Category Archives: Homemaking

Having fun making essential oils blends and salves and other DIY healthy kind of stuff

Healthy Living, home remedies, Homemaking, Intentional Spending

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!

Avivah

My weekly grocery expenses, teaching my son how to figure unit pricing

Homemaking, Intentional Spending, menu plans

Another week, another list of grocery expenses to share with you! I hope these lists help you see that it’s doable to cut your food bill without depriving your family and living off of pasta and beans. 🙂  I don’t shop anywhere special, just in the local supermarkets in my area. Everyone’s list will reflect their needs, buy by applying the various strategies that I’ve shared, it will really make a difference to your food costs.

This week I spent 954.25; this doesn’t include a few items my husband bought for about 30 shekels – he didn’t give me the receipt yet so I didn’t include it in my numbers. I aim to stay within 1000 shekels a week and including his purchases, it’s under that number. Let’s call it 985 total.

Here’s the breakdown:

Produce – 219.40:

  • avocados, 2.60 kg x 6.90 – 17.94
  • carrots, 3.88 kg x 2.90 – 11.24
  • clementines, 8.70 kg  x 2.90 – 25.23
  • coconuts (3) – 11.90
  • cucumbers, 4.43 kg x 2.90 – 12.86
  • fennel, 5.65 kg x 2.90 – 16.39
  • kohlrabi, 4.83 kg x 4.90 – 23.69
  • onions, 3.66 kg x 5.90 – 21.59
  • radishes, 2.31 kg x 4.90 – 11.34
  • tomatoes, 4.5 kg x 3.90 – 17.69
  • turnip, 1.30 kg x 1.90 – 2.48
  • zucchini, dk green – 9.08 kg x 3.90 – 35.41
  • zucchini, lt green, 2.98 kg x 3.90 – 11.64

Staples – 326.61:

  • sugar (3) – 10.90
  • oatmeal – 5.90
  • flour (4 kg) – 10
  • rice cakes – (2) – 22
  • grape juice (1) – 11.20
  • extra virgin olive oil (2) – 43.80
  • white beans, dried, 1 kg (2) – 12
  • chick peas, dried, 1 kg (4) – 19.60
  • peanut butter, 1 kg (8) – 80 (yes, you read that right, 8 kg of peanut butter – it was a great sale, and when prices are this good it’s time to stock up!)
  • diced tomatoes (4) – 20
  • pickles (3) – 12.90
  • mayonnaise – 29.90
  • tomato concentrate – (6) – 24
  • mustard – 7.50
  • strawberry jam (3) – 5.70
  • raisins – 8.40
  • craisins – 6.67
  • honey, 900 gr – 19.90

Refrigerator/frozen – 361.54:

  • milk (2)- 10
  • cottage cheese, 375 gr (6) – 36
  • sour cream – (5 x 2.20) – 11
  • cream cheese – 14.80
  • hot dogs, 17.80 shekels per kilo – 28.48
  • ground meat, 32.50 shekels per kg – 68.25
  • whole chicken (8 whole, 12.66 kg x 12.90) – 163.31
  • frozen corn, 1 kg – 9.90
  • frozen peas, 1 kg – 9.90
  • frozen green beans, 1 kg – 9.90

Non-food items- 46.70:

  • toilet paper – 29.90
  • tissue, 5 pack – 11.90
  • garbage bags, roll of 25 – 4.90

This week ds11 accompanied me to a couple of stores. I had him work out the unit pricing for a number of items (real life math skills!). He was able to see how by paying attention to details, it’s possible to spend much less than other shoppers who aren’t noticing those details, even  when shopping in the same store for the same things.

I’ve been noticing that I’m consistently buying more than I need in the produce department, and cooking too much food every night for dinner. It’s all those years of cooking for a big crowd, and I haven’t reset to a smaller amount when cooking for just 9 of us.  I joked with one of my married daughters that as her family grows, she’ll be growing out of her starter pots at the same time that I’ll need to downsize from my big pots, and we can trade then!

Avivah

My weekly food expenses, menu plan and living within your means

Homemaking, Intentional Spending, menu plans

This week’s grocery shopping was unusually compact.

This month, the day care that Rafael attends mistakenly deducted an extra 2500 shekels from our account. We’ll get it refunded, but it will take time to straighten it out.

Then, the gas company told us that for the last year they’ve been billing someone else for our account, and we need to immediately pay them the year’s sum of 2500 shekels. Since we try very, very much not to defer payment by putting it on a credit card, we used the cash that would have otherwise have gone to a couple of other categories, including food for the week.

