, I realized I can achieve what is most important to me and keep my costs reined in pretty tightly.

The way I’m going to make the numbers work is to use the existing kitchen cabinets and countertops. Everything will have to be reconfigured to fit a very different space. Right now I have one double sink; the new kitchen will have two separate sinks on opposite walls. I’ll use the current double sink and attached countertop on one wall, and I’ll have the large island countertop refabricated with a sink installed in it for the opposite wall. There will be costs for plumbing, electricity and having the existing counters custom cut, but that will be much less than a new kitchen.

A week ago I spent a morning doing renovation preliminary work: arranging for the electrician, plumber and gas installer to come. Then I moved the fridge, freezer, island and couches. It was gratifying to see some movement in the direction I want to go.

A few hours later, I got the call from the social worker letting me know they were having the meeting at our home a couple of days later, and with some frustration about all the time and effort I had wasted, moved everything back in place and cancelled all of the workmen. I didn’t want the foster care agency representatives to come for a visit in the middle of a big renovation.

Fortunately with another week comes another beginning….:)

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This morning my seventeen year old son and I moved the appliances, island and couches. He’s rarely around and it was nice to work with him.

By the time I thought of taking a ‘before’ picture, the counters were covered with things that we had pulled out, the fridge and freezer had been moved to their new location, and the cabinets were beginning to be dissembled – and there was no way I was going to undo all that we did just to take a neat picture even though it pains me to show my kitchen looking like this. Mess happens when you take a kitchen apart, and I really wanted to share our starting place as I document what we’re doing.

The fridge and freezer were against the wall on the far side of the island, where the couch is now

Once we got started, it changed very fast!

Since it was Shushan Purim, all of the younger kids were home from school. It’s really not ideal to start a project like this with young children who get into everything, but my seventeen year old is rarely home with time to help out with something like this and I wanted to make the most of the opportunity.

Ds17 put ds12 to work as his assistant and he was helpful doing real work, not the kind of fake jobs you give to kids to make them feel like they’re helping.

The island was moved, next job was to take apart the wall units

My fifteen year son came home while the wall units were being dissembled, and he got to work with us, taking down the tile backsplash behind the stove. It’s so enjoyable to work together as a team – there’s an energy that’s really different from each person doing their jobs separately.

Ds15 told me it was a little sad for him to remove all of the tile, remembering all the work they put into tiling the kitchen.

Backsplash and wall units are gone

Once that was done, the teens both wanted to take down the small wall behind the section of the kitchen that has the sink. It’s an annoying little wall but necessary to have a private side entrance to our home that leads directly to our second floor, which used to be a vacation rental apartment. We decided to get rid of the private entrance so we could open up the space more, so ds15 took down that door, door frame and wall.

Ds15 taking down door frame

The wall is down!

I mentioned that the younger kids were home, didn’t I? They were very interested in all the changes being made.

They continually found ways to actively participate!

Can you see below how removing that wall made it feel more spacious? It also lets in so much light and air, and makes access to the side patio from the house more convenient.

After taking apart the little wall and looking at how damaged the wall was where the tile backsplash was, we were inspired to go even further in opening up our space. I’ll share more about that in my next post.

We’ve made wonderful progress today. The electrician will come tomorrow morning to see what needs to be done, and then I’ll schedule with him when to come. The plumber will start the work on Tuesday, and once the plumbing is done, I can put all the base cabinets in place, which has to be done before the countertop fabricators can come to measure for the recuts for the countertop.

My last kitchen renovation took just five days, which was super fast, but I don’t anticipate that this time around. Just the plumbing alone will take four days. My hope is to be finished by the end of next week, so that there will be time to get ready for Pesach without having renovations going on at the same time.

Avivah

A great meeting and update!

Foster Care

I’ve been a foster parent for over eight years and had monthly home visits by a social worker for all of these years. I’ve had additional walkthroughs with various social workers and officials since the twins came almost two years ago, and every single person has been very favorable – except the GAL.

