l’arte di non fare niente

Ahh the Italians truly know what it means when they say the phrase   "l’arte di non fare niente" ( "the art of doing nothing")!  This on the other hand has not been me in the last week but today I tried hard to do some things that I enjoy... like creating art, eating,  a little light shopping and spending time with a friend!  The lunch was planned but everything else wasn't and it was wonderful!
My good friend JoEll & I went downtown for a delicious lunch at La Buvette.   It was scrumptous! I had a sandwich on a crunchy French baguette with ham, Gruyere cheese, olives, tomato and a sun dried tomato spread along with a salad drenched in olive oil.  We of course had a bottle of Riesling wine, too.  My fave.  It was nice to relax and chat.  Glad to see people still do that!
JoEll is a what I would call a culinary artist.  She throws together food ingredients with such intuition and ease that just amazes me.  So when she suggests a restaurant I trust her opinion & look forward to a deliciously satisfying meal and conversation.
She's inspiring to me to say the least and I'm one of her biggest cheerleaders as she dives into culinary school and a new adventure in her life.  She has a food blog - please check it out: Recipe Redux and tell her I said hi!
I've been working on my matchboxes for the swap that I'm in and will be blogging about in December.  I'm having so much fun putting them together.  It's exciting to participate, to say the least.

Reflections

Time with my family is precious to me.  A couple weeks ago we  had our first family vacation together in 20 yrs!   We all love boating and had a great time at Lake Okoboji, IA.  The people in town were friendly and I was so impressed with the young people working there over the summer.
I've been feeling a little melancholy over the summer ending.  Hearing the locusts at dusk and the sun going down early makes me a little sad that it's almost over!  I do, however, LOVE the autumn season.  We just don't get a long time to enjoy it NE.  
Please Lord don't let us have another winter like our last one! 

Swap Happy!

I'm so excited!   I'm going to participate in my very first swap ever!  I have been watching and waiting for just the right one to jump in on.  

Linda from A Swap From All Seasons graciously accepted a newbie like me.

I can hardly wait to get started and get all of the details.

The best part is making new friends, getting a few (25 more than a few I suppose) crafty Christmas goodies and posting about them the whole month of December!

Something to get me in the Christmas spirit!