Wednesday, 31 December 2014

I got up early enough this morning to get in a 45-minute walk. It was a little cooler than it had been, especially when I was walking into the breeze. Much of the time, I even put the hood up on my light jacket.

After breakfast, I took another short walk, over to the local Maccabi clinic to make an appointment for David with his psychiatrist (in the middle of January). For that walk, I didn't even wear a jacket at all -- just a t-shirt, jeans, and flip-flops! When I got back home, I hopped in the car and drove over to Mercaz Big to buy us some new sheets for our bed.

For lunch, I drove over again to Mercaz Big to pick up an omelet sandwich for lunch at home. We had planned to split it, but I ended up eating almost all of it because it smelled funny to David. He ate a little of his cheese sandwich from an early day and then went back to bed. He just hasn't been feeling very good lately.

I cut a hole in the lid of a plastic container and put some wet paper towels in the bottom to try to make a "swamp" for Goldfinger. This will have to do until I can get vermiculite, which will hold the water better. Anyway, it's now there above the heating pad, but I don't think he's even checked it out yet. Perhaps he will during the night.

Tuesday, 30 December 2014

I slept in this morning and so didn't get out for a walk at all.

David had a CT scan of his head this morning, which rather rearranged our morning schedule since he wasn't supposed to eat before it.

Afterwards, I went to the weekly English speakers' meeting at WIZO where Terry, one of our regular members, entertained us with a nice tenor saxophone recital, mostly of jazz music.

I got the cage set up for Goldfinger, our new rat snake today. Now he's happily resting in his hide box (an empty cereal box). He also has water to drink and a heating pad at one end of his terrarium.

I had one 2-unit Berlitz lesson today: 4:00-5:30.

Monday, 29 December 2014

I got up a little late this morning but still walked for about 35 minutes.

I was scheduled for 4 units of Berlitz lessons today, but they were ALL no shows: 10:15-11:45 and 4:00-5:30. I still had to wait an hour each time, just in case someone DID show up. But I can't complain because I get paid the same as if I had taught the full 3 hours.

For lunch today, we went to Rachel. David had a mushroom quiche, and I had their delicious "Celebration" salad. Since I told them it was David's birthday (his 59th, BTW), they also brought us complimentary cake and even a sparkling "candle". Afterwards, we went up and visited our friend, Moshe, for a bit.

The big event of the day, though, was getting our newest family member, a South Florida Yellow Rat Snake. I had actually been planning to get a corn snake, but they only had baby amelanistic corns, and they just didn't interest me much. The one I got is an adult or at least nearly an adult. I don't know if it's he or she, and, since I don't have a probe, I'll never know for sure -- of course, it doesn't matter. In any case, he's a very nice gentle snake, and he loves wrapping around my hand of wrist and just chilling. It really nice to have a snake again, but I'm NOT going to get back into breeding -- too expensive and too much time investment.

Sunday, 28 December 2014

I woke up early this morning, walked over and fed Moshe's cats, and then walked all the way to the south end of Harm Road and back home. I was out for a little more than an hour.

This morning, Baruch came again to do some more cleaning. This week, it was the kitchen counter and the hood over the stove.

A guitar teacher also came this morning to try to teach David to play, but David's finger, it turns out, are just too stiff to do it. The teacher, named Shai, was REALLY nice, though, and he going to see if we can figure out other ways for David to enjoy making music.

I went to the pharmacy and then picked up pitas with falafel for us to eat at home for lunch today. David couldn't eat his, though, because it smelled funny to him.

In the afternoon, I did the weekly grocery shopping at Shufersal.

Shabbat, 27 December 2014

I walked over and fed Moshe's cats this morning.

Most of the day I relaxed, although I did watch a video or 2 from my iOS and Swift programming class.

For lunch, I ordered a veggie burger for me and onion rings from David, delivered to the house from Barbis.

Friday, 26 December 2014

I only walked to recycle cardboard and buy challah this morning.

After breakfast, I went to the vet to get more food for the cats and to the pet store to get more litter for their boxes.

I watched several videos from my iOS/Swift programming class.

I again had no Berlitz lessons today.

After David's appointment with his psychiatrist (at 2:00), we had lunch at Il Pentolino. I splurged and had the Roquefort cream sauce on my whole wheat spaghetti today.

As the light was about to fade from our valley, I lit the Shabbat candles to welcome the Shabbat Queen. However, David was too sleepy to get up, so he didn't join me. We'll drink the wine and eat the challah for kiddush before we go to bed tonight.

Thursday, 25 December 2014

I woke up fairly early this morning and feeling quite a bit better, so I walked for about 40 minutes.

This morning, before breakfast, we drove down to Maccabi so David could get his blood drawn.

I watched several videos for the iOS and Swift programming class today.

For lunch, we ate leftover pizza from the other day.

In the evening, I got the prescriptions from our family doctor for the medicine David will need to take before and after his CT scan to protect his kidneys from damage due to the contrasting agent they will give him.

Wednesday, 24 December 2014

I went for a walk for about 20 minutes this morning because I was feeling tired and a little off. Besides, one of my toes was hurting inside the shoe.

David had an appointment this morning for a CT scan, but there was a complication. The scan needs to be done with a contrasting agent, but the contrasting agent can damage kidneys that are in marginal conditions, as David's are. Such people need to take pills twice the day before, in the morning before such a scan is done, and an hour after it, all to protect their kidneys. So the appointment is rescheduled for next Tuesday, and we'll get a prescription for the necessary medication from our family doctor, get it filled at the pharmacy, and give David the pills next Monday and Tuesday.

The trip to the hospital for the aborted scan pretty much wore David out for the day, so he slept most of the rest of the day. I picked up a grilled cheese sandwich for him and burekas for me at Rachel Café and brought them home for us to eat here for lunch.

I did 3 loads of laundry today, but, other than that got virtually nothing done. Of course, since it's Christmas Eve, which is a holiday in almost all of Europe, I had no students at all today.

Tuesday, 23 December 2014

I had trouble waking up and getting up this morning, so I didn't get out for a walk at all.

David went with me to the WIZO meeting this morning, but I'm afraid he didn't enjoy it quite as much as I did. Still, I think he was glad he went.

We bought a guitar for David today. He plans to learn how to play it.

For lunch, I went to Greg Café and brought home an omelet sandwich, which we split between us.

I taught only 4 units of Berlitz lessons today, and I have no lessons at all scheduled for the next 2 days: 3:00-4:30 and 5:45-7:15.

Monday, 22 December 2014

I woke up a bit too late this morning to go out for a walk.

I did the weekly grocery shopping at Shufersal this morning.

I taught 8 units of Berlitz lessons today: 12:00-1:30, 3:00-4:30, 5:00-6:30, and 7:00-8:30.

We had pizza delivered for lunch at home today.

Sunday, 21 December 2014

I slept soundly all night, woke up early, and got in a full hour of walking this morning.

Baruch, our cleaning guy, came again this morning, and the house is now mostly clean and generally in a fairly presentable condition. This is long overdue!

I had my last physical therapy appointment this morning. My right shoulder seems to be almost back to full functionality now despite the tear. I so happy about that!

We went to Buddha Burgers for lunch today.

In the afternoon, I took David to an appointment with our family doctor.

Shabbat, 20 December 2014

I got up a little late this morning, having been up somewhat later than usual last night.

After breakfast at the hotel, we gathered our things, checked out of the inn, and headed for home, arriving here at about quarter to 2:00 p.m.

Later, we drove over to Barbis for a very late lunch.

Friday, 19 December 2014

We really enjoyed the LGBT olim party last night, meeting several interesting people. Of course, we got to bed somewhat later than usual and thus I got up rather late and didn't go out for a walk befor breakfast. I did go on a couple of fairly long walks later in the morning, though.

For lunch, we again went to Tandoori, the Indian restaurant on Zamenhof Street at Diezengoff Square. Of course, we ordered different dishes today and really enjoyed them, too.

I went to Kabbalat Shabbat services at Beit Daniel, the large Reform synagogue here in Tel Aviv. David felt too tired to go. I walked over there, a distance of about 3 km (2 miles), but I took a taxi most of the way back.

I was really not very impressed with the place, but that's probably mostly because the rabbi talked a lot and all in rapid-fire Hebrew of which I understood very little. It was most likely very nice for Israelis, though.

Just I I was leaving, I got a somewhat panicked call from David, who was having an insulin reaction (very low blood sugar level), and I had to explain to him over the phone how to open the door to the small fridge in our room to get the candy bar out. He did manage to do it, though.

A little later in the evening, we went out for a light dinner with a couple of guys from the party last night at a restaurant just one short block from our hotel, and we enjoyed that very much.

Thursday, 18 December 2014

I had some trouble sleeping during the latter part of the night so I didn't have time for a walk this morning.

After breakfast I packed for today's trip to Tel Aviv where we'll be spending 2 nights. Tonight, a little later, we'll be going to an LGBT olim party, which is the main impetus for this trip.

We got delayed for nearly a whole hour on our way up. It turned out that the reason was that they were installing a traffic light! It was a little south of Be'er Sheva, just after the point where the road becomes a divided 4-lane highway. They SHOULD have done one side at a time and simply made the other side temporarily 2-way. But, obviously, they didn't do that. Very annoying!

Nevertheless, we managed to get to the Indian restaurant on Diezengoff Square shortly before they closed for lunch and had some very delicious Indian food!

After that, we made our way with some difficulty to the Gordon Inn, where we are staying. David is now resting until it's time to go to the party.

Wednesday, 17 December 2014

I woke up nice and early this morning and went out and walked and exercised for a full hour.

I taught only 8 units of Berlitz lessons today (although one 2-unit lesson was a late cancellation): 9:00-10:30, 3:30-5:00 (the cancellation), 5:00-6:30, and 6:30-8:00. For lunch, I ordered food from Buddha Burgers and picked it up and brought it home.

Tuesday, 16 December 2014

I slept well until 3:00 a.m., but then didn't really sleep that much again until around 5:00, so I didn't have time to go out for a walk.

I lit the first candle, said the 3 blessings for the first day of Hanukkah, and led the group in one stanza of "Maoz Tzur" at this morning's English speakers' meeting at WIZO. David even managed to pull himself out of bed for a rare appearance there!

Afterwards, we had lunch at Rachel. David had corn soup, and I had their nice Balkan tray (many kinds of cheese, cucumbers, tomatoes, and bread).

I taught 7 units of Berlitz lessons this afternoon and evening: 2:30-4:00, 4:00-5:30, 5:30-7:00, and 7:30-8:15.

Monday, 15 December 2014

I woke up early this morning on walked for over 50 minutes.

I taught 12 units of Berlitz lessons today: 9:00-10:30, 10:30-12:00, 12:00-1:30, 2:30-4:00, 4:00-5:30, and 6:30-8:00.

We had beans and weenies (vegetarians, of course!) for lunch at home today.

I did the Capstone Exam again for my Fundamentals of Computing specialization, and this time I got 99%. I very satisfied with that!

Sunday, 14 December 2014

I got up too late this morning to get out for a walk.

Baruch, our house cleaner, was late coming today because he woke up late, but he still got in 2 and a half hours of good work, and our kitchen and bathroom look much better than they have in many months.

