Avivah Werner

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  • My simple laundry system for large families

    >>Can you write about laundry system? I do laundry only once a week and I have been contemplating increasing that since the amount seems to be more than I can handle in one day! It was more convenient for a long time because asking the kids to put away their clean clothes once a week, was a lot better than twice (or three) times a week<<

    I’m happy to share my laundry system though it’s so simple that’s it doesn’t seem like a system!

    There was a time I used to do laundry once a week, but it became overwhelming.  It was so much laundry that one day a week was devoted to just that.  I switched to doing laundry daily – I usually do about 2 – 3 loads a day and it fits in between doing other things so I don’t think about it much.

    After it comes out of the washer, I hang it outside, then take it down once it’s dry and make piles of clean laundry according to bedrooms.  So the girls get a pile that they sort through and put away, the older boys have a pile (Yirmiyahu has a drawer in their room so his clothes go in their pile), the younger boys have a pile and dh and I have a pile.  I put away the laundry for dh and myself as well as for the younger boys.  It takes about five minutes daily to put away each pile.

    Since the laundry doesn’t have a chance to build up, once it’s clean it doesn’t take long to put it away.   I find doing laundry gratifying and it’s relaxing to hang it to dry (except when it’s super rainy but now that I have three racks that can be moved indoors, the rain isn’t an issue!).

    Another bonus is that by washing clothes more frequently, I don’t need as many clothes so that means less money spent on clothing and less clutter in the closets. It also means less laundry since at least in my house, younger children have a way of dumping their clean clothes on the floor, which then gets put in the dirty laundry hamper when they clean their room.  🙂  They can’t dump as much when there are fewer clothes!

    I rarely iron clothes – I shake out clothes and hang them so the wrinkles fall out, and for things like dress shirts that might need more care, I let the people who care about that level of perfection do the ironing themselves.

    So there you have it, my super easy and low pressure laundry system!

    Avivah

  • Why everything breaking at once is a good thing!

    On Friday, my washing machine broke.  A few days before that, my laptop was declared corrupted and unfixable.  My phone stopped working completely last week, along with our haircutting machine.

    Ds7 exclaimed, “It seems like everything is breaking at the same time!”

    Hmm.  It does seem like that.

    While hanging the first load of wash from my new machine this morning, I was thinking about what a gift it was to me that all of these things broke simultaneously.  It not only forced me to replace each item with something more suitable (other than no laptop yet :)), but showed me some subtle ways that I’m not honoring myself.

    Our phone was having problems for a while – the phone itself was fine but the answering machine was the source of a malfunction.  If we didn’t answer within four rings, instead of the answering machine picking up the caller would get a message that our line had been disconnected.  The electronics store wasn’t close to where I do my regular errands and so I kept pushing off making this purchase.  We lived with it like that for quite a while – for much too long – until the phone totally stopped working and we bought a new one.

    I called in the washing machine repair guy a couple of months ago to fix my machine when it wasn’t working.  He told me that it would be so costly to fix it that I’d be better off replacing it but that it would be usable for a while longer if I wanted to play around with the buttons and coax the wash cycle to begin.  That’s what I did, until no amount of coaxing worked.  I got my new (to me) washing machine yesterday, and it’s bigger, faster and more efficient.  It’s a big help in getting through the backlog of laundry I have from four days of not doing wash.  🙂

    I’ve been thinking about where frugality ends and self-denial begins.  On one hand, it’s a good thing to use something fully and well, to appreciate it and not be hasty to discard it if it can still serve you.

    On the other hand, it’s not a good thing to hold onto things that are hampering your functioning in the name of using it up.

    These things were functioning.  They weren’t working well but I didn’t feel a sense of urgency to replace them even though they were inconveniencing me and others.  I move clutter out of my house regularly and often and don’t think of myself as having a clutter issue, but these items showed me that nonetheless I sometimes still hold onto things that aren’t serving me well.

    Whenever we hold on to things that we don’t need or that don’t serve us, to some degree we give ourselves a subtle unspoken message about our own personal value as well as reflecting a lack of trust that our needs can and will be fully met. Just like by keeping clutter around, I was compromising myself by not prioritizing my needs and getting what I needed when I needed it.

