Weekends are Made for Fun!

Sometimes you just have a weekend that is laid back and mellow. That was this last weekend. (This one can't possibly top it!)

It began with dinner with good friends on Friday. Then Rick and I enjoyed another episode of "Slings and Arrows," a Canadian TV show shared with us by our friend Mike L. It focuses on a Shakespearean company in a Canadian town -- I think they had a couple of festival models in Shaw and Stratford. There are lots of crazy moments -- a comedy? A drama? A little bit of both!

 

Saturday my friend Kate and I headed off to Ann Arbor to celebrate her birthday.

 

First, lunch at one of my favorite restaurants, Amadeus, where I have enjoyed blog meet-ups in the past. (HERE and HERE).

 
Our lunch was delightful -- potato pancake spaetzel with a wonderful salad and their delicious dill soup for me, borschst for Kate.
 
And it was a birthday -- so of course there was dessert.
 
A turtle for Kate...
 
...Apple for me!
 

Then time at Hollander's -- the ultimate in paper stores.

 

I was not a good girl. But I had a good time!

 

Then we were off to Trader Joe's, then home to make Rick a great dinner with the spoils of shopping (pushing a cart there was akin to driving on I-96 in rush hour.)

Sunday, after tea with my friend Richard to talk about his book, Rick and I headed to Flint. The ultimate goal was to pick up Greg from the airport, but we started with the movie "The Sessions" (very good), then enjoyed the Flint Institute of Arts.

 

This is a case of a city that has clearly seen better times, but you wouldn't know it from the museum.

 

It was simply glorious, from the magnificent Rubens angel in a room filled with tapestries...

 

...to Impressionists and some of my favorite painters, including Pissaro, Matisse and Mary Cassatt...

 

From this delightful painting by German Fritz Von Uhde called "Les Chiens Savants" (The Performing Dogs)...

 ...to the Chihuly ceiling.

 

All that, then dinner with Greg. Yes, a very good weekend!

An Artful Weekend

I confess, I needed a wonderful weekend. A mellow one, with few obligations and much creativity and fun.

I decided to take cue from Beth L. at Gathering Dust and "make time!"

First, time in the art room -- here are a few projects I completed...

The "Cloth Paper Scissors" snowmen -- if you get the magazine, you may recall seeing snowfolk on the cover an issue or two ago.

I did two as prototypes. (I did three, till I broke the head...)


I'm rather fond of them, and I'm quite sure I'll do many more over the upcoming months.

I also spent time finishing up tags for Karla's "Puppy Love" tag book swap.

I'm looking forward to seeing the terrific tags others will do!

And to top it off, I had a great deal at Kroger with fabulous prices on fresh blueberries! It had been so many months...! I enjoyed making a blueberry pie! (Along with quite a wild and zesty pasta!)

In the evening we enjoyed the musical version of "Goodbye Mr. Chips" with Peter O'Toole and Petula Clark. No, it wasn't as divine as the original, but captivating and delightful in its own way. I remembered it when first released, and so did rick. It was fun to see it with more adult eyes.

Sunday Kate and I did a road trip to Trader Joe's in Ann Arbor. The flowers simply dazzled me.
As always I found lots of tasty things but my favorite purchase was a bouquet of beautiful roses!

Then it was off to Hollanders, a fabulous art/paper and stationer's store. It was hard to choose from all the beautiful papers for Rick's Valentine gift.

And then there were plenty of other lovely things to enjoy. Walls of boxed notes, racks of cards, books and magazines galore.

I didn't get one of these erasers, but I LOVED them!

Even the storyteller was captivating! How many art stores have a storyteller?

While in the area, we stopped at a new spice store and a place that had so many cool things for collage (game pieces, old photos, etc.) I simply couldn't start to buy things because I knew I wouldn't stop!

All in all, a splendid time, capped by dinner at Rick's (yummy Japanese food)!

And now, back to the regular world!

Jeanie's VERY Unmeasured Pasta Sauce

There's nothing special about this sauce and probably quite like the ones you make -- highly flavorful, though. Enjoy!

Brown about one pound of sweet Italian sausage with a small onion, several cloves of garlic and 4-6 large mushrooms, sliced.

Add about 10-12 diced (and pitted, obviously) Kalamata olives
Add 2 T. capers
Add 1 large can crushed tomatoes
Add about 1/2-3/4 c. red wine (I just wing it)
Add about 3 T vinegar
Spices -- 1 T or so of basil, oregano, thyme, whatever you enjoy
Salt, pepper, and red pepper flakes

Serve over mini-penne or other pasta.

(This really is probably almost everyone's pasta sauce!)