No money

I know that I wrote last week that we wouldn't know for a while but apparently Nefesh B'Nefesh did review our application already. We were  accepted but will not be receiving any financial assistance. In the letter they do say that they'll still provide us with emotional support. That and a few shekel will get me a cup of coffee when I land in Israel.They do provide assistance with the paperwork and stuff like that. We'll probably still take their flight. The only thing we lose by taking their flight is an extra piece of luggage per person. Shira is excited to be on the flight with hundreds of people making aliya at the same time so it's worth the loss of luggage since we're sending a lift anyway. I guess this won't change any of our plans in any way but it sure would have been nice had they also given us money.

We've been approved for aliya!

I just got a call from the Jewish Agency that we were approved for aliya! We didn't really have any doubts about them approving it but it's nice for it to be official. They said that we have to submit the applications for the visa three months before we go. I also spoke to Nefesh B'Nefesh yesterday and they said that they won't have the flight information until Pesach time and they won't review our application until around then. Now we can just concentrate on getting our house in order so we can put it on the market.

People coming and going

Our house has been like Grand Central Station the last couple of days. Yesterday, we had someone come to look at our dining room table and chairs to see if they wanted to buy it, then someone came to buy our bookcases, then for our sukka and then finally the painter came to look over the house again. Today, the painters were here early to start painting and then the cleaning lady came. Someone from http://www.jewishusedbooks.com/ came to see if he wanted to buy any of our used seforim. He wasn't that interested in most of the stuff we were dumping but he filled a box. House goes on the market in less than a month and hopefully it will be all ready by then.

Empty bookcases


We emptied all the books from our living room bookcases so we'll be able to move them for the painters on Monday. We also think that we have a buyer for them. We (meaning Shira) are still trying to decide what furniture we're going to take to Israel but we know we're not taking the bookcases because they were just way too tall so we didn't know if they'd fit in our house.
We posted on luach.com that we wanted to sell our sukka and someone called us 10 minutes later that they wanted to see it. Hopefully, we'll be able to get rid of that soon too. Making progress slowly but surely. At least we still have a lot more time.