The Rachel Chronicles

Bye bye bank account :)

My #1 blog reader (mom) said, "what?! you bought a car today, and haven't written about it on your blog?!?"

So...

Look what I bought today!!! (this is like a once-a-decade event for me, so get excited)
It is a two-door, 2008, Toyota Yaris! Isn't she cute? :)

It was the only one that they had left, so I got the color that they had - which is pretty close to what the picture is showing. I'm not sure what I would've picked if I had the choice (Elana was voting for hot pink), but I like this one a lot! (actually, I like it better in person, more so than what the picture is showing) I'll get to pick it up later in the week, perhaps on Thursday, but more likely on Sunday.

I'm still rather overwhelmed by the amount of money that it cost. I tried not to focus on the numbers too much, as I signed next to the X's. But Toyota kindly gave me a $400 graduation rebate. After 5+ years of grad school, its nice to get something out useful out of it. ;)

In all honesty, it doesn't feel so real that I bought a car. In fact, its sort of anti-climactic. I spent a couple of weeks researching cars. My dad spent many hours and energies finding the best deal. And now its over - except that I don't actually have the car yet. So on one hand, it is quite exciting. On the other hand, nothing feels different. I'm assuming that when I drive it home on Sunday, it'll feel different?

Maybe I should have a "Welcome Car" celebration - if I were particularly dorky creative, it could include a naming ceremony and some blessings. Who wants to come see my new baby on Sunday night?? :)

Thanksgiving Word Play

* My apologizes. Only about 3 of you will find this remotely amusing.

Turkey / turkey = country/what we eat today
הודו / הדו = country/what we do today (giving thanks)

It is particularly relevant for today, because India (הוד) is spending the day in turmoil, and my thoughts and prayers are with them - and with all my friends who have lived/visited India, and are especially anguished by this situation.

Happy Thanksgiving

Despite still being annoyed about the car situation (notice how I've mellowed from hatred to mere annoyance?), I want to put that aside for today, and think about the holiday of Thanksgiving.

Thanksgiving is my favorite holiday. It has many of the wonderful components of Jewish holidays, but none of the restrictions. We join together as an extended family, thankful and grateful for our many blessings (some of which will be attending their first Thanksgiving). We'll share a delicious meal together, and then, when the night is over, we'll go home. And I'll go home to Brighton to sleep in my own bed....and wake up to go shopping on Friday! What kind of holiday gets better than that? :)

In all seriousness, particularly given the fragile state of our economy, I think it is easy to feel like we have nothing to be thankful for. And that just isn't so. There are so many blessings in each of our lives, we just need to know how to recognize them. Some of them are right in front of our noses, and some are a little harder to find, but they are there, nonetheless.

I wish you a very happy Thanksgiving, and I hope you are able to recognize all the many blessings in your lives.

Abstinence-only makes me cry

I know, I know, other people might cry at the mere thought of abstinence....but that is a conversation for another time.

For now, all I want to say is that I've spent the evening reading about abstinence-only education, for my thesis. And I want to scream. This sex education allows for only one view-point: that faithful, marital relationships are the possible place for sexual relations. Nonmarital sexual relationships are deadly at worst, unsafe at best.

This view point is dangerous on so many levels. It is unethical to withhold possibly life-saving information from our students. It has been proven that abstinence-only education DOES NOT work. In fact, quite the opposite. Because these students haven't been taught how to make good, safe decisions, more teens taught only abstinence engaged in sexual activity - and do it less safely.

What are we doing to our children?!?!

I still hate NY but I have the car back

...oh, and I have $185 bill for the towing and the $115 bill for being parked in the wrong place (but it sure looked legal to me).

Scott convinced me that after 2 and a half hours of traipsing all over the city to get the car redeemed, I did not actually want to go back and take a picture of the sign - rather, I wanted to let him do it later, when he returns to NY. Uh huh. That's why I don't have a picture of the sign that made it look legal to show you. But that is also why I am sitting comfortably on my couch, not still in the car driving.

Ironically, hours before I discovered the car "stolen" (I prefer the word stolen to towed - since the city stole it from me), I had been in Greenwich, CT subbing for Hebrew school. I worked for 2 hours, and at $50 an hour, I made $100. A few days earlier, my mom reported that the Capitol One credit card gave me a lovely gift of $82, as part of their rewards program.

I was all excited to have an unexpected extra $182 to splurge or put into my savings account (things I often enjoy doing equally). Handing it directly over to the city of New York? Not something I particularly enjoy.

I still plan on contesting the ticket, and trying to get my towing money back (and not having to pay the $115 ticket). We'll see how successful I am at that. I'll keep you posted.

I HATE NY

The city of New York stole my car. They towed it - for no reason!!! I parked legally this morning (at least according to the signs) and when I went to pick it up this evening, it wasn't there anymore.

And then the policeman on the phone was a jerk to me.

And the place they towed it to, is closed for the night.

And it'll cost me $185 tomorrow morning to pick it up.

And I'll have to go to 203rd street to get the car's registration, then go to 38th to pay the money, then go back to 203rd for the car.

