Happiness

This article about happiness was very interesting.  It gave studies where happiness of the participants was increased.  One of the suggestion was keeping a weekly journal of gratitude.  I've tried the 30 days of gratitude journal on Facebook previously, and it just is too hard to come up with something e v e r y  s i n g l e  d a y!  I could see how weekly would be more effective.  So, I'm going to attempt to do 8 weeks of gratitude (through the end of December.) and then we will see about the future.

Week 1: Gratitude in the existence of modern medicine...more specifically antibiotics which my youngest two have been taking in the past few weeks.

23 דברים מס. 1 הבלוג

!כבר יש לי בלוג יותר מ אסור, אבל אף פעם לא ניסיתי בעברית

  אין לי מושג איך להתמודד עם ה"כיוון השני".

לפחות בכרום יש spellcheck!

Hebrew עברית

I've decided (rather on the spur of the moment) to do an online "course" which will give me some continuing education in Hebrew.  I don't know if my Hebrew is up for it, but I'd like to work on some professional development in Library Science, and from the Israeli side is the best way to do it.

The reason I'm sharing this here, is that I will be putting up weekly (I hope) posts in Hebrew connected to the work.  Here is the blog with information regarding the learning.

Wish me luck!

Family traditions

Every family has their own stories and traditions.  My favorite family tradition has probably reached about 25 years, so I think it is pretty solidly entrenched.

When my sister was maybe a teenager, maybe younger, my father threatened that he wanted to buy fake barf and put it in her bed so the would think her beloved cat had gotten sick there.  It took a while, but he finally found the appropriate barf, and placed it in her bed.  I'm not sure how surprised she was when she discovered it, but her logical retaliation was to place it in my father's bed.  I think he was more surprised than she ever was.  

And so, the barf started to make the rounds, everyone's bed, college dorm beds, wedding night hotel rooms... You get the idea.  One of the best was when my father placed it in my bed while I was away in college, thinking I'd be the next one sleeping there, but no--it was a friend of his who was spending the night!  

And there you have it...the family barf.  Currently residing in Israel, until the next package is shipped or the next visit...

Things worth sharing

I'm on a nearly complete Facebook fast for the ten days from Rosh Hashana through Yom Kippur.  I'm checking to see if I have messages, and will reply to them, and I also check to see if my name has been mentioned (via E-mail) but I'm not looking to see what others have posted.

So anyway, I feel that I've lost my outlet to share things worth sharing.  Maybe that is a good thing for the blog, because then I can share here...

I'm a long time fan of the NPR radio show, This American Life.  Other than the one show that had a segment on Israel, that I felt was inappropriate and inaccurate, I learn so much from the show.  Now I listen to it via  the Android App Podcast Addict on my phone (speakerphone in the car.)  The episode I listened to today was wonderful.  The theme was "back to school" but the story has such a wonderful twist to it!

Here it is:

Podcast mania

Since I got my new semi-smart phone, I've downloaded a great podcast program called Podcast Addict.  It allows me to download podcasts to listen to when I don't have an internet connection.  This works well for me in the car, on my drive to work.  I also have a hands-free speaker phone, so I can listen to it a bit louder and with a bit better quality.  Not great for music, but does the job for podcasts.

I started listening to the radio shows I enjoyed in America.  I'm a big fan of a few shows on NPR: This American Life, Wait, Wait Don't Tell Me, and of course Car Talk.  I then discovered that TED talks also have a podcast version.  TED can be a little more difficult to select, because many of them are highly visual, and that doesn't work when you are just listening to it in your car. TED talks are all across the board; education, science, music...there truly is something for everyone.

I found the one I heard today to be very moving.  Meg Jay is a clinical psychologist, and she talks about how your 20s are not a "throw away" decade.  As someone way past my 20s, you would think it wouldn't be relevant, but it was wonderful talk, and gave me lots to think about.  I think some of it is less relevant both in the religious world, and in Israel, because people are doing the army and then have to go to school/work to move on with their lives, also here people tend to get married younger (religious reasons).

Have a look:




I'll be posting more podcasts/videos as I find them, and I'd love to hear what you think about them.

Fifty things

I'm not at fifty yet....still have slightly more than half a decade to go, but this post about fifty things every woman should do by fifty was interesting.

Here are some of the things I've done:

Get around in a foreign country

Do their own taxes (but not since I married an accountant)

Change a tire 

 Unclog a drain

Tell which direction they are facing 

Put together a piece of "some assembly required" furniture 

Buy something crazy expensive just because they want it (the scary part is $100 is crazy expensive for me!)

And things I still need to learn:

Mix at least a few classic cocktails

 Jump a car battery 

Carve a turkey

Paint a room 

Apply makeup without a mirror 

 

Completed bunny

I had two knitting projects which just needed some final touches,  and I finally completed my "stash bunny" which is going to the daughter of one of my oldest friends.  I really want to make sonething else for her, but she had other knitting family members.  Hopefully the next one will also be finished soon.

I'm back!

I've taken a very long hiatus with blogging....so long that my other blog platform doesn't even exist anymore! Ooops!  I'm not sure where this blog is going to go, but I wanted to start sharing in a place other than Facebook.  Keep your eyes open,  maybe I'll even do something interesting!