There’s a tendency to say, ‘Where there’s smoke, there’s fire’, ie, if there’s a complaint, there must be a reason for that. I don’t want to defend myself from baseless claims from the GAL and when I mentioned the accusations against us in my post earlier this week, perhaps didn’t give a perspective and the might leave readers to think, ‘Maybe you think your house is clean and the kids are dressed appropriately but you don’t have a good sense of that, and these complaints are an indication of that’.

Yesterday we had three agency representatives come to visit. First they wanted to see our garden, and oohed and ahhed over how nice it is, while appreciating the goats and chickens. Then they went inside to see the bedrooms; they exclaimed over what a warm and appealing room our seven year daughter has. (This room has been the focus of the complaints; the last time the complaint was that she doesn’t have a desk to do her work at.)

I told them I’m going to show them everything because I don’t want to later have someone claim that they didn’t see something. I started by opening dd7’s drawer, and showed all of her folded clothes. Then I opened the closet door to show her dresses hanging there, then opened another closet door to show her seasonal clothing, and pulled out the large wheeled box under the bed that has all of the younger kids shoes, then the box next to it that has their boots.

I showed them where the toys are, then pointed out the boxes on top of the closet are the clothing and shoes for the upcoming season.

Then we went into the boys room and I did the same, showing the toys in storage boxes under the beds, the hanging clothing and toys in the cabinet, and even where the sheets and towels are stacked.

They were very pleased with everything, and told me my house already looks ready for Pesach. When their supervisor Zoomed in with us, the other supervisor told her that they had seen everything and everything is extremely orderly and pleasant. They even commented on how delicious the house smells. 🙂 (My son had finished baking muffins for his mishloach manos an hour before.)

This is how my house has looked every single time anyone has come. There’s nothing different I did that I hadn’t done before. Actually, this time I didn’t clean the walls the night before (last time they came when they had been freshly painted), because I really wanted to prepare mishloach manos to give to all of the teachers, school bus drivers and attendants, and school guard. The tradeoff of having cleaner walls but not being able to give to these people wasn’t something I was willing to do. It would have been compromising Purim preparations for the sake of this meeting.

I felt very calm and at peace in the two days before the meeting. Prior to that I was preoccupied thinking about the kids possibly being moved and the ramifications of that on ds8, but once I mentally accepted it might happen, I didn’t feel worried anymore.

My husband also spoke to a lawyer the morning before, and one of my married sons spoke to an advocate, so I felt we had people to help us if it came to that.

After the tour of our home, we sat down outside to talk. The head supervisor told me that they think we are the ideal family for the children. Their reason for coming is to first of all, be able to tell the court they were there, and secondly, to sit down with us and tell us they want us to know we have their full support.

They are concerned that all of these complaints are causing us stress and taking away the energy we need to parent the children (she’s right about that!). While they’ve told us what’s happening behind the scenes to be transparent with us, they don’t want us to be pressured and they will take care of everything in court. The judge may want to meet us at a later point, and they would be very glad for her to do so, since “in one minute she’ll see what kind of amazing parents you are”.

They said there’s absolutely no concern about the kids being removed or us being charged with anything, and all of them understand the claims against us are baseless. They want us to mentally put the GAL and all of her claims to the side, and keep our headspace for the kids.

It was really nice feedback for my husband and I, and very reassuring. It really took a load off of our minds and we are so grateful. Just in time to celebrate Purim!

Avivah

Don’t wait for the crowd – Pesach clothing shopping now

Intentional Spending, Pesach

Last week I took my fifteen year old son shopping for a suit for Pesach.

On the way there, we unexpectedly found traffic had come to almost a standstill. Soon we saw what the delay was.

I appreciated the entertaining sights on the way!

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For us, Pesach is the most expensive holiday of the year; last year I spent 5000 shekels on food and 5000 shekels on clothing. For you it might be a different time of year that you have a lot of extra expenses, so you can apply this idea to your personal circumstances.

