Sambosin SwissCheeseLand

I don't even know where to begin. Nothing new is going on - just a lot of status-quo stuff eating up my time. Maybe I'll get a break once the move is over. Who am I kidding, there are no breaks. Right? In the last two months I've sent out my resume to five places and haven't heard back from three. The other two told me that they'd send me work, but haven't. So I'm budgeting like a maniac, and trying to keep expenses down. I guess it helps that Buzz considers packing boxes, and kitchen utensils to be legitimate toys.

In the meantime, I'm packing like a maniac and trying to entertain the kiddo while I do it. Z isn't around much these days because it's the 'prep week' for his final studio presentation. We're also balancing 'house building' related stuff - engineer, geotechnical survey, and land survey have all been completed. It's a really slow process, which is driving me sort of crazy.

As for packing and our latest adventures - we're up to 30-something boxes. I still have to tackle the kitchen, but most of the 'small stuff' is already done. Most important thing to get done by the end of the week is organizing the guest room. Yesterday we emptied off the shelving unit and moved all of the boxes onto it. But the beds are still somewhat buried and we need them for the weekend since Ayala is coming for the weekend.

Speaking of the weekend - challah, soup, and cookies are already made and in the freezer. Hopefully we'll go grocery shopping tomorrow for fruits and vegetables (and hopefully this week they'll last for more than two days.) Truthfully the weather has been really nice the last couple of days, so I'm sort of banking on it staying super pleasant. And laundry, I should do that one of these days. Basically the house is a neglected sort of disaster area on account of the fact that all my extra energy has been going into reorganizing stuff into boxes. Thank goodness there's Shabbos in a few days - at least this place will get cleaned up for that.

Since my last post - Buzz has gotten even more into climbing like a crazed monkey, and he loves wearing hats - though I use the term 'hats' very loosely - since anything he can put on his head is good enough. He loves coloring with crayons, and he also really enjoys stickers! I found a nice A4 sketch pad that I bought a few years ago but never used - and it's perfect - the pristine white pages call to him - and he's been filling them up with artwork.

Do you like the stickers on the boxes? I'm trying to keep everything organized - so there's a different color sticker for each room in the new apartment. Even if the movers don't get it, at least I'll be able to tell at a glance which room a box belongs in.

Ok - enough dillydallying - back to packing. Hope to post again soon!

More Than Oriental Splendor

31 days ago Buzz took his first unaided steps. It took him a couple more days to figure out how to just stand still, and eventually he started squatting down to pick things up from the floor. This morning I noticed that he finally figured out how to get up to standing position directly from the floor - no need to crawl over to a chair or wall to pull himself up!

Today we went out on a couple of outings - first to town to drop off a check at the accountant's office, then we wandered around town just to enjoy the fresh air. Later in the afternoon we went to the grocery store with Doda Sara to pick up some last minute items for Shabbos.

We've decided to have a waffle brunch on Shabbos morning. We'll just heat up waffles on the plata and enjoy them with maple syrup, ice cream, quiche, and at least 2 mimosas apiece. I deserve it - since I've been doing some pilates and my muscles are crying for the much welcome 'weekend break'.

Good thing about working out - it really gets me pumped for the day. Plus it means that I don't spend all day in my pajamas (trust me, this is a good thing.)

I haven't started cooking for Shabbos yet and I have a lot to do. Food, dessert, and a 'surprise' birthday cake to drop off down the hill sometime before Shabbos starts (good thing I have a long day.)

Spongey Fungi

Last week I adventured at a whole bunch of business-related-offices in Petach Tikva and Ariel with friends of ours. It was both terrifying and exhilirating. Thankfully everything worked out pretty smoothly - well, so far anyway.

On Friday morning we collected a few moving boxes. Then we spent another awesome last-minute 30 hour weekend in The Sun House.

So far I've packed a dozen moving boxes - which brings the current total up to 22 (with all the neat keter containers that I'd packed last week.)

What else has happened so far this week? Grocery shopping at Yesh made me thankful that we're moving. I started doing some pilates to get my 'core' back in shape - 2 days in and my abs are decidedly not in favor of doing any sort of routine - but that's just too bad. We started clearing out the mamad in an effort to reorganize and make room for the boxes that are already packed. I made ridiculously delicious tomato sauce that is incredible as a dip for fries, and I baked a recipe of almond flour chocolate chip cookies to fill my inane cookie cravings and noshiness. Did I mention the awesome pizza monkey bread that I made for lunch, or the roasted turkey wing that Z enjoyed for dinner served with tiny potatoes?