That wasn’t the problem it sounds like – we had 200 left in cash and some small change in my wallet so that became my food budget for the week. I enjoyed my minimal shopping and was grateful that even though I didn’t anticipate having such a small sum to work with in advance, I was sufficiently stocked up that I didn’t need to buy much, even for our family Chanuka party and having guests for Shabbos.

This is really a benefit of shopping the way I do – it’s not just about saving money week to week, but creating margin so that I’m not facing an empty pantry two days before I have cash to restock up. Not only am I not running low, I even had enough surplus that no one noticed that I hardly bought any groceries!

Here’s the grocery list for this week:

  • 6 trays of eggs, 30 eggs per tray – 144
  • avocados, 1.3 kg x 6.80 kg – 8.68
  • onions, 1 kg x 7.90 – 7.90
  • onions, 4.80 kg x 5.90 – 28.11
  • potatoes, 4.1 kg x 2.80 – 11.44
  • grape juice (1) – 11.20
  • flour – 1 kg – 2.90

Total – 214.23 shekels

Edited to add in response to a question from a reader:

Can you please also post a menu for a week of what you are planning on making with this food? I just see lots of latkes and potato kugel, with some challah on the side.
Fish? Chicken? Beans? Some kind of protein? Veggies and fruit? Pasta? Breakfast?
I’m honestly confused.

This was my shopping list from the past week – I think the point wasn’t clear that I didn’t need to buy anything else since I was stocked with vegetables, fruits, canned goods, and chicken from previous weeks.(You can look back at my shopping lists for the two weeks before this to get a sense of how I shop and what I bought.) It would be mighty slim pickings if I was only going to cook with those items that were purchased this past week!

My menu from last week using these groceries as well as what I had on hand: Sun – smoky chickpea stew (includes chicken); Mon – chicken/white bean/corn succotash; Tues – sweet potato chili (includes chicken); Weds – polenta casserole (chickpeas and polenta, topped with sauteed zucchini and onions and then on top of that a seasoned tomato sauce – I made an additional pan to put in the freezer); Thurs – Chanuka party (menu below); Sun – l – baguettes and hot dogs, d – tuna vegetable sauce and rice.

We made latkes and doughnuts twice on Chanuka, once for our Chanuka party and once a different night.

The Chanuka party menu was cream of zucchini soup, chicken, latkes, applesauce, rice, vegetable salad and doughnuts.

My Shabbos dinner menu was challah, homemade dips (dill, hummus, avocado), chicken soup, roast chicken, roasted sweet potatoes, roasted green beans with red peppers, canned fruit, babka, rugelach.

Shabbos breakfast for the kids – cheerios and milk.

Shabbos lunch – challah, dips, (forgot to serve the baked fish and had it shalosh seudos instead), cold roast chicken, cholent, tomato avocado salad, traffic light pepper salad (three colors of peppers), baked apples, rugelach. Melave malka – rolls, chicken and vegetables.

I put a few meals into the freezer for my husband to take to work of chicken breast with sauteed onions, red peppers and fennel.

Breakfast this week was the same as always – in our house, it’s almost always oatmeal, polenta or eggs. I usually have a big salad with some kind of protein for brunch. Lunch is sometimes sandwiches, sometimes leftovers from dinner, sometimes something completely different.

So no, we weren’t limited to eating just bread and potatoes!

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Tonight I was talking with ds19 about only buying for what you can pay cash for. He said it’s not so easy to do, because when you want something, it’s hard to put it off a day or three until you have the cash for it.

I was reminded of something a good friend of mine said years ago: “I could never live like you do!”

I wasn’t sure what she meant, since we weren’t going without. She explained, “If I want to buy something, I buy it now. I don’t want to have to think about if I have money for it and wait until next week or next month.”

I understand how that could sound limiting to someone. I see it differently. To me, debt is hard, living outside of my means is stressful, worrying about how to pay the bills and not knowing where the money will come from is anxiety provoking. Waiting a bit to buy myself a discretionary item isn’t much of a sacrifice when looking at the options.

To me, it’s freeing to live with clarity about my finances, not sacrifice.

I don’t care if I impress anyone with what I have or what I buy. I don’t care about if I have the latest, greatest, biggest whatever. I don’t mind if I have to wait for another month when there’s more room in the budget for discretionary items. I’ll either buy what I have the money for or I won’t buy it.

Very simple. 🙂

Avivah

My weekly food expenses, week of Nov. 19

Homemaking, Intentional Spending

People often ask about how I keep my food costs down, especially since they know we try to eat healthfully and don’t use the typically less expensive processed foods (pasta, anyone?).

Currently there are nine of us living at home, two adults, two teenagers, and two others who eat as much as teenagers :).  Most weekends we have at least one married couple and once a month my almost 20 year old son is home from yeshiva. We also sometimes have guests but less often than we did before the kids were married – we like to leave time to spend with them.

