I am NOT having another baby right now. No big announcement happening here on the blog. Sorry.
But it is the conversation that I, and many of my peers, friends – and fellow bloggers – have to have. For some of is, it is a conversation we keep revisiting.
I realize that for some people it isn’t as easy as a conversation or just deciding. I also know there are plenty of times we have “the conversation”, make a decision, and G-d just has other plans. For better or worse, as Scary Mommy puts it: “It seems like all I need to do is think about a baby and poof, nine month later, I have one in my arms.”
So there are those of us who have “the conversation” because we do think that we have the ability to decide,at least on some level.
The decision can be about a lot of things, and I am hoping that you will chime in about some of them. There are two things I hear most often. For some, it is a question of family size above all else. “How could I possibly handle more? I can’t handle what I have!”, for example. Or, “I always thought I would have X number of kids, but maybe that is just my ideas getting in the way of what is practically best for us.”
For some, it is the AGE thing… “well, I am going to be/am/am over 40, so it’s now or never!” I hear too. I am going to be 39 in March, and I guess, well, I fall in this category. I say I am done, but saying so when you still have time to change your mind is one thing…..
When I was in labor with my youngest child (who will be 3 this spring), my husband said to my doula “the next time, we will…” There was no rest of the sentence, because I threw the birth ball at him.
Seven is a lot of children. (And any of you tempted to say, or even think ” six and a stepson” you will just have to read this post on the matter.) It is a lot.
Everyone has to do what is right for them, and for many of us that means not only having “that talk” with our spouses, but with a Rabbi. But I do want to address those of you who are considering going from 2 to 3 or from 3 to 4, because this is a group of women I think I hear from the most.
Here is my two cents, which may be worth much less than that:
- When you have two kids, you can have a lifestyle. I mean hobbies, vacations, date night… a lifestyle.If you want to maintain a lifestyle and choose to have a third, you have to stop and consider how close your parents live, how good a roster of babysitters you have, and how flexible you are. I believe it can be done, but with effort.
- However, if you want or are willing to have parenting be your lifestyle, than three is nooo problem, because parenting is what your lifestyle will become. You will take vacations around the kids, and basically do what you do for and about them – at least for a decade or two.
- … And if you have chosen parenting as your lifestyle, then four is really not a big change over three. Very often you can then have “team A” and “team B” for the purpose of logistics. Who is on which team is constantly in flux, but you can divide up the kids while doing playdates/errands/ naps/baths/homework… you get the idea. The kids have taken over the life, then house, the plans, so a fourth means more diapers and less sleep, but not much of an adjustment.
A friend recently related her feelings of still yearning, loving pregnancy and child-bearing, and wanting to enjoy yummy little babies. She is not sure if those feelings are a sign she should keep going, or just some biological stirrings that she needs to learn to contend with. Another friend told her of a woman in her fifties having a hysterectomy and crying, because for some, there is no magical age when that feeling just fades away on its own.
People often talk to me about this very personal issue, telling me that they wonder how can a person do what they do, times seven. “It seems so crazy!”
I tell them that it is crazy, and fun, and joyous and hard and full of love. That when I became a mom I wasn’t a patient person who could live with clutter or a lack of control. I had no choice but to become that kind of person along the way. I remain organized, I prioritize my expectations, I ask LOTS of people for help (and try to help in return whenever I can, ) and I am married to someone who LOVES babies, and loves kids and loves being involved with the poop-changing and bed-timing, etc., which is a HUGE factor in the equation for me.
My husband’s involved co-parenting is the primary, if not sole reason I have the family I do. However, it is precisely because he really does love babies that much, we do end up still having “the conversation“…..
What about you? Are you having “the conversation”???
Shabbat begins in 45 minutes, which means I should be scrambling and running around frantic rather than blogging.
Normally I would be, making the house a little more perfect, making just one more dish to ensure we have too much food. But, I have been sick for the last two days so I have no choice but to take it easy.
I was able to rest yesterday because my husband got the kids off to school. My boss(es) let me take it easy. I work from home, so I could take care of the necessary from my bed. Our school’s PTO sells kosher pizza on Thursdays that you bake at home – so I didn’t have to make dinner. My eleven year old daughter ran me a bath and cut the pizza for her siblings. Husband put them all to bed without me and then got up with everyone this morning and got them off to school.
