Everything Is Happy In The Sunshine - R2BC

It seems that all the heaviness of the winter just evaporates with the return of the spring sunshine. And this past week has been particularly warm. People were even spotted out an about in sandals!

Here are my Reasons 2B Cheerful this week. I'm a day late because I just had to write about Inspiring Women yesterday for International Women's Day. Go and read it if you haven't already - you are probably one of the women I wrote about. And don't forget the R2BC linky over at Michelle's Mummy from the Heart. 

1
Hosting
I started of my social March with going to the Purim party last Thursday evening and then hosting friends for the festive Purim meal on Friday. I put out games on the coffee table to amuse the kids and it gave them something to do when they finished eating and got bored of the table. There really were guests but these particular friends don't like their photos on the internet so I had to take special blog photos without the people.

-1 
Not hosting
For this week I invited friends from London over for a mid-week supper and another small family for Friday night dinner today. The London friends suddenly had to return to London for family reasons and the friends for today were already busy for Friday night. So week two wasn't so social.

A half-hearted 2
The Jerusalem Marathon
Today is the Jerusalem Marathon. We usually go and cheer on the runners and see loads of people we know both running and cheering. There is music and street entertainment at the end of our street. Today we didn't get our act together to go out this morning. And it's cold out which is great for the runners but not so inviting for us. We did catch the end of it when DD went to her youth club and I went shopping.

3
More Teaching
As soon as the sun comes out they start talking about teaching for next year. I have agreed to my one day in college and two online courses as usual. For school I promised myself that I'd go back to three days a week. This year I'm doing 3.5 days and I felt that it was too much. So obviously I heard myself agreeing to do four days next year. And my stupid brain was in collusion with my mouth, thinking all sorts of time-management thoughts and vowing to be more efficient. Yes you can do it all but it's more comfortable and enjoyable not to. Oh well, another year towards paying off the mortgage won't hurt.

4
Orchestra
DD has started practicing her clarinet at home if I nag her enough. She's in two orchestras and I got an invitation to the first concert later this month. This means, see how wonderful this is and if your child wishes to continue, from now on there will be a monthly fee. Of course we'll continue but there's no such thing as a free Legato.

Women Getting On With It - International Women's Day

Two of my favourite women in training.

R2BC will have to wait until tomorrow as today is International Women's Day. My cousin, Doreen Samuels, a women's activist, innovator, and initiator in Education and Interfaith work, issued the following challenge on facebook. That we should write about a woman who inspires us on International Women's Day. As the challenge didn't require any sports equipment, I readily accepted.

Since accepting the challenge I've been wracking my brain trying to think of someone to write about. It's not that I don't know any inspirational women, it's that I know so many. I have friends who are experts in their fields and friends who run charities and friends who work in government and friends who are doctors for the sick and lawyers for the poor. They are all inspirational women and we tell them so. They all chose their inspirational work and we are grateful that they did.

Then there are inspirational women who did not choose to be inspirational. I have a friend who is battling serious cancer whilst holding down a full-time job and holding it all together for her young children in between chemo treatments. Believe me, we would all rather she didn't have to be so inspirational even while we admire her courage, her strength and her determination.

I have a friend who is a single mother with a severely disabled daughter and another child with autism. I have more than one friend who adopted children with neurological and behavioral problems like Fetal Alcohol Syndrome, attachment disorder, ADHD, autism, and any number of other challenges that they didn't know about before the adoption. And other friends with disabled children. All of them endlessly caring and advocating for their beloved children with little thanks and little help. One friend in particular started a major organisation to include disabled and abled children in joint social activities. It's called Shutaf, take a look. She is a true inspiration.

I have a friend who lost her husband when their children were young and she brought up five children on her own, through the traumas of a sick father, the death of their father, and continuing to live without him. And every one of those children is a wonderful young adult. She is an inspirational woman.

I have friends who escaped from abusive marriages and started over with very little. Their courage is inspirational.

