Yes, just call me muse!

A "muse" is an inspiration, so since Fred has used my photos for his works of art, that me his "muse," right? I just knew that I had chosen the right name for blogging.

I had a good time at the pool today. My neighbor called me at 6:15 to ask if I wanted to go early with her. By 7am, we were on our way. It's my day off, and I like to take it easy. A leisurely time in the pool is taking it easy for me. While talking to a fellow "granny," we were bemoaning how hard it is to lose weight at our age.

"It goes up so easily; nothing goes down." she said

"Of course things go down." I answered. "Our height goes down; we shrink from osteoporosis."

I also heard praise of the chessed, kindness here in Israel. One of her children has "special needs," and she praised the help she gets. Otherwise they wouldn't be able to cope. They moved to Jerusalem, since they found a better school than where they were before. It's nice to hear something good for a change. The political situation is so horrendous that sometimes it's hard to remember how much good there is here.

There's a nice post about caring on Nuch Epes A Chosid.

I hope you're sitting in a room that's warmer than this one is! My fingers are frozen!

and s'more visiting

I never quite finished last night...

Marallyn having one of those winter days...

NYC Educator rants about the unaffordability of housing.

Is a hotel Pesach a real Pesach? That's what the Pragmaticion is asking. There are many Jews being raised who know no other.

The Baleboosteh isn't sleeping well alone with their three precious stones when hubby is in hospital. Refuah Shleimah!

The Modern Uberdox reflects on blogging after a two week break.

Stacy found a Jew at Costco.

And I just found a "new for me jblog," jew-ish by someone in the process of becoming a Jew. Read about the thoughts in choosing a new name. Actually, the name I use is one I "chose myself." I guess I ought to blog about it sometime.

I didn't mention it, but now I will. My husband was away for two days.

Cosmic X has some bad, but expected news. Shmitta is coming, and it's going to be tougher for many of us. Gevalt.

I just got a call that I have an early ride to the pool! Must get ready!

So try visiting all these nice blogs and send my regards please. Just mention that the muse sent you!

some quick visits

I haven't done much blog-visiting recently. Let's see how much I can do before my husband finishes dinner and wants to catch up on his emails, blogging etc.

Did you know that the weather isn't always "vacation perfect" in Hawaii? Poor Wendy!

Moze marches "Shvil Yisrael" to Tel Aviv. Wow, that's strange; I thought it was a European city.

~Sarah~ also switched! Not quite as traumatic as we had thought, right? Though my Shiloh Musings is still "old."

Judeopundit writes about Canada's giving more aid to the "P.A."

Akiva reminds us that "avenge" isn't a dirty word.

A book review from SWFM on "Doesn't Anyone Blush Anymore?"

And an important note from Mrs. Bagel Blogger. Send a refuah shleimah to our favorite BB, and don't forget to send your jpix-jblog links. submit your photos

That's it for now!

PS Can't forget to post something jblog new for me. Clever words from cute kids in the Golan.

dumb moves

Talking about dumb moves, while I was waiting for these pictures to load--I'm not the type to watch the water boil--I walked out in the rain, sans jacket and umbrella, just to throw out some garbage.

The top picture was taken on one of my "walks around the neighborhood." Strange what you can see and a good reason to always be armed with a camera. Other than what you can see in the shot, I have no commentary. Provide your own, and let me know in the comments.

About the bottom picture...

You'd think I'd know better after 36 years here in Israel. Foolishly I had let the morning sun trick me into thinking that it was a perfect laundry day. I didn't even check the yahoo weather forecast. Yes, I took the picture this morning, the same morning I walked out "unprotected" in the rain. The good news is that it's a good excuse to have the heater on all day. The bad news, besides the mess, is that the laundry blocks the heat from being felt all over the room and house.

CONTEST: Extra credit for anyone who can name the movie I've been watching! Hint! That's not the main star on my screen.

Tu B'Shvat cheer and Memories

Watch that almond tree grow and bloom!
thanks to Sara Layah

When we lived in Bayit V'Gan, Jerusalem, there was a large, old almond tree in an empty lot right near our apartment. Every year between Rosh Chodesh Shvat and Tu B'Shvat the gannim, nursery schools used to walk over to see the flowers blooming. It was a "neighborhood institution."

