I'm grateful for: a little sleep; being more functional (I did dishes today); more room in my room.

I didn't want to post aimless nothings with no brain, so it's several very full days later and I'm afraid I've lost track of way much.

I also don't know if I've forgotten any questions I've been asked. If I did please accept my apologies and ask again. I don't mean to ignore, I just run out of time/energy/me.

And in that vein, animals I have at the moment: 3 dogs (heaven help me!); 3 cats; two dwarf goats (these are NOT the cute miniatures you see sometimes in the U.S.); and some large-ish number of chickens. Let me think ... 7 store-bought chicks, 2 home-grown, Lucy, Ethel, Randolph, Felix, the white hen, the black hen, Nora, Annabelle, and a home-grown brown hen whose name somehow escapes me right now. How many is that? 18. Unless I've forgotten some.

I am hoping to increase those numbers by at least a couple of goats, a sheep or two, and (Hashem willing) a donkey. I expect if D3 gets her way we'll also acquire a horse. *sigh* Then she has to take care of the horse. All of our animals (except the dogs) are chosen for their ability to get along with minimal interference ('care') from human beings. With me being crippled, and us so overwhelmed, the last thing we can handle is a high-maintenance animal. Otherwise I would have WAY more animals. :-)

Related to that, this guy came to visit the other night:

He was so active that S2 could hardly hold onto him, he kept running right off of the gloves. So I have lots of photos of the hedgehog half out of the frame, or with a glove in front because S2 had to move quickly (as I clicked) to keep him from jumping.

We get many, many hedgehogs, attracted to our water trough and whatever bugs are attracted to the farmyard and the assorted food that get strewn about. The dogs find them, often enough to be annoying. Then they (one, two or all three depending on who is outside) set up a huge noise as they bark at the hedgehog, wanting it to play with them. Once or twice one of the dogs has tried to bat the hedgehog around, and ended up with a sore paw or muzzle. When necessary, TH or one of the older boys goes outside (with the gloves on!) to 'rescue' the hedgehog. Really to rescue our ears, as the hedgehogs are in no danger. Then, particularly if they are cute or unusual, the hedgehog gets to come inside for a brief visit.

This little guy had a tick on his ear, and we did try to remove it, but couldn't get the tick-spoon (really more of a fork, but the name stuck) through the quills, although the hedgehog ONLY curled up when we tried to remove the tick. He seemed clear that we weren't threatening him, and was a curious and, as I said very active little guy.

Okay, lessee what I can remember. Wednesday was a difficult day. TH drove up north to work and brought S1 and S2 with him, leaving just D3 and S3 home with me. I didn't sleep, which did nothing for my functioning, and I really did hurt. Canadian Xtian friends came to visit, and it was a really WONDERFUL visit. I talked w/my friend while her kids had a terrific time with my kids. We barely had to check on them throughout the day, which always makes for a good visit. They are going back to Canada soon, and I don't know if we will get to see them again.

Now that they are going, I am sorry. I wasn't sure, I am very conflicted about this friendship, or I was. I feel less conflicted now, but I don't know if that is because they are leaving or because a lot of my doubts were resolved in our last visit. They are planning on returning to Israel, so I will see them again. I don't know if it will be soon or in another year.

Wednesday vanishes in the haze. I expect I was pretty dead. Thursday was shopping. With almost no sleep, I got up early and TH and S2 and D3 and I headed out to look for a store bought cake for D2. Her (Hebrew) birthday was Thursday and she said she wanted a storebought cake with all the chocolate we could find. This is what we came up with finally:

Backing up a bit, we shopped backwards for us, starting with the nearer stores so that if/when we found the right cake we could dash it home. Don't want something like that sitting in the trunk during an Israeli heat wave. So in Netivot we shopped at ShefaShuk and HyperCohen, D3 ran across to a tchotchky shop to buy a small candle for S3 to give to D2 for a birthday gift. We headed home to drop off the groceries we'd picked up and headed back out to Be'er Sheva. I can't remember what that is in English. Beersheba? Something like that. Anyway...

