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Honey is Sweet

A happy day - 2009-07-04

I'm grateful for: falling asleep; swimming pool hours that work for me; my Kitten, still, despite the blood loss ;-)

I haven't time to read my buddies today, which is too bad, but I'm to happy to be sad because I went swimming! Yeaa! It went very well, all things considered. I can sort of swim, sort of. I managed about half the width of the pool before I couldn't do it any more. That's not just sad, that's pathetic. But - five years, blood loss, M.S. ... The really good news is that it went so well. Well enough I am making concrete plans to go back whenever I can. The pool is open for family swim Tuesday and Friday mornings. Twice a week is good. Probably not enough to build up any real stamina before they close the pool again, but it is so much better than not swimming at all.

So, I can't do the crawl, or freestyle. I can barely do a breast stroke. But I CAN do a side-stroke, particularly on my left side (I wonder why?), so I did, all together, maybe two lengths of the pool, although not all at once. I can float on my back or tread water forever, so that's okay. And the pool is empty enough, despite a handful of kids and one whole family besides us, that I can take my time, swim a bit, float a bit, rest a bit, swim some more...

I've got a good sunburn. I didn't use sunblock and I was in the unshaded pool for most of the time. It is a 'good' sunburn - not fiery red, it doesn't hurt, no peeling, no trauma. If I were anyone with any pigment it would fade to a nice tan. As it is, it will fade back to my usual pale ghosty colour, until the next time. Other than staying in the shaded (smaller) pool, I'm not sure what I can do. Sunscreen can help, but only when I manage to use it. ;-)

TH brought us, and D3 and S3 came along. They both had a good time. S3 is pretty burned and he did have sunscreen on. S3 used to be a total water-baby. He was swimming before he was two. Now, after five years in Israel, he can't swim at all. He can thrash about and make some distance after a fashion. At nine, though, he doesn't listen, and so I can't help him to swim any better, just applaud when he is happy and hope that he will either get back his natural gift or eventually hear some of the suggestions he is being given.

I am a lousy swimming instructor, because when I am in the water, all I care about is me getting my time in. It's been true since the kids were very small. I'm sorry for it, but there it is.

We were at the pool for over an hour, and afterwards drove S3 home because he got a cut on his heel. TH, D3 and I went back to Netivot, and bought what we could that we need for shabbos. Unfortunately, no bran flakes still. Poor S2 is stuck eating puffed wheat cereal. Poor boy. ;-)

Back home again, and I don't remember very much of the rest of the day. I think I napped a lot. I did get some laundry done, and a shower. We all watched The Importance of Being Ernest, and TH read a bit of Prince Caspian aloud to S3 and I. I chatted off and on with S2 and D2, before falling asleep - I think it was even before midnight. Unfortunately, that has led to my being awake now since around 4am. This whole sleep thing continues to elude me.

I spent some time being confused on F@cebook. I keep finding more people there I'd kind of like to stay connected to, but it's all to big and bizarre, and there's too much stuff going on from people I don't recognize and probably don't know, and, well, Phew! I'm taking a break from that for a while.

Oh, I forgot entirely. My sister (RS) managed to get in contact with the Rabbi who married TH and I, so many years ago, and made a conference call for he and TH and I to talk, so now I've written a letter detailing the family history in the maternal line (mother, her mother, her mother, her mother...) proving for anyone who cares to do the research that RS and I are unquestionably of Jewish descent. It is so stupid, having to do this. The rabbi will now write a letter certifying that RS is in fact Jewish for the purposes of RS opening a tik (file) for her aliyah (moving to Israel). Oy, the headaches.

The fun part was discovering just how much family history I actually have written down in odd places. I was able to trace back to my (let me think about this a minute...) ... great, great grandmother, and I could probably go further back, but that takes us back to Lithuania, and is undoubtedly enough for now. I hadn't realized just how much of the family information that I have. It makes me want to look for more.

So, I'm happy. Swimming makes me happy. Putting together family history makes me happy. Even with the lack of sleep that has been *really* getting me down of late. And I am still in love with my new dresses - the woman hasn't sent me a bill yet! It is making me a bit nervous. Having all my kids here makes me happy. Almost all, all the kids that are in Israel.

I'm listening to the birds outside my window.

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:: 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