Creativity

 Being off of work due to a shoulder injury can be a challenge for a creative person. You  can't crochet ,knit, or use a camera (perhaps just cellphone photos). One thing that I have been able to enjoy is cooking.Though one armed cooking can be a challenge its still doable. Cooking can be creative and its a necessity. I also wanted to try not to gain a ton of weight.One website that I have become obsessed with is mind over munch. This website includes many few ingredient healthy and budget friendly ingredients.The website is kosher consumer  friendly because there are lots of vegan and vegetarian options and substitutions listed in the recipes. I've discovered black bean brownies,lentil dishes and veggie burger recipes to name a few. Cooking has been a challenge for me lately, and it has been nice to spice it up with some fun and nutritious recipes
    As a bonus.I have not gained wait since my injury.

Twinsters 2015

   This is the story of twins separated at birth that didn't even know that the other existed until one saw the other on a video posted on facebook. What is truly amazing about this story is that though both young women are glad to have found one another they don't necessarily wish that they grew up together they are more concerned with moving forward.The full film is on YouTube and I'm posting it here.

Between a rock and a headstone

Between a rock and a headstone: Ayel Morgenstern, a kindergarten student in Boca Raton, Fla., and her family were reading reports of the vandalism at Chesed Shel Emeth Cemetery…This is an amazing story . A 6 year old decides to paint 150 or so  rocks for the 150 or so headstones that were desecrated in St. Louis where her great grandmother was buried. In turn the funeral home gathered students from the three Jewish day schools in St. Louis representing all levels of Jewish observance to place the stones at the cemetery. So much unity and love has been created after an event that was so heinous.

The Bar Mitzvah Project

     A big tradition among reform  and conservative Jews is their bar/bat  mitzvah project. Often when I read about their mitzvah projects I wonder if a kid could do the listed project on their own. Among some of the projects that I admire because it looks like the kid could really do them is of a kid who with his mom worked at a Jewish food pantry for poor people, a girl who with her friends made quilts and then donated them to the poor. My new favorite project is of a boy named Ari Blumberg in Dallas who made and  donated special toiletry bags to a hospital  for chemo patients. I saw this posted on facebook by a woman who was the recipient of one of these bags. This is a simple act that generated so much joy .
     Of course this is the essense of life. Its not just the grand gestures that makes the world a better place. Its the little things that when we choose to do them the world becomes a kinder space.