Things and Pics

It's seems like ages since I last wrote. Life just seems to get away from me sometimes. Let's see. What's been going on?

Pesach (Passover) is looming. I'm very proud of myself because one evening last week, T and I cleaned the shelves of all the upper kitchen cabinets. Not a small job. This evening I hope to get the lower drawers and cabinets cleaned out with her help. I think this is the earliest I've ever started Pesach cleaning! I also need to make the menu and do the food shopping soon in the hopes of beating the crowds. It looks like just my Mom will be joining us this year for the Seder. DH's married kids and mother all asked to come for Chag Sheini (last day) so that's going to be more of a strain for me than the seder itself.

For my Mom's birthday at the beginning of this month, I made her a beautiful Swarovski bracelet which was time consuming to make and not cheap. She wore it for an hour and managed to lose it! Very bummed about that. I told her I'd make her another one as soon as I can.

T is due to start taking her math "matkonot" tests in school starting right after Passover. These tests are every few days over the course of a month. Math has always been her bug-a-boo subject. I told her I do NOT want her attempting to study for these tests without a private teacher to guide her/help her study. The father of E's best friend in gan is a high school math teacher and the family lives down the block from us. I know the father tutors students. A lovely, lovely man. I spoke to him yesterday about possibly tutoring T in preparation for these tests. He asked if she needs teaching - in which case he wouldn't have time to take her on - or just practice. I told him I thought she needed teaching. He said to send her over to their house last night at 9 pm so he could talk to her and draw his own conclusions. T was there until 10:15. I spoke to the father, Ronen, after she got back. He said she definitely needs teaching. The way he put it was "her head works, the math doesn't". He teaches math in three local high schools and said in every class he's ever taught he's had 2-3 students like T. After orinigally saying he didn't have time to teach her, he said he would tutor her but that I needed to speak to the school's counsellor and see if the school would be willing to let T take the "Moed B" (a 2nd test for those who didn't pass the first one) in July which will allow T more time for lessons with Ronen to bring her up to speed. I spoke to the counsellor and she agreed without hesitation. She didn't even blink at my request which was a HUGE relief. So it looks like it's a green light for weekly lessons for T until July.

We are potty training E. Again. A few months ago he was half trained (peepee) but I got tired of washing poop out of his pants 4 times a day. We figured he wasn't ready yet so put him back in diapers. Now the weather's a tad warmer and Passover vacation is coming up where I'll be off work a lot more and can deal with him so starting last Shabbat we've foregone the diapers - cold turkey. Even at night. We've covered the couch and rolled up the carpets. Geesh! It's like housebreaking a dog.

Last Monday they finally moved me into my new office at work. I'm in love! Small, cute, compact office with two HUGE windows. You almost need sunglasses in here. I now have a door, too, so most days I've got baroque classical music playing softly in the background or streaming nature sounds (burbling creek and forest birds cheeping - I'm always looking for ways to bring the outdoors inside....). So many people have told me my office is the nicest. I've had repeat visitors of other employees who just walk in and want to go ooooo and ahhhhh. O yeah! Lots of atmos in here! I went to the nursery the evening before they moved me over and treated myself to a really pretty plant for the office. I hope I don't kill it.

It's supposed to rain tomorrow and Friday. A spring storm. It's been a very wet winter with lots of snow up north so the Kinneret (Sea of Galilee) is filling up nicely. I hope the weather over Pesach vacation will be decent. I'm working 2 full days during chol hamoed and I'm off the rest. I hope to do lots of outdoorsy stuff with the kids - maybe take them camping for one night on the beach near here. I really don't feel like being on the roads with the rest of the country so we'll probably just stick close to home.

Here are a bunch of misc pics that I found on my camera:

Me on Purim. I wore this hat and nose to work the day before Purim. The CEO loved it and came into my office a few times for 2nd and 3rd looks.



E hiding the the kitchen garbage can's insert.

A lemon!



The start of the Rehovot Walk a few Fridays ago.



The fields on the eastern edge of Rehovot.





A tower used in the early days of the State of Israel as a lookout point to protect Rehovot from the surrounding Arabs.



DH.

Feasting on strawberries!



And THAT....believe it or not....is the backside of T.



AWWW. Sweet boychik.

Sunshine

After nearly a full week of rain, thank G-d, today is the first day we've seen the sun for more than a few minutes at a time and we are promised warmer than normal temps this week. Maybe I will be able to catch up on the laundry and not have to use the dryer so much. The Kinneret (Sea of Galilee) is filling up nicely after being at dangerously low levels for years. We still have a long way to go before we can say it's full but still. We're headed in the right direction.

