Is your Sukkah up yet? Ours is. We put it up before Rosh Hashanah. I felt so good about having our Sukkah up. Ready to toot my own horn for being so organized… my tree trimmer for the past 3 years came over and said, “There is no way I can trim the branches this year. For every one trim, 8 branches grow back. You need to get your entire tree completely cut down, it’s too full for the sukkah to be kosher”, leaving me about one week to cut down a tremendous tree.
Take that, Mrs. professional organizer!
As long as I’m confessing, here is another. I recently completed my next ebook, Tishrei Perfectly Organized.
Things were progressing beautifully. I had 20 challahs frozen in the freezer. Soup already made and frozen. Desserts cooked Wednesday, main meals cooked Thursday, nothing left to be done erev Rosh Hashanah. Right before candle lighting, I couldn’t find the instructions for the Shabbos mode on my oven. I felt frustrated and stressed when I realized I would not have the oven to easily heat up my food on Yom Tov. (It shuts off after 12 hours unless you program the Shabbos mode) The feelings I had going into Rosh Hashanah were not the ones I had planned.
Things don’t work out always as has planned. Even when you do actually plan them! I know, I’ve been planning all of this for you so you do not have to do it. (Believe me, the shabbos mode instructions finding is now included in the Tishrei book). And I had even scheduled building the sukkah, assessing the sukkah for any potential fixing to be done… IN ADVANCE.
And sometimes things just do not happen that way. I think there are two important things to be done in that case. The first is to be resourceful. I have a blech (hot plate), and on Rosh Hashanah, all of the food got warmed up on the blech. I called 3 other tree companies and sure enough found one to come right before Sukkos. My second piece of advice seems somewhat contradictory. Let it go. I can be as resourceful as I want to be. I can call 20 tree companies! But at some point, I need to let it go.
You know what? For someone like me, who is naturally resourceful, the letting go part is hard. Making phone calls, backup plans, lists are the easy part for me. But letting go and perhaps handing it over to G-d? That is not as natural. I’m learning though, that when I do this- for physical goals as well as spiritual goals, I feel so much better.
Rivka Slatkin is the founder of Jewish Life Organized and started it when she herself was looking to organize the Jewish Holidays. Rivka did a lot of research on how others organizing the Yomim Tovim and posted her findings on her website for her friends and family. Lots more people found Jewishlifeorganized.com and wanted copies of the Yom Tov Perfectly Organized Collection. "I guess I wasn't the only one looking to get more organized for the holidays!", Rivka says. Go to http://www.jewish-life-organized.com to sign up for Rivka's free newsletter.
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