Getting "More Real"

I had no warning before the call came from the nearby girls high school. Over a month before, I had sent the English coordinator an email asking if they could recommend me as tutor, but there never was a reply.

Suddenly, I was asked to substitute for a teacher going on maternity leave. In the end, I'll be doing a bit more than that, which is great.

This past week I met with the coordinator in her home to get an idea of how things work and what's expected of me. The school is very different from my previous one. It'll be quite a challenge. But considering that I began my teaching career without any real training, and now I have eleven years experience as an EFL teacher...

Yesterday I hiked to and from Shvut Rachel, which actually isn't far, just through the valley across the street from my house. I visited the teacher I'm subbing for and got some instructions from her.

Last night, I picked up the package of textbooks sent by ECB, from our local "post office." The woman in charge opened it specially for me, since I couldn't get to the regular hours. She's flexible, since the set hours are very limited. And Thursday night the super-grocers is open for pre-Shabbat shopping. Afterwards, we both went to shop, and she saw another neighbor and told him that he had a registered letter. They went to her "office" to get it.

So, now after two meetings and receiving that new supply of books, teaching is looking and feeling closer than ever!

Strange Week

For some peculiar reason, which I can't figure out, I just didn't get some minimal cleaning and straightening out this week. All of a sudden, tonight, I realized that I hadn't cleaned out the little glass things that hold the Shabbat candles.

It's Thursday night and I was planning on going to be early, but it's already late. I just finished that chore.

I'm very tired. I almost fell asleep trying to get my grandson in the sleeping mood for a nap. He wasn't interested.

I had a couple of meetings for the subbing job, but I still have to find all my certificates so my pay could be calculated as high as possible.

Shabbat is in less than 24 hours. Read or not, yes, if I'm ready or not, it will come.

Freezing Tofu

I had once heard that it ruins the tofu to freeze it. I have a friend who boils it before freezing. Generally I cut a block of tofu into four pieces, start cooking one with vegetables for myself and the others go into a glass jar with water. The water should be changed every day or so. Generally I finish off the block within a week. And, no, I don't get tofu every single week.

Today, my husband brought home a kilo of tofu, and I ran to google for a consultation. Apparently tofu freezes fine, although the texture changes. The changed texture is more suitable for my tofu-vegetable meals. So I cut up the tofu into serving sizes, since I generally only cook it for myself. Each piece was placed into a plastic bag which was then tied shut, and they were all placed in a larger bag and that in the freezer.

Here are instructions from my friend:

When you defrost your frozen tofu, you will need to squeeze it out in order to get rid of excess water that somehow accumulates. It gets a "meatier" texture after being frozen; some people like it better that way, some less. I find it better for cooking after it has been frozen.

Actually, the excess water may be good, since otherwise I find that I have to be very careful about burning.

I'll let you know how they taste/cook as I use them.

I'm Really Enjoying Those Compliments!

Public Diet Update

True I haven't recently written much about the new me. As expected, my weight loss isn't going on forever, and I may have reached close to what I'll be if I don't change my changes into something more extreme. Honestly, I have no desire to do such a thing.

I don't see the point in adopting eating rules I can't live with, because then I'll only backslide/cheat and end up gaining much more than the weight I am now.

One big accomplishment is that I'm much too thin for the fat lady stores. I wear regular sizes, not the skinny ones, but not the bigger ones either.

According to the charts, I'm still overweight, and I still weigh more than I used to between pregnancies, before that strange weight gain. But I have lost weight, more than half of what had been added somehow.

This month I've eaten more than I would normally eat, because we've been to a number of weddings. I've easily succeeded in staying away from carbohydrates, but I certainly had more protein than recommended. The interesting thing is that on the day following, after eating double or triple the protein recommended for one meal, my appetite is reduced. There's an important message there:

Hunger, cravings, binging are probably

the results of insufficient protein.

If you eat enough, your body won't demand extra food!

I'll see how my weight is after a few days of "normal eating" to see if I resume weight loss.

In a couple of weeks, I'll have a new challenge, since I was asked to substitute teach in a nearby high school. I'll have very little control over my schedule, so I'll have to find solutions to how to eat the right foods frequently and without stress. The job will add a lot of stress to my life, but it should also be very stimulating in a positive way. I still see Life Coaching, with a specialty in Diet Coaching, as my next career. Teaching and Coaching are related.

They Say Nothing About Getting Paid

The Jerusalem Post ahas a new scheme it seems, unless my reading comprehension skills are failing, for filling its pages without paying the writers. Here's the deal:

The Jerusalem Post offers you a chance to gain exposure! Tell us what's on your mind, whether it's making headlines or not.

Here's how it works, in a nutshell:

Users rate posts
written by other users. The higher the scores an entry gets, the better location
it receives. After a week, the top-rated entry gets published in The Jerusalem
Post online and print editions!

Click here to submit

Did I miss anything? Is anything written about paying those who win the contest?