    Getting rid of what doesn’t serve you makes room for better things to come into your life.  Thanks to these items breaking, my life is now filled with more things that meet my needs and that makes me feel abundant.   Out with the old, in with the new!

    Avivah

  • Recommendation for mortgage broker in Israel

    Frugal as I am, there are times that paying a professional is the absolute best use of your money.

    Choosing to work with a mortgage broker is one of these times.  It was thanks to our mortgage broker, Adam Siegel, that were were able to buy our apartment in Karmiel.  We spoke to another broker who works for the same office who said there was no way to get a mortgage for our purchase approved.  Adam was referred to me by a friend who was a real estate investor in the US and now works in real estate in Israel, and this a referral that I’ve been very grateful for a number of times.

    Adam is amazing at thinking out of the box and finding solutions.  Not only is he highly efficient at finding financing solutions to unorthodox purchasing situations, he’s a very nice person.  This is something you especially appreciate when you have a complicated loan and things get delayed somewhere, but rather than adding to the stress by getting upset, he stays calm and reassures you it will all work out.  And it does.

    Now that we’re living in Israel and I can go into banks myself to apply for loans, would I still recommend using a mortgage broker?  Yes, one thousand percent!  A broker can generally get better terms than what you can get for yourself when walking in off the street.  But even if the terms were the same, the sanity that having someone else handle this aspect of home buying brings to my life makes it worth every single penny and more.

    The paperwork for buying a home here is much more complicated than in the US and there are huge penalties for not closing the purchase within the time specified in your sales contract.  I appreciate not having to worry about making sure the banks get the paperwork done in the time specified in the contract; the broker does. We didn’t have much paperwork when when we bought our house in the US.  The file when we bought our Karmiel apartment was literally several hundred pages.  I hate paperwork.

    Also, it’s extremely helpful to have an English speaker who can explain all the technical legal terms you’re signing on.  The terms of a mortgage are quite important to clearly understand before you sign anything.

    Obviously, Adam is once again handling our mortgage for our new home. 🙂

    I strongly encourage people to buy a home in Israel if it’s at all possible, and finding someone who knows how to effectively facilitate the process makes a huge difference in being successful in this or not.

    If you want to reach Adam, here are his details:

    • email: asiegel@mortgageisrael.com
    • if calling from Israel – 052-714-4056
    • if calling from the US – 845-364-7476

    If you give Adam a call, be sure to let him know that I recommended him!

    Avivah

  • And this is what I’ve been busy with lately….

    Lately I’ve been dealing with the kind of tension that strongly reminds me of when we were preparing to move to Israel.

    I had a lot of anxieties about our moving plans and sometimes wanted to share about it here as well as how I countered those anxieties.  However, I didn’t want to give more power to my worries by writing about them.   I didn’t want to say anything about it until all the details were worked out because of my fear that it wouldn’t work out and then once it all worked out, it didn’t seem worth writing about because it was in the past.

    Later, I regretted not having shared about it because it was an incredibly powerful time that forced me to develop a lot of faith and trust that things would work out for us despite everything around us seeming to point to it being impossible.  Well, the spiritual muscles I developed at that time have gotten flabby and now I’m having to work them out again!

    Here’s what’s going on:

    We’re planning to leave Karmiel and move to a city near the center of the country.  

    You probably remember that last year I announced we were planning to move, and then I was burned.  It was clear after my accident that it wasn’t the right time to move.  When we decided to stay in Karmiel, we were hoping it would be for the long term.  We wanted it to be for the long term.  But as lovely as it is here, we have many reasons for moving and these have only gotten stronger with the passage of time.  We’re not moving away from anything but moving toward something that better fits our needs.

    In the last ten weeks I’ve been busy looking for a new home and though the details aren’t all worked out, things are moving forward!

    As of now I’ve found a home to purchase, gotten financing approval, gotten a verbal approval from the seller, and last night approved the sales contract our lawyer forwarded to us from their lawyer.  I hope we’ll be signing a purchase contract very soon (the sellers live overseas so all parts of the process take longer).  I just made a process that has been emotionally draining sound really nice and easy, didn’t I??  🙂

    It hasn’t been nice and easy.

