New Year's Resolution: To Blog More?

Nah. Who am I kidding? My resolution for this year is to stop being lazy.

Not that I'm really lazy. I just took two sick days from work int he middle of the busy season because I was too sick to think from pushing myself too hard. But are some things I need to really make myself do. Some of them are "work" related, like calling in the warranty for from broken stuff. But more importantly is to not be lazy with the kids. Too often I come home from work too tired to play with the kids. As Murphy would have it, the days that I have energy they are not in the mood to go out and play. Two things need to change: 1. When they want to play I need to push myself to do something with them, even if it's not exactly what they want, and 2. I need to force them to have fun when they are not in the mood. The few times I made them go out and play it proved to be a success. I need to remember that they are just kids and I know better.

Netanel started first grade yesterday. He is going to a new school. It is religious and more Montessori oriented. Hopefully it will be what he needs. It involves a bus ride. I have a similar ride to school when I was in first grade, and even younger. But this is new for him. So fay things are going well. B'Ezrat Hashem this will continue. We'll see how Netanel and the school develop.

Odeliya moved from a private day care with 6 kids to a public gan with 24. It is a huge jump. The first two days have been tough for her. We'll see how she adjusts. The gananot are amazing, so she should do just fine really soon, but only time will tell.

Yitzchak will also be started daycare. He will be by a neighbor with 5 other babies for 5 mornings a week. This will give Ayelet time to think, relax, work, etc. This will also make teaching Yitzchak English more challenging.

Today, Odeliya was playing. Being home sick I had an opportunity to watch her. I sent her to the bathroom to wash her hands and I quickly heard her making scared noises. I went to her and she said that something was scaring her. We "discovered" a baby lion in the toilet. Anyway, after washing her hands, Odeliya and the baby lion became friends. With a little guidance from me the Mommy lion stopped scaring Odeliya and was invited in for coffee. Everything went well until a scary monster abba lion came and ate the baby lion. Odeliya was seriously sad about this. Eventually, with no interaction from me, the baby lion proved to be alright and the monster lion was sent away. Then Odeliya told me she didn't want to play that game anymore and we did something else.

With an imagination like that Odeliya will never, ever be bored. Wow!

We've been reminding ourselves to encourage the kids' imaginations instead of simply answering their questions. It's tough. Netanel has great questions, and I want to give him an honest answer. But sometimes it's best to let him mull over the possibilities before we discuss the real answer. He is getting much better at reading, which means that he will be able to unleash his imagination on his own to a much further degree by reading more. But Netanel also tends to lock onto the first reality he is given as the ultimate truth, which means that he may actually believe everything he reads. So his reading will provide us with new challenges as well.

Okay, it's late and I need to push myself a little further to get in some more client work and do some cleaning before I go to sleep. I leave you with a promise to try to blog more and send pictures and videos of the cute little monsters.

Shabbat Shalom and Shana Tova,

Yoram

Barush Hashem A Change in the Wind

First of all, Tzachi is walking. Video proof of our newest monkey is availabla on FaceBook and Youtube. More is coming.. He can practically fly up the stairs. He loves flipping on the bed and is working on going down stairs backwards. He has figured outhow to use cushions on the floor to get up onto the couch. I guess he feels the need to keep up with his brother and sister.

Now on to the point of this post, Since we moved to Katzerin we have been working to makie things work. My jobhunt was frustrating, with few opportunities presenting themselves and most of those falling through.

Ayelet has also been looking for work she can do while still being a mommy. More about her on her blog, http://www.milkandhoneymomma.blogspot.com.

Ayelet posted to the community lists about an English chug (club). She was trying a new formatg where parents can also stay and would be fitting for a broad age-range. On the Shabbat before the open session many people came to Ayelet to express interest. The Tuesday, the day before the open session, Ayelet got sick and spent the next 2 weeks in bed. The chug was put on hold.

inally, about a month and a half ago things turned. Maybe we learned some of the lessons Hashem had been trying to teach us. Something must have clicked somewhere, because our fortunes changed:

1. Ayelet starting giving massages again. One client looking for regular massages.
2. Ayelet started working for a website in the U.S. She is working closely with a friend of ours that lives here. There is room to grow in the company.
3. My English pad off. The winery got some new equipment and I learned how to use it because the representative was able to train me in English. In May I earned extra money because I had to/got to work extra hours. The nature of the extra hours was at a rate of more than overtime.
4. My profile ont he Virtual Assistant Israel website got noticed. I quickly landed 3 clients.

