Jewish Musings, Monday, September 9, 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

And for those of you that stop by to read this thread without posting — you are welcome to, but you are also welcome to chime in. Don’t be shy!

[peachymom1]

Good morning everyone! Today is National Ants on a Log Day. I didn’t know what Ants on a Log were until I had kids. Whoever thought of them was a genius – my kids would never eat anything as boring as celery stalks, but put some peanut butter and “ants” (raisins) on them, and voila, something fun!

When my daughter was turning four, we had a birthday party for her in the park, because we lived in a small upstairs apartment at the time, and our downstairs neighbor complained about any noise our kids made. I didn’t have birthday parties as a kid, and I didn’t really know how to make one. So one of my sisters helped me. I don’t have much artistic ability or imagination, so we borrowed a book from the library that had games and party ideas for simple kids’ parties, and it turned out wonderfully.

We made Ants on a Log, we frosted and decorated plain cookies, we sang songs, played Musical Chairs, and had a pinata (I borrowed the pinata idea from a party DD had gone to). The pinata was by far the favorite activity – the kids didn’t care about getting the candy out of the pinata; they just wanted to whack it with the plastic bat! If you ever want to roll on the ground laughing, just watch a bunch of 4-year-olds trying to smack a pinata! They didn’t have much skill in aiming, so they missed it most of the time, but they didn’t care, because the fun was in swinging at it as hard as they could, whether they hit it or not! They’d laugh their heads off and then line up to try it again! They also loved the candy, once they finally broke the pinata open, but it was kind of an afterthought, after the excitement of wielding the bat. Great entertainment!

I was initially nervous about trying to make a children’s birthday party without any experience, but it was a great success, and we even did it again a couple of years later for our sons. Have you ever taken a leap of faith to try to do something you didn’t know how to do, with minimal guidance? How did it turn out? What did you learn from the experience?

[hollygail]

Great story about the pinata in particular, Peachy! Thanks for the smiles.

One thing stands out for me about trying something new. I have to admit I don't know exactly HOW new it was, but here goes. As an undergraduate, I hung out with the political kids. Not Democrats / Republicans, but the kids involved in the Civil Rights movement and the anti-Vietnam war movement, that kind of politics. At one point, the department where most of the Ed majors hung out did not renew someone's contract; this was someone who hadn't yet gained tenure. The students called a protest and a couple of us went too. They just hung out around the steps of the library for 5 or 10 minutes and then started to leave. At that point, Andy, someone I'm still in contact with (I think I've mentioned that once every 6 or 8 weeks my undergrad buddies and I get together on a Zoom call; one of us lives in Toronto, one in Munich, two in Massachusetts, only one of us still lives in the NYC area, I'm the California contingent, and Andy lives near Rochester, MN) said to me words to this effect: "Holly, we can't let them just leave! I'll get their attention, you do the talking." I don't know how much time I had to consider it; he got their attention and I started to talk about not renewing the teacher's contract was not the issue but rather a symptom of a larger issue and went on about how "they" took advantage of "us" and that it was a bigger problem than just losing this one popular teacher and so on and on. I don't remember that I ever addressed a whole group of people before, at least not people I didn't know, about such a political point as what's wrong with the "system." I was shaking a little bit afterwards although I didn't notice any nervousness while I was talking. I think that experience qualifies as having taken a leap of faith... One thing I learned was that I have the ability to address large groups of people even if I don't know them. In later years, I continued to address groups of people, whether about rape awareness and prevention (volunteering on the Speakers Bureau of what at the time was called the Tucson Rape Crisis Center) or any other "talks" I've given, and certainly helps with my teaching kids (and adults) about Judaism and Hebrew and bringing them to Torah.

[brgmsn]

I got laid off as an RN at age 40. I had gone to nursing school, not college. I found a job at a school, but needed my bachelor's. I had never worked with children, never worked day shift, and never in an office, not had I gone to college. I had to do all 3. At the same time being a mom to 3 teens. I not only did it,, but loved school as an adult and went on to my MSN and started teaching at the same school from which I graduated, while being the school nurse at various schools. Wound up hating little kids but loving high schoolers. I had such empathy for those students in my classes because I had been them so recently. I loved doing both till I retired. At one point there were 4 of us in college at the same time in our family. That was huge and I never thought I could do any of it. Till I had no choice.

[gazelle18]

I like to try new recipes. Every new cooking endeavor is a leap of faith; you have to trust what the recipe author says, make adjustments on the fly, and then hope it all comes together. Granted, the world will not end if my soufflé falls or my cookies crumble. But I have invested money, time, and effort on a new creation, so there is certainly some “drama” in the process. I just found a recipe for salmon filets coated in an “everything bagel” concoction. The cooked filets sit atop a sauce made of cream cheese, capers, and dill. I’ll report back after I’ve made it.

[louise]

I'll follow Lynn on this, I mean using cooking. I still sometimes make a recipe for this first time for company or to bring to the synagogoue and sometimes it goes off the rails and you have to just figure something out to make it work!