יום שני, ז׳ תמוז תשפ״וMonday, June 22, 2026
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Pnina Baim is the author of the Young Adult novels, Choices, A Life Worth Living (featured on Dansdeals and Jew In The City) and a how-to book for the Orthodox homemaker, Sing While You Work. The books are available at amazon.com. Pnina is available for speaking engagements and personal consulting. Contact her at pninabaim@gmail.com.
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By Pnina Baim
The toys, bookcases and drawers in china closet are simple jobs and can be delegated to children. Have them divide the items into keep, throw out and donate.
By Pnina Baim
For extra credit, you can bring out your vacuum and clean the coils at the bottom of the fridge. Having these coils dust free keeps your fridge running more efficiently and saves on electricity.
By Pnina Baim
I am of the opinion that children’s money belongs to them, and if they want to blow it on junk from the local discount store, that is their prerogative.
By Pnina Baim
In the spirit of taking full advantage of the desire to stay indoors during these chilly nights, let’s organize our homes so that we can find the peace of mind we deserve.
By Pnina Baim
I am a huge proponent of spending quality time with your spouse, as the benefits of strengthening your relationship are huge and long-lasting.
By Pnina Baim
The best way to get them to sit down and actually do their work is by making it part of their schedule.
By Pnina Baim
Pick a day to start. We would love to begin on Motzaei Yom Kippur, but if your children are fasting, they might not be up to it, unless they drank coffee and are now all hyped up.
By Pnina Baim
In general, we buy good backpacks that we expect our children to have for at least two years.
By Pnina Baim
I would be amiss if I did not mention the old classic, chalk. There are so many ways to combine chalk with a city sidewalk.
By Pnina Baim
I will not lie, I was very nervous before we began the journey, but the trip was so successful, we plan on doing it again!
By Pnina Baim
In place of flowers, I love to give and receive plants. They are the gift that keeps on giving.
By Pnina Baim
It is fun for the whole family, and best of all, can be done anytime and anywhere.
By Pnina Baim
The seudah will be done as a pot-luck with my two sisters, and I will bring challah freshly baked that day. The only thing remaining to worry about is costumes.
By Pnina Baim
A great way to prepare for Purim, other than by stocking up on every nosh on sale, is to begin to integrate the lessons of hashgacha pratis around you.
By Pnina Baim
While hibernating at home may feel like the best thing to do during the winter, there are plenty of outside activities to take advantage of, the most popular being ice skating.
By Pnina Baim
There is a strong sense of comfort that comes with zipping up a warm sweatshirt, and pulling on thick wool socks.
By Pnina Baim
Children do love a good birthday party, so it’s time to find a healthy balance between what the school and my budget allows.
By Pnina Baim
I highly recommend that children fall asleep alone, one at a time, to avoid distractions from siblings.
By Pnina Baim
Once you greet your guest, feel comfortable setting some basic rules. This is your house, after all.
By Pnina Baim
To help those who dread it, or are neutral towards it, it’s best to fake it till you make it, i.e. act as if we are excited for the upcoming school year, and before you know it, they just might be.
By Pnina Baim
Lest you think that I now have more hours to get things done, this insomnia doesn’t make me more productive.
By Pnina Baim
One summer, I managed to go the entire season without an air conditioner in my bedroom.
By Pnina Baim
Of course, before you send out the invites, the bride must decide if she would like a registry or will be accepting whatever creative gifts the guests bring.
By Pnina Baim
It’s interesting how small things change our perspective. Shabbos is always 25 hours, but with a longer afternoon, we call it a long Shabbos.
By Pnina Baim
My husband enjoys cooking when he is home and my kids have been cooking and baking since the age of four.
By Pnina Baim
I underestimated how eager my children would be to buy real costumes.
By Pnina Baim
Make a list of all the things you must do today, number them in order of how much you detest them, and then do the first one on the list first.
By Pnina Baim
American Jews have the impression that France, and Paris in particular, is a terribly dangerous place for Jews. However, to my pleasant surprise, I learnt that this was not the case.
By Pnina Baim
When buying clothing for your children, make sure they want to wear those outfits, and it’s not just you who wants them to wear them.
By Pnina Baim
The best way to prepare your child for the best year possible is, of course, by preparing.
By Pnina Baim
In my circles, manning the barbeque is traditionally a male job, but there is a lot more to a successful barbeque than dropping the meat onto the grill.
By Pnina Baim
I did not start my training with the idea that my children would join me.
By Pnina Baim
Plants calm you, help you concentrate, help you breathe better, they even help with the creative process.
By Pnina Baim
I find that the best way to get things done is not to push things off.
By Pnina Baim
We help each other on a regular basis, but are free to say no without feeling guilt or resentment.