He was able to do so quietly enough that I could sleep until 9:30(!!!!) Then my neighbor, a friend, widow and all-around-spectacular person, came over to help me cook. She chopped, rinsed, diced… and then sensitively exited when it was clear I had exerted myself and needed to go back to bed for more rest. She came back later to drop off a pie and dessert for Shabbat lunch.
My husband worked from home today, which is completely fine with his boss.
A different neighbor dropped off two desserts, to lighten my load for Shabbat prep. Why two? Because she knows we limit the kids’ dessert intake, so she specifically made a bowl of fruit.
As I sit to write this, three of my sons are outside squeezing in a few last minutes of baseball with each other before showers and candle lighting. They do this because they love baseball and each other — and because they can.
I am sure this posting is so gushy as to make some of you gag. But I am sick, and I have a whole community and life full of blessings around me that make me so grateful.
I am incredibly grateful to live in a religious Jewish community. For my husband’s flexible job and gracious and helpful attitude. To work from home, doing what I love, but near to the people who need me most.
I am incredibly grateful for all of the tremendous help from my tremendous friends…. and even for the illness that is minor enough to pass, but reminds me of just how lucky I am.
I have had a very frustrating month unable to upload photos. This is only one of many excuses reasons I have not been blogging for so long.
I know, I know: Chanukah is over. For most of you, I would imagine that it is already out of your mind. As my big return, shouldn’t I post something timely and relevant? Probably.
But I really wanted to put up this post, and I can finally do so with photos, so please bear with me, dear readers (all two of you that haven’t given up on me.)
My almost 11-year old daughter came to me about a month before Chanukah declaring that she wanted to make a completely unique menorah this year, as a project – and as a surprise for the family – with just me.
I haven’t had time to blog because I am adjusting to worki
ng full-time, and not adjusting well so far. I don’t have time to breathe, and I certainly don’t have time for special projects! But I have to have time for my daughter…. so we came up with a project together.
Homeshuling’s Amy Meltzer let me know it isn’t all th
at unique… but it is creative, and pretty, and was not a lot of cutti
ng and gluing or creatively molding or shaping, all of which I don’t do very well.
Daughter decided we weren’t going to buy anything; the challenge was to use what was in the house. SO, this is what we did:
We washed and saved jars from food with relatively similar heights and wide nec
ks. Then, we glued the together, like this:
Next, we filled them with water. In order to make them the same height, I had to eyeball the water to get the levels the same, since the jars are different. (In order for the menorah to be kosher, the candles have to be the same height.)
Then dear daughter had a great time adding food coloring to each jar to create a variety of colors… we had agreed earlier that the shamash would get to be purple.
Then we added the tealights. Despite my husband’s worries to the contrary, they floated beautifully, and didn’t sink once throughout the holiday.
It isn’t a very compact solution, but we had a lot of fun, and the colors looked beautiful. We did reuse materials in our house, and we had our mother-daughter time.
I know it is late, but perhaps this can be filed away for next year…I hope you had a Chanukah holiday full of lights, latkes, love, freedom and family, music and matanot (gifts.)
…I also hope to get to starting blogging again more frequently than once a month.
For me, one of the clearest “punishments” for choosing to live outside of the land of Israel is the three-day yom tov. Here in the diaspora, September has been a string of holidays chained together by a few work/shop/cooking days. My guess is that with the holidays coming at the same time as back-to-school and the non-chag days being on Fridays, it didn’t feel that much different in Israel, but no doubt my readers will clarify this for me. (I hope.)
I went into Shabbat morning telling at least a couple of community members that I felt like I was running the “last lap in a very long marathon.” A month of cleaning, shopping, cooking, serving, cleaning, serving, cleaning, serving…. laundry…. lather, rinse, repeat. The last day had finally arrived.
I was glad that I made it to shul to hear the Rabbi speak, because he really turned the whole day around for me. I am sure he chose his topic the same way he always does; by listening to whatever has been going on inside my head the past few days. I keep asking him to stop eavesdropping on my thoughts when he chooses his sermon topics, but it doesn’t appear to have stopped the habit.
The Rabbi spoke about parashat Bereishit, yes, but he spoke about how in this parsha, in the beginning, is the clearest, starkest way that man can emulate G-d. We rest on the seventh day because G-d did. Period. Wanna be like G-d? Keep Shabbat.
He went on to remind us that yes, it is keeping the Shabbat, but moreso it is being “in the Shabbat” that makes us like G-d. That when we truly dwell in the mindframe and Shechina*-consciousness of Shabbat, then we are emulating G0dliness in the purest form.
