Quick Catch-up Post Before Rosh Hashana

Okay, today is officially crazy.  Rosh Hashana starts tonight and runs until Shabbat starts on Friday night.  So, between the holiday and Shabbat I'm out of commission for 3 solid days.  I don't have everything I need for the meals and now have to make a trip to Costco (one of the places I really don't like all that much) in order to pick up something I need desperately and couldn't get elsewhere.  Aside from everything else, it's out of my way, I have to take everybody (because my daughter is the one with the Costco card and I'm the one with the drivers license) and it takes forever to get through there.  All for one or two items.

My 3 year old granddaughter has school today for a grand total of ONE hour.  Everybody else is off.  I have to go either downtown or to Richmond to the passport office to turn in my passport application because my documentation finally arrived yesterday and I can't risk waiting until the beginning of the week to do it because I'm going to a wedding in the US at the beginning of October and I'd like to be allowed across the border.

And we're trying to get out a major mailing at work today when the material we're mailing just came from the printer yesterday afternoon and we got a new mailing machine yesterday morning.  As of the time I left the office yesterday the machine was sealing 4 envelopes, then stopping.  We have about 5,000 going out!

So, why am I making my first post in over a month?  Because it's almost Rosh Hashana and I want to start the new year off right.  First of all, Shana Tova to all my Jewish readers.  Have a good and sweet year!  And I feel guilty that I've been so busy I haven't gotten back to this after planning to.

I'm going to try to do better this year but September is full of days when we can't write so the posts are going to be sporadic, even if I'm good about getting back to blogging!  Anyway, I'm off and running.  Wish me luck!

Shana Tova

I won't be posting again before Rosh Hashana, nor during the holiday, so don't expect to see me posting before Sunday night at the very earliest. I just wanted to give a quick update.

The car is still in progress. We may get it back tomorrow. If not, we'll have to pick it up on Monday. No biggie. It's not like we'll be driving it on the weekend!

I have everything I need for the cooking tomorrow but was out for an hour or more with my Eldest Daughter this evening, so didn't really get the kitchen ready.

I have to do some banking tomorrow morning (if I don't want to bounce a cheque I wrote on the account I don't use regularly anymore) and I have to work until noon. But nobody is going to school, so I don't have to get anybody else anywhere. That makes it easier for me to get to work early in the morning.

Going to bed now. Shana Tova to everybody!

The Black Hole aka The Car

I am fed up to the teeth with cars and car repairs. Hubby took the car in to have the bushings done and ended up going to a different place than at first (one that had been recommended though) and there's both good news and bad news.

The good news is that this place will do the bushings and tie rod for less than we were first quoted. Much less, like half the original quote. The bad news is that the bushing repair is the least of our worries. This place actually *looked* at the car obviously (unlike every other place we've been to for the past year it appears), because they figured out what's wrong with it and told us why it's been going through rear tires at a rapid pace.

The. Back. Axle. Is. Bent.

Yes, bent. They asked if we'd been in an accident. Uh, no. They showed Hubby the damage and he says it's pretty clear. Too bad we don't know what caused it. The only thing I can think of is the time last winter when we bottomed out badly in the alley about a block from our house during that bad snow. It took me several hours to dig the car out because it was actually wedged onto that icy snow so badly that the wheels weren't quite touching the ground (like by a fraction of an inch). Maybe we bent the axle when we bottomed out?

Regardless, now we know what the problem is and the solution is clear. It's not going to get better unless we replace the axle so that's what we're doing. It won't be ready until some time tomorrow and we're getting a "good" price on the work but it's still going to cost $1,000!

I've mostly finished hyperventilating (although we'll see if I manage to sleep through the night or wake up with an anxiety attack). What's really crazy is that I was looking back through my own blog archives to see what my menu was for last Rosh Hashana and I realized that it was at this very time last year that the water pump problem manifested. That repair ended up costing us $2,000! What is it about this time of year? This is also when both the fire and the flood happened in the condo I used to own.

As for Rosh Hashana, I got paid today and went grocery shopping. When the dust cleared I'd spent $300 and I have food for the holiday this weekend plus another 4 or 5 meals. Actually, $50 of that is a payment for food I charged 6 months ago at Pesach, so it's not quite as bad as it sounds but I still don't have enough money to pay all my bills, let alone do anything much extra. I'm very pleased that this is a 3 paycheque month. If it wasn't, I'd be in big trouble.

