Playing with Fire

Fourth Night of Chanukah
Fourth Night of Chanukah

Each night of Chanukah we light one more candle, until by the eighth night we have eight candles lit. This is to remember the miracle that happened in the Temple a long time ago, when one little container of oil that should have lasted for only one day lasted for eight. In the photo are four orange candles for the fourth night, and the purple one called the “shamash.” The shamash is an extra one, the helper; the shamash lights the other candles. One can choose any colors; my daughter picked these colors. My sons and husband use an oil chanukiah (menorah), as the one in the Temple used oil.

warped_candles
I’ve been taking many photos of the lights, or as the title of this post declares, I’ve been “playing with fire.” Here’s the photo of the candles on a jar, using the warp tool in Photoshop as instructed in this tutorial on the warp tool effect.

Ruby Tuesday Visits My Kitchen

kitchen
This was my kitchen way back in July. See the tomatoes on the window sill? Must have been a bountiful week. The tomatoes are gone, but the clutter is still there.

doughnuts_challah
This was in my kitchen last Friday: doughnuts for Chanukah (we have a custom of eating foods fried in oil to remember the oil that miraculously lasted for 8 days) and challah for Shabbat (the commandment or mitzvah is to eat two loaves of bread with each Shabbat meal – a rich egg bread has developed as the tradition to uphold the mitzvah). Yes, both are homemade. Little red in this photo, but it does keep with the theme of my kitchen!

strawberries
And here are some red strawberries that got gobbled up last night, along with the doughnuts (sufganiyot) and latkes (potato pancakes). I also made Mimi’s fish soup and a cubed pressed salad of cucumbers and carrots that I seasoned with fresh-squeezed lemon juice, orange juice, and chopped fresh ginger root.

For more photos with red, visit Ruby Tuesday:
rubytuesday

Candle Lighting – SOOC

Lighting Wick Floating in Oil on Second Night of Hanukkah
Lighting Wick Floating in Oil on Second Night of Hanukkah

For more shots SOOC – Straight Out of the Camera, visit:
SOOC_Sunday

Shadow Shot of Hand

hand_shadow
Took this last week in my backyard. The plan was to photograph the strawberry leaves, as some are now bright red, but I ended up playing hand shadows against the fence. Visit Hey Harriet for more Shadow Shots.

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