Good Sunday morning.  It's a beautiful, bright and sunny day here.  This is the end of Peter Kevin's "birthday week" (what?  you don't get a whole week for your birthday?) and he's washing up the breakfast dishes.  It's not as bad as all that.  He's had four days of playing with his tools and doing pretty much what he wanted.

We've had a good mini vacation.  Sit back and be comfortable because here come the vacation photos!



first robin of not-quite-spring



rogue crocus



Thursday was a grey rainy day.  We hung around the house and I think I napped a good deal of the afternoon.  I had a small cold and wanted it to go away.  Some cold medicine, hot tea and copious amount of sleep seemed to do it.  I did rouse myself to take a photo of a robin in our back yard and the first crocus.

I also finished the bright and colorful socks made from the Crazy Zauberball.  I gave them to Pk for his birthday since he kept telling me how much he liked them.  And yes, they are that bright in real life.  He plans to wear them to dinner tonight. 

Friday, we got up and went to the Philadelphia Museum of Art for the Van Gogh exhibit.  I don't have words for how it made me feel.  The emotions in his paintings lept off the wall and straight into my heart.  I found myself standing in front of one of the paintings with tears running down my face like some kind of ninny. 

Needless to say, we enjoyed it.  I had a strange thought about how we were all (and it was a crowded exhibit) standing there in the silence with headphones on listening to the audio tour and no one was communicating about what they saw or felt.  It was a rather lonely way to look at art.

I brought some sunflowers home with me so the next time I'm faced with a grey rainy day, I can have some of Vincent's sunshine with me.

We wandered the gift shop (who doesn't love a museum gift shop?) and I found a crocheted camera.  It really works!  How odd is that?

They had stuffed toys knitted and crocheted.  My favorite was this knitted squid

We wandered the museum, first the Impressionists and then the Modern Art wing.  I will confess to a real fondness for modern art.  I like to try to figure out what (if anything) was going on in the artist's mind.

Most of the exhibits don't allow photography (and there are enough guards around to enforce this, ask me how I know).  I did manage to get a photo of a piece of embroidered art in a room with no signs saying it was BAD.

Called The New Autonomies, it's by an Italian artist named Alighieri e Boetti who died at 54.  It's embroidery on muslin and must be machine done.  Otherwise, it would have taken all 54 of his years and the stitches are so perfect.

As we wandered the rooms full of interestingly textured pieces, we would lean close to get a good look.  There would be a bell going off and we were trying to figure out what that meant.  It took a guard coming up to tell us to back up for us to figure out it was a proximity alarm.  It's frustrating when you're a tactile person and not allowed to touch.

We did the shopping yesterday and I got a haircut.  This is where my hair is right now (funny, I didn't stop and think of the background so just pretend you can't see the messy bookshelf and things hanging from my dresser mirror....).  It's taken me a while to get to this length since I had so many very short layers in my hair.  Since I have to go to work and be presentable and professional every day, I can't just let it grow.  I have to keep getting it shaped so it looks acceptable (to me) as it grows out.  This is still layered and I'll probably go a bit longer.  The color is a week old and much brighter red than what it is in my mind.  I'm always surprised when I see a photo of myself.

My hair is not straight and has a will of its own and I am way passed the time when I try to force it to my will.  I need it to be cut so that I can just dry it a bit and leave it alone.  I can live with this.

Today we're going out for pizza and wings for Pk's birthday.  The girls will be there.  I've made a chocolate sponge cake which still needs frosting and I have some laundry to finish and my mini vacation will be over.  It has been wonderful to have some time to just do what we want.

I am going to be one awesome retired person.