What did I get? Round challahs, salmon and a brisket. I was pretty dead on with my cost estimate too. The brisket cost just over $57. Half a salmon was just over $20. I got the items for the various simanim too (carrots, dates, pomegranate, squash, etc.) and all the disposable table items for the meal, as well as some everyday food needs, things for Dear Child's breakfasts and lunches, etc. And some junk. Hey, I've been waiting a very long time for the full size Oreo cookies to be kosher and they were all labeled with the OU dairy today! I bought a package of them, but they were on sale too. But I figure the healthy stuff, like the cheese sticks, cream cheese and yogurt balance the cookies out.

I have to get the kitchen ready tomorrow and we're closing the office at noon on Friday so I'll be cooking then. Luckily, Eldest Daughter will also be home so I won't be cooking with kidlets underfoot. Candlelighting is at 7 pm so I should have enough time to get it all done....

Before I close, I'd just like to say something to each one of my readers. If I've upset you this year, hurt your feelings in any way or whatever, I'm sorry. Please forgive me. Have a happy and healthy year full of all good things!

Payday and Rosh Hashana are Coming

I should be in bed. It's technically Wednesday already because it's so late, but here I am reading blogs and writing a post.

I went to physio this morning and feel better now after all that physical work and driving on Sunday. I still haven't done the first thing about Rosh Hashana and the meal I'm supposed to be having for 13 or 14 family members. My paycheque will be in the bank in the morning and I'll have to do the shopping tomorrow afternoon, preferably after my Eldest Daughter gets off work and can have the little girls. I find grocery shopping with all of them traumatic enough at Safeway. The thought of having them running around the deli while I pick out salmon and a brisket is enough to give me an anxiety attack.

We're also kind of celebrating Hubby's birthday, which we would have done last weekend if a) I hadn't been away and b) it hadn't been a week before a big family dinner anyway. He said he'd like to have steak but realized it was unrealistic (at about $16 per steak, I'd say so!) and we settled on brisket instead. At least a small brisket shouldn't set me back more than $60 or $70. That's pretty insane but still better than $200 or more for steak for over a dozen people. We'll have the simanim too, of course, but I have to think about side dishes as well. At least I have the wine on hand, including 2 bottles of sparkling Moscato wine (all the better to toast the New Year and Hubby's milestone birthday with). And I have to bake a cake. And come up with a parve frosting, since all the readymade ones are dairy.

Plus, did I ever mention that one of my upper kitchen cabinets fell apart some time ago? Hubby opened the cupboard door and the door and side of the cabinet as well as the bottom fell apart in his hands! As a result, my kitchen is more cluttered than usual. I have cans and packages stacked on the already too-small meat counter and more items in a box on the kitchen floor. Given the timeline we've had for our bathroom reno, I'm not holding my breath for getting the kitchen done any time soon. For one thing, if I put in one cabinet (I'm going for IKEA) then I have to replace the other 2 cabinets beside the ruined one that are still holding together but are that super-ugly 1980's almond melamine with an oak strip at the top. All in all, it will be about $500 for 4 cupboards (adding one over the fridge to hold all the cereal and other breakfast treats) and about $80 for a new range hood.

No, that's not happening before Rosh Hashana. But that means I have a mess out that I can't really put away. We'll have to see how it all works out. I could stay up all night, figuring out what to buy but I should probably just post this now and go to bed.

Over the Mountains and Far Away

I was going to post last night, but I was just too tired. I took Dear Child and Dog and went to the house on Friday afternoon. Unfortunately, Hubby has been too busy to come, so we went by ourselves again.

I really didn't mean for 5 weeks to go by without making the trip but every weekend there has been some reason why we couldn't go. Since 3 out of the next 4 weekends are religious holidays when I can't drive or do anything (and when I want to be able to go to shul) I was determined to go this time.

DC had a wonderful time playing with her friend. On Sunday, starting at about 9 am, I mowed the back, front and both side yards (with the push mower), pulled weeds in about half the front garden and around my grapevine, did 2 loads of laundry, loaded up the sukkah into the van and then drove home Sunday evening.

