Monte brought home these lovely yellow tulips yesterday. So, Spring arrived early for us. They are so pretty!
Category: Family
A bit o the green.
Happy St. Paddy’s Day!
We popped in to our local pub to throw back a Guinness and a Harp (or two).
Slainte!
Sweets for my sweetie.
Happy birthday!
Bringing back the bread machine.
We received an awesome Breadman Ultimate breadmaker for a wedding gift way back when. And I used it for several years but stopped for some reason. I was probably traveling a lot at the time.
A couple weeks ago I was cleaning out the pantry, and rediscovered it. I have since stocked up on wheat flour, gluten and other ingredients and am back in the bread making groove. The 1.5 lb loaves are perfect for the two of us for several days.
The light whole wheat bread loaf is delicious.
This one’s hot out of the machine:
And this is a link to 100+ page PDF for the bread machine with many recipes.
And *poof* … 5 years gone by.
Sunday was the 5 year blogoversary for sheila365! I meant to draft a post ahead of time, and post it bright and early on March 8th. But I just looked at the calendar and time has snuck by on me once again.
That’s ok. In these 5 years sheila365 has evolved, and I think I have a bit, too. My blog started as a post-a-day 365 project during the first year or two, which had me snapping photos during the day to make sure I had something that I judged “share-worthy;” and now it has become more of a leisurely, post-every-week-or-so project, which I have to say has been much easier, though less artistic in terms of trying to capture beautiful photos, but rather just moments from my day that struck me as special or interesting in one way or another.
So happy blogoversary to me! 🙂 I thought I’d go back through my posts from year 5 and pick a photo from one post from each month that especially makes me smile. I have to say it was very hard to pick just one picutre from each month.
March 2014: Old San Juan, Puerto Rico. A visit to the walled El Morro. Beautiful Caribbean views.
April 2014: British Virgin Islands sailing trip – this was taken while snorkeling off Cooper Island.
May 2014 – A trip home to Seattle. One of several last year. It is a beautiful, special place for me.
June 2014 – Back in Austin for fun on the lake with some of my crazy sailor friends.
July 2014 – An amazing trip to Panama City Beach to celebrate a very special anniversary with a very special family.
August 2014 – A roadtrip to the Texas Gulf Coast. One of my favorite places to relax.
September 2014 – A lovely anniversary trip through the Texas Wine Country.
October 2014 – A fun girls’ trip to Washington, D.C. Lots of laughs, lots of wine, and lots of walking. 🙂
November 2014 – An oh so special birthday.
December 2014 – Family visiting means showing off Austin and the Hill Country. Never gets old.
January 2015 – Hiking as many trails as I can before I had to go back to work after taking a few months off.
February 2015 – Yep, more tulips.
What an amazing lap around the sun!
Thanks for coming along for the ride. 🙂
Beef burgundy.
Today winter seems to have relaxed its grip. Temps were in the 50s for most of the day. Monte and I headed outside and trimmed, pruned, tilled and sowed. A great day.
I’ve dug out my crock pot recently and have been making recipes from way back when. Tonight I made Beef Burgandy. And Monte made homemade noodles to go with. Oh my. Delicious!
Beef burgundy ala crockpot:
– 2-lb beef round steak, cut in 3/4″ cubes
– 1/4 c flour
– 1/2 tsp salt
– 3 Tbsp butter
– 2 c red wine, Bordeaux or burgandy
– 1 c beef broth
– 1 c chopped onion
– 6 oz white mushrooms, rinsed dried & quartered
– 2 bay leaves
– 2 cloves garlic, minced
– 1/4 tsp ground black pepper
Coat beef with flour and salt mixture. Melt butter in skillet. Add beef and brown on all sides. Transfer browned meat to crock pot. Deglaze hot skillet with a little bit of wine and put those tasty bits in the crockpot, too. Combine all other ingredients in crock pot and stir.