And according to the website (but not the woman on the phone), I'll have to pay an extra $20 because the car was kept overnight.

I hate this city.

(on the upside, I do love my brother, who picked me up in a cab, told me it was all going to be ok, and took me back to his apartment for the night. )

41 Pounds

That is how many pounds of unwanted junk mail Americans get, per person, each year. It is a huge waste of paper, money, and, frankly, mailbox space. It clutters our homes, desks, and counters. Wouldn't it be nice to get rid of it?

Here's a website that will help you get rid of the junk mail.

Help save the planet...and your sanity. Get rid of the junk mail.

Happy People Watch TV Less?

Sometimes I look at my TV and wonder why I own it. Even when I turn it on, I'm barely watching it (save for an hour of Grey's Anatomy once a week and a few Friends/Law and Order/What Not To Wear reruns). I figure that I probably watch less than 5 hours of TV a week. I'm not really sure why I bother paying for cable, except that I like knowing that I have it, in case I change my mind and want to watch something.

I had a netflix subscription this fall. More often than not, I returned the movie unwatched because I was embarrassed to have kept it out so long. I haven't decided whether I want to watch the movie I have now or not, before I return it. Effective Dec. 1, my netflix subscription will end - well, thats not true. Effective today, it is cancelled, I just have seven days to return the movie. Upon cancelling, the company wants to know why you're not continuing to subscribe. Overwhelmingly, my answer really is just that I don't watch enough movies.

Lately I've chalked this lack of TV watching up to two things - being overly busy and Bravo not playing enough West Wing returns.

It turns out, according to the NY Times today, that it is because, get this, I'm HAPPY. That's right, folks. Apparently happy people watch TV less than their unhappy counterparts. The article doesn't say how much TV happy/unhappy people watch. But it does point out that in all the other categories mentioned (socializing, reading the newspaper, etc.) happy people did them more than unhappy people. Just TV watching scored lower for happy people.

So next time you're about to plop down on the couch to watch TV, give me a call instead - we'll socialize. Or read the newspaper. Or maybe read the newspaper while socializing.

New Tallitot (prayer shawls)

Awhile back, yes, WAY back, I told you that one of the projects I had started at the end of the summer was to make a new tallit. Over the summer, Meg mentioned that she wanted to wear a tallit when leading prayer with her students at school. Together we decided that it would be fun to buy fabric and make our own.

We browsed the fabric store and quickly found two sets of prints that we liked. Actually, I should rephrase that. Meg found all the fabric, I just liked everything she picked out! I also did a particularly good job finding accessories - the buttons for my bag (which I haven't made yet) and the fringe for Meg's tallit.

[Mine is above, and Meg's is below.]

 

When it came time to measure how much fabric to buy, I brought out my regular tallit...and we attracted some unexpected attention. The saleslady came up to us and asked if we were making prayer shawls. Somewhat bewildered, because really we weren't expecting to be noticed, we said yes and chit-chatted with her. It turned out that her husband is Jewish and for
their wedding, she made their chuppah. She recognized what we were making because her husband has a tallit - but she was surprised to see that they could be handmade or come in such vibrant colors!

After buying the fabric, we determined that yes, we shouldn't scimp and cut corners. So we decided to pre-wash the fabric (something I rarely do). We got started with the cutting and sewing much later in the evening than we had planned. And if I remember correctly, we might have been dealing with a broken sewing machine too.

That was way back in August. Then came the High Holidays, the start of a new school year, and two very busy lives. We finally, finally finished the tallitot a few weeks ago - and have enjoyed showing them off in our school settings. It has taken me even longer to show them to you - but I'm finally writing this post. And once I finish making bags to hold the tallitot, then I will finally be able to say that the project is done. All in good time.

Here are pictures of the final results:
Mine (from the back):

I purposely stood in front of what I affectionately call my "rabbinic bookshelf", don't I look....well, rabbinic?

And here is Meg's:

Ok, frankly, I think she looks rabbinic too, even without the bookshelf. Meg, maybe its time for a career change? :)

Help Out My Friend

My friend Adam (the A of the A and M that I often write about) has entered a business contest and in order to win, he needs to have the most votes.

Here is his description:

I play around with business ideas all of the time and I think I stumbled into one with a lot of potential. I call it RecVault.com and in a nutshell, it is an online service that allows users to securely upload and store all of their recommendations, letters of reference and resumes. The "special sauce" of the site is that it will verify that the letters of recommendation and references are legitimate.

I entered the idea in a business contest online hosted at Ideablob. I need everybody to vote for my idea at http://ideablob.com/ideas/3780-RecVault-com-Store-Manage-Al

Tell your friends. Tell your parents. Tell your neighbors. Tell that guy sitting across the room from you giving you funny looks! Then tell him to get lost (but only after he voted).

I need as many votes as I can get by Friday night so that I can make it into the finals for a chance to win $10K.

Thanks in advance for your support!

It is really easy to vote. You click on the link, register and vote. It takes just a few minutes and could earn him $10,000. Thanks for the help!