Something that’s important to me is being ready earlier on Friday so that I’m not busy until the last minute before candlelighting. As anyone who faces this deadline knows, it’s a challenge since somehow what needs to be done grows to match the time you have available.
Good intentions are nice but without starting preparations earlier in the week you’re unlikely to be able to be ready when you want to be. There’s just so much to do! This week I sat down with my planner on Saturday night to think about what my goal for the coming week was in order to plan for success. My goal is to light candles on time and in a relaxed way, and ideally be finished by midday Friday. I want the hours before Shabbos to become a gentle segue into the special spirit of the day versus a sudden shift in atmosphere once the candles are lit.
I work quickly and often do too many things on Friday because I can. Then there’s too much squeezed into too little time, which doesn’t make for a relaxed entrance to Shabbos.
Here’s my general plan:
Make a list of what I need to buy/do by Tuesday.
Do the shopping by Wednesday night.
Do any sewing repairs by Wednesday.
Finish all the laundry in the house by Thursday night. (I often have two kids who come home on Friday with laundry so I can’t avoid doing laundry on Friday but I can limit it to only their clothing.)
Do the bulk of cooking and baking on Thursday.
Don’t do anything on Friday that isn’t related to Shabbos preparations (organizing projects, errands, blog posts).
Friday is reserved for basic cleaning (no big organizing or cleaning projects!), baths, haircuts, nail cutting, heating up the prepared food and setting up the hot plate. All of this needs to be actively planned so that I don’t get overly relaxed, thinking everything is done and then rushing at some point in spite of all my advance preparations.
Your goals will be different than mine and the way you go about getting ready for Shabbos on time will be different as well. Thinking and planning ahead is what makes it work for us all! And lighting candles on time and in a relaxed way is spiritually powerful for us all.
I’m dedicating the merit of lighting Shabbos candles in a timely and relaxed way for the complete healing of Chaya Dina bas Sarah. She is very ill and medical doctors have said there’s nothing else they can do for her. I attended the births of Chaya Dina’s first two children years ago and this is my way of supporting her now. Please join me in transforming the way you approach Shabbos!
Jewish sages teach that the day of Shabbos (Sabbath) is a source of blessing. I’ve been reflecting on this recently and thinking about different ways that I could value and honor this special day more, to feel and receive more of the blessing in my life.
There are some things I’d like to change about how I approach Shabbos, and one of those things is what I use for candle lighting. My mother-in-law generously bought me a lovely pair of candlesticks when I got married and I supplemented with tea lights as each child was born. During an international move fifteen years ago, the candlesticks were badly damaged and couldn’t be repaired. Since then I’ve used only tea lights in simple glass holders, and when I moved I didn’t bring the holders so for almost 4 years it’s been just tea lights.
It’s not that I wouldn’t have wanted something nicer. But there’s always something more pressing that needs to be purchased. While expensive silver candlesticks aren’t my choice for a couple of reasons even though I love how they look, I’ve been thinking that getting nicer candle holders for the candles that I light for Shabbos would be more honoring of this special day.
Yesterday morning I was walking through the industrial zone. I had several errands there and since I wasn’t on a tight schedule, decided to look into each storefront as I passed in order to familiarize myself with the area.
I noticed a flyer on a storefront window about a sale they were having on crystal candelabras and went inside. It was a strange store, no lights on, a huge area with boxes and just a couple of bookshelves displaying various items. I had to actively get the attention of the man who was in charge and he seemed reluctant to answer my question about prices.
When I pressed him for the price, I learned he sells to stores in addition to his own six retail stores but he doesn’t sell to private individuals. Hence the strange storefront – it’s his warehouse. He happened to be there for just a half hour loading merchandise to take to the stores when I came in. He told me even though this wasn’t a storefront, since I was there he was willing to sell to me at the same price he sells to stores (where the prices are then marked up 200 – 400%).
Our new Shabbos candlesticks
I’m so happy with them. They’re beautiful but not overdone or something that would make anyone jealous – just the balance that I wanted. (The picture above really doesn’t do them justice – I love how the light sparkles through the prisms but you can’t see that here.)
