Winding... up?

You know, you'd think that with placement over, things would be winding down in our house.  But no.  Instead, it's a whole new set of (wonderful) issues.  Jonathan's currently working on the rental lease for our soon-to-be tenants when we move out.  We've made reservations for him to go to Sacramento to look for a place to live.  We've finalized moving plans, and know who/when/where will be leaving.  We're sorting through material objects and donating things we don't want to take with us.  And in between, I've actually had an awful lot of writing to do... my senior sermon, my "ordination biography" to be put in the ordination service booklet, two essay contest entries.  Plus work and children, of course. :)

The weather has been so beautiful that we've been spending lots of time outside.  The kids and I had a playdate in the park on Saturday, which was lovely.  On Sunday the kids and I went to the JCC for a viewing of "Shalom Sesame"'s Passover special (think Grover in Israel).  They also had a fire truck outside and inflatables (the official term for fancy bounce houses), so Xander was over the moon.  Afterwards we went to McDonald's with Xander's friend Brian and his mother.  She made my day when she told me, again, how much she enjoyed December's Hanukkah party.  "It was so educational," she said, "and the baked goods!  It was all homemade.  You outdid Martha Stewart!"  I then had to tell her that as much as I wanted to take credit, it was JONATHAN who outdid Martha Stewart.  And it was even funnier because he wasn't with us that whole morning.  Guess where he was?  

The kitchen.  

A friend of ours is a professional baker, and while the kids and I were out Jonathan arranged for her to come over and show him how to make challah.  They had a great time, and best of all, the house smelled fantastic!  

Three braids on the left, six braids on the right.

Close-up, because it was just so pretty!  We've eaten one challah so far, and I have to admit, it's probably the best loaf I've ever tasted.

Oh!  Good news for me I can share.  I'm in academic awe of this one scholar, Tal Ilan.  She writes in my area of interest exactly, and I used five (six?) of her books in my thesis bibliography.  Well, I decided to cold-call her (cold-email, really), and I wrote her a fan letter, telling her all about how I admire her work and giving her a quick and dirty summary of my thesis.  She wrote back and we've struck up a correspondence!  And the best part: she's the editor of a scholarly journal, and told me that if I wanted to condense part of my thesis into an article, she'd consider it for publication!  Cool, huh?  It's gonna take me a while to fix it up, but I'm really excited by the possibility.

In honor of writing, you should click on this: an NPR article on what Shakespeare's works would have sounded like in his day.  The article has links to audio files, the accent is amazing.  It's like a blend of all British accents that I know, and the written words actually rhyme when it's said the way it's supposed to be.


And I shall close with pictures of downtime.  Here Simcha was the focus of the cuddles:

Xander using him as a pillow while Ari laughs.

Ari giving him his version of a hug while Xander strokes/pulls his tail.  Ari likes the cats so much better than Xander does, you can tell already.

The look on Simcha's face says it all.