Avivah Werner

Category: Homemaking

  • Kitchen progress, my new tiling project just for fun

    Kitchen progress, my new tiling project just for fun

    After an extended push during the summer for a couple of weeks to get our kitchen renovation done, we were left with a lot of details remaining when the school year began.

    As much as I wanted everything finished asap, I made the decision to consciously slow down and not be uptight about things taking longer than I wanted.  The intense non-stop pace of the initial project was incredibly draining and I didn’t want to burn myself or my boys out getting it all finished.

    It was a good choice to make, because it allowed me to set things to the side during the busy start of school year period, followed by the non-stop busy holiday period. I was able to do the things I needed to do then without stressing about the unfinished kitchen and bedroom work.

    My eleven year old son told me a couple of days ago, “I like how we’re working on the house now. It’s not so fast but it’s not pressured and it’s actually fun.” Exactly.

    When I allow myself the time and don’t tell myself I should have gotten it all done already, I enjoy doing the renovation work! My current attitude is that it will all get done when it gets done, and it’s okay for it to take as long as it takes. I can’t tell you how freeing that is.

    This past week I glued on laminate strips to the exposed cabinet surfaces in the kitchen and tiled half of the toekick surface (the toekick is the recessed surface under the kitchen cabinets). I planned to finish the toekick tiling today but we ran out of glue. Oh, well, another day. While the kitchen and bedroom are fully functional, what remains are the small aesthetic details like these, and getting these done make a big difference!

    I also tiled the backsplash behind the stove late Thursday night. That was a gift to myself, to have something nice to look at while cooking for Shabbos the next day. 🙂

    I spent the last of my renovation budget before I bought tiles for the kitchen walls. While I didn’t want to leave the area untiled because water could drip between the cabinets and the wall and also the bare walls aren’t attractive, I’m committed to living within my financial means. That meant waiting until we have more money set aside to complete the tiling rather than putting it on a credit card.

    I figured we would silicone the gap for now. I then ‘happened’ to be purchasing a completely non-home improvement related item from a private seller. We were chatting about why she was selling it and she mentioned decluttering her storage area. She also said she had a large number of tiles she was selling. Tiles, hmm??

    Though I didn’t expect to find anything, I came back the next day to take a look in the daylight. I was pleasantly surprised to find that she had a large number of cream subway tiles that were just the right match for my kitchen. I was able to buy them for a very good price, using just 100 shekels from my weekly food budget to buy all the tiles I needed for the kitchen.

    (They were such a good price that I decided to use 400 shekels of discretionary personal funds – birthday money from years ago! – to buy more tiles to tile the porch walls, a project that isn’t necessary or at all related to the kitchen/bedroom renovation but one I want to do for my own enjoyment.)

    After buying these tiles I then went to the tile store to find some tiles that would be a focal point to add visual interest over the stove. However, after an hour of looking at every single tile in the store, I still couldn’t find anything suitable (the ones I liked most were also really expensive – as in, 80 – 200 shekels per tile!). The challenge was that I needed something to match the cream of the tiles and the gray of the countertop, but the tiles were either gray and white toned and wouldn’t match the cream subway tiles, or were cream and brown, and wouldn’t match the gray countertop. Dilemma.

    A day later I was setting up a tile sample for the porch walls and asked my husband for his opinion. I had purchased nine patterned tiles from the same private seller with the intention of staggering them along the center porch wall, but was thinking of doing a more interesting tile pattern in cream and not using the patterned tiles at all. Combining the two different tile sizes was complicated and would necessitate a lot of tile cutting, and tile cutting would make my just-for-fun project not so fun.

    My husband agreed that sticking to only cream would be best for the porch, and suggested I used the patterned tiles instead for the kitchen backsplash. Amazingly, these grayish brownish tiles that I already purchased but had never even considered for use in the kitchen (that the seller told me had been ridiculously expensive) were the perfect match and the perfect quantity!

    kitchen backsplash

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    The reason I consider tiling the porch walls a personal fun project is that there’s plenty of space to work with no one needing to use that space and no need to be exacting in the details – all factors that don’t exist in the inside renovation work.

    Here are what the porch walls looked like before tiling – when we moved here the walls were peeling and horrible. I’ve spackled and they look much, much better – but pleasant to look at they aren’t!

    porch walls before

    Below is the first wall that I began tiling – this wall was the most unsightly and I’m sorry I didn’t get a picture of it before I began! I intend to complete all the tiling before doing the grouting. It’s been so enjoyable to work on this this….the boys came outside to sit with me and asked if they could help. That’s the secret to getting kids to want to work with you – when they see you enjoying yourself they want to get involved, too.  🙂

    porch walls after

    I have about fifteen meters of tiling to do on the porch –  so far I’ve done about two so there’s plenty left to work on!

    Avivah

  • Now the plumbing work begins

    Now the plumbing work begins

    The main wall is down, the secondary wall is down but this is just the beginning of turning our boys bedroom into a kitchen!

