S.H.A.L.O.M

Motzei Shabbos I went with SN to a great workshop by the S.H.A.L.O.M taskforce. It lasted over 4 hours, but yet was so interesting that time just flew by. I would recommend all engaged couples to go to this workshop. The government provides grants to them, enabling them to give the workshop for free. They only charge 25 dollars to register and get a book they put together.

The workshop started with everyone receiving a piece of paper titled “Island Survival Exercise”, where there are 25 things listed on the list, and you have to choose 10 that you think are important in order to survive on an island. Then you compare it with your significant other and see how many you have in common. Then for the one’s you have different you have to come up with a compromise and see which one’s you would both choose. This exercise showed how couples think alike. In addition, it helps you practice compromising, and learning more about how the other thinks.

Then there is something called The Daily Temperature Reading by Virginia Satir. Couples should set a side 15 minutes a day to talk to each other and do the DTR.

1. Appreciations
2. New Information
3. Puzzles
4. Complaints with Request for Change
5. Wishes, Hopes and Dreams

(See link above for more info. Or watch the video below)

DTR by Lori Gordon, Founder of PAIRS

Then there’s the Guide for Confiding about a Complaint. They give you a wheel, with key words to begin your complaint. While one is making their complaint, the other parrots what they say, to make sure they understand what is being said. (Ex: “I notice that you…” “You notice that I…”). Then only after the whole wheel has been gone through, can the other explain and clear things up. This helps for complaints that involve emotional feelings, and involve more than a “quick fix” technique.

Then there is the emotional jug. Where sometimes you can be having a bad day, little things keep happening and you remain calm through it all. Then one last thing happens and you burst and lash out on someone. So to prevent this from happening, you realize when your emotional jug starts building up, and you tell your significant other that you have to empty your emotional jug.

The listener will then ask “What are you Mad/Sad/Scared/Glad about?” and then at the end ask “If there’s anything else you would be mad about, what would it be?”. This seems like a strange question, but it really works. Since you are emptying your emotional jug, you might as well let it all out, so that you start fresh.

Yesterday I got to practice emptying my emotional jug, and SN was a great listener and I thank him again! I was in such a good mood afterwards, that I even wanted to make others happy.

This is just a fraction of what the workshop consisted of, for more information check out their site and register for a course!

Segulos

I had a class on Segulos in Seminary that was very interesting, so I decided to share it.

We are not supposed to follow in the ways of the Goyim, but with health related issues you don’t have to worry about following in the ways of the goyim. In other words, you should use a doctor.

1- If a person is chocking on a bone, they should put a bone on their forehead and say  “חד חד נחית בלע בלע נחית חד חד " – it works.

“והיתם לי סגולה מכל העמים”, Something can just work even if it doesn’t make sense. Like medicine comes from grass, so too Segulos will work through Torah.

A person’s approach to a Segulah is to put their trust in Hashem, and by doing these things we believe Hashem will help us.

2- If a child talks in their sleep, take the tooth of a dog and put it on a necklace around the child.

3- For ear infection, Put the mothers milk in the ear of the child, or mix with white of egg and put in ear. – It works, it’s medicine.

4- If a Mezuzah is Posul then missing a Shmirah, so check the mezuzah’s 2 times in 7 years.

5- During pregnancy a baby is formed based on what the mother does, so shouldn’t stare at animals in the zoo, don’t go to the cemetery or a Livayah, careful with what you eat and see.

6- A woman in the 9th month should go to the mikvah to cleanse herself of things she did wrong during the pregnancy.

7- A woman that can’t have children should take water from a well in Eretz Yisroel. Best Segulah for health is to say Asher Yatzar.

8- For Parnassah bench with Kavanah

9- If a woman is pregnant, she should bake a cake when she feels like she’s going into labor, and say the name of a person who doesn’t have a child, and it’s a segulah that they’ll have a child.

10- If a person has warts, take the Havdallah wine and put it on, and the wart will go away. –It works.

11- If a person can’t have children, boil Aravos and drink it, same for migraines.

12- First time it snows, take snow and rub on forehead 3 times to have a good memory. Gematria of Sheleg and Shikcha is 33.

13- Pick up your head when your trying to remember, and put your head down to concentrate.

14- For bad burn say 3x “…יברכך ה׳ וישמרך”, “יאיר ה׳…” “ישא ה׳”. And have Kavanah that Hashem should heal you.

15- Garlic on child keeps away an Ayin Hora. People keep Garlic on pocket book to keep away Ayin Hora.

16-Small aquarium, necklace with ה׳, keep away Ayin Hora.