What I do to be prepared for the clothing expenses for the holiday is to set up in advance a reserve fund (some people call them sinking funds but I dislike that terminology). What that means is for the months before Pesach, I set aside money in that fund until I have the full amount that I’ve budgeted for Pesach clothing shopping.

Having a reserve fund eliminates the burden of huge clothing expenditures in one month, and by the time I’m ready to do my shopping, the money is waiting in the account. This makes it feel like shopping for free!

Really, it takes away all the financial pressure that a person might feel when they need to come up with so much money in a short time period, to have the money already budgeted and set aside.

Last year I did my suit shopping through Mishnat Yosef; you could purchase a coupon for around 650 shekels (I don’t remember the exact price), to be redeemed for a suit up to 1190 shekels in a given store. If you wanted a more expensive suit – and all of my boys didn’t find what they wanted in the lower price range – then you could add on in fifty shekel increments for every hundred shekels the price increased. We got nice suits but we spent more than we would have with the local seller that we’ve bought from in the past, and I regretted not buying from him because I felt concerned when I realized how much business he must be losing to customers buying via Mishnat Yosef.

I told my boys that this year first we’d look to buy from the private store owner, and only if they couldn’t find what they wanted we’d look elsewhere. My eighteen year old commented that the suits we bought last year were higher quality since they were fifty percent wool (instead of rayon/poly/viscose blends), which was good feedback since I hadn’t paid much attention to what their suits were made of when I bought them. If it fit them well, looked good and the price was fair, I bought it.

We asked the store owner if he had suits that were fifty percent wool, but he didn’t. He did have 97 percent wool, though, which was even better! When he showed it to us, it turned out to be the same style suit that I bought for my 22 year old son for his wedding in September, but there were several different colors and styles and we found something really nice for my fifteen year old son.

We checked the available suits at the stores that the Mishnat Yosef vouchers are for to see what their selection was, and my son didn’t find any suits he liked as much as the one from the private seller. The suit vouchers this year are 680 shekels, plus another fifty shekels to add on to the next level up, so we would have spent 730 if we bought from them.

This seller’s prices are good, so we got a much better quality suit than buying through Mishnat Yosef. We spent only another 120 shekels for a higher quality suit from the private seller, and had the extra bonus of buying with my conscience and supporting a small business owner. I expect my son to get much more wear out of this suit, too.

The store owner asked me if I was buying the suit for an occasion so I explained that I’m buying for Pesach, since I don’t like to wait until close to the holidays. When I stepped out to take a call, the store owner told my son how smart his mother is to be shopping for Pesach now.

I bought a suit voucher from Mishnat Yosef for my son learning in Beitar, since I was able to give him my customer number and he can buy his suit at the store branch located there before he comes home for spring break. I asked him to buy it before Purim but I don’t know if he did it yet, and honestly, it’s for him so he can buy it when he wants. That leaves just my husband and my seventeen year old, who were going to go last week to the Tiberias store but something came up, so they’ll go next week instead.

I bought clothing and shoes for all of the younger kids about six weeks ago, as well as Shabbos shoes for a couple of the teens so they’re set. For myself, I’m not much of a shopper and have things I’m content to keep wearing from last year. If I find something, there’s money in the clothing reserve fund for it but it’s likely I won’t since I don’t plan on looking, in which case I’ll roll whatever money is left in the fund into something else – maybe it will go towards a suit for my twelve year old for his bar mitzva this summer.

Avivah

A disturbing phone call

Foster Care

I got a call from our social worker notifying me that she wants to set up a meeting with me and some other professionals. I was expecting her to call since I had a meeting with the therapist for help with the school situation with our seven year old son (that’s a topic for another post), and we agreed we’d set up a meeting with his principal, play therapist, social worker, this therapist and me, to jointly figure out a plan how to get him the support he needs.

