Thursday Thirteen...13 Before the Chagim Come

Here are thirteen things I have to do before Rosh haShanah

1. Find a babysitter for Erev Rosh HaShanah, Rosh HaShanah, Erev Yom Kippur and Yom Kippur (all day). Does this count as one thing or 4?
2. Make sure all my children have clothes to wear to the Family Services on Rosh HaShanah.
3. Work on Sermon...oh wait, start sermons.
4. Pick stories for Family Services, Alternative Services, and the other Family Services.
5. Mark up the Family Service prayerbooks for my new songleader.
6. Decide if I'm going to bake apple cakes for the whole world again. People do love them. I do love making them. How many should I make? It definitely falls into the "I don't know how she does it" category. But do I care about that category?
7. Make sure I have clothes to wear for each service.
8. Schedule a manicure.
9. Take some time to self-prepare for the holidays. My own teshuvah always seems to get neglected. I start with such good intentions.
10. Decide what we're going to do about decorating our sukkah.
11. Plan, if we want to, a Sukkah Open House. I think we'll do it on the day of the Sukkah Trolley Ride, since we are a stop...and we won't have to ride the trolley except to our house and then we can be done! I think this is a great plan. Guess I should check with my hubby...
12. Convince the baby to sleep through the night.
13. Get over whatever bug is making me sick right now. Sore throat, headache....feels like strep but the rapid test was negative. I know this too shall pass. But look at this list!!!!!

I do love the High Holy Days. But the lists always seem to creep up on me! I thought Thursday Thirteen was a great idea for today's post. See more Thursday Thirteen here...

Sickness and Health...

Oy I feel awful.
My throat hurts.
My head hurts.
My body hurts.

I had such plans for this post, I think I'm very close to the end of the 30-day blogging challenge (too tired to make a link, see sidebar for link) and I wanted to write great things.

Some days, you just have to drink orange juice and eat popsicles.

Oof.

Shehecheyanu Moment: The First Day of School

Today was the first day of Kindergarten for my oldest child. He was very excited about going to school. We drove together to school (quite early, but he was raring to go), and as we walked in to the playground, I saw that we certainly were not the first to get there! It wasn't David's first time at school but it was his first time playing on the playground. As we walked in, I asked if he remembered about the blessing for something new. He did! So together we said the shehecheyanu prayer as we walked into the playground:

Baruch ata Adonai, Eloheinu Melech ha-Olam, shehecheyanu, v'kiyimanu, v'higiyanu lazman hazeh.

Literally: Blessed are You, our God, Ruler of the World, who has created us, sustained us, and brought us to this joyous time.

As I said it at the playground: Thank You God, for bringing us here to school and making kindergarten! (he is 5, after all)

What an incredible moment for me, to be able to say a prayer of joy at that time, and to share it with my son. I do believe that he understood how special that moment was for me. I wasn't sure that I was going to be able to convey how much the whole thing means to me, that he is now beginning his formal education. I have such mixed feelings, nervous and excited and proud and worried and happy....I think he has the same feelings.

We hung out on the playground for a few minutes (and I took some pictures....go mom), until it was time to lineup, and they allowed all the parents to go in with their kindergarteners. We entered the classroom and did some activities that oriented the kids to the classroom...found David's locker (I didn't get a locker until middle school!), which was MIA until we spoke to the teacher - she forgot to make his name tag. It was a tense moment for David but it all worked out just fine. He drew a picture of his favorite part of the classroom -- the globe -- and had a snack -- a piece of apple. At that moment, I realized that I'd forgotten to eat breakfast and I was starving! (Oops, good job mom. I don't know if I've ever forgotten to eat in my whole life before!) So I ate a piece of apple too:-)

The teacher gave some information to the parents while the kids ate their snacks and then it was time to go. But David thought it was time for the moms to go, so he told me to leave. But it was time for all of us to leave -- a very short day for the kindergarteners! Tomorrow will be a "real" day of school.

I got through the whole thing without any tears (I'm not even sure why I felt like crying) but I'm tearing up now as I write this. I'm not sad about him starting school, in fact, I'm thrilled. I think it's the overwhelming emotion of sending my baby off...

