Passover

This week Jews are celebrating one of the most festive holidays of Passover. It lasts a whole week, with its first and last days being more holy and the days in between being less so.

This year, David's mother Joan and her husband Pesach are visiting Haifa for the holiday, so we see them every evening for dinner in their hotel. It's been nice to catch up with Joan. It seems like Joan is putting up with a lot with Pesach these days. He's eighty six and his mental strength has been going down.

Yesterday was really fun. David and I met up with a professor visiting at David's university. His name is Andrew, and he is a very interesting guy. Then in the afternoon we took Ocean to the beach, which we all loved.

Today Miriam and her family came to stay with us until Friday. I'm really loving this week.

Low Blood-pressure Ruined My Day... or Maybe I'm Not Strong Enough?

I was planning to go to Tel Aviv today to look at some of the photos that I did makeup for and make decisions on the prints. Plus my friend Paola will be leaving Israel in a few weeks to give birth in Milano where she comes from, so I was looking forward to meeting up with her while I'm in Tel Aviv as well.

This morning when I got up, though, I didn't feel great. I guess I didn't drink all the water that I needed to drink to keep up my blood pressure last night. I drank at least two liters though! I felt faint and hard of breathing. Since my last fainting spell, I'm a bit afraid of doing things when I feel this way. Doctors tell me this issue is temporary which will last only as long as the pregnancy, and that it's much better that the blood pressure be low and not high. So I'm not worried. Just annoyed.

Here in Israel, women are much tougher than the women I see outside. They manage so much while they're pregnant. Almost all the women I know here continue to work until the moment they're due to give birth while looking after their household and taking care of their existing children. Without the help of nannies.

Well developed daycare system in the country seems to make the matter easier. You can bring your child to a daycare as early as when the baby is three months old. But all in all, I think it takes a very strong woman to be able to leave your baby to someone else when the baby's so so small.

The point is, I feel kind of stupid that I'm not managing as well as these strong women I see around.

Pesach Is Coming

Passover is approaching and it's time for cleaning. As some of you know, I have some problem with cleaning the house. I didn't grow up cleaning after myself, and when I became an adult and had to run my own place, I had a full-time helper who took care of every household duties for me... until I came to live in Israel, that is.

The fact of the matter is I HATE dirty places, but it it turns out I hate more the tiding up, so a lot of times I find myself not so pleased with my existence at home. Only when I couldn't take it anymore I get up and start cleaning and organizing the house until it's anally clean. (Wow, that sounds really kind of crazy...)

It's probably a good thing that I will be forced to clean this week since it's important to keep up cleanliness when the baby arrives. But then, how clean is really clean? I can start getting really mad and spend all day doing it, you see. The thought of spending hours on that kind of mundane fact of life as cleaning truly depresses me, though. I think I'll finally have to give in to hiring help, after months of telling myself that I can be self-sufficient and frugal especially since I'm not working so much.