Red Moon Rising

Well, once again I forgot to take a picture of my Seder table, one year I may remember. Actually I did remember half way through, but it was too late. So In the line of the plagues, I found this interesting.

I Hope you all had a wonderful Passover. The day after, on Thursday night we were taking a walk outside and this is what greeted us. I was very surprised, last time I had seen a red moon rising, was in the very same place, sometime last year, I can't remember when, it might have been around Sukkot, I can't find my pictures I took of it. But I did grab my camera and got these cool shots.

This shot on the left is to help you put it into prospective. this is a street down in front of my house. You can see the street light, as well as some lights from the houses.
In the picture on the right, I have zoomed in but you can still see in the lower right the street lights in the distance. I took this from up on top of a small hill where I live.

I have seen big, colored moons like this in the fall, but I can't remember seeing them in the spring, specifically at Passover. This is a totally full moon at this time. It took about an half hour or a bit more for it to rise enough where it no longer had any reddish or orange tint to it.

Don't know what this means, I have only seen the moon look this dark red when there was a total eclipse. I love looking at the night sky when there isn't any cloud cover or city light 'smog', it is amazing how many stars are there and how it changes moment by moment. Hope you had an interesting week!

Today I am hoping to have a dream come true, dining al fresco under a weeping cherry tree, something I've wanted to do for years! Wish me good weather!

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Spring Cleaning for Passover

Chag Sameach Pasach!

How is it we forget year to year what a pain Cleaning for Passover can be? I guess it is partly my fault, I start with cleaning, then that turned into organized, downsizing, labeling, etc. and what should have only taken about 10 minutes to clean out my spice drawer took over an hour. Not only that but I shifted it's place in the kitchen.



One thing I do like, when I first moved in I didn't use regular drawer liner paper. I went to the local bargain outlet and got some high end wallpaper, a nice big heavy roll of it, that is meant for a bath or kitchen, and looks like marble, and used that. It's a snap to wipe clean and very pretty to look at when you catch a glimpse of the bottom of the drawer.

It is such a good feeling when you are done. Exhausted, but done. The house is clean, crumb free, the kitchen is spotless, but now you are afraid to cook in there, afraid to make the slightest mess. Now if it could only stay that way! But soon I will have to make noodles which will probably boil over on me and now that my oven is clean and sparkling, I have to bake my matzoh. I have to bake my own because I have celiac disease and can't eat regular matzoh. I have come up with my own recipe that only takes 9 minutes from start to finish! Cutting the 18 minute time limit in half!

Now if you suddenly found out that you have more guests coming or that Uncle Nathan invited his new girlfriend and her three kids and they are coming early, here is one of my favorite recipes that takes about 5 minutes to prepare with things on hand. I developed this myself as a healthy organic spread to nosh on and it's been so popular, I've had to double the recipe many times because the bowl always gets scraped clean!

I will give you the regular recipe for 1 cup, you double or triple or whatever for your needs. We usually have it with veggie chips but it will go just as well with matzoh!

Spring Fresh Spinach Garlic Dip!

1 brick of cream cheese
2-3 garlic cloves ( depending on the size)
2 tablespoons of a red pepper ( don't worry about chopping too much it will be later)
3 handfuls of fresh spinach, freshly washed

Add cream cheese to processor by cutting it into 1 inch pieces. Next add your garlic and peppers. Pulse and stop occasionally to scrap down sides and move cheese around. When it looks slightly blended ( the red pepper will start coloring the cheese pink), then add your spinach, you should be able to cram it down , if not do it in two phases. Now pulse until spinach is chopped up and incorporated into cheese. Again you may have to stop and with a small spatula, push un-chopped spinach down. Do this until smooth, only takes a couple minutes total. Scrap into nice bowl, put on platter with broken matzoh boards surrounding it. As long as you wash your spinach, it will be creamy enough to dip into. If not, leave a little appetizer spreader knife in it. Don't make room for leftovers, there won't be any!

I love this, and you might need a lift right about now. Matzoh Man Enjoy!

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BLOGS I FOLLOW

I am making this as a post because with the layout I've chosen the list makes the blog way too long and I like following a variety of other blogs. So thought I would condense it on the front page, and if anyone's' interested they can see here. :) Enjoy discovering someone new!

These are blogs I follow regularly:

Beadworx
Craftgossip
Craftygoat
Ellaluna
Judaicajournal
Kathleendustin
Kimcavender
lisaclarke
organicauthority
Pipsjewellery
polymerclaychameleon
polymerclaydaily
SCdiva
TinaHolden
Tonjastreasures
TORY_HUGHES
webecoist




