Storm has hopefully passed

The most stressful few weeks of our aliyah so far have (hopefully) just ended. A whole bunch of things happened at one time, making life interesting, to say to least.

The first thing that came along was a call from the Israeli Defense Force asking Rich to come in for a meeting. We had a feeling it wasn't just to say "Welcome to Israel" and we bit our nails for a week and a half until the meeting day. It turns out that the army is apparently experiencing a major shortage with doctors and are drafting people to staff the clinics on some of the bases. The cut-off age is usually 35 and lucky Rich was 34 when we made aliyah, turning 35 in November.

They told him they'll be taking him in 3 weeks.

Well, that freaked us out just a bit.
When it comes down to it, the job would really just be a regular 9-5 job at a base (give or take some late nights and early mornings). Because of Rich's "old age," they wouldn't put him anywhere dicey.

Really the main point of stress comes from the timing. They told him he starts the 30th of June. First of all, that's three weeks notice...and it's also not even a whole yr after we made aliyah! Second, we get the keys to our house in mid July and start renovations soon after that. We move at the end of Aug. I have absolutely no idea how to get everything done alone...with 3 kids who are home from school and camp (Aug is a slow month in Israel with no planned activities for kids). Feelin' the stress.

But here's the good news we found out yesterday:
Because Rich is in an observation period in a doc's office right now, the army can't take him until he's done! So thanks to a lot of string-pulling by some pretty high-ups, the army's delayed for a few months. Until after we move, thank G-d.

Another high-tension point was our house...
We were told when we bought the house that it had a permit to build in a dead-space open atrium area in the mid of the house. We factored that in when we bought it, figuring that we would have enough room after building.

Well, along came the glitch:
No really knows FOR SURE if we can or can't build. Some have told us absolutely not and others ask "What's the problem?"
So we've been chasing people for a few weeks, trying to get some kind of concrete answer.

But you know how it is: It's Israel. There are no concrete answers here.

Again, thank G-d we might have solved this problem as well.
Just met with our amazing contractor today and have developed a plan that might bypass some of the issues.

Things seem to be working themselves out.
We're hoping the same will happen with the lady who banged up our car while it was parked. Hopefully she'll cave and pay up when she realizes that 3 witnesses are hard to argue with.
(This, by the way, is the 3rd time our car has been banged into within 3 months by the fine variety of drivers here.)

Rich's work has lightened up a bit as well, relaxing him a little. My assignments have gotten smaller too which is nice for now.

So we're back to standard- operating procedure around here now. We like it like that.