We have two children who are gluten free so all meals during the week are made accordingly.  Our costs include three meals a day; I send lunch for my husband (my new cost cutting measure since we were both shocked how much he was spending) and my high schooler takes lunch with him.

Right now my weekly budget for food is 1100 shekels and includes toiletries and other miscellaneous things that have nothing to do with food like paying to recharge my sons’ bus cards. I’ve even bought clothes using food  money just because the cash is in my wallet! At the beginning of this month I tightened up on my record keeping so I can have an exact number for how much is spent on food; I know it’s under 1000 but I don’t know how much less. Starting next month I’ll have a better reference point.

My costs aren’t a reflection of only what I buy or where I buy it, but when and how I shop. People think I must shop somewhere different than them, but it’s really my combined strategies that add up to my reduced costs.

I allocate our food budget money once a week; below you’ll see my list of what I bought.

Here’s my shopping list for this week (prices in shekels):

  • chicken breasts, 10 pkg (13.2 kg x 19.90) – 264 approx.
  • chicken quarters,  5 pkg (5.775 kg x 15.90) – 91.82
  • whole chicken, 2 (4.90 kg x 13.90) – 84.11
  • grape juice, 3 – 43
  • butter (2 – 200 gr. pkg) – 15.20
  • milk (2) – 9
  • olives, 4 x 6.49 – 25.60
  • canned mushrooms (3) – 7.80
  • coconut cream (4 x 6.90) – 41.40
  • swiss chard (5), celery (3), parsley (2) , dill (1) , coriander (1)- 33
  • sugar – 4.40
  • chocolate gelt for Chanuka (8 bags) – 20
  • flour (5) – 10
  • diapers (4) – 98
  • tissues, 1 five pack- 6.80

Fruits and vegetables:

  • red potatoes, 11 kg (x 2.90)- 30 shekels
  • bananas, 2.8 kg x 3.90 kg – 11.06
  • red peppers, 5.6 kg x 3.90- 22.18
  • sweet potatoes, 20 kg approx x 2.9 –  58.80
  • ginger – .115 kg x 14.90 – 1.71
  • apples and oranges – (13.38 kg x 2.90) – 38.80

That brings me pretty close to the end of the budget for the week!

You might be looking at this list and wondering what kind of list this is! It looks very incomplete, right?

I buy large amounts of items when they go on sale; if the price is nothing special, I get just what I need for a week or so. Each week always includes the food I’m buying that will be used beyond that week.

Things I didn’t need to buy:

  • eggs
  • cukes, tomatoes, carrots, avocados, onions, lettuce – bought at the end of last week
  • rice, kasha, oatmeal, lentils (brown/orange), white/red/black/black eyed peas, chickpeas
  • tomato paste, canned tomatoes, tuna, canned fruit, applesauce
  • chicken wings, gizzards, ground chicken
  • coconut oil, olive oil
  • spices, lemon juice, vinegar
  • toilet paper, shampoo, disposable napkins/utensils

What I’ll buy between now and the end of the week:

  • Possibly some more cucumber and tomatoes – 20

Some of you may be living locally and wondering about the sale pricing on some of these things. I keep an eye on sale flyers and I get text message updates from another supermarket. This allows me to buy the items that are on sale and buy the rest of what I need from the supermarkets that overall have good prices (but can’t compete on the loss leader pricing).

For example, this week I bought 2 cases of sweet potatoes. In this cool weather, they’ll easily last three weeks. The sweet potatoes were on sale for 2.90 a kg; the usual price is 7.90 or more. This store has sale pricing on select produce two days a week – guess when I shop there? 🙂

Avivah

** I know some of you will want to know about kosher certification. I usually buy the Of Tov brand for chicken, which is not only usually less expensive but is antibiotic free. We’ve asked our rav about hechsherim and I suggest you do the same if you’re wondering about what is advisable to buy. I give no suggestions or recommendations in this area!

 

Why I bought an overpriced, beat up freezer

food preservation, Homemaking, Intentional Spending

This summer, I saw a used freezer listed for sale. It was priced too high, and when I went to take a look at it saw that it wasn’t cosmetically the best. A shelf was missing from the main freezer, a shelf support was missing on the door, and someone had tried to repaint over the very bottom. And the owner was only willing to go down a hundred shekels on the price.

When I buy used, I like to buy things that are in excellent condition – it doesn’t have to look brand new but I want it to look really good. And I like to buy things that are a good deal. Nothing about this freezer was a match for me.

Except for one important feature… and I bought this beat up old freezer! Why in the world did I do that?

