I took a look at my Day Planner for 2024 and my phone calendar and made a list in Notes of What Happened in 2024. I was surprised at all the events from the year. Sometimes in my mind I think “I never do anything!”, but this proved me wrong. There were lunches and dinners out with friends, two trips to New York other than our yearly Christmas shopping spree, and three week long vacations!
I’m looking forward to this new year of adventures!
My husband and I had nothing to do the day after Christmas. What a treat after hosting our family party of 26 people on Saturday which was fabulous and I loved every minute, but we were enjoying our down time!
I had to go to Hamden a couple of towns away to drop something off. Since we were taking “the back way” home, via Whitney Avenue, I suggested a stop at Wentworth’s Ice Cream, not really thinking they’d be open, but I enjoy that route.
As I suspected, they were closed. However, right next door is an antiques store, actually a house, that I’d never been to, but “always meant to get to”. I’ve seen it advertised in the local weekly newspaper, and in the little booklets we get in the mail as he is always looking for antiques and coins. As a matter of fact, I actually knew him as the former brother in law of a friend from the crowd I hung around with in my mid-20s.
We drove through the ice cream shop parking lot and went back, parked in front of the house and were instantly taken in by the stone bird baths, railings, and objects in the front yard.
We stepped in to the house (after he unlocked the door!) and were mesmerized by the amount of antiques throughout the space. And this was just the first floor!
Clocks, pictures in big gold ornate frames, sculptures, Tiffany lamps – Oh My!
We talked with Don, the owner, for quite a while. He was telling us the history of his love for antiques and where he gets them and we shared what we enjoy and what we look for for our home and yard.
My eye caught a piece on the wall. It wasn’t large, but I felt a connection to it from the religious items I love to see in museums.
Pietre Dure pieceCut and highly polished colored stones
He explained to us it was Pietre Dure – hard stones. I looked it up when I got home and it is known as Intarsia Lapidary. Unlike mosaic pieces which are generally of similar pieces and grouted in place, Pietre Dura are mostly larger and cut to a shape suiting their place in the image and glued in place. They first appeared in Rome in the 16th century. The technique is used on table tops, altars and portraits.
I didn’t know what it was when I saw it, and I was attracted to the frame more than the picture, is that a horn coming out of her head?, but the more I look at it, the more I love all of it.
Current location of my Pietre Dure piece
We have it hung on the wall, but I feel like it needs a larger expanse of wall around it to really make it pop.
If you’re local to the Wallingford area, the location is 3651 Whitney Avenue in Hamden – Don Barese Fine Art & Antiques. His hours are by appointment, but the OPEN flag was out when we drove by. He buys and sells internationally. We’re already planning our next trip back!
I found this national parks puzzle at Amato’s Toy Store in Middletown and it was more difficult than I thought it would be!
There were very similar colors in a lot of the squares and letters were very tiny. Each square had a white frame around it.
I don’t work on a puzzle every day so it takes a month or two to put one together. My husband is very patient with me and doesn’t complain about it being there. The yellow mat it sits on is part of a roll up system if I needed to move it.
This 1,000 puzzle is by MasterPieces and I enjoyed it but I like the puzzles by White Mountain because the pieces are larger, but the puzzle isn’t easier!
Do you have a favorite place you have visited? Where is it?
One of my favorite places that I have visited was Colorado!
I was in Fort Collins in September of 2022 for a long weekend to “help” my niece select her wedding gown. My two sisters and two other nieces were all there and we had a fun “girls weekend” which included her fiancé!
Very early on a cold September morning in Estes Park
In one day we saw the sunrise in Estes Park, went to the Alpine Ridge Trail at 12,005 feet above sea level, went to the CSU football game walked 100 miles to a bar after (and then back to our car!). It was a great adventure!
We went back again in September of 2023 for her wedding. Family was together and we had fabulous weather, until the day of the outdoor wedding! Luckily the rain stopped and we had indoor access.
Hiking Lory State Park
Before we met up with family, my husband and I had time to visit a good friend in Denver and also had time to hike a little bit in Boulder and visit Red Rocks Amphitheater.
Red Rocks Realization Point
On our off day with family, besides the hike, we rented bikes and explored the fabulous trail system in Fort Collins. Of course we hit New Belgium Brewery too!
The day after the wedding, we went to Laramie Wyoming, because, why not? We went to the old prison which is now a museum. First we had breakfast in a bar! Just us and a guy drinking a beer at 9:30!
There is so much to do all over the state and we both look forward to going back!
January 1, 2020 was brisk and bright when I set out for the guided first walk of the year with my sister and niece.
Machimoodus State Park was the location and it took us through the woods and towards a view of the Salmon River before it meets up with the Connecticut River in Haddam, Connecticut.
“Machimoodus” is an indigenous term for “place of bad noises” because of noisy rumblings and echos heard by the Pequot, Narragansett, and Mohegan tribes. The sounds were real and in 1981 geologists determined “micro earthquakes” were the cause amplified by a nearby cave!
We didn’t hear any rumblings, but we saw some beautiful scenery and had a brisk hike to start out the new year!
In August of 2019, we took our sixth and final week long motorcycle trip. We traveled to upstate New York. Among the places we visited, our final stop was Storm King Art Center in New Windsor New York.
Wavefield
It’s a 500 acre park with over 100 outdoor sculptures and this is one of “the sculptures”!
It’s called Wavefield and it was created by Maya Lin, the sculptor of the Vietnam Veterans Memorial in Washington D.C. The medium is earth and grass – but you probably figured that out!
There are many impressive sculptures in the park and it was fun to wander around the grounds looking at the sculptures. Some move around and one is a giant swing that you can sit on.
I’d love to go back there and walk through the fields!
We took a Danube River cruise in October 2018 and we had a great time except…. There was sort of a pre-excursion part of the cruise where we stayed at a resort for 2 nights and were bused back to Munich for an excursion and only had an hour at an Oktoberfest. Once we boarded our boat in Passau we cruised forward for the night but then had to be bused to Regensberg and another excursion because the water levels were low and Viking took our spot in Regensberg. It created very long bus rides, shortened excursions, and cranky passengers (not us!).
We decided to cancel all our non-included excursions and woke Sunday morning to the notification that breakfast was ending in five minutes!
We got up, took our showers and headed out to find someplace for breakfast – in a country where we could barely speak the language (ok, we couldn’t at all).
Passau Germany 2018
We found this lovely passage and wandered around a bit until we found a cute little restaurant so we sat down and helped ourselves to the buffet being served. then realized the restaurant was part of a hotel!
They were very gracious and let us have our meal – thank God because we were starved!
The trip improved from there and we enjoyed ourselves traveling down the Danube.
I shared a picture from a trip to Paris I took in 2008 here and today, I’m sharing another!
Saint Denis, Paris France
Poor Saint Denis! He was the first bishop of Paris back in the 3rd century when Paris was still ruled by the Romans. At that time, Romans were not the Christians we know of today and they weren’t very happy with the number of conversions to Christianity that Denis was accomplishing.
So they took him to the Montmartre area of Paris and beheaded him. It was said that immediately after he was killed, he picked up his head and walked six kilometers north before he finally died.
This statue is in the Place Suzanne Buisson, a lovely park in Montmartre. We came upon the statue as we were heading down the winding streets of Montmatre after visiting Sacre Couer.
We would see Saint Denis again above a door of Notre Dame and again inside the cathedral.
Thoughts From The Passenger Seat 