17- Bucharian, when children get scared take metal pot, heat up lead, take hat and put the led into it, put the hat on the child, led will turn into the form of what the child is thinking of, like a dog.

18- If you have a bad dream, you can sell it.

A Simcha Filled Week

Sunday evening SN’s family made a birthday party for SN’s father in his sister’s house. SN’s sister cooked an amazing meal with tons of food. I tasted carrot cake/kugel and loved it. While there SN’s brother in law told over a dvar torah about hachnasos archim. Where SN brought up a question, of how did Avraham know that he can tell Hashem to wait while he does the mitzvah of hachnasos archim, Then two answers were given.

After the birthday party, SN came to my house to work on the “Thank You” cards for the vort presents. After writing the messages I liked the way SN signed the cards he wrote, so I asked him to sign the one’s I wrote like that too. After we were done with the thank you cards. My little brother started talking to SN, and entertained him till Midnight! I enjoyed going through albums with SN showing him pictures of me when I was a little kid.

Monday night I went to my second New Square Wedding. It was a really interesting experience. I sat with 18 year old cousins who were engaged too. It’s funny how I felt like I fit in because I was engaged too, so we all had something to talk about. I had thought my 4 month engagement is a long time, but then I found out 1 cousin’s engagement is 14 months, and another 8 months! I was surprised when one of the girls showed me a picture of her chosson on her cell phone. It was a picture of a chassidish guy. I didn’t know what reaction she was expecting from me, so I just said “very nice”.

Tuesday night I had “Rain Strap’s” vort. It was really nice, and I was so happy for her, now that I knew what it felt like to be engaged. She introduced me to her chosson and they looked like a great happy lively couple. It made me realize how much more SN is such a great match for me, and I appreciate him so much!

Thursday morning I went to a cousin’s bris, that had twin boys. The really cool thing is that SN’s cousin also had twin boys the same day as my cousin! After the bris I went to SN’s sister’s sheitel place to see what size I am, and to match the color. The store was really pretty, and it was so much fun to try on sheitel’s. SN’s sister is really great!

Friday night, one of the mother’s I babysat for had a shiur in her house, where the Rebbitzen of my shul spoke. The 5 year old saw me coming in and ran to give me a hug and pulled me into her house so that she can sit on my lap. Then she said only I can sit on her chair because I’m a kallah. Then she introduced me to a lady, and said that I’m getting married. The lady then asked how old I was, and of course she said I looked younger.

Meanwhile, my father had gone to a “Buta” by my shul, and someone had asked a question about the parsha, the same question that SN had asked. I had already told my father the question and answer during the Friday night meal. So when my father heard the question, he recognized it and was able to answer it. The answer was that Avraham’s feet started moving to do hachnasas Orchim. Because a tzadik automatically starts doing a mitzvah, so that’s how he knew that he was supposed to greet the guests and was able to put Hashem “on hold”.

Motzei Shabbos I went with SN to his cousin’s vort, and met more of his family members. It was funny because my mother had babysat for his cousins, so his aunts and uncle’s knew my mother and they were really nice in welcoming me to the family.

Introducing SN

SN stands for Super Nice, because that’s what my Chosson is. From now on I’ll refer to him as SN. B”H SN encourages my blogging, so I won’t be disappearing.

Wednesday night we had a beautiful vort, and I got introduced to so many people. They all of course had such good things to say about SN. I tried to speak to everyone who came for at least a few minutes. SN’s sisters were great at introducing me to everyone.

Then one time I was going over to a few ladies and they said Mazel Tov and all. Then one of them asks me if I went to a certain HS and I said yes. Then another commented that she taught there, and I looked closer at her and realized that she was one of my HS teachers. She wasn’t wearing glasses so I hadn’t recognized her right away. I remember she taught me Navi and I hadn’t particularly liked that subject nor was I good at it, so I guess it’s a good thing she didn’t remember me either!

My Kindergarten teacher on the other hand I remembered, and she remembered me. She’s going to become my cousin! She brought over a picture of me and my twin brother when we were 3 years old and she was our counselor in day camp. I was so happy to see that picture, I love looking back at little kid pictures.

SN was great at arranging everything, he comes up with all the great ideas. To have our wedding on Rosh Chodesh so we don’t have to fast. To have music by the vort so that it’s more lively, and people can dance. I was smiling looking at the video of SN and my father dancing together.

There’s so much for me to learn from SN. He started to introduce me to new foods. I drank Snapple for the first time, and it wasn’t so bad. Though I hear I have to taste the kiwi strawberry one. I had a Caesar salad for the first time, and I actually liked it. Speaking of firsts, I wore real heals for the first time, Thanks to Auror, so now I can cross that off my list.