I think I'll just stick to my blogs.

Can You Hear Me? No Fun, At Least For Me.

Last night we were at a lovely wedding, except for one thing, the noise. They had the DJ with the loudest sound system. He must be in cahoots with the hearing aid business. We were put in the tables furthest from the action, and we kept escaping out the doors.

I was walking around with my fingers in my ears, not very suitable for a 60 year old grandmother, but no choice. Then a friend told me of a technique. He took the soft part of the bread, squished it into two small balls and told me to stuff them in my ears. I did it. OK, it wasn't as effective as my fingers, but at least I had use of my hands and I didn't look like some total nut case. I could still hear people talking to me.

It really should be against the law to have such noise.

Considering that the wedding was absolutely gorgeous, the food was delicious, the couple radiant, our friend overjoyed that her son was getting married, why ruin it, ruin the guests' health, and there were babies there too, with dangerously loud noise?

Please Help Bring Amichai Home!

As you can read in the poster, Amichai Steinmetz, of Ma'ale Levona, has disappeared in India. There's more information and recent pictures of him on the Hebrew site.

Money and prayers are needed. The search is very expensive. Bank details are on the above poster.

Please pray for the soon and safe return of Amichai Steinmetz:

Amichai ben Dvora

Thank You

Promo For the Upcoming Woodstock Film?

No, I wasn't at Woodstock. The music and lifestyle weren't my thing at all. The summer of 1969 I was getting ready to go to Israel for the year at Machon Greenberg. I was very into Zionism, Betar style, and seriously dating my then future husband.

Recently, there are lots of "forty years ago" articles about Woodstock. Besides the obvious that it really did happen forty years ago, there's a definite commercial aspect to the publicity.

Taking Woodstock must be the movie we've been hearing about. Oh, why are we hearing about this movie? A recently married into the family relative is one of the actors in it.

The Attraction of Modesty

Actually, I had never heard of this Mayim Bialik, the writer of a very interesting essay on modesty. But you can't go by me, since living in Israel and not having real TV reception, my knowledge of the stars, like who they are and the shows they're in is pretty sparse. I admit to having read magazines like "People," until I realized that I was totally unfamiliar with 90% of the subject matter.

The last time I saw a movie at the movies was when the Andy Kaufman movie, Man on the Moon was new. I only went to it, because Andy and I had studied together in high school. If you count documentaries in the Cinamateque, then The Refuseniks.

Back to modesty. The old movies, which kept you guessing and concentrated on the "longing" rather than anatomy were much sexier.

I wish Mayim Bialik all the best.

Thank G-d, Another Wedding

I think that this is a first for our community. My neighbors married off the last of their children last night. Next week, the same, G-d willing will be for a different family. There are a few with only one more to go.

May they be blessed with good health and joy.

מזל טוב!!

MAZAL TOV!

Have I A Coach For You!

Yehudit, my coach, will be coaching a group business course next year. Here are the details:

"Following the chagim,
I will B'E'H, be offering a 1 hour a week,
coaching group for women entrepreneurs, small business owners,
and those interested in launching a small business.
The group will be conducted by phone, via conference line.
You will learn how to set up a business plan and do marketing.
Space will be limited to 8 participants.
The group will run 8 weeks with an option to extend.
For further details contact Yehudit:
coachingwithflair@gmail.com
054-771-8442"

If you need assistance on the road to success, I'm sure that Yehudit can help you!

Baila's "Early Bird" Havel Havelim!

Baila calls it the Modi'in Edition of Havel Havelim, but since she posted it before the sun rose here in the Holy Land, I'm giving it a suitable nickname.

It's such a pleasure to start the week with an HH early Sunday morning. Jbloggers on the western coast of the Americas would consider this a Motzei Shabbat, Saturday night edition.

Baila has included a great variety of posts from all over including from Rutimizrachi who was here in Shiloh at a Bar Mitzvah, and I'll take this opportunity to remind you that there are two other jblog carnivals, The Kosher Cooking Carnival and JPIX. Please send your suitable posts to both of them, posting details in the linked carnivals or on my sidebar. Thanks! And if you'd like to host a KCC, please let me know at shilohmuse at yahoo dot com

And don't forget, there's a great opportunity in just over a month to f2f at the Second International Jewish Bloggers Convention.

re: Explorer 8

As I had written in the previous post, I took the plunge and upgraded. Actually, I felt very brave and daring doing it, since I'm no expert in playing around with these things. Whether I did it correctly or not things have changed.

The 8 is like firefox which I use on the other computer, something I think I read, but it's not exactly the same. Both have the multiple tabs on the internet, which is supposed to use less whatever than opening a new window. Firefox automatically opens new tabs, such as when a yahoo letter refers to a blog or site, but explorer 8 opens a new window. That's annoying. I have to remember not to "click right," but the "click left" and choose "new tab."