All these women inspire me and others. People say to them all the time, "you are amazing." And they answer, "what choice did I/do I have?"

And it doesn't end there. What about all the women nursing all sorts of trials and traumas in private that we know nothing about? Nobody even tells them they are amazing and still they carry on, putting family, children and jobs first. They just get on with it because there are bills to pay, children to love, educate, feed and clothe, a household to run, and a community to contribute to.

Women on their own who tirelessly give to society and to other people's children. Women with disabilities themselves or chronic illnesses who put on a brave face and carry on. All inspirations.

I sometimes watch "inspirational" videos on You Tube where female life coaches, expensively groomed and clothed and with million dollar teeth, tell you how you can have it all. You just have to get up and go for it. Sorry Honey, but the women that inspire me can't just get up and go for it because they have cancer or children with special needs or not enough money to step off the treadmill even for the time it takes to watch your dazzling white teeth dancing in front of the camera.

Not everyone can work in a corner office overlooking a Los Angeles marina. We need teachers for special education, we need nurses, we need social workers in deprived areas. (I know that men also do these jobs but today it's about the women.)

So Doreen, I'm writing to honour the inspirational women who just get on with it. The  millions of women without fame or fortune who stand by their families and responsibilities, who put themselves last and who do whatever it takes to keep the system working and to survive. I see them all the time around Jerusalem. I work with some of them. They are the backbone and the heart of society and they inspire me.

The Minimalist Game - Days 5 -7

The matttress and sheets as posted for sale on facebook.

Read this post about The Minimalist Game if you've not read it as it explains what I'm playing at. 😁

Day 5: A single sponge mattress from a child's bed and two fitted sheets to go with it. (I put these 3 items up for sale on a local facebook page.) And 2 glass jars that DD painted and gave to her friends.

The Child's bed was bought for DD when she graduated from the cot. It has undergone a couple of transformations. It originally had a trundle bed underneath for sleepovers, and two large storage drawers under the trundle. All these heavy additions have long gone and we swapped the child's mattress for a regular single suitable for an adult.

One of the things I realized a while ago is that I don't want heavy furniture. I've said it before but we live in a desert and there is a lot of dust. I don't want a load of furniture that you pull out once a year for cleaning underneath. I want to be able to get the hoover or the mop under the beds and sofas. It's cleaner and the rooms look more spacious when you can see the floor extending under them. It's a lighter, airier look and feel. (See the new sofas)

The child's mattress had been standing next to the bed, alongside the wall for a couple of years. I admit that it was a useful little shelf for putting your specs and your book on when you go to sleep but without it the room is wider. A small bedside table does the same job and is good for a lamp and a glass of water too. It's amazing how an extra 10cm of room makes so much difference.

With the old sofa that was the size of a single bed, DD's bed and the trundle, the mattress (and in fact I had another similar mattress that I gave away with the old sofa), my double bed, and another small double; I could sleep nine people in this apartment! Even when my sister brought her family of five to stay (only twice in 17 years since the 'baby' was born), we were only seven people. And although I have two toilets, I only have one full bathroom and probably not enough hot water in the tank for nine people to shower anyway.

I don't know why I kept all those bed options. I think I forgot that I'm no longer a student with whole crowds of friends descending for weekend parties. I now have sleeping accommodation for five people, including us two, and that's quite enough. My sister's family no longer all travel together as two of the kids are grown up. And if one day the whole family plus my Mum and my brother all want to come at the same time.... there is a lovely little boutique hotel around the corner. Sorted. (I'll offer to make dinner so they can book B&B),

The other 2 items to make up the 5 for the 5th of the month, are two empty Nutella jars that DD painted and gave to two of her friends as part of their Mishloah Manot for Purim. Sorry no photo but she painted a rainbow coming out of a cloud on one jar and a panda bear in a forest on the other. They were rather cute actually.

If you read the linked post about Mishloah Manot, you should know that the days of making a million of these are gone for the moment. DD made two for her best school friends and that was it this year.