    Today was the first part of the next stage – having the plumbing and gas lines wired in. We also are having additional electric outlets put in.

    It’s been a very loud and messy day and I’m so happy that I made arrangements for ds6 and ds18months to be at a camp for this period! They would have been so stressed and frightened of all the noise of the jackhammer and banging, not to mention that an active work zone isn’t a safe place for young children.

    Overview of the new kitchen in progress - day 1
    Overview of the new kitchen in progress

    When I first considered this project, I thought we’d have to move the water lines from the current kitchen across the main living area and through the new kitchen area. Then I wondered if perhaps we could connect it to the bathroom plumbing, which I was told was possible.

    The bathroom and laundry room
    The bathroom and laundry room – replumbed; gas and water lines also added

    That seemed a lot more convenient, but we’d still have to rip up the floor across our home in order to put in a new gas line.

    Then ds10 suggested we hook up the new gas lines to our laundry room gas outlet – brilliant! It didn’t occur to me at all  – that boy saved us so much time and work with his idea. So while we’ll need to replace the laundry room and bathroom floor, most of the floor that isn’t in the active work zone will remain intact.

    Here’s the hallway leading from the bathroom on the left to the new kitchen area on the right. The new plumbing lines are at the top, the new electric lines are lower down.

    renovation - hallway

    Now you can see the new kitchen area – there is plumbing for two sinks (red and blue piping); the yellow piping contains the new gas line. To the right you can see the drilled space for one of the new outlets.

    renovation - boys room

    Obviously there’s nothing left of this as a bedroom for the boys anymore! We moved their bunkbeds (the ones we built almost two years ago) temporarily into the living room and moved the rest of the living room furniture out onto the porch. Good thing we have a large porch!

    Three boys sleeping in their relocated bunks
    Three boys sound asleep in their relocated bunks in living room

    For day two, hopefully the electric outlets will be finished being installed and the plumbing will be completed. I’m planning to take the younger five boys on a day trip to the farm on Kibbutz Chafetz Chaim while this work continues in our absence, but need to make sure the boys’ closet unit is emptied before we leave. I knew we’d need to move it eventually but had hoped to be able to leave it in place a bit longer to minimize the upheaval and having even more stuff not in its place.

    For now things are very much in flux and while it’s a necessary part of the process, it’s definitely disconcerting to have so much mess with so many things out of place.

    Progress, progress! It’s true in the physical world and it’s true in the physical world that before things improve, they get a lot messier and more uncomfortable first!

    Avivah

  • How to get kids to eat beans

    Whenever I post a weekly menu plan, there’s always someone who asks (and lot more people who are thinking!), ‘how do you get your kids to eat beans?? My kids would never touch that!”

    Here are some tips that work for us:

    a) When I add in ‘special’ or protein elements to a bean dish, that adds to the appeal. Hence a lentil salad would be ‘meh’, but when feta cheese is chopped up into the same salad it will be greeted with ‘yum!’ Chickpeas cooked with vegetables is kind of boring, but with a peanut sauce mixed in, much more appealing! Same thing with the burritos – by adding a little bit of shredded cheese to some beans and rice, it gets a significantly more positive reception.

    b) The form the beans are served with also matters – bean stews are seen as blah by my kids, but if I make the same mixture into a burger or loaf, it gets gobbled up.

    c) I usually add meat or chicken gravy or stock into the bean dishes that I cook to add a rich depth of flavor to the dish. I always save the gravy from roasted chicken for this purpose.

    d) It’s not enough to make the bean dish look and taste good if you have the attitude that your kids will probably hate it! They pick up on that and respond accordingly.

    Realize that beans are a kind of boring food – they don’t have much flavor on their own and need to be seasoned well. It’s also CRITICAL that they are cooked until completely soft. It is yuck to eat beans that are underdone and even a tiny bit of a crunch to them or even that mealy texture when they’re just cooked but not really soft!

    There’s no way to get kids used to eating any kind of food without giving them opportunities to have them!  If one attempt isn’t successful, it doesn’t mean they’ll hate all beans – it means you need to find a different recipe!  My kids have grown up eating bean dishes and as a result, even without integrating any of the tips above, will eat them willingly. I can’t tell you they wouldn’t prefer hamburgers (so would I!) but beans are a staple in our pantry.

    Avivah

  • My significant life changing purchase – a car!

    Thank you all for your good wishes on our new granddaughter! She was named yesterday and I’m looking forward to taking the younger boys to meet her later this week.

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    In other significant for us news, we have become car owners!

    When we moved to Israel almost seven years ago, we decided not to buy a vehicle because buying, maintaining and fueling a car here is so much more expensive than in the US. Public transportation is very good and a car seemed like an unnecessary luxury, particularly when we came here without a job and wanted to stretch our savings as long as possible.

    It was a good decision then that really made sense,  and for the ensuing six years it continued to be a good choice. We felt comfortable not having a car, there was no sense of deprivation or doing without – in fact, it was a relief to me not to have to deal with a car.