We ate lunch at Café Café at Ice Park today. David had yam ravioli with mushroom cream sauce, and I had their wonderful Italian shakshuka.

In the afternoon, I went to the pharmacy to get the monthly meds and then on to Shufersal to do the weekly grocery shopping.

I completed and submitted my capstone exam for the Fundamental of Computing sequence of online classes, but I only got 88% on it. Luckily, we can take it a second time beginning tomorrow, and, since I see where my mistakes were, I should do much better then (hopefully, 100%!).

Shabbat, 13 December 2014

I got up very early this morning and was out walking and working out for about an hour and 15 minutes.

I spent most of the day working on my Fundamentals of Computing capstone exam. I'm almost finished, but I'm having trouble with my program to solve the last question. Right now, my whole computer is bogged down trying to run the second test case. Then, if the test case is okay, I still have to run the case that will give me the answer to the question.

We had lunch today at Barbis. David had onion rings, and I had a veggie burger.

Friday, 12 December 2014

I got up very early this morning, put the ice on my shoulder for a little more than 20 minutes, went for a 35-minute walk, and later walked down to recycle cardboard and buy challah, all before breakfast.

I was scheduled to teach 4 units of Berlitz lessons today, but the first 1-unit class was a no-show: 9:00-9:45 (the no-show), 10:00-10:45, and 11:15-12:45.

We ate lunch at Rachel today. David has a mushroom quiche, and I had their "celebration" salad. For dessert, David had carrot cake (though I ended up eating 3/4 of it), and I had tiramisu (both very delicious!).

As the sunlight was about to fade in our lovely valley, we lit candles, drank wine, and ate challah to welcome Shabbat.

שבת שלום
Shabbat Shalom!

Thursday, 11 December 2014

I woke up early this morning, put the ice on my shoulder for 20 minutes, and walked for more than 50 minutes. Later, after breakfast, I walked some more, down to the local SuperPharm to try (unsuccessfully, as it turned out) to get a battery for David's electronic mandolin tuner.

I taught only 8 units of Berlitz lessons today: 11:30-1:00, 2:30-4:00, 4:00-5:30, and 7:00-8:30.

For lunch, I went to Mall HaYam and got pad thai from Manga.

Wednesday, 10 December 2014

I woke up early, put the ice pack on my shoulder for 20 minutes, and then walked over to Moshe's to feed his cats.

I was scheduled to teach 12 units of Berlitz lessons, but one 2-unit student was a no-show: 9:00-10:30, 10:30-12:00, 12:00-1:30, 3:30-5:00 (the no-show), 5:00-6:30, and 6:30-8:00.

We had lunch at home today. David ate the rest of his sandwich from Rachel, and I had a vegetarian shnitzel.

Tuesday, 9 December 2014

I didn't feel ready to get up after the 20 minutes of ice pack on my shoulder this morning, and, besides, I was worried that it might rain since I had seen lightning, so I stayed in bed nearly another 40 minutes with the ice still on my shoulder.

I enjoyed the WIZO meeting today, as usual. This time, we played a variation of "Trivial Pursuits", and it was quite fun.

For lunch, I went down to Rachel's and picked up food to bring back home and eat. By the time I headed home, it was raining lightly, which is quite an event here in Eilat. I hope we don't get more rain, though, because it could wash the crude oil spilled from a pipe up the Arava last week right down into the Red Sea, creating an even bigger environmental disaster.

I taught 8 units of Berlitz lessons today, all back-to-back and filling my entire Tuesday availability: 2:30-4:00, 4:00-5:30, 5:30-7:00, and 7:00-8:30.

I also went over and fed Moshe's cats this evening, and I'll be going again tomorrow morning.

(only English today, since I'm already quite late getting to bed)

Monday, 8 December 2014

Mi vekiĝis iom malfrue ĉimatene, sed mi tamen eliris kaj promenis dum 27 minutoj.

Mi instruis 12 unuoj (9 horoj) da Berlitz lecionoj hodiaŭ, kvankam neniu montris ĉe unu leciono de 2 unuoj: 9: 00-10: 30, 10: 30-12: 00, 12: 00-1: 30, 2 : 30-4: 00, 4: 00-5: 30 (neniu), kaj 5: 30-7: 00.

Ni manĝis postlasaĵojn de pico por tagmanĝi hejme hodiaŭ.

התעוררתי קצת מאוחר הבוקר, אבל אני עדיין יצאתי והלכתי במשך 27 דקות.

אני לימדתי את 12 יחידות (9 שעות) של שיעורים ברליץ היום, למרות שאף אחד לא הופיע לשיעור אחד של 2 יחיד

9:00-10:30, 10:30-12:00, 12:00-1:30, 2:30-4:00, 4:00-5:30, 5:30-7:00

אכלנו שיירי פיצה לארוחת צהריים בבית היום.

I woke up a little late this morning, but I still got out and walked for 27 minutes.

I taught 12 units (9 hours) of Berlitz lessons today, although no one showed up for one 2-unit lesson: 9:00-10:30, 10:30-12:00, 12:00-1:30, 2:30-4:00, 4:00-5:30 (no one), and 5:30-7:00.

We ate leftover pizza for lunch at home today.

Sunday, 7 December 2014

הבוקר קמתי מוקדם מספיק כדי לעשות הליכה של 35 דקות בערך, גם לאחר לשים קרח על כתף שלי במשך 20 דקות.

ברוך, מנקה הבית החדש שלנו, עשה עבודה מאוד יסודית של ניקוי במרפסת, אבל זה לקח לו בערך מ 08:40 עד 13:10. זה נראה טוב מאוד עכשיו, ואני מאוד שמח על כך, במיוחד לאור עובדה שיש סיכוי לגשם בחזוי ליום שלישי הבא.

אכלנו ארוחת צהריים היום בודהה בורגרס ונהנינו מאוד.

בשעתי אחר הצהריים, עשיתי קצת קניות, ובכלל זה מקבל יותר כדורי מציצת סטרפסילס, מחבטי זבובים, כתפיות חדשות לדוד, ואת המצרכים השבועיים בשופרסל.

This morning I got up early enough to get in a 35-minute walk, even after putting ice on my shoulder for 20 minutes.

Baruch, our new house cleaner, did a very thorough job of cleaning the balcony, but it took him from about 8:40 until after 1:00. It looks very nice now, though, and I'm very pleased about that, especially since there's a chance of rain predicted for next Tuesday.

We ate lunch today at Buddha Burgers and enjoyed it very much.

In the afternoon, I did a bit of shopping, including getting more Strepsils lozenges, fly swatters, new suspenders for David, and the weekly groceries at Shufersal.

Ĉi-matene mi frue ellitiĝis sufiĉe por piedir dum 35 minutojn, eĉ post meti glacion sur mia ŝultro por 20 minutoj.

Baruĥ, nia nova dompurigisto, faris tre profundan laboron de purigo de la balkono, sed ĝi daŭris el ĉirkaŭ 8:40 ĝis post 1:00. Ĝi aspektas tre bela nun, tamen, kaj mi tre ĝojas pri tio, des pli ke estas iu ŝanco de pluvo antaŭdirita por la proksima mardo.

Ni manĝis lunĉon hodiaŭ ĉe Budho Burgers kaj ĝuis ĝin tre multe.

Posttagmeze, mi faris iom da butikumo, inkluzive akirante pli Strepsils (por la gorĝo), muŝbatiloj, novaj ŝelkoj pro David, kaj la semajna manĝaĵojn ĉe Ŝufersal.

Shabbat, 6 December 2014

I got up a little late this morning but still walked for about 35 minutes (after 20 minutes of ice pack on my shoulder).

I was really very lazy today. About the only useful thing I got down was 3 loads of laundry.

For lunch, we went to Barbis and both had our usual veggie burgers with cheese and mushrooms. Yum!

קמתי קצת אחרי השעה הרגילה הבוקר, אבל אף-על-פי כן הלכתי במשך 35 דקות, אחרי 20 דקות של קרח על הקתף.

הייתי עצלן היום. הדבר המועיל המיוחד שעשיתי היום היה לעשות את הכביסה.

אכלנו ארוחת צהריים היום בברביס -- בורגרים צמחוניים עם גבינה צהובה ופטריות. טעימים!

Mi ekstaris el la lito iom malfrue ĉi-matene, sed tamen mi piediris dum 35 minutoj (post 20 minutoj de glacio sur mia ŝultro).

Mi estis tre mallaborema hodiaŭ. La sola utila ago, kion mi faris hodiaŭ estis purigado de la vestaĵojn.

Por meztagmanĝo, ni iris al Barbis kaj manĝis vegatarajn hamburgerojn kun fromaĝo kaj fungoj.

Friday, 5 December 2014

I woke up a little late this morning, but, of course, I still put the ice pack on my shoulder for 20 minutes. I also recycled cardboard and bought challah for Shabbat before breakfast.

I was scheduled to teach 4 units of Berlitz lessons today, but the second 2-unit class was a no-show: 10:00-11:30 and 11:30-1:00 (the no-show).

We had lunch at Il Pentolino today. David tried the Palermo sauce (my favorite) on penne, but he didn't like it as well as I do.

As the light was beginning to fade in our beautiful valley, we lit candles, drank wine, and ate a bit of challah to welcome another Shabbat.

שלום רב על ישראל עמך תסים לעולם

shalom rav al yisra'el amkhah tasim l'olam

"Send abundant peace on Israel Your people forever"

Thursday, 4 December 2014

I woke up a little later this morning and a little bit tired, but I still got in a 39-minute walk after my 20-minute session with an ice pack on my shoulder (a daily thing that the physical therapist told me to do).

I taught 10 units of Berlitz lessons today (although the first class was a no-show): 10:00-11:30, 11:30-1:00, 2:30-4:00, 4:00-5:30, and 7:00-8:30.

I ordered pizza delivered for lunch today.

Wednesday, 3 December 2014

I woke up early this morning, put the ice pack on my shoulder for 20 minutes, and then went out for a walk to the gym and some exercise while there. I wore a light jacket, but on the way home I was a little too warm so I took it off and was then wearing only a t-shirt and jeans (and socks and shoes).

I taught 10 units of Berlitz lesson today: 9:00-10:30, 10:30-12:00, 3:30-5:00, 5:00-6:30, and 6:30-8:00.

My watch band had broken on Monday, so I took the opportunity today to go and get a new one at Ice Park. While I was there, I also picked up sushi at Chooka for us to eat at home.

Tuesday, 2 December 2014

Today was a very busy day. I got up fairly early but still didn't have time for a walk. The reason was that we needed to leave quite early for Be'er Sheva. We left the house at about 7:20.

David had his first appointment at the clinic there (at the Soroka Medical Center) for HIV. We will be getting his care there instead of at Rambam in Haifa because it's only half as far away (and is the closest such clinic to where we live). But the drive even to there takes about 3 hours.

We had a hard time finding parking, but eventually we found a spot on the street right across from the outpatient clinics. Then we had to find the clinic itself, which also proved surprisingly difficult.