By Pnina Baim
I am a huge fan of shared family experiences...
By Pnina Baim
Guess what! We are going to be making our own lunches, and it will be the best ever.
By Pnina Baim
Invest in some good cleaning habits, along with a good solid dose of planning and prevention.
By Pnina Baim
The number one way to avoid many of the typical challenges that could delay a child’s success and growth in the coming years is by utilizing a well-thought out routine.
By Pnina Baim
Though we spent thousands of dollars on our flights, we definitely had no intention of paying $1.05 for a luggage cart.
By Pnina Baim
Either bring blankets from home or get from the flight attendants. Bring sweatshirts for added coziness as the blankets are sure to fall off.
By Pnina Baim
If done properly, painting a room can be done in just a few hours with minimal cleanup. The key is, of course, preparation.
By Pnina Baim
But how to get sleep when you just can’t relax enough or find yourself waking up at random times during the night?
By Pnina Baim
However, as soon as the tickets are booked, the next big question is: who can watch the children?
By Pnina Baim
In my house, I like to give my children a chance to unwind and eat dinner before homework.
By Pnina Baim
In short, going on vacation is something that we should be doing more often.
By Pnina Baim
In the true desire to cut down on unnecessary purchases, for myself and for others, I have begun asking people directly what they want as a gift.
By Pnina Baim
In Israel, there is a growing pushback against publications that erase women.
By Pnina Baim
I'm not trying to minimize the holy work of raising children.
By Pnina Baim
If either of you already has the basic kitchen, bathroom, and dining necessities, resist the urge to dump everything you have and start all over again.
By Pnina Baim
To avoid all this waste and unnecessary anxiety, let’s break the task down step by step and tackle each one at a time.
By Pnina Baim
Gardening can be a healthy, wholesome activity for the whole family.
By Pnina Baim
By signing the document, my husband and I are saying that our love and devotion to each other are so strong that we do not want the power to hurt each other.
By Pnina Baim
First, sit down with your helpers and a pen and paper and break the jobs down into small parts.
By Pnina Baim
Does standing under the chuppah signal the end of our dream of romance and beautiful sunsets?
By Pnina Baim
Everyone has a weakness. For some people it is the inability to walk past a sales rack without dropping a few hundred dollars. For others, it’s the inability to keep their house organized.
By Pnina Baim
The world sees the hand of God through us, and does not like it.
By Pnina Baim
Maybe we don't have to lose that growth and unity that we have achieved, especially with the situation in Eretz Yisrael right now.
By Pnina Baim
This summer, why don't we try to do better and cool off without blowing our retirement fund?
By Pnina Baim
Do we really have that much extra money to throw away on substandard products and shoddy service? I think not.
By Pnina Baim
Yom Tov is about spending time with your family. And while for some families the big once-in-a-lifetime experience is great, for others something low key is the way to go.
By Pnina Baim
So, my dear sisters in the trenches, remember. When the going gets tough, the tough get going. And who is tougher than the Jewish women of today?
By Pnina Baim
People like to say that dirt isn’t chometz, but as Rabbi Dovid Orlofsky says, if dirt isn’t chometz, how can you tell? Besides, are you really going to take apart the whole closet and then not wipe it down before you put everything back? If you’re not going to clean the mess now, when will you?
By Pnina Baim
It’s easy to get excited and start hunting for the perfect shade of champagne tablecloth to match the exact color of the bridesmaid dresses, or to insist that each guest must have a wine glass, water glass and soda glass.
By Pnina Baim
It’s not that I think contractors, painters and tile guys are exclusively greedy, deceitful incompetent people – I think they are just poor businessmen or women!
By Pnina Baim
Perhaps we can teach our children to give, instead of take... to become contributing members of the community.
By Pnina Baim
I have worked as a nutritionist at a WIC office in Williamsburg for five years now, and combined with my observation of my children’s friends, I’ve come to a realization. Most people are no longer eating food, but rather food-like substances, and worse, they are feeding their children the same.
By Pnina Baim
She wasn't talking about folding the regular loads of laundry, she was talking about huge plastic bins.
By Pnina Baim
To some people, the sounds of rustling backpacks and starched uniforms brings feelings of sweet relief; it’s the sound of children going back to school and the household returning to a normal schedule.
By Pnina Baim
He had no doubts, he had no questions; he had the most beautiful emunah p'shuta and perhaps, as a small reward, Zaidy was able to see the revelation of G-dliness in this world.
By Pnina Baim
This past Lag B'Omer, we were blessed to make our first upsherin, where we celebrate our son’s first hair cut. It’s a wonderful milestone that mimics the three years that we refrain from plucking a tree’s first fruits and symbolizes the entry of the child into the world of Torah learning. It’s a clear sign to everyone; this boy is no longer a baby.