Day 6

Day 6: Three ceramic bowls, one painted enamel cooking pot, one pottery planter and an old silicone loaf baker. These have been sitting on the balcony since I read one woman's account of collecting all sorts of coloured containers to plant things in on her eclectic balcony. I never got round to doing that planting and although I do plan to plant loads for April's Project, I've decided that the eclectic gypsy caravan look is not what I'm after. It doesn't really go with the minimalist style. So that's 6 wouldbe planters from the balcony.

Day 7

Day 7: A tray, two milk jugs, two teapots (I used to collect them), a loose-leaf tea strainer in the shape of a teapot, and a gift from a friend (not pictured so as not to offend but nothing to do with teatime). I bought the tray and the yellow jug in 1985 when I left home to live with two other girls. There used to be a yellow sugar bowl to match the jug and there is still a red teapot that I kept.

That's 31 things so far from The Minimalist Game making a running total of 416 clutters since October.

My Science Project Homework

Here's an update to yesterday's post about the science project. I overreacted. Being creatively challenged, I could only imagine a wooden bird feeder like you buy in a garden centre. After posting my open letter to the science teacher a number of sensible friends pointed out that it's not a carpentry project. They put me in the direction of a much simpler affair involving egg boxes, milk cartons, empty toilet rolls, etc... Oh. Well this is my first child.

So I quickly finished a whole packet of crackers with copious amounts of butter and Marmite. I rescued the plastic tray which is the perfect size for a bird bath for the little tiny gray/brown birds that we have no idea what they're called. I found a shoe box and took the lid. I stuck the bath to the box tray with sellotape. I attached gift-wrapping ribbon and hung it from one of those back of the door hooks. Sorted.

DD wasn't remotely interested in helping me. I did it all by myself. However, I could hear the relief in her voice as she shrugged her shoulders and remained silent.

So Dear 4th Grade Science Teacher, 

I completed my homework assignment. No effort went into making it at all. I did not enjoy making the bird feeder. It was an exercise in making my child feel comfortable to go to school and face you. 

Having completed the assignment, I would like to point out a few features incorporated into the design. I tried to consider all aspects of the birds' lives - social, physical, and emotional welfare as well as their cognitive development. 

1. The plastic tray in the centre is a bath as well as a drinking well. Playing in water not only cleans the birds so that they are less likely to leave footprints on your clean laundry hanging out to dry, but it also gives them confidence in water. This is especially important if they have to land over the English Channel on their way back to the UK for the summer.

2. Place seeds and nuts on either side of the water bath. Please don't give them any sugary treats as this is not good for their beaks. In time the birds will learn that if one of them sits on one side of the tray, the whole thing tips over. They will use this knowledge to devise a system of pair-work, whereby two birds of similar mass balance each other on either side of the bath. Maths is the basis of all science you know.  

3. The ribbon and hook allow the feeding tray to sway in the breeze. This helps to develop the birds' sense of balance. The brighter birds might even learn to use it as a swing thereby strengthening their little muscles and improving co-ordination.

4. I didn't decorate the tray in bright colours on purpose. Rather we want the birds to rely on word of mouth in order to find it. Social skills are essential for little birds about to embark on a long journey. Learning to be part of the flock - giving as well as receiving help from each other - could be the very thing to keep them away from the TVs in the electrical shop windows. You know how too much screen time is destroying communication. 

Please could you give my grade to DD to pass on to me when she gets home. 

Thank you
Rachel (DD's Mother)

An Open Letter To The Science Teacher

Dear 4th Grade Science Teacher,

DD came home from school last week with the following assignment: Observe a bird for a week or so and make a feeding table that is suitable for its needs. The example DD gave me was, "if it has a long beak you need to put the food in a long bottle." (I think she may be remembering the picture from the Aesop's Fable about the stork and the fox.) And then she has to present it to the class.

She or I may have misunderstood but as it stands, this assignment is not going to happen for the following reasons.

