Today I took ds16 to the oral surgeon to get three wisdom teeth extracted.  I can remember getting my wisdom teeth out – also when I was 16 – like it just happened.  When I was 16 I was practically an adult; it’s strange to have a child already at this stage.

The surgeon we used has a very good reputation, which was a good thing, since his bedside manner was seriously lacking.  I timed how long the entire procedure took- six minutes for him to be given the painkilling injections, then the doc went out to work on someone else for ten minutes, then came back in and all three teeth were out within eight minutes.  14 minutes hands on time for the oral surgeon, and he had all four rooms full and was rotating through them simultaneously.  Not bad, is it?

Ds had a lot of bleeding that wasn’t stopping, and when I called three hours later, they told me to give it another couple of hours.  When I called back right before they closed two hours later, I got the doctor himself on the phone.  He told me to wrap the gauze pads around a regular (non herbal) tea bag, have ds bite down firmly, and replace it after 45 minutes, and it would stop the bleeding.  The tannic acid in the tea is the effective ingredient – I was glad to learn of it being used like that; I wanted to give ds a capsule partially filled with cayenne pepper to slow the bleeding down but his throat hurt too much to swallow even water, so the capsule was out.

Then I asked about the pain ds was having and the doctor asked if I gave him painkillers.  I told him not yet, that I planned to fill the prescription as soon as bleeding stopped and that ds was still numb, and he responded with an an impatient tone as if I was the biggest idiot in the world, “That’s why we give you painkillers, so you can give it to him before he feels any pain.”

Now to be accurate, they didn’t give me any painkillers, they gave me a prescription for antibiotics and painkillers (without verbal instructions); when I asked the assistant who gave me the prescription she said the painkillers aren’t necessary.  His tone remained impatient when I was clarifying how long the numbness, pain, and bleeding would last, and what steps to take for each (it would have been nice to have been told about this after the surgery).  The entire call might have taken two minutes, so it wasn’t like I was haranguing him. He said something that sounded like ‘that’s very dumb’, so I firmly told him that it was inappropriate to say that.

He then apologized, clarified that he was saying ‘numb’, and at the end of the conversation apologized again profusely.  Though it was my mistake in mishearing what he was saying, he must have realized that if I thought that’s what he said, it’s because it made perfect sense in the way he was speaking to me.  Some people mind this less than me, but I really dislike being condescended to or being treated as an imbecile.  Until fairly recently, if someone spoke to me like this, I would have felt angry and resentful but  just swallowed it and held that inside me.  So it was good to use this opportunity to be respectful yet assertive, and not be left with a negative feeling inside.

My husband said the doctor was very chatty and pleasant when he went for the initial visit, and he called later tonight to check on ds and was very nice.  I’m sure he was just having a rough day – we all have times where we don’t put our best foot forward, don’t we?   But if I had felt victimized by the way he acted at the office or later on the phone, I would be holding onto an impression of him as rude, impersonal, impatient, and nasty – and that wouldn’t have benefited anyone.  So nice to have a healthy perspective and just move on with life without getting stuck in the small stuff!

Avivah

I wanted to let you know that in order to help you better navigate the site, I’m splitting a couple of the categories.  The category that used to be ‘recipes, menu plans’ will now be two separate categories.  So far I’ve transferred 33 weeks of menu plans to the new ‘menu plans’ category, leaving only 85 posts in the recipes category (most of which are recipes – there are still a handful of menu plans to re-label, which I hope to finish off in the next couple of days).

After that, I’ll be splitting the ‘nutrition, home remedies’ category into two. A blog is kind of  like organizing your house – there’s always something a little more you can do to make it more efficient!

I think this will make it easier for you to go through categories and find what you want.

Avivah

For anyone who visited recently and noticed the offensive automatically generated links below the comments section, I apologize.  Thank you to Michelle for bringing them to my attention.  It’s a feature automatically included with WordPress blogs that I wasn’t aware of, not that it was there or what it did – I’ve now cancelled it.  (Even if I had been aware of it, I would have expected it to generate links to the kind of thing I write about, family centered topics.) 