Now we are working so much that we need to find time for housework. Thank God things have opened up. We are working our new tasks and looking to juggle everything. It's been a learning process, but it's better than trying with no results. With Hashem's help we will acclimate and end up with an easier schedule, enough money to live, and enough energy to enjoy it.

With an eye to a bright future, Shabbat Shalom.

Amazing Imaginations and much more

Wow. I have been meaning to post for a long time. No, seriously. I've had some of the these ideas rolling around in my head for weeks. Unfortunately time, the need for sleep, and the need to care for my family got in the way. Lets see how much I can coherently write this time...

A few weeks ago... On Shabbat we all walked to the Pinat Chai (mini zoo) in Katzrin as usual. We did the usual round, including seeing the new baby goats. They'er very cute and can squeeze out of their pen and run around.

On the way back to the door there is a pen that has been vacant since we moved in. Odeliya climbed in and, playing along, I asked her if she was an animal. She said yes. But since she was so cute and seemingly housebroken we brought her home anyway.

On Monday I took the kids to the Pinat Chai again. Odeliya climbed in again and again we decided to adopt this baby animal. She insisted on crawling to the playground. Netanel jumped right into the game and started taking care of our new pet. Yitzchak also got involved. He made it clear that he wanted out of the stroller. Then he crawled along behind Odelia. Since then, Baby Animal has been added to their repertoire of games.

Along the same line of imagination, Ayelet told Netanel how she used to make swords out of cardboard. So I cut 2 swords out of an old box and wrapped them with duct tape. Immediately, at Odelia's suggestion, she became Capt. Hook and Tani became Peter Pan. Their fun lasted until they "accidentally" woke up Ayelet from a much needed nap.

The nap was the beginning of a 2-3 week run of sickness in the house. A nasty virus went around Qazrin. It has flu-like symptoms, but affects different people differently. Some people, mostly kids, were home on and off for weeks, i.e. you feel better for a few days and then get hit again. Ayelet was in bed for 2 weeks with fever (although she may have had something else). Meanwhile all the kids had a bought with the virus. For Yitzchak it was diarrhea. For Odelia it was vomiting. Netanel was mostly spared, but he also spent a few days home from gan.

The first day of this was compounded in complexity by my swapping shifts at work. The winery hosted its bi-annual Vintage Festival (said with an Israel emphasis on the end of the word). In exchange for more time home during the day I worked two overnight shifts (7pm to 7 am) watching over the festival workers to make sure the winery and its property were not damaged. The first night's guard duty was boring. However, we did see a fox coming to pick at scraps of leftover meat left out for cats. It looked much healthier than the foxes in the Pinat Chai. My attempts to get close enough to take a picture with my phone were unsuccessful. The second night was the end of the festival. I watched the event crew work all night packing up the myriad items they had brought: tables, chairs, plants, etc. While they slaved, me and some other employees salvaged items that were slated for disposal. This includes a while bunch of good wood, tablecloths, light fixtures, and other wonderful finds.

In the meantime Ayelet was sick on and off (mostly on) for 2 weeks. I ended up coming in late and taking a lot of time off from work to care for her and the kids. Baruch Hashem we live in an awesome community. Over the course of the 2 weeks people brought over food and helped watch the kids and clean the house. Several people brought over soup without even calling first to ask if we needed anything. This kind of support is truly a blessing.

Fortunately we are now back to full health. I was getting worried. For a while now I have been saying how luck y we are that most of our nisyonot are financial, but that we are happy and healthy. Our bought of sickness had me thinking. But now that we are healthy again we can resume our usual searching for answers on that front. I have begun a new round of soul searching, looking not just to find my purpose, but also to improve my basic deeds and behavior. This includes praying better and spending better time with Ayelet and the kids. Hopefully this will bring us to a more stable position.

To add to the insanity of our ill health, the afternoon that Ayelet was in bed and I was preparing to work the first overnight shift we made some new friends. I was hanging up the diapers to dry (we use cloth) and hopeing to get an hour of sleep when a car pulled up outside. In the car was Meir, the realtor who found us our current house. He was with a family of new olim from the U.S. They had that shell-shocked look on their faces that we had last year. It was interesting to see how the paretns and children were acting. The parents were exhausted and stressed about finding a place to live. The kids were shy and clingy. It's something I remember well. We advised that that it would pass.