BSM: Brother & Sister Love

I love the way she looks at him.

And he is so sweet with her.



May it always be so.


See more Best Shot Monday here.

A Dad Blog!?...and 5 Places I've been this week

So there are lots of stay-at-home-dads, right? Not as many as the moms, sure, but dads can, indeed stay home. In fact, my husband is one of these SAHD...which is a bad acronym, since when pronounced, it sounds like "sad"! He is very good at taking care of our young 'uns, and he works part-time outside the home as well. There's another SAHD in our neighborhood, but overall, he doesn't have a lot of support in the real world. He is not really one for blog-reading (unless I pass them on to him)...but I am! And I found a Dad-blog this week, Stay At Home Dad, Geek Style. AND he is having a Stay At Home Dad Digital Camera Give-Away. (which I'd very much like to win)...not only a camera but free stuff from smugmug.com too.

He has a very adorable daughter that he features in photos (I love photos) and they hosted a tiny chocolate lab puppy for a few days that was beyond cute with the little girl. I like reading about how he's trying to make the blogging part of his parenting as well as his work, which is a lot like how I see my blogging as well!

So go check him out...and you too can enter his contest:-)

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Five Places I've Been This Week

The Mindset List from Beloit College...the mindset of entering college freshmen. Wild.

How to Fold a One-Page Book...just because it's cool!

Spell with Flickr

From Momma Zen...on balance

The Fall TV line-up - I can't wait for my favorite shows to return:-)
(from my del.icio.us )

Art and Seeing

For our motzei Shabbat activity (after Shabbat ends, on Saturday night), we had the unexpected pleasure of an hour or so out...my m-in-law was home with the kids, and so we dashed out to see the Highwood Fine Arts Festival, a very small art show in our own small town. While much of the art was nice and somewhat ordinary, we were delighted with the art of Inna Deriy, who paints with pigmented polymers on stone, wood, and canvas. Let me tell you, it leads to gorgeous colors and beautiful images. I am not even really sure what a polymer is (I know I wouldn't eat it!) but I know what I think is beautiful.

I wasn't able to find a picture of the small piece that we bought. It has the image of tree trunks. I love images of trees...I think trees are so incredible and wonderful as a symbol of longevity in nature. I also love the Jewish imagery of the Torah as the Tree of Life, and I also love the idea of a family tree. Overall, I'm a tree girl.

I did find this image, though, and it is quite beautiful. There is also a story about it that the artist's husband shared with us while we perused the booth. He said a blind woman was walking through an art fair they were doing once, and she bemoaned that she couldn't really see all the art that her companion was describing. He offered to let her touch this painting (at the time it was all white, with just the texture of the image -- it's hard to see in the picture here but all her art is very textured), and as she ran her fingers over it, she said, "oh, it's tulips!" but they hadn't even told her what it was.

It is amazing how our senses work. Many people who have full functional use of their eyes are "blind" to the world, not seeing beauty or love....or not seeing problems in the world. This story was a beautiful reminder that we shouldn't always just see with our eyes...

Shabbat With Your Family

When David (now 5 1/2) was young, we told him he could only watch tv on Shabbat. When we'd visit my parents, they would let him watch tv whenever he wanted, which coined the phrase in our house: "it's always Shabbat at Bubbie and Zeyde's house!" (It raised problems for us one Shabbat that we spent with an Orthodox family. In their house, no tv on Shabbat!)

Now we don't do that anymore. He's old enough to know that there is tv available on other days of the week....and he likes to watch it. But we learned that it is possible to be non-traditional in your observance of Shabbat and make the day very special.

So now we struggle with some special thing to define Shabbat in our house, other than our Friday night dinner activities. I would like something special to do or not do on Saturday as well. I think that this may become easier as my children grow older. It's hard to explain to a 2-year-old and it's hard to be consistent in our house when mommy works on Shabbat!

How does your family observe Shabbat? What are some non-traditional traditions that you've developed to make this day special? Leave me a comment!