On Saturday night, after the kids were in bed, I began moving TechyDad.com and TheAngelForever.com from our old host to our new host.  This meant first backing up all of the files from the old host’s servers.  (I usually keep backups locally, but they had gotten out of date.)  This alone took some time.  Then, I backed up the databases.  Finally, I restored the whole thing onto the new hosts’ server.  A connection string change (to point to the new database) and name server update later, and our websites were up and running.

If I make it sound like a quick job, however, it wasn’t.  I began work at around 9pm and went to bed at 1:30 am.  At this point, I had about 4 hours worth of file transfers to go.  Luckily, these weren’t essential files.  Had you been able to see TechyDad.com at this point, you might have noticed photos missing in blog posts or images missing from the sidebars.  Still, the blog posts would have been readable and WordPress would have functioned just fine.

Since I didn’t need to be present for this file transfer to run, I left my computer on and went to bed, falling asleep at about 2am.  At about 5am, I was woken up by B.  She wasn’t feeling good (horrible headache) and needed my help.  I got her some medicine and she went back to sleep.  Despite my exhaustion, however, I just couldn’t fall asleep.

I finally fell back to sleep around 6am only to be woken back up at 7am.  I laid in bed for as long as I could, but sleeping in was not an option.  We needed to get ready for NHL’s birthday party.

There were several moments during the party where I found myself unable to focus and/or dizzy.  Many times when I’d have liked to have snuck away for a “short” nap.  (Short meaning telling yourself only 5 minutes and then waking up 3 hours later.)  After the party was over, I felt the crash come hard.  Still, I pushed off exhaustion.

As I sit typing this, B is sitting with the boys, trying to get them to go to sleep.  I’m thinking that I really should process some of the photos from the party for a blog post.  I just can’t think straight enough, though.  Instead, here’s B’s post about the party.  (Mine will come later.)

I won’t leave you empty handed, though.  Thanks to a recent gift from Mimi to JSL, I think the Hava Nagilla will be sung quite a bit in our household:

Hopefully, by the time you read this, I’ll be well rested and coherent.  If I am, then hava nagilla (let us rejoice)!

Last week (and the beginning of this week), I celebrated Passover.  During this holiday, I give up a lot of foods like bread, rice, corn, beans, and soy products.  This can be a tricky time as we are confined to matzo as most of our source of carbs.  It also means that favorite year round foods, such as macaroni and cheese or soy-based veggie burgers, aren’t allowed.

Of course, in many ways I’m used to restricting my diet.  While growing up, I learned about the Kosher dietary rules during Hebrew school.  One by one I decided to follow them.  First, I stopped eating milk and meat together.  This meant turning my usual bacon cheeseburger into a bacon burger.

Next, I gave up all meats that couldn’t be kosher* while eating out.  This wasn’t too hard.  Except for bacon and the occasional Chinese food spare rib, I was never a big fan of shrimp, clams, ham and the like.  Spare ribs were occasional enough that I gave them up easily.  Bacon, however, I dreaded giving up.  I expected it to be a difficult affair packed with cravings and backsliding.  Instead, I turned my bacon burger into a plain burger and never looked back.

My Aloha Friday question for today is: What foods would you find difficult (if not impossible) to give up for a week?  What foods would you find difficult or impossible to give up for the rest of your life?

* To clarify, by “meats that couldn’t be kosher”, I mean meats that intrinsically couldn’t be kosher due to the animal they come from** such as ham (from pigs) and shrimp.

** For the curious, the rule for land animals is cloven hooves and chews its cud. Pigs have the hooves but don’t chew their cud; cows do both.  Therefore cows are kosher while pigs aren’t.  Water animals, meanwhile, need to have fins and scales.  Tilapia, for example, have both and are thus kosher while shrimp have neither.  Of course, while eating out, I tend to just say I am “vegetarian” since this is quicker and something most waiters will understand instead of “I have a complex set of religious rules that I follow and here they are…”

Thanks to Kailani at An Island Life for starting this fun for Friday. Please be sure to head over to her blog to say hello and sign the McLinky there if you are participating.

Aloha #85

  Today is the last day of Passover.  During the day, we’ll eat up some of the remaining matzoh and dream of the bread-filled meals coming the next day.  Technically, we can break Passover tonight, but, practically, eating dinner after 8:30pm isn’t worth it, even if it will be our first non-Passover meal in 8 days.

I was going to end with a Cooking With TechyDad post on how to make matzoh brie, but I realized that I did that last year.  So instead, I’ll give you a quick photo tour of our Passover experience.

The day before Passover, we mostly spent cleaning and shopping.  However, we did have one unexpected treat.  As we pulled into a local Target’s parking lot, we saw a familiar pink truck.  It was the Fluffalicious cupcake truck!