He reminded me in that one moment that it wasn’t the “last lap” of anything. The holidays ended the day before. It wasn’t the Shemini Atzeret moment, the Sukkot moment, the Simchat Torah moment, or even a last moment of any of them. It was “mamash the holy Shabbos.” The only thing that made the day the “last lap” was that it was one more day to dwell in G-d’s presence and to stay close before going back to months of normalcy… a normalcy that includes less time and focus on accessing that closesness to Hashem.
I went home determined to be in Shabbat, and to savor the holiness rather than watch the clock for my return to…. everything else. It really changed my Shabbat, and I enjoyed it so thoroughly. I even had a house full of unexpected “stoppers by” and relaxed and enjoyed it. (Despite having nothing left in the house to serve them.)
I felt the sadness as Shabbat left us that I am told people holier than I feel every week. I suddenly remembered a dear friend (and tzadika), DE, telling me one year of the depressing let-down she feels every year at the end of Sukkot. I was very surprised; the only feeling I had ever registered was relief. At the time I couldn’t relate to her feeling at all because I didn’t have that kind of relationship with G-d.
I think I was able to connect to Hashem in Tishrei this year more than ever before. My grand theory on this is that since my children are getting a little older I was able to sleep more hours this year than ever since getting married. I feel very strongly about the relationships between sleep & religion, sleep & happiness and sleep & health … but that is a blog post for another time.
But whatever it was, the davening, the sleeping, choosing to have fewer guests (!) or just the wake-up call from our wise Rabbi, I felt like this last day wasn’t a drag, and wasn’t a last lap…. it was a gift.
*The majestic presence or manifestation of God which has descended to “dwell” among humankind, traditionally referred to as the aspect of Hashem that comes down into the Holy Temple and/or comes closer to the Jewish People on Shabbat.
I was a little surprised by my children’s reactions to the rebuilding of our sukkah this year. Every year has been met with some level of wonderment and suprise as well as excitement. This year…. there was recognition. They had very clear expectations of what it looked like, where it would go, certain decorations, and even our annual problems with it.
As I was scrambling to get ready for yet another 3 days of yom tov in a row, I considered why this made any impression on me at all. They aren’t babies anymore was the most obvious and immediate thought.
Then I stopped to realize that I have now lived in this house longer than I have lived anywhere since I was sixteen and we left my childhood home in Connecticut. My parents moved to Boston at the beginning of my junior year which felt like a death sentence to me at the time. My life was my friends, and leaving that behind was unimaginable. Rather than put down new roots for the remaining two years of high school, I chose to spend part of 12th grade in Israel. This led to many years of moving; three years at university in Canada, a brief return to Boston, and then aliyah. I had thought for many years that once I had settled in Jerusalem that that was it. The end. Enough wandering.
First I would find a job. (I did.) Then I would find a husband. ( I did.) Then I would find a nice house in a nice Israeli suburb, settle in, and never leave. That part wasn’t exactly what Hashem had in mind. So I moved to New Jersey, and took a while to settle here in the amazing community in which we live.
Time has passed and many babies have been born, thank G-d. I have been busy with much and don’t pause to consider how long we have been here. I DO spend time “counting down” until Israel, but that clearly has distracted me from the roots that have been planted and grown here.
I think there is something wonderful about the wonderment and surprise of the sukkah box that emerges each year. I am also enjoying this phase of recognition. The familiarity is becoming part of their holiday experiences, as ritual is intended to be.
This is just one piece of a much larger adjustment to a new phase. After over a decade of “making babies”, my husband and I daily come upon some new aspect of having a house full of children, not infants and toddlers. For example, we both took a nap at the same time on Shabbat. Imagine that.
How does this change sukkot? Well, their expectations of us have changed, since they now have expectations for the holiday and its routine. Certain decorations from year to year have become important to them. Sleeping in the sukkah with a specific set-up matters. (Even at the expense of hundreds of mosquito bites, apparently.) Our sukkah door, (which I photographed and tried but failed to upload here ), must be added to every year, according to certain parameters not only not determined by me, but for the most part I am not even privy to.
This means I get to adjust my expectations too; children old enough to recognize so much from year to year are definitely old enough to start helping get ready for the holidays in a BIG way. : )
Rosh Hashanah was only a few days ago, and yet I find myself not at all sure just where to begin blogging. So much has gone on, and it has been so long since I collected my thoughts here.