Cover. Cook on high for 2 hours, then reduce to low for another 2 -3 hours, until meat is tender.
Before serving, remove 1 c of liquid, heat over medium on stove; bring to a low boil. Wisk in 1 Tbsp cornstarch dissolved in 2 Tbsp cold water, until thickened. Pour back into crockpot and stir.
Remove bay leaves. Serve over noodles.
Happy Valentines Day, me hearties!
Lovely flowers from my sweetie. Thx to Jamie for the cute button! And, monte, if you’re reading this, your present is under the pile of laundry on the chair. 🙂
From Zihua with love.
After her graduation last month, Julie spent a week in Zihuatanejo, Mexico with a friend – a well-earned treat after 2 1/2 years of hard work. She brought us back this painted, wooden bowl as a gift. She painted it herself! And, I think it’s beautiful.
She packed up her things and drove back to Washington State this week and is now back in God’s country. She starts her dream job next week and has a limitless future ahead of her. Well done, Julie! We miss you already.
Ever heard of Zihuatanejo? It’s a town on the southwest coast of Mexico. I’ve never been. I only know of it from Julie’s trip. And from the movie The Shawshank Redemption. Great movie! Anyway, at the end of the movie, after Andy escapes from prison, he finds his freedom in this beach town and his buddy, Red, meets him there in the closing scene, after making parole. Great quote from the flick: “Remember Red, hope is a good thing, maybe the best of things, and no good thing ever dies.” Amen.
Ohmigosh, 2015 already!?!
I want to wish you a most happy New Year and all the best to you and yours in 2015! I have been away a while. Partly due to distractions. But also partly due to the fact that I had run out of online storage space for my blog @ wordpress, and I wanted time to think about how and or whether to upgrade the options for my blog.
In the end I decided to simply buy a storage upgrade (to add an additional 10G to the default 3G limit). When my domain options are up for renewal next year, I might consider upgrading to Premium on wordpress, which includes the increased storage, but I bought myself some time.
I think last we crossed paths out here in the blogosphere I was headed home from a long visit in Seattle, back to Austin. Suffice to say I have not been idle.
The day after coming home, we left for a fantastic week in Paris – a trip we took with little pre-planning; celebrating a birthday in a place we both love. And since then: Thanksgiving, family visiting, Julie graduated and left Austin to take the next step in her life’s path (sniffle), Christmas & New Year’s, and we have spent some fun times with friends.
Somewhere in there 2014 slipped away. Today I find myself on the second day of a new year — a few weeks delinquent in blog posts but looking forward instead of behind.
Here are just a few picks to fill in since last I posted:
Bon Anniversaire!
Post-Thanksgiving Day sail:
A day trip through the Hill Country and a hike to the top of Enchanted Rock on a clear December day with my sister & brother-in-law:
Christmas Eve:
And New Year’s Eve:
I can’t wait to see how 2015 unfolds….
Happy Birthday!
Happy birthday, leetle seester!
A great day.
Today Mom and I headed to Seattle Center to see the amazing Chihuly Garden and Glass museum. Fran, Aaron and Colleen joined us. It was an amazingly clear, sunny day. We also went up in the Space Needle to see the 360 degree view. I took too many pictures to share here, but will leave you with a few.
Twelve-o-lantern.
Mom and I are ready for Halloween. And….GO HAWKS!!!!! 🙂
Maize maze.
After the Seahawks pulled out an ugly victory from the jaws of defeat, we headed out to a nearby farm’s corn maze. I’ve never seen one before. It was huge – a whole field of full grown corn with several miles of trails cut through, forming a maze. Big and small kids were walking in all directions inside, trying to make their way through, while finding all the checkpoints. Fun!
A view from inside:
A view from outside:
And the route we logged going through the maze, from my mapmyrun app: 🙂
Yay, us!
We took a roadtrip over the weekend to celebrate our anniversary. I’ll skip the narrative and just let some pictures tell the story.
Sheila365 