Category: Homemaking

Whenever the seasons change, it’s a big organizational procedure around here.  Putting away all the clothes that aren’t going to be used any more this season, getting out the clothes everyone needs for (in this case) the winter, for ten people is a big job.  I try to do as little shopping for brand new items as I possibly have to, and I’m usually successful, to the point that needing to purchase something new is unusual.  But that requires a lot of organization to make it work.

Several weeks ago, I spent hours sorting through clothes, and reorganizing all the toddler and infant boy clothes.  Since our  youngest two are 17 months apart, they are almost overlapping on sizes, but not quite.  My past sizing labels weren’t accurate enough to make pulling out a box as simple as is usually is, so I decided to do a major rehaul and box the clothes into more specifically labeled boxes.  So I did, but when I finished, I had seven piles of newly reorganized clothes and no boxes to put them in!  Yes, it hasn’t been neat looking up there since then.  🙂

A couple of days ago, my husband was able to bring home a bunch of good size boxes (it took a long time because the store I used to get them from started crushing them instead of putting them where customers could take them, so I had to find a new source of boxes the size I like), and I spent the first 3.5 hours of today repacking and relabelling everything.  This isn’t a job I especially enjoy, but fortunately, it doesn’t have to be done more than a couple of times a year in a major way.  The pleasure is in having it done and knowing that everyone has their clothing needs met, their closets and dressers are filled with things that fit and that they can use (versus things that are too small, too thick, too out of fashion….)

I do smaller updates throughout the year when I get around to it; there’s always someone growing in or out of something, so it never happens that someone’s clothing situation stays static for long.  In those cases, I tell the kids, after me going through the clothes and removing those I don’t want to pass along to another child, to take their clothes that no longer fit to the attic and put them in a bag, and I put them in the appropriate boxes once I get enough to make it worth my time.

Basically, my system is very simple – I think systems have to be simple, or they don’t work for long.  Boys and girls clothes are boxed separately, each labeled with the size.  Determining the size to label the box is usually what I find hardest.  Do I label it ‘size 4′, even though my child wore it at age 2?  Or do I label it according to the age the child wore it, in which case the sibling coming after them may have a different growth cycle and the labelling won’t be accurate for them?  My decision after trying it both ways, is to label according to the size marked on the clothing, which is constant.  Then I look for the size I need based on child’s build; for example, my 9.5 year old son is growing out of the size 12s and into the size 14s.   

Each box looks like this: GIRLS – sz. 4; MENS – small; INFANT – 12 mo.  I mark it with a heavy black marker so that it stands out when looking at it quickly.  I stack all the boys’ clothes boxes along one wall in the attic, in size order.  There is a knee wall there, which means it is a low wall because of the slant of the roof, so it only fits 2 boxes high.  Along the other end of the same wall, I have all of the girls’ clothes boxed, also in size order.  We go up to the attic twice a year officially when we turn everyone’s closets over, but whenever an individual child needs something, I just send them up and tell them what box to look in.  Having them clearly labelled and lined up makes it really easy for any of us to find what we need. 

 These boxes include all of their basic clothing, but not shoes or outerwear.  Outerwear is kept in the basement closet- that includes ten raincoats, ten light jackets, ten winter jackets, a bunch of pairs of snowpants, snowsuits for infants and toddlers, and dress coats for a number of us.  Yes, it’s a lot of stuff.  🙂  Shoes are boxed separately, though also in the attic; the boots go with the shoes.  One day I’ll try to post my handy system for keeping track of what shoes I have in the house without having to dig through a box of thirty pairs to see if there’s anything in the size I need. 

Now that I gave you a basic idea of how I organize the clothes, I’ll share how this works to save lots of money.

Avivah

A few days ago I did a big shopping trip and bought four varieties of apples.  There were about eight kinds at the store, and I hadn’t seen most of them.  So I decided to buy several kinds and see what the difference in taste between thered was.

But two of the kinds resembled one another and got put into the same box once we were home, so I have no way to know what those are like compared to one another.  The least expensive, and least attractive, apple, was called Honey Crisps.  I bought a bushel of those, and now that we’ve had them, I’m sorry I didn’t buy more!  These apples are incredibly good – they’re sweet, crunchy, and taste really good dehydrated as well.  The other varieties that I remember the names of that I bought are Empire and Jonathan, both of which are good but nowhere near as good as these. 

