I have had a long and exhausing day, and I am totally wiped out!  (It doesn’t help that I had a terrible night’s sleep last night – which came from trying to go to bed earlier than usual and tossing and turning all night long.)  My day started with a 7 am visit with my midwife.  I really appreciate that she does home visits; it simplifies my life so much.  I asked her about her thoughts on group B strep and will try to share her response when I’m not so tired, but basically she’s not concerned that it’s an issue for me.  She also was able to tell me that the baby is no longer in a posterior position, which is nice to know since though babies come in all different ways, generally a posterior labor tends to be harder and longer.   

Then I did my monthly shopping – I haven’t been for 7 weeks, and I’m so glad to now be stocked up before giving birth.  My wonderful dh rearranged his work schedule so he could come with me – he knew I was a little apprehensive about being so far from home with the kids so close to my due date, and it gave me a lot of peace of mind that he was there just in case (and you know how once you’re prepared for a situation, then what you were prepared for never ends up happening? :)). This was the first time that my dh has ever gone with us, though I’ve been doing bulk shopping like this for a very long time now, and I appreciated that he got a sense of what’s involved in doing this.   

I keep passing personal mental milestones – first was getting past the three weeks early mark when the last baby was born, then 2 weeks from another baby, then today was 10 days (yet another baby) – and I’ve gotten through all of the guests that I invited for yom tov and Shabbos and just have to make it to a couple of bar mitzvas (or at least the one tomorrow night), and then I’m home free.  🙂  At this point I actually think I could make it to my due date or even past it, something I could only hope for a few weeks ago!  Tonight someone called about coming for dinner Friday night, and as much as I hated to say no, I really want to be able to relax and not worry about if I go into labor or not.  I’m not in a rush one way or another – as one of my kids who has been very excited about a new baby said to me yesterday, ‘when it was further away it was harder to wait, but now that we’re so close to the due date, you know it will be sometime soon so it doesn’t matter so much if the baby is born this week or next’. 

We had a really nice day – lots of food shopping, which isn’t majorly exciting, but my kids are pretty unspoiled and I generally get them some kind of treat while they’re out (today I said they could each spend .50 on whatever they wanted – big spender, aren’t I?  lol – but it goes far enough in discount grocery stores for them to enjoy it).  On the way home we stopped at a living history museum.  We didn’t spend long there because it was so close to closing time, but it was enough time for everyone to run around for a while, feed some horses, climb around the playground – maybe an hour or so.  My two littlest ones stayed with their grandparents, which was a nice break for the rest of us (my 19 month old literally doesn’t stop moving from one thing to another all day long, and constantly needs to be watched – he takes a tremendous amount of energy to keep up with).  But absence makes the heart grow fonder, and after a few hours away, they were both cuter to us all then ever! 

Tomorrow we’ll hopefully get the bulk foods put away in their places and then we’ll be set.  My kids are hoping that I’ll take them to a park, and if they can get their academic work done and finish up with the unpacking before the day gets too late, then I’ll be happy to do that!

Avivah

Friday ended up being a day with a lot accomplished, but none of it what I was originally planning!  I wanted to get a bunch of gardening related stuff done, but realized my dh was feeling a bit swamped by all the home repair type projects waiting for his attention.  So I thought that I’d try to give him a bit of a boost by applying myself and the kids to his list. 

I did get ds10 to mow the yard, which was the only thing on my list done.  But the garage is such a disorganized disaster that getting it out of there was a big deal.  (Organizing the garage was on dh’s list.)  Ds15 took a lot of initiative in getting it into shape – there was a huge pile on the yard where he pulled everything out so that there was room to move and rearrange things.  Then he did something I suggested almost three years ago when we moved in – he built supports that use the space above.  Now all the sukka boards and schach are up there, and that freed up lots of space below.  I enjoy finding ways to use ‘dead’ space effectively!