With my oldest daughters married and my older teenagers all not available, I was feeling maxxed out and realized I needed some kind of help. The younger boys were a big help but I didn’t want to ask too much of them, and I couldn’t keep doing everything else myself – the shopping, the cooking, the laundry, the cleaning, the million and one other things that go with being a parent and keeping a house running. And homeschool. And spend relaxed time with my children. And give parenting classes. And see clients privately.

Too much.

Either I was going to have to pay someone to cook or clean for me (which in 26 years I had never done), or I was going to have to find some other kind of help.

This was my solution. This 14 year old massive American freezer that wouldn’t win any contests for looks.

freezer overview

The winning feature? Its size.

They don’t make freezers this big here; this was  brought over on a lift when someone moved here. I knew the additional space would allow me to cut down on how often I shopped and maximize good deals when I found them. I’d be able to cook in advance and save time on busy evenings. That would mean fewer things taking up my time and energy.

I paid 600 shekels and while it wasn’t technically worth more than 500 max, it was worth every shekel to me!

I’ve already saved tons of money by stocking up on chicken when the prices are low. And I’ve saved travel time and shopping time and gas costs in being able to shop less often. But more than the money savings – and that’s a significant reason to have a freezer – this has made my life so much easier!

It’s kind of like having a personal assistant. Kind of. Because while I still have to do the work, I can maximize my efforts by preparing two times the recipe, serving one and freezing one for a different night.

I can’t tell you how much I love this!

Here’s the picture tour. 🙂

 

freezer top

Top shelf: frozen meals (each labeled on top – the labels on the side tend to fall off).

Second shelf down: on the left, frozen chicken breasts and whole chicken. Bought on sale, of course. About 25 kg at this moment.

On the right side are lunches for my husband to take to work – he takes one out every evening before going to bed and it’s defrosted when he leaves early in the morning.

 

freezer middle

Here’s my solution to the missing shelf. I didn’t want to waste all that space and it was way too high a space to stack things.

I got these stackable plastic crates for free from two different supermarkets – crates of vegetables are packed in these and then thrown away. It would be nice if they fit perfectly and used every bit of space but it’s pretty darn good! This is all chicken wings; I bought 30 kg when they were on sale for 4.90 a couple of weeks ago.

freezer bottom

On the shelf under the chicken wings are frozen vegetables and fish.

The bottom is a pull out drawer and it filled with bags of cooked and shredded or sliced chicken gizzards to the left, and bags of frozen mashed bananas on the right.

(And on the very bottom you see the scuffy paint job. At some point when it’s empty, I’m going to clean it all out, scrape out the old paint and silicone it. I think that would look much better. But even though it’s ugly it’s still very usable so there’s no urgency to do this any time soon.)

In the door I have bags of cooked beans and other odds and ends. I have a couple of ideas of how to build a substitute door support for the top door shelf, but I haven’t needed the space yet so again, not pressing.

And now that I’ve reworked the space in our new kitchen area, we have room for a fridge and the freezer side by side, so it’s super convenient and easy to access.

I’m telling you, the simple things in life can make such a huge difference!

Avivah

 

Tips for eating healthy on a budget

food preservation, Homemaking, Intentional Spending

There is a commonly expressed frustration about how expensive it is to eat healthy on a budget. And it’s true that specialty products and organics tend to be quite pricey.

While in the US I had different shopping techniques and resources that dramatically cut my cost on even those specialty foods, there are some basic tips that apply wherever you live.

  • Eat simply.  Stay away from specialty ingredients, and stick to the basics. I don’t try to serve meals that will grace magazine pages – I want food that will be filling and nutritious for my family.

For example, for breakfast I mostly make hot cereal (oatmeal, polenta, rice pudding) or eggs. There was a long period during which I made quick breads, muffins and breakfast casseroles but I don’t have the energy or additional kitchen helpers for that now.

For Shabbos breakfast I make granola, yogurt (for 23 shekels I can make close to four liters with minimal time and effort( or buy cornflakes (I get 1.5 kilos of cornflakes for 20 shekels – this is enough for two or three weeks for our family.) Nothing exciting but it’s affordable, filling and tastes good.

Sample costs: for oats and rice I pay 10 shekels for 1.4 kilos, polenta is 10.90 a kilo. I use up to half a kilo to make enough for a generous breakfast when everyone is home (a third of a kilo is plenty otherwise). This is a maximum of 5.50 shekels for my biggest batch, which is enough for 8 kids, four of whom eat adult quantities.  I pay 24 shekels for 30 eggs (80 agurot per egg) – the younger kids eat two, the older kids have three each.

  • Know what prices are so you can recognize a good deal. Over the holiday season, chicken prices went through the roof. A couple of weeks later, my husband bought some whole chickens that he thought were a good price. They were a very good price – for the holiday season. The price was only okay two weeks later.