But the social worker’s tone felt a bit urgent, so I asked her who was initiating this meeting. She clarified that it has nothing to do with school, that it’s going to be meeting with the head of the foster care agency along with her, her supervisor and maybe a couple of other people. This is not at all what I was expecting. Okay, I’ll come but why do you want to have a meeting?

Remember the guardian ad litem for the twins? I’ve never shared with you what has transpired and I still can’t. She hasn’t been pleasant to us, to put it mildly. The hope of the foster agency was that with time the GAL would see all the positive reports, see the dramatic improvement in the emotional state of the children and be appeased. We haven’t heard much since she was here for the home visit months ago and everyone assumed she was relaxing a bit.

It turns out she hasn’t been relaxing at all. She’s filed complaints with the court and now the court has sent that report to the foster care agency. I asked what the complaints about us are because I can’t think of anything. The social worker said that it’s very possible the GAL is lying/minimizing/exaggerating whatever she is reporting, but said the neglected appearance/hygiene of the children and our living conditions is a primary issue. She said they’ll go over in detail in our meeting what she’s saying.

I can’t even muster up anger about the absurdity of these claims. I am so done with defending myself from specious claims.

I asked if there are any reports from people who actually see the children documenting a problem with their appearance? It doesn’t seem so. It’s only been the parents who have complained in the past. They did the same thing to the past foster parents and it’s a typical thing that bio parents do so it should be understood in that context.

However, the children haven’t seen their parents for the last three months due to bureaucratic inefficiencies, so their parents can’t be complaining about how they look. Where could these complaints come from?

I asked the social worker what the GAL’s intention is, because we are we are and she is who she is, so nothing is going to be better than it is now. Does she want to take the kids away?

“No, she hasn’t outright said that.”

Well, to me it seems simple. If she doesn’t want them to stay with us, then they have to be removed to a different home or institution. There are no other options.

The meeting is late Wednesday afternoon. It was supposed to be at the foster care agency’s office, but then I was notified it would be at our home and the kids need to be there. Great, another walkthrough of our home, while trying to keep the oversugared twins calm after they get back from their school Purim parties while speaking to all of these people in a focused way. (My husband will take off from work to supervise the kids, which he did for the last home visit, too, and it was still very challenging.)

I wish it was next week since my schedule is packed this week and I don’t have much discretionary time but I’ll try to find some time to do some extra organizing in case they ask to open all the drawers and cabinets, as was done in the past.

My husband and I are having a conversation if continuing fostering these children is the right thing to do. The kids are very challenging, and though they are the best behaved around me, it’s not a walk in the part. It’s constant and draining and exhausting, and it takes so much time and energy. We’re willing to put in that time and treat them with the same love and care we give all of our children, and we do, but I am so weary of all of this extra oversight and investigation. I feel unsafe about someone filing complaints in court against us, no matter what we do and regardless of how well the kids are doing. I don’t have endless emotional energy and every bit that goes in the direction of the technicalities takes energy that I need to parent all of our children.

The question isn’t about how much harassment we can tolerate, but if we’re endangering our family to continue. My biggest concern is ds8. If they make a claim that we aren’t fit foster parents, that doesn’t affect just the twins – it would affect ds8.

The safety of my other children has has been my line in the sand from the beginning – I’ll do everything I can for the twins, but I won’t put my other children at risk.

This is very hard for me to contemplate. I feel our family is the only thing standing between the twins and a system that doesn’t prioritize their best interests. There’s no guarantee that they’ll grow up to be emotionally healthy if they stay with us, but I can sadly predict the chances go down to about zero if they leave – we’re their best hope. How can I give up on them?

I’m not making any decisions yet. My heart has been very heavy contemplating all of this. I put dd7 to bed and right before I left her room she told me, “You’re a lucky mommy!” “Yes, I am a lucky mommy, because I have such wonderful children. “

“And I’m a lucky girl!”

