SuzeBlogz

Exodus...part two

Passover is just such a great celebration. You get to 'party' for 2 nights in a row ! Now...technically Passover is a 'festival', not a holiday. There are only 3 festivals in Judaism...Passover is one of them. All the rest are 'holidays'.

Last night we had our Temple seder where a large part of the congregation gathered to re-tell the Passover story. You got the serious version yesterday. Todays' version is my more lighthearted one !!!

everything starts with the wine you know. It represents 'sanctification' (making holy). There are 4 cups of wine placed on the Passover table. The second cup represents history. The third cup is about thanksgiving and the fourth is hope. There is an extra cup of wine laid out for Elijah, the great prophet.

when it comes to wine one must have a good sense of humor !

and lots of food...homemade chopped liver for instance ! More Connie, more !

and we insist on kids having a great time

 

 they recite "The Four Questions" together

and families participate together

toasting with Rabbi Susman and Esther, our musical director. I told you...it's all about the wine.

and checking out the ritual foods on a beautiful seder plate

and, what would Passover be without Matzah...the 'bread of affliction'..Oy ! This is real homemade matzah...not terribly delicious by any means. Just give me the boxed, store bought kind any day !

 

Miriams Cup

Miriam's Cup is a new ritual item. It is used because of Miriam's association with water and, as we know, water is the essence of life. `Miriam helped lead the people out of Egypt as the Red Sea parted and as the people were in the desert she found wells. The Exodus could not have occurred without Miriam.

Leave it to a woman to get things done !

and, of course Matzah Ball soup again. When you come to New York or New Jersey for a visit you can walk into any diner (we're famous for our diners) and get delicious Matah Ball soup with your lunch. Yes Sir !!!

  

and families together

 

and the people in the kitchen who made it all possible

Chocolate covered matzah, jellyrings, macaroons...I love Passover desserts. I'll just take an extra cholesterol pill !!!

and fruit...of course

after 4 hours we all parted ways and wished each other 'CHAG SEMEACH' (KHAHG sah-MEHY-ahkh ) which, in Hebrew means 'joyous holiday'......even tho it's a festival....oh well...you get it !

Now..it's back to work....

Celebrating Freedom

The Jewish Holiday of Passover is all about  freedom. We gather with friends and family in remembrance of the story of Moses and a time when the Jewish people lived as slaves under Pharaoh in the land of Egypt.

Last night, the first night of Passover, we went, as we do every year, to our friends Gail & Jerry's house for the traditional meal called a 'Seder'. The word Seder means 'order' or 'sequence' because the meal is eaten in a special order.

This is my attempt to give you an abbreviated version of what we do. If you are truly interested in what a full length and religious seder is like you can check it out HERE.

 

There is always a plate on the table with traditional passover symbols that have to do with the re-telling of the Passover story. A roasted lamb or shankbone (in Hebrew called z'roa), a bitter herb like horseradish or romaine lettuce (in Hebrew called maror), a roasted egg (in Hebrew called beitzah), parsely or other greens (in Hebrew called karpas).....

and, a food called 'Charoset' which is a mixture of nuts, grated apples, cinnamon and red wine....my personal favorite !!! Gail makes the MOST delicious homemade.

the meal begins with lighting the holiday candles and the 'Kiddush', the blessing over the wine. I'm always given those honors. That's Gail and Jerry, our hosts next to me.

because we had so many young children this year we used 'kid friendly' Haggadahs. The Haggadah is the text we follow for the order of the service. I'm holding it in my hand.

Spring is when new plants come. It is a time of hope. Parsley reminds us that springtime is when the Jewish people were freed from slavery. We dip parsley into salt water to remind us of the tears of the slaves. Then we eat the parsley. Everything we do at the seder is symbolic.

There is always a plate with 3 Matzah which are covered

Gail uncovers them.

We break the middle matzah (called 'Yachatz') in half and put one of the pieces (the larger one) away for dessert. This is very special for the kids because we hide this piece - called the 'Afikomen' -  and the kids search for it after the meal. Whoever finds it gets money !!!!!

Then we ask (or chant) the traditional "FOUR QUESTIONS " which are asked in every home on Passover eve.

It begins with "WHY IS THIS NIGHT DIFFERENT FROM ALL OTHER NIGHTS"? which is asked by the youngest at the table.

Then, we re-tell the story of how Moses was found by Pharaohs' daughter...etc...etc...or you can watch the Cliff notes version on TV with Charlton Heston in the Ten Commandments !!!!! (Just joking )

Everyone participates and reads

************

OK...now in the story we get to the plagues brought upon Egypt, the water turning to blood, the frogs jumping everywhere.....the kids loved this part cause we had little plastic frogs for them so they could re-enact

the lice, the beasts, cattle, disease, boils, hail, locusts, darkness and slaying of the first born....they didn't have to re-enact this !!!! Too young to understand !