The winter before we left they started construction in that lot. The contractor destroyed the tree. People of all ages came from all over the neighborhood to protest and even cry.

"Hashkaidiya porachat," the blooming almond tree has never seemed the same to me since then.

Black out!

Last night we suffered black outs!
It had become stormy and very windy, and suddenly very very dark, inside and out! Eventually, we got tired of seeing the computer and TV go off, and we just went to sleep a bit early.

Now, I couldn't quite say that the sun is shining, not because of the early hour, but simply, because everything's all grey and wet. It is winter in Israel, and it's supposed to rain, even if it interferes with our selfish pleasures. If it doesn't rain enough in the winter, we won't have water, not for drinking, washing, agriculture, swimming etc.

The 24 hour yarzteit candle is still burning in the bathroom.

But there are other things to blog about, like the latest Carnival of Recipes, with a great variety of winter recipes. They were nice enough to include my reminder, hint! hint! for the Kosher Cooking Carnival.

That was a good idea!

Life of Rubin put together a great Havel Havelim in... alphabetical order!
That really was a good idea!

When I was reading it I got a great jblog brainstorm! Of course, being the computer klutz I am, I can't do it myself, but I'm sure one of the brilliant html-graphics mavens can. What we need is a sidebar "doodad" listing the latest jblog carnivals, like HH and of course the Kosher Cooking Carnival and the soon to be debuted Jpix--the Carnival. It should be something like the one I have up by Blog Carnival. That means that it should also have a link for submissions and contacting the organizer.

Nu? What do you say?

I admit that...

...there's something else, besides a better spellcheck in beta...

I don't have to do word verification when I comment on my own blog, if I'm signed-in to my own blog.

Re- the labels; I wonder what good they will do.

Time now for lunch, homedone-manicure and maybe a little cleaning before going to work.

I gave in!

Just call me a wimp!

I'll tell you what happened. I just decided,

this is only a blog, it's
not worth getting all hysterical about. You know, it's not life and death,
just a bloody blog, if you'll excuse my language!

I just hope that beta has a beta spellcheck!

So far, it seems pretty similar.

You have to choose your battles wisely, and I decided not to fight this one. So, I guess when they start stopping me from oldblogging Shiloh Musings, I'll switch.

I guess resuming my walking with a friend this morning put me in a more rational state of mind.

PS The spellcheck is better in beta!

Two month countdown

full freezer, originally uploaded by shilohmuse.

Well it's two months before Pesach/Passover, and the freezer is too full for an empty nest like ours.

It's the perfect time to post about creative cooking.

Please send me the links for the KOSHER COOKING CARNIVAL. All the info is on the sidebar. Posting via flickr has its limitations. Plain text only! (I'm going to have to give in and sign up for beta if there's no improvement! Otherwise posting will be a total nightmare; though I do have a "plan b" for non-beta posting.)

While you're at it, scroll down a few posts and find the announcement about the new jblog pix carnival.

With this format, I can't do my jblog visiting. Sorry.

The KCC is more than a recipe carnival. It includes everything about Kosher Cooking and Kashrut, including:
halachik issues
restaurant and book reviews (kosher of course)
traditions
memories, funny stories, etc

Please send your links to: shilohmuse at yahoo dot com, or use the blog carnival link on the sidebar

almost finishing the roof

building, originally uploaded by shilohmuse.

My kitchen window and merpeset (terrace) have the perfect bird's eye view of the house under construction, across the street.

It used to be our view of the Valley of Shiloh, the same one mentioned in the Bible. This was the season that the valley sometimes appeared to be a lake of clouds.

As much as I'll miss the old view, I've really enjoyed watching the house sprout up right in front of me. Soon the outside will be complete, and then all that will be left will be inside "finishing" and the garden. I'm sure my neighbor will be planting a garden. We never did much with ours. Unfortunately, the garden wasn't part of our "vision." Our neighbors suffer, because we ruin the beauty of the neighborhood.

ps This posting via flickr is one of the alternate posting methods I'm using since blogger isn't letting me post on "old blogger" this morning. I guess I'll have to "cave in."

They're making me a nervous wreck!

Recently I can't be sure if I'll be able to blog. The beta forces are after me to convert! It's, le'havdil, (ok different) like during the Spanish Inquisition. I do feel persecuted.

sometimes when I sign in, they won't let me continue in "old blogger." I keep trying to return, and they send me through a dark path.