If anyone notices something like this that looks like something I wouldn’t want there, assume I don’t know it’s there and please let me know.  This is a new blog platform for me and I’m not familiar with all of its features yet.

Thanks!

Avivah

I hope you all had a wonderful yom tov!  Here we enjoyed it so much and I can hardly believe how fast it went by.  We jumped right back into our regular busy life – I took ds yesterday to the oral surgeon to have his wisdom teeth out, but the time my dh told me he made the appointment for was actually a half hour later than when they said the appointment was scheduled.  I thought I was getting there right on time.  But I got the very next available appointment,  three months from now!

Ds didn’t mind too much, though!  He was very pleased when on the way home I took him to the MVA to get a driver’s manual.  He needs to study it to get his driver’s permit.  When he began to immediately read the manual and asked me if I would take him for his permit exam tomorrow, it brought to mind a belief I have regarding learning, that when a person is motivated, they’ll do what they need to get the information they want!  He’s definitely motivated!  (I’m not sharing that excitement, though. :))

Last night I expressed my unhappiness to my dh at the lack of movement towards having the computer fixed.  After two and a half weeks I wasn’t feeling very patient any more.  I’m so grateful that the libraries have computer access for the public, since that’s been how I’ve been managing until now, but the logistics were a little tricky (since I had to go during hours that I usually spend with the kids, and the timing had to work out with the baby being fed for a while) and I didn’t have nearly enough time to write about all the things that I’ve wanted to!   Today someone finally came and took care of it, so I can once again get online from the comfort of home.  I’m so, so glad!  It also looks like we’ll be getting a new computer soon, since there are enough things that are problematic with this one that it’s not worth putting more money into fixing them, considering the cost of new one would be around what we’d have to pay for the repairs! 

Ds7, dd9, and ds10 went to their monthly geography club meeting.  When I picked them up, I  picked up a three year old friend to bring home for ds3 to play with.  Ds2 is busy having his own kind of fun as I write this – I just stopped him after realizing he was prying the keys off of dh’s laptop.  He is a very typical two year old! 

 This afternoon ds10 is starting a job as a mother’s helper for a friend of mine.  He’s very fun and good with kids, and responsible, too!   If it works out well on both sides, then he’ll go there a couple of afternoons a week for a couple of hours each time.  I think it’s good for kids to have a chance to earn money, and to help others in the process.

Dd13 is enjoying fixing up the girls’ bedroom.  She had an idea about how to keep their belongings better organized; this includes screwing the shoe rack to the side of their freestanding closet, then removing all the large shelves but one from that same closet, and cutting them down (I don’t watch my kids use the power saw; it makes me too nervous) so that they will fit in the area behind their door.  She’s in the middle of screwing all the newly cut shelves into the wall. I haven’t taken a look yet but she’s excited about it and I trust that it will look very nice when she’s done.

After we finished at Home Depot getting her the right size screws, on the spur of the moment it occurred to me it would be a good time to get a birth certificate for the baby.  The paperwork took a very long time to go through this time, much longer than the last two home births.  We were fortunate that the office was pretty empty so we were in and out within fifteen minutes.  It’s one of those things that has been on my mind to get done, and since he’s already 4.5 months old, I’m really glad to have it done!

Our fridge is full of leftovers from the holiday, so dinner this week will be nice and easy!  I guess it balances out well with all the extra work there is to get things back to normal – taking apart and putting away the sukka, washing a mountain of laundry….:)

Avivah

I promised to share with your the significance of the new name for the blog, and here it is!  It wasn’t easy to choose since you all submitted so many wonderful choices.  Even though I liked the sound of them, I eliminated any titles that put me on a pedestal.  I also eliminated anything that was specific (like only about nutrition, or only about parenting), since I wanted something broad that could somehow encompass all that I share here with you.  As I got to thinking more, I realized that I don’t share about categories or topics; I share about myself and my life.  So the right blog title would have to be reflective of who I am.

Oceans of Joy represents to me several concepts that are deeply meaningful to me, that inspire me and reflect the qualities I want to be filled with:  abundance, serenity, and joy.

