Taking a stand

Every few years, without fail, there comes a point during Chodesh Irgun when the typical Anglo parent decides that he or she is fed up and isn’t going to take it anymore.

Helpless in the face of paint-splattered clothes, late nights, and kvetchy kids, said Anglo parent finally declares that it’s time to take a stand.

After all, online griping or even commiserating with other beleaguered parents in real life only goes so far.

Unfortunately, however, seeing as we don’t live between the covers of a melodramatic Gothic novel, locking the kids in their rooms and forbidding them from participating in Chodesh Irgun isn’t really an option. And given the current political climate, neither is demanding that the Education Ministry, the Knesset, or even the Supreme Court outlaw the entire endeavor.

But one is determined not to give up without some sort of fight, and so one makes a tiny, insignificant gesture that fools no one but oneself.

For instance, as one’s beloved offspring head out to the snif (the inevitably rickety caravan or lean-to that serves as the youth group’s headquarters) to “paint walls,” “rehearse,” or whatever it is that they’re calling it these days, one demands, “Call me when you get there! And don’t forget to take your umbrella!”

If all goes according to plan, the offspring in question obligingly groan and hopefully even roll their eyes before shrugging and doing as they’ve been told.

“Ha! Take THAT, Chodesh Irgun!” one secretly exults.

Of course, since it’s been raining rather steadily all week, and since making a phone call isn’t a big deal, deep down one is well aware that the kids would have taken the phones and umbrellas with them anyway.

But then again, during Chodesh Irgun, even the most meaningless parental “victory” is as good as it’s going to get…

!שבוע טוב ומזל טוב לשבט החדש

Succot 5772

By now, most of you are probably very familiar with the Shiputzim family’s succah – whether it’s our loud and tacky bright and colorful stationary succah or our cool, cutting-edge succah on wheels.

But since every year, we make a point of not only rearranging the decorations in the former but also adding new ones, a few glimpses into this year’s succah are certainly in order.

(The advantage of having all the kids home from before Yom Kippur is that our succah was fully decorated by Sunday afternoon… :-))

As always, please feel free to click on the pictures for a closer view:

See something familiar in the second picture?

And, no, I’m not referring to this blog’s new icon. (Can you spot it?) I’m talking about something that’s connected to someone else’s blog.

Let’s zoom in for a better look:

Recognize this?

It’s a postcard with Leora's lovely watercolor of a pomegranate. (Don’t miss the rest of the paintings in her beautiful simanim series.)

Leora sweetly sent me the postcard (yes, even bloggers sometimes communicate via snail mail…) before Rosh Hashanah, and I couldn’t wait to hang it in our succah.

Thank you, Leora!

And now for my annual pre-Succot offer: If you still need aravot, please feel free to stop by TRLEOOB* until candlelighting and pick some. BA”H, we were privileged to have a bumper crop this year…

!חג שמח

May you and your families have a wonderful and joyous Succot!

_______________

*TRLEOOB=the real life equivalent of our blog

National Parks: Ein Afek Edition

Here in TRLEOOB*, we (and when I say “we,” I naturally mean YZG and the kids, and not so much me…) have been busy spackling and painting the LR/DR.

(By a show of hands, anyone interested in an “Our Shiputzim” post on the topic - complete with, er, FASCINATING pictures of wet paint drying?… Anyone?… Anyone?… Bueller?)

But in between all that physical labor and toil, we’ve managed to squeeze in some fun – including swimming, picnics (see, for example, last week’s outing to Palmachim Beach), and various and sundry tiyulim.

Which brings me to our recent trip to the Ein Afek Nature Reserve.

The day began with a visit to Rosh HaNikrah. (Watch this space for more details about that portion of our trip, but in the meantime, you can check out Leora’s gorgeous photos of the site.)

And then, after consulting our Israel Nature and Parks Authority guide, we headed on over to Ein Afek.

Located near Kiryat Bialik (not too far from Acco) and home to assorted flora and fauna, Ein Afek encompasses the upper section of Nachal Na’aman and the springs, pools, lake, and stream which flow into it.

