Category Archives: Intentional Spending

Kitchen progress, my new tiling project just for fun

Homemaking, Intentional Spending

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

Homemaking, Intentional Spending, Parenting

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

And let the wall come down – demolition fun for the boys!

Homeschooling, Intentional Spending, Parenting

After weeks of mentally working through lots of details to see if my renovation brainstorm was doable or not, our newest project has begun!

I’ve been thinking and thinking how to increase the size of our main living area. While at 30 meters it’s a nice size for an Israeli apartment, it doesn’t feel especially spacious as our family continues to expand! I’ve had several ideas about how to maximize our  living space but vetoed them because all cost a LOT of money. But my latest idea actually seemed like a real possibility!

Here’s the idea: my younger boys’ room is behind a shared wall with the living room. For a while I’d been thinking of knocking this wall down once my youngest daughter gets married, and then moving the boys into her room. But since she’s only 17 marriage isn’t on the agenda for a while and in any case, that plan would mean I would lose a bedroom, which I really don’t want to do.

But…if I knock down that wall, and then turn the boys room into an open kitchen (and the kitchen into the boys room), the main area gets bigger, we don’t lose a bedroom, and the space becomes used much more efficiently.

The current kitchen is perfectly sized for a bedroom, while the boys bedroom is a large, awkwardly shaped room. It doesn’t have any direct light – all light comes from the enclosed patio off of it that is basically useless for anything other than storage – who wants to walk through a bedroom to get there? By opening up this wall, the light in that room and the air flow in the main area become significantly better.

Turning a bedroom into a kitchen and a kitchen into a bedroom is a big project. The plan is to keep the costs down by hiring out the the skilled work such as plumbing, electricity and laying gas lines, then doing all the rest ourselves. During my researching stage, it seems that just about everyone I mentioned my idea to was skeptical about our do-it-yourself intentions, which would be disheartening if I listened to all of those voices!

I’m going to be reusing the cabinets from the kitchen that we put in three years ago, which are really good quality and I’ve been very happy with them. One big question I have is about using the caeserstone countertops again or not. They were so expensive and would be workable in the new kitchen but I didn’t love how they looked then and after three years still don’t like how they look!  (I’m thinking very seriously of building our own laminate countertops but am concerned about running out of time before I can finish them.)

After all this thinking, the project has begun! The boys moved the set of bookcases that were on the wall I wanted to demolish – the plan was to clear the area so our handy man could take it down, but once it was clear they were disappointed that they weren’t going to ‘get a crack at it’. I then agreed to let them take a few swings at it using the heavy hammers I bought them the day before (I had them remove tiling along the base of the walls to prepare for retiling those areas). After all, doesn’t that sound like a good healthy outlet? (I did go over safety precautions and repeatedly told them ‘safety first’!)

I didn’t think they would make a dent in a concrete block wall. After all, this is physically very strenuous work; professionals would bring it down using a power saw that made strategic cuts in the wall and then a full sized sledgehammer (which my kids would hardly be able to lift, let along swing!)

I went out to do errands and came back an hour later to find two holes in the wall. It was so exciting for them and for me, too! I wish I had been able to get pictures of the entire process.

They kept at it the next day for hour after hour until they had the entire wall down.

Ds9
Ds9 – after this picture was taken they finished taking down the wall to the left

This was far from an easy task! The wall was mostly concrete block but at some point they ran into a huge horizontal pillar of solid concrete reinforced with rebar that spanned the length of the wall. I told them to hold off on knocking it down until I clarified if it was safe to remove it. I had already checked that the wall wasn’t a supporting wall, but what I saw led me to think that this was some kind of structural element.

Ds12 swinging on the final piece of rebar enforced cement
Ds12 swinging on the final piece of rebar enforced cement

I asked our handyman about it and he said it’s structural for the wall itself, not for the building, and safe to remove. Safe, but it was an insane amount of work.

