Adventures in Mama-Land

Who knew?  Did you know??  Decent, cheap head coverings are now a reality thanks to Chinese mega-marketplace AliExpress – and a few weeks ago, I decided to get in on the action.  As an ultra-scientific experiment, I bought four “pre-tied” tichels, which is what I usually like to wear around the house, to see what kind of quality they’re selling.  Down below, I’ve shown you the ones I bought and how they stacked up against what they looked like on the models. (In case you’re not familiar with them, a pre-tied tichel has elastic at the back and tails that hang down, so you just pull on the cap and tie the back, without having to fuss with a big triangle or other shape of fabric…) I’ve been buying tichels ( mitpachot , or scarf-type headcoverings) online from a few different places, but it’s always a hassle – it costs way too much to begin with, and then you have to add the cost of shipping.  I have also bought a couple here in Israel, but mostly, I buy them online like everything else. 

Do you have a few extra fridge magnets lying around the house?  Here's a fun way to upcycle them! One of the fun things about living in Israel is having a magnetic front door.  Most front doors are metal, unlike back in Canada, where they were made of wood.  And because everyone's front doors are metal, it's very common for businesses to advertise by leaving information stuck to your door with a "fridge" magnet. So far, we’ve been mostly throwing these out.  They're not powerful enough to hold up much, and I don't want them cluttering up our lives or getting us confused with the magnets we keep from the business we like and use (the guy who fixed our washing machine; the book store we like in Tel Aviv; the Chinese restaurant I went to in Beersheva). But now I have an upcycling solution that's very quick and easy and kills two birds with one stone:  what to do with all those magnets, and what to do with clean white paper that's printed on one sid

You might know already that here in Israel, this is a shemittah year. Shemittah is the 7th year of a 7-year cycle found in the Torah, and all year long, Torah-observant farmers aren't working their crops in the usual way.  Yet thanks to a few modern loopholes, many of us, even here, are just buying fruits and vegetables the normal way. I've been studying shemittah for the last couple of months with a wonderful group of ladies here in Kiryat Shmuel, using a book called (surprisingly enough!) Shemitah, by Rabbi Yosef Tzvi Rimon .  (There are lots of ways to spell Shemittah!) If you live in Israel, your kids may find out about shemittah in school if they’re old enough.  But for younger kids, there’s not really any way to find out what it’s all about (at least, not that I could find).  When I lived outside of Israel, I knew nothing about it… let alone knowing enough to share some of the main ideas with my kids.  We read about it when we read the weekly parsha, and that was th

You tell me.  Maybe I’m just especially tired, but I’m not sure if I was right to complain or if I should just drop this.  Read on and let me know. I got an email the other day from the Stratford Festival , which is a Big Deal here.  Toronto has plays and culture and whatnot, but Stratford, an hour and a half away, is one of Canada’s premier cultural festivals (with such a long season - from April to November – that it feels more like a permanent fixture).  Anyhoo. Last year, I took Elisheva to see Much Ado About Nothing there, because I got a notice of $10 school and homeschool performances.  $10!  It was fun.  The drive was long, yes, but my mother stayed with the little kids and we had a decent time. So yesterday, I got an email from them and noticed that one of the $10 shows was Fiddler on the Roof .  Well, yay!  Right?  I emailed my family right away asking who wanted to come with us.  A Thursday in May, easy!  I even checked to make sure it was after Lag b’Omer so we could l

Well, not taking a holiday; that’s for sure!  We’ve been reading up a storm… here’s a selection of our current read-alouds… We’re also slowly making our way through our “ Winter Reading List ,” based on the Second Five in a Row unit study curriculum.  You can get the printable wall chart for that reading list here .  As with the First FIAR reading list we did last year, some of the books are wonderful; others are just so-so.  Links to all the books we’re reading are over here in the Official MamaLand Amazon Homeschool Curriculum n’ More Store .     So here's the big fat excuse for why I haven't been posting: our stupid !#$^ computer has been failing for a while, and when that happens, I end up spending 95% of my “relaxing” computer time just trying to make the thing work.  Finally, 2 weeks ago, one of the hard drives quit entirely and I ordered a new computer – well, a $250 out-of-date refurbished computer that I could stick the working hard drive into.  Which seems