I was determined to remain calm at holiday time this year. With unexpected guests, a steady pile-up of details, the kids’ intense first week of school, kids having off from school on the day I needed to prepare, two new jobs and that other minor detail of my SOUL BEING UNDER FINAL INSPECTION, consistent calm was a large enough goal to be the only one. I am happy to say that in the days leading up to and the days of Rosh Hashanah I did manage to remain calm…. I lost it a little once, only once, (with my husband) and promptly sentenced myself to some time in bed, which led to a half-hour long nap and a return to myself.
Early in the morning erev Rosh Hashanah I had gotten a last minute announcement from my DSS that he was coming for the holiday. I knew that three days of yom tov (and sibling time) in a row would be no small feat for a teenager who generally lives a completely secular life, primarily as an only child. It wasn’t easy for me to adjust to the change with basically no notice. At the same time, it made the whole holiday feel more real, more complete. I had my whole family home, and it filled my heart. That just doesn’t happen as much as I would like anymore.
I missed Shofar blowing entirely the first day of Rosh Hashanah because the first night one child got sick and spent the better part of the night vomiting. We stayed home together the next day. I stayed calm. I wound up with tons of leftovers because some of our guests understandably didn’t feel like taking chances. ( Said child was on the trampoline and asking for food all at the same time by three in the afternoon, but I had to stay home with him that morning nonetheless.)There is a tzadik in our community who blew the shofar 100 blasts for a second time in one day, before eating his meal or taking his nap, so that I and his mother-in-law could fulfill the mitzvah. Other guests came hours earlier than my husband got home, trying to be very patient while lunch hour got much closer to dinner hour.
I had to miss (part of ) shofar blowing on the second day of Rosh Hashanah because a GANG of teenagers were on their way to my house without any adult supervision or permission! I took it as a backward compliment that any teen would be crazy enough to think that we are that “cool”… we aren’t. Part of me really wanted to resent my removal from davening…. but I remained calm.
Over the course of those three days, some of my possessions were damaged. My children got into it with each other, and younger children got hurt by older children. Albeit accidentally, there was a lack of care and restraint. After so much “together time” some of us forgot to “use our words”. And I remained calm.
I think that I have made a consistent mistake in the past to confuse excitement with seriousness. If there is no build-up, tension, excitement and drama then there is no serious “largeness” to the holiday.
The learning I was able to squeeze in during Elul this year kept returning to the idea of our effort being the point, not the output, or other people’s expectations. I heard repeatedly that accepting that this might not be my year to win medals in High Holiday davening, but that sometimes having small children means showing devotion to G-d by refraining from davening and focusing on the needs of others.
I guess it was my time to hear this message, to learn this lesson.
I davened when I could, set up and cleaned up a lot of meals (gave away as much honey cake as I could so it wouldn’t stay in my house) and tried to prioritize remaining a calm presence in my home as a means of showing my service to G-d and my way of crowning him King.
I don’t know if it improved the holiday for any of my kids. Three days of yom tov, long hours at shul, too much dessert and too little sleep seemed to be a lot for everyone to handle, Ima’s mood notwithstanding.
I know the change made for a better holiday for me. The serenity I cultivated translated into a great sense of emunah, faith. There was no lack of noise and chaos throughout the days, but the lack of anxiety and stress or a “having to” feeling made my holiday more meaningful.
This is only the beginning in a long month of three-day holidays. I hope I can keep the calmness up. Only a few days out, I sit amongst piles of work, mess, laundry, leftovers and dirty dishes… and pray I am really up for the challenge!
I have been too busy to put in writing the many posts that are spinning around in my head. I am no longer working from home “part time”, and a month of Chagim (holidays) sure was an interesting time to make the switch to full-time. I am armed with my recipes from Cooking Manager and Miriyummy, and my organization tips from A Mother In Israel. Alas, I still have three days’ of work left to do before candle lighting tonight.
I wish all of you a year of good health for you and your loved ones, happiness, blessings, and Shalom for Klal Yisrael.
Everything that I write on this blog is public. That was the understanding with which I undertook this endeavor.
Many of my blogger friends out there have encountered blog-related nastiness. As with any other decision to put one’s self out there, this is a symptom of success…. you only get complaints if someone is watching/listening/reading. Well, this week, I got my first whiff. It was a minor whiff, but a whiff nonetheless.