    However, this last year and particularly the last few months (since both of my older daughters got married) have become increasingly challenging for me. Since my five year old doesn’t consistently walk moderate distances when he’s tired and as of last July I refused to put him in a stroller, traveling by bus with him is something that I try to minimize. Without older children who can keep an eye on the younger ones when I go out, just getting the weekly grocery shopping done has become a pressure and that’s where my ‘free’ time goes.

    I was increasingly feeling maxxed out with the little time for myself needing to be almost painfully carved out, and the time strain that was being created was significant. A couple of months ago, someone asked why this was an issue for me, since after all, I’ve been homeschooling for 18 years and was used to my kids being around. I told her, “I used to have a car and I could take the kids with me if I needed to go out; I wasn’t stuck and unable to go anywhere.” However, I didn’t consider the significance of my answer to her until last week.

    That was when I recalled our brief conversation and it suddenly became obvious to me that this major issue that has significantly impacted the quality of my life would be shifted if I had a car.  Previously, I kept thinking that the issue would be resolved as my son became more mobile; car ownership was so off my mental map that it simply didn’t occur to me to revisit the initial decision we made when we moved here.

    Well.

    That conversation was suddenly catapulted to the front of my consciousness when I saw a car listed for sale on my local neighborhood list that seemed like it would be a good fit for us. I spent a couple of hours considering if it was ridiculously self-indulgent of me to have a car before calling my husband to let him know I thought we should seriously consider purchasing a car. My husband readily agreed since he had already mentioned several times in the past that at some point he wanted to get a car but I was the naysayer. (When we ran the numbers to check the anticipated expenses, his only question was, “Why didn’t we do this a long time ago?”)

    Once I allowed myself to recognize how much having a car would shift this major energy block in my life, things moved very quickly. We bought a car the very next day.

    I can say without exaggeration that after using it for just a few hours this afternoon and evening (and knowing this is something I can regularly do) my life has changed. No hyperbole.

    This afternoon I was able to pop my tired five year old into the car and take him with me and ds9 on an errand. This errand is something I’ve wanted to do for almost three months but logistically it was too hard to do without a car.

    So we zipped over to get it taken care of – in ten minutes it was done. The boys enjoyed watching the workmen cut down the mirror and reframe it, an experience they wouldn’t have had before since I would have left them at home. I’ve always loved having the kids be part of those daily experiences – each on its own is nothing major but they add up to enriching and expansive experiences.

    Since we had plenty of time before swimming lessons began, we went to go the local community center to get ds5 a bus card with his photo on it. This errand has been on my list for months. He’s almost six and I wanted to get him one since he turned five. Now he has one!

    We then noticed some activities taking place in the community center, which I learned were for families who have children with special needs. Maybe I never knew about this, maybe I was told about this and mentally dismissed it as completely irrelevant for us because getting out was just too hard.

    In any case, today we joined them. It was so nice to watch ds5 play (he knew another child there from his Pesach camp), to chat with another mom, and to feel so relaxed. Relaxing and going out with my five year old haven’t been synonymous for me for quite some time.

    From there we went to swimming lessons, and the biggest, most significant thing happened when the lessons were over.

    We were home in five minutes.

    Five minutes.

    Instead of 45 minutes.

    Instead of coaxing him to walk a little more. Instead of tugging at his hand and picking him up and then insisting that I can’t carry him and he’s going to have to walk, yada, yada, yada while he sits down and from sheer exhaustion refuses to move. Then finally getting to the bus stop, getting on the bus, and after getting off coaxing him again to walk the distance from the bus stop to our home. All over again.

    We were home and I was still smiling and ds5 was still smiling and ds9 (who has lessons at the same time and is part of this weekly round trip experience) was still smiling. I had energy to give everyone dinner.  My husband probably did a double take when he walked in and wondered if it was really Sunday since I smiled and had a conversation with him with no mention of being so tired that I was about to collapse. Instead I enthusiastically told him how amazingly enjoyable ds5 is to spend time with when I don’t have to marshal all my resources to physically get him where he needs to go.

    At 8:30 in the evening, rather than being comatose on the couch, I took ds12 to his swimming lessons (for the first time this season), and enjoyed watching him for 45 minutes before driving home together. (Today I learned that my two sons in group lessons are the best swimmers in their groups. They wouldn’t have told me because they don’t know that when they’re swimming and can’t hear what’s being said, the instructor tells the other students to watch what they’re doing. I wouldn’t have known that if I hadn’t been there in person to see it.) It was really nice having this opportunity to spend time with ds12 and make a deposit in my relationship with him.

    And here I am writing this now. It is almost 11:30 at night and I’m still able to think and reflect. The clarity of how deeply exhausting this aspect of my life has become after just one afternoon of not having to go through it is almost stunning to me.

    Today I got things done quickly and easily. And that was nice. But what was even nicer was feeling doors swinging open. Doors of increased outings with my kids, increased time freedom and flexibility, increased community involvement and social connection, increased being present for others and myself.  And none of it feels hard. 