The doctor we met, though, was really good. I think she's actually a native English speaker, and she was very calm and also knowledgeable. Although there are other doctors there, as well, we plan to try to see her again the next time. The nurse who drew David's blood was also excellent.

On the drive back home, we had to wait at Nakhal Paran for about 10-15 minutes due to road construction, and so I rushed back into the house just as my 4:00 class was to start. Luckily, I had logged into the classroom in the morning before I left, so I could simply start immediately.

I taught 4 units of Berlitz lessons today: 4:00-5:30 and 6:30-8:00.

Monday, 1 December 2014

I woke up early this morning. First, I put a cold pack on my shoulder for 20 minutes. Then I got up and went for a 49-minute walk.

I was scheduled to teach 12 units of Berlitz lessons today, but two 2-unit classes turned out to be no-shows: 9:00-10:30, 10:30-12:00, 12:00-1:30, 2:30-4:00 (1st no-show), 4:00-5:30 (2nd no-show), and 7:00-8:30.

We had leftovers at home for lunch today.

Before my last class, I went to Shufersal and did the weekly grocery shopping.

Sunday, 30 November 2014

I woke up fairly early this morning but with a headache and not feeling very good, so I didn't go out for a walk. After I had drunk some liquid and been up for a while, my sinuses drained some and I felt fine.

I went to my first physical therapy appointment this morning. First, the therapist asked lots of questions and recorded all the details about my shoulder injury and how I'm doing now. Then, she spent some time running an ultrasound wand over the area of the tear. She explained that this can help reduce the inflammation caused by the injury and may help to decrease pain and to increase the mobility of the joint. Nothing but surgery, however, can actually stitch the tear back together, but if the eventual mobility that I can gain through treatment is sufficient, I may be able to elect to skip the surgery. Finally, she did some fairly strong manual manipulation of the area which was slightly painful. She also told me that I need to put ice on the shoulder for 20 minutes each day, not because of pain but to help combat the inflammation. She was very nice and fluent in English (and she told me that she is also fluent in Dutch because she studied physical therapy in The Netherlands!).

We had lunch at Rachel today. David had the grilled cheese sandwich that he loves there, and I had a delicious mushroom quiche.

This afternoon and evening, we finally got someone to clean our house. His name is Baruch, and he is great and VERY thorough. He works fast and efficiently, but he still only managed to clean about 80%-90% of the living room because our place had gotten VERY dirty. He'll come again next Sunday to continue cleaning, and we plan to have him do maintenance cleaning regularly even after he has finished his thorough job on the entire apartment.

Shabbat, 29 November 2014

I woke up a bit late this morning and so only went for a short walk. Besides, it was a bit chilly out (I know, I know -- I'm spoiled!).

We had lunch today at Landwer Café, at Ice Park, with our friends Moshe and Barak.

The rest of the day, I mostly just goofed off and relaxed. I guess I just needed it.

Friday, 28 November 2014

Although I slept quite well, I got up too late this morning to take a regular walk. I did, of course, walk down to recycle the cardboard and buy challah just before breakfast.

I taught 5 units of Berlitz lessons today: 9:00-9:45, 10:00-11:30, and 11:30-1:00.

We had lunch at Il Pentolino today. David tried a mushroom sauce that he hadn't had before, and he liked it.

After lunch, we went for a drive around the short loop.

By the time we got back, it was time, so we lit candles, drank wine, and ate challah to welcome Shabbat.

שבת שלום
Shabbat Shalom

Thursday, 27 November 2014

I started to get up to go for a walk this morning, but I had some bad cramps in my foot and leg, so I lay back down for a while and didn't go out after all.

I made a quick trip down to the vet's this morning to get more of the special diet cat food since our supply was running a bit low. It turned out that the bag they had received for us had broken open. They had put the whole thing in a big black trash bag, and the food was actually still in the broken bag anyway. So, they gave it to me for free! It was no problem for me since I had saved an empty bag from before and was able to simply transfer the food into it.

I taught 12 units (9 hours!) of Berlitz lessons today: 10:00-11:30, 11:30-1:00, 2:30-4:00, 4:00-5:30, 5:30-7:00, and 7:00-8:30.

We ate leftover pizza from yesterday's lunch for lunch today. I heated it in the toaster oven, which is better than the microwave.

Wednesday, 26 November 2014

I slept well last night but woke up too late to go out for a walk this morning.

I was scheduled to teach 11 units (8 hours and 15 minutes) today, but one student (2 units) was a no-show: 9:00-10:30, 10:30-12:00 (the no-show), 12:00-1:30, 3:30-5:00, 5:00-6:30, and 7:00-7:45.

I ordered pizza for us to eat at home for lunch today.

Tuesday, 25 November 2014

I slept quite well and got in a 52-minute walk this morning. I wore shoes and socks (instead of sandals) for the first time in months, but it really wasn't cold out.

As usual, I enjoyed the weekly English-speakers' meeting at WIZO this morning.

For lunch, I ordered food from Buddha Burgers and then drove down there and picked it up and brought it home.

I taught 7 units of Berlitz lessons today: 2:30-4:00, 4:00-5:30, 5:45-7:15, and 7:15-8:00.

Monday, 24 November 2014

I had to get up 2 or 3 times to help David last night (to get to the bathroom or to test his blood sugar), but I generally got back to sleep pretty quickly. I did wake up too late to go for a walk this morning, though, but that may not be such a bad thing considering what happened on yesterday's walk!

I  was scheduled to teach 12 units of Berlitz lessons, but two 2-unit lessons turned out to be no-shows: 9:00-10:30, 10:30-12:00, 12:00-1:30, 2:30-4:00 (a no-show), 4:00-5:30, and 5:45-7:15 (the other no-show).

For lunch, we had vegetarian weenies, bread, and French fries at home.

Sunday, 23 November 2014

I slept well last night, got up early, and set out for a long walk. But as I was coming up the sidewalk in the green strip, I tripped on some small irregularity in the pavement and fell. This caused minor abrasions on my knee and arm, some pain in my left wrist, and quite intense pain in my shoulders, although I don't think it actually re-injured the right shoulder. I tried to continue walking, but aborted somewhat short of the distance I had intended because of the pain. When I got home, I took pain medicine (optalgin), of course, but the pain was strong whether I sat at my desk, sat in my comfortable living room chair, or lay in bed. Finally, the medicine began to work, and I felt better. But I've continued to have some pain all day and have felt quite tired.

In the morning, I ran several errands, including a trip to the optometrist to complain about my new glasses (he convinced me to keep trying them for one more week) and the weekly grocery shopping at Shufersal.

We really didn't eat a regular lunch today at all -- just random food at home.

In the late afternoon, we went to the dentist at Maccabi to see what they could do about David's teeth. But since the problems are all with the plates (not his actual real teeth), they referred us to a dental technician, whom we haven't yet called. After that, we drove over to Breishit (the health-food store) and bought some dried beans.

Shabbat, 22 November 2014

I woke up early this morning and got in a 55-minute walk. It was very nice out!

For most of the day, I was quite lazy and got almost nothing done -- hey, it was Shabbat!

We went to lunch with our friend, Moshe, today at the Gulf Restaurant. We went up to his apartment to pick him out so that we could also see his cute white kitten. I think she's already TWICE as big as when I last saw, which wasn't that long ago. And she's BEAUTIFUL!

In the evening, I watched one of the videos for my class on iPhone programming, but I didn't follow along writing the code with him. I plan to watch it again later and do that at some point.

Friday, 21 November 2014

I had trouble sleeping for part of the night last night, at least partly due to nasal/sinus problems, so I go up quite late and didn't go out walking. I did walk down to recycle cardboard and buy challah before breakfast, though.

I was scheduled to teach 5 units of Berlitz lessons today but ended up only actually teaching the very first 1-unit class (although I get paid for all 5 units): 9:00-9:45, 9:45-11:15 (a late cancellation), and 11:30-1:00 (a no-show).

We ate lunch very late today, and I just fixed some quick food at home, including heating up some leftovers from last week.

As the last rays of the sun were illuminating our beautiful valley, we lit candles, drank wine, and ate a bit of challah to welcome Shabbat.

לכה דודי לקראת כלה, פני שבת נקבלה
"Come, my beloved, to great the Bride; let us welcome Shabbat"

Thursday, 20 November 2014

I got up early this morning and walked for more than 50 minutes.

I taught 10 units of Berlitz lessons today: 10:00-11:30, 11:30-1:00, 2:30-4:00, 5:30-7:00, and 7:00-8:30.

For lunch, I went to Rachel and brought food home from there.

Wednesday, 19 November 2014

I woke up quite early but with a headache and not feeling quite right. Nevertheless, I went out for a 36-minute walk and actually felt somewhat better. I took some Optalgin, and the headache gradually went away.

I taught 10 units of Berlitz lessons today, although one lesson ended up having to be canceled because the student's microphone wasn't working and she didn't have another one.

We went to the falafel stand downtown for lunch today.

Tuesday, 18 November 2014

I woke up early and got in a 45-minute walk this morning, which was very nice.

I picked up my new glasses this morning. They seemed okay until I began working in the afternoon, when I discovered that I have trouble seeing the computer screen, something that NEVER happened with my old ones. Now I'm going to have to go back there and try to get them changed, but I won't be able to do it until Sunday. This is NOT good, because they cost over 3000 shekels (although Maccabi paid 1000 of that)!

I enjoyed the weekly English speakers' meeting at WIZO this morning.

For lunch, I went to Café Café at Ice Park and brought food home for us.

I taught 7 units of Berlitz lessons today: 2:30-4:00, 4:00-5:30, 5:45-7:15, and 7:45-8:30.

Monday, 17 November 2014

I woke up early enough this morning for a walk that lasted about 48 minutes, including a few places I hadn't quite walked before.

I taught 12 units (9 hours!) of Berlitz lessons today, with no cancellations or no-shows: 9:00-10:30, 12:00-1:30, 2:30-4:00, 4:00-5:30, 5:30-7:00, and 7:00-8:30.

I ordered food from Chooka delivered here for us to eat lunch at home.

Sunday, 16 November 2014

I slept well but long last night and was surprised to see that it was already light when I opened my eyes. In fact, I got up too late to go out for a walk.

In the morning, I did the weekly grocery shopping at Shufersal.

We ate leftovers at home for lunch.

I picked up a few things at the pharmacy in the afternoon.

At 5:00, David had a regular check-up with the ophthalmologist, who says that his eyes are fine. He also told us what number of reading glasses would work best for David, so I bought a pair at the pharmacy for him.

After that, we drove over to Ice Park Mall for frozen yogurt.

Shabbat, 15 November 2014 - my 62nd birthday!

I slept quite well last night and had a wonderful walk this morning in the area south-southeast of us where they are building many beautiful houses and apartments. I walked for nearly an hour total!

Most of the day, I just relaxed and goofed off. For lunch, I drove down to the old mall (by the sea) and picked up pad-thai for us to eat at home. I also had a big piece of my yummy vegan cheesecake (and another big piece in the evening, too!).

I really enjoyed the WIZO English-speakers' book exchange at Fay's house. I chatted with several people including one Swedish guy from Lapland who still lives there most of the year in the house where he grew up. But he and his wife (who is from South Africa) also spend some time each year here in Eilat!