Who did it, you may be wondering? Ds9, ds10, ds12, and ds16 helped out as well. They seriously know how to work, these boys! Not only did they do the demo using only hand held hammers, but they shoveled hundreds of pounds of broken concrete to load the containers for the construction waste removal company to remove. (So far we’re up to six full huge heavy duty ‘bags’ – here in Israel this quantity is known as a balla. It’s a LOT.)

We also decided to take down a small wall that separates the living room from the hallway. That wall creates some privacy but it also cuts off some usable space in the living room and we have a different idea of how to keep the privacy while opening up the space. That wall was a much easier job, since it was drywall.

Ds10 pounding a hole into the drywall
Ds10 pounding a hole into the drywall
Ds6 getting into the action!
Ds6 getting into the action, banging away at the wall!

This has been an empowering and enjoyable project for the boys, albeit exhausting! There’s something about doing a significant task and really putting yourself into it that builds up a child (and an adult, too!).

Avivah

 

How to get kids to eat beans

Homemaking, Intentional Spending, Parenting

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

Menu Plan – week of the Nine Days

Intentional Spending, menu plans,

I was woken up by an early morning phone call by a friend inviting me to take a walk, and since Rafael also woke up from the ringing of the phone, I decided to take her up on it. I popped him into the stroller, had a pleasant morning walk, and then after getting home, made breakfast for everyone and by 9:30 am was able to sit down to plan the menu for the coming week.

There are weeks that I don’t plan my menu in advance, and though things always run more smoothly when I do, when it comes to the Nine Days things don’t go well at all if I don’t pre-plan. That’s because some of my quickie meals like baked chicken aren’t an option to fall back on this week, and vegetarian themed meals take more planning.

At least half of our meals during the week usually include chicken, so completely meatless meals are a significant shift for us.

Here’s our plan for the coming week.

Sunday: lunch – oat walnut burgers; dinner – vegetarian stuffed potatoes (toppings: sauteed onions and garlic, black beans, diced tomatoes, shredded cheese, sour cream)

Monday: l – lemony lentil salad with feta cheese; d – falafel, yogurt

Tuesday: l – tuna patties, potatoes; d – sweet potato chili, cornbread (gluten free)

Wednesday: l – tuna pasta salad (I make two versions – one has rice noodles for those who are gluten free); d – chickpea pot pie (will post recipe in a day or so)

Thursday: l – bean/rice/cheese burritos (I plan to have the kids make the tortillas since they enjoy that kind of thing); d – chickpea peanut stew

I currently have three large pans soaking: one filled with lentils, one with red beans, and one with chickpeas. Every couple of weeks I soak and cook a large amount of two or three kinds of legumes and pop them in the freezer in meal sized portions that can then be easily defrosted for quick use.

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On a different note, for the first time in a long time I made yogurt! My kids like having yogurt for Shabbos breakfast (along with cornflakes, granola and milk) and when I saw 2 liter containers of milk for 6.90, decided to do some yogurt making. Since I hadn’t made it in so long, I wasn’t sure how it would turn out. In fact when I froze part of the large batch that I made, I learned that it’s not something to do in the future – it completely changed the consistency!

I simplified the instructions I posted years ago in How to Make Yogurt. I used one small container of yogurt for the starter for four liters of milk, then covered the heated pot of milk with starter well and left it on the counter overnight. (Look at that post for details of the process so that these changes will make sense.) That was it! Since the weather is warm, there was no need to put it in the dehydrator or cooler to keep it warm.

Speaking of the dehydrator, that’s something else we’ve pulled out for the first time in years! I took it out with the intent to dehydrate chicken for my daughter and son-in-law to take on their two month trip to Thailand (they left this past week). Unfortunately, the fuse for the transformer blew right before I started and I couldn’t get to the store to buy a new fuse in time to prepare the chicken for them.