We dip our pinky fingers into a glass of wine for each of the 10 plagues as we recite them in Hebrew.

 

the Seder takes hours....yes...honest....hours

we do a few other traditional things during the meal

we eat the matzah...a reminder of how we fled Egypt in a hurry and the bread didn't have time to rise.

we make a 'Hillel Sandwich"...bitter herbs and Charoset between 2 pieces of Matzah to remind us of the bitterness of slavery

and then - eventually -  we eat !!!!

fabulous traditional foods like Matzah ball soup

 

GOOD GRIEF...I'M HUNGRY AGAIN !!!!

nothing we eat during the week of Passover can have any leavening in it. That's right...NO BREAD !!!

then...we put out the cup of Elijah.

This is an extra cup of wine on the table because we believe that the great Jewish teacher Elijah visits every home on Passover. The kids go to the door to "let him in". Of course, in reality, one of the adults sneaks a drink of the wine and the kids think Elijah actually came and did it.

Now the kids go searching for the hidden matzah

and darling little Matthew finds it

but, all the mommies are happy...we gave ALL the kids money !!!!

Dessert time

and, the kids help clean up....! Thank you Elliott.... LOL

and tonight...we do it all over again with our Temple family...about 75 people will gather. So...stay tuned.

All about family

The Jewish holiday of PASSOVER BEGINS TONIGHT and I'll be blogging on that tomorrow

in the meantime....

************

My nephew Aaron Miller is the Program Director at the Center for Korean Studies at UC Berkeley. He speaks, reads, & writes fluent Korean. Okay that's not all. This requires big bragging....

All of my family...my parents (deceased), my brother Les, his children (Aaron and Ali)  and I, all have musical backgrounds. We all sing, we all play instruments, we all read music.

Aaron is also an esteemed classical pianist. When he was a mere tot (he's almost 30 now !) he was selected as the piano soloist for the Disney Childrens' orchestra and he has played classical piano since he was a child. Both he and his sister are Harvard graduates. His sister, also extremely talented, plays flute with the Santa Cruz orchestra in her spare time. I LOVE my brother and his whole family...most especially my wonderful sister in law. I wish I could see them all more often.

Well...Aaron flew into Philadelphia this weekend for a corporate seminar on Asian studies and we drove over to see him. That's one advantage to where we live....close to New York...close to Philly. We're right in the middle.

we had lunch in Chinatown

at 'Rangoon', a Burmese restaurant, because Aaron loves Asian food. And.... because we had time to kill before we took him to the airport we went for a lovely walk through historic Philly even though the day was overcast with brief showers.

 

The wonderful thing about Philadelphia is that so much of the Colonial, Revolutionary and Federal period heritage has been preserved. The United States was 'born' there.









 

You can read about the Liberty Bells history HERE.

Liberty comes in many languages

 

 

This inkwell, called the SYNG INKSTAND, was used to sign the Declaration of Independence. It was made in 1752 by Philip Syng in Philadelphia.

 

and, the Darwin Dialogues exhibition was really terrific..no matter what your religious beliefs (creationism vs evolution) it was filled with amazing facts about Darwin. I love that kind of stuff.

coming into the city we passed these wonderful murals .You can see more of them HERE.

 

Family is everything, isn't it !

Chag Sameach to those celebrating Passover tonight.

There aren't enough days in the weekend

Too much to fill one blog

lets' just start with Saturday

Off I go to the annual EAST COAST ART EXPO Sponsored by Jerry's Art-a-Rama.

This once a year SALE offers 50% off ba-zillions of art supplies. NOOOOOO. Not that I needed more art supplies. The lady in the checkout before me dropped $2,600...I kid you NOT ! That's more than a mortgage payment and car payment combined ! I was plotzing !!!!

I went because I wanted to see my friend Bernadette (r) from Pan Pastels and to catch up with Lisa (c) and Joan Kettell . I am a HUGE fan of Pan Pastels and their 80 luscious colors and texture. I LOVE using then on encaustic wax.

and I really wanted to watch encaustic artist Lisa Pressman demonstrate waxes (which are called 'paints') from R & F Encaustic. R & F makes THE most fabulous (wax) paints around...they are all hand made and are the premier of pigment wax.

 

if it was up to me I'd have just stood and watched Lisa for hours on end as she laid down paint, scratched, scraped, fused, transferred...you name it. I was Fascinated.

 

Applying (wax) paint over a piece of netting.

 

I have a palette just like this one at home.

