“The guests are met, the feast is set. May’st hear the merry din.” (-Coleridge)

We had some good friends visiting from this past weekend through today. They lived for a while in NC, but now they come from New York state, so we don’t see them that often, and it’s always fun to have them here. We keep trying to entice them to move here again, "for good."

Flowers came out, the food is gone, and the gifts from Christmas were fun to open. It’s great to celebrate Christmas after the big holiday’s already gone. We do this every year…

Games were played. ..

And it’s always sad to see them go….

“We dare not trust our wit for making our house pleasant to our friend, so we buy ice cream.” (-Ralph Waldo Emerson)

(Trust me—it works!)

“The ornament of a house is the friends who frequent it.”

OK, I’m a total sucker for nostalgic Christmas tree ornaments, and putting up our tree every year takes me down memory lane.

Everywhere we go, I try to find an ornament as a remembrance of our visit, so....

it seems we have tiny ornaments from Monticello, (Jefferson’s home in VA;) the beach; Delft, in the Netherlands; the Grand Canyon; Vegas; Bermuda; Italy…

You name it, we have an ornament to commemorate it. Out tree is trimmed out with sleds, a teacup, a lounge chair, frogs, old and new photos of family members....and well, of course, our birds...

But my favorite of all might still be the salt dough "gingerbread men" ornaments Eric made when he was about 4 years old. (He’ll turn 32 this year!)
Face it: I’m totally sentimental.

“Nostalgia is a file that removes the rough edges from the good old days.”

(-Doug Larson)

“Some pursue happiness; others create it.” (-anonymous)

Friday was pretty much a perfect day:

I awoke to warm breezes through the open doors and the birds singing. Joe and I ventured out to a local market and picked up some glowing local tomatoes and vegies.

Afterwords, I met up with two of my flickr watercolor friends Laura and Lin, and we took in two current exhibits at the UNC Ackland Museum of Art: one was “Flowing Like Water” with artists’ varied depictions of water, and the other was “In and around the garden.”

From there, we wandered off to a wonderful little art supplies store, and being like-minded, we ogled the wonderful art papers, journals, sketchbooks, inks, paints and palettes to our hearts’ delight.

But the piece de resistance was our trip to a nearby gelato shop where we made a lunch of the delectable gelato. We sampled tiny spoonfuls of cappuccino, orange-chocolate, peanut butter, watermelon, strawberry, pistachio and lemon, and then once we made our selections, we each savoured a bowl of the heavenly treat. We’d originally planned to do some sketching there, but with all the gelato we consumed, our tongues were numb, and we decided it was just too chilly to stay and sketch! (I proposed that we should definitely come back, but bring sweaters next time.) I took some pictures to try to sketch later.

Good friends, good art, good food…what more could I want…

“What a wonderful life I’ve had. I only wish I’d realized it sooner!” (-Colette)

“The cow is of the bovine ilk; One end is moo, the other, milk" (-Ogden Nash)

Painting en plein air is a romantic notion, but it’s also just plain fun. There are so many things one is incapable of controlling, so you have to be amenable to whatever happens.

Cold, heat, flies, mosquitoes, rain, intense sun...they can all be troublesome for painting outdoors, but it's still just kind of an adventure to be right in the thick of things and there's nothing like it. Some time ago, two friends and I ventured out to a local dairy farm to sketch the stolid creatures there. It was a searing NC summer day with flies buzzing and birds to serenade us instead of cars. We didn’t mind the flies at all, but happily wiled away the time, content with observing and sketching head shapes, tails and hooves while chickens clucked nearby. Hours spent outdoors seem like minutes in such a serene setting.

“Plein air painting and painting from a reference: The first is like going to Paris for two weeks with your girl friend, the second is like reading a book about Paris at the local library.”

(-Sylvio Gagnon)