30-Day Organizing

by | Apr 12, 2015 | Organizing & Cleaning

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There are 30 week days between the end of Passover and the beginning of Shavuot. Looking back at stats for my blog, I noticed there has been a lot of action on my organizing/cleaning between Purim and Passover. We haven’t really made Passover in a few years, so I haven’t really found the need to do a full cleaning before Passover.

This year, Passover ends right around the time it is finally getting warm. So there are a number of organizing tasks that I have had on my list forever that I am going to try to handle.

Stay tuned.

Passover Shtick

by | Mar 10, 2015 | Amazon, Birthday, Passover

Purim has come and gone and I often try to think about Passover. We are lucky to spend the holiday and sederim with family so I close up the house for the week and we head over to my in-laws. One of my joys and challenges is looking for fun stuff to add to the Passover table. I should note, we did this even before there were children. We’ve had shower caps for animals, jumping frogs, wind up frogs, ping pong balls, and more.

Here are some fun items I have found:

Passover Bingo

Passover Puppets

Plague Masks

Passover Seder Plate Mold

Blood:

Frogs:


Lice

Wild Beasts

Cattle

Boils

Hail

Locust/Insects


Darkness

Death of the First Born

Edible Plagues

Some interesting ways to contribute this Purim

Some interesting ways to contribute this Purim

by | Feb 24, 2015 | Giving, Purim

Observing the Holiday

There are four main mitzvot that are associated with Purim.
1. Hearing the Megillah read
2. Seudah Purim (what Jewish holiday doesn’t have something to either eating or not eating)
3. Mishloach Manot (sending small gifts to friends)
4. Matanot L’evyonim (gifts to the poor)

Hearing the Megillah

Have you thought about thought about how you are following along with Megillah reading:

I’d like to point out an app for Megillah Reading that’s a couple years old. It’s easy to follow along or even learn how to read Megillah with. It’s available for the desktop, iOS, and Android. It’s built using the same technology as Pocket Torah. It’s really easy to use to learn how to read or just to follow along during the reading. When you are juggling children and listening, sometimes it’s much easier to have something to follow on your phone instead of a book.

Mishloach Manot

I am truly fascinated by the creativity and the energy that people put into making Mishloah Manot. It’s even more amazing that they people figure out how to match their Purim costumes with their Mishloah manot. I wish I had the time to be so creative in thinking far enough ahead to be able to be so thematic.

Matanot L’evyonim

But my concentration is usually on where we are donating our money and thinking about different places that we can help. We usually focus on Jewish organizations that help people who are hungry during Purim.

Here are some of the few I have donated to in the past:

1. SOVA– this is what I grew up with contributing to in Los Angeles. I remember we would often do food drives before Yom Kippur and Purim/Pesach. When I was in High School, the youth group I was part of would not only collect money to donate, but we would also volunteer our time for SOVA.
2. Mazon– In the past we have found it easy to make Purim donations.
3. Leket Israel – Leket is by far the easiest one to make Purim donations. They are set up and ready to go for the Purim holiday. You can easily make donations in honor of people.

 

Needlepoint Tallit Bag

by | Feb 16, 2015 | Entertainment

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I learned how to do regular needle point stitches when I was in Middle school. When I met my husband, his mother had made him a beautiful tallis bag with his name on it that had many different types of stitches. I hadn’t really realized how many different kinds of stitches existed.

My mother had done some beautiful needlepoint of teddy bears when I was little, but the piece had spent most of my childhood in broken frame tucked away in a closet. It wasn’t until our first child was born that my mother had it her bears redone that I really noticed and how beautiful a basic design could be made from all the different types of stitches and designs.

Here is a kit I found on Amazon for a Tallit.

Here’s a video from Needlepoint for Fun that might help you get started: