Just read it

Gilad Shalit

( Click on words to enlarge)


On Wednesday, July 2, the Hebrew calendar date of the second anniversary of the abduction of IDF soldier Gilad Shalit, we are calling on all Jews throughout the world to recite one chapter of Tehillim (Psalms) to beseech G-d's mercy to have Gilad Shalit released. By reciting this chapter of Tehillim at the same time the power of solidarity and oneness can have a much greater impact on our prayers.



Please recite the chapter of Tehillim above at the following time on Wednesday, July 2:


6:00 PM - Israel Time

5:00 PM - Paris Time

4:00 PM - UK Time

11:00 AM- East Coast Time

8:00 AM - West Coast Time
HELP SPREAD THE WORD.

Let your friends and neighbors know so they can take part.

Sophie learns to harvest

Taking a juice break from the hard job of picking figs

Sophie picking her first fig....

OOPS, she smushed it.

Now she has the hang of it.

One, two, three, four.....

Buddy, NO!

Gone Fishing

Adam's catch of the day: King Fish

Adam loves to fish. Adam also gets extremely sea sick. However, Adam is so strong willed, he will try and try again. Last weekend, he went out on a friend's boat, and it was a great day for him. The only thing going over the side of the boat was his fishing line.

Take a look at what he caught!

Expansion

I've expanded to a second blog site: Cookbooksharona.blogspot.com

It came as a result of one of my passions: cooking. My goal is to try and actually use my 100 plus cookbooks, instead of repeating over and over my favorite recipes. I will be experimenting with all of the books, and we'll see what happens....

Middle Aged Crazy?

EDDIE BOUGHT HIMSELF AN EARLY BIRTHDAY PRESENT

SO IMPRACTICLE

SO SMALL

SO DANGEROUS

SO FINE

SO COOL

AND SO MUCH FUN TO DRIVE, ESPECIALLY WITH THE TOP DOWN!

WHY NOT, HE DESERVES IT!

The Figs Are Ready

First fig of the season

I love figs, no wonder they look like a heart!

I have this enormous fig tree. Last year, I had so many figs that I dehyrated them, froze them, shared them, cooked with them, and ate them until I was stuffed. Sadly, this is a bad season, they are small and few. I'm having to fight with the birds to get them. I had a little talk with them, they can have the figs off the top of the tree and I'll take the lower figs. For some reason, the birds aren't listening.

Sophie meets the clowns

Snuggles

Where's Gramma?

Snuggles, Sophie, and Tic Toc


Today was a big day for Sophie : she met Snuggles. She just looked and looked, and though she heard my voice, she didn't know who I was. At first, she was a bit hesitant to come to me, then after I spoke, she came right to me. Who knows, maybe she did know me. Anyway, she was very interested in my clown jewelry, hence the picture above. She's getting ready for clown school early, which is where Tic Toc and myself were off to last night.
(click on pictures to enlarge)

My new quilt

I have a little secret and now I have to tell

I love to shop at stores that only are for resale.

I buy and buy lots of things which I don't really need.

Thinking one day I will want them for one special deed.

Ok, so what i do the most is buy clothes that have great fabric designs on them. It all started when I went to the quilt festival 2 years ago. I took a class from Pamela Allen, http://pamelart2.homestead.com/quiltythings.html, who is a fabulous quilt artist. She showed me a way of designing a collage quilt from fabric scraps. I was hooked from then on, but sadly, I have never finished any of the projects I've started. Here are the pictures of a quilt that i WILL finish this summer. I bought many pairs of antique gloves (for $2.00 each) and I will use one for the tree of life. You can see the pictures of how it is coming together. This isn't actually the style of collage quilting which i learned, but I will add some elements to that as I attach the design and embellishments.

This is the background for my quilt.

Green and brown for the ground

Red, Yellow, and orange for the sunset.

Blues for the night time sky.

These gloves will serve as the Tree of Life.

I am going to put a border around it with the saying:

ani l' dodi v'dodi li, I am my bloved and my beloved is mine

A dog is a dog

This is the bed, all nice and neat.

Someone sneaks in with their small little feet.

Notice the size and the shape of the hole.

Buddy's the culprit, he burrows like a mole!

Cheerful Clown Alley

Me and Kathy(Tic Toc) at the Alley meeting. Notice the different colored shirts. Each color is for the year we graduated. Mine is 2005. I always love to purchase one each year during clown school, which by the way, begins this Tuesday. If you are interested, go to www.cheerfulclownalley.com

The American Flag, adorable!

Butterfly, Tic Toc

The most popular, Spiderman

The Incredible Hulk, ready for movie lovers.