    Letting go of hard required me to first be really honest about how constraining things had become. When things shift gradually over time, there’s not a sudden negative situation to deal with – and that makes it harder to recognize because one gets used to it bit by bit.  I started to recognize how many ‘nos’ I was saying to myself – and was willing to be open to a solution from a different angle.

    It’s interesting that when ds19 called and I told him we had just bought a car a few hours before, he wasn’t surprised. Since I had never entertained the idea myself until a day prior, obviously I hadn’t discussed the possibility with our children and I asked him why he told me the purchase was predictable. He said that in the last year when I’ve periodically rented a car, it was obvious to him how much more relaxed and happy I was.

    What was obvious to him took a lot of soul searching for me!

    Avivah

  • Simple Shabbos preps, celebrating birthdays,reassessing school plans

    Last Shabbos we had all of our children and their spouses with us for Shabbos, for the first time since the sheva brachos after the second wedding. It was SO nice to have everyone together; we’re a good sized crew and fill up every space of our dining room table with all the extensions in (seats 16). I’m unsure about where we’ll put anyone else when the time comes!

    We celebrated my husband’s birthday while everyone was there. We have a family tradition that everyone shares something they appreciate about the person celebrating the birthday. I especially appreciate that all of our in-law children contributed. My older kids commented that they can really see that the younger boys have gotten the hang of this. When they were younger, they would say silly things or repeat whatever the person before them said. But now they’re able to share meaningful appreciation.  Definitely a family tradition that I’m glad we instituted.

    This Shabbos was super quiet – just the younger six boys were home. I made a super simple Shabbos: challah, dips, soup, chicken, sweet potatoes and salad for dinner, with fruit compote for dessert. Day meal: chicken, dips, potato kugel and two salads as well as a plate of carrot rounds (cut by Yirmi) and another plate of tomatoes, with fresh fruit (plums, melon and kiwi) and popsicles for dessert. It’s nice to see that the kids are satisfied with no baked desserts – they keep thanking me for the fresh fruit I’ve been buying!

    I made homemade chummus this week. For a long time that has been one of the few things that I buy ready made (other things include mayonnaise and mustard) because my kids like the store bought stuff. It wasn’t very time consuming or difficult to whip up a huge batch – I soaked 1.4 kg of dried chickpeas, cooked them up and made over 4 kg of chummus – the actual prep time was probably about 15 minutes. My version isn’t as creamy as the store bought but it tastes good; it’s definitely better for them since it has no additives, and I use higher quality ingredients, like extra virgin olive oil and fresh lemon…and it still comes out cheaper.

    When I make a dip, I prepare a large amount and then fill several smaller containers for the freezer. That way I don’t have to make each dip fresh every Shabbos (I usually serve 4 – 5 dips). This week I pulled out matbucha (a cooked tomato dip), carrot dip, and I had dill dip in the fridge from the double batch I made last week, along with the chummus.

    This week I got whole chickens on sale for 12.90 shekel a kilo. Usually I cook them whole, though chicken breast is much better when cooked separately, since it needs less time to cook than dark meat and ends up being on the dry side. I decided to experiment and cut the fresh chickens up myself rather than buy the more expensive cuts separately (chicken breast on sale is twice the price).

    So I cut them into different cuts: quarters (in our family this is the preferred cut for Shabbos), wings and necks (for soup), chicken breasts (I made homemade cold cuts for Shabbos lunch with half of them, then put the other half into the freezer – this is my preferred cut for the week for myself). I’ll have to watch a youtube video on how to efficiently cut up a chicken and get a sharper knife before I do this again – it was worth it financially but time-wise was less efficient than I would have liked. Once I’m better prepared, I’m game to try again.

     

    I’m happy to share that Rafael (17 months) has been accepted for one of the coveted spots for the special inclusion program at the day care center we applied to. Though I would prefer to keep him home with me next year, that won’be allowed and this program seems like a good option. I’m grateful the process for getting him in was so smooth – believe me, I don’t take that for granted.

    Meanwhile, we’ve been researching schools for our twelve year old son. After repeatedly being stonewalled by the school we were interested in, my husband and I finally had a powwow and reassessed if this was really what we felt would be in his best interest. We decided today that we want him to continue homeschooling for another couple of years and will put him into school for high school. He is literally the easiest child to homeschool – he’s fluent in English and Hebrew, is a voracious reader and interested in everything and basically educates himself. It’s really nice to have some clarity and closure on this school decision, because we’ve been in limbo for more than four months and limbo isn’t a fun place to be.

    As far as Yirmi’s school plans for next year, I’m also in limbo. I decided to send ds12 and Yirmi to school for the coming year around the time we were making two weddings. I was feeling I wasn’t giving the kids as much time and attention as I would like, and that was a big part of my decision to put them in school. But as time passes and I regroup, I’m able to look at all the gains that they’ve experienced even during the busiest times, rather than focus on what I didn’t do. Also, I’m now back in the groove with regular activities and that feels good to me.

