Becky's photoblog

Photos from two weekends volunteering at the Gardner Museum

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Incredible colors at an awesome grocery store

Because it’s cold out there 🙂

I love my new coloring book 🙂

I got lots of amazing Christmas presents, and here’s one of them …. my soon-to-be brother-in-law got me a Leaning Tower of Pisa to put together. I love little art projects like this, and it was really well-made so it was a lot of fun to put together!

The pasta maker is still set up on the counter so what was I supposed to do? I took a break from playing with my new coloring book to make butternut squash ravioli, and it was delicious!

I love making butternut squash risotto, but you only need a little bit of butternut squash for that … what to do with the rest of the squash? I’ve been meaning to find a use for the hand-blender that’s taking up space in our pantry so I made my first butternut squash soup! I used a recipe that called for just the right amount of ginger, plus a dollop of sour cream to round out the flavors, and of course it needs to be garnished with cinnamon. Absolutely delicious!

Brian’s not a huge fan of pine nuts, but we both love basil, so I broke out the pasta maker for a batch of fresh fettuccine, and tried out a recipe for basil walnut pesto. Pretty good! Definitely nuttier and a grittier texture than a pine nut pesto, so it needed more olive oil. Might need to try cashews next …

On Christmas Eve, Brian took over the kitchen to make an incredible chicken pot pie for dinner, and a delicious bread pudding for dessert. He used to make his bread pudding all the time when he was younger, so his mom and sister were very pleasantly surprised to enjoy an old favorite dish!

I had a wonderful morning at the Gardner Museum attending a training session for the brand new gorgeous exhibit Ornament and Illusion: Carlo Crivelli of Venice, and I got to take some fun close-ups of beautiful details in the exhibit, and in the courtyard.

As we were saying our good-byes to family heading back to the Denver airport, we noticed that the sky had cleared up a bit and the sun was setting over the Rockies in the distance. Hard to capture, but really beautiful.

So many beautiful flowers at the Greenleaf Inn at Boothbay Harbor, Maine.

The tiger lilies looked amazing in the Gardner Museum’s Monks Garden at the first Neighborhood Nights of Summer 2015

The tiger lilies bloomed briefly and beautifully just outside our front door

Who knew there was an incredibly pleasant Mexican restaurant with awesome outdoor seating down a weird alley in Newton Center? Deanna and I caught up over sangria and delicious food … I love our date nights!

Another lovely Memorial Day Weekend filled with family, great views and delicious food!

When we stayed at the Sea Crest Beach Hotel in May 2013, we ‘discovered’ a lovely church right near lots of cute shops and restaurants in Falmouth. Before dinner, we stopped by to visit this little gem again. We discovered that they recently added a labyrinth … yet another copy of the famous labyrinth at Chartres Cathedral, so of course I had to walk the labyrinth. It’s a bit smaller in scale than the one I walked just one week ago on the Greenway, but it was lovely and pleasant. We visited the church’s gorgeous little garden as the sun continued to set, then we settled in for a delicious dinner!

My sweetie got me lovely flowers for my birthday tomorrow!

Art in the Bloom at the MFA is a feast for all of the senses (except touch of course!)