The weekend is coming

It's late Thursday night here. Tamar came home for Shabbat. She is always so happy when she comes home. I love the inner-peace she seems to come home with. For the first time in forever, I came home to find her sitting at the kitchen table, doing homework. She was very motivated to finish her work before immersing herself in home-life.
Malcolm slayed the dragon tonight. He put out 4 traps and we waited for hours. We could hear the mouse in the pantry and FINALLY he stepped into one of the traps. Yes, I did feel a little silly when I realized this little mouse was about 2 inches long.
The Masris (my sister & her gang) are coming for Shabbat. We are looking forward to their visit. My uncle Moishe and his wife, Zahava, will also be joining us for Shabbat dinner. Pictures & stories will follow.

Swimming home from school

.....and the rain, rain, rain came down, down, down....

We have been experiencing huge amounts of rain over the past few days. It's hard to express the fact that it's so nice to be somewhere where even the rain is so meaningful. You don't look out the window, swear and curse because it's raining. You look out the window and say - this is great, the crops will grow, the Kinneret will go up, the wells will fill and we don't have to water the grass.
I took an umbrella and went to pick up Oriya. I thought that I would be efficient and pick up something at the hardware store first. It's only a couple of blocks past the school.
It was raining when I left the house, not too badly. By the time I realized that the hardware store did not have the mousetraps that I want, the rain was coming down so hard that I couldn't cross any street. The road were rivers. There is no place for the water to run, the sewers did not take the volume of water. By the time I walked the few blocks back to the school to get Oriya, my shoes were soaked. We tried to wait out the rain a bit - but no luck.
Finally, Oriya and I decides to bite the bullet and start our trek home. The vast amounts of water pouring down the street were unbelievable. We had to decide that we were going swimming. At that point, we just sunk into the streams pouring down the streets and hurried home. Obviously, as we were turning onto the block leading to our house, the sun broke out and the rains stopped.
By the time Kobi walked home from school - 30 minutes later, he didn't even need an umbrella and couldn't understand how we got so wet!

Visitor Update

He's back - and I'm back on the kitchen table. Malcolm should be home in the next two hours - I hope!

An Uninvited Guest

Every Monday, I go to Yad Binyamin to work for an Olim couple. It's an administrative position that I found with the help of Sharona Watemberg and it's really great because I get to help my clients open their mail, I make phone calls for them, and generally communicate on their behalf with the Hebrew speaking population. My reward for a job well done (besides my pay) is a chance for a cup of coffee with Sharona who lives in the Yeshuv.
Today was special. I knew that Sharona was going out to a meeting, but she should have been back by the time I came for coffee. She wasn't. I made my way home, somewhat disappointed. There was no shortage of things to do at home, so I started with the dishes, at the same time that Malcolm called to tell me of his visit with Lisa Judah (that's a whole other story - he can write it if he wants). It was then I heard the noise. It sounded like something scratching a door. I quickly quieted Malcolm and started listening around me. I realized that the scratching was coming from the pantry door, so I jumped on a chair and hung up on Malcolm. He was on his way to Haifa anyway, and I didn't think that he would be able to help with whatever animal was hiding in the pantry.
My quick thinking helped me reach a number of conclusions:

1. There was a rodent - I hoped not a cat - in the pantry.
2. There was not much I could do about it from my perch on the table in the kitchen.
3. There was no way I was getting off the table until whatever it was was gone.

Now, even I could tell this was going to be a problem. So I dialed 1-800-Arie (my cousin's husband who fixes all). Unfortunately, he was not in my area. He did suggest that I open the door and jokingly asked "What, are you afraid of a little mouse?" "YES" I answered. I had to hang up on him because he was laughing so hard.

Finally, I realized what I had to do. If no-one could come to my rescue (I thought of Mikee Z and Eddy G who were always around, in the neighborhood and available to help and, boy, did I miss them.) I was going to leave the premises and return ONLY when I had backup. So I climbed onto one of the kitchen chairs and dragged it to block the pantry door - you never know how strong a mouse can be. For good measure, I added another chair. I jumped off the table - AWAY FROM THE PANTRY DOOR - grabbed my purse and left the house.

I picked up the kids from school and the three of us went looking for mouse-traps. I wanted the flat ones that are sticky on top, figuring that I could slide it under the door. They store had a different kind. The man tried to explain that all I needed to do was open the door to the pantry and put the trap down. I don't know why he wouldn't understand that this would not happen.

