27 on the 27th

Tonight is Yossi's (a'h) special birthday.  He would have been turning 27 this year, on the 27th of Nissan.

It's so weird.  27 years ago, I didn't even know him.  27 years later, I still don't know him. The hardest part of losing a child is losing the future.  Children ARE the future.  I think about it, especially around his birthday.  Who would he have become?  Who would he have married, the kids he would have had, what profession he would have been, all of it.

Stop.  Not going to focus on the sad parts of this.  Going to look for the good that has come out of it.

First, the best thing that came out of this is, and it is so personal and private, that I hesitate to post it.  I'll say it to give inspiration to anyone who is lo alainu going through this.  The best thing is that my husband and I became closer.  I do think from what I have read that it is basically a myth that the death of a child breaks up a marriage.  The death of a child exasperates the feelings a million times.  If the marriage dies along with the child, then that marriage was going sour before the child died.  Michoel is the only person in the whole world who has gone through this with me, the whole thing, together, side by side.  (I am trying so hard to explain this, and the words are failing me.  I'm sorry!)  There were other people along the way, but no one was with me and continues to be with me 24/7.  (I guess it really is true about being a soul mate.  He is half of me, and I, him.)  So that is a major good thing.  It was the cement in our relationship.

I think that I have become more empathetic to other people's suffering.  Before, I would hear a sad story, and be like, "oh, that's sad".  Now, I feel the pain.  I feel that it has made me a better person than I was before.  The funny thing is, that when Yossi first got sick, the hospital social worker said that people interviewed many years later say that while they would never want their child to get sick, they are glad they went through it.  Sorry, I can't say that.  I am happy I am a better person.  Truthfully, I would rather be a callous person and still have my son here.  LOL ... that is actually so callous of me to write that!

Next ... the incredible amount of mitzvos that have been done, l'iluey nishmas.  I don't even know all of them.  I just know that there are a lot, and he continues to touch people even today, 14+ years after his passing.

Yossi's library.  I just did a quick total. There are over 1600 books there!  Yeah, it's a real library.  A real treasure for our community. Now if I could get more people to use it!

The friends I have made along the way are another bonus.  I have met the most wonderful people.  I would never have met some of them if I hadn't lost him.  (Again, sorry friends ... would rather not know you if it meant having Yossi here.)

My favorite Yossi story, very poignant and bitter sweet.  When I had Yossi, there was a frum nurse in the delivery room.  She came to me the next day, and told me that she was a Holocaust survivor. She said that it was so beautiful to see a Jewish baby being born on Yom Hashoah.  That was the type of neshama he had.  (If anyone knows a frum nurse named Bella with a European accent who worked at Maimonides Hospital 27 years ago, let me know!)

(check back tomorrow ... I'll try to scan more pictures. Every one of these pictures are of Yossi on his birthday.)

Regrets

If you read yesterday's blog about the jewelry jars, you'll get what I am going to say about today's adventures.

So I made my calls ... two stores had jars.  I checked my stash of discount cards.  I knew I was low. Well, turns out that yesterday I did use the last card.  I therefore had to go to the farther store.  I had to stop three times to get a new card stamped.  (The last stamp was going to be at the store.)  As I am driving along, making the stops, I thought about all the times I could have stopped, and didn't.  Just yesterday I decided not to drive by one.  I was kicking myself today, why didn't I do it yesterday?  What about all those times that I ran in to see if there were jars, and I was too lazy to give in something.  So many times.

Then it hit ... Something I learned in JLI (Jewish Learning Institute).  Gehinom, the Jewish "idea" of what Hell is, consists mostly of deep, horrifying regret.  The example given was at the end of Shindler's List, Oskar is upset.  He is crying, "I could have done more!  This watch!  If I had sold this watch, I could have saved one more Jew.  And this car!  I could have saved three with the car."  He is broken.  People are comforting him, telling him how much he did do.  But he still feels this regret.  Why didn't I do more when I had the chance to?  That deep regret is what our souls are going to feel when we finish with this world.  We will see a movie of our lives, and we will see the moments we missed a chance to do a mitzvah.  Here is a forgotten bracha, there is a missed chance to smile hello to a co-worker.  Every single moment that we "missed" will be highlighted. The soul will realize that it is too late now to do those things, and it will feel such regret.  

And that is what I realized today.  Just like I "missed" so many chances to get my card stamped, and now it is "too late".  

All day today, I kept thinking about that ... how many moments of our lives are passing us by and we don't realize that a moment to do a mitzva has slipped by?  How many tiny things just blew by us, like sand falling through our hands?  

As the Baal Shem Tov said, everything that happens to us for a reason. There is something for us to learn out from it.  You are reading my blog.  You are reading about missed chances.  This is your chance to make a difference.  Try to carry around with you the thought that you don't want to regret later what you could have done today.

