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26 Iyar 5762 - May 8, 2002 | Mordecai Plaut, director Published Weekly
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Home and Family
Helpful Hints
by Rifca Goldberg

Part I

Most tips save TIME and MONEY or both, one way or another.

1) When looking for something you've misplaced, tidy up as you search. By the time you've located the missing item, you've made a lot of order in the house instead of another mess! And if you didn't find what you were looking for, at least you did something constructive, thereby saving TIME!

2) Standing in the elevator alone is a perfect time/place to do some stretching. I reach up towards the ceiling, bend over and touch those toes. Always try to use every moment wisely!

3) Above the kitchen sink, I tape a posuk, words of a song I've been wanting to learn, or words of self- endorsement to repeat and/or memorize while washing dishes or peeling those carrots!

4) On the way to the store, or waiting in line at the bank, or at any similar places, I say pesukim! It says that after Moshiach comes, the stones we walked on will ask, "In what way were you better than us?"

Why DID we have the right to walk on the stones? How ARE we better? By always having Torah in our mouth, from our mouths. That's what we will be able to answer those stones.*

5) Think backwards. If you have to put up a soup, put clothes in the dryer and fry fish -- start with the thing that will take the longest amount of time. For example: WHILE the soup is simmering, put the laundry in. WHILE that's drying, start frying the fish. After an hour or so, you will have accomplished quite a few things at once!

6) While folding your older children's clothing (8 years old and up), fold them as is. If they're wrong side out, fold the way they are and let the child turn it right side out when s/he gets dressed. For younger children, however, DO turn the clothing right side out so that when s/he is dashing out to the bus, or if his Abba is waiting for him to go to shul and doesn't want to be late, s/he'll be able to get dressed quickly.

7) At night, I set up the washing machine so it'll be all ready to go, as well as filling the dirty pots with soapy water to soak so that in the morning, when I'm still half asleep, I simply press the button to start running and then I begin to wash the pots and maybe even do something else that takes no thought, like peeling the vegetables. By the time I'm really awake, I've already done some of my housework on `automatic.'

8) Before I fall asleep, I often begin to remember all the little things that I need to do the next day. I keep a pen and notepad next to my bed to jot these things down. Knowing that I have all the `to do' items written down not only helps me to stay on top of the housework but to sleep better, too!

9) I keep my alarm clock on the other side of my room so that it keeps ringing until I actually get up and turn it off. This insures that I GET UP and don't spend TIME taking the kids to their respective schools because they missed their rides, or have to pay MONEY to send them by taxi!

* [Have your repertoire of favorite psukim. For example, when walking in the dark or on uneven terrain, I recite "Al yitein lamot raglecha - Hashem shall not let your feet stumble." Then if I can, I finish this chapter of Tehillim. It is very steadying! Have some pesukim for those zippedee-do-da days, for happy, grateful times, for blue skies, or alternatively, for blue days... Talk/pray to Hashem. He's always there to listen.]

[Cut this list out and paste above sink (see #3) till you've memorized these great ideas. More to come next week. By then, we want yours, too!]

 

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