Now if only I could figure out my Shabbos menu...It's going to be a quiet weekend at home which I'm looking forward to.

Today The Freddies stopped by to raid Buzz's long sleeved onesies for their annual trip to SwissCheeseLand. It was fun to see them, and the kiddos played together adorably!

Tomorrow Buzz and I have to run some errands in town. It should be fun. Then some cooking, and maybe some packing too.

No need to do laundry though - since Buzz did the laundry today - he's such a big helper! http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o0GAGZ8g1Mg See? Isn't he cute?! He sweeps the floors too.

I Herb You

We spent Shabbos last week in The Sun House because I didn't feel quite up to the task of cooking Shabbos on a counter that I was unable to lean food items on. The good news is that the 'extermination' seems to have worked pretty well. We're still finding dead bugs all over when we wake up in the morning, but it's a treat compared to live ones crawling everywhere. Tomorrow is the magical 1-week-mark and we can finally wash our floors and counters properly. I for one, am extremely excited. Mostly because it's been a royal pain in the bottom chasing around a 1 year old to pry all food that's touched the floor from his hands and to continually wash his sippy cup tops and pacifiers when they're touched the ground. My back hurts from the effort.

We've started collecting moving boxes. I spent Sunday afternoon re-organizing all of the baby clothes. I managed to get all of Buzz's clothes (from newborn til' 12-months) into two 65-liter keter containers. To be honest I'm not sure whether that's an accomplishment to be proud of or it just means that I really don't have many baby clothes. Other people seem to acquire a lot more than I did. Truth be told I'm debating whether to just sell my collection. I can't imagine needing it again. There's a lot more to get packed up - but I'm not even sure where to begin.

Alright - there are about a zillion dishes to wash, and a lot of other stuff to do too.

(At least one of) Buzz's molars are coming in so he's been an extra-kvetchy kid. He's also really getting good at the whole walking thing. He especially loves dragging things along him. His new favorite toy is a landline phone that he 'found' in his room last week. He loves to carry on conversations with - well - whomever it is that he thinks he's talking too. It's pretty cute.

Unicorns - PeepPeepPeep!

I won't even try to make excuses for my prolonged absence. Instead I'll tell you all about how Sarah Leah came over last Shabbos (which was a lot of fun) and about how Buzz is walking all over the place, and finally figured out how to stand in one place without toppling over.

We finally used our waffle iron this week and Buzz absolutely LOVED the heart shaped 'funfetti' waffles that he ate for breakfast every morning this week!

I'm pretty sure that I missed posting about Shavuot. We spent the holiday in The Sun House with The Freddies and the rest of the famBily. It was highly amusing, entertaining, and actually went by very quickly! Ayala joined us at the famBily house and that was awesome too!

Buzz's personality and sense of humor have been growing by leaps and bounds. I'm now almost convinced that small children's extra-weirdness is stored in their hair. (Buzz's mane is an untamable poof of fuzz and only lays flat after a bath for approximately 34 seconds.)

Our garden is growing very nicely. The tiny orange tree is holding a whole bunch of teeny baby oranges, the peppers are budding and blooming, and I even saw a few flowers on the little tomato plants that I've been nurturing since sometime last fall.

We celebrated a birthday today. It was for one of Z's friends. I figured it was a good excuse to go 'all out' and make a 'fancy' cake. Lunch was pasta with roasted cherry tomato and garlic, and 2 loaves of peasant bread. Dessert spoke for itself. It was delicious too - as if something that looked that good wouldn't have tasted great!

 The guys played Settlers and I got a nice break for the first time in a few days.

Yesterday we spent the day out of the house because we finally caved and had an exterminator come and spray the whole apartment. Our ant/silverfish 'problem' had become a full-blown infestation. Since the spray-warranty only lasts '3 months' for ants I figured that the last 3 months in this apartment should be as enjoyable as possible.

