Peter Anderson Art Festival & a Mission Statement #bloglikecrazy

This past weekend Paul and I traveled to Ocean Springs, MS, for the annual Peter Anderson Art Festival. It's kind of a big deal -- more than 150,000 people visit, and there are over 400 artists exhibiting their work!

I learned about Walter Anderson from my friend Hester Bass, who wrote the book THE SECRET WORLD OF WALTER ANDERSON (illustrations by E.B. Lewis). Also, I have a couple of friends who hail from the Ocean Springs area. I've wanted to go explore the area for myself for some time! And this weekend we did!

We started our journey with lunch Derk's Filet & Vine in the Cloverdale area of Montgomery. Best meat-n-3 EVER! Salmon, grilled veggies, squash casserole, turnip greens.... yum!

Here's the view from the living room of our rental home on the Mississippi Sound. Can you say "peaceful"?

For supper we ventured to The Shed for some BBQ (after seeing it featured on D, D & D). It's sweet! We came home with a bottle of the sauce. Then we stopped by Quakes for a "brown noser" -- warm brownie topped with ice cream, nuts and chocolate syrup.

This is a picture of sunrise on Saturday morning -- a cold, clear morning.

Did I mention it was cold? SO COLD. We enjoyed the art, but I didn't want to get my hands out of my pockets to take many pics! So much great work. Really amazing. And a highlight was visiting the Walter Anderson Museum of Art. This is a picture of Walter's "little room," discovered by his wife, after his death. Magical.

By the afternoon, things warmed up a bit! Plus our bellies were full from a fabulous meal at Phoenicia Gourmet Restaurant.  We had snapper with lump crab meat. Oh, love me some seafood! We also got a box of Tato-Nut donuts to carry home. (The line to get in the place was INSANE in the morning, but by afternoon, it had dwindled. Yay!) Here are a couple of pics of art we couldn't afford but really really wanted to bring home (and hopefully we will acquire sometime soon!).

art by Melanie Blackerby of Mobile, AL (oh my GOSH,
how I want this cotton field above our bed!)

flounder by Ronnie Cardwell (on Paul's wish list)

And here we are at the end of the day, our arms full, just before boarding the shuttle bus back to the Greyhound stadium where we left our van. :)

We ended a great day with a romantic meal at a window-view table at Anthony's Under the Oaks. We watched the sun set and enjoyed seafood and each other. (If you go, try the Tato-nut bread pudding! Sinful!) Beautiful!

And now for the latest #bloglikecrazy prompt from Javacia Bowser: write a personal mission statement. Here's Javacia's awesome post. 

Now I will take a stab at it. Please know that I am posting my unpolished, gut-reaction response to the post. I may shiny it up later, but here's the bones:

To love the world -- all it's people and places -- by exploring, savoring beauty & being fearless in order to create meaning for myself and others through my stories and poems.