C&EF - $1400 (jeepers!)

Here's the 'salon'. It's not so big, but certainly adequate. You get one totally empty bookshelf. The piano she usually wraps up entirely - I explained that you play, and she may be open to leaving it accessible. There's a big momma tv which she unplugs and turns to the wall and covers - I mentioned you wouldn't be missing it ;), but she can't take it out of the room (sorry!).
Salon opens to the front yard, more pics below. There is only AC in the salon / kitchen area, although she says it's really strong and reaches the whole house (I wouldn't hold my breath). One bedroom has a ceiling fan though, and the other is the mamad room so it doesn't get too too warm. Hopefully it's cooling off once you get here anyway.

This is the main bathroom off the hallway, very nicely redone and clean and tiled, with heaters and an exhaust fan (since it has no window). This below is her bedroom, which only has one big bed. There is room for a crib up against the closet (of which only 2/3 is emptied for you). It has an en-suite bathroom with just a shower. She uses it for storage, but how convenient for Liba to stumble to her own potty in the middle of the night? Various caveats about it's a brand new mattress, you need a waterproof pad, etc, etc. A little odd that your daughters get their own bathroom, and you two have to sneak into the hallway in the middle of the night, but nu nu.


This below is the hallway, standing in the mamad doorway. Note the baalas habayis holding a VERY cute two year old (imported). Living room to the left, bathroom door opposite the living room, down the hall into the single bedroom with ensuite. Now to the kitchen (boy are these outa order!). This is the milchig side. Stainless steel sinks (always nice), nice sized fridge (note the ice and water in the door are NOT connected). The dishwasher is just for Pesach, so not for you. Most cabinets are opened (meaning two or three are closed for Pesach) and there's well marked dishes and so on. Definitely fully stocked. A totally adequate kitchen, very nice and new and clean.
Whoops, sorry, now to the laundry room. American washer (which is nice - they are substantially faster than European ones) and new European dryer. Through the laundry room you get to the back porch.
The back porch is really lovely and just redone. Totally enclosed (i.e. no sweat sending the kids out on their own), little kiddy table and chairs and grown up ones too. There's dirt with nothing planted - it is shmita after all - but just in a planter, so it's very clean out here. There's also an attached storage area, but it's locked up. There's a gate back here too to the parking lot, but I don't know why you'd need to use it, unless you wanted a direct entrance to the sukka. This is a great sukka porch, by the way, since it's shaded much of the time.

Okay, now back in to the mamad bedroom. Two beds, below, a desk and a closet. The closet is emptied entirely, I think. Desk is where she has her internet, which she disconnects service for but you can hook up your own with her router, I believe. This window faces the street, but it's a mamad room (those are the shelter rooms) so it's very quiet with the window closed.

Here's the front yard, faces the street and the entrance of the building. It has a paved part and a grassy part, in excellent shape for shmita!

Back inside, this is the view of the salon when standing in the kitchen. There's a low buffet table on the left there where she lights shabbos candles on top of foil. You being wise wouldn't dream of leaving shabbos candles at toddler height, so moot point there. :)

View of kitchen from living room. Front door entry is just visible on the left. On the right before the kitchen is a glass 'tchotchke' cabinet that she says she locks, which is good because it is begging to have every tiny little thing in it broken.

Fleishig side of the kitchen here. There's a microwave (don't know of which gender) and a nice stove and single over. As you see she's got a kitchen table in here too.

Assessment:

You would do just fine here in terms of having enough (but not a huge amount) of space. It's in pristine bubbie-condition (although I didn't see any lace antimascars :) ) which means you'd have to be careful not to let anyone color on the walls, hit baseballs in the house, chew on the furniture and so on. But hopefully after 8 years of marriage you have Eitan well trained.

My only reservation is the price, but I don't know what else is out there. It's a bit high to my thinking and that of the neighbors I shmoozed with this afternoon, BUT again, you're not the only new olim in this Ramat-Shilo fix, and so it may be everything else is taken. Compared to the vacation apartments I saw on, say, www.baruchhaba.com, the price is very good. I emailed another friend about an apartment she rents, but it's probably taken.

I think that's it!

Now I have to go order something (small) to put on your lift... ;)

hours sign

Pigs in Space

In this dream, I was a young male astronaut, up in space on a mission I didn't think I'd be called upon to fulfill, doing an EVA in my spacesuit but untethered to the spaceship. I was fetching the young astronaut chick I had the hots for, who had either run out of air or something, but for some reason I had to remove her from her spacesuit, hold on to her by the orange belt of the white dress she was wearing (with dark grey tights), since her hat fell off in the vacuum (of course). I had to set some beacon from her suit, so I had to 'swim' over to it, push some buttons three times in succession, then valiantly save her body while I got back into the ship. I got her AND her discarded suit AND me all back in there, and while they closed the airlock and got us some oxygen, I put her back in the suit since hey, it's nicer when a corpse is contained. But then as the air started flowing again, she came back to life! I'm confused, since she had no air and no suit on for about 15 minutes, and okay, she's breathing heavily, but she's alive. Huh. And she's still not a whit interested in me, her savior. Indeed, as we land on earth (without need for any landing bumps or even seatbelts, thanks to this great new technology of matching the earth's cycles), she announces to her friends, "I'm glad I came back for there's something here I love.. Planet Earth!" and away she goes to jump off the slowing ship and kiss a tumbleweed out in the dessert.

I go to greet my mother, Mrs. Druyan (who knew?) and my father, who is some old guy who clearly married her after Carl Sagan died, who then proceeds to pass out while driving me home (too much stress with my valiant mission, it seems) and then I roll over (this was all a dream, remember?) and curl up with a pig back at the barn, and keep sleeping.

Sometimes I'm so strange I startle myself.