    I’m happy to say that even though there are some things that I could be stressing out about right now, I’m feeling calm and relaxed.  I’m a person who finds uncertainty stressful and I’ve had to remind myself a number of times that if I’m feeling stressed, it’s because of how I’m thinking about things. It’s helped me to say the Serenity Prayer several times a day and actively try to apply this perspective to the challenges that come up.

    I’m not yet able to answer questions about when and where we’ll be moving but will share that with you as more specifics are worked through!

    Avivah

     

  • A return visit to the burn unit to say ‘thank you’

    I’m sorry I haven’t been around much lately.  I’ve been super busy and on top of that my laptop has been out of commission and when I have access to my husband’s computer in the later hours of the evening, I’m too tired to think straight anymore!  But I miss you all when I don’t write.

    A while ago I took Yirmiyahu for a standard hearing test.  It wasn’t clear at that time if he was hearing well or not.  Initially he responded to all the tones but after several times turning his head to the sound of someone calling his voice and seeing no one there, he began to look intently at the woman in the glass enclosed room when she spoke into her microphone (though her mouth was covered) instead of looking to the speakers that her voice emanated from.  I’m not concerned about his hearing but this is something that has to be checked out to be sure there’s no issue and the way to do it with a child this young is via the BERA test which tests the brains response to auditory stimulus while a child is asleep.

    To make a long and exhausting story short, after traveling for the BERA test to a hospital in a different city that’s only a thirty minute drive away but an hour and a half trip on two different buses, he fell asleep after being given the medication.  The technician attached the electrodes to his head, and as she was almost finished, he stirred and sleepily opened his eyes.  If he hadn’t seen a strange woman looming over him and had black wires hanging down over his eyes, he probably would have fallen right back to sleep but he was very alarmed.  I waited 2.5 hours for him to fall asleep again, but the same thing happened then. So I had no choice but to reschedule for this week.

    It was very frustrating to spend so long traveling and then waiting there for four hours and return home late in the afternoon not having been able to get the hearing test done, which takes maybe 15 minutes at the very most.  But one thing I was able to do while walking him around in the stroller trying to lull him to sleep was to visit the nurses in the burn unit where I was hospitalized in April so they could see how well I’m doing.

    I had such a powerful emotion that came over me as I walked into the unit.  I had never walked in to the unit before – when I was admitted ten months ago, I was wheeled in with bandages covering my face.  Though my eyes weren’t burned, my sight was affected for the first few days and on that evening I could hardly see anything.

    I didn’t expect the nurses to recognize me since I looked very different at that point than I do now, but both nurses I saw remembered me when I started to speak.  I started to say hello, and I hardly had a chance to say anything before I started crying.   It’s interesting that other than the exceptions that I wrote about, I didn’t cry much during my hospitalization but since then, I’ve had a  number of waves of emotion that come over me when thinking about my accident and God’s amazing kindness to me.  I told the nurse I don’t know why now I’m getting so emotional when everything is fine and then when things looked so bad I wasn’t crying.  She smiled and said, “They’re happy tears,”  and she’s totally right.

    She told me how wonderful I look and told me that she would have to look with a magnifying glass to see the remaining signs of the burns. To me it’s noticeable but many people have said they can’t tell I was ever burned, and I’m not going to point out the signs of the accident!  That same evening I went to an event and saw many people who I hadn’t seen since before I was burned, and all of them were exclaiming that they couldn’t believe that I look ‘perfect’.  I’m telling you, you get so many compliments on how good you look after an accident like this!  In all the years before this put together I didn’t get as many compliments as I have in the last eight months.  🙂

    Beginning three days after I was burned, I took a picture each morning while in the hospital.  Not because I wanted to see how bad I looked – I didn’t – but because I believed that one day I would be healed.  And I knew that I would look back and think it must not have been so bad, that in the intensity of the experience it felt worse to me than it really was.  The pictures are a tangible proof for me to remember that, yes, it really was that bad, but I don’t have to look at them to appreciate how incredibly fortunate I was.

    Avivah

  • A great doctor day!

