The Vagaries of Blogger.com

Sometimes, when I hit "publish" on a blog post, the post appears an hour or two later.  Sometimes, that same "publish" doesn't get around to happening until a *day* later.  This is what seems to have happened on Friday, when I published my post with the video about recycling .  Concerned it would send out on Shabbos, instead of putting into the "automatically publish" queue, I officially scheduled it to be published an hour from when I wrote it, which would be about 10:30 Friday morning.  I was not happy Saturday night to see that it finally published.....smack in the middle of Shabbos.  So in case any of you were concerned, it's just a Blogger thing.  You (and I) wouldn't understand!  (And if anyone DOES understand, please contact me!)

How to Recycle in Israel (& a View of Our Neighborhood)

My sister and I had fun making this video while she was here.  As you can see, it takes a little effort to be a good environmentalist here (although the flip side is that there are plastic and bottle recycling bins on many, many street corners, so it's easier here to recycle if you're just, say, walking down the street with a water bottle you've finished).

Auntie and Uncle Guest Post

This is our 4th visit to Ramat Beit Shemesh since Ellen, Shalom Shachne and the girls made Aliyah.  Each visit has been 1 year apart so it makes it very easy to make comparisons.  For our first visit, they had only been in Israel for 2 months.  They were very excited but still getting used to how things worked.  Ellen regaled us with stories of mistakes made while shopping and her struggles with learning Hebrew.  Ilana was already playing with the neighborhood kids.  Penina was complaining that she hated school.  We reminded her that she said the same thing while she was living in Malden--after all, she was almost 13!

When we went out onto their balcony, we looked at the hill across the street and saw a few cranes.  They explained that a new development was being built on the hill.

By our next visit, as they began their 2nd year, you could see a change.  Shalom Shachne and Ellen looked so much more relaxed than they had while living in Malden.  We could see that this is where they were meant to live.  Ilana and Penina were branching out with more after-school activities and had settled in to learning in a solely Hebrew environment. 

As I look out their balcony today, the development across the street has been finished but the cranes have moved over and are starting on another new development.  As they start their 4th year here, their personal development is mirroring the new houses across the street. I marvel when I listen to Ellen on the phone or at a store as she rattles off what she needs in Hebrew.  Both girls are getting wonderful reports from their teachers.

We had fun watching Ilana and Shalom Shachne at their horseback riding lessons.  Penina's business, PhotographyByPenina.com, is taking off.  Ellen is doing some amazing things (I'll leave it to her to update you in a future post)

May they continue to change and grow in such wonderful ways!

Cleaning Help

Here's a little pre-Shabbos tidbit:

Cleaning help here is paid by the hour.  Of course, cleaning help in the US is paid by the hour as well, but here it's a totally different thing.  Here, the cleaner says, "I have x amount of hours available for you.  What would you like me to do?", which is quite a change from, "I have looked at your house and estimate it will take me x hours to clean and here is what the total will cost"!

We have cleaning help two hours a week, which is enough time for the floors to be cleaned (can't believe how good they look and feel after she's done), two bathrooms done, the front stairs and main mirpeset/balcony (unless we have guests and then she cleans the third floor guest room and bathroom instead of the outside spaces).

Just another little tidbit of "things are very different here"!

Blessings

We've been getting blessings from the oddest place lately--our front door!  I bought a doormat that says "Come in Peace" when you enter

and "Go in Peace" when you leave:

Here it is in all its glory.  I looove it (never thought I'd say that about *doormat*, of all things)!

Election Update: It Was a Real Nail-Biter!

So now we've learned what happens in a close race here!  The Mayoral race was a real nail-biter.  Waking up the next morning, we found out that Mr. Incumbent was ahead by 100 votes.  100 votes!  Those of you who feel like your vote means nothing might want to consider moving to Israel. 

By the end of that day's counting, Mr. Incumbent was ahead by 250 votes and the race was so close that the secondary ballots needed to be counted.  These are ballots from disabled people who could not get to one of the handicapped-accessible voting sites, soldiers in the army, and prison inmates (!) (Google told me that, in the US, only Maine and Vermont allow inmates to vote while incarcerated).   It was interesting to hear how these groups of people voted: on the outside of each voting envelope, the voter wrote his/her name and national identity number.  After the votes were delivered back here, the identity information was recorded at the polling places.  The voting slips were then taken out of the envelopes, mixed up and then counted.

And when that was done, Ms. Challenger found out that she had won by over 500 votes!  Woohoo!

Frankly, why anyone wants a job in politics is beyond me, but being Mayor of this city, which has a population about a diverse as I can imagine there being, seems like a particular challenge.  b'eH Ms. Challenger, erm, I mean "Ms. Mayor" will do a great job and be able to implement the vast majority of her expansive platform.  Welcome aboard, Ms. Mayor!