March 2013 – Page 3 – Ruth E. Hendricks

Music and Chocolate Cake in Zagreb, Croatia

So I got home from my weekend in Ohio, Sunday night with no chance to photograph the neighborhood for the weekly photo challenge as it was dark outside. Changing the clocks didn’t help me with enough light by the time I pulled in the driveway

-but in my inbox I found a message from my son Matthew who lives in Zagreb, Croatia (9 years already!)

The subject of his email: Guest blog 🙂 The dilemma of what to post? SOLVED!

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Dear Ma,

Yesterday I spent the evening with the Kaplowitz family. My dear friend Joe Kaplowitz is pretty much the only American I know over here and he invited me over for an American-style chocolate cake. Not only is he a brilliant jazz musician but he is quite an accomplished baker to boot! His beautiful wife Lela is a marvelous singer and they recently came out with a big-band album of original compositions called With Every Breath that you can hear (and buy!) here

After enjoying a generously-sized hunk of cake chased by a glass of milk, Joe, Lela, their daughter Lucija and I played a cut-throat game of Name That Tune. Lucija is also a budding musician, so as you might imagine the competition was pretty stiff. Then we headed to the parlor for a concert. Joe and Lucija, who plays the violin, teamed up for a set of traditional Croatian melodies played over some soulful blues piano.

Perhaps I was witnessing the concept for the next album being born.

Joe’s cake was so tasty that I plan to go back over tomorrow for another sliver.

In keeping with the spirit of the blog, will get the recipe tomorrow and send it to you!

Love, Matthew

p.s. Here is the recipe, just in from Zagreb this morning

only got 3 stars but i thought it was fabulous!

March 10, 2013March 11, 2013 by Ruth Categories: Baking, Guest Blog, MusicTags: baking, Big Band, chocolate cake, dessert, entertainment, family, friendship, jazz, jazz musician, jazz singer, Joe Kaplowitz, Lela Kaplowitz, music, Name That Tune, postaday, travel, With Every Breath, Zagreb Croatia 13 Comments

St. Michael in a Sunny Window

The Weekly Challenge is My Neighborhood. But I am not in my neighborhood today.

The only available photo of my neighborhood is a snow filled park with the benches piled high with snow. I figure I’ll wait until I get back home.

I saw the sun streaming into the window over the door and the backlit St. Michael the Archangel statue along with the deep blue sky and fluffy clouds. Continue reading →

March 9, 2013March 9, 2013 by Ruth Categories: Family, PhotographyTags: available light, Canon 5D, home, my neighborhood, photography, postaday, religious statue, shadow, Spring forward, St. Michael, window light 10 Comments

Raspberries and Blueberries on Vanilla Häagen-Dazs

Accompanied by ginger snaps!

This is the dessert my friend V served at a lovely home cooked dinner last Saturday. It was delicious. A generous helping, too.

A nice finish to a simply perfect meal. Walleye caught by Cousins Jeff and Jeffrey, a baked sweet potato and salad with whisked lemon juice and olive oil dressing. Found this in my phone tonight and was thinking about how everything was so good. She said she was following the same idea my mother used to profess- Buy the best food you can and do as little to it as possible. Good advice.

The Pamela’s Ginger Mini Snapz are gluten free and quite tasty. Hope you have a good day Saturday. HBTY!

March 8, 2013March 8, 2013 by Ruth Categories: Cooking and Eating, PhotographyTags: birthday, celebration, cooking and eating, dessert, food, ginger snaps, gluten free, ice cream, postaday, raspberries, walleye 11 Comments

The Whole Family is Getting in on this Guest Blog Thing

\The number of Jelly Beans in the Jar is _ so Gloria came in as the winner tonight as she guessed _and didn’t go over the total amount.

Thanks everyone for looking and guessing.

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This is a team effort. Blogging through a four year olds eyes. Could that be a stylus at the foot of the mat on the left?