    My computer is once again not working, thanks to a very active 2 year old who I was foolish enough to leave alone with ds5 looking at his early reading program while I took a phone call.  I was out of the room for less than two minutes when someone came running to tell me it had shut down.  Ah, the fun of life with a toddler!  Last time my husband figured out how to fix it and he’s working on it now again as I write on his laptop.

    Back in May, I had an appointment with a surgeon to discuss if Yirmiyahu needed surgery.   At that time he told me that he wanted us to do all of the testing again before he made a decision.  It took five months for our health insurance to schedule the necessary testing – we couldn’t schedule it directly and they kept telling us the hospital had scheduled it and we were going to be notified of the date….month after month.  Finally it was scheduled but by that time we weren’t able to go to the surgeon for our planned visit, and we had to reschedule for ten weeks later.

    Our appointment with the surgeon finally arrived, and within minutes of seeing the test results, he told us surgery is definitely necessary.  It’s very important and the doctor put him on the priority list so hopefully we can get this done sooner rather than later.  Now we have to wait to be notified by the hospital of when the surgery will be scheduled.  I can’t exactly say I’m happy about this but this is the decision I was hoping he would make.

    In addition to this, when I entered the waiting room of the surgeon, I was surprised to see the name of the pediatric endocrinologist I had taken Yirmiyahu to in September listed.  (I had seen her in a different city and didn’t know she had an office here.)  She had recommended bloodwork and told me she’d be in touch within a month.  Around a month later, I had a problem with my answering machine – maybe she called and couldn’t leave a message but in any case I wasn’t able to speak to her.  My local pediatrician said the blood work was fine and there was nothing to discuss, but I really wanted to talk to the endo.

    I called and called the office, and couldn’t get through.  (This was back in October.)  There’s a 2 – 3 month wait to see this doctor, and the only way I could think of speaking to her was to convince my pediatrician to give me a referral for something she didn’t think was necessary, wait a few months and then speak to the endo in person.

    When I saw this specialist’s name and that she was seeing patients that afternoon, I thought, maybe I can speak to her now!  I knew that was unlikely, but the secretary told me if I asked the doctor and she agreed to give me time, they’d let me in to see her.  I interrupted the appointment she was in the middle of to ask if she could find five minutes to speak to me (not something I would have done if the secretary hadn’t told me it was okay) and she agreed.

    I had to wait quite a bit but it was worth it.  She took over half an hour to go over every aspect of Yirmiyahu’s file with me.  I wanted to be sure there isn’t something delaying his growth that needs to be addressed since he’s small for his age.  She told me that with the specific medical issue that we need to address with surgery, it could be affecting his growth and she’s seen children after this surgery have growth spurts.  It’s interesting because it seems totally disconnected but nonetheless there’s a correlation.  She even apologized at the end that she hadn’t discussed his blood work results on the phone with me, thanked me for waiting so long and making the effort to speak to her and told me what a wonderful mother I am!

    When I left that clinic, I felt so amazed and grateful to have been able to get feedback from the two experts that are most important medically for Yirmiyahu in the same afternoon.  I thought the timing of the surgeon was delayed because of the scheduling error months before, but it was obvious I ended up there at just the day and time I was meant to be.

    Avivah

  • Win win for adults – setting aside your ego and being willing to hear the other person’s side

    I’ve been absent from my blog for these last couple of weeks because I’ve been involved in a complicated situation that’s been taking a huge amount of emotional energy.

    There have been two other parties involved, and it seemed like whatever we did, at least one of the three parties would be upset at the result.  And one particular party seemed determined to be sure if he didn’t get what he wanted, he would make sure the other two would be dragged through a lot of unpleasantness.  I couldn’t see any possibility that would end up being win-win for everyone involved.

    I’ve been having a lot of negative thoughts about this party and as much as I tried to give him the benefit of the doubt, it didn’t extend to being willing to stand in his shoes and validate to myself why he felt he should have things go his way.  In my own mind, I was dismissing him as selfish and manipulative.  When I would give a pretense to myself of looking at things from his view, I would think, “I see why he thinks this but…. he’s totally wrong and self-centered and irresponsible and why can’t he be reasonable.”  At first I didn’t think he was a bad person but if you saw the way things you were going, you would excuse me for mentally going down that road.

