The tour announcement post went up on Motzaei Shabbos.

Motzaei Shabbos was one of the best times for Jewish bloggers to post content on Instagram. Either people had more time, or they wasted more time; whenever Deena wanted a post to grab the maximum number of views, she scheduled it for Motzaei Shabbos.

From the moment the post went up, her stomach was in knots. She hadn’t realized how important this was for her. Sure, she’d done plenty of events in the past, and she always got great feedback. But this was different. Bigger. Succos in Italy, it was the real deal.

Besides some good hype, she so badly needed people to sign up. The commission would be very welcome, but also, she wanted to make those tour people happy. Prove that inviting her was the right choice.

But now it was Sunday. And the smartest thing to do on a Sunday — definitely smarter than sitting around and compulsively checking the responses to her post — was getting out of the house with her kids. Too many exhausting and unproductive Sundays had taught Deena this fact. It didn’t matter where they went — even grocery shopping counted. As long as they spent several hours outside of their four walls, the day always passed more smoothly.

At nine, she called Leah. “Listen to this idea,” she said. “We take our kids to one of those U-Pick farms, then we come home and make fruit pie with the fruit we pick. Can you be ready in 15 minutes?”

Leah burst out laughing. “Reverse psychology! Deena dear, my kids are still snoring away. Also, I’m not going anywhere before all the laundry is done. Sunday doesn’t start before twelve around here.”

“Blarg!”

“But I’ll look out for your post. Move over, frozen fruit. Fresh peaches, straight off the tree!”

“I did not plan—” Deena stopped herself. “Oh, go back to bed, Leah Kugler.”

Miri and Nechama ate Cheerios while Deena packed sandwiches for lunch. By 9:30, they were on the way.

The kids lived it up. The farm allowed visitors to snack on their picks within the farm, and Deena texted Leah, I think my kids ate more peppers today than they’ve eaten in their entire lives. Stick-out-tongue emoji.

They picked green beans and eggplant and blueberries and more peaches than they could fit in their baskets. Then Deena sat both kids into their wheelbarrow and wheeled them further down the field to try the corn maze.

By midday, they were all hot and exhausted, but a good type of exhaustion, not Sunday exhaustion. They sat down to rest and eat lunch.

“Hey, kids,” Deena called after collecting the garbage. “How about we take a few nice pictures with the fruit we picked?”

Nechama grumbled. “I don’t wanna.”

“Pleeeease?” Deena wheedled.

Miri jumped to her feet. “Oooh! I want to take pictures. I know how to, right, Ma? Remember the breads last week?”

The breads — it had worked out pretty nicely. They’d worked on the set together, Deena pretending to take Miri’s suggestions very seriously. The two of them had played around with apertures and shutter speed on Deena’s DSLR. Deena had taught Miri how to zoom and focus, how to adjust the tripod to the correct angle. And the best part was, she gave complete photo credits to her daughter, which cunningly excused any photography flaws.

Plus, they’d had a really good time together. Shiny star, Sarah Beneloff.

“Right?” Miri repeated.

“Riiiight,” Deena said slowly. “So, um, how about I take some, you take some?”

“Me too!” Nechama yelled.

“Yes, of course you too, sweetie.”

Deena fixed their hair and adjusted their skirts, then took her DSLR out of its pouch. Together with Miri, she chose a spot that was fairly shady and also got the corn maze in the background. Deena took a few good shots of the girls first. Then she let Miri shoot pictures of Nechama in front of the wheelbarrow, of Deena holding a basket of peaches, of random areas of the farm, zooming in and out to her liking.

“Wow, you’re a professional photographer, Mir,” Deena said, scrolling through the pictures. “Look at these pictures, they’re gorgeous!”

Miri beamed.

Deena gave Nechama a chance, holding the camera together with her. Then they returned to the field to pick squash.

By the time they returned home, nobody had any energy left to bake fruit pies. The kids went off to do their own thing, and after unpacking the produce they’d picked, Deena slipped into her office and finally checked her Instagram post.

A smile rose on her face. Thirteen hundred and fifty-six likes. Forty-seven comments.

Still smiling, she scrolled through the comments. There were a bunch along the lines of Wow, so exciting, so happy for you, this is huge, some questions about tour details — did that mean they were considering it? — and even one comment from a person who’d been on a trip with Touring Together in the past. (They’re the besssssssst! Highly recommend!)

Deena replied to some comments. Maybe some followers would actually sign up? That would be so…

So perfectly awesome.

She logged in to her email to share the positive response to her post with Hersko.

Before hitting compose, she went through the new messages in her inbox. She’d turned off all alerts on her phone in the morning so she could focus on the trip with her kids without any distractions.

There were some work-related emails, and also a message from Ruthie Laufer. She clicked and read.

Hey, Deena! I saw your post about the Succos tour, and ……… GUESS WHAT?! You totally convinced me and I think I’m signing up!

to be continued…

(Originally featured in Family First, Issue 763)