These are blogs of my fellow PCAGOE members:

http://blogs.oddsocks.net/ahunt/ ( Amanda- Polyclarific)
http://aardvarkcreations.blogspot.com/
http://www.beadladyangeli.blogspot.com/
http://artbylilin.blogspot.com/
http://caninable.blogspot.com/ ( Wes Warren)
http://breathtakingbeadzz.blogspot.com/ ( Cyndie)
http://bead-bunny.com/ (Caren)
http://www.chickietsy.blogspot.com/ ( Tina)
http://poly-clay.blogspot.com/ (claycass)
http://constancepelkeydesigns.blogspot.com/ (conniesclay)
http://CreativeSpiritOriginals.blogspot.com/
http://divadea.blogspot.com/
http://eugenascreations.blogspot.com/ http://polymerclaychameleon.blogger.com
http://inediblog.blogspot.com/
http://ittybittiesforyou.com
http://polymerionline.blogspot.com/ ( Iris Mishly)
http://jaelsjewels.blogspot.com/
http://jangeisen.blogspot.com/
http://jewelzodonnell.blogspot.com/
http://juliespacedesign.blogspot.com/
http://laurabeestudios.blogspot.com/
http://laurelsteven.blogspot.com/
http://livingwithkiwis.wordpress.com (ToniNZ)
http://livvyludesign.blogspot.com/
http://lynnslittlecreations.blogspot.com/
http://marciapalmer.blogspot.com/
http://marcym.xanga.com/
http://milicab.blogspot.com/
http://naturevisions.blogspot.com/
http://nkdesignslindariopel.blogspot.com/
http://mariapsaltis.blogspot.com/ (oneandonly)
http://organicodysseys.blogspot.com/
http://peculiarforest.blogspot.com/
http://peggerspolymer.blogspot.com/
http://blogs.oddsocks.net/ahunt/ ( Amanda's musings, Polyclarific)
http://ruth-t.blogspot.com/ (Ruth Tarragano)
http://sharonsjewelrygarden.blogspot.com/
http://Signatureleilei.blogspot.com/
http://SpiritMama-Art.blogspot.com/
http://studiobijou.wordpress.com/
http://thecolorofdreams.blogspot.com/
http://daphnemdesigns.blogspot.com (utopiabeads)
http://valerieaharoni.com/
http://livingwithwalls.blogspot.com/ (wonderfulwire - Mary)
http://zoeowyn.blogspot.com/

Spring Has Sprung!

The sun is shining , the birds are singing sweetly outside my window, the boy doves are chasing the girl doves around the yard, my neighbors forsythia is in full bloom and there are green wild onions popping up everywhere! My husband even reported he saw 'Phil', our resident groundhog merrily skipping about the back yard on his way to some unknown secret rendezvous. AND I've finally enticed a pair of house wrens to make a nest in the eaves of my back porch so I can watch them with their young and they are both busy getting it ready for the 'blessed event' .

Not only all that but when I wake up each morning and come out of the bedroom a sweet perfume greets me. The first day this happened ( last Thursday) I couldn't understand why the house smelled like perfume as I made one of my nightly trips to the Bathroom. It wasn't until the next day I remembered that DH brought me home from the store a hyacinth, one of my favorite spring flowers, along with gardenias and bouquets of purple iris, red tulips and yellow daffodils. I have a brown thumb with the finicky gardenia (can't keep the house cool enough for them), and all those others weren't in the store yet but I have a hyacinth and every morning its wonderful smell greets me like a friendly spring 'Hello'!

So I know spring is defiantly here and I have something to share with you, a bit of a preview actually. The PCAGOE ( Polymer Clay Artists Guild of Etsy) will be having another Scavenger Hunt very soon Called the 'Spring Fling'! And this is the prize I am offering ( I bet you've been wondering what that was up top) :) . Since my Impressionist Field of Poppies cane seems to be so Popular ( especially on my Flicker photo stream) and Cynthia Tinapple of Polymer Clay Daily liked it so much and put it on her blog on the first day of March titling it "Breath of Spring" in her second looks column, I decided to make a pendant from it and offer it as my special prize! This won't be found in my etsy shop because it is just for you, the winner of the prize, whomever that shall be. I will be giving you all the details soon, so check back. I just wanted to give you a chance to see what is waiting in store for you if you are the winner!

Stay tuned for more updates of How, where and when!

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Voting Begins!

Time to cast your vote! Yes, voting is now open until next Tuesday at Midnight EST in the PCAGOE Faux Challenge!

Take a look at all the entries by clicking on the View Slide show " button below.



This month I entered a rather large and entailed piece. It is a game board, that can be used for either checkers or chess, made from imitative turquoise ( my own recipe, stay tuned for an upcoming tutorial I am sharing with you all on how I do this!) and imitative ivory. That is 32 pieces of each! It took me over 70 hours to complete this and I think it is my first and last one!

On the Ivory ones, I have hand carved the letters of the Ancient Paleo, Phoenician, Canaanite, or Hebrew Alef-bet. This one I used, mainly comes from around 700bce and uses some of the letters found on the inscription in Hezekiah's tunnel In Jerusalem. If you have visited my other etsy store AlmostARTifacts you know of my devotion (obsession?) with ancient languages, especially those of the Middle East.

I have mounted the tiles onto a wooden tray that I have pyro engraved and stained. So this is my entry to the challenge, but there are many more and all wonderful pieces! So why not take a moment, go here, look them over and cast your vote! And for your time and comments ( we love comments) you will be entered into a drawing of some cool prizes which you can see here.


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