I did something really wonderful for myself about six weeks ago – I asked my husband to set the controls of my computer to shut off at 11 pm every night.

The reason for that I had a strong tendency to stay up too late, too often, and the later it got, the more tired I felt and the harder it became to exercise the necessary discipline to get myself to bed.  I’m now going to sleep earlier and getting up earlier, which is fantastic.  The only problem is I’m really having a hard time finding time to blog.

So that’s why I haven’t been posting as much.

Tonight I’ll do a quick roundup of what’s going on around here and type as fast as I can until my computer shuts down in half an hour.

Ds21 came home for a couple of weeks.  His yeshiva vacation was curtailed because of the war, as were many (most?) yeshivos.  The reason for this is that the people of Israel need physical and spiritual fighting and while our soldiers were risking their lives in combat, the role of our yeshiva students was to create extra spiritual merits.  Thanks to the ceasefire, he came home sooner than we were expecting.

Dd19 is in the US and making plans for the coming year.  She spent the past year in seminary while working towards her BA in psychology, along with working a job on the side.  She hopes to finish it before coming back to Israel next year (not sure if it will be mid year or the end of the school year) and will continue working at the same place.  My, we miss that girl of ours.

Dd18 (yes, 18, the newest birthday around here!) has been deliberating about what seminary to attend next year.  She was in an extremely good position since she did very well in the Israeli seminary she attended this year and her principal really wanted to keep her there for the second year.  She was considering an American seminary and interviewed there.  Before she heard back from them, she decided to stay with the Israeli seminary.  Then a friend currently studying at that seminary heard from the principal of the American seminary that they were very impressed with her and want to work with her to make it possible for her to attend.  (It’s a much more expensive program.)

The financial details remain to be worked out, but they’ve offered her a job as the manager of the school kitchen, a position reserved for very responsible students with leadership abilities.  In lieu of a salary she’ll receive a tuition cut and this will make it possible for her to dorm there, an experience I really wanted her to have.  She will continue her studies in industrial design with her current class in the coming year; her principal was very accommodating about this (usually if someone isn’t currently enrolled in the seminary, they can’t remain with their classmates and have to transfer to a parallel track).

Ds15 left to a one week sleep away camp today.  My older three kids attended sleep away camps when they turned 12, but the summer he turned 12 was right before we made aliyah.  The camp we had sent our older son to had administrative changes and the costs weren’t  manageable, so I very regretfully couldn’t send him.  I’m so, so happy for him to have this opportunity now.  I hope he’ll have an amazing time; he’s worked really hard this past year in school and deserves the break.

Skip all the middle kids, down to Yirmi.  Sorry, no time.  🙂  Not much to say, either.  🙂

Now that Yirmi turned 2, I decided it’s time to transition him from a crib to a bed.  This is never something that we enjoy doing since it’s so much easier to plop a child into a crib and know they’ll stay there.  It’s even more challenging since he’s used to falling asleep in a quiet room (ds12 shares a room with him and goes to sleep after him) and now he’s sleeping with ds8, ds6 and ds5.  Even when they’re quiet, there are a lot of noises from them moving around.  We started a couple of weeks ago with putting him in his bed for naps.  Now we’re moving onto having him sleep in his own bed at night.  Tonight was the first night and he was very unhappy about my persistence in keeping him in bed.  The challenge is for the adult to stay persistent with this until he’s used to his new sleeping arrangements.  We’ll see how long it takes.

I’ve begun looking for gluten free recipes that use frugal local ingredients, since Yirmiyahu understandably wants to eat what everyone else has and it doesn’t feel so fair to hand him a rice cake when everyone else is having something that looks noticeably tastier.  Right now I have a pot of quinoa pudding simmering on the stove, using sesame milk to replace the dairy milk.

Okeydoke, my time is just about over so I’m going to sign off for the night and hit send.  Don’t worry if you don’t hear from me, all is well but things are just busy and like I said, I’m trying to make self-care and getting adequate rest a priority.  🙂

Avivah