mother's day

i love my mother. 

but i'm not going to blog about it. i don't think she even knows about this blog. so don't think i'm hateful. i'll just tell her in person. 

i have yet to give her her gift, but since she doesn't know of this blog, i can show you (who is 'you' anyway? all of my faithful two readers out there... this is for you...) what i'm doing for her. she recently complained that all of our pictures are on the computer and that she never gets to see them, so she asked that we all print out some pictures for her from years recent. i went a little crazy trying to decide which ones to print and ended up with 170 pictures. 

(it doesn't help that i just spent four months in the middle east and have some of the coolest pictures ever...)

while i was in the middle east i fell in love with the architecture, specifically the doors over there. i know it's kind of cliche to photograph doors, but i don't care. i had never done it before. 

i made a little book for mama (even stitched it all together) and filled it with my favorite doors. i have about 100 pictures, but i narrowed it down to 25 for this project.

i was proud of it, so i'm showing it off. shamelessly. 

this is the front cover. i know, it's a clever title.

an old crusader church in acco & a modern (relatively) christian church in jerusalem 

a building in nazareth & a christian church in jerusalem

not sure, some building in west jerusalem & a door at the pater noster church in east jerusalem

a very jewish door & a very palestinian door (they paint them like this once they've completed the hajj... very exciting)

rooftop in the old city - jerusalem & some church... not sure

an old mosque door & something unknown.

(the mosque has been engulfed by a very affluent jewish community and no longer serves muslims. it's now an abandoned building, and has been turned into a tourist attraction as the supposed "well of mary" or something ridiculous. its a beautiful building)

art gallery in the jewish quarter - old city - jerusalem & a little building on top of mt. sinai

 

the back cover... i wrote "al-abwab" (plural for doors in arabic)

isn't that fun?

***

so i kind of feel like there's a widespread obsession with cupcakes out there, and to be honest, i think it's ridiculous. 

they're beautiful, yes, but i'm afraid that's all i can give them. they usually have too much frosting, and it seems you always get too much cake or two much frosting in the bite. they can get up to four inches tall, and that makes biting into the thing quite difficult. they're better eaten with a fork. i think i'd prefer regular cake, or just plain old chocolate.

but let's be honest. have you ever seen chocolate this pretty?

i certainly have not.

for mother's day, bruce got mom these little cupcakes from mrs. backer's pastry shop on south temple in salt lake. regardless of how i feel about cupcakes, i love these so much. in fact i took many pictures. i'd like to learn how to make such pretty little things. 

they make me feel like a fairy. i've always been partial to fairies. they're just so delicate and girly (the cupcakes, not fairies... although, i guess they are as well).

i think i enjoyed photographing mine more than i enjoyed eating it.