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Winter Break

Well, it doesn't start until tomorrow afternoon; but I needed a title for my blog, so there it is.

OK, some updates:

Mazal Tov to my oldest brother, who just had his third child (a girl). He's living in Israel and things between us are complicated, so I haven't spoken to him yet. I did send off an email....
Stop judging me, please.

We just got our driveway redone last/this week. It was an expensive and frustrating experience. I never realized just how convenient our driveway was until those guys dug it up and spent a week and a half putting it back together.
It was also one of those situations where - against my better judgment - we hired a "local" company (see: Eruv List) to do the job. It was never really clear to me what was going to happen and when. We never signed a contract and the work took longer than we had originally intended. It was a stupid move (I watch a lot of those Judge shows and I should now better), but I figured I could trust the guy.
Well, luckily, I could. Despite delays and some anxious moments, the job got done (although The clean up left much to be desired).
Live and learn.
We still haven't moved the cars back into the driveway, though. My wife pointed out the irony in re-doing a driveway that we don't use any more, but I just want to wait a little while longer to make sure that everything is dry and ready for the cars again.
And just before I drop that topic, I'd like to thank my father-in-law and his wife for their assistance in this whole matter.

I have also entered a new phase of my life as I just sent off a check for my first ever life insurance policy. I am now officially worth more dead than alive. Fortunately I have a very loving wife who is not too into material things (aside from diamonds and jewelry), so I think I should be OK. But it was definitely weird coming up with a dollar value for myself and everything I own and owe. I also had this paranoia that the whole time I was waiting for the policy to kick in, something bad was going to happen to me (I always fear irony).

On a lighter note, my daughter continues to grow and amaze us...
She goes to a babysitter and one of the other girls there is named Michal. She has difficulty pronouncing the Semitic "ch", so she whenever she talked about this girl she would call her "Mishel". Well, this past Friday, after I picked her up from the babysitter, she was in her car seat all the way home saying "Mee-kchal, Mee-kchal" (essentially practicing her "ch"). I was so proud of her and made a really big deal out of the whole thing. I had her try to say "Challah" (which she calls "La-la") and Chanukah (even though the Holiday was over) and kept giving "Hooray"s and promising prizes all the way home. I felt it was such a big step in my daughter's development as a Jew (instead of a Brit Milah?) and I really was excited.
Of course, when my wife came home I was bursting to tell her the great news, so I animatedly related the experience to her.
Her response? "Oh yeah. She's been doing that for a couple of days now. No big deal.
NO BIG DEAL!?!?!

I wonder how she'll be at my daughter's wedding (yeah, it was a nice affair, but no biggie).

But to get back to my original blog title:
I'm sure you're all wondering what I'll be doing over break. So far the schedule looks like this:

  • Finish "Synagogues Project" for COJS (there's a lot of code there and I'm really not interested in explaining it all to you right now. But when it's done, I'll tell you all about it).
  • My brother and his wife and daughter will be coming for a visit on Sunday. We haven't seen them since... the summer?... so that should be nice.
  • On Christmas, my daughter's babysitter is taking the day off and my wife has to work (ca you believe that? Who the hell works on Christmas? I mean, you might not celebrate it, but it is a freaking Federal holiday!) so I'm on full-day duty. Yikes. I hope my daughter survives the experience.
  • We're heading to Toronto for the weekend before New Years. We're driving (please no blizards). Yikes. I hope I survive the experience.
If I don't blog before then, I'd like to wish everyone a Merry Winter Break and a Happy Winter Break (that's what we call it at my school).

Comments

Shira and David said…
What did you do with all of "your" cars when you were having the driveway done? And who the heck repaves their driveway in the winter!!!

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