Next week we need to buy a new microwave - because ours finally suffered a fatal short. I've been using that microwave for at least 6 years (though I'm pretty sure it's closer to 7 or 8...) Anywho - the door was getting hard to open and close, and its time had been coming for a while now. We also have to take the laptop to the IBM lab to see if they can diagnose why it's been running so hot that it burns skin after about half an hour and to see whether they can reattach our 'enter' key (which Buzz so happily popped off).

We'll be spending the weekend in The Sun House because the weather is supposed to skyrocket of Shabbos. I can't wait until we live in an apartment with air-conditioning! Then we won't need to leave home every time there's a heatwave, or the summer weather arrives...

Okey doke - enough from me for now. My computer has to cool down, and I need to wash all the dishes from the party. Then it's time to pack and maybe wrestle Buzz into the bath. Wish me luck!

Happy Mothers Day!

Let's see recap of last week -

Wednesday was crazy and hectic and we spent most of the day in the car. We did enjoy an amazingly delicious bbq dinner in The Sun House with the fambily.

Thursday morning Buzz and I hung out. I picked up my iherb package from the post office (yay affordable vitamins!) In the mid-afternoon Z showed up with the guys. Pasta primavera and 3 versions of 'peasant bread' (plain, evoo herbed, & cornmeal) made a delicious lunch. Then Settlers until 8pm.

Friday was a lazy lazy day. I took most of the Shabbos food out of the freezer so I took it easy all morning. I only really started getting stuff done at around two in the afternoon.

Shabbos was very long but also very relaxing.

On Friday night Buzz fell asleep on the living room floor in his 'naptime spot' and we opted to just leave him there rather than risk waking him. Saturday night 10:30pm came and still the child would not sleep. We gave up on the crib, brought him into our bed, and he still resisted the sandman for another half hour. It was exhausting.

Z spent this morning working in the workshop for studio. Buzz's Israeli passport arrived in the mail, I negotiated better deals with some of our service providers, finally did the laundry from last week, and came up with a tentative menu for shabbos.

Tomorrow hopefully I'll get my act together and cook all of the freezable parts of the meals so that Friday can be relaxing again. 

Toddle A-Lottle!

Look at me! Posting 2 days in a row! How awesome is that? 

Today was quite busy. Z spent the morning down at school working on Studio. So Buzz and I had some one-on-one time which mostly consisted of him kvetching at me. Suffice it to say I didn't get much of anything done.

The photos on this post are a random mishmosh of pictures that I've been saving up to post but hadn't gotten around to it. (Also I just wanted to clarify that Buzz did NOT wear ALL of these outfits on the same day.)

In the picture above Buzz was pretending to be Z - since all Z does when he's home is sit on the couch and play on his ipod. I guess the kid has got the right idea.

Our amazing cousins bought Buzz an awesome gift that he absolutely LOVES! He had a blast unwrapping it and he's been pushing fuzzy-friends around the house ever since he realized that he could. Nothing went to waste from this gift - we're even using the nice big box that it came in as a toy box for Buzz (til' he eats it anyway...)

Hamster Looie was a gift from Aunt Freddie. He was a little too lifelike and gave her he heebie-jeebies. Buzz has no complaints though and is great pals with the little stuffed rodent.

 Monkey-See-Monkey-Do. I always caution Buzz that the oven is 'HOT HOT HOT!' and he ~knows~ not to touch it. But I walked in on the situation below the other day... I guess he assumed that if I can touch the oven with the mitts on so can he. (Note to self: stow mitts IN the drawer now that Buzz is evidently tall enough to reach up and grab them off of the counter!)

Uncle Timmy returned this big ol' IKEA chair to The FamBily Home this past weekend. Buzz REALLY liked it. A lot! When we move I think we might kidnap it - unless of course the Freddies' want it for their palace...

I caught Buzz meditating out on the porch this morning. I'm not sure what he was cooking up - but it involved an enormous bowl, a whole batch of measuring cups and a funnel.

Did I mention that we signed our lease today? We'll actually be moving to The Sun House for the next two years! How exciting is that?! Well, we're pretty excited. We found a great 3 bedroom apartment, which happens to be brand new, right near the Anglo neighborhoods, and oh yeah, it has central air-conditioning! In the last 10 years no apartment that I've ever rented had such a luxury. So I'm pretty excited!

And a longer video (from before he 'found his groove'). At least now I understand why they call them 'Toddler's.