Friday, 14 November 2014

I fell asleep quickly as night but didn't sleep very long before I was awakened by a bad cramp in my left calf. Later, there were a few more cramps, I had some problems with heartburn, and I felt too hot even though the air seemed cold and even though I put the blanket completely off me. Anyway, it kept me awake for quite some time, and so I really didn't get quite enough sleep. I didn't go out for a walk as usual, but I did leave a little earlier to recycle cardboard and get challah. I took the cardboard to a recycling bin that's further away and in a bit different direction.

I taught 5 units of Berlitz lesson today: 9:00-10:30, 10:30-11:15, and 11:30-1:00.

Then we went to David's appointment with his psychiatrist, and after that we had a delicious lunch at Buddha Burgers. I also picked up a whole vegan cheesecake that I had ordered a few days ago. It's David's gift to me to help me celebrate my birthday tomorrow!

In the evening, a few minutes later than we really were supposed to, we welcomed the Shabbat by lighting candles, drinking wine, and eating a bit of challah.

זכור את-יום השבת לקדשו

ששת ימים תעבוד ועשית כל-מלאכתך

ויום השביעי שבת ליי אלוהיך לא-תעשה כל-מלאכה אתה ובנך ובתך עבדך ואמתך ובהמתך וגרך אשר בשעריך

כי ששת-ימים עשה יי את-השמים ואת-הארץ את-הים ואת-כל-אשר-בם וינח ביום השביעי על-כם ברך יי את-יום השבת ויקשהו

Remember the day of Shabbat to make it holy.

Six days you will do all your work.

And the seventh day is a Shabbat to Adonai your G-d -- don't do all your work, you and your son and your daughter and your manservant and your maidservant and your farm animals and the converts that are within your gates.

Because in six days Adonai made the sky and the land, the sea and all that is in them and rested on the seventh day and therefore blessed the day of Shabbat and made it holy.

[my more or less literal translations of the commandment in Exodus 20 -- this original is above it, sans pointing, which is too much of a pain to type -- LOL]

Thursday, 13 November 2014

I slept well last night and again got up in time for a great morning walk. This time, I did something similar to yesterday, but I walked further down the hill and was even more amazed by the amount of construction that's going on.

I taught only 8 units of Berlitz lessons today: 10:00-11:30, 11:30-1:00, 2:30-4:00, and 5:00-6:30.

I prepared food for lunch at home today since David didn't feel like going out.

In the evening, I had the second appointment with the orthopedist regarding my shoulder, and he injected the medicine that he had prescribed at my last visit (2 weeks ago) and that I had bought at the pharmacy. It only hurt just a little bit. However, he seems to think now that there's a good chance that I may have to have surgery, which isn't particularly good news. First, though, we'll be trying physical therapy, for which I have an appointment on the 23rd of this month.

Wednesday, 12 November 2014

I slept well again last night and got up early enough for a nice walk. I decided, though, to go a different direction so that I would be going against the chilly breeze on my way BACK rather than at the beginning of the walk. This worked very well, and I also enjoyed seeing all the new buildings and construction that are happening south and southwest of us. Eilat is still really booming!

I taught 11 units of Berlitz lessons today: 9:00-10:30, 10:30-12:00, 12:00-1:30, 2:30-4:00, 5:00-6:30, and 7:00-7:45.

We ate pizza from yesterday for lunch today. I heated it in the toaster oven instead of the microwave, and it was noticeably better that way.

Tuesday, 11 November 2014

I slept well last night and got up in time for good morning exercises -- walk and short work-out.

I enjoyed visiting with several people at the weekly WIZO English speakers' meeting this morning.

I ordered pizza delivered for us to eat at home for lunch today. We only ate half of the large pizza, so we'll probably eat the other half for lunch tomorrow.

I was scheduled to teach 6 units of Berlitz lessons today, but the first 2-unit lesson was a no-show because all the students are from France, and it's Armistice Day there: 2:30-4:00, 5:30-7:00, and 7:00-8:30.

Monday, 10 November 2014

The pianist who played the recital last night was Tatiana Rubina, an associate professor and "People's Artist of Russia" at the Moscow Conservatory, so it's not surprising that she was an absolute MASTER of the piano. Every key was struck with exactly the right force at exactly the right time to produce a very musical experience. Melodies and counter-melodies soared and ebbed precisely as they should. It was a true pleasure to watch and hear. Unfortunately, David was too tired to go, so I put him to bed and went by myself.

My sleep was somewhat spotty last night. In the end, I think I got enough, but I wasn't able to get up in time to go out for a walk.

I was scheduled for only 8 units of Berlitz lessons, and half of them, in fact, turned out to be no-shows: 10:30-12:00, 12:00-1:30, 4:00-5:30 (no-show), and 5:45-7:15 (also no-show).

I ordered food for lunch from Buddha Burgers and then drove down and picked it up. We ate at home.

Sunday, 9 November 2014

I slept well last night but woke up too late to go out for a walk this morning.

I got several tasks accomplished today, including paying the gas bill and going to the optometrist to get checked for new glasses and to order them. Afterwards, I continue to Shufersal to do the weekly grocery shopping.

We ate lunch today at Rachel. David had his usual grilled cheese and olives sandwich, and I tried one of their quiches, which was delicious.

In the afternoon, we drove to Ice Park for frozen yogurt and a walk around the mall.

Later this evening, we are going to a free piano at the Eilat Music Center. It should be nice.

Shabbat, 8 November 2014

I slept quite well last night and got in a nice walk to the gym this morning and a short work-out on the leg swing.

For most of the day, though, I had very little energy and got nothing done. However, towards evening I watched 2 or 3 of the videos from my Swift/iOS (iPhone and iPad programming) class online. It was actually petty cool, because he was showing us how to save data from our apps to an online database backend called "Parse".

We had lunch at Barbis, splitting a large order of onion rings and a veggie burger. Afterwards, we drove up the Arava as far as Samar and back again.

Friday, 7 November 2014

I slept pretty well last night but got up a bit late, so the only walk was down to the bakery to get challah for Shabbat.

I taught 5 units of Berlitz lessons this morning: 9:00-10:30, 10:30-11:15, and 11:30-1:00.

We had lunch at Greg Café today. I ate a sabich salad, and David ordered ravioli with mushroom cream sauce. However, he didn't like the ravioli, saying it was too starchy, so they do it back and didn't charge us for it, and he ordered a piece of chocolate cake instead.

Afterwards, we drove up the Arava as far as Samar and then returned.

As the light was about to fade in our lovely valley, we lit candles, drank wine, and ate challah to celebrate the arrival of Shabbat.

ושמרו בני ישראל את השבת

לעשות את השבת לדורותם ברית עולם

בני ובן ישראל אות היא לעולם

כי ששת ימים עשה יי את השמיים ואת הארץ

וביום השביעי שבת ויינפש

"And the children of Israel will keep the Sabbath

To make the Sabbath an eternal covenant for all their generations

Between Me and the children of Israel it is a sign

For in six day HaShem made the heavens and the earth

And on the seventh day rest and was refreshed"

Thursday, 6 November 2014

I slept somewhat erratically last night, but I woke up early, walked to the gym, and had a nice short work-out there. I don't dare go on most machines, though, for fear of further damaging my torn shoulder muscle.

Last night I discovered that I had used up all my Coldex pills, so this morning I made a quick trip to the pharmacy to get more.

I taught 12 units of Berlitz lessons today (9 hours!): 10:00-11:30, 11:30-1:00, 2:30-4:00, 4:00-5:30, 5:30-7:00, and 7:00-8:30. In fact, I'm still finishing the last class in the 6-hour afternoon marathon!

We went to Buddha Burgers for lunch today and had a nice meal.

Wednesday, 5 November 2014

I took both Arcoxia AND Optalgin last night (which the pharmacist had told me was okay to do), and I slept well with almost no pain at all. This morning, I got up fairly early and got in a nice walk to the gym and back.

I taught 11 units of Berlitz lesson today: 9:00-10:30, 10:30-12:00, 12:00-1:30, 3:30-5:00, 5:00-6:30, and 7:00-7:45.

I ordered food delivered from Chooka today for lunch. In a reversal of our usuals, David had sushi, and I had chiang mai.

One hundred and twenty years ago today (5 November 1894), in the town of Fort Benton, Montana, on the banks of the Missouri River, my father, Benton Wareham was born. His parents didn't actually live in the town but on a farm somewhere nearby. I've visited Fort Benton twice -- the first time with my parents when I was a child in the early 60's, and the second time, with David, in 2002.

Tuesday, 4 November 2014

I slept somewhat poorly last night, although in the end I think I got enough sleep. But I had trouble with aching and pain in my shoulder and arm, so I got up late and didn't get out for a walk.

This morning I really enjoyed the weekly English speakers' meeting at WIZO. A member who grew up in a small city in northeastern England spoke about her experiences there. It was very interesting.

We had veggie burgers for lunch at home today.

I taught 6 units of Berlitz lessons this afternoon and evening: 2:30-4:00, 4:00-5:30, and 6:00-7:30.

Monday, 3 November 2014

I had another night of good sleep and another great walk and work-out in the morning.

I taught 12 units (9 hours!) of Berlitz lessons today: 9:00-10:30, 10:30-12:00, 12:00-1:30, 2:30-4:00, 4:00-5:30, and 5:45-7:15.

We had lunch at home today, eating several leftover dishes.

Sunday, 2 November 2014

I took 2 optalgin pills last night and had a great night's sleep with no trouble at all from my shoulder, much to my surprise. I got up early, walked to the gym, went for a short time on the cross-trainer, and walked back home.

I had a productive morning this morning, getting many errands run and appointments made.

For lunch, I walked down to the local bakery (Shibolim) and got a grilled cheese sandwich for David and 4 burekas for me, which I brought back home for us to eat here.

I made some progress on my Swift/iOS programming class today, too.

Shabbat, 1 November 2014

Between shoulder pain and a stubborn sinus (the one that often has trouble draining), I had quite a bit of trouble sleeping well last night. I got up late and have continued to have unexplained shoulder pain off and on throughout the day. I hope this is not a new trend, but I fear that it might be.

I watched 2 or 3 video lectures from my Swift/iOS programming class today, but I didn't get much else done.

David didn't feel like getting up and going out for lunch today, so I ordered a single veggie burger and a large order of onion rings from Barbis delivered to our door.

Friday, 31 October 2014

I woke up early this morning, wide awake, and went on a good walk to the gym and back.

Before breakfast, I walked down to recycle the cardboard and buy challah at the local Shibolim bakery.

I taught 5 units of Berlitz lessons today, although the first (2-unit) student came in only long enough to tell me she couldn't do the lesson: 9:00-10:30, 10:30-11:15, and 11:30-1:00.

We had lunch today at Greg Café at Mercaz Big. David tried their champignon mushroom tortilla wrap, but didn't like it very well. I had their omelet sandwich, which I always enjoy.

After lunch, we drove up to Yotvata, where I bought a couple of kilos of dates, and back.

