Anybody out there?

I'm trying to decide if I want to blog or not.   Yom Kippur just ended,  so this is a good time to start a new

I've had some job changes since spring.   I've returned to the Spielberg Film Archive with a half time position,  and I'm also working as the Co-managing editor for the Annual, Studies in Contemporary Jewry.   My job consists of finding books which the journal should review,  ordering the books and contacting academics in order to get them to write reviews.   I'm also editing the articles for the journal.   The people I work with are great,  and I find the work  interesting.   Some of the articles are a challenge for me to understand,  but I'm learning lots about many different subjects. 

In other news,  I now have two kids not in elementary school,  so they are responsible for their own transportation (public buses)  and I have no idea of their schedules!  Hopefully by November I'll figure it out.

I'm trying to figure out my goals for the coming year.  I'm not good at doing this,  but I think there are some changes I need to make for myself.
   
     * improve my health /weight
     * get my hobby equipment  (mostly knitting)  organized
     * learn a new skill (sewing... With my sewing machine)
     * scheduling of household tasks (laundry,  cleaning,  cooking)  so they don't stress me out.

I also want to learn new things and share what I've learned.  Hopefully this blog will be my tool for sharing.

Time to sleep and think this all through.

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.

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...