I had such a strong feeling that G-d had led me right into this store at just this time, because I had so much wanted to do something to honor Shabbos. This ‘coincidence’ made it possible for me to buy lovely crystal candle holders at a price that was affordable for us; I wouldn’t have considered them at the typical retail price.
As our sages have said, “In the way that a man wants to go, so he is led!”
Sample fountain
Edited to add – I wrote this post in the morning and later that night went to a lecture run by Arachim. I attended a lecture of theirs in the past and wanted to give a donation to support their work but it was given on Shabbos. This time I was able to donate and they gave each person who donated a gift – mine was a kiddush fountain!
Another way to beautify one of the mitzvos of Shabbos!
Renovating the kitchen is creating a chain reaction, as we look for ways to use what we already have to create better storage solutions in different areas!
Here are the rooms that are being shifted around:
1) Younger boys bedroom – even though we lost a bedroom when we moved we don’t feel the lack since their room is spacious with plenty of room for the toys. The kitchen cabinet set that I bought included a large pantry closet, but I didn’t put it in the kitchen because I felt it would overwhelm the space and make it feels small. Instead, we moved it to the boys’s bedroom and it’s now a great toy closet.
The new closet replaced the cabinet to the left that used to be our toy cabinet, which has now been moved to yet another room that is in the progress of being reorganized – our soon-to-be home office.
Home office – many people here renovate their storage rooms to use as home offices. Originally when we discussed this option before moving, dh said he preferred to rent office space somewhere else, but he hasn’t found somewhere to rent and doesn’t want so spend more time looking for a space and then furnishing it. In the meantime he’s been working from the boys’ bedroom, which was obviously a short term solution.
We’ve decided to convert our storage room to a home office and in the past few days have made big strides forward with this. It should be operational as a separate work space tomorrow when a separate phone line will be installed.
Ds9 wanted to use the wood from the cabinets to build a desk for dh.
When he said this, I realized that rather than take the cabinet apart and rebuild something new, we could easily repurpose it. We used this cabinet since it had drawers at the top, shortened it to be a comfortable height for sitting, took off the doors and after we get the piece of marble slab remaining from the old countertop trimmed, will use it as the desktop. It looks much better than this now. 🙂 Voila! A great workspace. It even matches the storage cabinet above that sits right next to it.
Laundry room – this is such a small area that it doesn’t really deserve to be called a laundry room. It’s the laundry space. But it being so small and also being a walk-through to our yard means it’s even more helpful that it’s well-organized.
We installed one of the bottom cabinets opposite our washing machine, two top cabinets above that, and the last top cabinet above the washer.
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There was a final bottom cabinet that I planned to throw away, then realized if we turned it upside down, it would make a great frame for a rabbit hutch (more about the rabbits another time :)).
As we near the end of our kitchen renovation, we have nothing left that will end up in a landfill. Someone took the second half of the marble countertop and the final boards will be cut down to make additional shelving for one of our clothing closets. Recycling at its best!
We did things incrementally rather than rip everything out at once to minimize the disruption to our lives.
First we took down the top cabinets and put up the new top cabinets.
Then was the biggest part- pulling out the rest of the kitchen, which meant pulling out the sinks. It’s inconvenient not having a sink in the kitchen and initially this felt like a very huge disruption to my life. Then I thought about how for generations people had to go to the river to gather water, or at the least pull it up in buckets from the well, and it put the discomfort of having to walk the extra thirty seconds to the bathroom to wash dishes in the bathtub into perspective.
Once they were out, I told ds7 and ds9 they could take down the tiles on the lower part of the wall before we put in the new bottom cabinets. They very assiduously agreed to that.
Ds7 at workHaving lots of fun, too!
As I did in my last two kitchen renovations, I’m using pre-loved cabinets! The first time I did this was in 2008 – I bought a set of cabinets that had cost $20,000 ten years earlier, for just $750 – and that price also included the stainless steel sinks, exhaust hood, and washing machine. They had been very lightly used by the 90 year old seller and his 80 year old wife, and were wonderful quality. (More details of that here – how to cheaply renovate your kitchen.)