As the sunlight was about to disappear from our beautiful valley, we lit candles, drank wine, and ate a bit of challah to welcome the Shabbat Queen.

שלום עליכם, מלאכי הששרת, מלאכי עליון

ממלך מלכי המלכים, הקדוש ברוך הוא

"Peace be upon you, serving angels, messengers of the Most High

From the King of kings of kings, the Holy Blessed One."

Thursday, 30 October 2014

I got up early and feeling quite good this morning after a good night's sleep, so I took a slightly longer walk.

I taught 8 units of Berlitz lessons today (although the first class was a no-show): 10:00-11:30 (the no-show), 12:00-1:30, 2:30-4:00, and 4:00-5:30.

We had leftover pizza for lunch at home today.

I finally saw the orthopedist this evening about my shoulder. He gave me a referral to physical therapy and a prescription for a medicine to be injected (he'll do the injecting at my next appointment, in 2 weeks -- the earliest I could get with him). He didn't say anything about surgery, and I didn't bring up the subject, either. Hopefully, this is all that will be needed. I did read, though, on his letter about physical therapy that it is my rotator cuff that is torn, which sound pretty serious to me.

Wednesday, 29 October 2014

I slept well last night got up early enough this morning to have a nice walk to the gym and back.

I taught 10 units of Berlitz lesson today (except for a no-show): 9:00-10:30, 10:30-12:00 (the no-show), 3:30-5:00, 5:00-6:30, and 7:00-8:30.

We went to Rachel for lunch today. David had fettucine with mushroom cream sauce, and I had their "Celebration Salad".

Tuesday, 28 October 2014

I slept well but woke up not feeling so good this morning, so I didn't go out for a walk.

Today at the English speakers' WIZO group we celebrated the birthdays that happened in August, September, and October. We had nice food from the Shibolim restaurant (which another member with a car and I picked up and brought to WIZO), and it was nice to see so many people and to chat with several of them.

For lunch today, I ordered pizza delivered since David didn't feel like going out.

I taught 6 units of Berlitz lessons this afternoon and evening: 2:30-4:00, 4:00-5:30, and 6:00-7:30.

Monday, 27 October 2014

I slept quite well last night despite having to help David to the bathroom twice. I even got up in time for a nice, refreshing walk to the gym and back.

I had 11 units of Berlitz lessons today: 9:30-11:00, 11:00-12:30, 2:30-4:00, 4:00-5:30, 5:45-7:15 (a no-show), and 7:15-8:00.

We ate leftovers from yesterday's lunch (from Buddha Burgers) plus peanut butter and jam sandwiches.

Sunday, 26 October 2014

It was quite easy to wake up early enough this morning to get out for a walk since we set our clocks back and thereby got an extra hour! It was a nice walk, too.

I did the weekly grocery shopping this morning.

In the late morning, I took David to see the nurses because he has been feeling so weak. The nurse said there were many reasons and recommended that we see the doctor (again!). We had planned to go this evening, but we both forgot until it was too late, alas.

I ordered food for us for lunch from Buddha Burgers and picked it up there.

I spent quite a bit of time today learning more about Swift and iOS programming. In particular, I learned about using sounds and about recognizing user gestures such as swiping left or right or up or down or shaking the device.

Shabbat, 25 October 2014

I slept fine last night until about 1:00 a.m. After that, it was spotty at best, and I got up very late.

Almost all morning, in fact, I felt a bit off, but, later in the day, I managed to get through the next video lecture of my Swift/iOS programming class and develop the app exactly as the instructor did. It was pretty slow going, though, despite the fact that I switched to doing the programming on my newer Mac (while continuing to watch to the video on my older one). The use of the 2 computers, however, was a definite improvement.

We went to Barbis for lunch and split large orders of onion rings and breaded cauliflower between us. Not the healthiest of lunches, but enjoyable.

Friday, 24 October 2014

I slept somewhat fitfully last night and didn't get up and go out for a walk this morning. I did, however, walk down to recycle cardboard and buy challah.

I taught 5 units of Berlitz lessons today: 9:00-10:30, 10:30-11:15, and 11:30-1:00.

We ate lunch today at Il Pentolino. David had pea soup, scrambled eggs, and a bagel. I ate half of his bagel and had whole-wheat spaghetti with Palermo sauce (sautéed vegetables).

In the evening, as the sun was casting its last rays on our beautiful valley, we lit candles, drank wine, and ate challah to welcome the Shabbat bride.

שבת שלום לכולם
Shabbat Shalom to everyone!

Thursday, 23 October 2014

I woke up feeling quite "off" this morning and so got up too late and too tired to go out for a walk.

I taught 8 units of Berlitz lessons today: 9:00-10:30, 2:30-4:00, 4:00-5:30, and 7:00-8:30. I would have had 2 more units, but I had to have Berlitz give them to someone else so I could take David to his neurology appointment.

The appointment was at noon. I had forgotten that it was at the clinic here in Shakhamon (our neighborhood), and so we drove into town to the main Maccabi clinic there. Only after I had dragged David in from the parking lot was I reminded by the guard (when I asked where the doctor was) that he was out here instead. So, we drove back and were a bit late. It didn't matter, though, except that I had tired David out unnecessarily.

We talked with the neurologist about several issues. It's actually likely that the most immediate one (instability and dizziness when standing) is actually NOT neurological but, instead, due to insufficient oxygen supply to the brain. We're still not sure what they'll be able to DO about it, however.

After the appointment, we drove to Rachel, where I went in and ordered food to go. We brought it home and ate it here.

Wednesday, 22 October 2014

I slept well last night and got up in time for a nice walk to the gym and back. I wore a tank top, but there was a bit of a breeze that made it a little chilly. I might have been slightly more comfortable with a t-shirt instead. Still, it was nice out!

I taught 11 units of Berlitz lessons today: 9:00-10:30, 10:30-12:00, 12:00-1:30, 2:30-4:00, 6:00-6:45, and 7:00-8:30.

I ordered soya burgers delivered from Barbis for us to each for lunch at home today.

Tuesday, 21 October 2014

I slept quite well last night but woke up tired and needed to sleep some more. By the time I finally got up it was too late to go out for a walk.

I enjoyed the English speakers' meeting at WIZO this morning. A yoga instructor showed us a few simple movements and positions that we can do just siting in a chair -- very interesting!

We ate lunch at home today, having veggie burgers.

I was scheduled to teach 6 units of Berlitz lessons this afternoon, but the middle 2-unit lesson turned out to be a no-show: 2:30-4:00, 4:00-5:30 (the no-show), and 6:00-7:30.

During the no-show class's time, I was able to do my peer evaluations for the last unit of my Algorithmic Thinking class, so I have now completed everything for that class.

Monday, 20 October 2014

I slept quite well and got up in time for a nice walk to the gym and back. It was cool enough that I wore a tank top but not a shirt. Perfect!

I was scheduled to teach 11 units of Berlitz lessons today, but my 5 afternoon units were all late cancellations, no shows, or only a brief entrance by one student who was obviously having serious connection problems and never showed up again: 9:00-10:30, 10:30-12:00, 12:00-1:30, 2:30-3:15 (late cancellation), 4:00-5:30 (no show), and 5:45-7:15 (the connection student having a connection problem).

We ate lunch at home today (beans and vegetarian weenies).

In the evening, I made a quick trip to Shufersal to get just a few more grocery items, the most important of which was more bread.

Sunday, 19 October 2014

I slept fairly well last night, but, as I was trying to wake up, I still felt very tired and even sleepy, so I got up very late and didn't go out for a walk.

I did the weekly grocery shopping first thing this morning so that I'd be sure to be back in time to take David to the appointment I had made for him with our family doctor.

David has been feeling quite insecure about walking and even standing recently, but the doctor wasn't able to shine any additional light on the matter. Fortunately, we already have an appointment scheduled on Thursday with the neurologist. Perhaps he'll have some ideas. We also would like him to try to find out why David's vision has gone and returned several times now. At the moment, he can see, which is wonderful, but we already have had several episodes of returned vision which were only followed by more blindness, none of which have had anything to do with his eyes.

David didn't feel like venturing out for lunch today, so I ordered food from Buddha Burgers and then went down and picked it up.

After lunch, I made a quick trip to the pharmacy to get a couple of miscellaneous prescriptions filled.

I watched more of my Swift/iOS programming lectures today, but ran into an unexplained problem with my program crashing when I did the exact thing the teacher did -- apparently because of a different version of Xcode. Anyway, I wasn't able to figure it out. Perhaps I'll check it all out later, but I gave up for today.

I upgraded the operating system on both our Macs today to the newest one ("Yosemite") just released by Apple last week.

Shabbat, 18 October 2014

I woke up early enough this morning to walk to the gym and back, and it was very nice out.

I spent quite a bit of time today watching lectures and creating apps as we went along for my Swift/iOS programming class. Today, I was learning how to access maps, map data, and user location data on the iPhone.

We went to Ice Park and had lunch at Landwer Café today. David had an omelet sandwich (although I actually ate half of it), and I had a delicious dish made from buckwheat and cubes of yam.

Friday, 17 October 2014

I slept quite well last night but woke up a bit late, so I only walked down to recycle the cardboard and buy challah before breakfast.

I taught 5 units of Berlitz lesson today: 9:00-9:45, 10:00-11:30, and 11:30-1:00. The second one was an individual student in Thailand, but we really weren't able to have any lesson at all because her internet connection was so excruciatingly slow. And she works for Shell!

For lunch, we went to Greg Café at Mercaz Big and split a "country salad".

In the afternoon, I watched another lecture from my Swift/iOS programming class.

As the sunlight was about to fade from our beautiful valley, we lit candles, drank wine, and ate challah to welcome the Shabbat queen.

לך דודי לקראת כלה

פני שבת נקבלה

L'cha dodi likrat kalah

P'nei Shabat n'kabalah

"Come my beloved to call the Bride,
We will welcome Shabbat"

Thursday, 16 October 2014

I slept fairly well last night and woke up early feeling rested, so I went out for a walk, all the way to the gym and then a little distance southwest of here before returning home.

I spent quite a bit of time today on my Swift/iOS programming course.

We had lunch at Ginger today, but we were a bit disappointed, especially with the service, which was excessively slow. We probably won't bother going back there again, since the prices are higher than other places, the food isn't much better, and the service is worse. At least they're open on Shabbat and holidays, because they're not kosher.

In the evening, just as the light was fading, we went for a drive up the Arava, going as far as Samar (just south of Yotvata).

Wednesday, 15 October 2014

I didn't sleep really well last night, especially towards morning, and so I got up very late and didn't get out for a walk.

I taught 4 units of Berlitz lessons this morning: 9:00-10:30 and 10:30-12:00. Since this was the eve of a holiday (the last day of Sukkot), I automatically had availability like a Friday and so had no classes in the afternoon.

For lunch, we ordered pizza. Unfortunately, they put jalapeños on it instead of the black olives I had ordered. I pulled the pieces off, but there was still some heat left in the topping and cheese. We each ate a couple of pieces anyway, but I threw the rest of it away. This is the first time they have ever made a mistake like this in the toppings. I guess I could have called and complained about it, but we didn't want to wait for a replacement, and I figured there wasn't much else they could do.