    My definition of education is focused on much more than the transmission of information; I place a lot of importance on large amounts of unstructured time for play, time outdoors, physical movement, music, creativity, life skills, money management, time with family, and lots more. Things that aren’t really on the radar in the school setting.

    All that is to say that we’re in the process of reassessing our intended plans for Yirmi for the coming year. I’ll write more about whatever decision we make and why, once we make the decision. 🙂

    Avivah

  • Making Shavuos flower arrangements

    I love greenery and flowers, and so yesterday I popped into the florist to buy a couple of bouquets in honor of Shavuos.

    For my daughter’s wedding, I put together the flower arrangements (something I had never done before and I give my daughter a lot of credit for having faith in me). I ordered specific flowers that I wanted to use, then made two large arrangements for next to the kallah’s chair, a bridal bouquet and centerpieces for thirty tables. It was beautiful, it was very affordable, and I really enjoyed doing it!

    Here’s the main arrangements below – you can see all the flowers to the side waiting to be turned into something! (I wrapped the top of each large white vase with a large bow of gauzy white material; this was still in process when the picture was taken.)Tehila's wedding flowers

    I thought it would be fun to do a little flower arranging for Shavuos!

    Although we love the look of large bouquets, they end up being so large when placed on the table that they block people from seeing one another. So I decided to make several table arrangements using the flowers that I bought.

    This is what I started with – a bunch of white lysianthus and a mixed bouquet of lysianthus (each was 20 shekels):

    shavuos flowers

    I bought a couple of blocks of floral foam, called an oasis, and turned to my garden for additional clippingst.

    So far I’ve only used one of the bouquets; I bought two because I didn’t want to be short of flowers but I really could have sufficed with just one. I haven’t decided what to do with the bouquet of white lysianthus; at this point I’m leaning toward mixing it with dusty miller (I have a lovely huge plant of it in my yard) in one big arrangement, using the large white flower urn that I used for the wedding arrangements.

    Here’s what I made using the bouquet of mixed lysianthus:

    shavuos flowers 2

    I decided to mix the fresh flowers with some succulents as well as a few leaves and flowers from our passionfruit vine.  Total cost: 30 shekels for all three (the foam block was ten shekels, then I cut it into thirds).

    I chose to put the cooking and baking to the side to spend some time doing this first, because it was something relaxing and enjoyable for me. I tend to push off the ‘fun’ things for last – honestly, flower arrangements are a total extra and who except me would care if I just stuck the original two bouquets in vases?

    But when I push off the ‘want tos’ in favor of the ‘have tos’ I end up not doing the things that make me feel happy and cared for.

    Whose job is it to make me happy? Mine!

    So it’s important that I make time to do things that I enjoy, not just the things that everyone expects me to do. I consider taking the time to make these floral arrangements a form of self-care for me.

    Avivah

  • The Magic of Ordinary Days

    The Magic Of Ordinary Days – that could have been a good title for my blog in years past. For years I shared about our daily lives, the hows and whys of what I did, how I managed, my feelings about it all.

    Often people asked me how I found the time to write so frequently, and my answer was that I loved it.It was something I did for myself just as much as for all of you.  I loved connecting with others and sharing ideas, and the blogosphere was a place of personal connection for me and many others during those years.

    And then something changed. Something in the culture changed, something that I couldn’t put my finger on for a long time. I could feel the shift happen but wasn’t able to verbalize what was happening or why it was happening.

    But understanding it or not, my blogging changed over the last few years. As the invisible energy of social media and blogging has shifted, the nature of what I write about and how I share changed to reflect that. I still mentally compose blog posts in my head almost daily, just as I did for so long…but instead of being written up at the end of the day, most of those thoughts and experiences stay with me.

    As both a blogger and blog reader I miss what the blogosphere used to be and while I’m not wishing to turn back the clock, today I gave myself permission to feel that missing-ness of what once was.

    In the ‘old days’, today I might have shared about my son’s reaction when one of his silkworms escaped the box he was in and got stuck on a piece of tape, and how I responded to his sadness. He was so agitated that it was suffering but didn’t want to be the one to put it out of his suffering. And then the discussion continued to the possibility of sharing some of his silkworms with others, as he told me that he realizes it’s getting to be a big job to take care of so many and he’s not enjoying it anymore. We have to help our kids recognize and verbalize their needs.

    Or I might have shared about roasting a large bunch of red peppers that I got an amazing price on  and different ways to preserve red peppers in the case of a windfall like mine (I made roasted red pepper dip with ground walnuts, some for Shabbos and some for the freezer); I would have shared the recipe, too.

    I might have shared about chatting with my ten year old son as I worked in the kitchen, enjoying time with him as he peeled the large fava beans that I soaked. I really love the energy of the conversations that happen when there’s just one child and me working together.  We’re planning an experiment with the fava beans this week – to roast them with savory spices for a Shabbos snack.

    I might have told you what I said to my five year old when he picked up his little brother in an awkward way and brought him to me, framing what he did positively and verbalizing what a loving and helpful older brother he is. Our children rise to our expectations; we can scold them and make them feel bad or we can look for the good intent in their actions and respond to that.

