OK, I've had it with relying on my own memory for things like shopping lists, to-do lists at work, appointments, and most importantly,
counting the 'Omer.
I wrote a
blog post about this two years ago, and in it I linked to what I called "
the most handy Sefiras Ha'Omer calendar I've ever used."
This year I managed to keep up with the 'Omer for the first two weeks without the aid of the calendar. But, knowing my own weaknesses, on or about day 17, I dutifully printed out three copies of the calendar, as is my annual custom, to tape up in my apartment in three places - the outside of my front door, the inside of my front door, and the outside of my bedroom door. I do this every year to ensure that whether I come home late, come home early, or go to bed whenever, I must necessarily see the calendar, with its little check marks, and be reminded whether or not I have counted the 'Omer yet each night.
Unfortunately, although I printed out the calendar, I did not get around to taping it up in its proper places. This did not result in my missing a day - well not as such. What happened, is that because I had grown used to counting the 'Omer from memory, on day 20 I remembered that I had not counted the night before, and I quickly counted the 'Omer. Unfortunately, I counted day 19, instead of day 20. Had I been utilizing my calendar appropriately, I would have checked the boxes next to each date, and double-checked to make sure I was about to do the correct day's count. No, the three copies of my calendar lay on my dining room table, waiting for me to hang them up in their spots. What's so infuriating about this whole thing, is that I had just checked off all the dates up until that day. The only thing is that I didn't look at the numbers next to each date. I just looked at the date. I thought, "I know what day it is, I know how to count it in Hebrew, I just want to update my calendar, so that when I hang it up today or tomorrow or whenever, I will not have to bother with it. It will be all checked off up to the right date. Now I'm going to count." And so I did. I counted. I counted the wrong day! I'm an idiot! I realized that night that I had miscounted, and now I am "out", so to speak. That means I cannot count the 'Omer with a Berachah anymore this year.
Stupid, stupid, stupid. As you can tell, I'm a tad frustrated. This is the first year since I started using Wallach's calendar in 2001 that I will not have counted every day appropriately.