I watched a couple more videos from my Swift/iOS (iPhone/iPad) programming class today. Now we're beginning to look at getting content from websites and working with strings of text data.

חג שמח לכולם
khag same'akh l'kulam
Happy Holiday to Everyone!

Tuesday, 14 October 2014

I slept quite well but still woke up tired and a little late and so didn't go for a walk.

In fact, I felt "off" almost all morning and actually got very little done. Luckily, I didn't have much that I had to do.

We both had "country salads" at Greg Café for lunch today.

I taught 7 units of Berlitz lessons today: 2:30-4:00, 4:00-5:30, 6:00-7:30, and 7:30-8:15.

Monday, 13 October 2014

I slept quite well last night and woke up early enough to get in a lovely walk to the gym and back. The weather here is so great this time of year!

I taught 10 units of Berlitz lesson today (although one group was a complete no-show): 9:30-11:00, 12:00-1:30, 2:30-4:00 (the no-show), 4:00-5:30, and 5:45-7:15.

We ate beans and (vegetarian) weenies for lunch today at home.

Sunday, 12 October 2014

I slept fairly well last night but woke up tired and didn't go out for a walk.

I went to my 9:50 appointment for ultrasound on my shoulder, and the technician told me that a muscle was torn (in Hebrew, which I understood!). In the evening, I went to an appointment that I had scheduled with our family doctor to get more information. He showed me the report, which indicated that the tear is 15 mm (a little over half an inch). He also told me that it was lateral (across the muscle), which is more serious than longitudinal, and that it would probably require surgery to repair it. He also said that there's a lot of pain after such surgeries. Oy vey! Of course, he referred me to the orthopedist, with whom I have scheduled an appointment on the 30th. So, we'll see what's next, but not very quickly.

After the ultrasound I did the weekly grocery shopping.

We ate lunch at Rachel, each having our favorites there.

In the early afternoon, I went to the pharmacy to get our monthly prescriptions filled.

I spent most of the rest of the day working on my application for module 4 of Algorithmic Thinking, and I've finally gotten it all done. The application actually focused on TWO applications of the pattern matching software we wrote for this unit. The first was to analyze a peculiar gene that is found in slightly different forms in both fruit flies AND humans. We showed VERY conclusively that this could NOT be a result of chance. The second application involved finding suggestions for misspelled words. For this purpose, the programs work but are rather slow. The bonus question was about designing a quicker algorithm for this purpose (which is actually pretty easy).

Shabbat, 11 October 2014

I slept quite well last night, got up early, and walked to the gym and back. It was lovely out, although a bit warm due to very little breeze.

I spent much of the day working on my Algorithmic Thinking class. First, I successfully wrote the necessary functions for the project and submitted them, getting 100%. Then, I began working on the application portion, the part that is submitted for peer assessment. One of the main topics in this unit is comparing a particular gene between fruit flies and humans. Already, it's astounding how similar this particular sequence is, and I haven't even finished the analysis yet!

For lunch, we ate some of the food that I had gotten yesterday at Buddha Burgers.

Friday, 10 October 2014

I slept quite well last night but woke up a little tired and got up too late to go for a walk. I did, however, walk down to recycle cardboard and buy challah for Shabbat, despite having to walk up the stairs because the elevator still isn't working.

I taught 4 units of Berlitz lessons today, all to German students, none of whom I had taught before: 9:00-10:30 and 11:00-12:30.

I called and ordered food from Buddha Burgers for lunch today, and I drove over there to pick it up, since the elevator wasn't working.

I actually called the number in the elevator to inform the company about it. The lady was very nice, but she told me that they charge for coming out on a non-week day (Friday is part of the weekend here, but Sunday is NOT). So, I guess it won't be fixed until Sunday.

I really worked hard on my homework/quiz for Algorithmic Thinking this afternoon. I submitted it but found I had answered one thing incorrectly. After figuring out the correct answer, I submitted it a second time (out of only 2 allowed!) and got 100%. Perhaps even more importantly, I feel that I now have a better understanding of the algorithms covered.

As the light was beginning to fade from the valley, we lit candles, drank wine, and ate challah to welcome another Shabbat, during the season of our happiness, Sukkot.

שבת שלום וחג שמח

ושמחת בחגך והית אך שמח "and you will rejoice in your holiday and be only happy"

Thursday, 9 October 2014 (First day of Sukkot)

The barbecue at Buddha Burgers last night was really nice, and I ate more than I should have. Perhaps that's why my sleep was a little weird. Another, perhaps more important, factor, though, was that it didn't cool off. That was probably related to the lightning and thunder which produced no rain here, just some muddy spots all over the cars. Finally, around 3:00, I just shut the windows and turned on the A/C. In any case, I got up quite late and, of course, didn't go out walking.

I drive over twice to Moshe's today to feed his cats. I wanted to be sure his new, tiny kitten got plenty of food because she is so skinny. She seems healthy, though, and is very cute and sweet!

I finished watching the lecture videos for this unit of my Algorithmic Thinking class, read the lecture notes, and started work on the homework/quiz. The latter seems quite hard for me!

We started to go out for lunch at Barbis, but the elevator wasn't working, so we ordered a delivery from them instead. The poor delivery guy had to walk up the stairs (all 72 of them), but he didn't complain at all. I just checked, and the elevator is STILL not working.

Tuesday and Wednesday, 7 and 8 October 2014

I didn't sleep very well Monday night, so I felt quite tired Tuesday morning. Nevertheless, I walked to the highway 12 kikar and back.

On Tuesday morning, I enjoyed the weekly English speakers' meeting at WIZO, where we had fruits and nuts that we had brought in celebration of the upcoming Sukkot holiday.

David and I went to Greg Café for lunch on Tuesday. He had tricolor pasta with mushroom cream sauce, and I had fatoush salad.

I taught 6 units of Berlitz lessons on Tuesday: 2:30-4:00, 4:00-5:30, and 6:00-7:30.

Just after my last lesson, I got a call from the vet's office to let me know that the special diet cat food was in, so I decided to drive down there right away and get it. David wanted to come along, too. After getting it, David suggested that we go down to Ice Park for some frozen yogurt, and on the way back, we filled the car with gas. But by the time we got home, it was a bit past our bedtime, so we went to bed pretty fast, and I didn't take time to write here (hence this 2-day post).

I slept quite well last night but still got up way too late to go for a walk. I did drive over and feed Moshe's cats after breakfast, though.

I taught only 3 units of Berlitz lessons today: 10:30-12:00 and 12:00-12:45.

We had lunch today at Il Pentolino. David had yam ravioli with mushroom cream sauce, and I had whole-wheat spaghetti with Palermo sauce (basically, sautéed vegetables).

In the afternoon, I began work on the next unit of my Algorithmic Thinking class. The first task was to evaluate last week's assignment for 5 of my fellow students. I finished that and then began watching the lecture videos for the new unit, completing 2 of them. In this unit, we're looking at a technique called "dynamic programming" and applying it to solving a problem from biology about RNA "folding".

In a few minutes, we'll be heading down to Buddha Burgers again for a vegan barbecue to celebrate the first night of Sukkot. It should be fun and interesting!

Monday, 6 October 2014

I woke up fairly early this morning after a good night's sleep, but I thought it was earlier than it really was because the battery was almost run down in my bedside clock (I don't wear a watch in bed). I still got up in time, though, to walk to the bridge over the wash just a little beyond highway 12.

I taught 11 units of Berlitz lessons today: 9:00-10:30, 12:00-1:30, 2:30-4:00, 4:00-5:30, 5:45-7:15, and 7:15-8:00.

Between my first 2 lessons, I went to an appointment with our family doctor that I had scheduled for David, but he didn't go with me. Mostly, it was just to talk with the doctor about the lab results and to get all our regular prescriptions for the next 3 months.

We ate lunch at home: vegetarian pepperoni sliced and cooked with canned stewed tomatoes.

Sunday, 5 October 2014

I got up a bit late this morning, but I still enjoyed a walk to the highway 12 kikar and back.

I spent some time early today trying to iron out the wrinkles in my To Do app for iOS (part of my Swift/iOS class), but there appear to be some bugs in the compiler or in Xcode. Hmmm.....

I tried to buy some more food for the cats at the vet's, but they were out. Hopefully, they'll get more really soon because we're quite low on this special food, and I also don't have much of the regular food on hand.

I hadn't been able to schedule an appointment with the neurologist for David on the Maccabi web site, so I went to the Maccabi office to see if I could do it there. It turns out that his schedule isn't available, so I'll have to come back or call, you guessed it, אחרי החגים akharei he-hagim "after the holidays". At least I know.  :-)

We ate lunch today at Chooka, and both of us had sushi. Afterwards, we drove up to Yotvata to buy dates. However, having seen the HUGE traffic jam coming south into town, we decided instead to go around the short loop and come back on highway 12. It's certainly longer, but I doubt that it took much, if any, more time than it would have being stuck in that mess!

I did the weekly grocery shopping at Shufersal a while after we returned to town.

Shabbat, 4 October 2014 (Yom Kippur)

I slept much better last night and woke up early enough and with adequate energy to walk to the gym and back. It was really very nice out this morning, too!

I spent much of the day today learning more about programming for iOS (iPhones and iPads). Some of the things I'm learning now are quite complicated, and difficult to remember, too.

For lunch, of course, we had the food we got yesterday at Buddha Burgers.

Today, we had the windows open all day, and we enjoyed many happy sounds of children playing and enjoying themselves. I think during the whole day I heard about one scooter and not more than 2 or 3 cars drive by (actually, even that many surprised me a bit, but they may well have been on emergency missions).

Friday, 3 October 2014

I really didn't sleep very well last night and woke up feeling tired but unable to rest more due to the pain, despite the fact that I had taken Arcoxia before going to bed. Hmmm......

Although I didn't go out for a morning walk, I did walk down to recycle the cardboard boxes and to buy challah. Actually, they didn't have the nice challah we like, so I bought small loaves that are basically the same but not actually woven like challah. Good enough!

I was scheduled to teach two 2-unit Berlitz lessons today, but the first (9:15-10:45) turned out to be a no-show. The second was from 11:30-1:00.

After that, we drove down and had lunch at Buddha Burgers. They had a buffet of some nice food, most of it not on their usual menu. We not only ate but also brought home for tomorrow since neither of us will be fasting for Yom Kippur.

In the late afternoon, we took a drive around the short loop (up highway 90, over on highway 40, and back to Eilat on highway 12), something we hadn't done in a long time.

In the evening, we lit Shabbat candles, drank a bit of sweet red wine, and ate challah to mark the beginning of this very special Shabbat (somewhat unconventionally, of course!).

For those of you who may not know, Yom Kippur (the "Day of Atonement") is quite unique here in Israel. The majority of people, even those who are not at all religious, fast, and NOBODY drives! Even the freeways have no traffic EXCEPT lots of bicycles. For kids, this is the big day when they get to ride their bikes in the middle of the street and even on the freeways! They have already started this evening. But Yom Kippur also has another non-religious meaning here: it marks, every year, the anniversary (this year the 41st) of the Yom Kippur war, when the country suffered a surprise attack and was nearly destroyed by invading Arab armies. This traumatic event still weighs heavily on people's mind at this time of year, and for many it may, in fact, constitute the most important significance of this day.

