Week of Sunday, July 15 - Saturday, July 21

This week I've chosen to do challenge 19, "Make dinner for everyone in the house."
I'm gonna do this thoroughly: plan out the meal, find recipes, buy all the required groceries and then cook - on my own!
If any of you have any suggestions, ideas, or recipes, please post them! Just remember that the level of difficulty should be fairly low and the meals have to be vegetarian as both my brother and I are.

Challenge Number 32

Alright, I can start right off by saying I had a little bit of trouble with this challenge. I gave up TV for five days (alright, so I was away at camp, but STILL! I didn't watch any TV). But when I got home from camp I had a fever, headache, and nausea. I couldn't read anything, because that worsened my headache, so books and computer were ruled out. The only other thing I could do lying down was basically television. So I'm very, very sorry if you think I cheated, but it was better than dying of boredom.
I also want to post some pictures of the camp, things we built and stuff, so here you go:

Week of Sunday, July 8th - Saturday, July 14th

My challenge for this week is to give up TV for the week. Okay, it'll be a bit easy since five of the days I'm away at summer camp (counselor ;) ) but for the rest of the time... Not that I watch that much TV anyways. Whatever. So this is challenge number 32 and it shall become red next Saturday. I gotta go to sleep, have to wake up in four hours.

Week of Sunday, July 2 - Saturday, July 8

This week isn't over yet, but I got so trigger-happy about my new camera that I decided to do this week's challenge today. This week I did challenge #23 on my list: writing my regrets down on pieces of paper and then burning them. I had some fun with this, writing regrets that were very serious along with regrets that were just stupid things I did, but I learned from them.
In all, all of these regrets are things that I know I should have done without, but I'm glad I did them because I've learned a lot. Which means that none of them are true, deep regrets, because if I could go back in time I probably still wouldn't change a thing.
It sounds kinda stupid, but a pretty powerful feeling hung about the air as I sat in the sand behind my house and burned the seven little cue-notes. I felt like was really letting go of something. I'm sure I'll still feel a lot of pain regarding some of those regrets, but I know that they're behind me now, that I've dealt with them. Here are some pictures I took:

My regrets...


burning.

Camera!

So I got a digital camera, finally! It's an Olympus FE-190, and it cost me 900NIS (roughly 200 USD) of the money I earned all by myself. I'm really proud to finally own something valuable out of money that I worked hard for. Here are a few pics of my gorgeous new cam:

Digital Camera

So tomorrow (today technically, in Israel time) on July 3rd I am purchasing my very own digital camera (with my very own money, I might add). Which means that either tomorrow or the day after, I will do challenge number 23 and post it along with photos. Good times :)

Week of Sunday, June 24 - Saturday, June 30

This week I did number 2 on my list - I went to scouts every day. I went on Sunday to help paint posters for the summer camp, on Monday to help build things for the summer camp, on Tuesday for my first weekly meeting with my group (fifth grade boys!), on Wednesday to help get things ready for the summer camp, on Thursday for the ceremony where the ninth-graders became part of the older group, on Friday for the second weekly meeting with my group, and on Saturday to help load all the summer camp stuff we built into the containers so that the trucks can take them up north.

The way summer camp works in Scouts in Israel is that grades 9-12 arrive in a forest with a large clearing somewhere in the north of the country. Then, for 5 days, we use logs, ropes, and large teepee cloths to build the whole camp- including large tents for sleeping, a kitchen, a mess hall, a gate for the entrance, the showers, etc. Everything. And five days later grades 4-8 arrive for their 4 days of the summer camp experience.
We leave July 4th and come back the 12th, so between then I won't be updating, but I will still do a challenge that week! I just have to plan ahead.

As we are at the end of the school year, I figured it would be appropriate to do number 23. I've had a tough year and done a lot of stupid things, and I think it would be nice to burn my regrets. Hopefully I'll get pictures up, too!

Ciao, kids.
- Alona