    Maybe I would have told you about my vegetable order that included a larger than number of fruits. The two boys who came out to help me bring the order in exclaimed when they saw what I got and asked what the occasion was. Since we’re moving away from desserts that have a lot of sugar in them, recently I’ve been serving canned/baked/fresh fruit, nuts, seeds and munchy things like that. The kids are enjoying it and all said they don’t miss the sweet baked desserts. This week I’ll make baked apples, and got kiwis, grapes and apricots to serve fresh.

    Or I might have shared my thoughts about some of the marriage related questions that have been coming my way in parenting discussions, and why I think the best thing you can do for your child is to love your spouse (or in the case of divorce to be positive and respectful of your ex-spouse). And how to positively interact with your spouse when they annoy you and you just can’t see much to appreciate about them.

    Or maybe I would have told you that after many weeks of no videos, why I allowed the boys to watch two educational cartoons on the occasion of my son’s ninth birthday tomorrow. (Remember when he was born? He’s the one who was three weeks late!)

    Or maybe I would have shared about consciously making time and space in my life to do things just for pleasure, not outcome related at all. I loaded my Kindle for the first time in a long time with books and it’s so renewing for me to open it up and have really good selections in it. I’ve been doing a little bit of reading in bed before I go to sleep. I haven’t done that for years.

    Or maybe I would share with you about our current family read aloud, about why I love it and how much my boys love it. How reading together is a special bonding time for us. And about how to use books with great values and storylines to stimulate their minds and build character, without any heavy moralistic messages.

    Or maybe I would have told you about a phone conversation with someone visiting Israel right now – a friend I told you about meeting eleven years ago on this blog, when we met in line at a grocery store in Amish country. They were in front of us and one of my kids whispered to me, “They have seven kids just like us!” We weren’t used to seeing mothers with lots of kids shopping together in the morning hours.  Turned out we were both homeschooling and expecting baby #8 (who were later born within a few weeks of each other).  Our brief conversation continued outside in the parking lot, and when I learned this lovely Christian woman was Jewish, I invited her family to our home – just a two hour drive away! And they accepted, coming for Chanuka and for Shabbos; we visited them at their home in PA as well. We became friends and after all these years we’re still in touch! They’ll be coming with their youngest two children for dinner next week.

    These were things I thought about sharing with you today.

    In years past, I would have shared about all of these things and more.

    And for today I’m enjoying sharing all of this with you.

    Not because I’m planning to change how I blog or explain why I don’t do this anymore or why I should or shouldn’t or anything else.

    Just because I felt like sharing with you –  just like the old days. 🙂

    Avivah

  • Getting into the Pesach spirit

    A neighbor knocked at my door a few days ago to offer us a food that isn’t kosher for Pesach, explaining that they had turned over their kitchen for Pesach (over a full week before the holiday begins). Hearing this, my younger kids were alarmed – “What?! Already?” And I knew they were wondering, ‘how can they be finished when we’ve hardly gotten started?’

    Every year we have this issue of someone in our family wondering why we’re not getting stressed out. After all, everywhere you turn are people rushing to and fro, with a sense of purposeful energy gushing as they turn their homes upside down and then right side out again!

    I don’t do that. I used to think something was wrong with me, and wondered what everyone else was doing that I wasn’t doing. Finally I realized that I wasn’t neglecting any important preparations; while there are plenty of people who do much more spring cleaning than I do, I actually do a good bit of that as well. It’s just that I don’t get too worked up about it.

    I try to be relaxed when preparing for Pesach, as I don’t want the preparations to overshadow the spirit of the holiday for me or for my family members.

    After the two weddings back to back this year, I’ve been really tired. And as a result I thought I wasn’t very effective in getting the kids at home to get involved in Pesach preparations. It takes head space to assign tasks, and I just didn’t want to think about it. Finally I sat down to make a list of what needed to be done so that the boys can choose jobs they want to do, and I realized there really isn’t that much left to do! (The boys have even found time for some nice extras, like painting the living room/dining room area, in addition to doing their bedrooms and helping with the various tasks I’ve asked them about.)

    So why am I feeling like I haven’t done anything for Pesach yet?? I realized that for me, it doesn’t feel like I’m doing anything for Pesach until I turn over the kitchen.

    Pesach begins Friday night, so we’ll do the kitchen on Weds. That will give me time to shop and get all the laundry done without pressure, and on Thursday and Friday I can do the cooking. Plenty of time to get ready, and most importantly, to take a nap on Friday so that everyone (including me!) is awake and able to enjoy the seder.

    The moms in my current parenting workshop asked me for my tips for the seder night, and my most important one is: be rested. You can make a simpler menu, you can do less spring cleaning, but the most important part of Pesach is the seder and everyone should be able to enjoy it!

