A Good Day!

Daniel and I attended a very small wedding today of dear friends at this pretty little church in Savannah. Even though there were just five of us and the ceremony was very simple, it was one of the most romantic weddings I have attended. Probably because theirs is a true and enduring love story...

As part of the ceremony, they sang I Have a Dream by Abba, which has always been one of my favorites. (Actually, until they sang it for us last night in a practice run, I had forgotten just how big of an Abba fan I used to be...)



To love! 

Happy New Year!

Wishing you all a joy- and peace-filled  New Year's Eve and an auspicious beginning of 2011!!

Happy Anniversary!

I dedicate this post to my incredible, loving, inspiring, talented, very patient and handsome husband of 19 years today! He truly is my best friend. I was thinking of doing a long and deep post, but I don't feel deep today. I simply feel happy.
To celebrate the occasion, I did this painting, which was somewhat of an experiment. (I tried to take photos that showed the colors correctly, but it was hard). I played around with heavy gel medium for the waves and also the sky and houses. It gave it really great layers and texture (which again reminds me of our marriage).
I also discovered that when I use a thinner layer of gel medium, you can still see the background through it. You can see it in the sky - all the color is from the first paint layer, under the gel medium. I used a plastic knife to get the wave texture and really love how it looks.
And here a couple of pictures from our wedding in California. This was our first wedding - the second one was in Germany a month later. We got married outdoors followed by a potluck - it was a perfectly happy day filled with love, family and friends! We were so young... (and my hair was still so long and dark!)

Wishing all of you much happiness!!

4th of July and a Premio Meme Award

We celebrated the 4th of July the way we like it - quietly with good friends. This year was no exception! We aren't party people and we aren't really fond of huge crowds, so we tend not to join in the public celebrations of this day.

Instead, we had a delicious dinner with our friends, whom we hadn't seen in quite a few months. We don't live far from each other, but life got so busy for all of us - too busy really. There needs to be more time for good friends!

Daniel hard at work in the kitchen.
Do you remember these?
Well, yesterday I made a sweet potato salad (a Moroccan recipe) that used preserved lemons and it was beyond delicious! We could not stop eating and I was tempted to lick the bowl at the end...
All of us (except Daniel, the photographer) at the dinner table. Daniel made his unbelievably tender barbecued chicken - oh, so good!
No celebration would be complete without dessert! Just a day before, I had come across a peach pie recipe at The Sassy Radish and just had to try it. We tried to make the pie patriotic - can you see the eagle Daniel decorated it with?Oh my, it was heavenly! (Guess what we had for breakfast this morning?) Our friends had made and brought a dessert of biscuits, banana pudding and fresh fruit, which was oh so good! There can never be enough dessert, right?!
We all loved the evening. Winslow got loved on by the girls and we got to enjoy some of our very dearest friends. And what better way to celebrate all of this than with good food (can you tell I love to eat?!?).

Now, to the Premio Meme Award I was honored with by the talented Suzi of Art With a Touch of Whimsy. Thank you so much, Suzi!!! The rules of this award state that I am to share 7 facts about myself and then pass the award on to 7 others. So, here I go...

1. I came to the US by myself to study when I was 19 years old. On my first day in this wonderful country 24 years ago, I met Daniel -- and the rest is history.

2. I got married twice to the same wonderful man - first time in the US in July 19 years ago and then again less than a month later in Germany. Can you imagine planning two weddings?

3. Together, we've lived on two different continents and in five different states in the US, Texas, California, Michigan, New Mexico and Georgia.

4. I am a total scaredy-cat, but then again I've done things like ride mules down the Grand Canyon (anything like that Daniel has to talk me into...)

5. We've had some unusual pets in our years together, such as Archibald, our iguana and Charlie, a chinchilla.

6. I started going gray when I was only 15 years old. I used to pull out the gray hair until there were too many... Then, in my 20's, I colored my hair for a few years, but now I enjoy my short silver hair.

7. As a teenager (I had never been to the States at that point nor did I have plans to come here), my absolute favorite books were Gone with the Wind, To Kill a Mockingbird, and Uncle Tom's Cabin - and now I actually live in the South.

Whew, that was hard! Good thing it was just seven things - I really had to labor to come up with something semi-interesting...

Ok, now I get to pass this award on to seven of you (I didn't realize that restriction -- I already have a list of 15). There are so many of you I'd like to give this to (all of you, really), but I am going to choose seven whose blogs are newer to me and whom I'd like to know more about.

Diane of Diane's Mixed Art
Lady P of Madly Creative
David of SparkleMirror Kiln-Fired Art
Annika of Illustrasjon I Soon
Kelly of Thom's Daughter
Diantha of Living Your Potential
Tessa of An Aerial Armadillo

(If I've left you a comment saying you have an award waiting for you and you do NOT see your name above, scroll on down to the previous post.)

Alright, thanks for hanging in there with me with such a lengthy post! I hope you are all having a most wonderful weekend!!