Now We Are Six
When I was One,
I had just begun.
When I was Two,
I was nearly new.
When I was Three
I was hardly me.
When I was Four,
I was not much more.
When I was Five,
I was just alive.
But now I am Six,
I’m as clever as clever,
So I think I’ll be Six now
for ever and ever.
-A.A. Milne
Spring!
We are eager for it to begin. In earnest.
Monday there was a two hour delay due to ice, snow and sleet. It was unexpected and I heard it on the radio as I was already driving to school.
Can we trust the groundhog? Phil said it would be an early Spring. Well Phil, it’s Spring tomorrow on the clock and calendar but it feels like WINTER today. Chilly and gray. We are ready for blossoms, muddy earth, warm breezes. Saturday I saw my first robin in the back on the porch post.
Now I know, no one reads the blog for the weather report but the change of seasons is significant. We just want to be reassured that a true Spring is coming and will warm us up. SOON. (Florida readers- I saw those photographs of you in short sleeved shirts!!)
Before school I stopped in at the Giant Eagle and bought this bouquet. I took the daffodils to school for the students to photograph. They were buds in the morning and by the afternoon they had opened.
You can see the set up with the background of folded white paper to eliminate clutter. When I was ready to go home and the lights were off, this is what I saw.
A reblog- in honor of St. Joseph Day. I hear this statue of St Joseph is still in the parking lot, waiting for a new home. My father, son and grandson all share Joseph as a middle name.
Sunday afternoon I drove across the Monongahela River to the Waterfront at Homestead, PA and did a little grocery shopping.
When I wheeled my cart to load the car, I saw this little list on the pavement of the parking lot.
I used to photograph found lists, little wrinkled slips of paper, write poems about them. Some lists abandoned in a cart- seemed like poems when I found them.
I’d think about the people who wrote them. Sometimes they’d written the oddest mix of items.
I have a friend who keeps a magnetized shopping list pad on her fridge and when she uses something up, she writes it down immediately so she can replenish the larder. I’m not that disciplined. I’ve written a list and then left it at home but it can help when trying to remember what I’d written down.
There are even tablets of preprinted lists and you just check the boxes of what you need to get at the store. That’s not my style of list, either. When I entertain I’m more likely to write a menu AND a shopping list. Cross things off as I put them in the cart.
What is your “list style”?
I stopped into the old fashioned/classic toy store in the neighborhood of Shadyside on Ivy Street. The cool toy store is around the corner from where we lived when we first moved to Pittsburgh. This is the same store my three kids would browse in for the longest time on the way home from school in 1989-1991.
Two floors of toy store! Filled with LEGO® and Playmobil®, knights, puppets, trucks and trains, dolls and puzzles. Everything you can wish for as a child. You might see some items you yearned for as a kid but never received.
I was buying a gift for a friend.
And while I was there, the young man came from behind the counter and started yo-yoing. I mean yo-yoing extraordinaire! His name is Ky.
There was nothing else but to stop my shopping and watch in amazement. All I had with me was the phone camera. With a phone memory too full, I had to delete pics to take a few shots. (too much phoneography for challenges?)
Wowee Wow. I don’t know how to describe it -but I was mesmerized. And then he put down the yo-yo and picked up a kendama. Yes, we have an old wooden one but I never knew what it was called. Or that it was of Japanese origin. He was smooth and skillful at both the yo-yo and kendama!
If you want to learn how to yo-yo like Ky you can head on over to Shadyside on Sunday at noon and practice how to put your yo-yo into a “sleep” so you can attempt the tricks like Ky was demonstrating. Learn “looping”. Ky will be there teaching in the Yo-Yo/Skill Toy Club at S.W. Randall’s. I think I need to return with a video camera and you can understand how you had to keep your eye on Ky and the yo-yo or Ky and the kendama. Do you have any yo-yo tricks?
Lunchtime lately has been from the students’ cooking at the Carrick Cafe. You’ll see a couple of orders in takeout boxes and containers below. I thought this week’s challenge a fun one to create.
WordPress is hoping for some “offbeat interpretations, mouthwatering photos”. The photos are supposed to be taken with a phone. I got that about half right. Once I started searching I had to just stop as there were too too many images of meals consumed at lunchtime!