Many years ago I created a price book to get a clear idea of how much I was paying for each ingredient that I cooked with per pound. It was super helpful to get this kind of clarity. While I don’t have the need to do that now, I have a pretty good sense of what a good price is for most of the items I regularly buy.

If you don’t have any idea what a good price is, take some time to create a price book. It’s basically a listing of how much you pay per unit for each item that you regularly purchase. It’s really worth it – it will give you the confidence to know when something is a really good price or just an average price.

  • Buy on sale. Many stores have weekly loss leader sales. Right before the holiday season I bought about 20 whole chickens because the price was so good. The butcher told me that the store owner was selling the chicken for four shekels a kilo less than the price he paid for it!

Why would he do that, you might wonder? To get people into the store, since most people will buy other things not on sale once they’re already there. I have saved so, so much money like this. It’s always interesting to me that I shop in the same stores as everyone else but I spend much less – this is one reason why.

Here’s an old post of mine on tips for saving on food – they are still useful!

  • Buy seasonal. Whatever is grown in that season will be less expensive. 

If you pay attention, you’ll start to notice seasonal trends – for example, cabbage and avocados are getting very cheap right now, at the same time that tomatoes and cucumbers are going up.

That means that for example, though in the summer months I make lots of tomato salad, in the winter I shift to other vegetables.  in the winter tomatoes are out of season and the price goes up, so I shift away from tomatoes. I hardly use avocados once the weather is warm but use loads in the cool weather! This is one reason I don’t have a yearly menu plan – because that would necessitate buying ingredients regardless of the pricing.

  • Stock up when the prices are low. It’s worth finding some extra pantry space so you’ll have a place to store things so you can stock up when the prices are low. There are things you know you’ll need week after week – why spend more than you have to?

Don’t think that means that your budget will go wild – it won’t. Some weeks you’ll buy more of one thing, other weeks you’ll buy more of something else. It all balances out.

Stocking up also applies to perishables. While it’s not practical to buy massive amounts of fresh produce if you’re not going to be able to use it before it goes bad, consider preserving it in some way (freezing, drying, canning). This week I saw ripe bananas marked down to 2.50 shekels a kilo – I bought two cartons full. As soon as I got home, they were peeled, mashed and frozen in two cup portions for future use in baked goods and shakes.

Here are some examples of things that can be preserved and how to do them – if this interests you, I have separate categories in the archives with many posts on specific food preservation projects I did.

Making strawberry jam and canning cherries bought on sale

My first canning experience – turkey bought on sale

Canning to the rescue – preserving produce before it goes bad

Explaining food dehydration

  • Buy in bulk. There are some items that are much cheaper when bought in bulk. For me these are mostly specialty ingredients – things like raisins, peanuts, sunflower seeds, pumpkin seeds, flax seeds, shredded coconut, coconut flour, almond flour, coconut oil.

But make sure you know what a good price is – don’t assume that because it’s being sold in bulk it’s cheaper. Often it is, but sometimes the savings is so small that it’s not worth the extra storage space or the large initial financial outlay.

How to buy in bulk

Buying in bulk through supermarkets

Add legumes. Beans are super affordable and versatile. There are many, many ways to serve them and they can extend your food budget considerably. That makes more room for the pricier foods that you’d like to include.

How to get kids to eat beans

Kitchen progress, my new tiling project just for fun

Homemaking, Intentional Spending

After an extended push during the summer for a couple of weeks to get our kitchen renovation done, we were left with a lot of details remaining when the school year began.

As much as I wanted everything finished asap, I made the decision to consciously slow down and not be uptight about things taking longer than I wanted.  The intense non-stop pace of the initial project was incredibly draining and I didn’t want to burn myself or my boys out getting it all finished.

It was a good choice to make, because it allowed me to set things to the side during the busy start of school year period, followed by the non-stop busy holiday period. I was able to do the things I needed to do then without stressing about the unfinished kitchen and bedroom work.

My eleven year old son told me a couple of days ago, “I like how we’re working on the house now. It’s not so fast but it’s not pressured and it’s actually fun.” Exactly.

When I allow myself the time and don’t tell myself I should have gotten it all done already, I enjoy doing the renovation work! My current attitude is that it will all get done when it gets done, and it’s okay for it to take as long as it takes. I can’t tell you how freeing that is.

This past week I glued on laminate strips to the exposed cabinet surfaces in the kitchen and tiled half of the toekick surface (the toekick is the recessed surface under the kitchen cabinets). I planned to finish the toekick tiling today but we ran out of glue. Oh, well, another day. While the kitchen and bedroom are fully functional, what remains are the small aesthetic details like these, and getting these done make a big difference!