A vast majority of you who read don’t write anything. That means I don’t have any idea who is reading. That’s okay, it comes with blogging, despite what analytics will tell you. Many years ago my husband had a nightly radio show in Israel. (Does anyone remember RadioWest?) He sometimes would wonder if anyone was out there listening at all. He encouraged callers, and yet sometimes he got very few. It was only when he was out socially that he would hear a comment about a broadcast that week, or occasionally get a reaction when he said his name.
… And so it goes. I find myself pleasantly surprised to hear that people are reading in the funniest ways. I don’t write this blog in order to cultivate a mass readership or fame. I am quite sure this is clear from the caliber of my posts! It is nice, though, to know that people stop by, occasionally think about what I have said, or even have something resonate with them (you).
If I have to find out that people are reading through an occasional obnoxious comment, so be it. So far, so good. The tremendous support and encouragement definitely outweighs the unpleasantness. If you feel the need to say something to me rather than just click on to somewhere else, so be it. Bring it on; I can take it.
How do you deal with blog nastiness?
Teshuva is hard.
I could say that teshuva is hard for me, but from what I have learned teshuva is supposed to be hard. Recognizing your flaws and dedicating time and energy to personal change is just hard.
During the month of Elul we are supposed to be reflexive, taking a full accounting of our behavior for the year. We know Hashem is going to be “checking the books” soon, so if we are going to ask him to forgive the screw-ups we really ought to know what they are first. Or at least try to know what they are.
The Rabbi of Twin Rivers, where I live, is a big proponent of an Elul Cheshbon Hanefesh, or spiritual accounting, to properly prepare for Rosh Hashana. A book by this name was written by Rabbi Menachem Mendel of Satanov in 1812, with a prescription on how best to do such an accounting. The problem is a true Cheshbon Hanefesh is really difficult! To sit down and take a real honest look at one’s behavior towards G-d and our fellow human beings is time consuming and uncomfortable. Of course perhaps my readers are much better humans than I am and your Cheshbon Hanefesh is a walk in the park because you get to remind yourself of how many wonderful things you did…. but that isn’t the case for me.
I have made a number of people decidedly unhappy, uncomfortable and even hurt throughout this past year. It makes me quite unhappy, uncomfortable and hurt to know that I have done this. If you are reading this and you are one of those people, I hope you will accept my heartfelt forgiveness. If I come to realize what it is I did and when, I will do my best to contact you directly and try to make amends before my time runs out. If you want to tell me in case I don’t get there on my own I won’t enjoy the experience at the time but I will be truly grateful.
Saddest of all, I know that try as I may to be a better person, which I will, I am most likely going to be able to say the same statement next year at this time. Some of what I have done seems to be misunderstandings. Or justifiable. Or a difference of opinion. But I would be kidding myself if I said it ended there. I still have a lot of work to do in this lifetime in order to be at my best. It definitely does not feel like fun to have to beat myself up so as a part of religion. A lot less fun than Homeshuling’s Top Ten. (Oh, just go read it after you finish this.)
Judaism isn’t always about fun. It is about pleasure. Pleasure in this world and pleasure in the world to come*. The Sages say that pleasure and fun are NOT the same thing. They also teach (I am told) that pleasure will come from the mastery of my own shortcomings. From my personal growth and slaying of my dragons. That this is the true pleasure in both worlds.
It is a lot more fun – or at least pleasurable – to live with myself when I “clean out my soul’s closet” as it is described in our latest PJ library book, “New Year at the Pier” … I just wish I hadn’t let it get so messy and cluttered up this year.
*If you want to watch a very short and fabulous video on “the world to come”, check out jewinthecity.com
My daughter is at sleepaway camp 133 miles away. She has been sending letters daily explaining that she cannot wait until visiting day – since she will be coming home with me then. That Visiting Day was this past Sunday.
A week earlier, she had called from the office begging me to pick her up. My answer was “we are not even going to talk about it until visiting day.” Clearly in her mind this meant that she had every right to come home on visiting day.
So, with a sense of dread (which I have already blogged about), I packed up eight people into a seven seater van (don’t report me, some of them were really small) for a 2.5 hour drive up into the mountains.
I gave all passengers a sturdy pep talk on the way up. Everyone in that car was to encourage daughter/sister to STAY at camp. The only talk of home was to be of how boring it is. I went armed with GPS, food for the day, food for daughter, gifts, extra blanket, new books…you get the point.
Ten miles before we arrive at camp… the car dies. Rather the transmission dies, but I was not aware at the time that this was the case. Daughter is at camp no doubt crying that everyone else’s parents are there, and we have abandoned her. Our passengers below the age of fourteen, which comprise the majority, climb out of the car and begin to whine.