  Y’all know I like to give credit where due, so here is a great big shout-out hooray to my friend Rachel .  Only an IRL friend will let you stand in her dining room and watch as she offhandedly does the most awesome things with food. Let me just back up a bit to say that we love freezer burritos and the kosher kind – breakfast, with egg, or beans & cheese – cost about $3 or more.  A pack of 6 burrito wraps costs $3-something.  A can of black beans (don’t gasp; yes, I use canned, though she probably doesn’t) costs under $1.  A pack of shredded mozarella – ditto; cheap (the pre-shredded is often cheaper than the blocks, these days, though I don’t like the powdery cellulose stuff it comes packed with). So here’s what I did, in an attempt to recreate Rachel’s freezer burritos.  I happened to have chicken filling because we were having burrito night here anyway.  If you don’t, just use salsa like she does.  In fact, you can use salsa anyway – extra deliciousness, I say. BLACK-BEAN F

When I say easy, I mean easy; domestic goddess, I am not these days.  Not even up to my usual, slovenly, standards. But anyway – pumpkin.  I bought four biggish ones on November 1st for 99 cents each (up from 49 cents last year , and FREE the year before!), plus I found one BIG one this evening walking to my mother’s house (sitting at the curb, but it only had a couple of squirrel-bites out of it… and I figure the roasting takes care of any squirrelish germs; I hope I’m right!). So here’s what you do: Open the top of the pumpkin, scoop out the seeds.  I generally throw away the cap, but you could roast it, too.  SAVE THE SEEDS! Slice the pumpkin almost all the way down on one side, then the other, then pull it apart with your bare hands – this is my “Incredible Hulk” moment, where I feel huge and powerful and furious… for a second, until the, um, fruit in my hands snaps apart easily. Use a metal spoon and scrape the “gunk” off the inside walls of the pumpkin.  Discard. Place fac

If you’re dipping macaroons or any other dessert and you have extra chocolate left over at the end, grab some popsicle sticks (or skewers, or not, if you don’t have anything)… and dip whatever you’ve got handy, then pop it in the freezer! These are bananas and marshmallows; it would probably work with lots more kinds of fruit.  We had frozen chocolate-coated bananas all the time as kids, but Ted had never tried one and claims it’s his new favourite dessert.

Elisheva loves penguins (so do I, I admit), and I have been wanting to use my newly-wicked crochet skills with this free penguin pattern . Here’s the original (named Howie the Holiday Penguin, because he comes with a festive December-ish cap you can crochet for him)… NOTE:  I DID NOT MAKE THIS ONE!!! (click the picture to get to the free pattern) NOTE:  I DID NOT MAKE THIS ONE!!! (click the picture to get to the free pattern) This is the one I made!         Somewhat pointy-headed and lopsided, with a VERY bulbous beak/nose… but still, I think, rather cute.  I propped him in the corner of the sofa, took his picture, then called Elisheva in to warn her “not to sit on the sofa.”  She asked why a few times, then peeked and pretty much screamed in adoration.  She appropriated him immediately and he’s been in her room with her other penguins ever since.  I warned her not to let anyone know of her weakness for penguins or people will buy her nothing but – as happened to my sister with

I’m hoping hoping hoping to take at least one big kid with me to the Torah Home Education Conference in Baltimore on May 6th. MegaBus is opening up tickets a day at a time, so I think by Wednesday, we’ll be able to buy our tickets to get down there.  If you get them right when they open up, it’s only $5-10 per ticket (each way).  But here’s the plan… buy however-many tickets to Baltimore on Sunday, then buy the same number of one-way tickets BACK on Monday, from Washington.  After the conference, we would have dinner at David Chu’s China Bistro (after reassuring Elisheva that they DO have other food that isn’t Chinese) and hopefully crash at a friendly stranger’s house in Baltimore.  (Sleep in a bed!  Have a shower!  Last year, I changed on a city bus and washed my face in the bathroom of the Baltimore JCC, so that would be way better!) Then… in the morning, we could take a train to Washington and spend the day checking out FREE cultural amazingnesses of all kinds.  Like: the Z

My favourite thing to do in a bookstore… walk around with almost no money in my pocket (or bank account), pen and notepad in hand, writing down books for the wish list.  Here’s what’s on its way now, thanks to Chapters and the  Toronto Public Library! Momofuku Milk Bar , because it looked completely, irresistably delicious.  Even though I dislike non-kosher dessert cookbooks in general because it’s so hard to get some of the ingredients… Artisan Pizza and Flatbreads in Five Minutes a Day, by the authors of Artisan Bread in 5 Minutes a Day, my no-knead bible. My Bread: The Revolutionary No-Work, No-Knead Method , by Jim Lahey (can you tell what section I started browsing in???)   Good Eats 3: the Later Years , by Alton Brown (I like Alton Brown.  I’m sure some people DISLIKE him equally as much.  Far too precise for my tastes, but anyone who loves food this much can’t be all bad.) Asleep: The Forgotten Epidemic , by Molly Caldwell Crosby Canadian Pie , by Will Ferguson – I di