SN’s also Super Nice in that he shows lots of Hakaras Hatov to people. He called up the florist, band, bakery, Jeweler, and all those involved, to thank them and tell them how happy we were with what he got from them. I think that’s an amazing thing, and something I’d want to take upon myself to try to do also.

We got so many gifts, from so many people, it was really nice. I can’t wait to write the Thank You cards!

I haven’t written any Hashgacha Pratis stories in a while, so here’s one. At the end of the vort my aunt told me to take a look at one of the gifts from some cousins in Israel to see what they gave. So we opened the bag, and inside we found the gift. But in addition to that we found a set of keys. By mistake the keys to the apartment where they were staying had fallen into the bag. So it was a good thing my aunt told me to take a look at what they gave, so that we found the keys and she was able to take it with her and return them.

Another thing I haven’t written about in a long time is the parsha. I had stopped in middle of the year so that I can continue from that point in the next year. But I love reading about the parsha, and learning from the chumash. So I was very happy to find out that SN’s brother writes up a weekly e-mail with divrei torah on the parsha.

Over Shabbos it was nice to hear people telling me that they had a great time at the vort, and that they were happy meeting SN.

Mazel Tov!

As most of you already know from Facebook/Twitter, I got Engaged last night! I really can’t believe it, it went by so fast B”H. I was so happy to meet my Chosson’s family, they are the most happy, welcoming people I know. It was an amazing feeling to be welcomed into their family.

A lot of “Jewish Geography” took place last night. We found out how 3 of his family members knew 3 of mine, and that we had a mutual friend in common – Auror, who I have to thank so much for being there for me. I also have to Thank my friend “Rain Strap” for helping me with information on “What happens next”, since I’m the first of my siblings to get engaged.

May we continue to hear good news!

View Full Album

My Sukkos Diary 2009

1st Day Chol Hamoed, I had a great time at Hershey Park. I was expecting to see lots of people I knew there, but ended up seeing 3 people I knew. I went on 5 rides there, the lines weren’t so bad. It’s been so long since I went to an amusement Park so I enjoyed all the rides. Seeing kids waiting on line was comforting, knowing if they can handle the roller coasters then so can I!

(I tried to insert JavaScript in the post before, but apparently blogger doesn’t let, so I had to remove it.)

Comet

Skyview

Wild Mouse

Ferris Wheel

Lightning Racer

2nd Day Chol Hamoed, I went with my family to Skver to visit relatives. It was nice when they spoke English for us, so we can understand. We went to one of my father’s cousins house, she has 15 children, all married, and her grand children are married, and some are getting married. One of her grand children was there, she was 18 and getting married to her uncle, similar to the wedding I mentioned before.

There were a bunch of Chassidish men and boys there too, 2nd and 3rd cousins. I was watching them talk in Yiddish and I finally figured out the glasses style. They have 3 different styles. One is a beigish rim around thick classes for children, another is black on the top rim and clear on the bottom rim on big sized glasses for boys and adults; most common, the third is a bigger thicker beige rim for adults, which wasn’t too common.

We sat and talked in their sukkah for 2 hours, they offered us fruits, cakes and drinks. Here are some pictures of the decorations in their sukkah. In Skver, a lot of houses have sukkah’s in their house, seems really convenient and comfortable. Though I wonder if it takes away from the traditional feeling of going outside for sukkos.

If you look on the bottom right side you will see part of a recliner.	If you look on the top right side you will see part of an air conditioner.

We then went to the Palasades Mall. One my fathers cousins in Skver owns a few rides there, and he said we can go on for free. We checked out the Ferris Wheel, but it wasn’t running at the time. So we went to play Laser tag. It was my first time playing Laser tag, it was lots of fun, they had tons of caves and places to hide in. We played a team game, and my team one of course: girl power!

   

We then went to watch a 3D imax “Cloudy with a chance of Meatballs”, it was excellent!

 

What I have to say about it:

1. I noticed a lot of father and son relationships, they weren’t much into the mothers. One father kept telling his son he loves him, another loved his son but didn’t no how to express it, and yet another spoiled his son, the brat, but didn’t know how to love him. It was a family oriented movie, which I liked. It had that loyalty thing, of choosing family over someone else.
   
   
2. I liked how it had techy geeky stuff, I noticed that he always said what he was doing, I figured this is so the kids can understand what’s happening.
   
   
3. I liked how they made the “nerd” be the cool one. That she started out as a pretty girl who would say silly things so that she didn’t sound smart and won’t be made fun of as a nerd, but then when she was excited about something she knew, she would just say it, and then play dumb after. So then the scientist realized she was smart and told her to be herself, and put a pony in her hair, and put glasses on her, and said she was beautiful then.
   