Panda (Disney's newest movie) on the left, Tiger on the right

Being a clown, I belong to an alley. The alley has monthly meetings, usually they have some kind of speaker or demonstration. The Alley keeps us informed as to which organizations need volunteer gigs to participate in. Last night, a rep from Snazaroo Paint, came and demonstrated different kinds of techniques for face painting. Last year, I voluteered to have my face painted, however, this year, I just wanted to learn. It's easier then it looks. Kathy (Tic Toc) has her face painted with the butterfly. I just love the American Flag face! Now I'm ready to paint for July 4th...I need a volunteer.

The legacy of love lives on

Today’s thought is a story.

Once there was a young woman named Callie. Callie woke up one morning to find a “special angel” sitting by her bed. The angel said, “Callie, I have a gift for you. Every day when you wake up, you will find $1440.00 sitting here on your nightstand in cash. It is yours to spend in any way you want. You have to spend all of it each day. You absolutely cannot save even a dollar of it. It’s your gift for the rest of your life.” There is nothing special you have to do to keep getting it every single day.” Callie looked up at this special angel and was just amazed. She thought to herself, “I am so rich! This is incredible.” She thanked her special angel. The angel disappeared, and “poof,” there was $1440.00 on the nightstand.

Now you might think that spending that much money every day would be easy! Callie found it tough! She had days in which she felt there was absolutely not enough hours in the day to spend it to get all the things she wanted. She sometimes found herself hurrying through the day and even neglecting those in her life that mattered most to her just so she could spend the money. She missed them, but just kept going spending and spending and spending. Every morning she woke up and there was more money. This went on for years, and Callie got old. She still had to spend the money but now she had learned to spend it more wisely savoring the ways she spent it. She spent it with her family and friends. And the older she got, the more grateful she was that she was savoring it so much as one by one, many friends started dying. She was glad she had taken the money and used it on them while they were still here. She was glad she had contributed her money to causes that were good. Her hair turned white, her face became more and more wrinkled, and yet Callie was happy. She looked back on her days and felt very blessed to have been given the gift of this special money to spend each day. One morning, Callie’s granddaughter knocked on Callie’s bedroom door and said, “Wake up Grandma.” But Callie didn’t come out so her granddaughter went in and found that Callie had died peacefully in her sleep. It was the end of Callie’s life on earth, but the story really doesn’t end because Callie had spent her money so wisely that she had left a legacy of love for her children and grandchildren, one that would live on for generations to come.

There is a moral to this story. Everyday you too are given a gift when you wake up of 1440 minutes to spend each day. You get a choice on how you want to spend that money. It is my hope that the legacy and legend of Callie lives on and that you spend the gift of your 1440 minutes a day as Callie did so you too can leave a legacy of love.

America, the land of opportunity...for all people

America is a melting pot of many nations. I love that about America. However, sometimes, language is a barrier when dealing with employees of the places we shop. Companies hire employees with little or no english skills. Take this for an example:

Okay so this is how I imagine this conversation went:

Walmart Employee: 'Hello 'dis is Walmarts, how can I hep you?'

Customer: ' I would like to order a cake for a going away party this week.'

Walmart Employee: 'What chu wan on da cake?'

Customer: 'Best Wishes Suzanne' and underneath that 'We will miss you'

Lazy summer days

To add to my lazy days of summer, today I watched 2 movies: The Shanghai Ghetto and House of Sand and Fog. I borrowed both from the local library, and what a find. Both movies were excellent.

The Shanghai Ghetto recalls the strange-but true story of thousands of European Jews who were shut out of country after country while trying to escape Nazi persecution in the late 1930's. Left without options or entrance visas, a beacon of hope materialized for them on the other side of the world, and in the unlikeliest of places, Japanese-controlled Shanghai. Fleeing for their lives, these Jewish refugees journeyed to form a settlement in the exotic city, penniless and unprepared for their new life in the Far East.

House of Sand and Fog is about strangers whose conflicting pursuits of the American Dream lead to a fight for their hopes at any cost. What begins as a struggle over a rundown bungalow spirals into a clash that propels everyone involved toward a shocking resolution.

I highly recommend both movies.

What I did on my first day of summer vacation

School's out, summer's here.

Today was my first day of summer vacation. So what did i do?
1. I slept late
2. I took the dogs on a nice long walk
3. I baked bread
4. I made gumbo and baked apples-yum
5. I went to the grocery store
6. I took another dog walk
7. Had Philip, Dana, her dad- michael, and sophie over for gumbo
8. I had some internet time
9. Bought some new yarn to start a blanket
10. Paperwork

So why am i so tired? Yesterday, after school i took a 3 hour nap. I suppose the end of school and the wedding has finallly caught up with me. Well, I have all summer to sleep.

Where's waldo

Can you find me among all of Eric and Heather's friends? They had a little get-together before heading out this week on their travels around the world. Their next stop is Israel and Eastern Europe, leading a group of teenagers on a 6 week tour.