The lovely park also includes Biblical-era ruins (see Yehoshua 19:30, which states that Afek was part of Shevet Asher’s nachalah), a Crusader fortress/mill with a rooftop scenic overlook, a picnic area, a movie about Ein Afek’s history and wildlife, and a pretty walking trail over and around the water canals and lake.

First – as always - the requisite shot of the price list, to show how much money we saved as a result of our National Parks Authority membership:

Next, the Crusader mill: 

A view from the rooftop:

The so-called “floating bridge”: Please feel free to click on the pictures for a better view.

How are you spending the final days of summer?

_______________

*TRLEOOB=the real life equivalent of our blog

Lag BaOmer vs. Chodesh Irgun

It’s an age-old question.

Which is worse: Lag BaOmer or Chodesh Irgun?

Of course, if you’d ask me today, I’d have to go with Lag BaOmer, hands down.

But I admit that I may be somewhat biased, because this year’s regular Lag BaOmer after effects were only exacerbated by a number of scheduling conflicts.

For instance:

• A young man I know went to a bar mitzvah last night – i.e. the night after the bonfire - and didn’t get home until nearly midnight.
• Today was the math bagrut. (“Don’t worry,” a certain teenager assured me. “I’ll be home early [sic]. Our medurah is going to end at 2 am, because everyone needs to study…”)

In other words, a more objective approach to this issue is in order, and thus I have taken the liberty of preparing the following chart:

Lag BaOmer	Chodesh Irgun
Exhausted, kvetchy kids	Exhausted, kvetchy kids
Bemused, exasperated, but ultimately resigned parents	Bemused, exasperated, but ultimately resigned parents
Clothes reeking of smoke	Clothes splattered with paint
The hypnotic glow of the bonfire	The hypnotic glow of the ooltra
Parents waiting anxiously for their darling offspring to come home	Parents waiting anxiously for their darling offspring’s performances to come to an end
An entire month wasted spent collecting wood and searching for an ideal bonfire spot	An entire month wasted spent painting the snif and rehearsing the performances
Fodder for many an Our Shiputzim blog post	Fodder for many an Our Shiputzim blog post
Begs the question: What do the kids do all night??	Begs the question: Is the new shevet’s name better than HaGevurah??
Overheard: “It’s 3:00 AM. Do you know where your kids are?”	Overheard: “We need to finish making all the tchuparim before the yashvatz!”
Adored by kids; barely tolerated by parents	Adored by kids; barely tolerated by parents
Only in Israel!	Only in Israel!

So, what do YOU think: Lag BaOmer or Chodesh Irgun?

Don’t forget to show your work… ;-)

__________

P.S. The newest Haveil Havalim is available here. Special thanks to the Rebbetzin's Husband for including my Iyar Challenge post.

Around the J-Blogosphere

Several items of note:

1) Carl shares a beautiful open letter to Tamar Fogel.

2) Jameel posts fascinating photos of Israel in the 1960’s.

3) Leora painted a lovely street scene, which some of you (especially some of the more veteran readers) might recognize.

4) As always happens this time of year, “potato kugel” – or some variation thereof – has been the most popular search term leading to this blog in recent weeks. And so, for those who are interested: Here’s my potato kugel post.

5) The latest Kosher Cooking Carnival is available here. Special thanks to Phyllis for including my hamentashen post.

6) And finally - on the off-chance that you haven’t seen it yet - here’s a cute video that’s been making the rounds:

Chodesh tov, and happy cleaning!

Picture, picture on the wall

Choref tov, Our Shiputzim fans!

Well, that’s it. After weeks of erev yom tov/yom tov/chol hamoed/erev Shabbat/Shabbat (repeat ad infinitum), today brought us back to real life.

[I suppose that in Our Shiputzim-speak that would be BTRLHITRLEOOB (back to real life here in the real life equivalent of our blog). And to our readers who asked if these acronyms are meant to be pronounced, I can only say: “Not exactly” – which may or may not be Heblish, as in לא בדיוק. That is, “not exactly” certainly sounds fine to me, but I have a strong suspicion that it isn’t really English. Please feel free to weigh in on this issue - or any other, of course - in the comment section.]

But I digress.

As YZG and I headed back to our respective jobs and in addition to slowly beginning to tackle the mountain of laundry, we all turned our sights on the numerous and assorted projects which had been scheduled for that nebulous period known colloquially as אחרי החגים (“after the holidays”).