Before Shabbat I felt like I was at war.

I have two alternate ideas up my sleeve. I presume that at some time I'll give in and go beta, but it will be under duress.

Could someone please tell me what it's all about? Have they upgraded "things" and the improvement isn't compatible with the "old blogger?" So is it that they're running "parallel operations?"

If they give some sort of intelligent reason, it would be one thing, but I don't like their ad campaign. I feel like they're trying to run me over.

That car in the picture wasn't trying to run me over. It just got in the way of the pre-sunset I was photographing. It's a really big, heavy bullet-proofed car. It's so big, that four of us sat in the back seat, not on any laps, and I'm not skinny, not even slim. I saw three young women climb in and I waved them off, but the driver wouldn't go. He signaled that I should get in. I took a look, and there actually was room for me! I'll blog more of the sunset pictures another time.

I don't take the popular paths, and I don't see the point of going beta. How complicated is it? Is it an easier path than this one?

TU B'Shvat Fruit

I remember the TU B'Shvat Fruit they gave us every year in the Oakland Jewish Center Hebrew School.

We were told that it came from Israel.

In a small, brown paper bag we found some very dry raisins, a fig or two and "buksuh." Buksuh, dried carob, was was tough to eat as it sounds, very onomatopoeia. That was our kinesthetic lesson on the Land of Israel in the late 1950's.

Half a century later, I'm a long-time resident of Israel, twenty-five years of it in Shiloh.

In Israel our TU B'Shvat fruits are mostly fresh and frequently home-grown. We don't have to risk our teeth trying to bit into the hard, tough buksuh. Life here is easier and more pleasant than Hebrew School led us to believe.

Almost Pesach!

Look at the lovely etrogs!

Oops! Wrong Holiday!

Yes, those will be perfect for Succot, but they're not from my tree, so they're not for me.

Let's get back to Pesach...
OK, maybe not almost, but it's in only two months. It's time to start emptying out the freezer. Buy less and use what's left.

When the house was full, I'd start the routine around Purim, which is exactly a month before Pesach, but now it's just me and my husband. And we should be eating less, not more.

I should have started the inventory a month ago, since this fridge's freezer is larger than the old one was.

In the meantime, let's do some visiting...

First let's see the Orange Gallery; there was lots of talent in Gush Katif.

I'm not the only one taking walks; Sarah is, too.

Marallyn vents a bit. Her dream sounds nice.

Anshel's Wife writes about the effect a canceled wedding has on them and others.

Cosmic X gives Katzav a chance.

Soccer Dad writes about a football couple inducing the birth of their baby, so dad could play ball.

Jameel tells us one of those wonderful "only in Israel" stories. Yes, our people are wonderful, it's just the politicians...

And one more for tonight, schmoozED writes about the different ways we relate to the Bible. Why don't Jews value it more?

good night!

Screened

The fuzzy look is nice, I think.
The first picture is of a bird on my "instant garden," a hardy, quick-growing plant I innocently put all over my garden. I took the picture from my kitchen with both the window and screen closed. That's why it is so fuzzy. Sort of like Monet. Maybe he saw things through a dirty, screened kitchen window, like mine!

The clouds were taken from a car, I think, on my way home from Beit El. You can see the dirt on the windows. I like the effect.

We all see things through our own perspective. It's a form of self-defense. Sometimes we need walls up to protect ourselves.

One of my neighbors told about her father, a Holocaust survivor, who had functioned well for decades, never telling his children anything about his past. Just a few years ago, someone he knew went back to Europe on a "fact-finding mission" and discovered old documents including one with a picture of the old man's mother. He joyfully gave the man the picture, knowing that the man hadn't seen his mother or any image of her for sixty years.

That was it. The old man deteriorated quickly and soon died. He needed his protective wall. Confronting the past was too painful. He needed to screen it in.

There's a contradiction in the accepted therapies in dealing with or overcoming stressful situations. The popular modern way is to "talk it out," but for some such a method just further elevates damage to the psyche. When I took a "coaching course," I learned basic NLP. To put it simply, NLP teaches you how to put the bad behind you and "visually" reduce it in size until it is non-threatening.

