This was my weekend.. how was yours?

Things seem to finally be settling down around here, after Christmas, New Year's and the flu that worked its way around the household and made the holidays less than spectacular.

This weekend was a quiet one, mostly due to the weather and the kids being at their dads.  After a somewhat frustrating day at work, I got home with the intention of doing sweet eff-all for the evening, which I did, with GUSTO.

The Well-Travelled One whipped up a quick dinner for us, and I played a few rounds of Hatris (like Tetris, but with hats!) and marathoned several episodes of Friends.  I've been rewatching the series since I got sick around the middle of December and am up to season five now.  It's kind of laughable how dated some episodes seem now, especially the giant cordless phones of the early 90s.

I haven't really seen many really good non-workplace and non-family half hour sitcoms since then.  The most recent ensemble cast I can say I've thoroughly enjoyed is probably New Girl, but sometimes the overlapping dialogue gets grating.

Saturday we were going to go to Barrie but I was thwarted by both a late start and intermittent white-outs, so we opted instead for going for coffee, after which I went to my counselling appointment.  The woman I see is probably in her late 80s and is just absolutely fantastic. However, she works out of her home, which is way out in the sticks, down a very windy road that swings around the lake.  The road gets quite treacherous in the winter. 

After an extended session, I came home, had dinner and finished a reworking of a portrait that I have been working on.  I'm pretty damn excited about how it turned out, and will be posting about it on the art blog this week.

Today, we had an earlier start and made it down to Barrie so I could look for some framing options, as I am planning to enter a piece of mine into a local art show.  They are kind of picky about display options, and any canvas art less than 1.5 inches wide is required to be framed.

Earlier in the week I looked into custom framing at a local place, but being one of the only places in town, they were wildly over-booked, so I figured I'd try Michaels.  It's funny.. local places suffer from competition from chain stores and end up carrying less stock, and in turn, because they carry less stock, people end up looking to big chain stores.

At any rate, Michaels' was not much help, as there was a two-week turnaround for custom work, and I have until.. well.. tomorrow, as that is the submission date.  I had pretty much decided not to bother since I wouldn't have time. 

We stopped at a computer store so he could pick some stuff up, and I decided to check out Curry's, which is just a few doors down.

I'm pretty sure I've found my happy place.  Either that, or I've found my "Holy Crap Get Me Out Of Here Before I Spend Next Month's Rent Place."  Anyway, to my surprise, I found a collection of reasonably-prices floating frames, along with the hardware.  Huzzah! I may have a chance to enter after all.

I picked out a nice, unfinished frame and some hardware, along with a few brushes and a couple more tubes of paint, excited to come home and try my and at framing this piece for the show.  I just hope that I get in.

My final product.