Gee, I wonder why I was tired....

We didn't even drive into town. The furthest we got from home was on Shabbos afternoon, when we went for a long walk with Dog. I'd like to go back either the weekend after Rosh Hashana (although that's tricky because Sunday night is the beginning of Yom Kippur and I'd have to be back in time for Kol Nidre services) or the weekend after Sukkot. Heck, I'd even consider going out the night of Sunday, October 11th and return the following night (since the 12th is Canadian Thanksgiving). Later than mid-October, and we'll be running into the possibility of snow in the mountain passes.

In fact, I think that unless I go just before Yom Kippur, I have to buy 2 new snow tires first. I don't believe I blogged about it but we spent almost $700 on the car 2 weeks ago (including 2 new all season tires for the rear) and have to spend maybe $600 on it this week. So, I'm just dying to buy some snow tires but you have to have both snow tires on the vehicle and carry chains from the beginning of October until something like the end of April in order to go through Manning Park.

What happened to our previous snow tires? The same thing that happened to our last pair of all weather tires on the rear. The tread just gets worn right off in about 4 months. Clearly, there must be some kind of alignment problem (the back end of the car seems to shimmy a little) and yes, we need to get bushings done, hence the $600 this week. That should at least help although it's been pointed out to me that there may be some kind of rear suspension issue too. I hope not, but we'll see.

The only bright spot in all this is that Hubby finally got the commission from a big job and we paid cash for car repairs this time! So much better than borrowing from family, putting it on the card or other things we've had to do in the past.

Anyway, I want to go back at least once more before the snow flies to do more yard work and put together that IKEA bookshelf I took there when we went out on the August Long Weekend. I'd love to spend Sukkot there the way we usually do, but that's just not happening this year.

Last winter we didn't go there for about 5 months. That was awful. I mean, the drive is no picnic when the snow is bad but I miss the house and I'd like to go at least somewhat more regularly this year. Even every 6 weeks would be okay.

All of a sudden I'm falling asleep at the keyboard, so maybe I'd better quit for the night.

Finally, an Update

Wow, I haven't posted in forever. It's been a combination of all the previous reasons (Blogger issues, exhaustion, resistance, not wanting to blog when I'm not doing what I ought to be doing) but I really have to get over myself and just get back to it.

Anyway, I'm coming up on my birthday, Dear Child starts Grade 1 on the 1st, my new Executive Director arrives a week later and work is about to go crazy. Fun!

At least DC got to do 2 weeks at day camp before it ended in early August. She loved it and wants to do more next year, so I'll have to plan for that.

We went to the PNE the other day and had a great time although it cost about $100 all told. Oh yes, plus I entered the draw for the prize home (5 tickets for $25, including a draw every day for a car). It's a great house, very suitable for us, and this year it's supposed to be set up on a lot just outside of Kelowna (about an hour and a half away from where our rural home is). If I won I'd sell the lot (worth about $275,000 for the bare lot) and buy land in our area with that money. Then we'd have the house assembled where we actually want it. No, I'm not likely to win, but it would work out very well for us if I did.

I finally had impressions taken to replace my "flipper", the retainer-with-a-tooth that our Dog tried to eat a few months ago. It'll be ready tomorrow evening. I hated how discoloured my teeth were (which was really noticeable when you looked at the tint of the fake tooth) so I've been using special toothpaste and Whitestrips for the past several days. Maybe it's just because I'm about to be another year older, but I've felt the compulsion over the past few months to pull myself together a bit. Hence the new glasses, the new flipper, wearing lipstick (usually go "natural"), going to the physio.

This is one of the two times of year that I tend to do an in-depth look at how various aspects of my life are going (my birthday/Rosh Hashana time and the secular New Years). I'll do that privately (much of it is too personal for me to put down here) but there will likely be some new goals for me to discuss shortly.

Let's Have an Upbeat Post

I could write lots of doom and gloom stuff right now. The world financial markets seem to be melting down and things aren't any too hot at my house right now either. The car won't be ready until tomorrow because they found something else wrong that has to do with the water pump (more money!) and they had to order the part. I've been doing some financial work in Excel and our money situation is worse than I'd thought. (Denial, it ain't just a river in Egypt....)

