My hubby shared a unique and special evening last night with my nephew as he and many other men of influence in my nephew’s circle were asked to gather for a “Christian” Bar Mitzvah posted by his dad (my bro).
Sort of a wisdom council if you may. Now first off, we are not Jewish. But as a traditions consultant, I appreciate many of the strong traditions, feasts and festivals that are incorporated into the heritage that defines them. There are strong family ties found in the Jewish community and I admire that so much.
One of them is the rite of passage tradition – typically done in a Jewish family at the age of 13 when he is deemed ready for religious responsibility. For my nephew it was chosen because he was leaving for his first day of college. These men wanted to encourage and reflect on his emotional, spiritual, and social growth as well as challenge him and give him a charge going forward.
So very cool. Can you imagine the impact that had on him? I wish I could have been a fly on the wall, but a bit too much testosterone for me.
I could go on and on with my passion for the powerful impact of traditions, but that wasn’t at all what my post was going to be about…believe it or not.

Can you tell that I haven’t figured out how to think succinctly about a post, type it, edit it etc. etc.
People ask how I have time to blog…I chuckle…well, since I have just started, I just type as I think…off the top of my head.
That could definitely get me into trouble sometime in the future.
I have written a lot in the past.
I know that I am breaking all the writing rules. I even teach a writing class, but definitely will not let my students read my writing on this blog…hee hee.

Writing takes serious time and I still want to have a blog, which won’t happen if I take my writing too seriously, or think too much about complex, compound sentences and sentence frangments.
That is for another venue.
Sometime in the future you may see it pop up now and then, but for now….

I will try and get better…better blogger, better. 🙂

Tangent coming back around…..my hubby came home last night at 11:00 pm, and informed me that he had invited Jimmy (my nephew) for breakfast at 6:30 to say good bye.
My husband assured me that he knew it would be fine with me. It was…kind of….breakfast definitely, the 6:30 thing….well……

He came.
6:30 was a little early for him as well, but we had a wonderful time.
He is an amazing young man, and we will see dynamic things from him in the future.

We woke up over some good coffee, banana/zucchini bread that I had already made, cantaloupe and a yummy, quick (but doesn’t taste quick) apple, dessert breakfast thing. How is that for a name.
It’s kind of like a coffee cake, but you invert it onto a plate and it looks beautiful every time. The problem with this is that because I am a new blogger, and do think “next blog, ” quite often, I haven’t quite arrived yet.
I forgot to take a picture of my beautiful presentation until after it was all gone.

You see, before a month ago, I would have never thought to take pictures of the food that I bake. Now, I realize that a beautiful picture with a recipe is eye candy to many.

SUCH A BUMMER because it’s a GREAT RECIPE!

And here’s my other problem as a blogger….my camera.
I tried and tried to make the picture into a work of art, but you know what I realized –

It’s not always about the photographer ( I could have an eye for this thing you know). There’s a lot to be said about the camera, and I never fully realized this until I started taking pics for this blog, and seeing the potential on other blogs…

It’s just not possible to deliver any enticing eye candy with this $89 digital, but it’s OK….because it makes me that much more appreciative for what my husband just ordered…..

A CAMERA!! A REALLY NICE ONE THAT WILL ALLOW ME TO MAKE EYE CANDY FOR YOU!!
I will be able to take a picture and you will gaze at it because it’s beautiful…hee hee.

So here is my attempt to show you, and I didn’t even have to move anything around because this is how it looked for breakfast – minus the full table of people not happy to be up at 6:30, of course.
I tried it without the flash, but it’s much too dark…did I say it was 6:30?
You can see my cool Mikasa dishes that I got at the yard sale. I already told you about them in another post. Now you can see the cantelope and candle.


Here’s a little bit of the apple thingy that was left. I will have to make it again, take a picture and post the recipe. I have seen lots of popular blogs do that…food is the whole post.
Did you know that?

I finally got sick of no flash and turned it on, but wow….now I see why photography people say to not do the flash close up. 🙂 All you see are the few left over apples that my daughter picked out

 


And that is why the post’s title was “A Little of this and a little of that.” There was no rhyme or reason to this. Should have made this into three posts….my nephew’s Bar Mitzvah and explained it but I am not in a mood to be reflective and I SO would have to, my camera announcement could have been another, and my recipe with food could have been another. See, I am learning….just stick with me. It’s only been one month.