I bought a bunch of nectarines on sale and some were starting to get soft; I told the kids they could use those along with some overripe mangos to make breakfast shakes which they very happily did. Since the dehydrator was already out, ds12 then asked me if he could make fruit leather. I told him to go ahead and blend up the fruit, then spread it smoothly on the silicon sheets and put it in the dehydrator. He made a delicious batch of fruit leather with it – it’s so empowering for kids to see that they can make things like this on their own!

In other news, I’m planning an ambitious home renovation project. I’ve been thinking about how to do it frugally (of course!) and with minimum disruption to our family.  Thinking about all the pieces of this project has taken a huge amount of head space but I’m bit by bit putting the mental pieces together. We plan to begin the day after Tisha B’v, in just one week. More about what I want to do and why in another post!

Avivah

My significant life changing purchase – a car!

Homemaking, Homeschooling, Intentional Spending, Parenting, Self-Growth

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

Weekly menu plan

Intentional Spending, menu plans

Here is this week’s menu plan – I’ve only included breakfast meals if they are different than my standard option of hot cooked cereal or eggs.

Sun – lunch – deli sandwiches; dinner – sweet potato chili (doubled)

Mon – b – eggs; l -bean and rice bowls with avocado sauce (triple rice to serve with tomorrow’s dinner and morning rice on Thurs.); d – red lentil dal with kasha

Tuesday – b – baked oatmeal; l – sweet potato chili ; d – chicken a la king with rice

Wednesday: b – morning rice (with sunflower seeds and raisins); l – eggs and salad ; d – chicken tamale pie

Thursday – b – pancakes; l – chickpea pot pie (doubled); d – CORN (clean out refrigerator night)

Friday – l – chickpea pot pie

I made homemade cold cuts for Shabbos using marinated chicken breasts, but they were removed from the oven before they were completely cooked through to the center. So there was about half of it that I didn’t serve on Shabbos; my kids were very happy to have this left over! Yesterday we cooked up the chicken that was left, then sliced it  up and made sandwiches with leftover challah for Sunday lunch – voila, deli sandwiches!

I started my week by soaking and then cooking a pot of red beans – it takes almost the same amount of time and effort to cook a little as to cook a lot.  I used that for Sunday night dinner (I doubled that recipe so that I would have enough to serve for lunch on Tuesday), and will use the rest for the bean and rice bowls for Monday lunch.

I found a great deal at a supermarket just a couple of weeks ago – vacuum wrapped avocado puree. I love avocados but the price is never low, even when they’re in season, which they aren’t right now. The price per kg of avocados is currently about 16 shekels a kilo; a vacuum pack of 1 lb (approximately half a kilo) of mashed avocado is 5 shekels – that comes out to 10 shekels a kilo, but it doesn’t include the weight of the pit or peels, so the price is closer to half the price of fresh avocados or less.  it’s not only cheaper but more convenient than the fresh avocados, and I’ll defrost a package of this for the avocado sauce that will top the rice bowls.

The kids enjoy making pancakes themselves, and I’ve scheduled it for Thursday because that’s a day that I’m home all day so I’m more relaxed. They make a regular batch for themselves and a coconut flour (gluten free) batch for Yirmi.

The chickpea pot pie made it onto this week’s menu after I inventoried my freezer and saw that I had a container of seasoned cooked chickpeas, and another of vegetable pot pie filling. Once both containers are defrosted, I’ll combine the two mixtures, make a mashed potato topping and bake it.

I didn’t schedule dinner for Thursday night since experience has shown that there’s usually something left from the week and I try to use what I have and leave the fridge space clear for my Shabbos cooking the next day.

I’ve put on my optional list – if I have the energy and time and desire that all coincide at the same time and that’s very much not a given :): zucchini muffins, sweet potato muffins, cornbread muffins (gluten free – I use coconut flour). I’d like to make a large batch so I can put a bunch of them in the freezer. I don’t do much baking and once I’m doing it, I’d like to maximize my efforts.

