Bug Stories

I'm getting a bug. Actually 2 - For about a week and a half now, I've been coming down with a cold. Does that make it that I already have a cold, just a small one? Will it get worse and blossom into a full blow cold?

Also I'm getting a party bug. I've got this itch to have a party. It happens every now and then. We've got this great roof that is perfect for it, and although its a bit cold up there now, it doesn't really rain (not a good thing really), and wouldn't it be so much fun to rent those heaters like they have in outdoor restaurants! The heat from them is so cozy.

It may have something to do with the holiday spirit in the air. Thanksgiving has come and gone (twice! One with local family and one with non-local family. By non-local, I mean down a few exits on the highway, not across an ocean. Local is down the street.) Hanukkah is on its way - you can tell by the donuts that Roladin makes (my fav place to go out for a work-lunch), including pistachio, arak, and coconut. Also my birthday - did I mention that its in a month? I like birthdays, and even though this isn't a particularly big one, it makes for fun times.

And one good real bug story. Yesterday while cleaning upstairs, I noticed a dead beetle. We get them sometimes. At least it wasn't a roach, which - Thank God! - we've never had in this apt. Anyway it was really big, like half the size of my thumb. I decided I was going to sweep it up no matter how gross it was. Because I'm independent and I can do these things. But really, I couldn't. I just. Could. Not. Get. Close. I even screeched. No, really I screamed, it was that gross.

So Ben came to get it for me of course, grumbling all the way on what a big deal I was making out of it. Eden of course came up to see what was the matter, and he showed her the bug, and how cool it was underneath. Last year she would have been very interested! But now, of course, she's a big girl, and she knows better. We girls scream at bugs. So she dutifully said, "Ew, Daddy, take it away! I don't like that! Daddy! Ew!" Good for you, Eden. Remember - one important reason for getting married is to have someone committed to getting the bugs for you.

New lows?

For dinner tonight, Ben and I had cold cuts, french fries, and peas.

Eden had string cheese, apple juice, corn flakes and ketchup (No milk - yes, ketchup ON the corn flakes. Her idea.), and and one chocolate covered raisin.

How much ketchup do you put on cornflakes? Do you drown them, like in milk? Or are they a kind of a dip? What if the cornflakes are towards the bottom of the box and are kind of crumbly?

Do I feel better about the single raisin or worse because it was chocolate covered?

My First Meme

Whoo Hoo! You know you're truly part of a blogosphere when you get tagged in a meme, and not just take one when someone says "Consider yourself tagged if you'd like to be."

So, here it is! I got tagged by my good friend triLcat. While the subject matter is somewhat boring and reminiscent of office ice breaker games, she came up with some good ones.
Here goes. Sometimes I take myself too seriously.

Here are the rules:
1. Link to your tagger and list these rules on your blog.
2. Share 7 facts about yourself, some random, some weird.
3. Tag 7 people (if possible) at the end of your post by leaving their names as well as links to their blogs.
4. Let them know they have been tagged by leaving a comment on their blogs.

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Seven things about me:

1. I am so much of a control freak that I wouldn't let Ben surprise me with a marriage proposal and a ring.
   
2. I also hate surprise parties, although I'd secretly love Ben to throw one for my birthday (in less than a month, hint hint!) But only if he was sure that I'd LOVE it. So I can settle for something slightly less challenging.
3. While that may sound a little scary and off-putting, I generally consider myself pretty open minded and accepting, when it comes to other people. I think I'm accepting of some things that others wouldn't stand for. Some people reading this may disagree, and this does not apply in some specific situations, only generally.
   
4. Growing up, I never wanted to be a mom, and I hated babysitting.
   
5. I wanted to study art academically.
   
6. In high school, I collected quotes on my binders, written in white out pen.
   
7. I really really really miss some of my old friends. If you're out there, I'm sorry that we are so out of touch that we don't really understand each other anymore.
   

People I tag:
No one.

Sorry to break the link, people. I hate chain letters and I feel terrible for passing them on. If you'd like to take this meme, feel free. If you are new to blogging and no one has tagged you in a meme yet, please take this one.