We all have been really enjoying these and have only a handful of them left – that means a bushel of Honey Crisps have been eaten in four days, and they haven’t even been our only fruits!  The kids have been having plums and bananas, but these are definitely the favorite for now.  If you can pick some up at your local stores, I really recommend trying them!

Avivah

Remember a week ago that my son burnt out my mixer?  Well, less than a week later, on Thursday night my daughter turned on our grain grinder, and it made an unpleasant sound and started smoking.  Have you ever noticed that things seem to happen in sets?  My food processor recently stopped working, too! 

First thing the next morning, I went looking for my invoice and checking to see what the warranty on it was.  We’ve had it less than two years, and I thought the warranty was probably for one year.  It was a very pleasant suprise to discover that it has a lifetime warranty!  When I called the company, they were an absolute pleasure to deal with.  They immediately assured me that they’d take care of the problem, either repairing or replacing the part that is broken.  They have to look at it to see what’s wrong, but the representative I spoke to said that it sounds like the motor burnt out, and if that’s the case, they’ll put a new motor in the current grinder’s casing, which sounds great to me!

I called the online company I bought it from since I was having trouble opening the attachment that they originally sent the invoice as (there was no hard copy included with the order, or I would have saved that separately).  They couldn’t find any record of my purchase, and suggested that I bought it from a different company than them – I was able to forward the original email they had sent with the invoice for their clarification.  And fortunately I was able to open the original invoice and print it out, because without that, the lifetime warranty wouldn’t be worth anything. 

I asked dh and ds to look in the garage for the original box to send it back in, but they both told me it wasn’t there. But later in the day, when dh was reorganizing the garage, he found it.  That will make it easier to pack appropriately to send it in for service.  It’s so nice to have something go wrong and know that it will be taken care of at minimal cost to me!

Avivah

My husband and I don’t go out together on an official basis much.  I love the suggestion to have a regular date night, but have found it not too practical for us.  It used to be the pressure to find a babysitter had me feeling so uptight and tense that it would take me an hour of the two hours we were out to unwind. 

Now we have two kids old enough to stay home with the youngers, so babysitting isn’t an issue.  But my husband often works nights, and on the nights he doesn’t and is home for dinner, a night out doesn’t seem to be the most relaxing way to spend time together.  But honestly, he would be willing to go out if I would.  I tend to find it nicer to relax at home together instead of feeling like we have to go out.  (Though I love when we can go away for 1 – 3 days, something we haven’t done for 2 years now, and aren’t likely to do for quite a bit longer, until the baby is older.) 

Tonight, though, we managed to get ourselves out, without any kids in tow!  A local composer whom we got to know several years ago when he was a neighbor was having a world premiere of his trombone concerto tonight, and I was able to get free tickets for the performance.  Wow, was it beautiful.  His wasn’t the only piece being performed; there were several others, like Mozart and Beetoven.  But his was the one that a big deal was made over, and he and his wife really appreciated seeing us there.

For me, it was nice to see that his career has really taken off in the last couple of years.  When we had his family over for dinner several years ago, he expressed what a challenging field it was.  And the experience of listening to a live orchestra perform music composed by someone I knew made it a much richer listening experience.

By the way, in case others have this issue, my husband and I have a different set of priorities when it comes to getting somewhere on time.  I really like to be on time, and he likes to get there at some point in the evening.  And that can create some challenges, like tonight when he said he needed to eat before we went.  I said fine, but suggested that eating and being on time weren’t mutually exclusive, and asked him to eat with an eye on getting there in a timely way.  While he was eating, I changed my outfit, organized baby clothes in the attic for storage, took winter clothes that fit my baby to his dresser, took out the clothes that aren’t weather appropriate for him and the toddler from that dresser, and finally went downstairs, thinking he would be waiting for me.  My husband was still eating.  In a very leisurely way.  And we were supposed to have left a half hour before.  There have been times in the past that I’ve been so bothered by this apparent disregard for getting out on time that I’ve let it get in the way of wherever we’ve gone once we finally got out the door.  But I’m finding it helpful to remind myself to keep the big picture in front of me, so that I don’t react negatively to things that are minor.  The big picture was wanting to go out to spend a nice evening with my husband to build our relationship.  Saying anything about how late it was would only have created unnecessary tension – it certainly wouldn’t have gotten us there on time – so I didn’t say anything.  During the intermission of the concert, he told me he really appreciated that I stayed relaxed even though we got there a half hour late. 

