The goings on

It's been really busy and stressful around here.  I am glad we didn't have to do this for the past five years.  Moving is stressful (did I mention this already?) and tiring and I can't wait to be done with it already:)  We've been doing little else besides packing and sorting and packing some more. Well, in a few days it will be over, G-d willing and than we can proceed to the unpacking and the settling in stage. My head is full of all kinds of ideas for the best way to organize and arrange everything in the new place but really I believe one has to live somewhere first before truly knowing the best place for everything to go.  I've been looking through all my gardening books for all kinds of gardening and other outdoor things I am hoping to dowith the kids in the new place.  I keep calling it "the new place", becasue it will take time to make it into a home.  Hopefully not too long.  We have been keeping to a minimalist learning schedule of math and copywork besides the usual limudei kodesh stuff.  But there really has been no time for anything else - projects, etc.  The kids are doing very well with the Mammoth math, we are doing a mix of division, multiplication and fractions and it's nice to see how all the various sections fit well together and reinforce each other.  I think the children are seeing their own progress and are finding it encouraging.  There has been a lot of creative free play which is always cute for me to watch.  We had a little birthday party.  I think the kids picked up on a few life skills with all the moving related activities.  On the geopolitical front, things are always exciting in this part of the world.  We had violent Arab mobs again trying to crash through our border next to Syria.  The moral equivalency nonsense and other twisted reporting coming out of some reporter's mouths/pens in the wake of Israel having to take defensive albeit very very restrained actions to protect our sovereign borders just boggles the mind.  Considering how political and slanted much of the reporting in the Western media is, I wonder if it's at all possible for an average European to ever really understand things here. Some good articles here  and here and here to shed some light on the situation, mostly for the benefit of my European readers.  You won't get this from the BBC(see this too while you are at it).  The insanity and the dishonesty, deliberate or through sloppy and bigoted reporting gets to me sometimes.  There have to be some intellectually honest people out there who don't buy into this endless distortion and falsification of history and current events.  So, I am looking forward to Shavuos and to the days when the headlines won't be full of projections for this or that political eventuality, to how many missiles will fall on Israel in the next war and where, to the ever growing number and spectrum of threats and our level of preparedness for all or some of them.  G-d is watching us and guarding us here.  I wish the world would leave us alone already and mind their own business, Heaven knows they have more than enough problems of their own.  We don't need any fake peace proposals or processes.  We need the kind of peace that only G-d provides when we do what He wants.  Chag Sameach everyone, happy Shavuos, do some learning, eat some cheesecake and  leave the everyday cares for a while for this special holiday that celebrates the giving of the Torah, which made us into the unique nation that we are.