I swallowed the lump in my throat; she has no idea how fragile her place in our home is.

I’ll see what is said at the meeting, to learn more about what has been said to the court and how the agency wants to handle this situation. Hopefully it’s not as big a deal as it sounds right now; it’s possible we’ll hear what’s going on and it won’t be much of a concern after all. In any case, in a few days we’ll have a better idea of how to move forward.

Avivah

Our new Brahma chickens!

Micro Homesteading

When I went with my fifteen year old son to see the Brahma chickens, I didn’t take a crate to bring them back in, I didn’t have a plan for where to put them – I just went to look at them with the hope that would give me clarity about if I should get them or not.

I really enjoyed meeting the people selling the chickens and we chatted for almost an hour. I told them from the outset that I was only going to look at them and would go home and think about it because I didn’t want them to feel disappointed if I didn’t buy them on the spot.

When I spotted a chicken travel crate at the end of our conversation and they said I could use it, I spontaneously decided to bring the chickens home with us – one male and two females. I figured I’d put them in with our other chickens where there’s plenty of room and since they’re bigger than our chickens, none of the other chickens would bother them.

My son carried the crate into the coop, set it on the ground and opened it. We both stood there to watch what happened. The rooster hopped out and I laughingly said to my son that it looked like King Kong swaggering in and assessing the area. I didn’t realize how much bigger they were until they were next to my other chickens.

Then the females hopped out, and the three new chickens went to one side of the coop while my flock went to the other side. They all watched each other.

I observed that my alpha Plymouth Rock rooster was very alert. I figured they’d quickly establish the pecking order and one of them would agree to let the other be the boss of the coop. I had fifteen roosters together and it was pretty peaceful – they all accepted the authority of the head rooster. The beta roosters had minor squabbles between one another in the coop and when they were free ranging sometimes they would get a little more feisty asserting themselves once they were out of the clear dominion of the head rooster. But that’s it.

That’s not what happened this time.

They faced each other and lowered their heads, raising their hackles.

Then Plymouth flew at Brahma. I was concerned that being smaller he might get hurt and watched carefully so we could step in if necessary. It turned out that he was the better fighter, smaller and more agile.

They flew at one another again and again and after a few minutes it wasn’t subsiding. Brahma was panting heavily, blood was starting to flow from them both and I was afraid neither of them was going to give in so I had my son quickly separate them.

It was clear that all my mental machinations about if I should keep them separate or together had been unnecessary. There was no possibility of keeping them together. My son put the new chickens in our gated back yard as a temporary holding spot and gently washed off Brahma’s injuries while I gave them food and water. The roosters had pecked one another on their combs, which is where the bleeding was from, but because my son stepped in as quickly as he did, the injuries were minor.

I created a shady area for them, put a nesting box under a private corner and since I had to leave for the rest of the day, made a temporary roost for them for the night by placing our pool ladder under a covered area of the shed so they would feel protected. I assumed that being the big and heavy birds they were, they wouldn’t be able to fly over the six foot fence – according to what I read, they don’t fly higher than 3 – 4 feet.

I came back hours later with my daughter from her school party, and I saw a large shape sitting on top of our grill opposite the entrance to our yard. It was Brahma. The gate to the backyard was still closed and the only way out was over. So much for being too heavy to fly. And the hens were nowhere in sight.

My extensive search by flashlight didn’t turn up anything, but fortunately when my teens got home a couple of hours later, they searched again and this time found them in a corner that I overlooked. I felt terrible to have ‘lost’ them on their first day with us and was so relieved when they were found. (Not to mention it would have been an financial loss since I paid 500 shekels for the three of them.)

My husband is especially enjoying these chickens and their very calm and gentle energy. He said they’re very ‘zen’ chickens.

While the backyard is working for right now (we put them in a large cage in our locked shed at night so they’re completely secure), now we need to build another coop for them…another day, another project!

Avivah