    ——————–

    This year I wanted to reach out to single women who might appreciate an invitation for seder night and posted on our community Facebook group to let them know they could be in touch with me. So far I got rainchecks for next year though none for this year, but as I told a friend, even if the only thing posting my offer accomplished was that someone might feel cared about even if she didn’t join us, that’s also worthwhile.

    She responded that she felt my offer did more than that – she said that it made her consider who might she know that could be in need of a place and reach out to them, and she thinks others had the same response. If that’s true, I’m happy to be part of the cycle of making our community a more connected place!

    —————————–

    Last night someone knocked on our door in need of financial assistance. After giving her some money, I invited her in for a drink and something to eat. I asked her if she had children, and when she responded that she did, I asked if I could send some cake for them. (I thought it might be burdensome for her to have to carry it the rest of the evening until she got home.)

    Lest you think I always happen to have fresh cakes available to give away on the spur of the moment, the answer is not at all! We baked a cake to send to someone I thought would appreciate it, but then my kids were sick and no one was able to deliver it….

    I thought it was a shame for it to go to waste, but Hashem clearly had a different plan than mine for who would benefit- and sent that person right to my door!

    I packed up the cake and chatted with this woman a bit. I shared with her that we’ve also been through very difficult financial periods and I know how hard it can be.

    She was so appreciative- yes, for the money and cake – but it seemed that the bit of conversation and warm wishes and hug on her way out meant even more. It is so difficult to maintain a positive sense of yourself when you’re struggling financially and need to ask for help, and it means a lot to know that you’re still viewed as a valuable human being.

    I read recently that it’s been documented that doing mitzvos shifts your aura, and I felt that last night. I had such a warm feeling when she left. We think we’re doing those in need a favor by helping them, but I really felt that I had been the one who was helped by being able to give to someone else.

    And that was a very nice way to get into the holiday spirit.

    Avivah

  • Remaking my mother-of-the-bride gown

    Remaking my mother-of-the-bride gown

    My sister-in-law will be coming for the weddings, and very generously offered to bring me a gift. I told her that what I wanted was a sewing machine (I left mine behind along with most of our other belongings when we made aliyah since we didn’t bring a lift), and that the gift would be to bring it to me! She agreed, and I can’t tell you how much I’m looking forward to it!

    The sewing machine isn’t here yet – I just ordered it last night – but just thinking about it got my sewing juices flowing.  We mostly have males to outfit for the weddings, which is pretty straightforward. Early on I bought the ties and bow ties for both weddings, dh got a new suit, and this week I’ll go through the younger boys wardrobes to be sure they have what they need – the clothes from ds’s wedding seven months ago should still fit them.

    Then there’s the gowns. The two brides found their gowns each within a couple of weeks of their engagements (and quite miraculously neither gown needs alterations), but despite my desire to get the gowns for the sisters and mother wrapped up much earlier on, these are still very much in process.

    For the first wedding, the color scheme is blue and I was fortunate to find a gown in the first place that I went.

    For the second wedding, the color scheme is maroon.  I went to three different gown places and couldn’t find anything. There aren’t a lot of maroon gowns available, so finally I ordered a gown online. It was the perfect color and it had a couple of features I liked but would require a matching shell and another significant alteration (you can see the pic here). As I thought about the alterations and shell shopping, I kept thinking about adapting a gown that I bought for ds24’s wedding.

    It’s a very high quality gown that I got for a great price but I purchased it before we decided on a color scheme for ds’s wedding, so the color (black and ivory) didn’t work. It’s been hanging in my closet all this time, and I thought fleetingly, what if I took apart both gowns and then put them back together, combining different elements of each….it might work.

    Too much work to sew by hand, and with no machine, it wasn’t an option. But like I said, my creative juices started flowing at the thought of the sewing machine. So around 11 pm, when due to tiredness there was less well-reasoned restraint to hold me back, I started taking them apart. I intended to just start taking it apart, little by little, but the new gown was assembled in a completely different way than I had anticipated. So once I started I had to completely take it apart.

    With the new gown I had just purchased now a pile of cloth – the only thing left assembled was a zipper barely connected to the original lining – and the other one partially disassembled, I mused ruefully that I might have just ruined two perfectly good gowns if my idea didn’t work out. I wouldn’t have time to re-sew either one of them before the wedding, and in any case, neither of them worked for my needs without substantial alterations and there wouldn’t be time for that by the time the sewing machine arrived.  I reassured myself that my backup plan would be to rent to a gown and if I couldn’t find a maroon gown, I’d get a neutral solid color gown instead.

    At 3:45 am, I decided to call it a night, but by that point the gown was mostly finished. Yes, sewn by hand. Amazing what you can do when you’re not being interrupted by young children! I still want to do something with the sleeves but I think the gown actually looks quite nice. The bodice is black, the skirt section is maroon and overset with black lace. I don’t think anyone would guess that this wasn’t the way it looked originally.

    After I finished it I thought it’s too bad I didn’t take a picture of both gowns before I started, but since I don’t have a working camera it’s not very surprising that I didn’t. 🙂 So you’ll have to wait for the pictures from the wedding to see my handiwork.