DH and Y got back from the UK about 2 weeks ago. 2 days after they got back, S and I agreed on my going to see MY family (and meet the sister who I've never met) in October for two weeks BY MYSELF. Hurrah! So I have that to look forward to. I also want to see my Dad while I'm there and am trying to decide whether to drive or fly down to CA to see him or have him come up to WA where I'll be which probably makes more sense.

Work is still deathly quiet and boring for me. If they don't mind, I don't mind. I can keep myself occupied. There are just so many more productive things I could be doing at home.

Speaking of which, I finished this bracelet last night which I am giving to my Mom as today is her birthday and we are going to her place tonight with pizza for a small party.

Loooooooooooong skinnnnnnnnnnny picture!

And I've branched out and last night tried my hand at these glass tile necklaces which I am sending to my two neices for their birthdays.

I would like to try to sell some of the jewelry I'm making and have opened a Facebook page where I post pics and details about every piece I've made: https://www.facebook.com/#!/pages/Avigayils-Baubles/185513491557176. I have lots of ideas for more designs that I want to try so keep checking back.

Purim starts this week on Wednesday night. There has been a lot of lead-up to it in the kids' schools and E's gan. One day E came home like this:

I think the gannenet (daycare teacher) used green permanent marker to make those green circles around his eyes. It didn't really come off completely in the bath that night and the next morning he woke up with a green, shmeary face. 

Another day he came home like this:



I plan to come to work on Wednesday with some sort of silly hat or something to get people into the spirit. E had a penguin costume already that DH's older son had bought for him last year and which was miles too big so E is wearing it this year.

I took the girls last night to buy costumes. Y is going as Minnie Mouse and T as a Hawaiian girl. Pics will follow. I spent 130 NIS ($34) for both girls and count myself lucky that I got off so cheaply. What they charge for costumes is shocking!

Purim being upon us means that Pesach is around the corner and at lunch today we were talking about it and it was pointed out to me that Pesach begins in exactly a month and that it starts on a Friday night. O joy! Extra complicated from a family point of view for us.......

Misc. Pics 'n Stuff

The battery of my camera, which I've had since we went to Crete almost 4 years ago, stopped holding its charge completely. So, logically, I bought a new battery. As soon as I put the new battery in, my camera went haywire. Won't focus. The lens won't retract when I turn it off. Etc. I took it back to the shop where I'd bought the battery and explained the problem and the owner said the camera has had it. Kaput.  I use my camera SO much! The GOOD news is that the price of cameras has come down and something comparable to the one I have runs 450-590 NIS (~$120-160) and we're talking 14 mega pixels rather than my puny 8 mega pixel one. He also said he would deduct the cost of the new battery from the purchase price of the new camera. Can't ask for more than that. Just have to wait for payday.

DH and Y are coming back from the UK today. I popped DH a text message first thing this morning about the death of my camera and he said they are just about to head out the door for the airport and he will see what he can do about picking up a new camera for me in duty free that is compatible with the new battery I just bought! So....... finger's crossed.

I was thinking that I'd better offload all of the pics from my old camera before it won't let me do even that. And I came across a whole smattering of pictures that I'd forgotten were even on it.

Follows a real mish-mash of stuff that I thought was photo-worthy........



Israeli milk. It's sold in bags. Just another one of "those things" you have to get used to when moving to another country. You put it in one of these milk pitchers, snip the corner of the bag and it pours beautifully. You CAN buy "real" milk i.e. cartons - at nearly twice the price.



T and I were sitting in the bus station in Rehovot not long ago waiting for a bus and we saw this elderly woman walking through the station dragging 12 boxes on "leashes". What are they? Gas masks! We got on the same bus as she did and we heard someone else commenting about how many she had. She said she'd picked them up for her and her family and a neighbor too.



Taken way back during Chanukkah. Some people place the menorah outside their homes or apartment buildings in these glass, aquarium-like boxes because we are supposed to "advertise" the miracle of Chanukkah. I thought it was so pretty sitting outside this apartment building.





Me. On a rare good hair + makeup day. Sorry about the boring background though. Taken at work.



Guess who?



The kidlets in the park next to our building. Doing the "Spider".



Taken last Thursday on my way to IKEA. You can see the rain storm rolling in. Look at those BLACK clouds. O MY!





More black clouds! (In case you're wondering, yes, I did snap this while driving. I know I know. Bad, bad me.)



Here comes the rain. Driving straight into it!



Once we got on the open freeway, it was pelting down. I was creeping along. I could see the white lane markings and tail lights of other cars but not much else. Didn't last long though.





I, inexplicably, woke "too" early this morning at 5:10 am and couldn't go back to sleep. But there are advantages to that. I got to see the sun come up and snapped this through our dining room door that leads out onto our postage-stamp size balcony.



