Passover is coming and as usual, I’m both excited and nervous about it. Excited because Passover is one of my favorite holidays of the year. Nervous because it falls on me to set the overall message and presentation of the celebration.

When is Passover 2009? Dates of Jewish Holidays – Pesach Date

In 2009 Passover begins at sundown on Wednesday April 8 and ends at nightfall on Thursday April 16 in the Diaspora (Wednesday April 15 in Israel).

Because we are not Jewish, we weren’t raised with any concept of Passover. Nor do we have years of family tradition surrounding it to adhere to. Instead, we’ve kind of made it up as we went along. You could maybe identify “seasons” to our Passover celebration.

For instance when the kids were small, it definitely took on a character of being geared around them specifically. Then there were several years where we celebrated it with our whole Sunday School/youth group class. (Those were more like an exercise in controlled chaos.)

Last year I pretty much threw out most of what we’d done in the past and drew upon elements and traditions that I’d only just learned about. So this year I’ve yet to decide whether this year too is to be an upheaval, whether to return to past traditions, or whether to build on what was started last year.

Each year I try to take stock of where the family is at in every facet and then go to God with it to determine what needs to be emphasized that year. Its an awesome and humbling responsibility to undertake. Particularly if you try ti get real honest with where the family is at at that specific point in time.

For me Passover is as much about the preparation as it is about the celebration itself. But maybe that’s exactly how it should be. I nervously await where this year’s might go.

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The Dirty Truths No One Shares with New Moms | Blog Nosh Magazine

I thought back to all the times I’d tried to warn her and I knew I was partially to blame. It’s true. We don’t tell our pregnant friends everything, not because we don’t think they can take it, not because we don’t think they’ll believe us, but because it hurts to relive it and it’s easier to joke about sleepless nights than to go into details about how hard it really is.

When It Isn’t Really Senility – The New Old Age Blog – NYTimes.com

Reversible causes of dementia include the side effects of many medications. Ditropan is only the most recent addition to the list, occasioned in part by a study by U.S. Navy neurologist Dr. Jack Tsao involving 870 men and women with an average age of 75. The subjects, who were all Catholic priests, nuns and brothers, were followed for almost eight years. At a 2008 meeting of the American Academy of Neurology, Dr. Tsao reported that those who were taking anticholinergic drugs — a class that includes not only Detrol but also drugs to treat hypertension, asthma and Parkinson’s disease — had a 50 percent higher rate of cognitive decline than those who were not.

BabasFarmLife

If you have lost your job during this economy slump and are wondering how to bring in cash to make ends meet, I may just have the solution for you. You probably have things laying around the house that you don’t need, or have never even used. Perhaps you have collectables taking up space or old CD’s or DVD’s that you no longer listen to or watch; or maybe you received one too many toaster oven’s or coffeemakers for
wedding gifts and not sure what to do with them; or too many designer purses in your closet?

Your Impact Matters

My passions are my children, my home and our beautiful Earth. On these pages you’ll find my personal recipes, crafts I do with my children, homeschooling information for the beginner, and homesteading advice.

THE DAILY BLONDE: The Luck of the Irish?

I am not Irish? Come on, now. I have freckles. Freckles mean I’m Irish, right? I also like cabbage and corned beef. Come to think of it, I eat anything put in front of me, so that doesn’t really mean much. But I have freckles. Not as many as my little auburn haired daughter, but I have them. I also buy Lucky Charms (because they are magically delicious) and I believe in pots of gold at the end of rainbows. Just haven’t located the rainbow yet.

Down with Facebook!

For the five or six Amish shut-ins who may not yet have heard of this scourge (your tenacious ignorance is to be admired, and I’d immediately friend you if I was into Facebook and you had electricity), Facebook is an online community where colleagues, friends, long-lost acquaintances, friends of friends or long-lost acquaintances, and perfect strangers find and “friend” each other based on their real or perceived
affinity. They then have access to each other’s web pages, and
consequently to each other’s lives, quirks, photos, jottings,
oversharings, and mental disorders, as well as to those of the
ever-expanding universe of their friends’ circles, thus increasing the likelihood that you will either embarrass yourself or be embarrassed by someone whose life would never otherwise intersect with yours. (Right about now, a Facetard is ginning up an angry letter to the editor saying this would not be the case if you know how to control your privacy settings. Save the geek speech for your Facebook friends, Facetard, I already got my eight hours sleep.)

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First, there’s absolutely no need to freak out if you’re not the valedictorian or salutatorian of your high school.

Did you know that the majority of students admitted to Harvard and Stanford aren’t valedictorian, either?

Here’s what you need to know about your high school GPA and class rank to get into any Ivy League school:

1) It’s ok to have a poor freshman year GPA. What’s important is to show an UPWARD TREND – improvement over time

2) As important as your GPA is your transcript and the classes you take. Be sure to take the HARDEST CLASSES AVAILABLE – APs, IB, etc

3) Make your junior year count. It’s the one that Admissions Committees focus the most on – you want your best grades in this year

4) Don’t forget about your SAT score. It counts as much (and sometimes even more) than your high school grades

5) As long as you’re in the top 5% of your high school class, you’ll be fine – this varies by school so if you’re at an easy school, the bar will be higher

By no means am I recommending you do just the BARE MINIMUM. You should always aim to be valedictorian.

I went through this process awhile back and was accepted to 6 Ivy League schools and Stanford, so I speak from experience about this process. I wrote a book on college admissions tips called Hopeless to Harvard.

Follow my 5 critical steps above, and you’ll be a strong candidate. Focus your energies on your passions – whether that’s sports, science, or social studies.

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Funny how different seasons of emotions hit each individual at a different time. Must be some sort of trigger that sets it off. I got hit with empty nest type pangs last time our oldest left home. My wife is going through the same thing this time.

Understand we aren’t even empty nesters yet at all. We’ve still got a sixteen year old at home with a couple years of high school left. We have two in college only sixty miles away that make frequent visits if only to do their wash, raid the fridge, and hang out with their little brother. Regardless, family life and family dynamics just aren’t what they were when we had a house full.

So I guess what we’re talking about is pre empty nest syndrome. Or perhaps we are just seeing the light at the end of the tunnel and projecting what that day will be like.

Its not the big things you see yourself missing either. Its the spontaneous little conversations that might or might not be about anything consequential at all. The ad hoc, spur of the moment Starbucks runs. Picking up on all the moment to moment changes.

I guess what I’m talking about is the ongoing flow of life. Without daily contact family life quickly becomes a series of snapshots: This is what I did last week. Here is what I’ll be doing next week. Instead of the movie like constant stream of updates that comes with living together.

My wife and I always laugh about a catch phrase of our generation; “quality time.” The wife always hypothosizes that the notion was invented by over busy, career driven parents or perhaps divorced ones.

Instead, we always valued quantity time. The big things, the vacations, the events are great. However its the little in between things that act as the glue to keep relationships together.

But that phase of life seems to be coming to an end for us now. With all four kids heading in different directions, there can’t possibly be that same level of contact with each and every one of them. And maybe that’s just how it should be.

We’ll move on to whatever it is lies ahead. What other options are there? But forgive us a moment if we mourn the ending of what is passing away.

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