I’m on the left and Maura ~~asleep~~ on my iPad on the right. You can see the computer hinged lid. ~~Maybe an iPad, too.~~

(corrected by Maura, what is really happening in the picture she drew)

Here’s a photo I received from my DIL on Thursday. My youngest granddaughter Maura (4) drew a picture. There is another version where we have ears, and I mean EARS!!! Maybe I’l lost that one, too.

When I visit in Ohio, I sleep on a mat in Maura’s room. She gets her Hello Kitty Sleeping bag and camps out, too.

So she drew herself sleeping on the right, while old Grandma(me) is next to her on the left, BLOGGING on the computer! She always says, “you can do the blog in my room.”

It is cool that everyone wants to contribute to the effort. Thanks supportive Family!!

love,

Ma/Grandma Ruthie

March 7, 2013April 13, 2020 by Ruth Categories: Childhood, Guest Blog, PhotographyTags: art, blogging, computer, daughter-in-law, drawing, family, fun, granddaughter, grandmother, guest blog, photography, postaday 10 Comments

Guess How Many Jelly Beans in a Glass Quart Jar

I counted them.

One person guessed just two under the exact total. The jar was theirs. If you guess without going over, I’ll send Jelly Beans to the one closest. I think you could google the question but that wouldn’t be fun. The contents are the tiny jelly beans.

Lots of people don’t even like to eat them but they’re colorful and at this time of year, plentiful. There are all sorts of flavors, too Not just the fruit, spice or pectin. Did you ever put one in your mouth and guess what color it was?

Scroll down to see a simple jelly bean art design I made to photograph.

All things Jelly Bean today is inspired by fellow blogger Inside the MInd of Isadora and her post Create More Love where she showed a Kina Grannis music video with Jelly Bean Stop Action for the entire video using 288,000 jelly beans. And if you want to know more about the History of the Jelly Bean click here

And if that isn’t enough, head on over to the Jelly Belly Art Gallery and see Mona Lisa or the Girl With the Pearl Earring or Marilyn Monroe or Elvis created entirely wtth- you guessed it- JELLY BEANS. Did you know there was Jelly Bean Art before today? I just found out last week.

I’ll post the number of Jelly Beans in tomorrow’s post.

We’ll see who comes closest without going over the number!

March 6, 2013April 13, 2020 by Ruth Categories: PhotographyTags: art, calculation, candy, canning jar, food, fun, humor, jelly bean art, jelly beans, photography, postaday 56 Comments

4 Fireplaces at the Red Light on Fifth Ave and Kirkpatrick Street

Taken with the iPhone. Through my dirty windshield. I was at the end of Birmingham Bridge ready to go up the hill onto Kirkpatrick Street to Centre.

Not ideal conditions but there were those four fireplace openings staring at me as I sat and watched the cars come down Kirkpatrick Street.

Different from my daily route, it was my old route from last year’s school but I’d gotten my hair cut on Carson Street and was headed home.

You might remember Jurassic Pittsburgh from April 2012 if you ‘ve been following for awhile. I took that shot of the dinosaur-like demolition machine on the way to my former school. Added it here at the end cause who has time to back and look. But this is the result of the demolition.

Below are the photos from April 2012 that I took on the way to my former school.

March 5, 2013March 5, 2013 by Ruth Categories: PhotographyTags: Birmingham Bridge, city scene, commute, demolition, Fifth Avenue, Fireplaces, home, iPhone, Kirkpatrick Street, Pittsburgh PA, postaday, red light, school, travel, urban scene 8 Comments

Fights Bathtub Ring- Do People Ask to Be Taken Away By It? They Still Sell This Stuff

Wondering what year they packaged in this wrapper? Maybe an updated version is available in the grocery store, I will check. You can buy it online. It was heralded as a stress reliever and solution to a woman feeling overwhelmed by her life. “Calgon, take me away!”

Our custodian, Dan, found a case of this product and not sure what year the packaging is from. I meant to look and see if it had a zip code on it as I used to find items in the art room pre 1964 without a zip code. They still sell this stuff when I went to look it up in a search. I guess I am out of touch.