חתימה טובה khatima tova (a good sealing, the traditional greeting for Yom Kippur -- but literally "a good signature" in modern Israeli Hebrew, something which, by the way, NOBODY has here -- all signatures are completely, totally, and, I think, deliberately illegible!)

Thursday, 2 October 2014

Last night I had a LOT of trouble going to sleep, and I'm not really sure why. Eventually, I did get to sleep and slept fairly well, but, of course, I got up late and definitely didn't have time to go walking.

I taught 8 units of Berlitz lessons today: 10:00-11:30, 11:30-1:00, 2:30-4:00, and 4:00-5:30.

We had lunch at Rachel today. David had a grilled cheese sandwich, and I had their Balkan Platter (cherry tomatoes, cucumber, a selection of cheeses, and salt bread).

After my last class, I drove down to the Maccabi pharmacy to get more Optalgin so that we won't run out. David takes it against pain (it's an over-the-counter med here in Israel, but it's not available at all in the U.S.).

Wednesday, 1 October 2014

I slept well last night but woke up too tired to get up early and go out for a walk. I took ibuprofen last night instead of Arcoxia, but I didn't seem to have too much trouble with pain.

I was scheduled for 10 units of Berlitz lesson today, but the last lesson (2 units) was a late cancellation: 10:30-12:00, 12:00-1:30, 2:30-4:00, 4:30-6:00, and 7:00-8:30 (the cancellation).

I ordered pizza for us to eat at home for lunch today.

Tuesday, 30 September 2014

I slept quite well last night although I felt that I didn't get really deep sleep. Nevertheless, I got up quite early and walked to the highway 12 kikar and back. I didn't go further than that because I felt a bit tired.

This morning, we had to go down to the Maccabi clinic in town to get David's blood drawn for the tests the doctor ordered.

I enjoyed chatting once again at this morning's English speakers' meeting at WIZO.

We went to Greg Café at Mercaz Big for lunch today. David had fritatta and I had French toast. Both we delicious.

I taught 6 units of Berlitz lessons today: 2:30-4:00, 4:00-5:30, and 6:00-7:30.

My shoulder seems to be getting gradually better, but I still cannot raise my right arm above horizontal except very close to my body, and even that hurts a bit. If I use the other arm to help it, though, I can raise it without even any pain, including WAY above my head. However, we'll have to wait until I get the ultrasound done (on 12 October) to find out more about what the problem may be.

Monday, 29 September 2014

Again I slept quite well and got up in time to get to the gym. I even went briefly on the cross-trainer there.

I taught 12 units of Berlitz lessons today (although one 2-unit lesson turned out to be a late cancellation): 9:00-10:30, 10:30-12:00 (the cancellation), 12:00-1:30, 2:30-4:00, 4:00-5:30, and 5:45-7:15.

We ate a lunch of Buddha Burgers leftovers at home today.

Sunday, 28 September 2014

I fell asleep quite quickly last night and slept well most of the night. I did get up once to pee, and I opened a couple of windows (in the office and in our bedroom) while I was up. I woke up early and walked all the way to the gym and back.

I had scheduled back-to-back appointments for me and David with our doctor this morning, so we both went to see him. He gave me a prescription for more Arcoxia (in case I need more than I had), and he ordered some blood tests for David (which we'll have done on Tuesday morning).

Later in the morning, I did the weekly grocery shopping.

We had lunch at Buddha Burgers today. I had vegan shwarma with hummus, and David had a delicious Asian-style stir-fry.

After lunch, I went to the pharmacy to get my prescription filled.

In the afternoon, I finished my application for Algorithmic Thinking. I had a little problem because I had forgotten that our routines modify their parameters. Once I realized what it was, I proceeded very quickly to finish everything.

Shabbat, 27 September 2014

I had a lot of trouble falling asleep last night but finally slept fairly well though not long enough. I got up a little before 6:00 but didn't go out for a walk.

I spent most of the day working on my Algorithmic Thinking class. With a hint from some people on the forums, I was able to fix the running time problem with my fast algorithm code and get it all working correctly. Then I proceeded to write the 2 clustering algorithm codes that were required. So, my project for unit 3 is all done, and I have a perfect score for it. Now I'm working on the application, in which we use the results and the code we have written to do some carefully guided analysis. When this is complete, I'll turn it in, and it will be peer-graded during the first part of the next unit. It's turning out to be REALLY interesting!

For lunch, we ordered veggie burgers from Barbis delivered to the house.

Friday, 26 September 2014

I slept fairly well last night, but I didn't fall asleep easily, and I had quite a bit of pain when I woke in the middle of the night. I was finally able to get the pain to subside enough to fall back asleep by lying on my back for a while. The pain medicine is just NOT working as well as it did at first. I made another appointment with my doctor on Sunday so I can discuss it with him.

I spent almost the whole day working on my code for Algorithmic Thinking. For this part of the project, we implement 2 different algorithms for finding which 2 points out of a collection in the 2D plane are closest together. The first algorithm uses brute force -- i.e. it just simply compares every pair of points. The second is more sophisticated and complicated, but it is more efficient, at least theoretically. We were given pseudo-code for both of them -- we just need to translate it into Python. My problem is that my "fast" one is actually significantly SLOWER than the slow one, and I can NOT figure out why! Basically, I'm just giving up for now and going on to the rest of the project.

For lunch today, we ate more of the food we had brought home from Buddha Burgers' feast.

This morning I walked down to recycle the cardboard boxes, but I couldn't get challah, of course, because the bakery is closed for the holiday (2nd day of Rosh HaShana). I did stop at the candy store, though, and bought us a nice honey cake. After lighting candles, sipping wine, and eating a bit of bread (instead of challah) to welcome Shabbat, we each had a piece of the cake.

Thursday, 25 September 2014 (Rosh HaShana 5775)

The feast at Buddha Burgers last night was very nice. Unfortunately, David was feeling tired and very sleepy, and he had a headache. So he wasn't able to enjoy things very much. We left a bit early, but they sent LOTS of food home with us, which was very nice of them, I think. This morning I wrote a short e-mail (in Hebrew) to the proprietors (Miri and Arnon), thanking them and their staff for all their hard work in creating such a lovely event.

I had some trouble getting to sleep last night, but I eventually slept quite well. I woke up too early, though. At about 5:15, I finally got up and went out for a morning walk, going as far as the highway 12 kikar. It was nice to be able to do that.

I double-checked all my homework/quiz answers for unit 3 of Algorithmic Thinking this morning, and then I submitted it. I was very happy to get 100% on my first try! I spent much of the rest of the day working on the project for this unit, which involves some pretty difficult programming. We have pseudo-code to go from, but the translation is not so straightforward, and it's been really stretching my abstract thinking capabilities (I guess my mathematical ability isn't quite as good as it used to be, alas!). Nevertheless, I'm making good progress. Tomorrow I've got to more thoroughly test the code I've written so far, and then I can proceed to write the rest of it.

For lunch today, we ate some of the delicious food that they sent home with us last night. Yum!

Wednesday, 24 September 2014

Last night, I made SURE that I actually took my Arcoxia pill, and it definitely helped with the pain. Although I didn't sleep quite as soundly as I might have wished, I got a decent night's sleep. I got up a bit late and didn't go out for a walk, but that's okay.

I did some last-minute grocery shopping today, and I also stopped by the pharmacy to pick up more Coldex, which I had forgotten to do yesterday.

We ate the rest of the pizza we had gotten a couple of days ago for lunch today.

I spent much of the day working on my homework/quiz for Algorithmic Thinking. I think I have it all done correctly, but I haven't submitted it yet -- I'm going to double-check it tomorrow.

In a few minutes, we'll be heading over to Buddha Burgers for a special spread that they're preparing to welcome the Jewish New Year.

I wish a good and sweet new year to everyone! שנה טובה ומתוקה לכולם

Tuesday, 23 September 2014

I'm not sure now what happened last night. I know that I got the Arcoxia pill out and put it with the other 3 pills that I take at bedtime. I THOUGHT that I took them all, but it seemed to have no effect. By the middle of the night, I was having quite a bit of pain, and it sure seemed like I had NOT taken the pill. I searched the kitchen floor for it but didn't find it. Of course, it's very small, so it still could be there somewhere. Anyway, I didn't think it would be wise to take another one, just in case I really HAD taken it. I was also afraid to take ibuprofen. The pharmacist had actually made me sign a piece of paper saying I wouldn't take them together, and one site I found on the internet even claimed that the combination could be lethal (pretty small probability, I'm sure)! Finally, 7 hours after I think I took the Arcoxia, I did take ibuprofen. By then, though, I had lost quite a bit of sleep, of course, and so I felt quite sleepy and tired all day. The ibuprofen did help some with the pain but not as much as I would have liked.

I enjoyed the English speakers' meeting at WIZO this morning. We had honey cake, apples and honey, and wine to toast Rosh HaShana (the Jewish new year, which begins tomorrow night at sundown).

David and I had lunch today at Buddha Burgers. We had a couple of their burgers that we had not previously tried, and they were good.

When we came home, both of us were very tired and sleepy. David went to bed first, and I soon joined him. I slept for a little over 2 hours. I virtually NEVER take naps because I generally feel so yucky when I get up, and this was really no exception. Nevertheless, I really did need the sleep, and I finally began to feel better after being up for a while.

I will make VERY SURE that I actually take the Arcoxia tonight, and I hope it will work much better. Today was mostly a lost day due to last night's failure (whatever it really was!). Luckily, I had decided weeks ago to take vacation time from Berlitz today and tomorrow.

Monday, 22 September 2014

I took the Arcoxia last night and slept better with less pain. I got up early enough to go for a short walk, up to the end of the green strip and back. I met a friendly yellow cat up near the corner, whom I petted and who followed me for a bit down our street. That was really nice!

I taught 10 units of Berlitz lessons today: 9:00-10:30, 10:30-12:00, 2:30-4:00, 4:00-5:30, and 5:45-7:15.

I watched several of the video lectures for unit 3 of my Algorithmic Thinking class, which were just released today. The theme for this unit is sorting and searching, and the "divide and conquer" approach to algorithms.

I ordered pizza for us for lunch today.

David slept all day except for getting up to eat breakfast and lunch. Hopefully, he'll still sleep well tonight but NOT as much tomorrow.

I'm now off work for the rest of the week, a combination of vacation time and the Rosh HaShana holidays. I'm really looking forward to this break, too!

Sunday, 21 September 2014

I slept better last night and didn't have much pain when I woke in the middle of the night. By morning, however, it was a bit worse since I didn't take any ibuprofen during the night. Although I got up fairly early, I didn't go out for a walk.

I had scheduled an appointment with my doctor at 9:10, and I decided to walk over there and back. He gave me a prescription for Arcoxia. One pill a day is supposed to help with the pain, so we'll see how that goes tonight.

Later in the morning I did the weekly grocery shopping at Shufersal, and after lunch I got the prescription filled at the pharmacy.

For lunch, I ordered food from Buddha Burgers and picked it up there and brought it home.