I love review copies!!!  I recently received a free review copy of The Jesus Inquest: The case for - and against - the resurrection of the Christ from Booksneeze.  The site had mostly Christian books to choose from: I chose this one because I’ve done a lot of reading in Christian apologetics, but not for a while, so I figured this book would help me exercise those rusty intellectual muscles.  Indeed, it has. The Jesus Inquest is written in a very comprehensive and scholarly way.  There is no questioning the author’s credentials:  he’s a British barrister (lawyer) who easily slices his way through popular trends in contemporary Christianity, separating the fluff (all that Da Vinci nonsense) from the hard-core, enduring issues. The format of the book is somewhat unique and intriguing.  Foster presents the bulk of the text as a “debate” in writing between two parties:  X, a non-believer, and Y, a knowledgeable Christian (presumably Foster himself).  There’s a helpful “agreed state

A wonderful afternoon just being touristes in the city of my birth… Free admission to the Science Centre – thanks to our Ontario Science Centre membership! Sadly, we didn’t know they were closing at 4, but we got to see the dinos , which was a GREAT big hit.  These are like no dinosaurs you’ve ever seen before – smaller than life size, noisily animatronic and FLUFFY with feathers, per the latest research and skin-fossil findings.  Lots of fascinating questions from Naomi about the chronology of dinosaurs and the age of the earth.  I was vague and unhelpful as usual.  (my specialty!) Then, a calèche ride through the Vieux Ville (old city), which never ceases to take my breath away with the old-world beauty and charm of riding through streets that are 400 years old.  By “charm,” I mean – of course – the thrill of blocking not one but TWO lanes of modern traffic-in-a-hurry behind a smelly horse all dolled up for tacky tourists like us!     Whatever we saved on the Science Centre, w

Pumpkin!!!  Great, cheap pumpkins!  Getcher unwanted November 1st pumpkins while they last.  Last year, they were actually FREE ourside our local supermarket.  This year, they’re up to 49 cents, an increase of more than a zillion percent. But still pretty cheap. That’s some goooood local eatin’ all winter long… An older Italian couple, maybe in their early 70s, were walking by as I was tossing six of these in my cart.  They did a double-take after they passed  me.  The woman turned and asked, “What do you DO with those???”  Like I was loading up the cart with big orange boulders.  Very, very strange.  I told her we COOK with them, but in my head, I was saying “REALLY?!?!”  Thinking of all the amazing Italian things you can do with a pumpkin… The easiest thing to do with a pumpkin (works for ANY squash!): coop and hollow it out Face down in the oven at ANY temperature:  low is best, like around 300 or less.  Spray the pan.  Use a pan with sides because there WILL be liquid in the

As I have twice before, I’m organizing a group rate on tickets to the Royal Winter Fair, which will take place from November 4 – 13th this year at Exhibition Place. Our tickets cost $6 for adults (regularly $22), and students are $10 (regularly $16).  Kids 4 and under are always free.  You don’t have to be a homeschooler to join our group – tickets are good any day of the fair, so you can go on an evening or weekend (these tickets do NOT include the horse show, so we go see the ultra-tacky but very exciting SuperDogs show instead!).  We’re already over the minimum of 10 students and I’ll be placing our order on Monday (ie just over 24 hours from now). Check the schedule for this year’s events and if you’d like to join us (in spirit, because I probably won’t organize a meet-up at the fair), email me (remove the X’s from the address) for details!

Well, this isn’t exactly the most spiritual way to start off the week-after-Yom Kippur, but I wanted to mention this 50% off sale at CurrClick that is only on today and tomorrow.  It’s part of an “affiliate appreciation weekend,” but anybody can enjoy the discount. Over 4,000 titles are discounted by 50% OFF. Just use the coupon code, "appreciate" at check-out. Click to start browsing now.   From what I understand, even things that are already AT sale prices will be further discounted at checkout, and even items that are NOT currently discounted will have prices slashed at checkout. CurrClick offers downloadable PDF resources of all kinds, from publishers like Evan-Moor, Hands of a Child, KnowledgeQuest and Teacher Created Resources – all well-known in the homeschool world.  My most recent purchase there was Remedia’s Color, Cut & Paste Logic , but I have bought a few things there over the last year or so.  And they accept PayPal!  (Special bonus:  They give me a (tee