I also tiled the backsplash behind the stove late Thursday night. That was a gift to myself, to have something nice to look at while cooking for Shabbos the next day. 🙂

I spent the last of my renovation budget before I bought tiles for the kitchen walls. While I didn’t want to leave the area untiled because water could drip between the cabinets and the wall and also the bare walls aren’t attractive, I’m committed to living within my financial means. That meant waiting until we have more money set aside to complete the tiling rather than putting it on a credit card.

I figured we would silicone the gap for now. I then ‘happened’ to be purchasing a completely non-home improvement related item from a private seller. We were chatting about why she was selling it and she mentioned decluttering her storage area. She also said she had a large number of tiles she was selling. Tiles, hmm??

Though I didn’t expect to find anything, I came back the next day to take a look in the daylight. I was pleasantly surprised to find that she had a large number of cream subway tiles that were just the right match for my kitchen. I was able to buy them for a very good price, using just 100 shekels from my weekly food budget to buy all the tiles I needed for the kitchen.

(They were such a good price that I decided to use 400 shekels of discretionary personal funds – birthday money from years ago! – to buy more tiles to tile the porch walls, a project that isn’t necessary or at all related to the kitchen/bedroom renovation but one I want to do for my own enjoyment.)

After buying these tiles I then went to the tile store to find some tiles that would be a focal point to add visual interest over the stove. However, after an hour of looking at every single tile in the store, I still couldn’t find anything suitable (the ones I liked most were also really expensive – as in, 80 – 200 shekels per tile!). The challenge was that I needed something to match the cream of the tiles and the gray of the countertop, but the tiles were either gray and white toned and wouldn’t match the cream subway tiles, or were cream and brown, and wouldn’t match the gray countertop. Dilemma.

A day later I was setting up a tile sample for the porch walls and asked my husband for his opinion. I had purchased nine patterned tiles from the same private seller with the intention of staggering them along the center porch wall, but was thinking of doing a more interesting tile pattern in cream and not using the patterned tiles at all. Combining the two different tile sizes was complicated and would necessitate a lot of tile cutting, and tile cutting would make my just-for-fun project not so fun.

My husband agreed that sticking to only cream would be best for the porch, and suggested I used the patterned tiles instead for the kitchen backsplash. Amazingly, these grayish brownish tiles that I already purchased but had never even considered for use in the kitchen (that the seller told me had been ridiculously expensive) were the perfect match and the perfect quantity!

kitchen backsplash

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The reason I consider tiling the porch walls a personal fun project is that there’s plenty of space to work with no one needing to use that space and no need to be exacting in the details – all factors that don’t exist in the inside renovation work.

Here are what the porch walls looked like before tiling – when we moved here the walls were peeling and horrible. I’ve spackled and they look much, much better – but pleasant to look at they aren’t!

porch walls before

Below is the first wall that I began tiling – this wall was the most unsightly and I’m sorry I didn’t get a picture of it before I began! I intend to complete all the tiling before doing the grouting. It’s been so enjoyable to work on this this….the boys came outside to sit with me and asked if they could help. That’s the secret to getting kids to want to work with you – when they see you enjoying yourself they want to get involved, too.  🙂

porch walls after

I have about fifteen meters of tiling to do on the porch –  so far I’ve done about two so there’s plenty left to work on!

Avivah

Now the plumbing work begins

Homemaking, Intentional Spending, Parenting

The main wall is down, the secondary wall is down but this is just the beginning of turning our boys bedroom into a kitchen!

Today was the first part of the next stage – having the plumbing and gas lines wired in. We also are having additional electric outlets put in.

It’s been a very loud and messy day and I’m so happy that I made arrangements for ds6 and ds18months to be at a camp for this period! They would have been so stressed and frightened of all the noise of the jackhammer and banging, not to mention that an active work zone isn’t a safe place for young children.

Overview of the new kitchen in progress - day 1
Overview of the new kitchen in progress

When I first considered this project, I thought we’d have to move the water lines from the current kitchen across the main living area and through the new kitchen area. Then I wondered if perhaps we could connect it to the bathroom plumbing, which I was told was possible.

The bathroom and laundry room
The bathroom and laundry room – replumbed; gas and water lines also added

That seemed a lot more convenient, but we’d still have to rip up the floor across our home in order to put in a new gas line.

Then ds10 suggested we hook up the new gas lines to our laundry room gas outlet – brilliant! It didn’t occur to me at all  – that boy saved us so much time and work with his idea. So while we’ll need to replace the laundry room and bathroom floor, most of the floor that isn’t in the active work zone will remain intact.