In the afternoon, I continued watching videos for my Swift class and wrote another iPhone application, a stopwatch.

Shabbat, 20 September 2014

Last night I woke up feeling a lot of pain, but very unspecific, even though I had taken 800mg of ibuprofen before going to bed. I got up and took 800mg more and sat in my chair in the living room for a little while. Then I went back to bed, the pain subsided enough for me to fall asleep (I also felt VERY sleepy), and I managed to sleep until morning. I was too tire to go out for a walk, however. At least the pain was definitely not as bad. Nevertheless, I took 800mg in the morning and 800mg more in the middle of the day.

We ordered food delivered from Barbis for lunch today and ate it at home.

I spent most of the day learning more about Swift, Apple's new programming language, and programming for iOS (iPhone and iPad). It's really pretty cool stuff!

Friday, 19 September 2014

I slept pretty poorly last night. I got up fairly early because I couldn't go back to sleep, but I felt much too tired to go out for a walk at that point. Later, before breakfast, I did walk down to recycle the cardboard and buy challah for Shabbat.

I was scheduled to teach only 3 units of Berlitz lessons today, but I agreed 15 minutes before its start time to do an additional 2-unit class (the middle one in this chronological list): 9:00-9:45, 10:00-11:30, and 11:30-1:00.

We ate lunch at Buddha Burgers today, now that we have found it where it is and that it did NOT go out of business! It was so good to be able to do that again!

I spent almost all the afternoon watching videos for my Swift iOS programming class and trying out the exercises he showed. It's quite exciting, really!

In the evening, as the sun was about to disappear behind the Eilat Mountains, we lit candles, drank wine, and ate challah to welcome Shabbat.

Shabbat Shalom to everyone! שבת שלום לכולם

Thursday, 18 September 2014

I slept a little better last night but still woke up much too late to go our for a walk and still feeling tired.

I taught 12 units of Berlitz lessons today, although one student had to leave after only half and hour of a one-and-a-half-hour lesson: 9:00-10:30, 11:00-11:45, 12:00-1:30 (actually done at 12:30), 2:30-4:00, 4:30-5:15, 5:15-6:45, and 7:00-8:30.

We ate lunch at home.

I'm a little worried about David today. He has slept the entire day, only getting up briefly to each breakfast and to eat lunch. And he was quite weak and unstable those times, as well. I hope there's nothing serious wrong with him.

Wednesday, 17 September 2014

I had difficulty getting to sleep last night (due to the persistent pain), but I eventually slept pretty well. I got up too late to go for any walk, though.

I taught 10 units of Berlitz lessons today (although one lesson was a no-show): 9:30-11:00, 12:00-1:30 (the no-show), 2:30-4:00, 5:00-6:30, and 7:00-8:30.

We ate lunch at home.

I signed up yesterday for a course on Udemy to learn Apple's new programming language, Swift, and to program for iOS (iPhones and iPads). Today, I watched enough of the class videos to get the necessary software loaded onto my computer and working. I think it's going to be a cool class. Unlike the Coursera classes, I can do this one completely at my own pace -- there's no timetable or deadlines.

Tuesday, 16 September 2014

I had trouble getting to sleep last night because of pain, but eventually I slept fairly well. I woke up a bit late, though, and quite tired, but I did still go out for a short walk only to the top of the green strip and back.

I enjoyed the weekly English speakers' meeting at WIZO this morning. I found out something interesting, too -- Buddha Burgers is not gone, it has just moved to a different location! So, now I'm very much looking forward to eating there again.

Today, though, we had lunch at Greg Café at Mercaz Big. David had an omelet sandwich, and I had their delicious Fatoush salad.

I taught 6 units of Berlitz lessons today: 2:30-4:00, 4:00-5:30, and 6:00-7:30.

Monday, 15 September 2014

I had quite a bit of trouble with pain in my shoulder last night despite taking 800mg of ibuprofen before going to bed and 800mg more in the middle of the night. It's not really strong pain, just persistent enough to keep me from falling asleep. The only way to avoid it pretty well is to lie on my back, a position I usually don't sleep in much normally. In the end, I got enough sleep, but I got up much too late to go for a walk.

I taught 12 units of Berlitz lessons today, although one 2-unit lesson was a late cancellation: 9:00-10:30, 10:30-12:00 (the cancellation), 12:00-1:30, 2:30-4:00, 4:00-5:30, and 5:45-7:15.

We had a lunch of veggie weenies, wrapped in corn tortillas, and chips and salsa today.

Sunday, 14 September 2014

I didn't sleep too well last night due to a small but persistent amount of pain in my shoulder when I lay on either side, and I don't ever sleep very well on my back (and the stomach has always been completely impossible!). So, I didn't get up in time for a walk, but I had a good day otherwise.

My doctor took the stitches out above my eye this morning, and the wound has healed very well. After that, I did the weekly grocery shopping.

David slept almost the entire day today and wasn't even able to get up for lunch at all.

I went to the pharmacy in the early afternoon to pick up most of our monthly meds.

I spent almost all of the rest of the day doing the "application" for unit 2 of my Algorithmic Thinking class. It wasn't easy, but, in the end, it was quite fun and VERY cool! And I'm very thankful to have completed it successfully.

Shabbat, 13 September 2014

I got up at a good time this morning and so got in a nice, refreshing walk to the gym and a bit of working out there, as well. I still can't go on most of the machines because of my shoulder. But it is steadily healing.

After breakfast, I took bottles and containers to their respective recycling areas, and I also took out the trash.

Most of the day I spent working on my homework/quiz and project for Unit 2 of Algorithmic Thinking. I completed them both perfectly. Now, I have to work on my application, which will be submitted for peer grading when it's finished.

We had the rest of yesterday's pizza for lunch today, but, in the late afternoon, we drove down to Ice Park for frozen yogurt.

After we returned, we had a nice conversation with our dear friend, Sarah, in Los Angeles.

Friday, 12 September 2014

I actually woke up VERY early this morning and couldn't sleep any more. But I stayed in bed until about 5:15, and then I got up and walked to the gym and back. At the beginning of my walk, there was a lovely breeze, but then it died down, only to return sporadically, and so for much of the time it felt a bit warm and perhaps even humid (that's a relative term here in dry, dry Eilat, of course!). Later, I walked down to recycle cardboard and buy challah at the local bakery for Shabbat.

I taught 4 units of Berlitz lessons today: 9:00-10:30 and 11:30-1:00.

David was too sleepy to get up to go out for lunch, so I ordered pizza, and we ate it at home. We only ate half of the large one (פיצה משפחתית pitza mishpakhtit "family pizza") that I ordered, though, so we'll probably have the rest for lunch tomorrow.

This afternoon, I assessed the unit 1 assignments of 5 of my peers in Algorithmic Thinking, as required. Tomorrow I'll do the homework and the project and, hopefully, the application, as well, for unit 2.

As the sun was disappearing behind the Eilat mountains to the west, we lit candles, drank wine, and ate challah to welcome the Shabbat.

Shabbat Shalom to everyone! שבת שלום לכולם

Thursday, 11 September 2014

I slept pretty well last night, but I did get up once to pee, at which time I turned of the A/C and opened all the windows. But in the morning, when I first woke up, I was still quite tired, and so I got up too late to go out for a walk.

I was scheduled to teach 12 units (9 hours) of Berlitz lessons today, but one student was a no-show, and another was a late cancellation: 9:30-11:00, 11:00-12:30, 2:30-4:00, 4:00-5:30 (the no-show), 5:30-7:00 (the late cancellation), and 7:00-8:30.

We had lunch today at Barbis.

Wednesday, 10 September 2014

I woke up again last night and had trouble getting back to sleep, even after I took ibuprofen. Eventually, though, I did get back to sleep, but I slept late and so didn't get out for a walk in the morning.

I taught 10 units of Berlitz lessons today: 10:00-11:30, 12:00-1:30, 2:30-4:00, 4:00-5:30, and 7:00-8:30. One new student was very interesting. She's an ethnic Russian who's originally from Ukraine but now lives and works in Germany as a systems engineer for a company that builds nuclear power plants.

We ate lunch at home today, eating leftover food that we brought home from Il Pentolino yesterday.

Tuesday, 9 September 2014

I woke up during the night last night and then had some trouble getting comfortable and sleeping well after that. So I got up quite late and didn't go out for a walk at all.

I watched most of the video lectures for the new unit of my class, Algorithmic Thinking, today. Professor Nakhleh (who is an Arab originally from Israel) is an excellent teacher. Much of the material was already somewhat familiar to me, but it was still nice to see it explained so clearly and in such good detail.

I enjoyed the weekly English-speakers' meeting at WIZO this morning. There was no special program -- we just all sat and enjoyed chatting.

David and I had lunch today at Il Pentolino, ordering our usual favorites there.

I taught 6 units of Berlitz lessons today: 2:30-4:00, 4:00-5:30, and 6:00-7:30 -- all at level 6.

Monday, 8 September 2014

I slept well last night and woke up early enough to get in a good walk to the gym and a little time on a couple of the machines there (ones that wouldn't cause any problems with my shoulder).

I was scheduled to teach 12 units (9 hours) of Berlitz lessons today, but one 2-unit lesson turned out to be a no-show: 9:00-10:30, 10:30-12:00, 12:00-1:30, 2:30-4:00, 4:00-5:30 (the no-show), and 5:45-7:15.

We ate lunch at home today.

My shoulder seems to gradually be getting better, but there are still some directions in which I can't lift it at all, and sharp pain reminds me if I try to do so. My cut that was stitched up is healing very nicely.

Sunday, 7 September 2014

I slept very well last night and with virtually no pain. I woke up rather late, though, and so didn't go out for a walk

I had a busy morning. First, I went to get my shoulder x-rayed, and the news was good: no fracture (which didn't surprise me at all). The gas company's office is very close to the downtown Maccabi branch, so I popped by there to pay the gas bill. Then, I went to the vet to get another sack of the special diet food for the cats. Next, it was on to the doctor's office. He was pleased to see the progress on the gash that he had stitched, and he put some disinfectant on it to make sure it continues not to get infected. He also checked my shoulder more carefully and is worried that I might have torn a tendon because of certain ways that I can't move it on its own. So, he's sending me in for ultrasound to have a look. However, the earliest appointment I could get it 5 weeks away, so we won't know for a long time. I'm not too worried, though, since it's now giving me very little pain. My final morning destination was Shufersal to do the weekly grocery shopping.

We went to Togarashi at Mercaz Big for lunch today and both had pad thai. David also had corn soup, and I had pickled Japanese vegetables.

In the afternoon, I went to the Maccabi pharmacy to pick up one med that they hadn't had when I was there last week. However, they STILL didn't have it, so I had to go to SuperPharm to get it. But MaccabiPharm called ahead to verify that it WAS there and reserved the final 2 boxes for me.

I added one more good capability to my Python program for tracking our meds. It now lists the medicine in the order of their projected run-out dates, so that the ones will run out of first are listed at the top. It was just a simple application of merge sort, and I copied the code from a website I found. I only had to make minor changes to 1 or 2 lines to make it work perfectly.