We decided to get the boys one cupcake each and split a giant cupcake between the two of us.  NHL got a S’mores cupcake.  JSL chose a chocolate banana cupcake.  B and I split a giant cookie dough cupcake.  (Let me tell you: It’s torture to go through these photos during Passover!)

The morning before Passover, I went to temple very early.  You see, because one of the plagues was death of the first born, first born Jewish males have to fast the day before Passover.  However, there’s a way out of this obligation.  If you attend a special learning session, you have to celebrate afterwards by participating in a celebratory meal.  And once you eat, you’re let out of the fast for the rest of the day.

After temple, we went out to Friendly’s for breakfast.  B had eggs and french toast (which I don’t have a photo of), I had eggs and pancakes and the boys had M&M pancakes.

Sadly, while delicious, this was our last non-Passover food for the next 8 days.

That night, we went to B’s aunt’s house for the Passover seder.  We had a great time with family and had fabulous food.

The next night we had the second seder.  In many ways, it was a repeat of the first.  Lots of good times and good food with family.

During the rest of Passover, we dealt with a finicky child’s hunger strike (luckily, it turns out he really likes matzoh pizza), a lot of exhaustion and a lot of matzoh.  Tonight, we’ll pack up our Passover pans, cooking utensils and the like and put them away for another year.  I can’t say we’ll be very sorry to see it go.  Passover is fun, but by now we are all dreaming of our favorite non-Kosher-for-Passover foods!

Over the past few weeks, I’ve been going on and on about Passover looming on the horizon.  I’ve been more and more fearful of the weight that would pack on when matzoh permeated my diet.  So when I stepped on the scale, I was shocked to see no weight gain.  Even more surprising, I lost 3 pounds!

I have no real explanation for this.  I haven’t been watching calories or points at all.  I was even snacking too much on Passover junk food while at work for two days.  Going to work during Passover means I need to pack all the food I’ll need during the day.  This means I need to estimate my day’s food needs.  It tends to seem to be a better idea to bring too much food than to not bring enough.  Sadly, this can result in over eating.

Still, despite this, I lost weight.  It should be interesting to see what the rest of Passover (and the days that follow it’s ending) brings.

As I mentioned previously, I had a lot of cleaning to do before Passover.  The good news is that I got the cleaning done.  The bad news is that it came with a ton of stress.

Growing up, I remember my mother cleaning for Passover.  She would tear apart the entire kitchen, cleaning every cabinet and drawer even if we weren’t using them for the holiday.  The process took about a week and was completely exhausting.  (It didn’t help that my father, my sister and I didn’t help.  Bad younger me!)

Even though I don’t do the intense cleaning that she does and even though I made a checklist a few years back to help organize the process, it still is tiring work.

Then came the Seders.  I like going to B’s aunt’s Seders.  We get to see family and it means I don’t have to cook two meals just after a tiring cleaning session.  On the other hand, the Seders tend to run long.  We left the first Seder at 11:30pm (before it was completely over) and the second after midnight (again, before it was over).  The kids, somehow, stayed awake until after midnight each time.

Add in a bad sore throat that brought back memories of my New Year’s Day bout with strep (and therefore a trip to the doctor’s office to rule it out) and you can see why I’ve been feeling especially stressed out.

And yet, amid the stress and exhaustion, there were moments of joy.  Playing with my boys, spending time with them, and seeing them spend time playing with relatives.  But, perhaps best of all was seeing NHL at the Seder.  He loved singing Ma Nishtana (the Four Questions).  Perhaps he didn’t get all the words right, but he tried his best and enjoyed it.

Then, when it came time for responsive reading (which passes from person to person), he declined.  He didn’t want to read just any passage, he wanted to read the names of the 10 plagues.  During this, we dip our fingers in our wine glasses and leave a drop on our plates for each plague.  The symbolism here is that, in Judaism, wine represents joy.  Though we are happy to be free, our joy is diminished by the realization that people were injured/killed in the process of the exodus from Egypt.  As our joy is diminished, so our wine is diminished.

Noah, perhaps, doesn’t fully grasp the significance of this passage, but he realized it was important.  That was enough for him.  He wanted to do something important during the Seder and that filled me with pride!

My Aloha Friday question for today is twofold: Do you find holidays to be stressful and/or exhausting?  Also, what do you enjoy most about celebrating holidays with your children?

Thanks to Kailani at An Island Life for starting this fun for Friday. Please be sure to head over to her blog to say hello and sign the McLinky there if you are participating.

Aloha #84

The past couple of days has been spent deep in cleaning mode.  I cleaned off our kitchen counters, cleaned the stovetop, cleaned the oven, cleaned the sink, cleaned the fridge, cleaned the freezer, cleaned the microwave… Well, you get the idea.  With all of the cleaning done and all of the non-Kosher-For-Passover items away, it was finally time to start the Seder.