This left us no choice. We came home, dropped off the kids bags, picked up the car keys and went to the mall for lunch. Kobi and I dropped Oriya off at her art class later in the afternoon and came back home. I listened carefully and could not hear the "guest". Still, we did not open the pantry door.

In the early evening, a friend of mine who lives in the next town stopped in on his way home from work ( I had called him rather frantic about my "guest" and he volunteered to help). By this time, the guest was gone. Now my head is like a radar, just waiting for him to run across the floor or come around a corner. Needless to say, when Malcolm comes home form work tonight, he'll have to move all the stuff in the pantry around, just so I know for sure that the guest is gone. Then he'll set some traps. Hopefully, by next week sometime, I'll be willing to open the pantry door myself!

The past few days....

So.....we finally got the BBQ up and running and we love it. Malcolm set up a light and now we can actually see the food we are cooking.

Our neighbor from Toronto, Elise Loterman, who is here on a year of volunteering came to visit us after Simchat Torah. Unfortunately, she was a little under the weather. She is feeling 100% now and is back with her program. To us, this ill-health meant a nice long visit from Elise. She had a chance to rest and recuperate, and the kids had her company to play endless board games.

By Wednesday night, Elise was well enough to participate in our BBQ dinner. On Thursday morning, I took Tamar to the train and she is back at school until next Thursday. On Friday, Malcolm, Elise & I went to the "shuk" in Ramle to buy fruits & veggies. I go there every week, but this was the first time Malcolm joined me. I love the sounds, the smells, the people and mostly - the fruits and vegetables. Shopping at the "shuk" is fun!

Oriya went to a birthday party on Friday afternoon, and she had a really good time. We're really happy to see her integrating into social life. Today, she went to see a movie with some friends from her class.

On Friday afternoon, we went to visit my mom's uncle, who celebrated his 88th birthday this week. We then had a lovely dinner and played Rummicub until the wee hours of the morning.

Today Malcolm, Kobi, Elise & I went to the neighbors' for lunch and had a very nice time. They have a son Kobi's age, who had another friend over, and the three of them had a really nice time.

After Shabbat, we took Elise to the train station. We are looking forward to a new week. Malcolm is scheduled to work all week. We're not quite sure on what, as he usually gets booked, then he gets his assignments.

Shavu'a Tov to everyone,

Michal

Our first day of blogging

It's almost 1AM and Malcolm just came home from work. He is involved in filming the Israeli version of "Big Brother". He's actually getting quite regular jobs on soccer games, "Big Brother" and the Israeli version of "Beauty and the Geek". Most of these shows air at prime time, so he's home in the mornings, then off to work and home after midnight. He seems to be having a good time at work.

As for the kids, Tamar is getting ready to go back to school on Thursday morning. She has been home since before Rosh Hashana, as she had bronchitis and then no school from Yom Kippur until after Sukkot.

Kobi and Oriya were also off for the whole of Sukkot. Surprisingly, Kobi did not want to make any play dates with his friends from school. He's going to meet up with the neighbor's son tomorrow for skateboarding in the park. Hopefully, once school starts, he'll start socializing with friends from school.

Oriya, on the other hand, went out for Pizza with a bunch of friends - just the girls went on their own and she had fun. She was then invited to a birthday party, also to a pizza place, with a bunch of girls and she had fun there, too. Today, a friend from school called and she went to her house and had fun AND received an invitation to this girl's party this coming Friday. Hopefully, her social life is starting to come together. Her Hebrew is still the weakest and she isn't comfortable using her language skills yet.

Malcolm is studying on Rosetta Stone every day and he surprises me with new sentences every day.

Last night, we used the BBQ for the first time. We invited my cousins - Yaeli & Uvi - with their families and our good friends from the Moshav - Sharona & Michael. The BBQ works great. The food was yummy and fun was had by all.

It's NOT snowing here - or even cold. Malcolm says that it's cool in Jerusalem - but I don't go there so it's OK.

Be well, everyone. More stories will follow.

Michal

Oriya's Birthday

Nefsky Aliya

We are finally BLOGGING!!!!

Hello to all our friends,

Thank G-d that I have a teenage daughter. She and her friends have set up a blog segulachicks.blogspot.com. I have obviously been talking about setting up a blog since before we left Canada and had no clue on how this works. For this, we have children. They know better. These "Segula Chicks" took a couple of minutes and ......blogs away! Anyway, thankfully, Tamar was willing to share her knowledge.

So here it is - our blog is born. I hope to get the kids and Malcolm to post on it as well.

Chag Sameach to you all, with all our love,

Michal