Further Adventures In the Shabbat RV 2.0

So...the new Shabbat RV, version 2.0 is...BIG. We're talking, airhorns and air brakes big.  The thing is probably larger than many Israeli apartments.  Mr. Safek hunted down our new Shabbos abode in between the Pesach Yom Tovim and then purchased it the day after Passover, just in time for Shabbos. In retrospect, this may not …

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Yom HaShoah

"G-d is in the rain." It's a line from one of my favorite movies, which came out several years ago, but I found it poignant for reasons that had little to do with its use in the film.  Rain has always been a comfort to me, the child of a farmer who would worry over …

It All Begins In Darkness

A non-Jewish coworker once asked me why Shabbat and our holidays all begin at sundown.  My first response was that in the Jewish calendar, days begin at sundown, but after he happily accepted that easy answer, I thought about it a bit and realized his question was actually a pretty profound one. In the Western …

Eruv Shabbos, the World Inhales

It's so still outside that it's worth the insomnia that kept me up to see it and, more importantly hear it.  Underneath the stillness, there are birds calling to each other, first just the dark blue jays, so much bigger than the jays I grew up with and missing the white.  They're as large as …

When a Doubt Sneaks In…

Things are going VERY well.  We have secured the Shabbat RV 2.0.  We survived Passover and even enjoyed it.  I'm still sick with some kind of cold/flu, but I'm on the mend.  We're even preparing for a weekend trip down to sunny WARM Florida to visit family.  I have no reason to feel the way …

Why Begin Again…Up Here?

In the brief break between the Shabbos and last two Yom Tovs of Pesach...I was cooking up a storm.  My husband's mind, however, was elsewhere.  He'd found IT.  The Shabbat RV 2.0 that he'd been looking for.  And, he needed to wrap things up as much as possible before the Yom Tov began...on what was …

Spring and the Sabbath Always Come

It's sunny and warming up here in the frozen north.  Everywhere I look, the snow is melting and we're seeing patches of green grass underneath, a glimpse of the world that will be ours in just a week or two if things continue.  The world is waking up here after the long winter and birds …

Our First Seders as Guests!

I hope everyone had a wonderful and meaningful Passover.  We had our first Seders as guests.  For years, we've hosted our own Seders with a mix of guests, usually non-Jews, or even just our family and we've enjoyed all of them.  For the songs my husband couldn't remember the tunes for or couldn't communicate those …

Happy Passover!

The sun becomes more and more stubborn here in Alaska and begins to pay less and less attention to the clock.  At this time of year, it begins to become a little disoriented because, besides rising much earlier and setting much later, the light also tends to look like the sunlight of mid afternoon right …

Character at Birth or at Rebirth?

It's almost Shabbat.  I can feel it.  Just a few more hours of work and then I go home to cook and prepare.  We're squeezing in one last Shabbat with regular challah before turning the kitchen over Saturday night and Sunday and my planned meal is basically a comforting carb feast.  I can almost taste …

Religiously Religious?

Sometimes, the strangest questions come to me at the oddest times.  It's a gift really.  In this case, the thought popped into my head as I was preparing to do a sinus rinse.  If you've never done one, they're not the most fun thing to do.  You essentially put saltwater up your nose and it …

The DEATH of the Shabbat RV

No, that picture isn't our RV.  We took the Shabbat RV (version 1.0) into the RV shop to be looked at after the leaks and other problems we experienced trying it out our first Shabbos.  You know it's never good news when the mechanic calls and says, "We stopped working and need you to come …