We woke up very early & got dressed, yes, you guessed it right. It’s a special day today! It’s YOM HAATZMAUT, 72nd Birthday to the state of Israel.

But not just… we had to pay a visit to our orthodontist. So we drove far far away from home, just kidding, to Bentleigh. I was doing some step exercise outside while the kids were treated inside.

After this trip drove back home. well, after that my kids enjoyed a full day with soup and ice cream.

The second part of the day was doing my nails (by myself) in a blue colour to fit the feeling of the day. Then, we did take #3 of hair colour…

But this time we used a professional.

After we tried a few times and she was devastated that it didn’t work… I knew she had to bleach, and I’m not taking that on me.

So my daughter now has a purple colour on her hair and she’s As happy as Larry.

I was finished after that so I went to bed really early…

The little things that make us happy

I woke up very tired . So I decided to stay in bed after I made sure the kids woke up to school.

Started the morning watching some familiar fallen soldiers’ stories, most of them I know but it’s always so touching to listen to it again, it never leaves my eyes dry…

Then I had to help with some school activities, paused to keep some progress on the jigsaw puzzle and since I knew it’s Yom Haatzmaut I decided to get ready for an Israeli dinner after the transition ceremony from Yom Hazikaron (memorial day) to Yom Haatzmaut (independence day).

And I was super creative with the dessert…

Then the kids explained my parents how to play skribble.io, although it took them a long time to get into the game and start playing… but they made it!
Skribble.io is an online drawing game: someone draws something and the other players need to guess what it is. They played together for a few hours. It was fun! Both sides enjoyed it.

Ooops…. There wasn’t time for art today.
Tomorrow is already Wednesday… I cannot believe it!

This morning the air was really freezing. I really didn’t feel like going out of bed but, since I had to wake up the kids for another school day, I got up and, got dressed, put on a warm jumper and turned on the kettle.

Had my little coffee in quiet. Then woke up the kids again, and once they were in front of their screen – remote learning – I went out for shopping.

It was early so I did it quickly.
I was so happy to get some fruit and veggies, and in general – see the world.

Came back home and made 15L minestrone soup for those cold days…
Then the sun came out and I was sitting, enjoying and appreciating nature around me.

After school finished we started a beautiful painting that we’ll finish tomorrow… looking forward to it!

I think by now, I told you every piece of interesting information that happened in each day.

Today it felt just like groundhog day…

Repetition of the same day with same chores and activities, some more life skills & meal preparation… that’s it.

I ran out of inventions or my creativity is blocked. I also ran out art supplies and fruit & veggies. Hopefully tomorrow we’ll stock up…

I woke up early, as usual. Woke my kids up for another remote school day.
Had my coffee & started working a little… had enough very quickly.

After 30 days I decided to go out for shopping. It was 9am, nearly no one was driving. Awkward.

Went in the car, put the radio on. The sun was shining. My roses are growing, It felt so good to be outside.
OMG how I missed it…

Went down to coles, post office and another shop in the area.

Then decided to get us some treats from another special place, we deserve it.

Aren’t we all?!

Holocaust memorial day.

My Saba Israel Mondry z”l survived the horrors of Hitler and the Nazis. He was 14 when the war started. His chassidic family was very big. He had brothers, sisters and grandparents.
These are their names: Abraham-Saul, Sarah, Trivia, Leah, Berish, Mordechai, Rachel, Esther.

He was smuggled and sent to work in the kitchen, that’s how he survived… He never saw his family again. After the war, he came to Israel, then he found out his sister, who apparently survived as well and lived in USA.

I started the day looking at some name lists from Ghetto Lodz and locations, hoping to find more than what we have (which is this one photo below).

Now I can tell you that it all started when I was 17. Yes, years ago. When I wanted to go on March of the Living, and I shared the fact with my Saba. He was furious. How can I step on that horrific soil? I might step on his family’s blood. You can understand he refused.
I gave it a year. In that year he opened up and told us his story of those times of war.
We managed to videotape it, which is so good, before shortly after that he got sick and passed away.

A year later I went on March of the Living and it changed me forever.
When you see everything behind glass in Auschwitz, you understand how bad it was. And the Ash Mountain… just breaks you to pieces. Then you go to Treblinka and see the amounts of stones that symbolise the communities that were vanished, but when you enter Meidanek and see the piles of shoes… and smell the leather… It hits you back: the sheer amount of people who died there….

I promised myself to remember that forever.

Started the morning with 2 kids needing to wake up for online school. I had no time for coffee.

After they had breakfast and started school, I finally sat down with my huge cup of coffee in front of the computer.

Well, I thought I might have more time to myself. I was wrong.
Still had to cook and put the washing machine on… then made lunch and a healthy juice for everyone.

Later on, my husband went down to Woolies to get some yogourt & milk and came back with a huge Lego, a jigsaw puzzle and a family game.

We all now have something to look forward to for the weekends.

The little things that make you happy…

Friday was a very special day.
We had baguettes and garlic bread after more than 8 days eating matzah.

It tasted like heaven.

Not just because it was special, but because after more than 20 days of lockdown, we actually got dressed, put our shoes on (that felt weird) and went in the car. Drove to get our annual flu shot.

That didn’t take long… but we missed this feeling of going out.

I actually couldn’t bear the thought of another Shabbat, but this Shabbat was the most amazing one we had so far.

My daughter was so bored and wanted to sing and make music, yes I know it’s Shabbat and we can’t do a lot… but we decided to try fill wine glasses with water and make them a sort of a piano. It was actually very good!
We managed to “play” the Yehonatan Ha’katan tune and do some fun sounds with it. It was amazing!

Then my daughter had an idea to create face masks and all we had to do was apply it on our faces. She asked who’s joining her, surprisingly we all did (even the boys!)
We tried 2 recipes: honey & coffee, and honey & cinnamon. We applied them on our faces and couldn’t stop laughing. We looked like a monkey family with all our faces in 2 colours of brown.
It was hilarious, not only that… it actually felt so nice, our skin was very smooth. It was definitely worth the mess.

Then we kept playing, went for a walk around the block. And played ping pong again.

And BAM Shabbat was over.

Had a quick coffee. Woke up my daughter to start her school day (remote learning via Zoom).

Started cooking, by the time I finished it was 1pm, so we had lunch. Spoke to my family, had a chat with a friend or two. And it was chag AGAIN.

The next day, the sun came out again so we sat in the sun for an hour playing. It was fun, all day and the day after we were busy playing all sorts of games: Rummicub, checkers, chess & ping pong,
We also read some books and more. Most of the time we ate though…

Time flies when you have fun.

Now.. I’m going to pack away the Pesach dishes.
Finally It’s over.

Let’s drink to that!