 

The expo had people everywhere and when I first arrived I immediately ran into wonderful old friends Nedra (l) and Kathy who used to take ALL the classes at my office. I miss them & I was really happy to see them.

you got to play with product

 

I practiced writing Lisa's name with soft pastel chalks.

Then I ran into former neighbor and good friend Ed Ras who works for DAYLIGHT. Introduced him to Lisa ! New BFF's !!!

then....hunger set in.....after several hours at the show...

we rush off to dinner (Caesar salad) and happen upon a CUPCAKE SHOPPE called BROWNIE POINTS

uh oh.....

6 homemade cupcakes later

I venture off to my son Marcs house to celebrate Alyssas birthday

don'cha worry...I helped her eat them !!!!

Tomorrow I'll tell you all about today !!!

harmonizing

On April 16th I'll be part of a wonderful Rosh Chodesh service at my temple where the entire service is conducted by us females! Today we began rehearsing some of the music I'll be doing with our musical director Esther Krutzel

and one of the acappella (meaning no instruments)  pieces she and I will do together is called May The Words

Plus we'll be doing last years favorite Shalom Rav. I posted it in YouTube last year.

When we needed to refresh ourselves on the melody and harmony, Esther showed me how she can pull up YouTube on her TV (she's on Optimum) by going into their varied menu. Well....if THAT didn't make me feel like a movie star!!!!

and lastly I had to freshen up on composer Debbie Friedmans version of V'Shamru

I know...if you're not Jewish these words are like Greek to you..it's okay...just go with the flow !

I'm heading back up to my craft room to fill plastic bags with glitter as a donation to ART OPERA...sure hope I'll be seeing some of you there....it's gonna be here real soon.

Just ducky

After waiting two hours at the car dealership today for a simple part It was so uplifting to see this sight on my ride home

This has to be a good sign...spring...it is coming

I parked the car and whipped out my IPhone. I hadn't taken any really good pictures with it yet and let me tell you...it does a really nice job..especially in natural light..I think these are first quality!
 
These were taken at a lake right near my house called Lake Carasaljo.....which has a scary story behind it's history. They say the Lake was named for three sisters, Caroline, Sarah (Sally) and Josephine who drowned in it...BUT.....actually...it's not a true story...someone made it up and it's stuck like forever! We all still kinda believe it and I'm living in this area 40 years !!

...look at how rough the lake was today...lotsa wind.

but, the true test of spring lies right around the corner...

so see.....you don't always need a fancy schmancy camera.

************

Got some time...go check out my Ozzie friend Julie Cadds new website for her products...what a great job she's done with it. I love Julie AND I love her stuff.

 

**********

If you recall, every once in a while I get these delightful Photoshop tutorials in my email...they are never hard.

Using my own photo I learned how to make the black frame and red border (which can be any colors) and add my own text

here is the link

sure hope you enjoy !

Power lunch

What happens when  good friends say "Lets Do Lunch"...?

well...they all drive from different areas and meet up in one central location. For some the drive was 2 hours, but we like each other so much we didn't care !

Lisa Kettell, Joan Kettell, moi and Julianna Hudgins

we picked the Oyster Point Hotel in Red Bank because that's where Lisa will be holding her ART OPERA event & they have a beautiful dining room that overlooks the Navesink River waterway

 

and generally the view is also beautiful

sadly, it rained today so the view was a bit overcast, but we still got a kick out of this one fella who must have been water skiing. Some people are just a bit strange

We arrived at 1 and didn't budge from the table till 5:30...we just had so much to talk about.

For one thing.....Lisa has a new line of paper that just came out...and here we are giving you a preview. You can order it right from her.

and check out the bling everyone had on today...Joan made this incredible necklace

Lisa made this smashingly gorgeous bracelet

the ring I think she bought.....one of her bargain buys

and look at Juliannas wire work. She's a wiring master.

 

come and join us at

ART OPERA

No joke

and there it was.....

a beautiful spring day....it's 10 AM.....it's a motorcycle day...

NO...we decided we should FINALLY start taking apart the garage. Well...not exactly 'we'...The Lenster thought it would be a brilliant idea.

Under normal circumstances we keep The Lensters motorcycle and my car in the garage....BUT....since I closed the office I had to bring whatever was left to some type of storage and the garage was 'free'....free of charge and free space.

OY...what an undertaking...and...do we ever do anything in small baby steps...no, that would be ridiculous...we start and then work till we drop

 

eventually The Lenster will drop...then plop on the couch and fall fast asleep. He'll stay there till I nudge him....but, believe me when I tell you that he has a ton of energy and we didn't give up on that garage till close to 7 pm.

