The Sky is Falling...My Chicken Little Week

Do you ever have one of those weeks where you feel like the sky is falling?  Where the more things you accomplish, the less you have really done?  That is where I am right now.  The Yom Tovs (or holy days) are at an end until Passover.  Our family has really enjoyed them and had some amazing experiences.  I have a ton of mental pictures of my girls dancing with their daddy and the Torah on Simchat Torah.  We have memories of amazing meals with interesting people in their Sukkah.  I made a relationship with a lovely lady from New York (who actually called me and wants to continue building on the friendship!). 

Now that the festivities have wound down, reality is sinking in.  Since we moved in right before Rosh Hashanah, the holidays have fallen back to back to back, as they do every year.  This year, our family celebrated them differently.  After Shabbat, I called my parents.  We are so blessed that they are coming to spend Shabbat with us.  The girls are excited and can't wait to see them.  This started my "Chicken Little" complex.

They do need a place to sleep.  The guest room was known as the box room.  We had to clear out all of the boxes and make space for them to sleep.  This week (among our regularly scheduled programming) was dedicated to creating a space for visitors.  The room is now cleared out (and there is closet space for them!).

I also had a slight panic about the new addition to our family.  The baby's room was piled into the middle of the floor.  Now, we know that the baby will be bunking with us when he comes, but I still need access to burp clothes, clothes, and diapers.  So, husband set up the room so that I would have a little peace of mind.  Several boxes from the afore mentioned "box room" are stacked neatly in the baby's room against the walls.

We also haven't really talked about baby names.  We made a list of potential names, once.  That was as far as we got.  Maybe we can tackle this next week!!!

The next Chicken Little moment came Wednesday night.  I came home from work feeling worn down.  By the end of the night, I was running a low grade fever, was bundled up in bed by 8, and couldn't sleep through the night.  My congestion and drainage were keeping me (and apparently husband) up.  I tried adding pillows, I tried sleeping in a chair sitting straight up, I tried everything I could think of.  Thursday I was still tired, but feeling a little better.

Finally, my day on Thursday was chaos.  I had a day full of appointments.  Two different doctors appointments were 3 minutes away from each other in distance, but 3 1/2 hours apart in scheduling.  I tried to utilize the time the best that I could, so I ran a few errands.  The appointments were also in the town I used to live in, which is about an hour away from my home now.  On my way home, I decided to stop by the auto repair shop to get my brakes checked.  The brake pads were completely worn down and I needed a ton of work.  While I waited for the brake work to be done, I went to the mall across the street and sat at Starbucks and worked on my lesson plans for my maternity leave. 

Hopefully, this Shabbat will be a Shabbat of peace and for just a moment in time, my sky will stop falling!

Sukkot in the Hood

As you can tell if you have been following me for any length of time, this year has produced a lot of "firsts".  To add on to our list of first, we built a Sukkah this year for the first time.  Since we are now living in an area that has a Jewish population separate from my family, we didn't know exactly what to expect with Sukkot.

On Wednesday night, we were invited to eat with some friends.  On Yom Tovs, you can carry or push a stroller, so I pushed the girls and husband met us there when he was done praying.  A noticeable difference between a Shabbat meal and a Sukkot meal is the quantity of guests.  At Sukkot, there are only a handful of guests at each meal instead of a really large crowd.  According to several of our hosts, this is because there are so many opportunities to host a meal in the sukkah that you can spread out the guests more.  For Thursday lunch, we hosted a coworker of mine and her family.  We did a very family friendly, okay kid friendly, meal and had a great time hanging out and schmoozing.

On Thursday afternoon, we participated in our first Sukkah hop.  We visited four different sukkahs and ate snacks in each one.  It was nice to see where people lived, what they served, and how they built their sukkah.  Thursday night, we ate out again.  This meal started even later because you can not prepare for one day while still celebrating the previous day.  The night turned cooler and D had to borrow a sweater.  Who would have thought that we would get Fall weather in Texas?!?!?! 

For Friday lunch, we ate at someone's home once again.  The small guest list made all of the meals more intimate and easier to converse.  After leaving lunch, we rushed home to prepare for guests in our sukkah.  We were going to be stop number two on Friday's sukkah hop.  After setting up, we went to the first sukkah.  D was so excited to tell everyone who would listen that they would be going to her sukkah next.  She was quite the hostess!!!  She showed everyone the food and the cooler full of drinks.  Then, we headed out to the final two sukkahs on the hop.

After we lit candles on Friday night, D asked me whose house we were eating at.  I told her that we weren't going anywhere for Shabbat dinner and were staying home to eat as a family.  She was so disappointed!!!  I fed them early and put them straight to bed.  They were exhausted from their day of activities.  They slept for almost 14 hours!!!!!  We did all of our Shabbat meals at home, to get our kids back onto a schedule and routine.  It was also nice not to have to rush somewhere.

On Monday, everyone went back to work and school.  We were blessed that a coworker invited us to dinner at her sukkah.  The dinner was perfect for our girls with hot dogs and hamburgers.  The storms rolled in and we rolled out and headed home.  It was a late night full of storms, but our sukkah survived!!  We know of several sukkahs that fell or collapsed.  Now, we are getting ready for Shemini Atzeret and Simchat Torah.  The marathon of holidays is coming to a close.

