Jewish Musings, Sunday, September 8, 2024

[peachymom1]

What’s on your mind — how to make kugel? This week’s Torah reading? Life goals? Prayer? We are all engaged in weight loss/weight maintenance journeys and we are all Jewish or at least interested in Judaism. We like to eat, we like to discuss. It is our goal here to provide each other support on our journeys, to share experiences, to call on our rich cultural heritage and texts, and to help each other grow spiritually.

Some of us take weekly turns starting the thread:

Holly
Lee
Louise
Lynne
Peachy

[peachymom1]

Good morning and shavua tov! Yesterday was National Hummingbird Day. My mom loved hummingbirds and collected all kinds of hummingbird things, like t-shirts, hats, key chains, mugs, earrings – you name it. Anytime she saw something with a hummingbird theme, she wanted it.

Many years ago, DH used to enjoy reading the Garfield comic in the newspaper, and from this, his mother deduced that he would love anything and everything Garfield, like my mom was with hummingbirds. (I’m not sure why MIL never simply asked DH if he liked other Garfield stuff.) MIL inundated DH with all kinds of Garfield tokens, and would cut out pictures of Garfield paraphernalia from catalogs and magazines, to show him what he could be buying for himself as well. He finally had to sit her down and tell her that all he really liked was the comic, and to forget about everything else. He had to tell her more than once.

Do you have something you really like, that you either collect or use as a theme in your home, or maybe a room in your home? I’ve known people who decorated their kitchens in themes like owls, penguins, ducks, etc. One of my sons decorated his bedroom with a math theme – a really cool clock with equations on it, even bedsheets with formulas and numbers scattered on it. We know a couple whose entire house is decorated with Disney stuff, from clocks to towels to the handrail on their staircase, and everything in between. We went to a bridal shower at their house once, and they gave us a tour. DD35 was at that shower as well, and she was absolutely over the moon – she’s the one who walks with DH in the CHOC Walk at Disneyland for charity every year.

I admit I love all kinds of Harry Potter stuff, but I don’t like to collect things that just gather dust. I created a costume as a Hogwarts student by ordering a black choir robe from Amazon and having a Gryffindor logo sewed onto it. I also bought a Gryffindor tie for a few bucks, and all I have to do is wear a white shirt with the tie, under the choir robe, and I’m set. I have a Harry Potter snow globe that I got as a gift, a couple of Hogwarts mugs I use for tea and soup (one is in the shape of a cauldron), and a Harry Potter letter opener, which I do actually use. That’s about it. Oh, except that of course we have multiple sets of all the books, and the movies too.

How about you?

[louise]

I like hamsas and am partial to pomegranates as well so while I don't have huge collections of either I continue to be attracted to those motifs. I have a talit with pomegranate embroidery, a challah cover, a napkin holder, earrings and probably more. Hamsas too many to list both as wall art and jewelry - even some t-shirts too. My XBFF used to buy me anything she saw with a Jewish theme. That I actually found annoying e.g. bubbie and zadie pot holders that were so intricate they could not be used.

[hollygail]

I'm not sure I ever "collected" themed items... You all know that when I started seeing too gray hairs for my liking, I started using a purple dye which didn't change my brown hair much but did change the gray ones. I did purple until I had more gray than brown (now). I came to realize after I stopped dying my hair that I had in fact accumulated a number of purple items (mostly clothing, but also a few kitchen implements). However, I didn't go anywhere near as overboard as your MIL seems to have done, Peachy.

I have gone through periods of purchasing more burgundy colored clothing than any other color, and then there was a gray period too, but frankly, neither time was absolutely all of my new clothing either of those colors.

As far as Judaica is concerned, I seem to have more than my share of items. Some I've purchased myself, but many have been given to me as gifts (many from the families of former students).

If I ever had a real weakness for one category of things, it would have to be books. I probably told you that several years before the pandemic I went through my book shelves and culled out something like 6 or 8 (fairly large) boxes of cookbooks. I gave them to a semi-retired friend of DS's who was home more than his husband was and he was the main cook in the house (and I much later found out he'd been a sous chef at restaurants). (I suggested to him that he donate the ones he didn't want.) One I came across that I recognized from when I was a newlywed was titled "365 Ways to Make Hamburger" which I'd used a lot as a young married (I was still an undergrad and yes, we ate a lot of low-cost foods; in those days, chopped chuck went on sale for $.39/lb) (and yes, I can still remember the days when I was 18 and 19).

Off to shower, dress for Sunday School (clean jeans, T-shirt with the logo of the school on it for the first day of class), make and eat breakfast, and wait for the text from my carpool buddy that she's left her house for mine (her car has REALLY good air conditioning; mine's A/C is crappy).

[lee058]

Good morning everybody. Hope you are all well and SAFE! Please pray for Israel.

Re today's topic: I collect crafts of all sorts. I have baskets, wood carvings, Panamanian molas (lots of these), painted animals, etc. etc. etc. And, of course, we also have tons of books!

Have a peaceful day, Lee

[gazelle18]

I’m not a collector, because as Peachy said, those things would just gather dust. However, if I were, I’d collect things with daisy motifs. I adore daisies. No idea why. My favorite earrings sort of look like daisies and I wear them all the time. When DH gives me flowers, they always include daisies.