 

barely made a dent....LOL

in between I kept sneaking back inside to watch 'Dreamgirls' on TV and grab a snack.

We have a l-o-n-g way to go......it may take a few weeks, but eventually the car will have its happy home again.

No pollen will fall on MY car this spring !

Weekends R Wonderful

Beginning with Friday night.

The Lenster and I always go to temple on Shabbat (unless one of us has to work) and instead of going to our usual congregation we drove 90 minutes to go with Jennifer (to one near her) because she is thinking of joining a synagogue now that Jared is 7+ and will soon need to start Sunday School. We were so impressed with the beautiful services at Temple Beth Am in Parsippany, NJ. We got such a warm welcome and we were enthralled by Cantor Innas' voice.

One of the things that so impressed me was, that instead of flowers on the bimah,  they had blankets rolled up and placed in large baskets that they would distribute to needy families. Flowers may look beautiful but they die...this lives on forever !

 

and...they are very involved with Hearts for Haiti. It would be wonderful if you could help support this cause too.

OK...wonderful thing number 2

My POGO Sketch stylus tool arrived in todays mail. And, what does it do you are thinking.....well...it turns my MacBook trackpad into a pen tablet

 

and it interfaces beautifully with my Iphone too, so, gloves or nails are no problem when typing.

and where does one get this....right HERE. 

Wonderful thing number 3

I've been waiting for this interesting looking book to be released and now it's finally here...I'll have to make some good quality time to experiment with it. You'll notice it says you don't need photographs to create...now that sounds kinda fun.

wonderful thing number 4

The faaaabulous Donna Downey - friend extraordinaire - sent me something to decorate

her new canvas camera bag...which comes complete with long strap and the padded inserts. It came in todays mail too. This just goes beyond cool !!!! It comes small and large and it is calling out to me to use Claudine's Studio paints on.

and wonderful thing #5

was the Mardi Gras themed dinner dance we went to tonight in honor of the Court Street School

Court Street School was initially constructed in 1921 and later expanded in 1926, this Colonial Revival style brick schoolhouse was designed by locally prominent architect Warren H. Conover. The Court Street School is associated with the history of early-twentieth century education in Freehold NJ, and has long been a major focal point of its African-American community.

 

The Lenster earns his Mardi Gras beads !!!
 

and we all dance The Electric Slide !

it was a fabulous evening with many different friends from the community

Tomorrow the weather is supposed to be gorgeous....might be a motorcycle day !!

***********

in the meantime....got a minute ...check this out...FREE digital download

 

Don't foil yourself

Okay...so it's silly play on words because I DO want you to get out that foil.

and the beeswax.

Now, in all fairness....I have not only used regular beeswax but lots of pigment beeswax colors that I buy at the art store. My favorite brand are made by R & F and they are actually referred to as encaustic paint. That means its made up of beeswax, resin and pigment. I was introduced to these when I took some classes from WaxWorks West in Corralitos, CA.

I brush on several layers of regular colorless beeswax then start brushing on layers of colored wax and, by heating between layers (called fusing) , I get these wonderful patterns.

Today I discovered that if I took the foils I had laying around (transfer foils, like for T shirt transfers) and used a pointed tool or even a wire brush I could get foil texture on my cooled wax.

all you need to do is lay the foil - COLOR SIDE UP FACING Y-O-U- on the cool surface & make a mark on it. I used a wire brush on this piece. The foil simply adheres. You don't have to do a single thing afterward.

Here is one where I made little flowers

I did it using the handle end of a brush to 'draw' the flowers.

if you foil and then decide to heat the foil it breaks up and you might get something like this

below is one of my favorite abstracts made mostly with plain beeswax and a minimum amount of pigment color.

and, of course you can stamp over beeswax...I used Ranger's Black Adirondack Pigment ink once the wax was totally cooled down.

On the sample below the black marks are made using Graphite Transfer paper. It is commonly used to transfer artwork or patterns onto wood, metal, paper or even ceramics. Art, craft & hobby stores would have it. It reminds me of old typewriter copy paper.

my favorite piece that I made today called "Looking back on life". What do YOU see? ....a girl in front of her house? ....leaving home?

These are some of the exciting ttechniques I'll be doing at

 

**********************

and, on Saturday, May 22nd I'll be doing a WAX AND UTEE class called MELT ART MAYHEM at WaxWorksWest in Corralitos, CA which is on sale right now and only open to the first 10 who sign up. This is a special occasion class because I will be in the area for family.

*********************

FYI: If you are looking for some cool ATC sized canvas (these are also great for wax)  look no further than USArtQuest. You get 25 pieces in a 'brick'... or... call Sue for info at 1-800-766-0728