Something for the weekend

Flowers on our newly planted nectarine tree. 

So, here we are at the verge of the weekend! Is it a big one for you, or just another ordinary couple of days? It's going to be a busy one for our family, but the best kind of busy, filled with lots of activities that we're actually looking forward to, instead of just grocery shopping and yard work (although I'm sure that some of those will happen too). We're having a good friend over for dinner tonight, and then tomorrow will be mostly just relaxing together as a family. Sunday is of course Easter Sunday, so we're having some family over for dinner (I still haven't decided what we're having!) and giving the kids their Easter baskets and whatnot. Then some other good friends have invited our kids to come and share in their Easter egg hunt, which should be lots of fun.

I've missed blogging so much lately that now that I have been getting back into it again, I can't get it off my mind! My fingers have been itching to hit the keyboard all morning, and so I decided to put together a list of some of the things I've been looking at online lately.

• I've dusted off my knitting needles at long last, and am working on a sweater vest/pullover for Espen. Specifically this one. (Better pictures here on Ravelry.) Of course I've been so slow about it that it won't be finished until the height of summer, but if I add an extra inch or so of length, he can still wear it when the weather cools down again. 
• This recipe for zucchini cakes with mushroom ragout, which is what we're having for dinner tonight. We haven't made them for ages because they're a bit too spicy for the kids, but holy moly, they are tasty! And they get extra bonus points for being so quick and easy to make. 
• It's maybe a little odd for a Mormon girl (or am I lady now?) to be such a fan of the pope, but I really, really am. He just seems like such an amazing person intent on doing as much good as he can. I loved this news story about how he opened the Sistine Chapel for the homeless. My favorite part was that he asked the homeless to pray for him, saying "I need the prayers of people like you". You must feel so broken when you are homeless, and to have the Pope say that he needs you would mean so much, don't you think? Also, how cool is it that they have installed showers for the homeless on St. Peter's square? Total fangirl. 
• We've been a bit obsessed with a BBC series called Fake or Fortune? lately. PBS airs it sometimes, and you can also find it on Youtube if your morals are just a touch shady. It's going to sound like a total snooze fest when I describe it to you, but it's a non-fiction series that follows a journalist, an art dealer and an art historian as they investigate the authenticity and provenance of "sleeper" paintings (paintings that are thought to be by great artists, but have yet to be authenticated). And it is so crazy fascinating! The outcome of a few of the episodes has been surprising that Nick and I find ourselves talking about the episodes days later, and researching what happened after the cameras stopped rolling just so we can know. I know that having studied art history in college, I am just a little biased, but trust me when I say that it is just fantastic television. 
• Watching this series lately has made me daydream about buying art for our home, and so I ended up browsing the "Under £30,000" section of Philip Mould's website lately (he is the art dealer in Fake of Fortune). I still couldn't afford anything, but I'm pretending that I'm going to buy this reclining nude by Paul Aysford Methuen. The art loving nerd in me seriously digs the lighting in the painting (look at the light on her left thigh - gah!) and the close cropping of the subject that is reminiscent of photography. There's also a patch on her right thigh where the artists suggests muscle tone with just a few tough brushstrokes that I think is absolutely gorgeously done. I could go on and on. What do you think?
• Another television series that I am completely into right now is Call the Midwife. Goodness, the new series is good! I think I cry at every single episode. I was skeptical about how they were going to manage without Jenny Lee, but I find I hardly miss her at all. I do miss Chummy, though. Why did you have to go and get so wildly successful, Miranda Hart?!? Have you been watching? What do you think?
• I got Design Mom/Gabrielle Stanley Blair's book How to live with kids: a room-by-room guide in the mail this morning, and although I haven't read it cover to cover yet, from what I have seen, I can highly recommend it. Every time I pick it up to try to skim through a few pages, I end up reading them in depth instead. Listen to this quite from the introduction: "Design isn't some froufrou gloss or shiny veneer on life, it's insisting on a solution (preferably an elegant one) and working carefully to make sure that solution works within whatever constraints you have - architectural, financial, or the fact that children live in your home." I absolutely believe that. Really good design is simply a solution that solves a problem for you, and looks good while doing it. 

OK, it's time for me to swing into action and get Gwen up from her nap, clean up the living room and start cooking dinner for our guest who will be here in 45 minutes. Have a lovely weekend!