Sukkah Building

When we moved into the new house, I had numerous goals and aspirations.  There were things I wanted to accomplish, ways of life I wanted to implement, and so forth.  Now, I realize that some of my goals were not as realistic as others.  We are not completely unpacked.  We are not completely set up.  We only have one picture hanging in our entire house.  I try not to be too hard on myself, as we only moved in about 3 weeks ago and had a ton of holidays where we couldn't work on the house.  Instead, I focus on what we have done.

We have set up a playroom for the girls.  We have put all of husband's books on bookshelves.  We have beds set up for everyone to sleep in.  And, we have built a Sukkah!!  I have never had a Sukkah of my own before.  I researched and asked coworkers and tried to pick the best one for my family.  Since a sukkah isn't cheap, I wanted it to be long lasting, durable, easy to store, easy to assemble, and family friendly.  Here is what we ended up with.

Our Sukkah Kit

D helping "read" the directions.  Yup, they are upside down.

Little L arranging pieces.

Everyone lining up poles for the base of the Sukkah.

Little L is telling Daddy how to do it.

The frame is up.  After the frame was put together, the rain started pounding down.  We stopped for the night.

 

Husband and the kids had off of school on Monday for Columbus Day.  So, they finished the Sukkah.  I was so excited and blessed to come home to see the final product.

We are all ready for our first Sukkot guests!!!

Kashering Our Kitchen

Husband and I decided a while ago that when we moved into the Dallas/Plano area, we were going to Kasher our kitchen.  We have been moving toward a more observant lifestyle, so this fit our new way of thinking.  I don't think either of us knew exactly what this would entail.

After the sale of our house, when we moved into the apartment, we started only buying kosher packaged foods.  Upon moving into the house, it was all kosher all the time.  The Kashering Rabbi came to our house for a preliminary meeting.  He checked our pantry, fridge, and freezer.  In all of these places combined, he only found 5 items that were not Kosher.

Last week he came to the house to Kasher it.  Husband spent 5 hours with him preparing everything, cooking dishware, immersing dishes in boiling water, and getting things ready for the Utensil Mikveh.  I came home to wet towels all over the floor from kashering the counters and boxes upon boxes of dishes waiting to be toveled (dipped in utensil mikveh).

We took our last set (other than our good crystal that still has labels on them) to the Mikveh yesterday.  Our dishwasher has been running a ton of loads to wash the toveled dishes.  Since a Mikveh is fed from rain water, the dishes were quite dirty and needed to be re-cleaned.  We are still washing dishes and placing them in the cabinets labeled with "Meat", "Dairy", and "Parve" stickers, but there is an end in sight.  The best feeling was knowing that we cooked our entire Shabbat dinner and break the fast meal completely Kosher.  We used Kosher dishes, on the Kosher counters, with Kosher food.

A Family Room

So, when we moved, we had the movers place every single box in the family room so that they were out of the way and we could unpack the boxes and move the items to the appropriate location.  The family room was practically wall to wall, floor to as tall as the movers (6 foot plus!!), carpet completely covered, etc.  The tile floor that led from the garage into the house was left open for walking, which was necessary. 

Over the last two and a half weeks, we slowly but surely emptied out the room.  Walking through the family room into and out of the house each day now gives us a sense of accomplishment.  We decided to truly make this the family room.  Part of the room is set aside as the girls' playroom.  It has a big book holder (I have a ton from my teaching days), an art easel, a rocking horse, a table and two chairs, a Lego box and a Lego wagon, and shelves waiting to be filled with the items we kept boxed up until we had a place for them.

Yes, D is usually wearing her bike helmet these days.  In the bottom picture, it is right before bedtime and she is even in her PJs.  She comes home, puts it on, and goes outside to ride her bike.  These pictures were taken as she noticed new items in the room.  We also have two love seats in the room and our new entertainment center in boxes.  The store is waiting on a few parts of the entertainment unit, so we can't put it together just yet.  It is nice to have a place where the girls can play and we can interact as a family.

Rosh Hashanah...Happy New Year!

What an awe inspiring few days I have had!!!  Wednesday night was Eruv Rosh Hashanah, followed by a three day Yom Tov.  Rosh Hashanah ended at sundown on Friday night, right as Shabbat began.  I learned a lot over the last few days and wanted to share the highlights.

• We are blessed to live in a community where we were invited to all four Yom Tov meals.
• Our  oven has a safety feature that turns itself off after a given (though unknown) amount of time.
• One of the Rabbis invited us as last minute Shabbat guests for dinner since our oven went cold and we were not supposed to turn it back on.
• Shabbat dinner with just the Rabbi's family felt like a true family dinner and was intimate and cozy.
• Our chulent was delicious, and we learned from making it for the first time.
• If you freeze Yartzeit candles, they last a little longer.
• A three day holiday takes a lot more planning and organizing if you are creating any meals or hosting any guests.
• Finding the right combination of favorite toys and comfort items will allow an 18 month old with separation anxiety to feel comfortable enough to let Mommy leave her in childcare so that Mommy can pray.
• A mommy who is not used to this will leave praying numerous times to listen outside of said daughter's childcare room to make sure this is really happening.

I hope to continue learning about and through the holidays as this year and future years progress.  We are already looking toward Yom Kippur (Friday night) and Sukkot which follows shortly thereafter.