I’d report on how the Seder went, except it hasn’t happened yet as I write this.  You see, as with any Jewish holiday, I stay offline during the celebration.  Thus, this post had to be scheduled pre-Passover.  If this year’s Seder goes according to plan, we’ll have a blast with B’s family, eat lots of food, drink some wine (well, some of us will) and generally enjoy the night.  I might even have some photos to share later.

To my Jewish readers, I wish you a Happy Passover.  To my non-Jewish readers, I hope you have a few happy matzah-free days.

This Monday night begins the Jewish holiday of Passover.  During this time, there are many dietary restrictions.  To adhere to these, I need to clean our kitchen (to prevent any “cross-contamination” between Passover foods and non-Passover foods).  This means I have a lot of cleaning ahead of me this weekend.

My Aloha Friday question for today is: Do you do any spring cleaning?

Thanks to Kailani at An Island Life for starting this fun for Friday. Please be sure to head over to her blog to say hello and sign the McLinky there if you are participating.

Aloha #83

It’s sometimes been said that the Jewish holidays revolve around food (or the lack thereof).  We eat apples and honey on Rosh Hashana, fast on Yom Kippur and don’t eat bread on Passover.  Chanukah is no different.  Since, on Chanukah we celebrate one day’s worth of oil lasting eight days, the traditional foods involve items fried in oil.  Sure, they might not be the healthiest foods for you, but potato latkes and jelly donuts are quite delicious.  We even have a sort of Christmas day food tradition.  Since they are the only places open, we go to a Chinese restaurant.

My Aloha Friday question for today is: What are your family’s food traditions for this holiday season?

Thanks to Kailani at An Island Life for starting this fun for Friday. Please be sure to head over to her blog to say hello and sign the McLinky there if you are participating.

Aloha #66

Last night was the first night of Chanukah.  After lighting the candles, we gave the boys their first present: matching Phineas and Ferb shirts.  They were completely and totally… underwhelmed.  JSL kept insisting that we were supposed to give them TOYS!  Apparently, clothes don’t count.

The thing is, though, you really aren’t supposed to give and get presents on Chanukah.  That tradition only formed to appease Jewish kids who were sad seeing their Christian friends getting gift after gift under the Christmas trees.  The real traditional activities involve eating fried foods (potato latkes and jelly donuts), gambling (spinning the dreidel and making bets using coins, M&Ms or peanuts) and giving gelt (money).

Jewish kids shouldn’t despair, though, because there is a gift-giving holiday on the Jewish calendar.  And it’s much better than Christmas.  (No offense to my Christmas celebrating readers.)  Purim.  First of all, you’re supposed to give and get presents.  Secondly, you get dressed in costume (like Halloween).  Lastly, you get drunk.¹  Yes, you read that right.  It’s considered a good thing if you get so drunk that you can’t tell the difference between “blessed is Mordechai” and “cursed is Haman.”²

¹ The reason you’re supposed to get drunk is that wine is equated with joy in the Jewish religion.  Purim was to be a day when the Jewish people were slaughtered but they were saved.  Since we’re so happy that we weren’t all killed, we celebrate.  To paraphrase Rabbi Tuckman from Robin Hood: Men in Tights, we celebrate until we get vashnigyered.

² For those who don’t know the Purim story, Haman is the guy who wanted to kill all the Jews and Mordechai was instrumental in Haman’s downfall.

This time of year, I get used to people saying “Merry Christmas” and just assuming that everyone celebrates that particular holiday.  I also get used to the Chanukah aisle being an afterthought in many stores while Christmas takes over practically the rest of the store from before Halloween until New Year’s Day.  Still, I was not prepared when I signed into Yahoo Mail and saw this:

According to Yahoo, there are no events from Wednesday, December 1st through Friday December 24th.  Nothing of note happening there.  Of course, the 25th is Christmas and the 26th is when Kwanzaa starts.  Do you see something missing?  Something which just began tonight?  Yes, Yahoo has completely omitted Chanukah!

I’m not expecting a full listing of all the days.  I wouldn’t even raise a fuss if they listed Chanukah as starting tomorrow.  But to leave it out completely?  To act as though Chanukah doesn’t exist?  Not cool, Yahoo!  Not cool.  No gelt for you!

To everyone else: If you celebrate Chanukah, then have a happy and a healthy Chanukah.  If you don’t, feel free to eat the traditional Chanukah foods anyway: Potato Latkes and Jelly Donuts.  And remember, gambling is a big Chanukah tradition.  (Spinning the dreidel for coins, M&M’s or peanuts.)  Gambling and eating fried foods?  Now *that’s* a holiday!