Here’s the hallway leading from the bathroom on the left to the new kitchen area on the right. The new plumbing lines are at the top, the new electric lines are lower down.

renovation - hallway

Now you can see the new kitchen area – there is plumbing for two sinks (red and blue piping); the yellow piping contains the new gas line. To the right you can see the drilled space for one of the new outlets.

renovation - boys room

Obviously there’s nothing left of this as a bedroom for the boys anymore! We moved their bunkbeds (the ones we built almost two years ago) temporarily into the living room and moved the rest of the living room furniture out onto the porch. Good thing we have a large porch!

Three boys sleeping in their relocated bunks
Three boys sound asleep in their relocated bunks in living room

For day two, hopefully the electric outlets will be finished being installed and the plumbing will be completed. I’m planning to take the younger five boys on a day trip to the farm on Kibbutz Chafetz Chaim while this work continues in our absence, but need to make sure the boys’ closet unit is emptied before we leave. I knew we’d need to move it eventually but had hoped to be able to leave it in place a bit longer to minimize the upheaval and having even more stuff not in its place.

For now things are very much in flux and while it’s a necessary part of the process, it’s definitely disconcerting to have so much mess with so many things out of place.

Progress, progress! It’s true in the physical world and it’s true in the physical world that before things improve, they get a lot messier and more uncomfortable first!

Avivah

How to get kids to eat beans

Homemaking, Intentional Spending, Parenting

Whenever I post a weekly menu plan, there’s always someone who asks (and lot more people who are thinking!), ‘how do you get your kids to eat beans?? My kids would never touch that!”

Here are some tips that work for us:

a) When I add in ‘special’ or protein elements to a bean dish, that adds to the appeal. Hence a lentil salad would be ‘meh’, but when feta cheese is chopped up into the same salad it will be greeted with ‘yum!’ Chickpeas cooked with vegetables is kind of boring, but with a peanut sauce mixed in, much more appealing! Same thing with the burritos – by adding a little bit of shredded cheese to some beans and rice, it gets a significantly more positive reception.

b) The form the beans are served with also matters – bean stews are seen as blah by my kids, but if I make the same mixture into a burger or loaf, it gets gobbled up.

c) I usually add meat or chicken gravy or stock into the bean dishes that I cook to add a rich depth of flavor to the dish. I always save the gravy from roasted chicken for this purpose.

d) It’s not enough to make the bean dish look and taste good if you have the attitude that your kids will probably hate it! They pick up on that and respond accordingly.

Realize that beans are a kind of boring food – they don’t have much flavor on their own and need to be seasoned well. It’s also CRITICAL that they are cooked until completely soft. It is yuck to eat beans that are underdone and even a tiny bit of a crunch to them or even that mealy texture when they’re just cooked but not really soft!

There’s no way to get kids used to eating any kind of food without giving them opportunities to have them!  If one attempt isn’t successful, it doesn’t mean they’ll hate all beans – it means you need to find a different recipe!  My kids have grown up eating bean dishes and as a result, even without integrating any of the tips above, will eat them willingly. I can’t tell you they wouldn’t prefer hamburgers (so would I!) but beans are a staple in our pantry.

Avivah

My significant life changing purchase – a car!

Homemaking, Homeschooling, Intentional Spending, Parenting, Self-Growth

Thank you all for your good wishes on our new granddaughter! She was named yesterday and I’m looking forward to taking the younger boys to meet her later this week.

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In other significant for us news, we have become car owners!

When we moved to Israel almost seven years ago, we decided not to buy a vehicle because buying, maintaining and fueling a car here is so much more expensive than in the US. Public transportation is very good and a car seemed like an unnecessary luxury, particularly when we came here without a job and wanted to stretch our savings as long as possible.

It was a good decision then that really made sense,  and for the ensuing six years it continued to be a good choice. We felt comfortable not having a car, there was no sense of deprivation or doing without – in fact, it was a relief to me not to have to deal with a car.

However, this last year and particularly the last few months (since both of my older daughters got married) have become increasingly challenging for me. Since my five year old doesn’t consistently walk moderate distances when he’s tired and as of last July I refused to put him in a stroller, traveling by bus with him is something that I try to minimize. Without older children who can keep an eye on the younger ones when I go out, just getting the weekly grocery shopping done has become a pressure and that’s where my ‘free’ time goes.

I was increasingly feeling maxxed out with the little time for myself needing to be almost painfully carved out, and the time strain that was being created was significant. A couple of months ago, someone asked why this was an issue for me, since after all, I’ve been homeschooling for 18 years and was used to my kids being around. I told her, “I used to have a car and I could take the kids with me if I needed to go out; I wasn’t stuck and unable to go anywhere.” However, I didn’t consider the significance of my answer to her until last week.

