Weekend Update: Part 98

It was a great weekend, full of surprises.

One of the best reasons for making the move earlier this year is that I am now back in the neighbourhood where I grew up. I know all of the good places to go for things, and I frequently see people I know when I am out and about. That rarely happened when I lived downtown. So, on Saturday morning when I decided to go get a cup of coffee and a muffin, I ran into an old beau and also an old friend. I ended up spending a lot of Saturday with the old friend (this is right before I moved to the UK) and we both agreed that that running into friends unexpectedly is one of the finest things in life. (Oh… that’s someone else’s baby, and the predecessor dog to Connor!)

Saturday night, I headed for a party for two friends who are making the leap across the pond and moving to Sweden. She works for a large Swedish company in the US, but has been asked to join HQ in Sweden for a couple of years. Since this couple has a young child, they thought they could do it at this time more easily than when he gets a little older. All of the food was “Swedish” including flat breads, cheeses, Swedish meatballs, lingon berries and of course, Swedish Fish! Lots of champagne to toast, as well as some Swedish vodka. I was serving the champagne toast and realized that I didn’t have a tray, so I used one of the round pieces of flatbread!

The party was held at Housewerks Salvage. They were featured in one of the stories on our local NPR station this weekend, and you can listen to it here. We dressed the space up with lots of candles, luminarias made from the iconic Ikea blue bags, and loads of blue and yellow streamers and Swedish flags.Candles were placed in and on all sorts of objects, including this sink, shell and boat head. We joked that at the end of the night, the guys would have to try to extinguish the candle in the head.One of the new pieces at Housewerks is this scale model of the Coliseum in Rome. The detail on this is just incredible and it’s just the most amazing piece.

As always, the lighting in Housewerks is always such fun. These strings of carnival lights were leftover from a wedding several months ago. They really lend a festive air to the place, and now that they’re on a dimmer switch, they add a lot of atmosphere.I even ventured into the spooky basement to see what new things were down there. Det var ett stort parti och alla missar våra vänner Adam och Melissa! Säkra resor! (It was a great party and everyone will miss our friends Adam and Melissa! Safe Travels!)