Leora

Flower of Jerusalem

Photo of this pink bouganvillea or paper flower was taken in the City of David, Jerusalem in early July. I believe the Mount of Olives is in the background.

Today’s Flowers is hosted by Luiz Santilli Jr. Thank you, Luiz!

My Art News

My Middle Son and I are going to be in an art show at the Highland Park Public Library in September 2008. You are all most cordially invited to attend the opening on Sunday, September 7 from 2-5 pm (did I just invite way too many people, Jill?).

It is a showing of the art students of Jill Caporlingua. As I am the webmaster for the library’s site, I added some of art that will be on display to the library gallery.

Here’s a piece I chose to be in the show; not one I did with Jill, but it is my favorite oil painting:

I’m afraid this image doesn’t do the painting justice; it’s much nicer to view in person, especially when the subject himself is sitting right under the painting, buried in one of his books.

I am also planning to show:
this garden watercolor
and
this portrait.

Beet Leaf Watercolor

I did this watercolor in honor of my beets giver…who gave understanding and connection at a difficult time.

Good Evening New Jersey

These photos were taken in Ocean, New Jersey, Teaneck, New Jersey and Highland Park, New Jersey over the past two weeks. Click on any thumbnail to enlarge.

For more Skywatch participants, please visit:

When You Hate School-Supply Shopping

I hate shopping for school supplies. I hate picking out all the notebooks. I hate it, I do, I do.

For the past few years, I’ve taken my sons. They hate it, too. This year, I left my eldest home, and my middle son was traveling on a bus home from camp (he’s now back), so I took my daughter. She didn’t seem to mind it that much, though when I asked if she wanted to look at skirts, she clearly just wanted to get out of the store.

Since we were close to my favorite plant nursery, Livingston Park Nursery on How Lane near Livingston Avenue in North Brunswick, we rewarded ourselves by going plant shopping. And taking photographs.

One of the reasons my daughter is happy is I bought her that purple costume she is wearing, a belated birthday present. Among my plant purchases were two of those little evergreen bushes behind her. Hopefully, we’ll have something green in our backyard in the dead of winter.

This is how the nursery looks:

I could have held unto this one until next Tuesday, so I could post it for Ruby Tuesday, a fun photography meme in which you post a photo that has red, but I like it too much to wait:

Finally, one good purpose for going to nurseries is that you find out the names of the plants that you already own. I don’t think I will forget Andromeda now:

On the other hand, I’ve already forgotten the name of the tall purple perennial I planted in my backyard. Is it loosestrife? lobelia? salvia? penstemmon? If it lives through September, I’ll take a photo of it and post it with a “please identify”.

How do you deal with school-supply season?

Ode to a Peach

Oh, peach, how I love thy juiciness.
I will miss thee come fall.
You provide nourishment for my eldest son
And decorate my window sills with your yellows and reds.

As the peaches in New Jersey are luscious and seem to be almost red in late August, I present this peach as my Ruby Tuesday post.

Thanks for the Beets

"See that woman walking down the street
Don't you know she brought me my beets
She brought me beets,
She brought me beets,
Yeah, we got some beets."

When my daughter was six months old, we had a family crisis. I won’t go into the details, in order to protect family members who aren’t anxious to tell the whole wide world all about our lives. However, there were many friends, acquaintances, and community members who helped us, as well as two superb New Jersey surgeons who performed two separate operations on two different patients.

I would like to highlight one person in particular. At the beginning of the crisis, she discovered through a friend that I liked beets. So every week before Shabbat she brought us a different dish containing beets; some had pickles, some had onions, some lemon, some potatoes. But it really wasn’t the beet dishes themselves that struck the chord for me; it was her understanding that our crisis did not end in a few weeks. Indeed, it was difficult for almost six months. But she brought us beets for at least four months, and then she said: it’s time for me to help another family. That was more than fine with me; I was happy to let our mitzvah lady help another family. I want to stress how thankful I was that she got the lengthiness of the situation and how it went on beyond the first few weeks of help. Getting that extra piece, that meant a lot to me.

She now lives somewhere in Jerusalem; on our last visit, we saw her daughter, and through her daughter I thanked her once again. But for someone who understood difficulty and pain, it’s always good to thank her again.

Rose of Sharon

Song of Songs, 2:1 —

"I am a rose of Sharon, a lily of the valleys."

Even though this is almost definitely NOT the flower referred to by Song of Songs, it is a beautiful flower to have growing in one’s backyard. Mine grew “by accident”, a cast-off from one of my neighbors’ plants. It grows like a weed. I just have to trim what’s growing around the little flowering tree.

This is my first submission to Today’s Flowers, which appear every Monday.

Our Favorite Soccer Coach

Spencer Rockman, a friend and a wonderful local soccer coach who also runs clinics in Israel, was recently on PBS (public television). He starts:

I am a soccer coach. I am also an observant Jew. It was God’s plan for me to be a soccer coach.

In the video, he shows how he leads diverse groups of children here in New Jersey, teaching them not just soccer but values. Two of my friend’s sons are shown (quickly, the scenes change often in the video). He makes us proud!

Watch the whole video.

Featured is also his wife, who talks about the foster children they have had in their home.

Here’s a photo I took of him at a recent shul picnic:

Rudbeckia Associations Game

A photo of my rudbeckia against the fence in our backyard. Here’s the game: instead of telling me what you like about the photo, write some associations. For example, I look at this and I think, “Tom Sawyer.” Because of the story where he painted the fence white. Words or phrases are fine. Have fun.