this is not what i see

as in no beach, kids in swim wear or sunsets. no sun at all, in fact. it's pretty much been raining gently - and less gently - ever since we arrived wednesday. for now it's ok. a welcome change from the midle eastern heat and humidity. and i have been seeing family and friends, so no complaints.

hope you're enjoying your summer, rain or sun, warm or cold.

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what happened in oslo is so sad. it will never make sense. i don't know what to say, but i'm sorry. for everyone.

they are back

tough 'n tattooed. just like the weight-lifting smurf.

for some reason the smurfs are back. weird how these marketing people manage to find their way into our lives. suddenly you realize that your kids know the smurfs. i thought they died out back in the 80s. apparently a new movie is soon out and the kids pick up on this stuff.

i'm packing. or, rather, i should be packing. tomorrow we're off. my mom still has a big box of my smurf gear from back in the days. then i get to feel we beat that big ol' material world just a tiny bit: see we'll be recycling my old toys and - try to - stay away from all your new merchandized smurf stuff.

thanks for the welcome backs comments. it's good to be here again.

it's been a while

i think i'm back. the back-to-work adventure came to an end last month. we simply couldn't handle it as a family. even if everything was arranged, with afternoon nanny a couple of times a week, helpful grandparents and a wonderful woman to clean the house for us. maybe we just didn't try it long enough, maybe we would have gotten used to it. but after four month of coming home late afternoon or early evenings and rushing through the end-of-day routines with three kids, hungry for attention and craving to be seen, we had enough. all of us, really.

so for the past three weeks i've been making up. giving the kids days off, one at a time. to have some alone time with each. and short days in the kindergarten to all. in three days we'll be going to denmark for the summer. where the rumors say the weather is nasty cold and rainy. which means we've been working on an overdose of sun, beach and heat. the heat doesn't take much of an effort, though. it's here, 24/7, sticking to us with air humidity in the 70 plus percentages. luckily we have the pool in the moshav and the beach.

happy easter - hag pesach sameach

wishing you all a very happy easter and pesach.

we're enjoying the time off, at home, in the garden, with friends, family and each other.


xo

we're good

a while back i went for a walk with N. in the spring green. it's still green, but summer hit us yesterday. i'm head over heels happy about that. i didn't realize how much i missed the heat until it - literally - hit me in the face.

these photos are the last i uploaded to the internet before the camera got stolen. and thank you for all your lovely comments to my last post after the break in. i appreciate everyone's concern and support. it was awful, and we're no longer leaving the windows unlocked at night. but otherwise i'm ok with it now. bad things happen, but we move on.

and since my lovely husband brought me a new camera the other day, i am once again equipped to take photos. i am happy, though, that i got to keep the one above of my boy. he gave me a flower and placed it behind my ear. then he wanted one too and asked me if i thought he looked like a girl now. i said he looked absolute cute, boy or girl, with or without strawbeey juice down his chin :)

yesterday we were at the beach, kids in the water, me definitely not ready to go in, but excited to start the summer. on the way to the car i said "so, that's it. from now on we'll go to the beach most weekends", and D said "hey, that's  not the worst place to spent the weekends". i couldn't agree more.

tomorrow is pesach, it's 30 degrees celcius at 9pm, and i'm having a cold beer as i write. yup, we're good.
hag pesach sameach - happy easter

inside :: outside

little details. in the living room and in the garden.

the title of today's inside :: outside post gets another layer of meaning this time. someone broke into our house the other night. i woke up at six with the littlest, sat on the couch and looked at the open window. wondered who'd left it open without the net (we need nets here to keep out mosquitos, flies, snakes, mice, rats, cats...you name it, this is farm land). anyway, it took my numb morning brain a few seconds before i instinctively looked towards the laptop usually placed on a small table by the wall, the shelf where i'd left the camera the night before and the bag with my work laptop by the door. all gone.

the person came in while we were sleeping. the windows weren't locked in the living room. which i never really bothered much about, because, well, i just felt safe.

the morning it happened i had mixed feelings. i was sad since i lost a lot of photos, as in most of those taken ince october. they were on the laptop and i'd been too lazy to save them on our desktop or the external hard drive. what i have is what i have here, on flickr and on facebook. i sent a few to my brother and D, but that's about it. those up there is from a few days before, and i'd already uploaded them to the blog.

the other feeling was relief. that they didn't take more, that they didn't take our bags, iphones, go through our stuff, enter the guest room where my mom was sleeping and take some other cameras, her laptop, passports, take... i don't know, that little jewlery i have, old silver ware, nothing too valuable, but impossible to replace for me. it seemed like a quick break in and out.

then later i started to freak. the feeling that you're not safe in your house. that we were lucky. what if someone had woken up. me, my mom...the kids. maybe that was the case. maybe they didn't take more because they heard little D calling like i did around 3, where i went to get him water. maybe they heard when J came to our bed around 5. maybe they were interrupted in the darkness when my mom went to the bathroom. D wasn't even home that night. just me, my mom and the children.

someone was in the house while we were there. what if it had been someone that panicked when i half asleep walked to my child's room? what if it had been someone full of hatred, ready to hurt, capable of violence? this country has more than its fair share of hate and violence.

i went through the house the following evening with my mom. made sure everything was locked. and hated the fact that i will now worry about this. which i probably should have worried about before, but hey, at least i got a few years feeling that i could go to bed without locking my doors or windows. that's more than most. and i will continue to lock the house in the night, but i hope that sooner or later i will no longer glance into the dark corners when i'm going to get one of the kids a glass of water in the night. or just quickly look over the living room when i get up in the morning to see if anything is missing or broken.

Luckily the kids never really got to understand what had happened, and luckily we didn't lose much, nor had our house turned upside down. the worst part about what happened is all those "what ifs". which i guess is lucky too.

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on another nicer and happier note, thank you so much to those of you who still find their way in here, even if i have not been commenting anywhere myself. i'm visiting blogs now and then, but time has been limited. so thank you, i really appreciate that.

wishing you all a wonderful weekend.

march

march was a beautiful month. lots of rain, flowers, green and spring feel. where you leave with sweaters and coats int he cold mornings and walk around in t-shirt and bare feet by noon. one days dark and rainy, the next filled with sunshine and warm wind.

it was a month of change, and here, in our house there were big changes too. i returned to work, full time. leaving the house every morning like everyone else.

we have had my parents here to help in the transition. also because this month is D's nightmare, the end of the financial year, and a month of non-stop work into the early morning hours for him. awful. i found a wonderful young woman who picks up the kids twice a week. when they greet me in the evening they are exhausted, dirty and excited from adventures around the village, with or without there friends. she's energetic and loves the outdoors. how perfect is that!

and hey, we have a cleaner too. she's worked with our neighbors for years and has agreed to come and help us out too. so, as you can understand, it's different around here. some of the differences are good, and some are less good.

we are still adjusting, and so, when people ask how it is, i say i don't know. not yet. so far it's been ok, but let's see when things settle in.

the photos above are from a few weeks back. on a sunny day, after a few days of heavy spring rain. they just about sum up the weather in this month of march :)


wishing you a wonderful april.