    Dd21 was very complimentary when she saw it, and since it’s for her wedding, her opinion is the one that matters the most to me.

    So I can now check one more item off of my to-do list!

    Avivah

  • Why cooking in bulk will make your life easier

    Why cooking in bulk will make your life easier

    Have you ever felt like you’re constantly cooking and struggling to keep up with the meals that need to be served?  I have!

    This year I have five boys ages 11 and down home all day, and not having any teenagers who are homeschooling means that there are fewer older children to delegate tasks to. That means that the younger boys are learning to step up and help more, which is good, and also that I do more.

    Having meals ready on time makes our home run much more smoothly – there’s nothing like kids asking again and again for food and not having anything to serve them makes everyone irritable!  Nutrition is important to me but I can’t spend hours in the kitchen – I try to stay home as much as I can, but I still have homeschooling, shopping, regular therapy appointments and extracurricular activities for the boys to attend to. Not to mention my work – sessions with clients in the evenings and in a couple of weeks I’ll be adding workshops back in to my schedule.  Oh, and I try to get some sleep, too. 🙂

    I make meals from scratch three times a day.  It’s rarely fancy – we have hot cereal or eggs for breakfast just about every day.  There’s nothing wrong with scrambled eggs and rice for lunch or dinner but when I get busy that becomes too frequent and it doesn’t feel like a meal to sit down together over!  Since having a sit down meal with our family is an important value for me, I try to make a satisfying dinner.

    With all of the holidays, I had been caught up in the cycle of cooking, cooking, cooking but never getting ahead.  This week I’ve been able to get back into a cooking routine that makes my life much easier – cooking in bulk!

    What I try to do is plan ahead so that I can double whatever I’m preparing for dinner.  I then can serve some for dinner and ‘feed the freezer’ a meal that I can pull out at a later time.

    Here’s a list of dinner meals for the last few days:

    Mon – black bean vegetable soup and rice

    Tues – baked chicken, chickpeas with sauce, salad, baked sweet potatoes

    Weds. – chicken tangine with chickpeas

    Thurs. – Brunswick stew

    Here’s what my cooking schedule looked like the last few days:

    On Sunday we had leftovers from Shabbos for dinner (chicken, potato kugel, roasted vegetables). I didn’t need to do any cooking for that night, so on Sunday afternoon I prepared a large pot of black bean soup.

    I went out with the boys on Monday afternoon and before I did, left the soup on a very low flame to heat up. We walked in at 6:35 pm – I try to serve dinner at 6:30 pm – and were able to sit down to eat dinner as soon as we got inside.

    Later in the evening I soaked a pan of chickpeas.

    On Tuesday I cooked a pot of rice, a pot of buckwheat, ds10 baked a large pan of sweet potatoes and I asked someone else to put the chickpeas on to boil.  I also baked a pan of chicken – all quick and simple things to prepare.

    On Wednesday I did a big shopping trip and got a bunch of chicken on sale (including chicken wings for just 4.90 shekels a kilo so I got twelve kilos!). Since the chicken was fresh, I made peanut butter/honey chicken with sesame seeds for Shabbos and plain roasted wings to use for two other dishes I planned to make that day.  I also cooked a few kilos of chicken gizzards.

    (The buckwheat cooked on Tuesday was intended for a dish but the boys asked if they could eat it for lunch, so I let them have it.)

    While the chicken was cooking, I prepared two chicken dishes: a double recipe of chicken tangine with chickpeas (using chickpeas I had cooked the day before), and Brunswick stew (using white beans I had also cooked in advance).  I also made some quinoa black bean burgers using some leftovers I had in the fridge that I served for lunch the next day.

    We had the chicken tangine Weds. night for dinner. Later in the evening I boiled a large pot of potatoes and soaked a pan of lentils.

    On Thursday morning ds10 mashed the pot of potatoes and I cooked the lentils.  While they were cooking I prepared two lentil mixtures: lentil meatloaf and lentil-rice-mushroom casserole.   I made 2 large 9 x 13 pans of each. We had one pan of lentil-rice casserole for lunch; the other three pans of food went into the freezer.

    I then had an unexpected furniture delivery that took a lot of time and energy to organize (looks great now, though!), and it was later in the afternoon before I could take a nap. Before I lay down, I put the Brunswick stew on a very low flame to heat up. I got up at 6:10 pm but dinner was ready on time thanks to the advance preparation!

    Thursday evening, I prepared the filling for shepherd’s pie, chopping up the chicken gizzards I cooked the day before, then topped the chicken and vegetable mixture with the potatoes ds10 had mashed that morning.  Once the two huge pans were baked, they went right into the freezer for two different meals.  (In case you’re wondering, I also made some chicken soup and roasted chicken for Shabbos.)

    With some advance thought and a bit of extra effort, I now have four different dishes/6 meals in the freezer. It didn’t take much extra work but ready to go meals in the freezer are my ‘fast food’ for busy days!

    Avivah