    Well, I took a huge step back and mentally went back to the beginning to start over.  This was really hard for me because at this point, him not getting what he wanted was just as important to  me as me getting what I wanted.  I wanted to do whatever I had to do to get out of this situation and never hear his name again.  But it was clear he was going to be sure that if he couldn’t win, no one could win.

    Mentally starting over helped me feel compassion and understanding for him, and I was able to see he was lashing out because of his fear of losing something important to him.  From that position, I approached the other person and said, “Let’s start over.  It seems to me you feel like you want to have this outcome, and I’m happy for you to have that if you can make sure that I also have what I need from this situation” (which initially he said wasn’t possible).  The third party had agreed that they wouldn’t mind if I reopened the conversation with the other party, and they would be fine with whatever we worked out between us.

    Amazingly, it looks as if it’s going to be possible for all three of us to come out ahead in this interaction.  Right now we’re at the discussion stage and it will take another week to hammer out all the specifics, but it’s incredibly encouraging and rejuvenating to be able to even consider an ending like this.

    While dealing with this, I’ve continually been thinking about win-win, and really debating if given the cultural and personality differences we were facing if in this situation it might be impossible to use these principles.  I’m amazed what can happen when you put aside your ego and are willing to honestly step into someone else’s shoes and really understand them.

    It’s been a huge energy shift and finally I feel the head space to write again!

    Avivah

     

  • Binah Bunch homeschooling interview

    I recently did an interview with a writer from Binah Bunch (the kids magazine that comes with Binah).  I just received an email that it will be coming out this week so if you’re interested, keep an eye out for it!

    (I’d love to hear your impressions if you do read it.:))

    Avivah

  • Why I’m teaching sign language to ds2

    Years ago I read about the benefits of teaching babies sign language, in time to teach dd14 a couple of basic signs when she was about a year old.  I didn’t really know many signs and my motivation to teach my infants wasn’t strong enough to push me to extend myself to learn more.

    Enter the birth of my youngest, now 2.5.  I knew that with a diagnosis  of Trisomy 21, he was likely to experience communication difficulties.  I decided to assist him in expressing himself rather than waiting for speech.  At 14 months, when I began introducing early reading I also began introducing signs.

    Neurodevelopmental therapists oppose teaching sign language to a child with T21, believing that the frustration to want to express oneself encourages a better degree of clarity in speech later on.  I trust their many years of experience but I’m not willing to withhold a way for my child to communicate now for the sake of later gains.  Every person wants and needs to be able to communicate with others, and deserves to be given the tools to succeed.  Especially children for whom it’s more of a struggle than others.

    There are plenty of benefits to using sign language for all young children.  Young children understand so much more than they’re able to express, and giving them ways to let you know what they want is very helpful to you both.  Sign language encourages language comprehension, fine motor skills and is cognitively stimulating.

    It’s not hard to learn basic signs.  I’ve learned a number of signs from the Signing Times website; when I needed others, I looked them up at Signing Savvy.  The Signing Savvy site has a much wider vocabulary of words but the video quality can’t compare to that of Signing Times.  They’re both great free resources.

    Yirmiyahu is limited to the signs he learns by what signs I learn.  Recently a while went by and I kept telling myself I  needed to look up more words and not getting to it.  So I began considering buying signing dvds for him to watch.  When I looked into this, I learned that Signing Times has a digital subscription option – with a free monthly trial that gives unlimited access to the programs they have available.  So I signed up!

    So far we’re enjoying this a lot.  There are several series that include Baby Signing Times and Signing Times.  Each series has a number of programs that are grouped according to topic and taught together with songs.  The program host has an engaging and fun way of presenting the signs and is extremely clear.  Our boys ages 5, 7 and 8 are enjoying watching with Yirmiyahu and me, which is really nice.   They’re learning the signs and that’s helpful so that they aren’t dependent on  me to translate what Yirmiyahu is ‘saying’.  And they can also help me translate when I’m not remembering what sign Yirmiyahu is using!  (Yirmi has a better memory than I do!:))

    When the host introduces a sign, on the opposite side of the screen is a picture of what she’s demonstrating along with the word written out.  This reinforces Yirmiyahu’s reading program, which has many of the same words.