The second time I did this was two years ago. At that time, a friend who is a real estate agent and knew I wanted to buy second hand kitchen cabinets was in the middle of a disagreement between the seller and buyer of an apartment that threatened to ruin the entire deal. The buyer insisted they wanted the kitchen taken out before they completed the sale, the sellers refused. She gave me a call and asked if I wanted free kitchen cabinets. Win-win-win! Everyone was happy when I said yes.
Round three and I’m once again doing the same thing. But this time my decision to install used kitchen cabinets has attracted much more attention than ever before (this is what happens when your neighbors can see onto your porch and want to know what you’re doing :)).
Why would I buy used cabinets instead of new? Very simply, because I like quality items that are strong and made to last, and by buying used I can get the quality I want at a price I can afford. (The carpenter who installed the top cabinets for us told us he couldn’t understand why anyone would want to sell something of this quality and in this condition.) If I were buying cabinets new, I’d have to spend a bundle of money to get even the most basic cabinets in the quantities that I wanted and with the heavy use of our family, it’s likely they would begin to show signs of wear soon.
How did I find used kitchen cabinets? I know it sounds like an obscure thing to buy used, but people advertise these for sale online when they’re renovating their kitchens. I’ve seen kitchens ranging from never used to twenty years old, with price tags averaging from 2500 to 25,000 shekels.
I bought a large kitchen set that included cabinets, two sinks and a large pantry. The price included the marble countertops but I didn’t take them even though they were top quality granite and I loved the color, since I spoke with professionals who work with marble and realized it would be impossible to refabricate it to match the dimensions of our kitchen.
When I went to take a look at this kitchen I was pleased to see the cabinets were extremely well-made (the owner purchased the home from a very wealthy family who installed the kitchen). My hesitation initially was that in the pictures I saw, it looked like there weren’t many drawers at the bottom and I strongly prefer drawers. Imagine my delight when the owner opened the cabinets and I saw that every single bottom cabinet except one had pull out shelves/drawers!
It’s definitely more work to install used cabinets. These cabinets were much more complicated to use than any cabinets I’ve worked with before. Very few of them were standard sized, they varied in depth and height, a number of them had features that meant they could only be use in a particular position and of course, they were customized to the measurements of someone else’s very different kitchen layout. The trick with used cabinets is to figure out how to fit them smoothly into your kitchen and I really squeezed my head over this! It took hours and it’s been a relief to see it all coming together.
The other thing about buying used cabinets is that you become the general contractor. You need to think about what needs to be done, how it should be done, in what order, and bring in people who can do what you can’t/don’t want to do. There are a lot of details involved but I enjoy this kind of thing so I don’t think of it as difficult.
Here are some pictures of the progress.
Right side of kitchen beforeRight side of kitchen in progressLeft side of kitchen before
Left side of kitchen in progress
On Wednesday, measurements were taken for the countertops. I hope they’ll be installed together with the sinks on Monday or Tuesday.
Front view of kitchen in progress
I still have some cosmetic things left to do – retile the backsplash, buy laminate to cover the outer sides of the cabinets and cover the toekicks. Once the sinks are in, I need to have some plumbing work done and hopefully it won’t be long before we have a fully functioning kitchen!
I’m once again renovating my kitchen! Yes, it’s been less than two years since I last renovated my kitchen but that was in a different home.
I love, love, love my new apartment! But the kitchen really needs a major face lift. Not just for asthetics, but for functionality. The kitchen itself is a nice size though it currently gives a small impression and the cabinet space is very inadequate for our needs. These are the basic cabinets installed by the contractor in all the apartments when the building was built fifteen years ago.
Wall number one. The cabinets are very photogenic and look much better in pictures than in real life. You can’t see the bottom of the doors flaking, smell the strong scent of mold when opening the cabinet under the sink, or see the toekick area that is missing the covering and as a result attracts lots of small cluttery items. But even without all of that, this is still the entire working area of the kitchen.
I appreciate having two sinks even if they’re small. Fortunately the faucet pulls out or I wouldn’t have a way to wash my large pots since they don’t fit inside! Since I haven’t unpacked my dairy dishes for lack of cabinet space, having two sinks (one for dairy dishes and one for meat dishes) hasn’t been as helpful as it could have been.