Over the course of the 2 months since then the family has moved to Katzrin and we have become very close. Everyone is back to their usual calm pleasantness. Aliya really is stressful. It was interesting to see. I suppose we'll see it more as we continue to help olim. We are on the Nefesh B'Nefesh contact list for olim to the Golan. We are happy to help.

Now that we have a car I have realized something that the pop-sociologist in me finds fascinating. Israelis can't park. Maybe it's intentional that they park over the line, taking up two spots. But on a Friday when everyone is buying last minute things for Shabbat, it's important to take those extra few seconds to park responsibly. It frustrates me every time.

Ok, I started this post a few weeks ago. I will finish now. I have a few more things brewing, but those will come out over the next few weeks. Until next time enjoy the update and Shabbat Shalom.

Do Israelis Take Israel for Granted?

Recently, surrounding Israel's Memorial and Independence days, I became aware of Israelis discussing whether it was required to stand for the moment of silence that is observed throughout the country. At 8 pm and 11 am a siren sounded nationwide calling for a moment of silence to remember/honor those who paid the ultimate sacrifice for our Homeland.

Leaving politics and religion aside we still have דרך ארץ - Basic respect (which comes before Tora). God saw fit to give us our own state in our ancestral homeland. We have the freedom to lives the kind of Jewish life we want to live. In exchange for this freedom Hashem took the lives of 22,684 of our people. Soldiers stand on the line day and night doing their part to keep us safe. Part of thanking God for this freedom involves thanking the soldiers fulfilling their duty and respecting those who died in the process. Furhtermore, Yom Ha'Atzmaut is becoming a day of bbq's without meaning. While some people say speacial prayers to thank God, and others spend the day studying Tora, some view it as simply a day off.

God gave us a tremendous gift. We need to thank Him for it and remember the process by which we have been keeping it, remember that which we've lost, and refocus on our mission to make Israel the Jewish Nation: עם ישראל בארץ ישראל על פי תורת ישראל

That said, we can change the process to one that works better. I still get excited about those only in Israel things. For example: Only in Israel do the marquis on buses wish you a חג שמח on Pesach, while Xmas goes unmentioned. Today I heard songs that are straight out of Tehillim on a major radio station.Also, it occurred to me that here everyone says Yom Ha'Azmaut Sameach or Chag Ha'Azmaut Sameach. On Independence Day in the U.S. almost everyone says happy July 4. Our country is still young enough that even those that don't feel the power of the day and what it means still understand that the day is special. In the U.S. the meaning of the day is lost.

Here are some cute stories about the kids and becoming Israeli:
Netanel has a special teacher for an hour a week to help him learn Hebrew. Last week they were doing a game that went through all the Hebrew letters. At the letter chet (ח) she asked Tani who protects the State of Israel. Ayelet was still at the gan and heard his immediate reply: Hashem. Afterward he also gave the answer solders (chayalim).

In other Tani news, he is being very careful to make brachot. Even if we don't remind him he always asks us what bracha to make on his food.

When I got home from work today Odeliya and I had an entire conversation in Hebrew. She initiated and stuck to Hebrew even when I spoke in English. It was very impressive. She slipped in English a few times, but did better than me. At one point Ayelet and I just stared at each other wondering how the heck this happened.

Yitzchak is still a cute, happy baby. He is starting to stand on his own. Before long he'll be running to keep up with his siblings. I hope they'll wait up for him. Then I canhave some quiet time :).


In summation, we moved here to be partof the Jewish people, and I think we're integrating nicely. Maybe now Hashem will remove some of the yissurin.


Shabbat Shalom.

חנוך לנער על פי דרכו

Educate each child according to his/her way. We learn this from the Rabbis of old and modern psychology. It's is even discussed at the seder on Pesach (the 4 sons). So why do we educate them out of their natural creativity in school? Why haven't we found a way to teach children properly? I'm not saying it's an easy thing to do. I haven't figured it out yet for my group of 3. The thought of teaching 35 young individuals in one classroom gives me the heebie bu jeebies.

As an example of what I am referring please Ayelet's post here: http://milkandhoneymomma.blogspot.com/2010/04/channeling-harry-chapin.html. Netanel is very funny and creative (see here for another, and very funny example: http://milkandhoneymomma.blogspot.com/2010/04/how-to-bite-noses-without-getting-snot.html) and very very smart. We have known this for a while, but it was confirmed by the psychiatrist in the U.S. that diagnosed him as ADHD at the age of 4. She didn't actually say it was a sickness or anything. It's really only a disorder in that it hinders one's ability to join in polite society, mostly sitting in a classroom and drawing red flowers and green leaves.

