One of my favorite blog friends Ernie was in the vicinity for spring break and wanted to meet up. I had my assistant look into my schedule and see where I could fit in a little gab-fest; Friday afternoon it was! She and her family had spent the day at Fort Myers beach and it was only an hour for me; naturally we met at an ice cream shop because Vacation calls for Ice Cream. We had a great hour long conversation and could have sat and talked all day, but I had a meter running and I’m partial to NOT being towed. Her daughters are just as bright, sweet and funny as I’d imagined; basically mini versions of their mom.
Ernie is the sixth blog friend I’ve met over the years and so far I’m Zero for Six at meeting a Sociopath who wants to make a skin mask out of me.
WINNING!
Ernie doesn’t show her family faces on her blog, so I need to respect that too. I know I’ve professed before that I have zero artistic abilities, so now you can see I was clearly lying telling the truth.

They DID see a dolphin & they DID have ice cream (those aren’t shanks in their hands)Clearly, I am the shortest one there, per usual.
Van Gogh And My Little Artists
The girls and I had a ‘play date’ on Saturday that involved an hour and forty minute drive for me with two stops along the way to pick up my children on the side of the highway. Wait., that doesn’t sound safe. We met at a place near the highway, which is funny since I recall a few times I wanted to leave them somewhere along the highway. Or maybe just a small country road? I don’t sugarcoat that there were challenging times while raising teenagers.
The good news is we got through it and I love spending time with them. I purchased tickets to Van Gogh-The Immersive Experience for the three of us. We had reservations for a lovely lunch first and then we high-tailed it to the event since you have a timed entry and lunch margaritas took longer than expected.
(FYI, while looking for the link I saw that there are two different versions of this around the world, we didn’t have the virtual reality experience that they show on the other site and now I’m so mad I could cut off my ear)
I didn’t exactly know what to expect, but it was a really cool experience. The first 15 minutes you walk through an area where you read the timeline of Van Gogh’s life. He was a ‘complicated’ man who at first thought about being a preacher before going into the art world. He was SO very hard on himself. The girls and I agreed that if he realized in 130 years people would be seeing his work, he would have really lost his marbles. Although that happened anyway which is very sad.
Then you plop yourself into the huge room with canvases all around that morph from one painting to another.
I felt like I died and went to heaven when the entire room was sunflowers; I didn’t even take a pic of that part as I was mesmerized.


It was so cool to see the progression of all his work. Well, I’m not such a fan of all the paintings he did of himself with his ear/head bandaged; that made me sad. He really struggled with mental illness. Did you know he did some of his most renowned work while in an asylum? (there’s hope for me yet!)
Here are some unknown facts about Vincent if you are interested. (theories that he might NOT have cut off his own ear or even taken his own life)
I Have My Own Art Gallery
While we were enjoying the exhibit I was reminded that I also have artists; this is a gallery wall in our back hallway of paintings the girls did in elementary school. A little Vincent (Starry Night) and Georgia O’Keeffe, plus more pretties.



I’m gonna keep this artwork up until I have some NEW little budding artists one day.
Does anyone collect art? Does your art look as special as mine? I’m talking about my kids art, not MY special art.
XOXO