I think of lunchtime as a short time, dictated by bells. Here is a lunchtime medley from the archives. Some shots I probably would not have blogged before.
And from the online etymology dictionary
lunch (n.) “mid-day repast,” 1786, shortened form of luncheon (q.v.). The verb meaning “to take to lunch” (said to be from the noun) also is attested from 1786:
But as late as 1817 the only definition of lunch in Webster’s is “a large piece of food.” OED says in 1820s the word “was regarded either as a vulgarism, or as a fashionable affectation.” Related: Lunched; lunching. Lunch money is attested from 1868; lunch-time (n.) is from 1821; lunch hour is from 1840. Slang phrase out to lunch “insane, stupid, clueless” first recorded 1955, on notion of being “not there.” Old English had nonmete “afternoon meal,” literally “noon-mea
The Deli Counter at La Groceria Italiana (shot on Friday March the 15th with an iPhone)
Fish Tacos with a fresh lime
Ohio State Fair Food Booth
Star Shaped Peanut Butter and Jelly onWhole Wheat Columbus Ohio
Food Truck Festival Columbus
Steak Salad at Silky’s in Sharpsburg PA
Another shot at the Food Truck Festival
Extra Pickles
Ahhh, Onion Rings
New York City Hot Dog Carts
Blackened Catfish, Rice and Beans and Cornbread Lunch from the Carrick Cafe
Maura has a lunchtime picnic at Grandma’s House
Lunch at the Museum of Modern Art New York City
Hmmmmm What’s for lunch? says Mar
Soup and Sandwich in Stamford , Connecticut
A Slice of Pizza
Thelma’s for lunch in Roanoke Virginia
Lined up for Fries at the Potato Patch, Kennywood
No falling sprinkles today but one good cupcake leads to another. My sister said cupcakes aren’t her favorite as the frosting is disproportionate to the amount of cake involved but many people are crazy for cupcakes. I have seen a line around the corner on Bleecker Street at the Magnolia Bakery, many times.
A couple of weeks ago on a Monday, I went to a friend’s house and these chocolate cupcakes were the dessert. Here is the recipe for Chocolate Heaven with Chocolate Buttercream.
I’m on a team for the Biggest Loser at work and we weigh in every Monday morning. Good thing I had the rest of the week to try to make up for the indulgence.
I looked through the cookbook where J got the recipe from and everything sounded enticing. Old fashioned baking with plenty of real ingredients. From Savannah Georgia, the Back in the Day Bakery is the name of the cookbook. J had heard the owners, Cheryl and Griffith Day, featured on the radio show Splendid Table. Their specialty? Vintage Desserts!
Once again inspired by Christopher Boffoli and his tiny food worlds.
I had taken the cupcakes and fruit into school on the student teacher’s last day. The little HO train people were in my desk.
I thought “food scape” and some students photographed the little people shoveling in the icing. But I thought it might look like a food museum and there were falling sprinkles to be mindful of so
the little hand-painted mom picked up her baby out of the stroller and held it close. Maybe she is waiting for transportation.
Monday night when we drove through the neighborhood in the rain, none of the restaurants were open except for Smiling Banana Leaf. (Thai).
Joseph Tambellini’s is the first exterior I photographed and you should taste the delicious meatballs.
Phoneography special. The weekly photo challenge I have been talking about it for days. Unable to do it for a variety of reasons. Out of town. Too dark. Many people shoot with their phones. All day, everyday. Don’t think much of it, the photos sit and take up space. They have them in the phone and that’s about it.
This is just a snippet.
Tonight Steve drove us over to Shadyside for 1/2 price burger night at Shady Grove. I’ve added some shots around town I already had in the phone. This is not an attractive time of year to showcase where I live. If you want to see Pittsburgh at it’s best you can check out Francine in Retirement of Frizz in Germany. I take photos of Pittsburgh frequently. This is a collection of the everyday. The Historical Marker is where musician Billy Eckstine lived in my neighborhood.
The snowy park is the neighborhood I live in Highland Park. There are 80 neighborhoods in our city. The edges of neighborhoods are where I drive through everyday to school and across the bridge, over the Monongahela. I’ve thrown in a few you’ve seen before just to round out the gallery.
Last Wednesday’s view of the Highland Park Entrance. The second one is what my driveway looked like! It’s all gone now.