Rose-colored glasses, or dirty screens or windows may be the best defense for some situations, but calling Arab terrorists "deprived" won't make them peace-loving!

Officer Krupke, you're really a slob.
This boy don't need a doctor, just a good honest job.
Society's played him a terrible trick,
And sociologic'ly he's sick!

The View From the Other Side

Last night I watched some neighbors mix moisturizer. Well, sort of, I was too mesmerized by the window.

The house I was in is at the other side of the neighborhood. From mine there's a nice sunrise and the sprouting house across the way, but that's about it. This other house has these large windows and you can see the view and reflected images. I could hardly concentrate on the demonstration.

As part of our "Celebrating 29 Years Back in Shiloh," we're having a series of events for women only by my very talented neighbors. Luckily I had some classes canceled yesterday, so I got home early enough.

The cream is good for the skin, anyplace, hands, face, etc. It looked and smelled like vanilla cream, but since the only "non-food" item was borax, it's not for eating.

Today I went to the pool, earlier than usual, got a ride to "Chizme," the "border" between Jerusalem and Mateh Binyamin, the Benjamin Regional Council, where Shiloh is. From there I got a ride with a neighbor who was going to shop in the big Rami Levi Discount Supermarket on the way. So I finally went there for the first time. It's a big modern supermarket, like I've seen in other places. The prices I could check were low, so I bought a few things. And then my neighbor took me home.

Yes, a nice start to the day, Baruch Hashem, thank G-d.

peculiar

PS Now it all seems to be working. There must have had been a problem with blogger.
_____

I blogged this morning about the missing Rachel's, which you can read about a couple of posts down.

Blogger kept reporting:

ERROR

I hope this works. I'll take it as a hint that whatever I wrote didn't need to be posted.

children

The latest about the missing Rachel's is that they've "disappeared themselves," meaning that they haven't been abducted. For whatever reason, they've decided to leave home. I have no idea who Babka is and certainly no idea who the families of the two girls are.

What disturbed me the most in Babka's post is:

The family isn't taking phone calls from anyone but the police. There is nothing that any of us can do but respect their privacy and pray for their daughter's return and their continued strength.
Chazal (our sages) say that their are three things we have no control over

when we're born
where we're born
who our parents are
And if you take this a step further, you can also see that we can't control our children. G-d ultimately decides if and when we have children and what their natures and talents will be. We have to work with that, but each child is a person with his or her own special uniqueness. Sometimes that means that they become everything we dreamt they should be, and sometimes they become something else.

The truth is that we can't fight it, or we destroy them or our relationship with them. At times it may be unpleasant but we must make accommodations, and then they will, too. Worrying about what the neighbors say isn't healthy in any sense.

Chazal also say that the Temple will be rebuilt when we practice unconditional love and acceptance to all Jews, instead of baseless hatred. And we must start within our own families.

GOOD NEWS! The sun has broken through the storm!

Actually, the good news isn't about the weather. It's not quite the weather we were promised. Last night they said that today would be a warm pleasant day, more like spring than winter. But instead of the winter rains we need, or a cheery warm day. We have a bright sun and strong icy winds.

But what really cheered me up was the one and only Bagel Blogger's announcement. He liked my idea of a new jblog carnival.

We already have Havel Havelim and my very own Kosher Cooking Carnival. I decided that we're ready for another one. It's time to show off the photographic talents of the jbloggers. Bagel Blogger took up the challenge...and therefore:

The Inaugural 1st Edition of J Pix the Photocarnival is coming up...!

So start the ball rolling. Be part of the debut edition, and get your photo posts in soon!

Two Rachel's

When I think of two Rachel's I think of two mothers murdered by Arab terrorists, Rachella Druk and Rachel Weiss. One just can't control those sorts of word associations. Rachella was a neighbor and a good friend of mine. Rachel Weiss was somone I never knew.

Both were loving mothers. Rachella left seven children, most of whom are now married and parents, themselves. Rachel was holding her three young children in her arms when the bus they were traveling in was firebombed.

I trust that in their safe place in Olam Haba (the Next World) they are following what's happening here in This One, and that they help those in need.

I read on A Bisele Babka that two young Rachel's are missing. G-d willing they will be found safe and sound.

ps In my "jblog awareness neder" I've pledged to try to link/visit jblogs previously unknown to me, so I wish this one was for a happier reason.