At home we switched S2 for S1 because he needed to come along to get his eyes examined and get the form for his drivers' license. The eye exam was 40 shekel (about $13), the new glasses are fifteen times that. We're pretty broke, so I'm stressing about it big-time. Ah, well, we'll pick up his glasses and that will be one less thing to worry about.

A short trip to Office Depot (and I was walking all of this, you just can't imagine both what an achievement this was or how much I was hurting), to pick up something to be a cover for a book I printed off and the off to SuperSal (another grocery store/supermarket) where we scored cake! To jump ahead a bit, D2 told me later on that she'd been looking at that exact cake and thinking it was what she wanted. Then a quick trip to Zol Po (Cheap Here) which is the supermarket we usually do most of our shopping at because it is, indeed, cheap there.

D2 met us at Zol Po and we drove home as quickly as we safely could. The cake survived the trip and we had a somewhat abortive birthday party when we got home, after TH had made the usual Thursday night supper of homemade falafel. Yum.

The birthday party was a bit less than we would have wanted or hoped because - okay, longish bit here - the post office is on strike. Now this is quite possibly the most useless strike ever performed by ANYONE. Because they are unhappy with the gub'ment for not meeting the details of an earlier agreement, they are striking by Not Serving the Smaller Rural Post Offices. Oh, yes, that'll make 'em sit up in the Knesset. Serving the people with the least voice in the gub'ment or anything, those of us in the smaller isolated rural communities are really going to be able to make the gub'mint honour their commitments when we can't pick up packages or cash checks.

So D2 had a wish list of items she really wanted for her birthday. Utilizing my superior internet skills (that is irony) I managed to actually locate and order some number of books that she particularly wanted and can't be bought in Israel. One of these books was her birthday present from D3, another from S2, another from TH and I, and so on... So, these are being sent via international mail. Are you putting this together?

So, at her birthday party D2 received two candles, one from D3 as a placeholder, the other from S3 because he'd wanted to give her a cute candle. S1 found her a book in Petakh Tikvah (Wednesday), and that was about it. We had seven balloons and the cake. I'm not saying it wasn't fun, but, well, a little thin if you know what I mean.

TH and I are giving D2 for her birthday a rather large and expensive gift, which is to take the course in sky-diving, along with some number of jumps. That has to wait until she has a day off from her new job.

I don't know if I mentioned but she has a new job, working as a cashier at a bakery. So far it is the job she likes best of all she has had. It sounds as if it is working out for her, so with any luck this will turn out to be the job that gets her through her first year of school.

I did take photos at the party, but almost none of them really turned out well. I did get this one of S1, which I think is pretty decent - at least this is how he actually looks. :-)

That's enough for one entry I think. No, wait. I did receive one package, for a wonder, which was mailed by annanotbob and I took a photo just for fun.

Unfortunately you can't smell the cushion, which is filled with Lavendar, and is quite lovely. Thanks Anna! Beautiful stuff. Also a book, which I haven't started yet as I've been dragging myself through a handful of throw-away books that S1 bought for me and I am now obliged to get through. And Hebrew children's books. S2 had gotten motivated, so together we've ploughed through one a day for four days. My Hebrew HAS improved, but I still can't carry on the simplest conversation. I discovered one of my problems today as S2 was reading aloud from a book in Hebrew, and I simply could not take in what he was saying. I could read it, fine, but I couldn't take it in hearing it. *sigh* Maybe I'll just become literate and carry around a notepad to write to people with. ;-7

Really have to stop now, it's almost 1:30am. I HAVE been sleeping but at such odd hours it's hard to even explain. Naps of 1/2 hour to 3 hours long, mostly. Still, I want to try to sleep during proper sleep hours (night time). So, good night.

I'm listening to The Kinks: Party Line, and just finished Lesley Gore: Where Can I Go.

:: Yesterdays : Tomorrows ::

~~~Last Five Entries~~~
Hi and goodbye - 2010-10-15
I'll be moving on - 2010-10-10
Gold membership and stuff - 2010-10-10
Decisions, decisions - 2010-10-07
Days to go - 2010-10-06