My Pictorial Year in Review

2011 has been a great year. The older I get, the happier and more content I feel. My husband Matt and I have a wonderful little life together with our two cats along with the rest of our people-family. I'm looking forward to continued happiness and prosperity in 2012!

Here are the highlights of the things I've done and seen in 2011 (in no particular order):

Rotary Gardens

I hope every one had a great Labor Day weekend. Sunday I visited the Janesville Rotary Gardens, which has been on my list of places to visit this summer. It was so beautiful!

The highlight for me was the Japanese gardens section. There are few things more beautiful than a Japanese garden.

This raked gravel zen/rock garden was so lovely.

There were several of these large metal and stone lanterns scattered about. I have to get my hands on one of these for my future garden.

That's my gorgeous sister in the background

More information on the facinating art of the Japanese garden

New Photos

Books! And we have a lot of them.

I love my bedside table. It is usually piled with books and magazines, and holds one of my favorite things I own: a Noguchi-inspired paper lamp from IKEA.

Adler curls up on the warm, fresh-from-the-dryer laundry. He's such a great cat :)

Flickr

Check out my Flickr page! Some of the photos are repeats I've already posted here, but there are different ones up too.

http://www.flickr.com/photos/vegans-eat

New Photos

Yesterday we took a trip to the Asian Market near where we live and picked up some lovely fruit. Persimmons:

And some beautiful white pears. They look almost ghostly:

Before that, we scouted out an antique store we've never been to and that yielded some wonderful treasures:

a really neat postcard. I liked the graphic triangular green shapes.

When I saw this lovely little hand-carved bird, I almost dropped the vase I was holding! $5.50--wow!

A walnut box with an enamel lid. And only about $6.

Matt and I are avid treasure hunters. We are at the second-hand shops, garage sales (in summer) and antique stores all the time. I look for pottery, glass, and other vintage brick-a-brack and he goes straight for the high-end name brand clothing. It's not everyday we find something good, but when we do it's a real victory!