(End of Wall 1 where it meets Wall 2.) Here is the corner of the last cabinet that you could see just half of in the first picture. Doesn’t make it seem any bigger, does it? 🙂
The space that was allotted for the stove was intended for ovens that are the standard 60 cm wide. Mine is 90 cm wide, which is why it’s parked at this awkward angle. To the left of the oven is my temporary solution for where to store root vegetables that don’t need refrigeration. Next to that is the edge of two large bins of kitchen items that can’t be unpacked due to lack of space.
This is Wall 3. We put a freestanding cabinet here to create some much needed storage space. It didn’t look especially good there but was extremely helpful until we sold it last week to make space to get started on renovations.
There you have it, the before pictures of my kitchen.
Stay tuned for more details about what we’re going to be replacing this with!
We are here in Ramat Beit Shemesh and LOVING our new home!
Our movers left on Monday at 3 pm and we’ve been working hard since then to get everything ready in time for Pesach. We decided to paint all of the bedrooms in addition to the main area (which our older two boys did before we moved) and it was a big job. Everyone was feeling burnt out by the non-stop work by the second day but we needed to get the painting done so that we could assemble the furniture and start upacking.
I hadn’t anticipated needing to do so much of this work and this set me back a couple of days in my unpacking plans. But now it looks wonderful and somehow we’ve managed to not only paint but to unpack almost all of our boxes in addition to being ready for Pesach! The curtains are hung, the pictures are on the wall…the season for miracles! 🙂
Moving as we did at time when everyone is super busy with holiday preparations, we didn’t expect anyone to take much notice of our arrival. I was pleasantly surprised and touched by those who reached out.
The morning of our move, a friend emailed to say she’d be happy to give me a lift to pick up some Pesach items I ordered, and was available to drive me other places as well. Then while on the bus from Karmiel to Jerusalem, I got a call from a friend in a different area who said she would be doing her Passover shopping in Beit Shemesh and offered to take me along. A bit later during the same bus ride, I got a call from someone I didn’t know who said she lives in RBS and heard we were coming – and could she make us dinner that night? I got off the phone with a smile of disbelief that quickly turned into a big lump in my throat.
We got to RBS and there was a welcome sign from a neighboring family whose son was already hard at work with our boys spackling the walls. Within a couple of hours of arriving, two boys arrived loaded with bags filled with canned foods, paper goods, and other useful things – their mother is a blog reader who despite giving birth just two weeks before somehow made the extra effort to reach out to us and send us things to make that first day or two of transition easier for us. Then an hour or two later, our mortgage broker stopped by with gifts to welcome us to our new home.
This is really different from how things in a very small community with limited manpower were! We felt so welcomed.
We love, love, love our new apartment. I feel very blessed that G-d has sent us the perfect apartment for our family – it has all the features that are important to me.
I’ve had a constant sense of tension for the past 3.5 years regarding living with very noise-sensitive and critical neighbors and have been very, very, very aware of every sound my children make. As a result, I’ve limited a lot of things that in and of themselves aren’t problematic because I don’t want them to make noise. It’s such a nice feeling to hear the sounds of neighboring children playing and to let our own children play without the constant monitoring of their every sound. It’s amazing to be able to relax and let go of the constant pressure I’ve felt for so long.
Moving isn’t easy and it isn’t fun, but I am so grateful to be where I am now!
>>I just read your post about wanting to move before Pesach, and how you tell everyone that you are moving even though you haven’t finalized anything yet.
This has resonated with me a lot, because now I am expecting, but I am scared to tell people. Even though I am showing, I am not telling to people who don’t see me, because I am very anxious – what if something happens?
I am generally not the type to tell people about my plans if it’s not 100%, because I guess if it does not work out, it will look like a failure.<<
Let’s say someone tells you they’re moving, or expecting, or something else. And then something happens and it doesn’t work out as that person planned. Do you think, “What a loser”? Or do you understand that things can change unexpectedly?
