Great Way to Launch a Long Weekend

It's another long weekend here in Canada - that ever-popular Civic Holiday, which means whatever holiday is native to your particular area is celebrated on this first weekend of August. Here in Halifax it's Natal Day, when we celebrate the founding of Halifax. When I lived in Toronto, it was Simcoe Days, named after the first Lieutenant-Governor of Upper Canada.

Basically, I'm just grateful for the time off. I missed a day at work this week because of my migraine, and my husband is waiting for a third set of antibiotics to tackle his abscessed teeth before they can be removed next week. He was toughing it out in hopes of me being hired so I'd have benefits to pay for the dental work.

And now we've got the coverage! Woo! Yeah, baby! And Brad is on Tylenol 3's and sipping my mom's homemade broth through a straw. Just a few more days to go and those teeth will be history.

So it was nice to have two special events to kick off this long weekend. First, my mom met up with me and two of my friends from work who purchased prints of Mom's original artwork. We had lunch together, and then the joy began.


This is Tracy with her print of Ships at Sail.


This is Judy with her print of Stare of the Dragon.



This is Judy, the artist herself - my mom, Paulette - and Tracy before we had to head back to work.



After work, I took the bus over to my friend Dawn's parents' place where I joined her family and my other friend Shelley for a delectable dinner. This is Dawn and her mom, happy for a summer visit, since Dawn now lives in Seattle.



This is Dawn, myself and Shelley. Shelley and I went through elementary school through junior high and high school together. She lived one street over from me. We met Dawn in high school, when we were all in the Prince Andrew Chorus together.

When I got to Dawn's parents' place, there were Dawn's siblings' spouses, a brother, five little cousins and a college roommate filling the condo with a warm welcome, lively conversation, delicious yummy food and an evening that packed so much into just a few hours.


Here's Dawn with her adorable niece. Another niece offered us imaginary cookies from a container and made sure no one got left out.

So glad to get together with everyone! But I must crawl into bed. I'm plum tuckered out.

Wordless Wednesday - 31

A Day at the Paulette Gallery

Had a great deal of fun finalizing the art work for my Thursday Thirteen coming up on the 20th. We made a list and started adding works to it, and as I suspected, started taking some off to fit others on.

It was a rainy, windy day, so it was perfect way to spend a Saturday, considering Mom and I both feel wiped out. She's been dealing with an eruption of neuralgia pain in her face, and I had the usual - a week of migraine pain. It's doing better now, but after a hard week I always feel an extreme amount of fatigue.

So Mom and I kept going back and forth, gazing at her work, discussing it, jotting one down on the list, heading over to another piece, discussing that. We had coffee, had a very intriguing talk about the naming of pieces, and roped my husband into adding his impression of one of her paintings.

After I drove Brad to work through the blustery downpour, I rejoined Mom to finish my coffee and finalize the order of the paintings. Gram waved me over and asked if I could turn the TV volume up higher since we were 'way back there' in Mom's studio. I had to break the bad news that it was already as high as we could stand it, even 'way back there.'

Tomorrow we're planning to take pictures of the artwork so I'll have them ready to load onto my Thursday Thirteen. We have to drive over to my cousin's to include one of Mom's pieces that my cousin and her husband purchased, when Mom had an art show in Yarmouth, Nova Scotia.

Of course, now Mom's all fired up and ready to get to work on more stuff. Go, Mom, go!