9th of Av. Fast day. The day that Beit Hamikdash went down & also the day that Mashiach will arrive. Unfortunately, it didn’t happen today…
With everything’s going on we need to learn to be more kind to each other. More considerate, more caring. We need to communicate more with our friends and family, not disconnect because we are stuck at home… Today, I made a decision, once a week I’ll go through my contact list and call 2 people that we didn’t speak for a month. This way, I’ll reconnect with everyone.
I miss people…
Because this situation isn’t going anywhere at the moment. I better do something for my community and for myself and spread some selfless love, cause we need to spread love around…
Normally, I’m not coping very well in fast. But today was ok.
Someone was listening to my prayer, and send the sun again… So I took the opportunity to call everyone to come and sit in the sun again. I took my book outside and read for a few hours.
Today wasn’t the best… the kids were tired. They found it hard to wake up. They woke up on the wrong side of the bed.
For one kid, remote school assignments were not too hard to start but harder to finish. The other kid was just bored.
In between helping them finish assignments, I was cooking for ‘Seuda Mafseket’ (last meal before fasting for 24h). Then, through the window, I saw the sun was in the middle of the sky so I rushed everyone to come and sit outside, in our back yard.
The sun was so nice and warm. The kids brought their laptops, hubby came as well, and for an hour we enjoyed being outside, in the warm sun, getting some vitamin D. I miss sunshine…
Then we had to finish preparing the meal before the fast. We had pasta in red sauce, yummy potato salad, tuna, Israeli salad, cheese – rice paper borekas.
I was so full, I couldn’t move.
Then we started fasting. No food or drinks, or coffee or chocholate… nothing until tomorrow night.
Hope we will all have an easy fast (with remote schooling it’s a bit tricky but I still hope so)
What a day! I woke up very early after another great night sleep. Had to go shopping. The mask is really not comfortable for breathing but chatting turns to be nearly impossible… so I tried to do it as quick as possible.
Made some kalette chips… with salt, pepper & olive oil in the oven. I finished them almost by myself. It’s addictive like chips but it’s also healthy like kale or Brussels sprouts. Then I put some eggplant in the oven to be ready for “Sabich” at dinner.
Remember party season started today? this is what happened: in the afternoon we ‘met’ my whole family on Zoom to celebrate my mum’s birthday. We did a funny quiz about her, which was a brilliant surprise for her.
My daughter made a fantastic lemon cake with cream cheese and blueberries so we can celebrate with her for real. we sang Happy Birthday and served ourselves the cake. That was awesome! Then we read our written greetings to her. My mum was on Cloud Number 9. Well, she deserved it!
In each family there are some very busy months. When I say busy, I mean full of birthdays, anniversaries etc. Our extended families’ busy months starts tomorrow. Not today but Tomorrow.
The order, of just *my* side of the family, goes like this:
My sister My mum My brother Myself My daughter Our anniversary
Then… my niece, my nephew, my name & my son.
And there are even more on my hubby’s side.
Very busy.
Since I was a teenager, I was the one in charge of the greetings and gifts to everyone. The fact that we now live in a different country doesn’t change this state. Some things never change.
Well, I like to be ready on time. That’s who I am. So when we moved overseas we wrote the cards 2 months in advance in order to mail them so that they will get to their receiver on time. These days, no mail can get overseas… so WhatsApp is good enough, and writing the greetings one day in advance is fantastic.
Since this pandemic started, every Motzei Shabbat I have sleeping issues. I always had a light sleep. But these days I end up wide awake all night, then tired on Sunday. I can’t put my finger on the reason for it, probably because I’m not doing so much on Shabbat. Well, it is what it is.
I tried to find a solution for it. I read a lot about weighed blanket.
Research suggests weighted blankets may benefit people with anxiety, autism and insomnia, etc. Weighted blankets are therapeutic blankets that weigh between 3 to 9 kg. The pressure from the extra weight on our body mimics a therapeutic technique called Deep Pressure Stimulation, that help to relax the nervous system. Is addition to that, it might relieve pain, reduce anxiety & improve the mood. With weighted blankets, the same pressure comes from having the blanket wrapped around the body.
After reading this I ended up ordering it. I was hoping it would do the job. It arrived mid-week. I was excited.
On the first night it felt like heavy weight on my body. I pushed it away from me. Couldn’t move with it… it felt like I can’t turn to the sides. By the way, on the box it says that it might take a while to get used to it…so I kept my expectations low.
On the second night I slept like a baby. My sleep was so deep, I think I never slept like this before. It seemed to me that I fell asleep straight away and went into deep sleep mode that I can’t even remember if I moved at night.
On the third night, same deep sleep. I couldn’t believe it.
The fourth night was just fabulous. I woke up like a new person.
I think I can definitely get used to this.