Friends of ours are part of a group starting a new school in the Golan Heights. It is not Montessori, but it's similar. They want kids to learn what they need to know now, not necessarily preparing in 1st grade for the standardized test they'll take in high school. And they will teach lessons differently for the children that learn from sitting and listening, and from building, and from drawing.

It seems like the perfect thing for Netanel, almost light God sent this new program just for him. The tricky part is that it is totally private and therefore expensive. With God's help we will continue to do whatever is best for our children. Hopefully this new school will be part of it.

Post-Pesach Update

Dear readers,

I am finally making time to write, but I will be brief so that I can do a few things before I crash.

Purim was really fun. we were in Yerushalaim with Ayelet's family. The kids had lots of fun (pictures coming to FaceBook soon). I spent most of the 2 weeks prior manually loading bottles into metal cages as part of the champagne process. It was very very tiring.

After Purim we finally got our car. It is a nice car with just enough room for us. Thank God it works well and gets us around. Now we can continue searching for our community, be it Katzrin or a nearby town.

Pesach was cool. We spent the whole week with family, moving between my parents and sister. We also went potato picking for an organization called Table to Table. The groups picked over 20 tons of potatoes in one day that were distributed to needy families.

Now we're back home and getting into a good routine. Ayelet, Yitzchak and I went for a little tiyul on Friday morning. We walked 10 minutes out of Katzrin and found a lovely nachal (stream) to sit by and drink our coffee. It's so call that we can do that right out are door.

this week we had a dog for 2 days. We took her for a one-week trial.After 2 days we decided that now was not the time to deal with the expense and hassle of a puppy. Netanel was very upset. Next year we plan to get a dog as an afikoman present. Hopefully by then we'll be ready. While playing with the litter of pups Yitzchak was mistaken by the dogs as one of their own. That playfully nipped him on the face. Since then he's been scared of dogs. So we'll need to work on that.

Today at work I translated. We bought some new equipment and I had to explain how to use it to my co-workers. It was cool to be doing something specific.

Other than that, we are very excited for Yom Ha'Atzmaut. The warmer weather also means playing more outside, catch with the kids, and gardening. Ayelet has trimmed the roses and I planted some mint. Lets see how green our thumbs can get. We continue to learn new levels of emuna (faith in God). As we deal with the difficulties of Aliya as well as our own challenges I find myself doing more soul-searching and praying. May it be God's will that we learn our lessons the easy way and experience fewer trials and tribulations.

I'll try to get the post out sooner.
Till then, enjoy.

Purim is Coming!

I know it's been a long time since my last post, as usual, but I've been very busy. Ayelet and I have been trying to get more organized. We've been getting everything cleaned up from Shabbat on Saturday night and we've been better about folding clean laundry. This is in large part due to Ayelet's new pastime of downloading movies. This way we have new stuff to watch while we work. We've also started learning together again. This time we are learning The Garden of Emunah. Ayelet is learning the original Hebrew version with some of the other ladies in the community. We figured that given our exhaustion level and usual chavruta time of very-late-at-night the English made more sense. Honestly, I think we've already learned a lot about emunah from first-hand experience. But we've been getting a lot out of the book anyway, even if much of it is just helping us to understand what we learned first-hand. As I've said before, I have been looking for the meaning behind the various trials and tribulations God has been sending us. Maybe learning this will help us see the message.

I have recently wished that Hashem would just send me an email with His message. Let Him spell out the message in simple works on a screen. Then I wondered what His email address would be. obviously it would be God@God.God. But then there may be other addresses. For example, I'd rather get an email from Havaya@God.God than Elokim@God.God. The last address is probably reserved for emails with a subject like "SMITE."

Back to the updates: we have been looking for a car. We found one via a neighbor's cousin who is a car broker. While we work out the details of payment we also need to sort out how to take ownership. We can't buy the car without insurance and we can't get insurance without Israeli driver's licenses. This has been keeping Ayelet busy lately.

We are also looking into how to increase our income. I have been looking for things that I can do and Ayelet has as well. She will soon be launching her massage and beauty business. Stay tuned for further details,

I have been working in bottling since the end of the harvest. Soon I will be returning to the tank farm to refresh on that kind of work in preparation for the upcoming harvest. Also, this will give me the ability to talk to the winemakers more and try to push my way into their department.

Okay, enough for now. I'll write more about the kids after Purim. There should be more to say then. Have a good week.