Nothing and Everthing

The Big Day

It’s finally here, tomorrow is the big day, where we pack up AN, and all her stuff, and drive her up to school. It’s hard to believe she’ll be starting college. Seems like just yesterday she was a little girl, and now she’s all grown up and going out to make her way in the world. She’s worked so hard to make this happen. We’re so proud of the wonderful person she is and what she has accomplished thus far. Congratulations, AN! We love you and hope you life is truly blessed, wonderful and fulfilling as it can be.

Let It Snow, Let It Snow, Let It Snow

There is nothing more magical than watching snow blanket the world in white.  Sledding, snowballs and snowmen, followed by chilly fingers, hot cocoa, and snow gear tossed in the dryer, warming up for the next round of outdoor fun, are favorite childhood memories. Unfortunately the last decent snow we had was about six years ago, SA doesn’t even really know what playing out in the snow is like, and how I miss seeing the children out discovering the white, wintry world.

This year I had high hopes on the snow front. Below average temperatures, with lost of potential precipitation, but nothing much ever came of it. All hope is not lost, there is still time! The biggest snowfall in my lifetime, the Blizzard of 1980, happened on March 1st. What a fabulous time we had sledding and building forts,  I will never forget it!

As a form of weather protest, I’ve added snow to the blog, which will only be removed after the first multi-inch snowfall, or the vernal equinox, whichever comes first.

So in the absence of a blizzard, here are a few pictures of us making the best of the little snow we’ve gotten so far.

The mighty, giant, snowman of 2009

The mighty, giant, snowman of 2009 in perspective.

The talented snow artists, SJ and SA.

A New Year, A New Decade, maybe.

It’s that time again, a new year, a new decade, er, well maybe a new decade, depending on which calendar you follow. For those following the astronomical calendar, this is a new decade. Those following the Gregorian calendar, will have to wait until next year, but I digress.

So how did we ring in the New year? On New Year’s eve we took the family out to dinner at our favorite restaurant, Montgomery Grill. Afterward we came home, donned funny hats and watched the NYC party on TV, including CNN’s 360 Year in Review, and the obligatory ball drop in Times Square at midnight.

After giving my dear husband a midnight kiss, I stepped out on the front porch to watch the neighbors set off fireworks. The house up the block was setting off some pretty big ones, including bottle rocks. Five minutes into the display they shot one into the house across the street, then for some reason they abruptly stopped. I wonder why, they were so pretty.

The next day we made a New Year’s dinner, homemade sliders, on pan toasted gluten free bread along with roasted potatoes, peppers and pea pods. Not very traditional, but very tasty! Then we spent the evening enjoying each others company, quite an auspicious way to begin the new year, and new decade. I only hope the rest of the year is more of the same.

Cat in a Hat

On the Fifth Night of Chanukah My True Love Gave to Me…

Actually we didn’t exchange presents tonight but we did start a new tradition of eating Chinese dinner. Since it’s Chanukah fried food is the order of the day, and Chinese seemed like a good candidate. So we took all the children, including KD and her friend S, to the Chinese buffet, which unfortunately was terrible.  The only thing that was actually hot was the soup, but we had a good time together which was most important. 

After dinner we came home, lit the chanukiot, then played a game of Apples to Apples. We’ve never played it before, JA got it as a gift from KD last night. We all had some good laughs as some of the combinations ended up being quite funny. The idea is to create associations from the pile of cards in your hand with the subject card on the table. Lots of great reading, vocabulary and resoning occur durin the game, which makes it even better. If you’ve never played it, give it a try.

Today’s Mitzvah: Making your children a priority in your life. My dear husband, who had a work related crisis today, but chose to be there to see the children’s end of semester programs. I feel very fortunate that we have the opportunity to have Dad around for many of these moments that many fathers must miss. Jc being able to work at home really is a blessing and I am so thankful he is able to be here for those little, but important, moments in the children’s lives. Hopefully they will be able to look back when they are older and appreciate that fact dad was able to, and wanted to,  be there for them at these times.

Chanukah Sameach

We are having a lovely Chanukah so far. I love the holidays, spending time together, stepping outside the mundane, day to day goings on of life.

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Happy Chanukah

Let Children Be Children

Not so much a post about mitzvot per se, but this article was linked from another blog I read, Treppenwitz, and I found it very timely.

I am the recipient of generations of parental anxiety, and am very guilty myself of being an overly worried parent. It is my fondest desire to see that my children are safe, lack for nothing and always succeed. Yet I know in my heart this is not the best way of doing things , because taken to the extreme rather then helping them I will in all actuality harm them. Lately I have been trying very hard just to let it go, enjoy the moment for what it is, knowing that the big stuff will get taken care of and the little stuff doesn’t really matter much in the grand scheme of things anyway. Much easier said than done though, that’s for sure!

The Growing Backlash Against Overparenting

After All These Years, Great Floors

Ok, totally off topic.

We moved into our house about 13 years ago. Since that time we have done tons of work on the house, but we never did anything to the floors. Not that the floors didn’t need any attention. They were  sad, sad, sad. Did you ever go to that steak place with wooden floors, where you threw all your peanut shells on the floor? Yeah, our floors looked like that, only worse.

Refinishing was out. Not only would it have taken over a week, but it would have required us to move out for probably close to two weeks since I am so sensitive to smells, not to mention the mess of sanding. The whole reason we didn’t stain all the new wood molding and windows was because the smell of the stain made me so sick. Replacing the floor was also out, at a cost of over $10k, it just didn’t seem like a good investment.

Enter, Mr. Sandless. One night I see a car, Mr. Sandless, sandless floor refinishing, in the parking lot of the local grocery store. returning home I scoured the internet which turns up two local sandless refinishers. The other company wouldn’t even come out to look at our floors. They wanted us to measure all our rooms, email them the information, then they would come out to take a look. So we had Mr. Sandless come out. Bill looked at our floors, was very honest about what could and couldn’t be done, and had us a quote very quickly.

At less than a quarter of the cost of replacement, and less than half the price of refinishing, we didn’t see any reason not to give it a try. So what do we think?

We love it! Two days and our floors are transformed! I won’t even try to describe the difference, but you can see the pictures for yourself.

Before

After

If you are interested in this for your home, contact:

Mr. Sandless™ Southern Virginia
Owned and operated by Bill Gunneson
757-397-1304

The Cookie Lady

Today’s Mitzvah: Today a very thoughtful lady in my History of Photography class brought in cookies for everyone. This is not a class where students spend a lot of time interacting, so it seemed doubly thoughtful that she would choose to wish her fellow classmates a happy holiday in that way.

So thank  you Cookie Lady for your thoughtful gift of holiday cheer!

The Computer Ate My Post

Now it’s gone. Not to mention much, much  later than when I started the original, so I’ll just forgo the rewrite and skip straight to the mitzvah part.

Today’s Mitzvah: It always amazes me that people will take time out of their already packed weeks to teach religious school. Those who are willing to give up their time on Sunday mornings to help impart Jewish knowledge to my children, are a G-dsend. They willingly give up a big chunk of the one free day they have per week, and it really is amazing. And all my children love their teachers! So thank you Mrs.B, Mrs. W, and Mrs. S, for sharing your time and love of Judaism with my children.

Mitzvah Idea: Hear what someone is saying. No, don’t just listen, but really try to hear what they say, truly understand what they mean, from their perspective, not your own.