No blog post would be complete without my mentioning the 4/14 numbers.  Today, in English, is Yossi's (a'h) birthday.  When he was sick, we didn't have cell phones.  We had pagers.  When we had an emergency or crises, instead of paging our number, we just paged 414.  Then we all knew something was really wrong with Yossi.  It's always been our code.  It's a number that comes up time and time again.  Anyway.  Today is 4/14.  

I can't find it, but I know that I got a packrat card from Facebook that was card number 414.  It might have been the rabbi one from the Chanukah set.  Anyway.  

My addiction

Ok.  So I am going to admit I have a problem.  I really, seriously do.  I am totally and completely addicted to "jewelry jars".  Yeah, yeah, I know ... what in the world is a jewelry jar?  Well, it seems that people like to donate jewelry to the various thrift stores around the country.  (I only get them here, so don't think I am so sick as to travel out of my city. Although I have gone as far as 30-40 mins away from home in search of them.)  Some stores take this jewelry, and shove them into a vase. They tape it shut.  You can look, you can shake, but you can't open.  You also can't return them.  So let's see some of these jars -

See what I mean?  It's a vase stuffed with jewelry.  These are hot items.  They rarely stay out longer than an hour or two.  Here's the hard part ... They range in price from $15.25 all the way up to $200.25. (That's the most I've spent, at least.  I heard one store once put one out for $300!!!)  

Of course, I use my "frequent donor card" to get 20% off.  (I've only bought the jars one time without one, and I choked to do it.)  You get these cards by donating 4x.  There are so many drop offs around town.  I keep the jars in the car, and as I run errands, I drop off.  Now you want to know ... what in the world is so great about these jars?? Well, here are some of the finds from another set of jars I got --

This is truly gambling, in a way.  Sometimes you hit it big, with gold.  Sometimes you spend $200.25 and get a pile of junk!  Yeah, it's happened not once, but twice!  Sometimes you find great things in the cheap jars.  They base the prices on what they think the jewelry is worth.  Here is the totally, bad, horrible, terrible part of the whole thing ... You end up with a lot, and I mean, a LOT, of junky jewelry.  I auctioned off over 80 pounds of jewelry before pesach!!!  Not including my silver lots!  If you want to follow me on Ebay, my user name is ... no surprise here, InmemoryofYossi.  My store is found here-

http://stores.ebay.com/amazinglyaffordablejewelry/

So, that is my story.  I am well known by all the local people in the stores around town. They call me the jewelry lady.  Haha.  At least I have a way to support my addiction.  The only problem is, treasure hunting is so much more fun than selling the treasures I don't keep! 

Life without Facebook

Passover is done, and if I want, I have time to fight to get my Facebook account back. The thing is, as the days go by, I am missing it less and less.  I did start blogging again.  (Duh, you know that if you are reading this.)  I did start using Twitter a little. I don't 100% understand it.  I was debating about Instagram, but I think my kids would have a freak attack if I joined.

The only thing I miss is seeing how people are doing.  But, the truth there is, my feed was always so messed up.  There would be posts from 5-10 people, and that was it.  For days on end.  Then magically new people would appear, and the old ones were gone.  It was a source of so much frustration to me.  

The only thing I feel bad about is that there are people I wanted to reach.  People I only spoke with on Facebook, and now that is gone.  I regret that.  I hope no one thinks I deleted them on purpose.  Oh well.  Nothing I can do about it.

So what am I doing with all my extra time?  LOL ... nothing, really!  I got a bunch of auctions up on Ebay today.  I got all the Pesach stuff put away except for the towels that came out of the washer a while ago.  That is actually a huge accomplishment!  Given that the pesach dishes were out almost until pesach sheni last year.  I have a lot of chometz stuff put back.  I've sorted through some jewelry.

What I really want to do is clean up the sewing room, and start sewing again.  Sadly ... I promised my husband I would start baking crackers again.  I am actually dreading that.

I really, really, really need to get back into working out.  Taking a daily walk.  I would like at some point to start lifting weights, but that is a long off thought.  

So realistically ... immediate goals- clean the kitchen.  And the rest of the house.  (It's pretty much done; just needs to be straightened up.)  Start mountains of laundry.  Spend 15 mins in the sewing room tomorrow cleaning.  Make chicken crackers.  Treat myself to something ... maybe a jewelry jar?  Oh, I'll have to blog about those tomorrow.  That is my personal crack!

S'long Pesach!

It's crazy. I literally spend at least a month preparing for pesach. This year, I started cleaning a week before Purim, which means I spent 5 weeks this year. Granted, not every day was spent cleaning or preparing. But it still means it was on my mind.
Pesach ended tonight. By 1am, all of pesach was erased from my kitchen. The dining room still had the last bit of stuff, and by tomorrow night dinner, I'm hoping it will be totally done.
There has to be some lesson here. I'm not sure what it is.
We literally wage total and compete war against chometz, enjoy the spoils for a week, and within 24 hours, we are totally back immersed in it.
I don't know. I just find life so funny.
Last year it took me two or three weeks to completely pack away all the pesach stuff. I dumped it in an empty room, and took my time, trying to organize it all. Didn't matter. Still couldn't find anything this year. So tonight we just shoved it all in the boxes.
Wish me good luck next year making heads or tails out of the mess I made!