There’s a beautiful visualization by Louise Hay that I really love and want to share with you, because every time I think of the name of the blog it comes to mind.   Imagine yourself next to an ocean.  As far as you can see, the water stretches out before you.  The ocean represents the abundance of this beautiful world we live in.  Now imagine that you want to gather some of that water to take for yourself.  What kind of vessel will you use to gather the water you want?  Is it a thimble, a cup, a bucket, a hose?  Does your cup have a hole in it?  The only limitation to how much you bring into your life is the capacity of the vessel you choose.  So the ocean is a metaphor for abundance.  And oceans is reflective of an unimaginable abundance.

I love nature and when I go to a beach or beautiful forest, my outside self quiets down and I can feel the calm of my inner self being restored.  Living life from a place of inner tranquility is a goal of mine.  The word ‘ocean’ also represents serenity, a quiet peace and contentment with myself and everything in my life.  Just looking at a picture of a beautiful nature scene has that affect on me.

I feel incredibly blessed to have enormous blessings in my life which bring me deep joy.  My husband, my children, my health, good friends, and so much more.  The more I focus on the good that I experience, the more joy is drawn into my life.  Oceans of Joy reflects the unending deep joy that I find in living each day.

I hope the new blog name will be a reminder and encouragement for you, as it is for me, of all the joy and beauty that is there for each of us to enjoy, each and every day!

Avivah

Thank you all for the many amazing suggestions you came up with for my new blog name!  After spending loads of time going through all the suggestions for a new name, then mixing and matching taglines with blog titles, trying them out and getting my family’s thoughts on them, etc, I finally decided on one!  And then found out it was taken on both blogging platforms I was considering. 🙁

So it was back to the proverbial drawing board – you ladies didn’t make it easy since there were so many amazing suggestions that came in!  The new name is one that wasn’t suggested in the comments section, but I love it and think it sums up my philosophy towards life and is a broad enough canopy to encompass all the different things I write about, which was a big challenge.

The new name of my blog will be (drumroll :))…………………………………………….

Oceans of Joy

I’ll explain the meaning behind it as the first post of the new blog, but I’m really thrilled with the new name and am looking forward to sharing the significance with you.  It’s not yet being finished getting set up – I need to get all the old posts and comments over to the new site and everything is taking much longer because of my computer being out of commission – but hopefully that will happen soon!

I also will be emailing all of you who submitted suggestions – thank you all again!!!  For every suggestion you submitted, I’ll be sending you an mp3 file from the list of eight below.  Some of you submitted more than eight, and I wish I had more to send you!  The list to choose from is below; start thinking about it so you can let me know what you want!

“Chanoch l’naar al pi darko – What does it mean for us?” – Rabbi Menachem Goldberger, maara d’asra of Tiferes Yisroel synagogue

“Yes, You Can Be Your Child’s Rebbe – Teaching Limudei Kodesh”  – Rabbi Osher Werner , author of Pharoah and the Fabulous Frog Invasion

“Teaching the Multi-Age Family”  – Mrs. Avivah Werner

“Homeschooling and Marriage: Stressing or Strengthening?” – Mr. Mort Fertel, author of Marriage Fitness

“Strengthing Your Family Through Homeschooling” –Mrs. Rivka Malka Perlman

“The Myth of Socialization” – Dr. Nechama Cox

“Whole Brain learning” – Exercises for Whole Brain Integration – Mrs. Karen Zeitlin

“Maintaining Health and Spirit Under Stress” – Mrs. Rena Levin

Thank you all for your help, your suggestions, and for taking the time to visit here with me!

Avivah

(Nechamah, please contact me – your email is bouncing.)

I’ve been wanting to move my blog away from my business site to an independent  blog site for quite some time, for various reasons.  And since we’re starting a new year, now seems to be the right time to do it. I’ve thought of several names, but none of them seem to be just right to me.  I’m looking for something that includes all of what I share here – not just homeschooling, parenting, or frugal living.

