A Few More Steps

We love to travel. I love taking photos wherever we are. For the written stuff check out my blog at www.afewmoresteps.com

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One boy, three parties, 13th birthday

One boy, three parties, 13th birthday

I have no idea what I was thinking when I asked Ron if he wants a birthday party this year. Over the years we have tried to avoid throwing birthday parties in every way possible. We have moved countries right before, we have told the kids birthday parties are evil, we bribed them with everything they want, and it worked. Until this year. This year Ron turns 13 and he wanted a real celebration.

13…

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My inspirational talk

I have been invited to be a guest in a Facebook live of one of the millions Facebook group I’m a member in (I think it has officially reached the point of addiction by now). It’s one of the groups for Israeli women living as expats around the world, and the point of the Live talk is “inspirational stories”. Yes, I know, I fell off my chair laughing too – me? an Inspirational Story?

The invitation…

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Superstitions and Job Searching

Superstitions and Job Searching

I broke the kids. We can no longer leave the house without them searching for cars with the same three digits on the license plate (in Malta all cars have, or are supposed to have, a licence plate with three letters & three digits). It all started a couple of months ago, when we started looking for our next role. I was in my positive, trust-in-the-universe, spiritually enhanced new lifestyle, so…

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Invisible disabilities - Do I tell or do I hide?

Invisible disabilities – Do I tell or do I hide?

Dealing with invisible disabilities, you always have the question – do I tell, or do I hide? Ever since Yon was diagnosed we had to wrestle with this question, and every time we move a country (and a school) it pops up again – should we try and pass him off as “normal” or should we tell everyone and risk the looks, the whispers and my favourite – the step backwards?

When Yon was younger, it was…

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Challah baking and job searching

Challah baking and job searching

On Thursday evening I was invited to a challah baking thing at the Rabbi’s wife house. And imaginary as it might sound to anyone who has ever met me (except the Rabbi’s wife, who keep inviting me to stuff), I went. Without Hidai. Because it’s a women thing. And this is how Hidai & the kids found themselves in total darkness, because I forgot the smart lights are connected to my phone, and I found…

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Shifting

Every time we move I change. I change who I am, I change my focus in life, I change this blog. Every time we move it gives me the ability to start over and find a new Orli in the mix. When we were in Gibraltar, it was our first relocation, and life and blog were all about finding out who I am outside Israel, who we are as a family when it’s just us, what leaving behind my life, my family, my…

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Disability Land

I’ve been stuck in the same place with no ability to move. I’ve spent the last month in “Disability Land”, you know, the place where everything you do and everything you see is disability related. I look at my kids, at my family, at my friends, at my Facebook feed, and all I see I see through the lenses of Yon’s disability and my needs. I have been physically ill, binge-watching all seasons of…

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How much is the right amount of disabled?

How much is the right amount of disabled?

In the past three weeks I was bullied online, threw out my back, had an inflammation in my bad knee, and had the flu.

And I got an email from the head-teacher at the new school that “we need to talk”.

I have no idea how normal people react to an email from school, I reacted in my regular way – calling Hidai and sobbing hysterically on the phone. I think it’s a perfectly acceptable reaction to an…

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Ron's 12 birthday

Ron’s 12 birthday

I can’t believe he is 12, this not-so-tiny person of mine. And he has been waiting for his birthday for a long time. A long, long time. Someone, and I am not pointing fingers here, but it was me, promised him the one thing he wanted more than anything else in the whole wide world, an Xbox One. That someone was mostly riddled with parental (motherly) guilt about how last year we were on the road…

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How to make someone fall in love with Malta

How to make someone fall in love with Malta

We have visitors!

My parents came over on Sunday for 5 days to see where all our wandering around landed us, and what this Malta thing is all about, and after all the wandering and drifting and all the time they spent worrying about us, it was very important to us that they leave here loving Malta.

Malta is one of those places were you have an initial shock when you arrive. It looks nothing like…

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Moving Day

We are moving into our new flat. I can stop writing things like “temp-flat”, and starts writing “home” like a normal person. We are going to have our own home after a year of drifting around the world! We were, and are, so excited about it. It is not that I didn’t like the drifting, I did. When it was part of the big-trip. When it was all exciting and adventurous. Drifting right now, while just…

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School registration in Malta

School registration in Malta

Well, Tuesday morning we had two things to accomplish – we had to get the kids bed assembled and to get to the school to register them (because Easter break was finally over). Sounds simple enough. We scheduled the assembly to 8am and the school to 11am. We thought we were so clever.

The kids and I arrived to the flat at 8am, and Hidai went to work until they arrive to do the assembly (we had to…

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Saturday shopping and Monday anxiety

Saturday shopping and Monday anxiety

Armed with the keys to the flat and after eating a few of the saved blueberry muffins, we set out to buy some moving in necessities. It was just that after we managed to solve the case of the missing pillows, we figured it would also be beneficial to have hangers, and a laundry rack, and blankets. Saturday seemed like the logical solution, and also we were very excited about buying things for the…

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We have keys (and our first power outage)

We have keys (and our first power outage)

After the day we had Wednesday, we were planned for a nice and easy Thursday morning. We woke up to rain. Rain in Malta is more of a drizzle everywhere else, but mostly it all becomes very grey and depressing.

Hidai was in charge of collecting the cash for the flat – this is the only payment we always do in cash, and since it always include the deposit, the first month, the other bits and bobs,…

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Shopping (and shipping) made hard

Shopping (and shipping) made hard

For some unknown reason Malta doesn’t have Easter Monday, so it all went back to normal Monday morning with Hidai going to work and the kids and I finding our school rhythm once again. It wasn’t easy at all. All throughout this last year I’ve tried to have as much of a routine as I could manage for the kids, especially since we finished the trip, but these last few weeks, with the move, the…

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House search in Malta - Part 3

House search in Malta – Part 3

I think I slept through Friday. I was so exhausted, we all were, after these last couple of weeks, that I think we spent most of Friday doing nothing at all. It’s a strange thing, moving. It is supposed to get easier every time you do it, I mean after all, how hard can it be? But it’s the little things that gets to you – it took me 10 days to get to a point where I now own a mixing bowl, I still…

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House search in Malta - Part 2

House search in Malta – Part 2

We started Wednesday with the hopes that somehow everything will turn out ok. A hope that was based on nothing really, It’s just that all the apartments we’ve seen and didn’t want were still there, and one was even reduced, so we figured maybe things are not really so stressful, and anyway it’s better to start the day with hope. So there we were, on the curb again at 9:00am, waiting for the…

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