Among other things, YZG drilled some holes in the wall for screw anchors (that’s דיבלים for the Hebraically-oriented among you) so that AMG could hang up some pictures in her room.

Here are two pictures that she painted herself:

And that’s about it for now.

Have a good night from the entire Our Shiputzim staff.

A people house has things like… stairs

Helloooo, Our Shiputzim fans!

As our long time readers will no doubt recall, I ruined the dramatic impact of the kablan’s exit in this post by noting that he was going to come back at some point:

“To touch up the paint in the downstairs bathroom.”

Well, yesterday turned out to be the big day.

The kablan scraped off the paint where it had cracked, spackled, and then put on two coats of paint. Instead of posting a picture, I refer you to this post. The walls now look exactly as they did then. (Hopefully, this time they’ll continue to look like they do now…)

Meanwhile, while he was here, the kablan put the leftover steps up on the wall as shelves:

As you can see in the above picture, there’s actually one more step sitting on top of the bookshelf below. That fourth step – or shelf, if you will – was meant to be the top step and is therefore not as deep as the other steps. So, if we want to put it up on the wall, we need to get different brackets.

And that’s about it for now.

Have a good night from the entire Our Shiputzim staff.

P.S. In case you were wondering - no, the carpenter did not come today, but there’s always “tomorrow”…

The end of an era

Helloooo, Our Shiputzim fans!

Before we get to this evening’s post, the Our Shiputzim management has asked me to convey their sincere appreciation of the loyal readers who continue to frequent – and, even more so, comment on - this site despite the relative lack of posts. Thank you.

And, now, here’s what’s happening:

Last week, YZG put the light bulbs in the upstairs bathroom mirror, as you can see here:

And here:

And also here:

Meanwhile, everyone finished emptying out the upstairs rooms.

Here’s ASG’s room all emptied out:

And here’s AMG’s room just about emptied out:

And so, the stage was all set for the kablan to make his final appearance…

{Cue: Dramatic music}

He arrived yesterday morning, and by the evening, the two rooms had been painted (including the various coats).

Here’s ASG’s room:

And here’s a close-up of the corner – now all patched up:

Here’s AMG’s room:

So that’s it for the kablan. And to make it all official, he came this morning, picked up all his stuff and walked off into the sunset bright morning light.

The kablan exits – stage left. The violins soar to a crescendo, and the audience rises to its collective feet in an outpouring of emotion…

Okay, fine… So that didn’t exactly happen… In fact, to be perfectly honest, the kablan isn’t completely finished yet either. For one thing, he’s going to come back in about a month to touch up the paint in the downstairs bathroom… And if you really must know, he’ll also be back to help YZG install some more lights in the attic… And I’m not even talking about the fact that we see the kablan all the time – due to the whole “he’s our neighbor” thing…

But, you have to admit, the poetic licence version was more interesting, no?

In any event, the Our Shiputzim editorial board – in their infinite wisdom (and profound modesty) – have ruled that we are now officially in the “post kablan era”. (No, there’s no nafka mina. I just needed a title for this post, and that was the only thing that came to mind. )

We should note that the end of the kablan era does not signify the end of the renovations. For instance, the carpenter’s blog debut is set - according to my sources – to occur some time in the coming days.

So please continue to watch this space for further developments, and don’t forget to leave a comment.

Good night from the entire Our Shiputzim staff.

Mizbach HaK’toret

The kablan called this morning. He’s back from his trip. (Yes, apparently he did have a nice time. Thanks for asking. )

Anyway, he said he’ll be coming Sunday morning I”YH to paint.

Meanwhile, everyone has been busy emptying AMG and ASG’s rooms and bringing stuff up to the attic. Perhaps we’ll be able to get some pictures on Motza”Sh once the rooms are all cleared out – as we did here.

In the meantime, we do have other pictures for you.

Since this is a blog about construction, the Our Shiputzim editorial board voted unanimously in favor of displaying the following pictures of ESG’s Chumash project.

Each boy had to make a model of one of the keilim of the Mishkan. As you may have gathered from the title, ESG chose to do the mizbach hak’toret. (Special thanks to YZG and AMG for their considerable technical assistance.)