1. We can observe the pigeons that sit on our window sill. They are big, gray, and they have short beaks. There are lots of other little birds that come to our balcony. They are all grey or brown and they all have short beaks. No pelicans, storks, or flamingoes come to our balcony or window sills so I think it's fair to say that the birds we observe will all have short beaks.

2. Apart from the pigeons, I have no idea what any of the other birds are called in English, let alone in Hebrew. These are the birds I know: hen, penguin, ostrich, duck, swan, parrot, vulture, pelican, stork, flamingo. (I'd also recognise a Robin Red Breast if it were wearing its Christmas scarf and hat. 😉) None of these birds come to our balcony for observation.

3. DD doesn't know how to build things. When I was a child I lived in a house with a tool shed out the back. My father knew how to work all those tools and he was quite good at building things too. Had I ever brought home a school assignment for him to do, he could have done it very nicely and I would have happily helped him and then presented it to my class for him. This never happened as all my homework was stuff I could do myself.

4. These are the tools we have in our apartment: a hammer, an Ikea allen key, a vegetable peeler, a garlic press, a ladle, a fish slice, several wooden spoons, sellotape, sticks of paper-glue, scissors, colouring pencils, pens, and paints and paint brushes for art. I could find an old shoe box or a plastic water bottle but seriously, I don't know where to start making this into a bird feeder.

I am very happy for DD to learn about birds. If you want her to do some work at home please give her the name of a bird. We will look it up on the internet or even go to the zoo to observe it. Then we would happily read and learn about it. DD could write about it, draw it, and even present it to the class.

Instead of enjoying science, DD has spent a lot of time worrying about how she will face you without having built a bird feeder. Sadly I suspect this is not going to draw her into the subject or inspire a life-long love of science and nature.

Thank you for your understanding.
Rachel (DD's mother).

The Minimalist Game Days 1 - 4

Day 1 - a serving platter

I saw a couple of You Tube vlogs about The Minimalist Game and it looked like something I would enjoy. As I've been journeying towards that minimalist life but somehow have not quite arrived there yet, I decided to give it a go for three weeks.

First some background about where I'm at in the journey. After several years of major decluttering each year for the Yedidya Bazaar and for DD's School Fair, and helped by the fact that once you pass the baby/toddler stage a load of equipment and big toys become obsolete, my apartment had way less stuff than had been the case only four years previously.

In October last year I set myself a 500 Clutters Challenge to get rid of (donate, sell, or throw out) 500 items. I made it to 250 and stopped because I wasn't ready to tackle my wardrobe. Then came this year's Yedidya Bazaar (a month early) and DD's School Fair. I managed to find more stuff to go and reached a total of 360. Just recently DD's youth club announced a second hand sale (date tba) and asked for any unwanted items. I dug out 19 items and got to 379. Finally, last week I threw out 2 bulky and superfluous fridge dividers, I gave two of DD's outgrown dresses and a pink headband to a little boyfriend who needed to dress up as a girl for Purim, and I chucked the current IKEA catalogue.

Day 2 - two baking trays from a previous oven

At a running score of 385 I decided to play The Minimalist Game. You can make up your own rules. For e.g. I'm only doing 21 days instead of 30 because I'm not starting from scratch. The things that go out now are already from digging deeper than the first 10 days would be for most people. My rules are that each day you get rid of the number of items corresponding to the day of the month. So 1 item on the 1st, 2 on the 2nd, etc. 21 days of this will yield (or unyield) 231 items making a grand total of 616 items since October 2017.

The photos in this post are days 1 - 4 from March 1st until March 4th. 10 items gone and all from the same cupboard in the kitchen.

March 1st: A serving plate. I still have another 9 serving plates (not including quiche and pie plates, salad bowls and smaller serving dishes) and I never use them. Mostly I use ordinary dinner plates as serving plates as they are easier to handle and fit better on the table. I used to have big parties but I don't entertain like that anymore. When I do have people round it's usually a few people for a meal rather than a party. And if one day I do decide to have another big party here, I won't hesitate to buy a pack of disposable serving platters. (I'm not sure now why I'm keeping the other 8 serving dishes. Atm I just like them because they're pretty or have sentimental value.)

