Just keep swimming

First I want to start by dedicating this post to a 13 year old inspiration who became an angel in heaven this week after a 6 year battle with cancer. Her name was Talia Castellano, and she had positivity and love to give until her last breath. I can't do her story justice on my blog, but you can read her story and follow her continued impact on her Facebook page: Angels for Talia.
Talia teaches us a real lesson. We never have it as bad as it seems, and in leu of what we think may be going wrong in our lives, we need to "just keep swimming" and stay positive. She is a real inspiration to us all, and her impact will surely help children and adults alike forever.
On a bit of a lighter note, my week has been a bit crazy. Tuesday was Tisha b'Av. For those of you who know me, you might know that I am a pretty bad faster. BH I made it through the fast with flying colors until the final four hours, which were spent in good company with my cousins in the Old City. Our break fast included some good, old fashioned, southern breakfast food. We were just missing the grits! It was such a treat, and a good way to bring up our morale after such a somber day. School has been going well. It is a time period called Bein Hazmanim right now, which is the period of time in between the summer session and the start of the Jewish month of El Ul. It's about 3 weeks of a pretty chill, half day schedule at school. I'm enjoying it so far! I plan to do a bit of day and overnight traveling these next couple of weeks. So far on the schedule we have a couple of beach days and 2 nights at a frum hotel in Netanya. I'm pretty excited and I hope it all actually works out. Pictures will be posted, don't wory! This Shabbos I am going about an hour outside of Jerusalem to a place called Ramat Beit Shemesh. I am going with one of my roommates and another friend from our Jewel program. I'll get to see a close family from Indianapolis who recently made Aliyah! It's so exciting to have a piece of Indiana with me in Israel.
In other news, I am officially the proud owner of a tznius bathing suit from an Israel-based company, MarSea. Check them out online. They have vendors throughout Israel. I had a great experience buying mine and I am officially set to jump in the waves of the Mediterranean in tznius style!
That's pretty much all for now. I'll post some pictures when my internet stops being disfunctional. There may be a mid week post after Shabbos if anything worth telling happens. I hope you all have a wonderful and restful Shabbos! XOXO, Frum girl