    Another thing I really appreciate is that the children in the programs are diverse and reflective of children in the real world.  They include a number of children with Down syndrome and other disabilities; children with disabilities are usually shut away from others and having them portrayed as naturally as any other kid is extremely important.

    Watching these programs has made it easier and more fun to learn signs.  I don’t know yet if I’ll sign up for a subscription when my trial runs out but I’m certainly enjoying the access that we have now!

    Avivah

  • How to help kids negotiate a win-win instead of fighting

    Before I was even out of bed this morning, I heard my ds7 and ds8 arguing and it was escalating very fast.  I picked my head up from my pillow, called them into my room and then asked them what was going on.

    My boys love playing with duplo type blocks.  I thought when I bought three sets of 250 pieces each to supplement the two starter sets we got, it would be the end of frustrations between them about not having enough pieces.  But clearly, 1000 blocks isn’t enough because now they build bigger and better things and there’s not enough for two boys to build equally awesome structures at the same time.

    Ds7 informed me that ds8 got to build something yesterday, it’s his turn now and ds8 won’t let him take apart the rocket ship he made then.  Ds8 insisted he wanted to add on the remaining unused blocks to his rocket ship before ds7 has a turn and takes it apart.  Two boys who both wanted the same thing very much and were ready to attack each other over it.

    I told them, ‘We’re going to find a solution that’s win-win.”  Before I went further, ds8 said disgustedly, “Fine, let him have them.”  I continued, “No, we’re going to find something that everyone feels good about.  If you let him have them right now, that’s called lose-win – you’re letting yourself lose so the other person wins, but it’s really lose-lose for everyone if you don’t both feel good about this.  We’re not going anywhere until we find something that both of you will be happy with.”

    They were pretty close to blows and neither of them wanted to have a conversation, so obviously I needed to facilitate.  And this was the first time I officially introduced the concept of win-win.  There was some back and forth until it came down to this.  Ds8 said again he really wanted to add on to what he already build and ds7 can have his turn as soon as he’s done.  ‘Okay,’ I said, but how will you feel if as soon as you finish building, he starts to take it apart all your hard work?  He needs to take your project apart to have something to play with.’  (Because they like to enjoy their efforts, I made a rule that they’re allowed to leave it assembled for up to 24 hours.)

    Ds8 said he doesn’t mind if it gets taken apart immediately, as long as he can finish his project.  Ds7 complained that ds8 was going to take too long and he didn’t want to wait half an hour.  I said to ds7: ‘Ds8 said you can take apart what he makes as soon as he finishes.  But you seem to be very impatient for your turn.  It’s not going to be fun for ds8 to build if he’s feeling pressured by you, and it’s not going to be fun for you to be waiting with nothing to do. Is there something you can do that you would enjoy in the meantime?  Is there any game or puzzle you can play with at the table that would be fun for you?’

    My question reminded him that when we cleaned the playroom together yesterday, he noticed a puzzle he likes a lot but had forgotten about; he now said he’ll do the 200 piece Winnie the Pooh puzzle while he waits.

    I reiterated to them both what terms they agreed on, and asked them if they both felt good about the decision.  Yes, they said.

    Off they went to play.  Ds7 got engaged in his puzzle and ended up spending two hours putting it together, giving ds8 plenty of time to finish his project.  When ds8 finished his rocket ship, he decided to take out the small Lego blocks that he doesn’t play with often and make an intricate building project with that.  They went on to play together afterward for quite some time.

    This afternoon two groups of boys were arguing at the park and I had a lengthy discussion with them to find a workable compromise.  The older sister of two boys involved watched me and commented afterward that her brothers are young and don’t understand what they’re doing.  I told her of course they don’t, that’s the job of adults to teach them.  Without adults helping kids develop healthy negotiation skills, inevitably the strong dominate the weak.

    It’s not easy to step in to a situation like this and help your child find solutions.  And it’s much, much harder to help kids who have no experience with this way of thinking find solutions.  Children need to be guided in practicing these skills, again and again and again, and only then are they likely to come to positive resolutions on their own.

    Avivah