And so, without further ado, we present…

Mizbei'ach view #1:

Mizbei'ach view #2:

Mizbei'ach view #3:

And, finally, mizbei'ach view #4:

Shabbat Shalom from the entire Our Shiputzim staff.

See you next week I”YH – same Our Shiputzim time, same Our Shiputzim channel blog.

It's like staring at a blank wall

Reliable and dependable as always, our intrepid photojournalists managed to shoot a few pictures of the newly painted downstairs bathroom after all.

And so, without further ado, here are three bathroom views:

View #1:

View #2:

And View #3:

At this point, we could wax philosophical and use the blog as a metaphor for life. We could point out that on some days you get the color, the excitement, and, yes, the sheer and utter drama of roof views, but on other days, all you see are pictures of bare white walls.

However, we won't.

Instead, we'll leave you with the following:

[Cue: TV announcer voice]

Will a solution be found for the stair problem? Will the hole ever become an attic stairwell again? Will we be able to start using the attic for storage any time soon - or will the attic remain a vast and empty void above our heads?

Tune in next week, when we (hopefully) discover the answers to these and other intriguing questions.

Shabbat Shalom to all.

The case of the disappearing stairs

Hi.

So, remember the olden days (read: yesterday), back when we used to have an attic staircase? Well, not so much anymore:

Yeah, that's right. We're back to having a hole with a ladder leading up to it.

Here are the steps themselves, waiting ever so patiently in the corner for someone to figure out what to do with them:

And here's the metal formerly known as our railing:

Meanwhile, the downstairs bathroom is all painted. Our photography team is currently otherwise occupied, and so for now, you'll have to suffice with the following rather grainy picture:

 

Shabbat Shalom from the entire Our Shiputzim staff.

Black is the new... well, er... black

Good morning, Our Shiputzim fans.

The kablan arrived first thing this morning and proceeded to paint the railing:

Note: The stairs are nowhere near as steep as they appear in this picture.

And here's a close-up so you can get a better feel for the color:

Short digression on the color: To be perfectly honest, black wasn't our first choice - although it is infinitely better than the silver of the first coat. Initially, we had considered an extremely dark gray, but that shade only came in "grainy paint" rather than the "textured paint" which we preferred. So, we opted for basic black and think that it came out rather nicely B"AH.

And now back to our regularly scheduled renovations:

After finishing the railing, the kablan headed downstairs and removed our bathroom door:

Now, before you go and accuse him of unnecessarily cluttering up our living room with bathroom doors, let me assure you that he had a very good reason for doing so: He's painting the downstairs bathroom. To that end, we took everything out of the bathroom, and he brought his ladder in:

As always, watch this space for any and all future updates, and please keep those comments coming.

Water, water everywhere

Hi.

We have several major developments to report, and so let's not waste any further time with the pleasantries.

Here's what's happening:

We begin with a picture of the paint for the railing's second coat:

Next, we turn our attention to the attic, where the insulation (bidud for the Hebraically-oriented among you) is basically up. There are still some spots that need to be taped, but most of it is finished, as you can see here:

And here:

And also here:

And, lastly, here:

In related news, YZG and the kablan spent a good deal of time hosing down the attic (hence the title). Unfortunately, however, we don't have an underwater photographer on our team, and so pictures are not available. You'll have to use your imagination for this one.

Meanwhile, the kablan finished painting the attic wall over the porch, as you can see here:

Now, I'm sure you'll agree that all of the above is quite fascinating. However, I've saved the best for last. Today's top story is that YZG put up four lights today:

1) In the downstairs bathroom

[Ed. - Due to presumed lack of interest, no pictures of this particular light will be published. Please note that this light fixture is identical to the one in the upstairs bathroom. Our readers can find a picture of the upstairs bathroom light here.]

2) Over the couch, as you can see here:

And here's a close-up:

3) Over the dining room table:

And here's a close-up of one of the glass bowls:

Please note that the lights are currently way too low. YZG hopes to I"YH raise them closer to the ceiling when he has time.

4) On the wall over the stairs leading to the second floor:

That's about it for now.

Watch this space for any and all future developments.