I was shocked at what a disaster the garage was – it’s not my jurisdiction, and I very rarely go in.  I send kids to get things from there or put things in, but it’s been over six months since I set foot in it myself.  It was definitely a good thing that I didn’t know how bad it was.  So hopefully now finding tools and supplies will be much easier than it has been for quite a while.  Just in time for the summer, which is when you need things from the garage the most!

I spent a couple of hours out there organizing, but when dh came out to the garage and joined ds15 and his younger siblings who were enjoying helping out (ds10, dd8, ds6), I headed inside for a nap.  I was pretty wiped out.  My dh’s sister came to visit an hour before Shabbos with her two daughters, which wasn’t exactly the most convenient time, but I slept through their visit.  (Being in the middle of the ninth month is a good excuse because no one can be insulted by that. :))  Everyone else made themselves available to chat with them, though, except for ds15, who was hard at work until the last minute.

It was so nice to be able to get this done and I was very appreciative to my dd14 and dd12 for handling everything related to Shabbos preparations.  Most of the food was in the freezer, which simplified things, but you know how there’s always plenty to do except for that! 

Avivah

Well, the Pesach things are packed and the boxes are waiting to be put into the garage (need daylight for that!), and the kitchen is basically back to normal.  Actually, I think it always looks better than normal right after we turn over, since every surface is so clean and clear!

I was visiting a friend at the end of yom tov, and we got to see their family kick into high gear as soon as yom tov ended.  I enjoyed seeing her husband and his three visiting adult brothers go into action – wow!  They really were some team.  They said they grew up doing it, so now it’s automatic for them.  I told my kids to watch them and get some inspiration since they made it look fun, but as my kids watched how fast everything was getting done, a couple of them said it was kind of discouraging because it wouldn’t be like that in our house.  I commented to my friend about this, and she said they do something special at the end of it all that everyone looks forward to.  We do that when we turn the kitchen over for Pesach, but not when we turn it back over for chometz, and I thought that was a great idea.

My kids did a great job working together – everyone over the age of 6 stayed up (the 6 and 8 year olds by request, the ten year old because I told him he had to :)) to help.  My main job was reading to the three year old and putting him to sleep, then supervising everyone and making notes to include on the boxes for next year.  (I did more later on when the kids had finished their work.)  My dh was able to help out for a while before he had to go to sleep – he has to leave for work very early in the morning, and wouldn’t have gotten a decent amount of sleep even if he hadn’t helped out, so I really appreciate him taking time he didn’t have to pitch in.  Right before he went to sleep, he got a call from my friend, informing him that she ordered pizza for us and the pizzas were on the way!

Wasn’t that amazingly sweet of her to think of us!  I’m sure she was thinking it would be something nice for my kids at the end of the night, and it was.  There was some time between when I told my kids about the call and when the pizza arrived (apparently there was a very long line at the pizza store), and boy, did that give them all a second wind to keep going!  They really enjoyed it, and though the night ended very late for everyone (they went to sleep about a half hour ago, and it’s 2 am now), it ended with a good feeling from everyone.

I’m so glad that we have a decent amount of food in the freezer to make tomorrow a more relaxed day, especially since we have guests coming for Shabbos lunch.  It could too easily feel like non stop cooking and preparing if we didn’t have so much done.  I also have a bunch of things I want to accomplish outside of the kitchen (mostly related to preparing the garden and cleaning up the yard) but I have to see how everyone is doing in the morning, since I don’t want anyone to feel overloaded.  I’ve told them all to sleep in as late as they want, but my ds10 and ds15 are unlikely to, as they go to minyan together every morning, and haven’t missed a morning in six months, regardless of what kind of weather they’ve had to walk in!  So the two of them will end up needing naps when they get home, I think!

Wishing everyone a day of serenity and positivity!

