Shavuot Customs

Shavuot is coming up soon and I thought I'd share some of our family minhagim (customs).

• Our family eats two meat and two dairy meals for the chag. usually its meat at night and dairy lunch, but this year Shavuot is motzei Shabbat. Having two heavy meals in a day (especially one late at night) doesn't sit well with Aba or I. This year Sunday night and Monday lunch will be meat and Saturday night, Sunday lunch will be dairy.
• With meat meals we eat a dish with some type of intestine. Usually sausage (merguez) or sweetbreads. The reason is that half the holiday should be for G-d and half for us. This is a treat for us.
• With dairy meals we eat some sort of sweetened matza or wheat. The most common (and easiest!) is to mix milk and honey and pour over crushed matza.
• Shavuot is the traditional birthday and azkara of David haMelech so we read all of tehillim.
• We decorate the house with flowers as a remembrance of how Har Sinai blossomed.
• The week followiing Shavuot is called "The week of Torah" and I try to bring out something special for each meal.

Primal Eating

When we were in Israel two years ago both Aba and I came home weighing roughly 10 pounds less. We chalked it up to the extra walking but I think I've found an added component. Intermittent fasting!

The last couple of weeks I've been toying with eating primally. I've found that my energy is up and my noshing is down. It was difficult because I would still have a grain-heavy breakfast or lunch and find myself *needing* an afternoon coffee. I finally committed to a 21 day trial and Sunday went full-on primal.

What I've found is that when I eat a nice primal breakfast (3 eggs cooked with a bit of raw cultured butter, a cup of steamed carrots and a sliced tomatoes with a cup of tea) I can go 6 hours before I get to the "I need to eat something NOW!" point. Add a small handful of crispy almonds or some berries at the 4 hour mark and I'm fine until dinner. (Salad with homemade Asian dressing, asparagus cooked with garlic and coconut oil, 2 chicken breasts and a cup of mango.) Then I'm fine until the next morning. 

So I'm eating two large meals and a small snack between the hours of 9:30am and 6:30pm. Which is how we ate in Israel (though the times were shifted because of jet-lag) and a common part of primal eating. 

I don't eat like this every day. I did Sunday and Monday but I can already tell today will be a three meal day. The girls wanted smoothies for breakfast so I made myself one. It was tasty and my stomach is full, but I'm already feeling the desire to nosh. I suspect I need the sacred action of sitting to a meal and the physical action of chewing food to feel fully satiated. 

Two days in to primal eating and I feel great. I have wonderful energy and no mood swings. The only downside is that I sprained my ankle last week. I want to walk and hike, but can't. 

Happy Tuesday!

Pop Quiz

Aba's trying to put the girls to bed and having problems with

a) clothes all over the floor from multiple changes a day

b) Thing 2 wanting a heavy blanket then complaining its too hot

c) toothpaste "all over" the sink making it impossible for Thing 3 to brush her teeth

d) the book missing because we read some downstairs today and no one recalls where it is

e) Thing 1's baby doll's pjs not fitting correctly because "she's growing and needs new ones."

f) all of the above.

Books and More Books

These last few months have been filled with reading over here.

The girls have been breathing new life into the favorite worn toddler board books by "reading" them to each other. We've also moved away from the shorter picture books at bedtime and started reading chapter books.

Our favorite so far?

The Wonderful Wizard of Oz We've read a few of the other books in the series, but keep coming back to the original. This was the first chapter book we read because Shira found out it wasn't just a movie and asked the librariean to help her find the book.

Little House on the Prairie Our newest finished book. We started with this one and the girls are debating whether to go back to the beginning or just move forward. We've done a couple of activities and have a couple of trips lined up to go with this book.

Black Beauty We started with a short picture-book adaptation then moved on to the full book.

Charlie and the Chocolate Factory I found a Roald Dahl boxed set at Costco so we've been working through the books. This was the first we read and then 

The BFG Not a favorite of mine, but the girls like it and we've read it twice.

We started reading A Wrinkle in Time but it was a bit too old for the girls so its back on the shelf while we finish up on The Mouse and the Motorcycle. Then on to soemthing new!

I have a feeling when the girls start reading independently every surface of our house will be covered with books.

Sad About Discovery

Banking Gently by Flying Jenny on Flickr

I'm really sad about the end of the Space Shuttle program. It seems just another thing that we don't care about anymore. The idea of people going into space is foreign to my girls. Granted they are only six, but I've seen the same sentiment expressed throughout the internet.

I tried explaining how my entire school sat around watching when the Challenger took off because it was the first flight with a "real live normal person" on board. Then we all sat glued watching the coverage of the disaster. Then Discovery made that first post-disaster flight and we were glued to the TV again.

Now flights into space are only book or movie fodder in my girls' imaginations. Or something other countries do. Instead the US spends it time and money stopping small farmers from selling raw milk or minimally processed foods, pushing parents to send their kids to school at ever earlier ages and vaccinating with aggressive schedules and under-tested drugs. 

Alas, history is just so much more fun than reading the newspaper.