So in spite of the initial challenge, we really enjoyed ourselves, and most importantly, we achieved our goal of spending time together in a way that enhanced our relationship.

Avivah

I had a very late night (it was 3 am when I got to bed – should I call that an early morning instead?) last night, so I committed to myself to get into bed early tonight.  But before I do, I want to share a thought that’s been on my mind for the last few days which I’ve found helpful.

I have a tendency to feel inadequate if I don’t constantly meet my expectations of myself, regardless of how legitimate a reason there may be for not doing something, or how unrealistic the expectation may have been.  Even with awareness of this negative tendency, since I have yet to maintain a smile on my face and a perfectly sunny disposition every moment throughout every day, I continue to periodically fall into the trap of negative thinking. 

Last week, I read something somewhere that made me think of us moms, who do so much every day but so often feel like we aren’t good enough, or haven’t done enough (unless I’m unique and all of you never feel like that?) – about the importance of having ‘grace’ with ourselves when we’re feeling under the weather for any reason.  The word ‘grace’ really resonated with me, since to behave graciously to others is a mark of fine character and doesn’t imply that there’s a flaw that needs to be forgiven; it’s about understanding and pure acceptance of who and where we are right now with no judgement at all.  Isn’t it amazing how we don’t think to extend ourselves the same graciousness that we routinely show to those we interact with on a regular basis?

 I mentioned in my last post that I’ve been feeling really out of kilter for a few weeks (since Rosh Hashana), and I keep reminding myself of this idea.  I’m finding it helps me to recenter myself, which is helpful until I physically get recentered by being back to my normal sleeping/living schedule!  I hope some of you find this thought helpful to as well.

Avivah

It’s so nice to be back with all of you!  The holidays have been wonderful, but I have to be very honest and say that I’m really glad that I’ll be able to get back to my regular weekly routine.  Particularly the way they fell out this year, it’s been a marathon for three weeks of cooking, cleaning, cooking, cleaning, etc.  And my sleeping schedule is totally out of whack, along with my baby’s – this morning I didn’t fall asleep until 4 am.

Four of my kids volunteered to help out at the synagogue on Sunday to prepare a communal meal (served yesterday for lunch) for 120 people.  Except for the chef who also volunteered, they were the only people who were able to take time out of their schedules to help out – it’s such a busy time for everyone.  We weren’t planning to attend the communal meal, because after a busy morning at shul (synagogue), we wanted to have a quiet family meal together.  The kids just helped out because they like to.  But the night before, the person in charge of organizing it found out that we weren’t planning to be there, and told my dh they really wanted us to come, and were waiving the fee for our family. 

So we agreed – the kids were happy with that idea! – but then when the time for the meal rolled around (for which two of my kids spent another hour helping set up), there wasn’t a table where we could sit together as a family; they had all been half taken by smaller families.  It’s not my idea of a holiday meal to have my family scattered in a large crowd over three tables, so we decided to head for home.  And we had a very nice meal, in spite of the particularly strong disappointment of a couple of the kids. 

Last night, after the holiday was over, the man who organized it told us how disappointed they were that we didn’t stay, and that we were welcome to take home any of the food that was left.  There were a bunch of pans (9×13) of beef stew, as well as a couple of stuffed peppers and another of rice, so we took six pans of the stew, one of peppers, and one of rice.  Oh, and two pans of chicken – I almost forgot that because it went straight into the freezer.  We’ll have one tomorrow night for Shabbos dinner. 

They were so glad that we were taking it; I think they felt badly that my kids did so much work and didn’t get to taste anything they had prepared, plus it was really nice food so of course they were glad that it would be used (though I know they would have looked for people to take it, they wouldn’t have let it get thrown away).  Usually I wouldn’t know what to do with so much stew, since I don’t have room in my fridge or freezer, but you know that now that I’m an avid canner, I’m not limited by those petty considerations anymore! 

I couldn’t believe how meaty the stew was – each pan was mostly meat chunks with a few pieces of carrots and potatoes (the opposite ratios of how I make stew, lol!), and the gravy, which didn’t look so appetizing when cold.  I put the meat, carrots, and potatoes into a large pot and added water, leaving the gravy behind (you’re not supposed to can things with gravy or flour, because the thickener can prevent heat from being properly distributed when being canned), and it was amazingly good when it was heated up and thinned down.  So far I’ve canned seven quarts, and have another batch of quart jars heating on the stove heating up right now, along with a big pot of the stew, and I think this will finish the stew off. 

When ds15 went to shul this morning, he was told again how disappointed they were we didn’t stay, and urged to take any leftovers.  Ds told them we did take some, but they found a couple dozen hotdogs to send him home with that we hadn’t noticed the night before.  I’ll do something with those next week – I have a bunch of hot dog recipes on one of my recipe pages (I think I told you how I section my recipe notebook into pages with nine recipes per side) so I’ll see what will look good.

For dinner, we’re having the thick meaty gravy mixed with rice – I think everyone will enjoy that; there are still plenty of little pieces of meat in it.  My fridge was stuffed last night with pans of food, but I’m working my way down to being able to see some space when I open it up!  🙂

Avivah

My nine year old son woke me up with exciting news today!  He informed me that our garage had been broken into last night, and our bikes and lawnmower stolen.  Then he told me that the thieves decided for fun to stick some of the bikes they decided not to take into my neighbor’s garage, so they didn’t take all of them after all.   The ones that were left were obviously the ones that weren’t in great shape, but at least some of them were left.  I jokingly said that it saved my husband the job of reorganizing the garage to make more space, so it wasn’t all a loss!

Now my dear 9 year old son has been baking cookies for his business.  I told him I was very unthrilled with the idea of him baking today, and that for this one time, I wanted him and his partner to use his friend’s kitchen instead of ours.  But they couldn’t do that because his friend’s family had other plans.  Then he told me his friend couldn’t come and would bake on his own, so I somewhat reluctantly agreed.  The reason I agreed was that they had taken orders for over 10 family packs (usually they sell door to door), and I didn’t want to keep him from being able to meet his commitments. 

When he started baking, I supervised him, but since he’s been making these cookies on his own for a while now, I haven’t felt it’s been necessary.  That was too bad, since today he decided to make five times the already large recipe, and filled the very large mixing bowl to the very top with a dense mixture of chocolate chip cookie dough.  Surprise – when he turned it on, it started making a very unpleasant sound and stopped running.  I called the Bosch repair company, and it seems that he managed to ruin the transmission. 🙁  I really wasn’t pleased with that; their transmission failure rate is less than 1% over 20 years, and I’ve only owned my Bosch mixer for eight years.  When you get a mixer this expensive (it was $500 at the WA dealer my mom bought it, with the accessories), you look at it as an investment, as something that you’ll use forever. 

The problem with owning such an expensive mixer is that it isn’t cheaply repaired or replaced.  The advantage is that it’s such a high quality that repairs should be uncommon, but I think that might not be taking into account nine year olds and their idea of what is appropriate usage.    I give my kids a lot of leeway in using things that a lot of parents wouldn’t, and for the most part, that’s worked out well.  But there are times like right now that leave me feeling a little grumpy and irritated.

Avivah

I hope everyone who was celebrating Rosh Hashana had a wonderful holiday!  We certainly did.

Leading into the holiday things were very, very hectic, due to a number of factors that were all outside of my control and planning – it was actually remarkable to have so many things all fall through in such a short time when I had planned everything so thoroughly in advance (I won’t detail what those things were – but when I told my good friend yesterday about them, she got tense just listening to them).  So much so, that it was clear to me that it was a Heaven sent test, giving me the opportunity to respond with calm and positivity to all the pressures, even under the circumstance of having only 6 hours to complete all of my holiday preparations for two days (we do all the cooking in advance).  I kept reminding myself to keep the most important thing in front of me, and the most important thing is to have an atmosphere of joy, not tension or frustration, no matter how much did or didn’t get done.  When I say I kept reminding myself, I really mean I kept reminding myself.  I was having ongoing conversations in my head with myself, saying, “Just keep your mouth shut and smile”, “don’t make her feel bad for not having done what she said”, on and on and on, and I wasn’t sure I was going to make it until the holiday began and I knew I had successfully kept a good attitude.

