Neve Zedek Window

I haven't had too much time for photography the past few months but for the sake of both my muse and my sanity it's high time to MAKE the time, so yesterday when I found myself with a few hours free I grabbed my camera and my car keys and headed into Tel Aviv for a walk around one of my very favorite neighborhoods. Neve Zedek is a study in contradictions - old and decrepit, new and gentrified beyond the price range of mere mortals, sparkling new residential towers full of glass and curved lines (which would look fabulous in a more modern neighborhood but are sinfully out of place in this one).

Here's a glimpse of the older side of the neighborhood - look fast, it probably won't last much longer...

Supermoon - and a super-proud mama

First there was the supermoon...

And then there were the super-proud parents when this super-kid graduated from 6th grade last night. He's turning into a wonderful young man before our very eyes and we couldn't be more proud. Next stop, junior high! (Well, after a fun-filled summer in New Hampshire first that is. Can't rush through summer vacation...)

The shirt he's wearing is a commemorative t-shirt given to all the kids in the grade for their graduation ceremony. Israelis don't go in for button-downs and ties, even for special occasions :).

Happy end of the school year / beginning of summer everyone!

Tap tap tap... Is this thing on?

So, uhh, ummm... How exactly does one come back from having forgotten to blog for 3.5 months? It wasn't even a conscious decision, it just sort of happened, and then the longer I was away the harder it was to come back.

Everything's fine, I was just crazy busy with work and I guess I sort of lost my blogging mojo. Let's try again and see if it comes back. I'm game if you are. Assuming of course that there's anyone still out there after all this time. Is there? Are you?

So where have I been? Well, there was a trip to Provence with my husband way back in April. It was wonderful, everything a trip to France should be despite the fairly lousy weather. One of our hosts told us we're not crazy for thinking that it rains in Europe every single Passover/Easter week - it really does. Sort of the way it always rains on Purim here in Israel. Still, you really can't go far wrong in France, whatever the weather. Don't you agree?

Les Baux de Provence

Cassis Harbor

Van Gogh's Courtyard in St Remy

Goat cheese for sale at the Cassis weekly market

After France there was the usual flurry of spring - getting out into nature, our annual trip to the folk festival, the beach, the pool, and so much more, but I'll save some of those for another post.

Right now we're in the midst of the annual end of year insanity - an elementary school graduation, end of the year sports events, all the birthday parties for all of the kids with summer birthdays - you name it, it's probably happening. It's all good, but more than a little exhausting to keep sorted. It's a good thing I've only got two kids and two adults to keep track of - any more and someone would be leaving the house without their underwear for sure.

So that's me in a nutshell, with a few photos thrown in for fun. What have you all been up to these past few months?

Lupine Hill

Israel's lupines are in full bloom right now, and they are glorious.

View this image in my Etsy shop

Election Day 2013, Tel Aviv Style

Vote in the morning, then hit the beach. (No, it wasn't really warm enough to swim, though that didn't stop the rest of the family from going in for a bit. Their far more sensible mother was wearing long pants and a sweatshirt. Still, not too shabby for January...) (and yes, I'm that far behind in my blogging. Life, and an epic case of the flu which knocked us all over like a bunch of feverish dominoes, happened.)

Wild Anemone, January 2013

Winter here in Israel means wildflowers, and one of the most prolific and best loved are the anemones, most often seen in a rich, vibrant shade of red.

Wild Anemone, Elad Forest, January 2013

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Simplicity is the Ultimate Sophistication

Click here to see this image in my Society6 shop.

Sea glass and shell collected on the beach in Caesaria, on Israel's Mediterranean coast.

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On a return to normalcy

There was a bit of a war here the other week. You might have heard something about it. What you didn't hear was anything about it on my blog. I was obsessively watching the news, checking Facebook, posting all sorts of links, articles and updates on my own Facebook page, and trying to actually get some work done with one ear half-cocked to listen for the sirens. Blogging pretty photos just didn't seem to fit into the picture.