Moving on.
For dinner, my daughter made a taco-buffet. She didn’t let me go in the kitchen, which was very suspicious. Then she made the taco itself and the dips. She wrote a sign how much each taco costs and we had to pay in hugs and kisses after we ate. In the buffet we could choose between cheese, lettuce, tomatoes, avocado, feta and boiled egg. As of me? I just put everything together mixed. It was beyond amazing! So yummmm, i couldn’t stop licking my fingers…
Friday was long… I picked up my Coles Online order, then we did all the cooking including a BBQ as planned. All Shabbat meals were full of meat. Literally.
Shabbat is the best time for chatting and playing. And we played a lot… A few weeks ago, someone gave out his unused mini-basketball arcade game for 2 players. My husband, who loves collecting unnecessary things, went to pick it up and surprised us.
It was waiting for the right time to be assembled.
Yesterday, in between checking on the BBQ we finally assembled it. This time the game was necessary for us to survive the weekend.
It was so much fun, we spent a lot of time competing against each other. Or just shooting some hoops. It was different than all of our board games with some additional moving around (not just a skipping rope). Overall we had good time.
“One man’s trash is another man’s treasure.” Always be on the look out…
This is unbelievable, It’s Thursday again.
Where the hell the whole weeks’ gone?
Cleaning day – I didn’t do any cooking today because we’ll have a BBQ tomorrow for the Shabbat. So I decided to leave everything for the last minute (unlike me…)
2 weeks ago I decided to get into cleaning mode so I ordered a cleaning product that one of my friends (who’s a cleaning professional) I ordered it online. The name of the product is Koh. ( you can find it on Koh.com) I was very skeptical. Started off with some easy cleaning like the hot plate, that was cleaned in a swipe of a cloth (i was very impressed) Then moved on to the stove which needed a good scrub, and another… and on the third time it looked like it’s new (better than how we got it…) Today I tried cleaning the shower and some dark corners around the house. That was so satisfying to see it get cleaned with a cloth in under 2 minutes.
Wowwww. That was just quick and awesome work.
In between, I helped with some school work which eventually took a long time during the day.
And here I’m tired again…
Tomorrow is such a busy day.
Happy Friday everyone!
Today was the day we should forget existed.
One of those days that you need to go back to sleep and wake up tomorrow.
I opened my eyes and I couldn’t believe it… My phone was on downloading screen and couldn’t reset or restart nothing was responding. I got very upset and straight away tried googling the problem, tried to execute some of the solutions.
Nothing was happening.
Got my coffee, already not happy from the situation. Then, when I thought things can’t get worse… There was my mistake.
The toilets got blocked. I ran out of eggs in the middle of making something for lunch …
And back to my phone, my husband took it to the company for repair. I have no phone which means No what’sApp, no FB. no Instagram, no Pinterest. No calendar, I have nothing.
(To enclose the crappy feeling my daughter missed a private music lesson)
I am used to be without my phone on weekends… But on weekdays? This is impossible. I was waiting for this day to be over.
Hoping to change my yuck day my daughter and I made a special dinner. Decided to make a quick dough, put in some Pesto sun-dried tomatoes and cheese closed it. And put in on the pan.
Taddaaam That was the best Calzone I ever ate. Additional to some salads…
In order to do more exercise, we decided to start a skipping rope competition.
Yesterday was our first try, not very capable of getting to high numbers… but it was a start.
We took more breaks between classes and more skipping during the day, which help us concentrate more and pump our body with cardio, which brings good energy.
Then I worked a bit… I guess the cardio brought me some refreshing ideas!
Got to lunch time so had to prepare something… food-wise, it feels like I need to invent myself every day, otherwise it’s boring, and we can get more bored these days… So today I made chicken soup for lunch and some pasta. For dinner my daughter helped me make rice paper – spring rolls, salad and garlic naan. It was just delicious! Sometimes change is all we need.
Today both kids were busy with online learning. Which gave a bit of spare time to do the washing. I made vegetables curry with rice for lunch, to my surprise, when it was still cooking my son came to make sure he’s getting the first bowl… after him, everyone else got their dish. Then he came for seconds… I was so happy to see the whole pot was cleaned out of curry. As someone with polish roots, it made my day.
Then I met a friend and went for a long walk, this time I had a mask on…
I have to admit it’s hard to walk fast, talk and breath under the mask.
But it’s doable.
I’m missing so much these social interactions, having people over for lunch, or BBQ. The joy that comes with making the food and enjoying everybody’s company is incredible. It’s so important to us as a society. we are social creatures. Let alone, it’s better than going to therapy. I really miss meeting my friends.
In the first lockdown, I thought by now everything will be over. I’m still hoping that we’ll have some kind of a miracle… That’s why, this year, I’m not very excited for another lonely Chagim.