T and I have been shopping for curtains for the 2 windows in her room. We can't find anything ready-made that we like. The styles here! UGH! Vomit! And to have curtains made is for rich people. So I had a brainwave and schlepped T down the block to the remnant fabric store and we both spotted a fabric we loved immediately. I told her I would attempt to make her some simple curtains or die trying. If it works, we've saved a bundle. If not, we won't be out a fortune. This is the fabric we chose. We thought we wanted sheer fabric but surprisingly, this isn't. It's a thicker, stiffer cotton.

My boychik! Happy little face......

The Last Few Days.....

Last week at work was horrifically boring. Absolutely NOTHING to do. And I hate that feeling of having to invent things to look busy. I can easily amuse myself all day long every day on the internet but feel guilty doing that when they're paying me.

Anyway.

Since DH and Y have been away, E has been sleeping with me in our bed. I love it but I know as soon as DH gets back (he doesn't love it when the kids sleep with us) I'm going to regret letting E sleep with me and having to retrain him back to his bed. It's just so much easier with him sleeping with me. He wakes up for a drink or whatever and getting him whatever he needs is so much less daunting than having to traipse all the way (Listen to me! I make it sound like I live in an 18,000 sq. ft. mansion!) across the apartment in this cold to get him what he needs or see what's wrong. But whatever.

So Tuesday night I thought he had a fever all night. I could feel his body heat radiating all the way across to my side of the bed. In the morning, his cheeks were bright pink and his eyes didn't look so good but I sent him to gan anyway (bad, bad Ima!). Wishful thinking. Around 13:30 Wednesday afternoon his gannenet (daycare carer) called me and said she thought he had a fever and he wasn't acting like himself. He'd fallen asleep even before noon which isn't like him. I wasn't happy he was sick, poor baby, but I was THRILLED to have a legitimate excuse to leave work. (It's definitely the first time I've had to take time off for a sick kid in the nearly two years since I've been in this job.) Silly, me sitting here twiddling my thumbs. Just dumb. When I'm busy I don't mind but when I'm not.....o man! I dashed to the gan and took him home.

He ended up having a high fever for three days! Apart from taking him to the doctor on Friday and the fastest IKEA run you've ever seen in your life on Thursday, we've been home in our pajamas watching a lot of movies and having a slow-mo Shabbat. I kept giving him Acamol to bring the fever down and when he was under the influence of that he was fine. Jumping around and playing and singing and playing games on the computer, etc. But when the Acamol wore off and the fever came back. O my! Horrible.

Friday night we all went to sleep pretty early. Then at 5:30 am yesterday morning E woke up because his nose was stuffy and he couldn't breathe. I put some salt water drops in his nose and we got up, had some petit ber buscuits dipped in coffee (our Shabbat morning treat). I was up with him until 6:30 then we went back to bed and we both slept until 10:45!!!!! I can't remember the last time that happened. Especially on Shabbat.

The carpet that I had wanted to buy for E's room had been out of stock at IKEA for a while and on Thursday I checked their site again and it said they'd gotten it in. So I grabbed E and we ran to IKEA to pick it up. Got the rug and a new shade for the little lamp in his room too.

The robin's egg blue in the rug exactly matches the new color we recently had the walls painted.

The base of the lamp is a deep, rich blue. Isn't the shade cute?

I had gone a week ago Friday to the bead shop in Rishon and stocked up. I had a bunch of jewelry projects that I wanted to get done while DH and Y were away and thanks to being home with E sick for three days I had even more time than I'd expected to work on my projects. In all I've made a pair of earrings and matching pendant (a gift for someone), a bracelet (also a gift), a necklace and matching earring set for me and last night started another necklace which I should be able to finish within the next day or two.


Here's the pendant. Still need to add the ring at the top and a chain or ribbon to hang it from.



Here's the necklace I made for myself. I'm stuck on this pattern. It's so me! I think this is the 4th necklace using this pattern that I've made and I've got a 5th in the works.



The weather forecast for the weekend was supposed to bring the mother of all storms, with snow in Jerusalem (very rare) all but a surety. No such luck. It didn't rain at all in Rehovot yesterday but today is a COLD, black, wet, wet day! I was reading on one of the English news sites that over Shabbat the Kinneret (Sea of Galilee) which has been at record low drought levels for at least 7 years rose by over 4 inches! That is a LOT of water. The snow that has fallen on Mt. Hermon and northern areas will melt and provide even more water. Hurrah! Great news! What a blessing! We're not out of the woods yet as far as our water levels go but we're headed in the right direction. May it only continue!