While I Was Away...

How was your holiday? I spent lots of time with my sisters and was lucky enough to have my friend and boyfriend join us for Christmas.  



I wish I had taken pictures of Christmas dinner. We sampled homemade hummus and crab & cucumber canapes before the meal. My dad made beef bourguinon, and we served it with chickpea fritters and roasted fingerling potatoes.  My mom had made her famous caesar salad and we never even got to it. It was a feast for 20 rather than the 8 we had!

I didn't take many pictures on Christmas, but it seems that my sisters found my phone. I glanced at it and found this lovely shot as my background. 

Got them back by sharing this flattering photo with the world!

 Kath and I made some fun holiday crafts. 

Vivi Kitty especially loved the sparkly ornaments!

                             

Chris and I took advantage of the gorgeous weather on our day off, Monday. We wandered down to the harbor for a bit. 

I didn't edit this photo at all, isn't the sky gorgeous! 

 Later in the afternoon, we made our way over to Ft. McHenry for a picnic.


Lucien, the wine director at the Wine Market (where I used to work) recommended a delicious Cabernet/Sangiovese blend for us to enjoy with our prosciutto and mozz snack. 

Chris came up with a creative  bottle holder. I forgot to bring glasses for us, so we opted for the sip sip pass method. Super classy. 

I thought the weather was relatively mild, but I didn't take into account that I had positioned Chris to block the wind. As soon as we stood up to leave, I started violently shivering. The poor guy didn't say a word about how cold he must have been the whole time! He claims that it was "a little chilly." There I was, loving that it was almost warm with the wind blocked and the sun shining on me and he was taking the brunt of the cold!

We had a great date day. Sometimes you just need a low key lazy day. We made a tasty dinner of Chilean sea bass and I successfully passed the test of cooking seafood for Chris! He's a pretty avid fisher and although I'm a pretty good cook, I was terrified of bumbling it!


One of the things my family discussed at our Christmas dinner were our best and worst moments of 2011. Last year I worked two jobs so that I could go to Bali. It was something that I really looked forward to, and with such high expectations, it could easily have let me down. Luckily, everything went beautifully. I had so much fun and got to spend time with great people. The worst moment of 2011, probably was when I broke my foot two weeks before the trip. Once again though, everything worked out really well. I was able to put weight on the foot and crutches became optional the day I left. The only things I couldn't do while I was there, were volcano hiking and surfing. 


All in all though, it's been a great year. I've made some major life changes and feel as if things are going in the right direction. Things got a bit hectic when I added school onto the two jobs, but I went back to just one job and life has calmed down significantly!


If you had to sum up your year in two sentences, best and worst moments of 2011, what would you say? I'd love to hear what your best and worst moments were.

Maarten De Ceulaer, balloon bowls

Maarten De Ceulaer, balloon bowls from Victor Hunt on Vimeo.

How cool is this process!! I love the colors he chose and the rough edges that the plaster creates. The contrast between the finished shine of the bowls and the graded colors and edges intrigues me. The process reminds me of doing paper machete when I was little...his final product definitely is on a way higher level than any paper machete bowls I made though! 

What would you do with bowls like these? Put them on a shelf for decoration? Use them to hold plants? Use them as dishes? I'd scatter them throughout my house and put them to all sorts of uses.