Last year I was planning to move and told everyone, and then I was burned so we changed plans. This year when we decided to move, I didn’t want to tell anyone because I was afraid they would think, ‘Yeah, right, that’s what you said last year.’
Did people who heard about our decision not to move at that time wag their heads knowingly and tell one another, ‘She’s an indecisive, wishy-washy person who can’t make a decision and stick with anything she says’? Most people are compassionate and understanding, or at least neutral, rather than judgmental if something works out differently than planned for someone else. We’re much harder on ourselves than other people are.
>>Anyway, do you think that pregnancy is different?<<
There is no failure in pregnancy or giving birth, no matter what the outcome. Embrace every moment of your pregnancy for the miracle and gift that it is. Don’t steal this special time from yourself with your fearful thoughts.
>>On the one hand, I am really anxious, and on the other hand, I think it is not positive thinking and not helpful to always think that something bad will happen to me. Is it a lack of bitachon (faith)? <<
Yes, being anxious is a lack of faith – and it’s something we all experience regularly. When I feel stressed, I take a deep breath and remind myself that I just have to do my part and G-d will do the rest, the outcome isn’t all up to me. Lately I’ve been saying the Serenity Prayer several times a day, particularly when I feel anxious about something – it’s very powerful if you focus on what you’re saying:
“G-d, grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, the courage to change the things I can, and the wisdom to know the difference.”
>>Is there a way I could overcome my worries? <<
I do believe that our thoughts are very influential in creating our reality and it’s worth the effort to make them work for you rather than against you. My suggestion to help change your negative thoughts is to ask yourself, what am I worried about? Get a clear idea of what your concern is. Then, flip it around and picture the exact opposite situation. For example, someone worrying about giving birth prematurely can picture her healthy full-term newborn infant.
Any time you feel this worry start to slip in, replace it with a better thought. At first this will feel impossible because your worry seems real and your positive picture is totally fake. But if you keep it up, your positive picture will start to feel real and that’s the place you want to get to, when your positive thoughts take on their own power because they feel real.
>>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!
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!
A few weeks ago, one of my children knocked my laptop off the table. After I picked it up, the screen was making a rattling sound but it seemed to be working fine despite the sound.
Last night, my screen suddenly stopped working. I assume that whatever got loose at that time finally disconnected. And despite the inconvenience of not having a working computer, I wasn’t too sorry about that since I appreciate not having the mental push/pull of thinking of things online that I need to do.
I had a nice productive day today, from morning to night. Sunday is always a busier day since there’s extra cleanup from Shabbos; in addition to the kitchen cleanup I took in four loads of dry clothes from the drying rack and put them away, washed and hung two more loads, cleaned the boys’ room together with them, ate breakfast, told the kids the parsha for the week at breakfast, davened with them, spent time with visiting family members from the US, went to the park with the kids and even had time for a long nap and a long session practicing my flute in addition to other things.
It was nice to feel productive and relaxed because last week I felt incredibly unproductive. I started my week with a trip to Jerusalem, which was an entire day trip. Then I spent the next day recuperating from the exhaustion of my trip. Then Tuesday, I spent another entire day in Jerusalem (left at 6 am, back at 9:40 pm), then Weds. recuperating (I get super nauseous and headachy from traveling, that’s why I need a day to get back to myself), then Thursday busy with shopping and Shabbos preparations. We enjoyed having three visiting family members in addition to three of our older kids home for Shabbos.
And now I’m preparing to be in the Jerusalem area again, this time for the next two days. This trip is for the wedding of a close friend’s daughter. Since there aren’t buses running after the wedding back to Karmiel, I’ll be staying overnight in Jerusalem, then hopefully having time to visit with my friend before heading back home. I’ll leave midday Monday and will be back Tuesday afternoon.
I don’t enjoy the traveling or leaving the kids for so long, but I’m glad tomorrow’s trip is for a happy occasion. And I’m also really glad to have gotten things in order today, spent time with everyone and just generally feel settled – it makes it easier to leave when I feel like I’ve been on top of things.
Remember earlier in the week I wrote about wanting to upgrade the way that I approach Shabbos?
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