The thing is, the war didn't exactly reach my city. Just a few miles outside of Tel Aviv, we were close enough to hear the boom of the Iron Dome anti-rocket batteries as their missiles did their job to stop the deadly Hamas rockets from getting through, but far enough away that the sirens didn't reach us. While hundreds of thousands of people in the south sat in bomb shelters, while my husband and son had to stand by the side of the road when the sirens went off in Tel Aviv (yes, they should have laid down, they didn't), life here in our little bubble went on. Kids had school, after-school activities were still on (don't mind the booms, kids, that's just the Iron Dome and it's far away, at least 8 or 10 miles from here...), I was still expected to produce respectable deliverables for my job, but at the same time it became all-consuming. The war hadn't come this close before, and it was a week of wondering if the next red alert notification on the radio would be for us. If the whine of the jet engines from the planes temporarily rerouted to the north (and straight over my house) was just that, or was it the first whine of a siren.

It's been nearly a week since it ended now, and the ceasefire appears to be holding, and life has returned to what passes for normal in this little corner of the world.

And it finally feels right to begin blogging again, adding my own little bit of normalcy back into the equation with this image of a still proudly standing Tel Aviv. Still here, still thriving, still full of life.

Pomegranates

Pomegranates for sale at Jerusalem's Machaneh Yehuda market.

See products featuring this image in my Society6 shop

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Scavenger Hunt in Jerusalem's Nachlaot Neighborhood

What fun! This past Friday I had the opportunity to join another of Jerusalem Scavenger Hunts' wonderful events - this time for a scavenger hunt in Jerusalem's fascinating Nachlaot neighborhood.

Just like the Old City scavenger hunt I participated in last year Tali and her crew had everything very well organized from start to finish so that all we had to do was relax and enjoy. (So much so that yet again we came in, ummm, not first. Right. Let's go with "not first". It was totally worth our ever so slightly more relaxed pace though - we got to see so many amazing details and learn so many things we'd have missed if we were really cranking up the speed...)  Tali even arranged for the oh so yummy Village Green restaurant to provide bowls of hot delicious soup and freshly baked rolls for us all at the finish line.

 More scenes from the neighborhood...

Two area residents discussing the issues of the day

Window turned wall

I absolutely love this mural (above and below images) by Maayan Fogel, simply amazing

 
I can't recommend Tali and Jerusalem Scavenger Hunts enough (and not just because I just found a photo of myself with Old City teammates Lisa and Myriam in their photo gallery) - having now done two of their hunts my only real question is when is she accepting participants for the new route she'll soon be opening in Jerusalem's Yemin Moshe neighborhood! (In fact, we'll be hosting a bar mitzvah in the family next winter and I'm already planning to arrange a scavenger hunt as one of our key "where to take the visiting relatives" events!)

Thanks again Tali for another terrific time!

She sells seashells

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Still life with seashells collected on the beach in Caesaria, Israel.

This image is available in a variety of formats in my Society6 shop, and free shipping throughout my shop (on everything except framed prints and canvases, and yes, that includes international shipping too) through Sunday 28 Oct makes this a great time to get a jump start on your holiday shopping.
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Glass Mosaic iPhone Case

Looking for an excuse to treat yourself or to get a jump start on your holiday shopping? Now is a great time to do it with free shipping WORLDWIDE (yes, FREE international shipping) on all the cases, greeting cards, totes, fine art prints and skins in my Society6 shop. 

Like this iPhone case featuring a closeup photograph of the glass mosaic tiles on a Jerusalem sculpture. Isn't that wild? To me, the photograph is so realistic looking that I almost feel I can see myself in the little bits of mirror...

 

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Olives for Sale

Olives on sale in Jerusalem's Machaneh Yehuda market

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In every grain of sand...

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I created this Photoverse print from a photograph I took on the beach at Israel's Caesaria National Park. It's available from Around the Island Photography as an art print, stretched canvas, iPhone case, tote bag (brand new!) and more.
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The most noble and challenging of fruits

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(Grapes are) the most noble and challenging of fruits. 

 -Malcolm Dunn, Head Gardener to the 7th Viscount Powerscourt, c 1867.

Purchase this image from Around the Island Photography

Shana Tova - Happy Jewish New Year

The Golden Hour

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 View from just outside the farm gate - Click here to see this image as a framed print in my Society6 shop.