Pesach "cake"

Passover.  When we Jews pass over anything leaven.  No bread, cereal, cakes, cookies, etc.  It's pretty surprising where leaven is hiding.  In all sorts of weird places.  (My hand sanitizer from Whole Foods was chometz, leaven.  It has oat flour in it!)

We are so limited in what we can eat.  Matza (which constipates like crazy), potatoes, eggs, and chicken.  Lots of fresh fruit and vegetables, but who wants to cut them up when you can just grab and eat, right?

Which leads me to my pesach cake.  Every recipe seems to start with "XX eggs, separate whites, whip up, add a whole bag of sugar".  Yeah, so not happening.  Enter, a no-separate, not a ton of eggs or sugar, yet tastes good, pesach cake.

Start with 4 eggs.  I use large, not extra large.  They MUST be room temperature.  Put them in your mixer, and set it to high.

Then, you are going to beat them for about 15 minutes.  They are going to change from a bright yellow to a fluffy, almost double in size, pale yellow.  They need to reach "ribbon stage". Basically, it means when you put the spatula in them, they fall in like a ribbon, not a stream that is quickly absorbed.

Once you reach this fluffy stage, add sugar, and lower the speed to low, or mix by hand.  I usually add the oil and vanilla before I remember to lower it.  Last up is tapioca starch.  (I don't use potato starch; I can't get any that is not organic.)  I will also give you some alternatives.  

Sponge cake that is not overly sweet, good plain, or with some "ice cream".  Here is your full recipe:

Vanilla Passover Cake

4 large eggs

1/2 cup sugar

1-2 tsp vanilla*

2 TBSP oil

1/2 cup tapioca starch 

(*if you don't use vanilla, use lemon juice or orange juice, but it won't be vanilla cake)

If you want chocolate cake, cut back the amount of tapioca starch by 2-3 TBSP, and use cocoa in its place.  I personally up the amount of oil to another table spoon, because I think that the chocolate version is a little drier.  I've used the lemon juice to make lemon cake as well.  Serve that with some lemon custard, YUM!

Lastly, my very last pesach cake of the year, and I wanted to make a marble cake.  I used 6 eggs, and after the eggs were whipped up, I pulled off what I guessed to be about the 2 extra eggs worth.  I proceeded above making vanilla cake.  Once it was done, I got it into the pan.  I then put the extra eggs back into the mixing bowl.  I proceeded as above for chocolate cake (using half the amount of sugar/tapioca starch/cocoa).  Voila!  (I neglected to make sure that the pan was level. Who cares.  One side is thick; one thin.  In a few more days I can make a real cake.)

Wishing anyone who reads this a very happy last 2 days of Pesach!  See ya' on the other side!

  

FACEBOOK, Liberals, tolerance? Can't use those words in the same sentence!

Soooo, I am locked out of my FB account.  It seems that after 11 years, they suddenly don't like my name.  Mighty big coincidence going on here.
You see, Sunday evening I got into an argument with a liberal.   I posted something in a private, closed group.  I expressed my disgust with something.  And this person went off on me.  First, she did the typical liberal thing. She called me names.  I'm ignorant, stupid, and intolerant.  Then, she kindly informed me that it is now 2015, and I am supposed to be tolerant of everyone.
Being me, I turned it around on her.  I told her to look in the mirror and ask herself if she is tolerant of me.  Can you allow me to have my view.  She answered me no, she isn't tolerant of me.  A few hours later, I can't get onto Facebook.
My guess is that she reported my name.  It's only a hunch.  But it is the only thing I can think of.

Which gets me to the idea of liberalism and tolerance.  See, tolerance for a liberal only works as long as they agree with it.  Gay marriage? Awesome!  Black lives matter?  You bet!  Giving money to illegals?  Sure thing!  Glenn Beck? Sarah Palin?  NO WAY! GET THEM OFF THE AIR!  Religious values?  G-d NO!  (Pun intended.)  Black on black crime?  Who cares!  Soda Stream giving jobs to Arabs?  They deserve to be shut down!  You see, if a liberal doesn't like someone else's idea, shut them down and shut them up.  We can't tolerate this!!!

Conservatives, on the other hand, they just do the right thing (again, pun intended).  You don't like HuffPo?  Don't read it.  You don't like NPR?  Don't listen.  You don't like what Hollywood actors says? Don't give them your money.  Really, WE are the ones who display real tolerance.  It's just too bad that they want to shove their agenda down our throats and force us to eat what they are dishing out.  Too bad, cuz we don't want your garbage.

The saddest part?  They are too puffed up with conceit about how great they are and how horrible Conservatives are to see what is really looking at them in the mirror.  And it is violently ugly, if you ask me.