Avivah

Simple Shabbos preps, celebrating birthdays,reassessing school plans

Homemaking, Homeschooling, Intentional Spending

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

Homemaking, Intentional Spending, Self-Growth

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

Weekly menu plan

Intentional Spending, menu plans

I like to plan my menu for the week on Saturday nights; otherwise, a few days into the week I’d be figuring out the meals as I went along and wondering why I didn’t do some advance planning to keep mealtimes running smoothly!  Posting it here helps me feel more accountable to myself to get it done at the beginning of the week.

I start my planning by taking a look at what I have in the fridge, freezer and pantry (this includes leftovers).

Breakfast at this point is just about always eggs, oatmeal or polenta so it doesn’t require any planning.  Snacks are usually vegetables, sometimes fruit. I usually include some kind of vegetable with dinner if the dish that I plan doesn’t include any but I don’t plan that in advance – it’s pretty easy to chop up a plate of cucumber rounds.

I avoid gluten (no pasta and bread) and dairy.

Sunday: lunch – Shabbos leftovers; dinner – lima beans with chicken

Monday: l – chicken minestrone soup ; dinner – hot dogs, potatoes and green beans

Tuesday: l – lentil loaf, chummus, tomatoes ; d – chicken breast, rice, roasted summer vegetables

Weds: l – Spanish chickpeas and rice; d – baked sweet potatoes, chicken wings, salad

Thurs – l – chickpea and peanut stew; d –  kasha, ground meat sauce

Last week I made lentil loaf and made four pans; I stuck two of them in the freezer. I usually don’t like to serve the same dish two weeks in a row but this week my freezer is jam packed since my husband generously stocked us up on chicken. Combining that with the large amount of donor milk that I suddenly received in a two day period for Rafael (I never say no to donor milk, it is so vital to his health and it always gets priority for freezer space!), I want to get whatever I can out to make room for holiday cooking.

Here are some examples of how I integrate what I have in the house along with planned leftovers into this week’s menu:

I don’t have lima beans but chose the lima beans with chicken recipe since my planned experiment to roast broad beans for a snack didn’t work out. I overcooked the beans and then they were too soft. They don’t taste the same as limas but I think they’re similar enough that it will work.

For Monday’s lunch, I’ll be using whatever is left of Sunday’s dinner of broad beans and chicken, and add vegetables to make a soup similar to minestrone. That way I won’t have an odd container of dinner leftovers sitting around in the fridge growing mold while I forget that I put it there and don’t recognize it when I finally open it up.  (No, that has never happened to me. :))

When I cook rice for Tuesday night’s dinner, I’ll double the recipe and use half of what I make for the next day’s lunch of Spanish chickpeas and rice.

I’ll use any leftover roasted summer vegetables from Tuesday night’s dinner in the chickpea peanut stew for Thursday lunch, since those are the vegetables the recipe calls for.

By the way, I don’t buy canned beans so I soak and then cook all beans that are in any of the recipes I use. Very frugal and super easy.

On Tuesday night I’ll soak a large package of dried chickpeas, then will cook them first thing Weds. morning.  They’ll be ready to use in time for lunch, and I’ll have enough for lunch the next day of chickpea peanut stew, too.  Often I’ll freeze a large amount of cooked beans, and later I can quickly pull them out to add to a dish.

Most weeks I make a double recipe of a dish and then put half of it in the freezer for another week. This cuts down on how many meals I’m making from scratch and simplifies my day. We all prefer this to what I used to do, which was to make something for dinner, then serve it again for lunch the next day.  I’ll empty my freezer a bit at the end of the week when I cook for Shavuos and then in the coming week I’ll get back to freezing meals for dinner.

I haven’t been careful to record all the food expenses separately so I can’t tell you exactly what our monthly food bill is at this time. We budget 1100 shekels a week for food, transportation and miscellaneous expenses.

Have a great week!

Avivah