So I decided to ask all of you for feedback – what does this blog represent to you?  How would you sum it up, with a blog name and a tagline?  (For example, my business site is called Vibrant Moms, the tagline is Real Support for Real Moms.)  To help get your creative juices flowing, I’ll be giving a $25 Amazon gift card to the person whose idea I use.  You can submit as many ideas as you want, however specific or general they are – post whatever bursts of inspiration you have in the comments section of this post so I can keep track of who suggests what. 🙂  To give everyone time to think about it, I’ll make the final decision right after Yom Kippur, on Sep. 29.

Thank you all in advance for your help – I’m really looking forward to tapping into your creative energy!

Avivah

On the heels of the hacking excitement came this morning’s fun.  I was planning to leave for a day of shopping by 10:30, but was able to get an appointment with my chiropractor to do some work on me for the breathing issue so I didn’t get home until 11:15 am.  (BH, though it wasn’t entirely cleared up this was tremendously helpful.)  Then dd14 didn’t want to leave until she washed all the dishes in the sink (it’s my job but I haven’t been up to doing much more than sitting in one place for the last three days) because she didn’t want to come home to a mess.  The reason I’m mentioning this is that because of these delays, when dd14 finally finished the dishes and started to go outside to get a cooler to take with us for the raw milk, she saw someone in the middle of prying the lock off our garage with a crowbar. 

She didn’t register right away what he was doing, but he ran off the second he saw her (as she described it, ‘he looked up with guilt written all over his face’).  I called the neighborhood patrol to report it but if I had time to think about it would have called a different patrol that responds in the day and has a quick response time.  I did call them afterwards, but five minutes had already gone by and that’s too late to catch him.  I did go around and warn the few neighbors who were in to be careful and keep their eyes open.  

Isn’t it great that we happened to be home?  Since we were going to be out all day, there would have been nothing to have stopped him from totally cleaning us out – we don’t have much of value, but it took us months until we replaced the bikes and mower that were stolen last time and it would be very disheartening to have them all stolen again.

Since I didn’t know if he’d try to come back today and I knew we’d be out until tonight (I know, it seems stupid to go back to somewhere where you were spotted, but breaking into one of the better secured garages on the block belonging to one of the few homes that has someone home almost all day every day wasn’t exactly bright, either), I asked the kids to move all the bikes out of the garage into the house and then find a different place for the mower.  Joining all these bicycles in the living room are two bench seats from the van, removed to make space to bring all our groceries home.  Now that we’re finally home with the groceries, there really isn’t room to move anywhere. 

Tomorrow we’ll finish unloading the groceries from the van, clean out the van, put the bench seats back in, return the bikes to the garage, put away the groceries, and maybe even do some Rosh Hashana cooking.  🙂

Avivah

>>You’re back, albeit missing some well-written content <<

Yes, I am back, and I’m so glad that I am!  If you checked my site after midnight last night, you probably saw the creepy message about my site being hacked (done by a radical Muslim group).  Within a couple of hours my host server deleted that message so the only message you you would have seen was that the site wasn’t accessible.  For those who didn’t know what was going on, now you know!

I was initally concerned that it was my personal site that was hacked into, but discovered my host server was hacked as well when I tried to get their phone number off their website and the website displayed the same graphic and message.  (I also discovered there were other large sites also hacked into by the same group around the same time, by googling when I was trying to figure out what was going on and what to do.)  I think I must have been one of the very first to call them to let them know.  So I think that all the sites connected to my server were hacked into.  I went to sleep with a lot more peace of mind knowing that it wasn’t going to be all up to me to figure it out!  First thing this morning they called me back and left a message that they know who did it, they’re fixing it, and it would be back to normal by this afternoon.  I was doing my monthly shopping today and didn’t get home until 8:30 pm, so I didn’t check until the house got somewhat quiet.

Unfortunately the two posts I wrote last night are gone.  One was posted for a very short while before the site was hacked (it was too new to have been included in the saved databases of my server), the second was lost when I pressed ‘publish’ – that was when I discovered the problem – it was lost the second I pressed the button so no way that could have been saved.  So if you happened to read whatever I read last night, I’m glad, because I don’t rewrite posts.  🙂

I was really sad at the idea of losing all the posts I’ve written over the last three years, and you can’t imagine how grateful I feel to have them back. 

Avivah