Too cool for blogging about. Today I started a new blog called Midlife Panache. After 10 years of blogging as Midlife Singlemum, it's time for a change. I've explained it all on the new blog. Just click on the link.  Thank you for sticking with me all these years while I muddled through single motherhood. Thank you for the comments and the likes on facebook. I'm not exactly at the empty nest stage yet but DD turned 12 and no longer wants to be featured on a blog.  It's time to blog about me and the big wide world outside. Please come over and check it out. See you on the ..read more

Tonight is the eighth and final night of Chanuka. It's the Jewish winter festival of lights. We added presents because everyone around us was doing presents at this time of year so why not? There's no law against giving presents.  Like every religious festival in every religion everywhere, there is an historical element, a religious or spiritual element, and a Pagan element connected to the natural world.  The Pagan element is obvious. It's the deep mid-winter, around the winter solstice, and a time when we desperately need uplifting with a festival of lights and stodgy comfort food ..read more

It wasn't what we had planned by a long shot. However, a series of intimate events, which by their size hardly warrant being called events, turned out to be fun and ticked most of the boxes. DD's class capsule (bubble) of half her class meet up in the school playground once a week for an activity. It's her first year in middle school and after two months of remote learning they realized that some students knew nobody in the class. The outdoor lessons, though educational, are primarily a social exercise to help them make friends.  I secretly arranged with the teacher to bring in cupcakes ..read more

I'd like to say, "trying to stay healthy," but I'm way beyond that and now into "trying to get healthy again."  This week, after receiving two messages from blog-friends about my absence,  I realised that you can't just disappear from the blogosphere with no word of explanation to your blog friends.  Apart from not having much to write about due to the current restrictions on going anywhere, seeing only a small circle of people, working from home, etc... I've been reluctant to write anything about how I'm organising the apartment, how we binge watch tv series together ..read more

This is Mars with a crappy camera.  To my naked eye twas beautiful. And red. Late this afternoon DD's class teacher whatsapped a poster. In a nutshell, the planet Mars is usually 228 million km away from Earth. Tonight it is only 62 million km from Earth and is visible to the naked eye. The next time this will happen is in 2035.  The poster said to look to the south. I went onto the balcony soon after nightfall, and I looked west. I caught a sliver of the southern view but my balcony essentially faces west. When I bought this apartment 20 years ago, I had no idea that I was ..read more

I re-covered the sofa cushions at no expense. Time for a Reasons 2B Cheerful. No linky this week but it's time to look on the bright side of not being struck down so far and having all this extra free time.  1 DD's Remote Learning We've only had a couple of days of distance or remote learning but so far she's doing it responsibly and independently. I'm reading about families with lots of younger children who require constant supervision while the parents are supposed to be working from home. And how one family computer has to accommodate zoom lessons for four children all schedul ..read more

I've not blogged much for a couple of months because I didn't feel like it. We don't go anywhere and it's been over 30 deg C for the whole summer and the mercury's still up there. On the one hand, we're fed up at home (fed up in every sense of the words) but on the other hand, I'm thankful that I've not had to go out to work or anywhere in this heat.  Israel is entering its second lockdown starting tomorrow at 2 pm, the eve of Rosh Hashana - the Jewish New Year. We got the rules a few days ago and they were vague enough that, as someone wrote on fb, you can't leave your house unless you ..read more

First day of 7th Grade. This is all I got. I only blogged once in August because there was little to say. We watched Netflix and You Tube, we had dinner a couple of times with friends, DD went to one Bat Mitzva party (a picnic in the Botanical Gardens), she had a friend over a couple of times, and we got fat. That was our summer. Reason 2B Cheerful - we didn't get corona.  Today is my birthday. I'm nearer 50 than 40 (and always will be). So that's one Reason 2B Cheerful. And another is that we're invited out to dinner tonight.  DD is back at school for four days a week for ..read more

? In 1952 Stephen Potter (1900 -1969) published the infamous guides to Lifemanship and specifically One-upmanship. On holiday with a friend, we played several rounds of backgammon in the hotel lounge and I won. "You're very competitive," she observed, "I never realised that about you before." Say it with a smile and it's not an insult right? She lost at backgammon that night but she won at life. Another time a friend was telling me about a wonderful place she'd visited on her travels. It was the most spectacular scenery in the world. She ended her description with, "I don't care how man ..read more

I am no worrier. I've lived in Israel for a very long time. I have friends. I even have childhood friends who also moved here. I work, I bought an apartment, I did IVF and had a baby, I've been a single mother for almost 12 years. And all this in a language I'm not 100% comfortable with. I hate the weather in the summer which is far too hot for me, and getting hotter apparently. I hate the national pass-time of hiking in the countryside because I can't see any countryside - only Mediterranean scrub. Otoh, I love it that we live 45 minutes from the Mediterranean. In theory. We're actually no ..read more