By Pnina Baim
As I mentioned in my earlier articles about our family trip to Israel, our night flight went pretty smooth, thanks to my children’s willingness to sleep throughout the flight. I, on the other hand, didn’t sleep a wink and I wasn’t feeling too great by the time we landed. But we were finally in Israel, and just being in the beautifully renovated Ben Gurion airport and hearing all the Hebrew around us was exciting enough.
By Pnina Baim
Last month, I discussed our tumuloutous family trip to Israel and the many mistakes and some smart moves we made along the way. Hopefully you can learn from our mistakes and incorporate the lessons we learned in your own family trips.
By Pnina Baim
I’m very passionate about Israel and it’s always been my desire to share that passion with my children. It was a sad day in our home when we missed out on the great deal to Israel earlier this year, but thankfully, my husband managed to snag an almost as good one a couple of months later.
By Pnina Baim
But his third birthday was rapidly approaching, and I wanted him toilet trained before our family trip to Israel a couple of months down the line. Giving up wasn’t an option.
By Pnina Baim
The thing about work is that it isn’t fun. If it were, it would be called play. Most people grumble about going to work, and look forward to their time-off – especially when it is paid. And yet, polls show that most people, given the choice, would prefer to work. It’s when we get to the office that we begin to moan and groan. What’s the point in that? If we spend the majority of our waking hours at work, we might as well enjoy it! Here are some ways we can accomplish that.
By Pnina Baim
Oh, Chanukah! Chanukah, the festival of lights and the powerful story of the unlikely military victory of the Maccabees. One lesson we’re able to glean from the Maccabees is the importance of doing just a little bit more then you think you are capable of. As we all know, the Maccabees were quite aware that taking on the mighty Greek army was a suicide campaign. Yet, they succeeded.
By Pnina Baim
My oldest daughter loves school. In fact, over the long holiday break, whenever her school was mentioned, she would say in a little sad voice, “I miss my morahs.” I repeated this story gleefully to my friends. Some of them, the ones with older kids, looked at me with a blasé face and said, “don’t […]
By Pnina Baim
I feel that I am a good authority to write on this topic, because although I love having guests, it completely stresses me out. Something happens to me when we have guests over; I feel this urge to have the table perfect, the food innovative, delicious and abundant and my children buffed and shiny. When things don’t turn out well, it’s not exactly pretty.
By Pnina Baim
There is a long laundry list of personal goals running through my head that I want to work on. I love taking advantage of a celebratory date to select one of these pressing items and promise myself that this time, I really will begin to do whatever it is that will make my life better. Yet, somehow, after the birthday or New Year passes, my fervent declarations are quickly forgotten and I lapse into my old behavior.
By Pnina Baim
For my upcoming birthday, instead of waiting for my friends or my husband to make me a “surprise” party, I decided to throw one myself. I settled on a cozy and intimate evening, celebrating my birthday with professional cake decorating and fruity cocktails with my nearest and dearest. But as with every gathering I plan, things started to get out of control.
By Pnina Baim
Summer is just about upon us, and with it comes the hustle and bustle of preparing for camp and family getaways. This is such a wonderful time, full of new experiences and memory building for the whole family. One memory the summer shouldn’t create, however, is that of the house being infested with bedbugs.
By Pnina Baim
It’s tough to catch some glam in an otherwise pretty non-glamorous life. In the 21st century, who isn’t overstressed, overwhelmed and overbooked? The roles of today’s women today has multiplied to the point where even the strongest of us has stretched her limits, leaving her without any time or energy for herself. Which woman hasn’t […]
By Pnina Baim
Ahh, that wonderful time when you return home from the hospital with a brand new bundle of joy nestled in your arms. Without getting into the pros or cons of sending yourself or your other children away, or the benefits and possibilities of family or paid help, eventually everyone will go home and you’ll be all by your lonesome, raising the family. So how to make this momentous occasion truly memorable, instead of weeks of what could be construed by some as torture?
By Pnina Baim
I think if we can be honest with ourselves, most women will admit to enjoying Pesach cleaning - and perhaps to even looking forward to it all year long.
By Pnina Baim
There’s nothing like a holiday where one is required to be happy to bring out the grouch in all of us. But we should all be excited to greet Purim. Not only because of the beautiful miracle that occurred, the lessons of emunah and the role of the Jewish woman that Megillas Esther teaches us, but also because it’s the only twenty-four hour holiday that we celebrate here in Chutz L’Aretz, and it has merely four mitzvot! How simple is that?
By Pnina Baim
Who doesn’t want to save money? The siren call of sales lures us all, and few are able to resist stocking up.