Reading this over again, I also realized that very few of these things are actual facts, and are more just impressions of myself. Oh well, its a fact that I feel a certain way. Take that.

Some thoughts on living remotely

Check out Bedlam Farm's Brooklyn pictures. He comments on how far away he is from everything at his farm in upstate NY, and how he is struck by the options people have at their fingertips in the city. Advantage of driving an hour and a half to get to anything: He gets to listen to a lot of music.

True that - people who do a lot of driving, or a lot of traveling for that matter, whether by train, car, or foot, and listen to music while doing so, have a great advantage. I listen to music all the time in the car, I need it to keep me awake. But I do admit that I could have a better selection. For ease of use, I just keep it on galgalatz, whose choices may be less than ideal. Ideally, I'd have it linked to one of those internet radio stations that keeps dynamic, depending on what you tell it that you like. That would be fun.

A part of me would love to live out in the middle of nowhere, but I do need my life at my fingertips. I like that my dr, pharmacy, medical center, dentist are all down the street, in addition to a great kiosk that has even recently been supplying fruits and vegies! Thats cool. The mall is a 10 min walk. And my friends - well some are just around the corner. For others, I have Facebook.

No System, No System At All

I have no toy system. There I've said it, I'm sorry to say that I have absolutely no system for cleaning up Eden's toys. Most of the rest of the house, there is at least a system, even if it doesn't always work. But toys - I am at a loss.

We have books, and hair-clips, and shoelaces, and blocks, and little people spread all over the living room. I guess we don't really have a playroom to dump all these things in, but I wouldn't really want Eden playing in there anyway, I like it when she plays in the living room, where we play too. And most of the time I just cannot bear to make her clean it up every night before she goes to bed - no actually its almost never that I do. Either she has built some beautiful castle. Or her kitchen is just such a mess, it takes just as much time to clean up as mine does. And her crayons and cuttings and scissors and glue - they are just such a staple that it seems a shame to put away, because they are so easy for her to pick up and do by herself. Actually, also, when we put those things away, we usually throw them away, and she can't bear to throw them away. I have to do it later, after she's long forgotten that she's ever made them.

An aside - (I know I keep mentioning this, but hey its my right) her artistic creations are really quite nice. She's got talent. So its hard for me to throw them away too. But you just cannot keep all the things that a 3 year old makes. Its a problem, with an especially creative 3 year old. We just threw out the "slippers" she made in gan for Yom Kippur.

She uses hair clips to connect ribbons and shoelaces, because she can't tie knots yet.

Her toys and books actually do all have homes, in her room. Funnily enough she cannot go to sleep with anything on the floor in her room, or anything out of place in her room - even a closet door not closed - so its easier for any mess to stay out of the room. And I'd prefer to have her eat, bathe, and get to sleep before collapsing than make her clean her mess up.

Hence, the lack of system, and the big piles of children's books, toy kitchen supplies, ribbons connected by hair clips, stuffed animals, fake jewelry, and other such treasures currently piled up, blocking the corner of my beautiful breakfront. I'm just happy I have somewhere to put my feet on the floor, but I do wish they would get put away more often.

We Voted!

That is, Eden, Ben, and I. This is only the 2nd time I've ever voted in Israel. Its pretty antiquated, but that's OK. No voting machines here - human error all the way!

I thought it would be a good experience in civil duty for Eden, so we spoke about it a lot. Like how the mayor (no not her friend Meir, but mayor, as in Rosh Hair) was like a gannenet, except that everyone in the city gets to choose the gannenet. (please no jokes about nanny states)
And how voting was like, if she and another friend wanted to go on the swings, but a third wanted to go on a slide, they got to go on the swings because 2 is more than 1. We do math and civics together here.

She was pretty excited about it - it was apparently the first thing she asked about this morning. And aside from the screaming all the way home because she wanted to go to ANOTHER school too, it was fun.

I remember going with my mom once to vote when I was young. It's empowering, its important, and it feels good to teach her about democracy.