Recieving Sarah back home, receiving the Torah, and spreading my wings, but I won't be far.

We are just coming off a wonderful holiday of Shavuot. It's the holiday when we celebrate receiving the Torah on mount Sinai from Moses. I went to a class about it a few days beforehand, and learned that a person who hears the ten commandments chanted from the Torah on Shavuot, it's like they are at Mount Sinai.

I rushed to shul to get there in time. When I heard the ten commandments, with everyone standing, and the Torah reader chanting strongly and slowly, evenly, I got chills all over. It was just awesome. Hopefully I got the kids into it, too; Shifra was on one side of me, and Azriel on the other. I kept pointing out the amazing stuff in the Torah reading, and drew them in with me.

They had already been drawn in, though, with Robert teaching them until the wee hours in the night about the book of Ruth. Robert said they learned and were interested the whole time. I am so proud of all of them! The older kids stayed up and learned Torah way into the night, with Dov staying up all night. There is a tradition to do that, because we are readying ourselves to receive the Torah, and sleeping puts us in a different state of mind.

Anyway, it was a great chag (holiday), Baruch Hashem.

I also will mention that it was Shavuot, six years ago, that I was returned home, fixed, but yet broken at the same time, from the hospital after surviving NF a month beforehand. The private ambulance brought me home on exactly the day which Shavuot was to begin that evening. It was the end of the Omer period, and the receiving of the Torah. I received my own personal Torah teachings, over the years after, slowly. I was in the hospital almost the entire Omer period. Such vivid memories. I found some pictures from that day from the Caring Bridge website:

coming home, smiling, after it all.

My little red head Shifra running out to meet me. She is still like this, but now she is 10.

My parents, who were with me during the entire ordeal, holding Azriel, who is holding onto blue doggie, and me trying to connect to him. He was 1 1/2.

put into my own bed, where it all started, gurney back in ambulance... I remember that so well. Relief and raw fear mixed together.

After being drawn back to that intense time, it is hard to switch subjects, for me, anyway. So many feelings wash over me as I see that original journal, and the pictures, and reading a bit. I am going to have to read it lots more in the coming weeks and months; my book wants it's words.

Here I have to say that I will be sort of signing off for a while. I have some important writing projects to do, and I need to spend my writing energies on them. One of the projects is time sensitive, and the sooner the better. And yes, these projects are all stemming from being an NF survivor. One of the projects is, of course, the book I am writing.

I really need and love writing the blog, so if I have that need, I will take the time to update when I need to blog. I probably will blog in the latter half of next week, reporting on my appointment with my hip orthopedist. That will be the appointment when I learn the results of the MRA (that awful test I went through about three weeks ago), and discuss the issues regarding surgery on my right hip because of impingement (or PVNS, if that is what has been found. Let's pray that isn't the case.)

Another reason I won't be "around" so much is that traveling is in the air. :)
Tomorrow Robert & I leave for three days and two nights in a little sweet bed & breakfast near the lake Kinneret (sea of Galilee). We got a deal for this trip, and the deal ends soon, so we took this weekend to go. The kids stay at home, being cared for and loved by Robert's cousin Howard. We are so looking forward!

Next week we are going to be up north again- this time with everyone. There will be one day in Rosh Pina, and from Wednesday night until Saturday night we'll be in Modi'in, celebrating my nephew's BarMitzvah with Robert's brother's family.

All good things, thank Gd. I will take resting time when I need.

I don't *want* to put the blog aside, but I have some immediate priorities to fulfill. Also, after the most pressing writing, I want very much to get my book worked on. It has to replace blogging. But as I said, I will update when I am just bursting and miss you guys!

So, bye for now!
So looking forward to our getaway! We leave tomorrow (Thursday). We may even turn off cell phones. Temporarily, of course. :)

I'll be back.... you can count on it.
Please write to me whenever you want. I thrive on human contact.

If anyone wants to be a guest writer here, I am open to that. All I ask is that the content be in the spirit of the blog. Please let me know if you are interested in publishing here, and I will give you the keys to the sacred door.