At first I thought this was just for the washing machine but it says “bathtub ring’ .

Here is one vintage commercial touting a similar product that is sure to offend someone with the retro thinking.

Not sure if anyone is still trying to get taken away with Calgon bath but here is one old TV commercial. There is another that is totally non PC that may come to your min and is on YouTube but I won’t link it.

March 5, 2013March 5, 2013 by Ruth Categories: PhotographyTags: advertising, bath, bathtub ring, Calgon Water Softener, Laundry, offensive to women, retro commercial, stress relief, television, water softener, women 16 Comments

Mini-Celebration in the Midst of Sadness

When we gathered in to Aunt Linda’s and Uncle Frank’s to mourn the passing of Aunt Theresa, there was lots of food to share and it kept pouring in from generous neighbors and friends and relatives.

Anna’s other Grandma, Marlene, sister of Aunt Theresa, Aunt Linda and Aunt Georgeann wanted to acknowledge the excitement and accomplishment of Anna(9) qualifying to swim Freestyle and Breaststroke in the Junior Olympics in Ohio next weekend. Marlene bought a cake- a 3 pound 12 ounce cake! (We read the label, didn’t we Aunt Linda?)

Because the occasion was the gathering in and remembering Theresa who had passed, I never took my camera out of the car.

It didn’t seem like a time to take photos. But of course when the cake came out and Marlene was videoing our singing Happy Junior Olympics to you, I felt compelled to take a photo and slipped out the trusty old iPhone and took one shot. This is it. Of course we are so proud of Anna. On the left standing up and smiling is her Mom, Erika. And cousin Shannon, in the red on the right was very gracious. Lots of love and affection over this past week.

March 3, 2013March 3, 2013 by Ruth Categories: Childhood, PhotographyTags: breaststroke, cake, Columbus Ohio, family, freestyle, granddaughter, home, Junior Olympics, photography, postaday, swim meet, swimming 13 Comments

Watching the Box in a Box*

Here are two views of the grandchildren watching”the box” while sitting in a box. A portion of one was in the Lost in the Details yesterday.

Thanks to a wonderful fellow blogger, S – Another Day in Paradise – who wrote this comment on yesterday’s Weekly Photo Challenge and inspired today’s post. ( she is originally from England, now South Africa and Florida)

*“Wonderful selection of photos, Ruth. I absolutely love the “Watching TV in a box.” In England, the TV is often called “The box,” so you could have titled it “Watching the box in a box.”

Continue reading →

March 3, 2013March 3, 2013 by Ruth Categories: Childhood, PhotographyTags: childhood, Columbus OH, England, family, grandchildren, home, humor, photography, postaday, televsion, the box 17 Comments

Weekly Photo Challenge: Lost in the Details

Thank you for all of your thoughtful comments and emails of sympathy in response to yesterday’s tribute for Theresa.

Sharing your kind, caring words and blessings meant a lot to the whole family at this difficult time. Thank you.

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The Weekly Photo Challenge

The theme this week seemed the most cryptic to me to decipher. I looked at the excellent example by Christopher Martin and read about how to go deeper into the scene. What to do when you are actually photographing. How to go “beyond the obvious”.

I didn’t go out and shoot specifically for the challenge but looked at what I had in my archives and tried to look into the photograph to see a whole new photograph within the image. Showing both photographs seemed the way to go so as to compare but I have decided to try to go with the challenge as intended, instead of justifying my edits.

One thing I learned- I photograph the obvious and need to consider the photograph hidden within the one that presents itself. We’ll see how it goes in the weeks to come. Intentional lost in the details photographs instead of edited ones I have already taken. I will look for the picture within the picture as I shoot.

My theme might have ended up being “Crop in the Details” as I try to not crop my images. Once I read about not cropping in an article Henri Cartier-Bresson.

So by looking for the “lost” part of the challenge I definitely “found” some new photographs.

Viewers can judge if the choices I made for the challenge are successful or not.