Goodbye Summer, Hello The Month Of Elul!

Hello Dear Friends, after five glorious weeks of being mostly unplugged or at least not working on the blog or any other computer work, I am back, and with so much to share I’m not sure where to start. With the exception of some photos taken from the plane, this Cape Cod sunset is the last photo I took on my summer vacation that took place across two continents, so I thought I’d start here, at the end! This year, since it is Jewish leap year, the Jewish calender and the gregorian calender are exactly in sync, with the first day of Elul coinciding with the first day of September, which only happens rarely. So here in Israel, those whose school schedule follows the Jewish calender (my boys) have gone back to school on the same day as those (my daughter, generally) whose school follows the gregorian calendar, a truly happy thing for all actually. And I can just imagine how happy so many busy moms must be to have everyone back in school so that we can now concentrate on the fact that it is also the month of Elul. So wishing everyone a smooth summer’s end and a chodesh Elul tov, a happy new month! Keep on reading to hear some thoughs on Elul and catch another glimpse of that sunset……

Elul is a special month, as it is the last month of the year, and the month in which we have the opportunity to right all the wrongs from the previous year, connect to our creator in a more intimate way than any other time of year, and work on preparing ourselves spiritually to welcome the new year. Additionally of course this a great time to start planning not just for the Jewish New Year, Rosh HaShana, but also for the holiday of Succot which is 7(8 outside Israel) days long and occurs just 2 weeks after Rosh HaShana.

As you know I do cook up a storm for every holiday and we generally have many guests, but first comes the crafting! I have been saving techina containers for a specific craft for the succah, and hope to get started on all things Succah related very soon to avoid the stress of last minute decorating for once, can’t wait! I’m not planning on reinventing the wheel but rather on improving the light fixtures I made last year and adding lots of little starburst mirrors to the colorful Moroccan tablecloths I often use to cover the walls. Of course that could change depending on how much time I have, and in the mean time I have a ton of photos and craft ideas to share with you from my travels.
Wow, right?
Hope everyone had an amazing summer, and now it is time to harness all the creative energy that you didn’t end up using (myself included) and get crafting. That is indeed an exciting prospect so lets embrace it during the last month of the year. Now I’ll just have to inform my husband that I’ll be spending the entire month making up for all the painting and illustrating I never got around to in the past six months as now is the time! Hmmmm, not sure how that will go over, but I can certainly do my best right? Lets make this Elul a special, creative month with whatever time we can squeeze in. No time to waste dear friends, so gotta run!