What is it that makes a meal with friends so much fun? I got together Saturday with two good friends for our annual lunch and we had a great time. We didn't discuss anything earth shattering-I can't even tell you where the conversation ranged- mostly just a general catch-up about husbands, kids and pets, weddings and grandkids. We went to Taj in Chesterton for wonderful Indian food. I left feeling very happy. There is nothing better than friends.Before meeting my friends for lunch, I snuck into Pat Winter's class at the Chesterton Art Center. It was a chance for me to drop off my "pieces of friendship" puzzle pieces and (mostly) a way for me to get to see more of Pat's lovely work in person. I envied the ladies in her class--she had a large group of lovely ribbons for them to select from and wonderful project kits. And a nice selection of her work on display for inspiration.
On the way home I swung by Bluestem Beads (also in Chesterton) and some of my favorite shops (Jo-Ann's, Catherine's clothing, and Borders). The weather was perfect and I drove down the highway with the windows down and the radio blasting an oldies station.
The latter was a bit of a mistake--some of those oldies have staying power and they stayed, rattling around in my head!
It got rather annoying to have songs I never liked in the first place stuck in my head, playing over and over and over. Last night I put on the sound track to Chocolat to help and it did help me shake the oldies out--but then Steve got the movie theme music stuck in his head!On Sunday the weather was still great and we went to Bailly by the dunes. At this time of year, we like to go every week if we can. The first picture here is a mass of Spring Beauties (out of focus--it was just windy enough). There were Spring Beauties blooming everywhere, now accompanied by purple violets and yellow violas, pink phlox and deep red trilliums. It made a lovely show.
The trout lilies, toothwort and bloodroot were already done blooming. The May apples are huge and have buds but no blooms yet. In the center of this green photo is a Jack-in-the-Pulpit (blurry, sorry, that breeze again. I punched up the color a bit to help make him more visible but couldn't fix the blur). They're hard to see but once our eyes picked out the three arrow-shaped leaves and the smoothness of the pulpit hood, then we began to see them everywhere. More this year than ever before, perhaps because of all of the rain.
The path became impassibly muddy (I hadn't thought of all the rain during the week and didn't wear appropriate shoes, duh!), so we didn't go the whole way to the homestead. We still saw plenty of lovely spring flowers.
The Jacks were the most amazing. We saw large ones and small, alone or in clumps (although they looked rather antisocial, and stood with their backs to each other when in groups).
This last photo is the only one I got that wasn't blurred. Steve spotted it, not me. It's a log in a stream with interesting leaves trapped underneath. The mud's settled in patterns and the leaves look like they're becoming skeletonized. I love the layers of shadow. It's the only photo I was happy with.
I did do some stitching in the evenings and when I get photos, I'll post them.