A few weeks ago we had some friends visiting Israel for the first time. Since they landed in the middle of the night and woke up to a plumbing disaster we were looking for an easy, low-key, kid-friendly activity not too far from home for their first day. Luckily for us, we stumbled upon a woman offering tours of Chai Farm, an organic farm about 15 minutes from home. The kids (and their grownups) had an absolutely wonderful time milking goats, making what turned out to be utterly delicious goat cheese, feeding turtles, holding a tiny 3 day old goat, carding and spinning wool, and even eco-friendly arts and crafts. We had a great time, and the (very reasonable for what you get) admission fees are even used for charitable works, so doubly good reason to visit Chai Farm on Moshav Mevo Modiin if you're local. (Do call first though, their opening days are a bit unusual.)

And yes, we do realize how long his hair is getting. This was about two weeks ago. By now, all you see is a mop of hair coming around the corner ;).

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St. Peters Square (and a very watery run-in with disaster)

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Caught this group of nuns walking through the square in front of St. Peter's Basilica in the Vatican.

In other news, in the "you can't make this stuff up" style that is my life, I'm slowly recuperating from the trauma of having not one, not two, but THREE hugely serious and expensive - and completely independent - plumbing disasters within the space of 24 hours! I'm too exhausted to share all the details - just picture me standing on the landing of my flat at 7:30 in the morning, wrench in hand, IN MY BATHROBE as the whole freaking main water pipe for the building literally came apart in my hand and started flooding me, the landing, the elevator shafts, the stairwell, and half of my neighbors who'd come running to help (note: this was NOT the part of the pipe I was attempting to close to stem the disastrous leak that was currently flooding my kitchen and living room with scalding hot water - nor was it the large somethingorother that failed later that day and sent thousands of gallons of water out into the parking lot, leaving 32 flats without water for hours, AGAIN. At that point we gave up and went out for dinner.). This was seriously beyond ridiculous, if I'd been filming a sitcom they'd have rejected the plot summary as too farfetched! (Oh and we had houseguests too, who'd just arrived at 2:30am the night before. Welcome to Israel, please grab a mop. Thankfully they're dear friends who just took it all in stride - far better than I did in fact, by episode number three I lost my mind and just sat there laughing hysterically at it all.)

Jay comes home from a business trip tomorrow, and not a moment too soon...

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Post-Passover Catch-Up

Whoa, where did the last month go? We had visiting parents (mine), travel nightmares (theirs, and note to the wise, ALWAYS make sure you have more than 6 months left on your passports if you want to avoid disaster), Holidays (capital H - Passover), holidays (lower case h - trip to southern Burgundy in France), a welcome home stomach virus (don't ask) and now my long-delayed day job project is finally kicking into higher gear. No wonder I'm tired...

We had a wonderful visit with my parents once they finally arrived, spending time together but also getting out to do some hiking and enjoy Israel's gorgeous spring wildflowers, finding hidden mosaics (more on that in a future post), visiting Jerusalem's Ice World (great fun, especially for the kids, and definitely worth a visit if you haven't been yet (it's on till the end of the month), especially if you have an Isracard and can get 50% off), touring the Old City, and even taking a (touristy but fun) boat ride off the Tel Aviv coast. Even better, they also watched the kids for five days so that Jay and I could go away. Since our Barcelona caper was off we went off to France instead (did I ever tell you about that? What a mess... We had tickets on the now-bankrupt Spanair and only found out they'd gone bust by accident. We did eventually recoup our money thanks to the credit card company but it was then too late to find affordable tickets to Barcelona, so we had to quickly rejig our vacation and flew to Geneva instead, where we rented a car and drove over to France for the week. All's well that ends well, but at the time it was a huge source of stress.). The weather in Burgundy was lousy, cold and rainy, but that just meant we spent more time eating and drinking (happy sigh) and I did manage to grab a few photos in between the raindrops... ;)

Click here to purchase this photograph from Around the Island Photography

So what have you all been up to while I've been away? Inquiring minds want to know :).

Click here to see more Whimsical Windows and Delirious Doors.

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Spring Meadow

We don't have them here in Israel but doesn't this seem like the perfect spot for an Easter egg hunt? Or maybe just the perfect spot for a Cadbury egg?

Visit Wordless Wednesday to see what other people aren't saying this week, and Wordful Wednesday to see what they are.

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