But the reality of having so little time was that some things that I wanted to have done weren’t done at all, or weren’t done in the way I generally try to do them – like, my house was mostly in order but not sparkling at all.  The floors were swept, but not mopped, etc.  And I thought to myself on Monday night how glad I was we weren’t having guests or I would have felt pretty embarrassed.   

Well, I really, really believe that G-d is the One who orchestrates everything (and I kept telling myself that on Monday afternoon when one thing after another kept happening), and that thought immediately came to mind today when we were asked at the last minute to host a young couple with two toddlers for lunch.  It seems they were visiting from another city and didn’t have an invitation for this meals, so when my daughter gave me the message from my husband, asking if we could have them, I sent her back to tell him it would be fine. 

As I was walking home from synagogue a few minutes later with our guests, I was thinking of the condition of my house and wondering what I would pull together for the meal.  Then I remembered that I ran out of napkins the night before, and asked my husband to go a couple of houses back to borrow some from a friend of mine, and then he could catch up with us.  We got home and my husband still hadn’t caught up with us.  As I was busily getting the table set and the food warming up, I reminded myself that more important than if every corner was clean was the atmosphere.  And then I started wondering where my husband could be.  After 15, then 20 minutes, I started to worry what could be taking him so long.  Finally he walked in and announced, “We have another guest!”

You might be wondering how he found another guest in the short walk home – I certainly was!  It seems someone had been driving down the main street where he was walking, and stopped at the side of the road to ask him where there was a synagogue he could go to and give a donation today.  My husband got into a conversation with him, told him today wouldn’t be a good day for synagogues to accept donations, but since he was in the neighborhood, why not come to our house for a holiday lunch?  The young man was embarrassed to accept, but my dh spent 20 minutes convincing him that we would love to have him, so he finally agreed, and they walked in together. 

So clearly I was meant to have holiday guests, despite me thinking my house wasn’t clean enough – and it was all orchestrated from Above.  🙂  Our meal was really lovely, and I had plenty of food.  The guests all enjoyed the food and the company, and we enjoyed having all of them.  My younger kids loved playing with their toddlers and taking care of them (their mother didn’t mind it, either :)), and our older kids were very interested in our adult conversation.

It turns out that our guest who my dh convinced to leave his car and come to us is here on business from Israel, and is the son of the owner of one of the largest export companies in that country.  It’s good I didn’t know that before he came, or I would have felt like our home was inadequate, too small or too simple, or something, especially with things being the way they were – but he loved being here and we really enjoyed having him.  I had to leave before my guests left because I had a prior commitment, but my dh and kids said he was choked up when he left.  The couple with the toddlers was also lovely – hopefully we’ll have the opportunity to have all of them again in the future!

So my lesson for myself in all of this is was, to stay open to the messages that come my way, and not get caught up in thinking that I know what’s best and how things have to be.  And to realize that clearly are the way they’re supposed to be according to Someone Else’s plan, and instead of getting frustrated or resentful at what seem to be roadblocks, I can skip that and go right to the acceptance and even joy of what is.   

Avivah

Today it was pouring outside all day long!  Ever since I started gardening, I’m in tune with the weather in a different way than I used to be.  I now think more about if it’s good for my garden than if it’s convenient for me.  So usually when it rains, I think how glad I am that the watering is being done for me!

Our basement flooded a bit as a result of the heavy rains, though.  On Friday, I finally finished up organizing the entire basement (I told you I reorganized the storage room in the basement, and a bunch of stuff got shifted to the main area when I was cleaning up).  It was such a nice feeling to know that despite the inch of water in my house, nothing was left on the floor that could have been damaged – and before yesterday, there would have been plenty.  So I’m very grateful that all that really was affected was the pile of unwashed laundry on the laundry room floor.  And that’s not a very big deal, since it has to get washed anyway! 🙂

Have you noticed when you start looking, that you’ll find small miracles like this happening all the time?  Life is so good!

Avivah