But I thought I'd like to write about something a little happier.

Let's talk about smoked turkey instead. I bought half a smoked turkey for Rosh Hashana dinner. It was literally cut down the middle so it included a wing, a leg and half a breast. Since it was already cooked all I had to do was heat it up in the oven and it fed 7 adults and 3 kids (along with half a salmon and a bunch of other food). My youngest son took a plate home as well.

The 3 of us (me, Hubby and DC) had grilled turkey sandwiches after the Fast of Gedaliah (the day after the 2nd day of Rosh Hashana) and they were great. I cut a round challah into slices, we put in heated smoked turkey (my hubby just sauteed it in a little olive oil) and used margarine on the outside of the bread. We grilled them in the frypan (the way you'd do a grilled cheese sandwich) and when they were toasty I opened them up and added mayo and jellied cranberry sauce. Yum! Hubby & I had 2 sandwiches each and Dear Child had one.

For Shabbos lunch I took the carcass, broke it to fit in the crockpot, added a whole onion, about 3 potatoes cut in chunks, 6 to 10 baby carrots, and a little rosemary. I covered the carcass with water and left it in the crockpot overnight on low. It was the best soup. Ever. DC had a 2nd bowl. She has never done that. With anything, especially anything containing meat. I had a 2nd bowl too.

The turkey wasn't cheap. It cost $46 but it gave us 17 servings of food, which works out to $2.71 per serving. I think that's pretty darn good!

It Was a Lovely Holiday

Everything went really well. The weather was gorgeous, sunny and warm enough that we didn't need jackets but not boiling hot.

Dinner the first night was great. The food was really good. I'm glad I did the salmon at the last minute. I put it in at 6 pm and took it out just before candlelighting and it was perfect! There was enough of everything but I don't have huge amounts of leftovers. A little smoked turkey and a little jellied cranberry sauce (mmm, turkey sandwiches for dinner tomorrow I think).

We took all 3 girls to synagogue both days, pushing a double stroller and a single one. (On Yom Tov the rules are similar to those of the Sabbath but you're allowed to cook on an existing flame and to carry, which includes pushing a stroller.) It took an hour and 20 minutes to get to synagogue (and about another 20 minutes to get to the rabbi's house for lunch and 2 hours to get home). That's a lot of walking!

You want to know the most amazing thing? I was just commenting to Abby (from i pick up pennies) the other day that my 3 1/2 year old granddaughter loves to go but can't go on Shabbat because she can't walk all that way. I mean, really, my 5 year old has only recently managed to walk both ways. Today my granddaughter insisted that she wanted to walk and she did! All the way to synagogue, all the way to the rabbi's house and (basically) all the way home! (We started home with her in the single stroller but she loudly insisted on getting out within about a block and walked the rest of the way.) I am, as the British say, gobsmacked!

I guess she can start coming with us on Shabbat now (though it'll still be a while for her little sister). Oh, and my daughter? She walked all the way home today but was happy to ride otherwise.

The baby graciously slept through most of the shofar service yesterday, allowing me to read all the prayers and take part fully. Today, not so much. I spent a lot of the service in another room with her, just dashing to hear each time they blew shofar. But it was still good.

Lunch both days at the rabbi's was as good as always (the food is always tremendous) and the girls enjoyed playing in the back yard on the trampoline and with a bunch of Little Tikes toys.

Tomorrow is a "short" fast, from 5:41 am to 7:20 pm but it's the easiest fast of the year. After 2 days of eating huge meals we could probably use the break. I'm going to eat (including having my protein drink) just before I go to sleep and then I'll be able to make it through okay until dinner. Sometimes I get up early to eat before it starts, but I'm pretty tired so I'll pass on that this time, especially as it's a regular day in all other respects. So we go to work and Dear Child goes to school (not that children fast anyway). The real fast doesn't come until next Thursday when it will be Yom Kippur.

What's for Dinner?

Well, I got most of the things necessary for tomorrow night's dinner today but I didn't do any cooking yet. That's possibly a mistake, but we'll see. I didn't get a raw turkey after all, so that simplifies things considerably.