Avivah

I hope that you all had a wonderful Shabbos!  Here it was beautifully sunny and warm, and just waking up to sun shining in the window is enough to get my day off to a great start. 🙂

Today we did something we haven’t done for quite some time – we had two families for Shabbos lunch.  We’ve had periods of having a table full of unrelated guests, which has its own appeal, but we’ve decided in the past that it’s not the way we most enjoy hosting.  At this point in our lives, we prefer to have just one family at a time or one to three singles, so we have time to better get to know them.  But both of these families are small, knew each other, and this was the only week before Pesach that worked out for each of them.  So because at the point I invited them I wasn’t inviting anyone past this Shabbos (from here on I’m going on a week by week basis, in case I give birth early again), I thought it would be good to have them both rather than not be able to have one of them for a number of weeks.  

It was a mistake.  It was a nice meal – a very nice meal, actually – but doing this was a good reminder of why I prefer to have one family at a time.  My ds10 really liked it, and said how interesting the meal was (“there wasn’t one minute with no one talking!”), but I found the non stop conversations and cross conversations unrelaxing.  Today, I didn’t have the usual warm feeling I usually have when we say good bye to our guests, even though nothing could have gone more smoothly.  It’s strange to spend three hours with people and not feel much more connected to them when they leave than when they came, but that’s how it was.  They were all great people, but the conversation jumped so fast from one thing to another that there wasn’t really time to discuss anything  – a couple of comments on one thing, and boom – off someone went on a different tangent.  I like stimulating discussion, but at this speed, nothing got to the point of being stimulating! 

I think a lot of this depends on who you are and who your guests are, and there are plenty of families we could have had together and not been left with this feeling.  Today it was almost like a competition to try to get a word in!  I was thinking that though I very much enjoy having company, I don’t enjoy ‘entertaining’, which is what lunch today was about; I find it draining, shallow, and superficial.  (To clarify, I’m not referring to having the needy over; rather to people we invite to better get to know them.)  To me, it’s the connecting and fellowship with others that makes it worth my time and effort to open my home.  Without that, I feel like I’ve just been a vehicle for people to enjoy a free meal. 

We tend to assume that everyone invites guests for the same reason, for the mitzva.  But it’s really not true.  Inside, we all have different motivations and goals, and like with everything, the more we’re in touch with what our needs and abilities are, the more productively we can use our energies.  This has been a good opportunity for me to mentally clarify my goals in hosting guests, and clarity will serve me well in the future when I invite people over!

Avivah 

I was thinking today what a beautiful time of year this is.  Don’t you think so?  But it seems that because Pesach is around the corner, it’s easy to forget what a special time it is.  It’s so easy to focus on all the cleaning, endless lists of details, with a resulting feeling of time pressure.  That’s really a shame because it’s nice when everyone feels positive anticipation regarding Pesach instead of dread about all that has to be done.  As I’ve said already, it helps me to make a schedule that is relaxed.  But even a relaxed schedule can be a source of pressure if you feel you’re not keeping up with what you want to do. 

Yesterday I became aware that though my basement was cleaned for Pesach, it needed to be re-organized in order to look as though it had been cleaned.  My kids are great cleaners, but I’m the organizer.  And if I want it done, I have to do it myself or be there to direct them where to put what.  I can’t really expect them to intuit what I want put where – if all the games are on the shelf, they don’t care if all the same size boxes are stacked on top of one another or if they’re haphazardly stacked with small and larger boxes mixed up.  Anyway – my plan for today was to start the main floor, and the basement is very clearly not the main floor!  I had about five minutes where I was deciding if I should feel bothered that it wasn’t done and go ahead with my schedule or just let go of my expectation for the day and make the basement more orderly.  I find when I’m feeling pressure, the best thing to do is go slower.  When I go faster, it makes me feel more tense or pressured, but slowing down my external activity allows my mind to slow down and think productively. 

