Laowai

I made Smitten Kitchen's Chocolate Peanut Butter Tart.

They have the same smile.

 

It's you I like,
It's not the things you wear,
It's not the way you do your hair
But it's you I like

The way you are right now,
The way down deep inside you
Not the things that hide you,
Not your toys
They're just beside you.

But it's you I like
Every part of you.
Your skin, your eyes, your feelings
Whether old or new

I hope that you'll remember
Even when you're feeling blue
That it's you I like,
It's you yourself
It's you.
It's you I like.

   - Fred Rogers

Happy Valentine's Day everyone.

I had fun collecting images of all these ladies at The Milwaukee Art Museum.

 

A Sunday trip to the Milwaukee Art Museum seems like a good idea this time of year. We repeated our trip from last year. This time the sun was out so the sculptural roof flap thingys were open.

It's such a beautiful museum – from the pristine parking garage to the end grain wood floors.

It's been very quiet around here and since our snow melted it's looking a bit ugly outside. Brian's been traveling a lot since Christmas and I've been puttering and doing some little projects.

I finished my little scrap quilt over the weekend. 

I went for a walk and peeked at the lake.

We had new storm windows made for our bedroom a long while ago and we recently had them done for all the remaining upstairs windows. Every time I pass by the new ones I think how I'm so pleased with them. They switch out easily with matching screens.

Brian likes Macintosh apples and so now Bea eats Macintoshes exclusively. Only the ones I bought are too little so she won't eat them. Sometimes it's hard to win. But the cores did look nice stacked up.

The sun finally came out on Monday.

I made a new nightie for myself. It's the Rue Blouse pattern from Soften Studio.

And I made a new lunch bag for Claire.

I guess I'm in the mood for sewing – I've got some green corduroy coming for a new project – stay tuned.

I almost forgot to document the last bit of our Christmas vacation to Spain. As I mentioned before, Girona is a very bike friendly city.

It started in the late 1990s when a teammate of Lance Armstrong and then Armstrong himself moved there and made it their off-season training base. You notice when you search for an Airbnb – in the photos there are biking jerseys hanging in the closet and bikes leaning on the wall. And around town too – there are lots of bike shops, cafe's with names like Eat, Sleep, Cycle and restaurants that advertise bike parking inside. Not to mention the actual bikers you spot heading out or coming back from their rides. Anyway – it's not far from Barcelona and it has lots of good cycling routes surrounding it. It was a perfect vacation place for my bike loving husband. 

Here are a few photos from his rides.

He's happy.

We also took a nice hike into the hills outside of town one day. We went to some old ruins and had really nice views of the countryside.

And that's all the photos – it was a good trip!

Over the weekend I went away to Michigan City, Indiana with some girlfriends. It's an annual crafty weekend get-together that I always look forward to. This year it was very memorable because after we arrived we got a huge amount of snow – 35 inches! We were a little worried that we would be snowed in and unable to get out for meals but it turned out fine. With the help of the rental owners and a delicious lasagna delivery we were cozy and warm.

The big piles of snow reminded me of Michigan Tech.

Now, back home, it's already Thursday and I am feeling like I'm in a bit of a slump. I guess it's normal for this time of year. I mostly just want to sit and quilt and keep cozy.

I haven't even finished posting all our photos from our vacation earlier this month. I did find time to go for a foggy walk at the Chicago Botanic Garden.

Who's feet are these – a raccoon?

For the next few days of our vacation we traveled to a city called Girona. It's a pretty old city known for it's Medieval architecture, Roman ruins and more recently it's become a cycling city (more about that later).

Here we are walking along the old city wall.

I didn't expect Girona to have such a significant cathedral. It has the second-widest nave of any church – Saint Peter's at the Vatican is the widest. 

We ate empanadas. Mmmmm.

The lioness sculpture above is a symbol of Girona and apparently you have to climb the pole and kiss her bum in order to "become an accepted citizen—or at least to ensure you would return to Girona". And the funny sign below warns about passing covid by lioness bum kissing. No, we didn't kiss her. The pole is just tall enough to be a challenge and none of us wanted to make a spectacle of ourselves.

Bea took photos of pigeons.

This red bridge was designed by Gustave Eiffel before he did the Eiffel Tower.

One of the main reasons we wanted to go to Barcelona was to show the girls the work of Antoni Gaudi. His architecture is unlike anything I've seen. His church – the Sagrada Familia feels similar in scale to lots of other churches we've seen but its organic style is so unique. A treat to see.

First we visited a home designed by Gaudi – the Casa Batllo. There are almost no straight lines inside or outside this building. And its facade is covered in a mosaic of broken ceramics.

Apparently Gaudi preferred making models like the one below instead of making architectural drawings. 

Next we visited Gaudi's masterpiece (which is still under construction) The Sagrada Familia.

I like these sculptures at one of the entrances. The people are very expressive and there are so many animals. Look at the sweet cow and donkey below.

Hard to capture how pretty the church is. The columns are supposed to be like trees.

Our last big Gaudi stop was a park he designed called Park Guell.

The only disappointing part of all these sights is that everybody wants to see them and so there is always a mass of people. It makes is hard to enjoy and reflect on the things you're seeing when you have to fight a big crowd. 

On New Year's Day we took the train to a city called Tarragona. I got to do some train knitting so I was happy.

Tarragona is a port city on the Mediterranean with lots of beautiful Roman ruins. We walked all around and had gelato.

All the buildings had such a creamy warmth to them while the sun was shining. 

The girls and Brian took a walk along the water while I sat on a sunny bench and did some more knitting.

Claire took photos of Catalan cats.