For dinner we'll be having:

Wine for kiddush (I have one bottle each of Dalton White and Dalton Red. They're both quite nice, so long as you drink them in one sitting.)
Special round challahs (an egg bread, usually braided the rest of the year)
Apples and honey
Other symbolic foods that we make special blessings over including pomegranate, dates, carrots, fish and gourd/squash. We eat small quantities of all these.

The first course will be salmon with mayo and dill and I hope to serve it with a green salad and coleslaw as well as lemon hummus. I say "I hope" because I couldn't find prepackaged salads with kosher supervision at Safeway yesterday and the car was acting up so I didn't get to Superstore to check them out. Soaking the leaves in salted water and checking lettuce and cabbage leaf by leaf for bugs is tedious, time consuming and very hard on my eyes, so I prefer to buy it ready-to-eat.

The main course will be smoked turkey with cranberry sauce (I bought half a turkey, already smoked), mashed potatoes and white corn. If I can manage to make gravy from a smoked turkey, I will.

Dessert will be honey cake and coffee or tea, either black or with Almond Breeze instead of cream.

It's all pretty easy to get ready a bit ahead and then keep warm in the oven and/or on a Salton hot tray that stays plugged in for the whole holiday.

Everyone won't be coming after all. Number One Son and his family can't make it because they've been working on putting their 5 year old to bed early (starting the routine at 7:30 pm) and it would really disrupt the process. She's also in all day kindergarten (at a different school from my 5 year old) and seems to really need the new routine to cope with the long day. I understand, because we're having some of the same types of issues with DC (who was awake this morning just before 7 am and asleep tonight before 8:30 pm). She used to stay up late and get up about 8:30 am or later and kindergarten has been a big adjustment for her schedule too. Oh yes, and my sister-in-law is away. So there should be 7 adults and 3 children.

And it won't be a marathon meal like the Passover seder. Candlelighting is at 6:37 pm and we'll start very shortly after that and finish within an hour or two at most. I hope. After all, we have to get up to walk to synagogue on Tuesday morning.

Again, Shana Tova to all! I'll be back to posting late Wednesday night at the earliest.

Upcoming Posting Break for Rosh Hashana

That would be as opposed to the involuntary posting break I`ve had since I wasn`t able to post Thursday night. For some reason, it was taking 5 minutes or more for pages to load and I couldn`t get into Blogger. I actually fell asleep trying to read some other people`s articles (if Trent is wondering how someone could spend 6 hours sitting on his home page, um, that was me). I woke up Friday morning a little before my alarm was supposed to go off to find that I hadn`t actually set the alarm and that the computer was on beside me in Power Saver mode.

Friday was a busy day. I finally settled the issue with the gas company. They`ve reversed all the charges! That`s $115 I don`t owe! It took talking to several people over the course of a week and I probably spent a couple of hours on it, but I`ve proved that you should keep going up the chain of command until you get someone who has the authority to do the things you need to have done.

Now, onto Rosh Hashana. I`m going to have a family dinner on the first night (Monday, just after sundown) and I have to spend Sunday buying food and cooking. There`s no school on Monday, although I have to work for at least an hour Monday morning and I have the little girls all day. So I`m going to be pretty darn busy getting everything ready for dinner for 14 people at 6:45 pm. I`m not planning on posting Monday and I can`t post on Tuesday or Wednesday. I`ll probably try to post late Wednesday night after the holiday ends, unless I`m totally exhausted.

You might wonder why I`d be exhausted. Let`s see. Dinner for 14 Monday night. Walk over an hour to synagogue pushing 2 strollers both Tuesday and Wednesday. Three or four hours worth of services. Then walk another 20 minutes to the Rabbi`s house for lunch (in the opposite direction to our house, of course). The walk home takes about 2 hours. Have a fancy dinner Tuesday night (just for us this time). I need a nap just rereading that.

One of the things we do around Rosh Hashana and Yom Kippur is to ask forgiveness to anyone we may have wronged throughout the year. So, if anything I`ve written on my blog has offended you or if one of my comments on your blog has bothered you, if I haven`t gotten back to you on something or I didn`t comment on something that I should have, I`m sorry. Please forgive me. I`ll try to do better next year.

I wish everyone a Shana Tova, a good year, a sweet year, with health, happiness and a good livelihood for all.