It's over. Everything is fine.

I don't have much time but I didn't want to leave everyone hanging.

To make a very long, very frightening story short we've had quite a health scare with Itai after he starting having debilitating headaches and complaining of double vision after a minor illness a few weeks ago.

Two visits to the pediatrician, two visits to eye doctors, an entire morning at the specialty children's eye hospital (after they had us jump a 6 month queue to be seen right away), one MRI (again, you must jump the queue and be seen within the week) and one visit to the head of pediatric neurosurgery at a leading children's hospital (this afternoon) later we can now say conclusively that he is completely healthy.

He apparently had some form of viral meningitis which has now resolved, which is what caused the headaches and exacerbated the vision problems. He's also got the same weakness with the muscles in his eyes that I have, which is what caused the underlying double vision, and will most likely have to do eye exercises (as I did for years as a child). We'll find out at our follow up visit to the eye hospital at the end of March.

Most importantly and overshadowing all else though, he is FINE. His brain is FINE. There are no lesions, tumors, or anything else that there shouldn't be. There is, to quote the neurosurgeon, absolutely no cause for concern.

God I'm glad that's over.

Thank you everyone for all the support and virtual hand-holding, even without knowing what you were supporting. It meant a great deal to me.

Fleeting Beauty

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Just a few moments before I happened to pass by yesterday this flower was probably at the peak of its beauty, beaming at pedestrians from a nearby hedge, but now it lies forlorn on a sidewalk, its moments numbered.

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Treasure beauty wherever you find it, for it may be gone in the blink of an eye.

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Yes, a bit maudlin. As you may guess from the tone of my post, our stressful situation has not yet been concluded, but hopefully will be by Thursday afternoon (oh how I hope so). Once it's all safely over I'll tell you about it.

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Salt and Pepper, Tagine-Style

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One from the archives this week, newly reprocessed.

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Click to enlarge.

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No post today

Sorry folks, no Ruby Tuesday today, or any other post for that matter.

We've got some major stress this week, I'll be here when I can and will hopefully be able to tell you that it's all over in a few days.

In the meantime send some good thoughts our way, would you?

Olive Branch Redux

Click to enlarge

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I was really hoping to show you something other than a piece of one of the plants growing on my patio for this week's mono entry but the weather has been so unbelievably wet and miserable that I can barely set foot outside, let alone take my camera out. Inside it's nearly as bad - my home doesn't get great light under the best of circumstances, so this week it's been positively sepulchral around here. Couple that with atomic levels of stress and the fact that we somehow blew out our living room light fixture this weekend and it's no wonder that I'm not feeling very inspired behind the lens. Instead I've been delving back into the archives and looking for inspiration in the processing of existing images, looking for that special something hidden inside that I missed the first time around.
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I processed this olive branch as a lightly green tinted monochrome as a nod to its organic nature, and then added a bit of a film grain to give it more of that edgy retro feel you find in late night detective movies, or at least the edgy retro feel I suspect I'd find in late night detective movies if I ever managed to stay up late enough to watch them...
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Any of that making any sense? No? Nevermind then. The weather is supposed to clear briefly later in the week and my stressful situation will hopefully be happily concluded by then, so with any luck you may get something completely different to look at next week. Either that or I'll be curled up in the corner in a fetal position rocking back and forth and muttering under my breath.
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Dreaming of Summer (product review)

A few weeks ago the folks over at Skin MD sent over a bottle of their new Shielding Lotion + Sunscreen for me to try, and for the past few weeks that's exactly what I've done:

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As a lotion it goes on lightly and absorbs quickly and completely, so that you don't end up feeling greasy and at risk of having your coffee mug slip right out of your hands (or is it just me that that sort of thing happens to?). It left my skin feeling soft and smooth and smelling slightly of summertime. I'm not sure why exactly it reminds me of summertime, but it does. It probably has something to do with a faint aroma of sunscreen lotion and since it's so subtle it's actually quite pleasant. In fact, as a sunscreen would probably be my preferred use for Skin MD. Other than my hands, which are horribly dry and cracked most of the winter and need very intensive treatment, I don't tend to moisturize daily (yes yes, I know, I'm getting older blah blah blah). I am however careful about using sunscreen in the summer - it's a must with our strong Israeli sun - and I like the way Skin MD goes on without feeling all gloppy and greasy like other sunscreens. Because it's thinner it's easier to spread out too, you don't end up feeling like it's all just staying where it landed on one narrow strip of thigh.

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Now if it would just stop raining long enough for the sun to come out... (yes, yes, we're in a drought, desperately need the rain, spring will be here soon enough and with it the dry season, etc etc, but really, couldn't we have had our winter's rain spaced out over the course of say, a WINTER, rather than all concentrated in one wet miserable week, would that have been too much to ask?)

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Click here if you're a blogger and would like a sample of Skin MD of your own to review.

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