So I chose to start doing whatever I could, and to do it as long as I felt I could.  It was so relaxing, once I let go of accepting having a different plan for the day.  I enjoy putting things in order and knowing that things are all in their place.  Since most of the kids were busy with various activities outside of the house, there were only four kids home with me, and I put the youngest in for a nap because he wasn’t enhancing my sense of inner quiet.  🙂  (A young child in nonstop motion who climbs into and pulls out everything all day long can do that, you know!)   I can’t say there’s much I did today that needed to be done for Pesach – I’m the first to say that you have to differentiate between spring cleaning and Pesach cleaning – but I found it productive and enjoyable.  It could have gone faster but I was enjoying the mellow pace, and actually, I’m not physically at the point in pregnancy where I can go very fast and not pay the price. 

It may be counter intuitive to slow down when you have more to do than you feel you can do, but I’ve always found it helpful to me.  Somehow, everything that needs to get done, gets done.  Maybe not everything you want to have done happens, but everything that needs to get done, does.  Going slower when everything inside of you is going into overdrive allows you to re-center yourself and refocus on what is most important.  I tend to do things quickly and I know from first hand experience that it’s not hard to shift from productively busy to frenetic and stressed if you aren’t careful.   Deliberate action really helps me to be deliberate in my thinking.  And it’s that inner calm that helps me keep in mind what my goal for Pesach is.  That goal isn’t a sparkling house, though it’s a nice thing to have and I like when that happens, too!  My true goal is for all of us to enjoy this time of year, to look forward to Pesach, and to have time for spiritual preparation as well as physical preparation.  I like to go into the seder well rested and calm, and I want everyone in my family to feel that, too.  That can’t happen if I get caught up in obsessing over all that needs to be done, and how much faster or better someone else is doing it. 

So the next time you start to feel anxious or pressured, try this.  Take a deep breath (or three), and then slow down. 

Avivah

>>I started budgeting five years ago when I got on board Dave Ramsey’s program. It changed our lives and resulted in downsizing from 3200 sq. ft. to 1500 sq. ft.. This resulted in saving lots on our utility bills as well and no more gardeners and house cleaners:) One of the higher bills for us is orthodontics and tuition for the yeshiva student/limudei kodesh tutor for the hschooler. These are not really negotiable. I do have a somewhat generous “blow” fund as well for sheitels (cheap ones), slurpees and such.<<

Thank you for sharing your experience, Michelle.  I think people drastically underestimate the power of budgeting and getting their expenses under control to make a huge difference in their finances.  I love how you chose to downsize to a smaller home to make your budget work – housing is the main area in our budget that I very much want to adjust but haven’t yet found a way to do it.  I keep thinking about it, though! 

I hear alot of complaining about expenses, particularly at this time of year.  I don’t begrudge anyone the fun of complaining to a friend and getting some sympathy.  We all enjoy that occasionally.  But it’s the underlying attitude that I’d like to address. 

Too many people claim that most of their expenses are non negotiable (some, like tuition, really aren’t negotiable if you feel your kids need to be in private school), but most expenses have a lot of wiggle room.  Until a person recognizes that they’re making lifestyle choices that affect their spending, they’re going to see themselves as victims.  It’s a lot more prevalent for people to complain about the unrealistic standards of the communities they live in – the material expectations of what kind of simchas/events to host, what kind of vacations to take/clothes to buy, what kind of foods to serve both during the week and for Shabbos/holidays, even the temperature they keep their thermostat set at – than to take personal responsibility and recognize that they are making choices.  

When someone says “I can’t afford it”, “I don’t have time”, etc, they may be accurate.  (Or not. :))  But even if that’s true, it seems to me that one’s energy is better spent by looking at what they can to do change a situation than to bemoan their fate.   I think that asking “How can I make this situation better?” is a much better strategy to living a happy and productive life than saying, “I can’t do anything about it”.   Maybe we will find something we can do to improve our situation if we look hard enough.  (I’ve learned a tremendous amount over the years by being open to those who were successful in the areas I wanted to succeed in.)  It’s certainly a lot more empowering to focus on where our power lies than in where it doesn’t.

Avivah