Day 3 - a serving tray and two microwave covers

March 2nd: Two baking trays from my previous oven. Yes they do fit in my present oven but I have another identical tray in this oven. I don't make batches of biscuits and when I do make a homemade pizza or bread, one baking tray is enough. I cover it in baking paper so that I can re-use it if necessary with just a wipe over and we are only two people in this household. Seriously, I'm not running a catering company.

March 3rd: A tray that came with homemade cookies as a present when friends came to stay for the weekend. I kept it to use when I want to give a platter of food for a present or take food items to a potluck meal. Again, we have disposable party-ware shops for just this type of very rare occasion. And I usually take a salad to these things as that's what I do best.

And two microwave food covers. I don't even have a microwave anymore and when I did have one, it was too small for these covers. They could also be used to keep the flies off plates of food but, like Israel itself, we tackle infiltration at the borders by having screens on the windows and doors so there are no flies in the house.

Day 4 - four pretty but never used fruit/dessert plates

March 4th (Yes I know I'm a day ahead of the game.): Four dessert plates. I've had them forever and never used them. In the days when I had a fruit bowl on display they would sit (unused... ever... ) next to it with some pretty fruit knives for a snack in front of the telly. Nowadays I keep fruit in the fridge where it keeps for much longer and it's more refreshing to eat cold fruit. I don't serve fancy desserts after a meal. I'm not a baker and I don't enjoy baking so I tend to buy a fancy ice-cream and some Danish pastries. If I ever do decide to make a fancy dessert, you can be sure that it will be for more than only two guests!

I'll be back throughout the game with updates. Play along if you like, it's fun if you're serious about getting rid of unnecessary stuff.

March Project and Celebration - R2BC

Almond blossom in Jerusalem. One of the signs of spring.
We even have a song about it. 

In case you  missed it. I'm making a celebration and doing a project for each month of 2018. So far January celebrated 'Turning Over a New Leaf' and the project was to get all my paper work in order. It's almost done. 😜

February celebrated the end of the winter and the first signs of spring. The project was major decluttering and spring cleaning. It's almost done. 😜

March is really the start of spring here. I put the radiators away today. (We have socks and fleeces if it gets a bit chilly in the evening.) That's a reason 2B cheerful in itself. Here are my other Reasons 2B Cheerful for this week.

This year the festivals of Purim (which is our equivalent to Mardi Gras and Carnivale) and Pesach (Passover) both fall in March (the 1st for Purim and the 30th for Pesach). So the Celebration is friends and family.

The project is getting together with friends, inviting friends for Shabbat meals (not every meal), making the effort to do all those 'coffees' that I really want to do but the winter kept getting in the way, and spending time with family (over Pesach).

Basically, it's a kick in the behind to get off the sofa, out from under the blankets, and reconnect with the world. There's a sub-plot to this project because in order to make all those coffee dates I have to be up to date with my work. And in order to invite people over I have to be on top of the housework because I can't invite people to a dirty house. So it's also a general kick to get going with everything. Those lazy winter evenings that started at 5 pm are over (and we didn't even do one jigsaw-puzzle).

Tonight is the actual night of Purim in Jerusalem so we're starting off in grand style by going to a Purim service and party at friends. It's dressing up for those who want to, a vegetarian potluck, and a lovely get-together of old and new friends. I'm taking potato salad. And tomorrow we have some friends coming over at lunchtime for the Purim meal. Not a bad beginning to a month of socializing.

So  here's to a sociable March. And of course to finishing off that paperwork thing, continued decluttering, and finishing spring cleaning.

The R2BC Linky is back at Michelle's Mummy from the Heart for the month of March. I'll be hanging out there as usual with the gang.