   
4. They were really creative with their play on words, and use of food. I loved the Jello part, where they took into account the substance of the food and then created a function out of it, like the ability to jump on it like a trampoline.
   
   
5. I noticed a lot of food avalanches, with people running away, but yet no one got hurt. That’s what makes it a PG movie. But yet, it makes it unrealistic. There’s only one case of a kid getting sick from eating too much candy, he then gets better with cellery in a second. So that makes it not scary for kids.

3rd day  Chol Hamoed was a really windy day, and our sukkah started to collapse; the door busted, so it was time to take it down before more damage occured.

 

One of the boards even flipped over from the wind while it was on the floor. Good thing we don’t have to eat in the sukkah second days, because now it’s all put away. Good thing I took pictures of the Sukkah before Sukkos.

I then got to do some fun mini high way driving, down curvy roads at 30 mph, and that was my fun for the day. I drove my family to an arcade/ride place. Then later that night we went to see the Simchas Bais Hashoaiva a shul in the neighborhood put together. There was a “fire” man who juggled with fire, and made balloon shapes for the kids. There was singing and dancing and the kids really enjoyed it.

4th day Chol Hamoed, I Drove on my own, for the first time! I took my little sister to a ceramics place, and spent 4 hours there painting. It was buy one get one free, so we both got to paint 2 things. I painted a shoe and a rollerblade.

After the painting, I drove my family to the water to say Tashlich.

Hope you all had a great Chol First Days Sukkos and Chol Hamoed.

Can’t wait for Simchas Torah; Candy!

A Super New Year/ Happy Blogversary

Rosh Hashonah is just around the corner, and I have 2 topics I wanted to write about, and now Thanks to Mike In Midwood, I have a way of including both topics within the meme he has tagged me in. The topics: Rosh Hashonah and My Blogversary!

Here are the rules:

Rule number 1: Read the rules.
Rule number 2: Write one superpower you would like to have and what you would do with it.
Rule number 3: Write why you chose that super power over everything else.
Rule number 4: Tag and link 7 people, and write why you think they will have an interesting meme.
Rule number 5: fix your broken links.

I like this meme since when people tag you, they leave a reason of why they tagged you, so it better gives you an idea of what you should write about. I was tagged by MikeInMidwood, Jacob Da Jew, Jessica and Dude with a Hat.

---

Jessica said the reason why she tagged me:

“I’m hoping that she’ll find a way to tie it into the upcoming holiday”

So that is what I shall do…

A super power I would like to have would be the ability to start fresh after I make a mistake, to press an undo button after I messed up and then to learn from my mistake and correct myself as though I had never done anything wrong.

With this super power, it would cause one to have a wonderful life, you would never get depressed or feel guilty, you would just undo what you have done and redo it the right way so that you feel happy and content with the way your life is turning out. There would be no arguments between people, no hard feelings. Usually when a person makes a mistake they regret it afterwards, so having this second chance will probably cause people to end up doing the right thing.

If you think about it, this is what Rosh Hashonah is about, we get a fresh new start, our slates are wiped clean, we get a second chance. Comes Yom Kippur, we admit what we did wrong, feel regret, and then take upon ourselves to not do it again, and then magic, our sins are forgiven and it as though we started new. We also ask people for forgiveness, which helps our relationships with others to be fixed, and it clears up miscommunications.

With Rosh Hashonah comes my blogversary for this blog, the English dates don’t match up since it goes according to the Hebrew calendar, but since it’s a Jewish blog, I thought it would be befitting to choose a Hebrew date. If you missed last years Rosh Hashonah post, here it is, it includes a video I had made.

---

MikeInMidwood said the reason why he tagged me:

because she usually writes Meme's and seems to love them, and I think she'll enjoy this one. Also because there are many people who others don't link that she usually does.

So that is what I shall do…

1. Ricki’s Mom – I wonder if she’ll tie it in to her daughter Ricki.
2. NMF #7 – I wonder if she’ll tie it in to Israel.
3. %Shocked% – Looking forward to some philosophical/psychological outlook on a super power.
4. Batya – Because she’s great with KCC and JPIX and HH, I figure she might want to give this a shot too.
5. LE7 – She’s a new blogger, so maybe this will cause her to post more, and get her some more traffic. I’m sure her post will be creative and entertaining.
6. Super Raizy – She’s already got it in her name. Looking forward to some “Mommy Super power”.
7. Lion Of Zion – Maybe he would tie it into Jr, whom I enjoy reading about.

---

May this year bring only good things and happiness to all of us!