That was when I recalled our brief conversation and it suddenly became obvious to me that this major issue that has significantly impacted the quality of my life would be shifted if I had a car.  Previously, I kept thinking that the issue would be resolved as my son became more mobile; car ownership was so off my mental map that it simply didn’t occur to me to revisit the initial decision we made when we moved here.

Well.

That conversation was suddenly catapulted to the front of my consciousness when I saw a car listed for sale on my local neighborhood list that seemed like it would be a good fit for us. I spent a couple of hours considering if it was ridiculously self-indulgent of me to have a car before calling my husband to let him know I thought we should seriously consider purchasing a car. My husband readily agreed since he had already mentioned several times in the past that at some point he wanted to get a car but I was the naysayer. (When we ran the numbers to check the anticipated expenses, his only question was, “Why didn’t we do this a long time ago?”)

Once I allowed myself to recognize how much having a car would shift this major energy block in my life, things moved very quickly. We bought a car the very next day.

I can say without exaggeration that after using it for just a few hours this afternoon and evening (and knowing this is something I can regularly do) my life has changed. No hyperbole.

This afternoon I was able to pop my tired five year old into the car and take him with me and ds9 on an errand. This errand is something I’ve wanted to do for almost three months but logistically it was too hard to do without a car.

So we zipped over to get it taken care of – in ten minutes it was done. The boys enjoyed watching the workmen cut down the mirror and reframe it, an experience they wouldn’t have had before since I would have left them at home. I’ve always loved having the kids be part of those daily experiences – each on its own is nothing major but they add up to enriching and expansive experiences.

Since we had plenty of time before swimming lessons began, we went to go the local community center to get ds5 a bus card with his photo on it. This errand has been on my list for months. He’s almost six and I wanted to get him one since he turned five. Now he has one!

We then noticed some activities taking place in the community center, which I learned were for families who have children with special needs. Maybe I never knew about this, maybe I was told about this and mentally dismissed it as completely irrelevant for us because getting out was just too hard.

In any case, today we joined them. It was so nice to watch ds5 play (he knew another child there from his Pesach camp), to chat with another mom, and to feel so relaxed. Relaxing and going out with my five year old haven’t been synonymous for me for quite some time.

From there we went to swimming lessons, and the biggest, most significant thing happened when the lessons were over.

We were home in five minutes.

Five minutes.

Instead of 45 minutes.

Instead of coaxing him to walk a little more. Instead of tugging at his hand and picking him up and then insisting that I can’t carry him and he’s going to have to walk, yada, yada, yada while he sits down and from sheer exhaustion refuses to move. Then finally getting to the bus stop, getting on the bus, and after getting off coaxing him again to walk the distance from the bus stop to our home. All over again.

We were home and I was still smiling and ds5 was still smiling and ds9 (who has lessons at the same time and is part of this weekly round trip experience) was still smiling. I had energy to give everyone dinner.  My husband probably did a double take when he walked in and wondered if it was really Sunday since I smiled and had a conversation with him with no mention of being so tired that I was about to collapse. Instead I enthusiastically told him how amazingly enjoyable ds5 is to spend time with when I don’t have to marshal all my resources to physically get him where he needs to go.

At 8:30 in the evening, rather than being comatose on the couch, I took ds12 to his swimming lessons (for the first time this season), and enjoyed watching him for 45 minutes before driving home together. (Today I learned that my two sons in group lessons are the best swimmers in their groups. They wouldn’t have told me because they don’t know that when they’re swimming and can’t hear what’s being said, the instructor tells the other students to watch what they’re doing. I wouldn’t have known that if I hadn’t been there in person to see it.) It was really nice having this opportunity to spend time with ds12 and make a deposit in my relationship with him.

And here I am writing this now. It is almost 11:30 at night and I’m still able to think and reflect. The clarity of how deeply exhausting this aspect of my life has become after just one afternoon of not having to go through it is almost stunning to me.

Today I got things done quickly and easily. And that was nice. But what was even nicer was feeling doors swinging open. Doors of increased outings with my kids, increased time freedom and flexibility, increased community involvement and social connection, increased being present for others and myself.  And none of it feels hard. 

Letting go of hard required me to first be really honest about how constraining things had become. When things shift gradually over time, there’s not a sudden negative situation to deal with – and that makes it harder to recognize because one gets used to it bit by bit.  I started to recognize how many ‘nos’ I was saying to myself – and was willing to be open to a solution from a different angle.

It’s interesting that when ds19 called and I told him we had just bought a car a few hours before, he wasn’t surprised. Since I had never entertained the idea myself until a day prior, obviously I hadn’t discussed the possibility with our children and I asked him why he told me the purchase was predictable. He said that in the last year when I’ve periodically rented a car, it was obvious to him how much more relaxed and happy I was.

What was obvious to him took a lot of soul searching for me!

Avivah