There are all sorts of icons to click on top for various sites and services. The one I'd like, an online dictionary/spellcheck isn't there, though I can always use the google window.

But just this morning I noticed something good. Next to the newest tab box on top, there's a little unlabeled one. Click it and choose whatever site you want.

My mind keeps flitting to something else, but I can't get a handle on it to write about it.

When A Boy is A Boy

Our sons were born after their three sisters, and our grandson has two older sisters. Our elder son's first sentence was:

"Auto zoom zooom zoooom."

And yesterday our grandson took a few of his sisters' pretty hair pins, lined them up, began moving them:

"Toot! Toot!"

As far as he was concerned, he had made a train.

Back With The Veil

It suddenly hit, that I had better return to the veil of discretion about work. I'll be substituting, and it'll be so easy for fellow workers, students, parents etc to read my blogs.

In my previous teaching job a student told me that his mother read my blogs. Now, I'll be teaching girls who know English well enough to be readers.

There's more than my own reputation to worry about. According to Jewish Law, "lashon haraa," bad tongue, refers to nice things said about others, not just nasty gossip.

I'll write about the job, but I'll have to think very carefully about what I should say.

Statistics Prove...

My Shiloh Musings readers seem to go for the more hard-hitting politics. I blogged about other things the past few days, and my numbers took a nose-dive.

As I thought about it, Carol Burnett's voice singing Little Girls, in Annie, filled my ears.



[MISS HANNIGAN]
Little girls
Little girls
Everywhere I turn I can see them
Little girls
Little girls

Night and day
I eat, sleep and breathe them
I'm an ordinary woman
With feelings
I'd like a man to nibble on my ear
But I'll admit no man has bit
So how come I'm the mother of the year?

Little cheeks
Little teeth
Everything around me is little
If I wring
Little necks
Surely I will get an acquittal

Some women are dripping with diamonds
Some women are dripping with pearls
Lucky me! Lucky me!
Look at what I'm dripping with

Little girls
How I hate
Little shoes
Little socks
And each little bloomer
I'd have cracked
Years ago
If it weren't for my
Sense of humor
Some day
I'll step on their freckles
Some night
I'll straighten their curls
Send a flood
Send the flu
Anything that You can do
To little girls
Some day I'll land in the nut house
With all the nuts and the squirrels
There I'll stay
Until the prohibition of
Little girls.

It's So Much Better To Serve Less

I've always had an appetite problem, or call it a satiation problem. That "full" feeling is rare. So, if there's food in front of me, I'm hungry, regardless of how much I've already eaten.

Some foods actually make me hungry the more I eat them. In my "new way of eating" I've eliminated them and don't even start. That has contributed greatly to my weight loss.

Events, like weddings, are real challenges for me. The "require" eating three meals plus within a few hours.

1. The reception, with deceptively "small" tastes, you can end up filling up on double the calorie count of a normal meal.
2. The first course of salads, made with lots of salt and oil, plus the plate of fish or doughy delight filled with liver or vegetables.
3. The main course, which we eat, even though we've already eaten two days worth of food.

Last night at the wedding I didn't overeat. First of all, I missed the reception. We arrived seconds before the ceremony. And since this was a wedding "designed" for maximum guests, there was no "first course." The salads, side dishes and a choice of poultry and beef were set up on buffet tables. We took what we wanted and that was the meal.

Nobody was hungry. We left before dessert.

How Could I Have Forgotten It?

I can't remember the last time it happened. I actually left my house to go to a wedding without my camera. I always take pictures as an extra gift.

I had been dealing with the camera all day, because of the Bar Mitzvah I photographed. The memory card was wiped clean, because I had already burned the cd's.

For some strange reason I just didn't put it next to the gift so I'd remember to take it. It wouldn't have been a big deal if I had forgotten the gift, because the young couple will be here for Shabbat. But the camera! I can only take wedding pictures at the wedding.

Oh, well, actually, considering the lighting... the pictures wouldn't have come out very well.

Bus Blues

There's a lot of construction going on in Shiloh, especially at the entrance, because the school is being added to. A couple of weeks ago, after the bus stop/shelter was removed, temporarily they say, people were waiting on the other side of the road, in the shad of a tree. So, surprise, the bus stopped there, and passengers got off and on.


Then I videoed it to show how long the new roundabout takes. There were people waiting to get on the bus at the regular spot, but the bus driver ignored them.

Contrasting Images

I'm always surprised by what I see when wandering about.

The other day, I had to go through downtown Jerusalem to get a ride to a wedding. I walked up Ben Yehuda Street and was amazed at the carnival atmosphere.

That's right. I didn't have time to stop and record the music, but I think the picture says it all.

Unfortunately, I'm sometimes saddened by what I see. Here are the remains of a building project in Shiloh. I hope they find a more suitable place for dumping than the side of the road.



And that road is not an out of the way spot, it's just across the street from homes, homes with young children and the elderly.