Several Weeks At Once

There used to be a fridge magnet that said: I try to take one day at a time but sometimes several days all throw themselves at me at once. That has been what this week was like for me - several weeks at once. Here's the lowdown...

1. Work, obviously, and I was teaching right up until this morning. Except that one of the courses I teach had a deadline today including two papers and a one-to-one meeting with 50 students. You can't have the meeting until you've done the papers. But you need the last paper passed before you can go on to the next paper. No problem, only about 20 students had uploaded their papers and I was on top of it.

Then suddenly, woosh! Another 20 students sent in both papers at once and all wanted their meeting this week! They also needed their papers graded in order to continue on to the next paper.

2. I have friends who own a holiday apartment in Jerusalem. When they leave on an early morning flight I go in to throw their sheets and towels into the washing machine as they don't have time. After the washing's done I hang it up and then go back a couple of days later when it's dry, to put everything away. They left this week of course, on an early morning flight.

 3. I'd volunteered to help set up The Yedidya Bazaar. I could have cancelled on them but it's not nice to do so and I really wanted to help anyway. So that was 5 hours of free time swallowed up.

From inside the new guest bedroom

4. The sliding doors on my new dividing wall were fitted last week but the carpenter didn't finish. So he had to come back on Wednesday to put up the pelmet and paint the doors. Messy work, takes the best part of the day, and requires clearing up afterwards.

It was worth it as the wall and the doors look great - Thank you Kobi Haas (the builder) and Chaim Gottesman (the carpenter) - but it did mean that no Pesach cleaning could start until Wednesday night.

A peek from the new corridor

The new corridor with the doors shut

5. We are going to London for Passover (Pesach). I'd not managed to rent out my place this year so I was just planning to lock the door and go. Then, just this week, a friend of a friend asked if she could rent my spare room. It's not as big a business as renting out the whole place to a family who need all the bedrooms, but you do need to leave it clean enough for Pesach. I'm not even done yet and we leave tomorrow afternoon.

6. Packing - not even started.

Today I (along with every mother of young children in Israel) had to send DD to kindergarten at 7.30 am with a hard-boiled egg, a boiled potato and some lettuce for their practice seder. Go to the holiday apartment to put the dry laundry away and set the alarm (I don't leave it on with laundry drying as it inevitably falls over and sets off the alarm, usually in the middle of the night). Be back home to teach from 9am to 10am. Go to the post office to send my teaching cheques for March to the accountant which I couldn't do earlier as I was waiting for today's student to pay me. Go shopping for food for the plane (were're flying no-frills). Pay some bills and order travel insurance online. Collect DD from kindergarten at 12. Afternoon spent cleaning and getting the spare room ready. I'm almost finished (not really).

As I said, several weeks at once but tomorrow we move in with family and a full cast of supporting adults. Hooray!  I may or may not blog while we're away so have a Happy Pesach and/or Easter and I'll see you on the other side.