DH flagged down the first frummy*-filled car he spied, and of course they were on their way to the same visiting day. Miraculously, they had room for (and were willing to take) four of us. Only four to go.
At least an hour, and many failed phone calls later, (we were in the mountains) the next four arrived. I was now talking dear daughter out of coming home, managing six children and a mother’s helper with only the help of the mother’s helper, trying to calmly figure out a way to get everyone home, and avoid collective heat stroke — all at the same time.
My brother arrived from Hoboken, NJ, which is almost as far. He had arranged for a car, but he had to get it back by a certain time. He got to give his dear niece a hug.. and then run out to try and help DH (darling husband) with the car.
Brother and DH had their own bout with frustration as I wandered about camp, hugging daughter and calling around for solutions on my dying cell phone, all at the same time. Overpriced snowcones seem to mollify the children. While daughter wept quietly about being forced to remain suffering in the clutches of a place that structures her time for her, (imagine!)many other of my offspring went on at great length about how unfair it is that she got to stay there and they did not.
By the time Brother and DH finally made it back to the camp, it was just about time for my brother to turn around and leave. I think he got maybe an hour with his niece, and he spent the whole day in the car (which did not make it back by the arranged time, resulting in a fee.)
At almost the same moment I miraculously found an angel of a man/principal/Rabbi who lived very far from us, but happened to be driving 20 minutes south of our house … and leaving momentarily. So DH dropped everything and gave one of what must have been two hugs to his dear daughter, and hastily arranged our two youngest in the back of Angel Man’s car.
We have friends who spend the summer as a family at another camp in the same mountains. They have two cars at camp, and incredibly were willing to allow us to drive one of them home. I have known for a long time that they are tzadikim, (righteous people), but I am perpetually humbled by the amount that they do for us personally. They drove the car to us, so that the other five of us could get home.
So, we went to back to the bunk to pack up the things I had to take home. This, of course, was the point at which reality finally hit my daughter, who returned to crying and pleading.
We eventually got her to say goodbye to us. I actually bribed my daughter to stay at the camp that cost a fortune to send her to. She did agree to it though. I am such a sucker.
We eventually got our things packed up in the car, and our friends back to their camp, ready to hit the road and finally head home. On route 17 on visiting day.
Ask any parent who has ever sent their child to a frum sleepaway camp in New York about route 17 on visiting day. All of the Orthodox Jewish camps are apparently on this one piece of this one road. And they all have visiting day on the same day. It is truly historic. The people who live in bungalow colonies there know that one simply does not go out in the car on visiting day.
I don’t think I have ever been around that many Jews in one place at one time, except at the kotel on a yom tov.
The 2.5 hour drive took 5.5 hours. That is only because I got off of route 17 for a while and snuck through the local roads. Everyone in the car was hot, tired, and hungry. Then the car’s air conditioning stopped working. Of course I was only grateful; the car was a gift, a/c or not.
We did get home. Finally. My van is still in the mountains, and I expect to be without a car for at least ten days. It will cost us thousands to fix, right as our next tuition bill comes in,( now for six children) to be in yeshiva.
I am really not making this more dramatic than it was. I got home and tried to decompress for a few minutes before crashing into bed… on my computer.
It died too. The laptop’s fan has stopped working so it overheats frequently and easily and the computer just shuts itself off. At least I won’t have to retrieve it from the mountains before it can be repaired.
One of my sons, the same tzaddik who wrote me the scholastic book letter, turned to me during the parking-lot-like part of the trip and said “at least we are having some quality time together, Ima.”
I would like to think that there is some great cosmic reason behind the sudden and intense heaping of rotten luck and frustration. I know that Hashem knows what he is doing. He certainly could have found some easier ways for us to spend “quality time” together. I spent a lot of time in the car asking Hashem to let this be kapara (atonement) for the month of Elul (which just started) and make my teshuva for Rosh Hashana easier.
I spent the next day exhausted, cranky, sluggish, with mounds and mounds of work to get done. In addition, of course, to tending to the broken car in the mountains and its retrieval, plus the scheduling of repair for the broken computer.
However, I am much luckier than I was one year ago. Now, as I sit during horrible, terrible agonizing days like this year’s Visiting Day, at least I continually think; “Now this is going to make for a great blog post.”
*frummy=Orthodox/religious. Meant affectionately; some of my best friends are frummies.
