Happy birthday!
Sweets for my sweetie.
Happy birthday!
Category: Fun
Happy Pi Day!
We headed to the lake today. A lovely sail and then anchored out with Kurt & Kevin on Dancer.
Sunset:
Dessert (pie, get it?):
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.
March is here!
March marks the beginning of one of the best times of the year! Sunny, spring days are right around the corner. Although today we are still toughing out the chilly, misty weather. Cabin fever is setting in. Today we headed down to Zilker Park to see the 86th annual Austin Kite Festival. Not your typical turnout, and only the slightest hint of wind – but it was still nice to take in, and all the kids there were having a blast.
The downtown skyline was shrouded in low clouds.
Afterwards we headed to the Texas State History Museum – free admission on the first Sunday of the month. And tomorrow is Texas Independence Day, so it was fitting we popped in.
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. 🙂
Mmmmmmmmm. Yum. Happy NPD!
Today is National Pizza Day!!! We did our part – sharing a delicious Tuscan Truffle and a bottle of red at Brick Oven (the best in our book). Heaven on a Monday.
Sun sail.
We headed to the lake Saturday for a sail and to anchor out overnight with Camelot. It was a gorgeous day! Winds 10-15. High in the low 70s.
After a lovely sail past Starnes Island and back, Camelot radioed that their engine would not start. Roh roh. Change of plans. We sailed back to the marina ahead of them. The winds were much lighter now and straight out of the cove, which made it possible for Camelot to sail slowly up to a side tie on the end of the far dock – where they could then just loose the sheets. We met them at the end of the dock to push them off and grab their dock lines. Exciting, but well planned and executed. Camelot will remain there to get worked on next week.
We ended up just spending the night in the slip. But a very lovely night it was.
Capital capitol.
I was clicking through photos I’ve taken over the last few months. I found a couple from a visit to the Texas State Capitol in December, when we had visitors from out of town. It’s a beautiful building – inside and out. If you get an opportunity to visit, you can take a free guided tour, or this self-guided tour might be more your thing.
But first, a relevant grammar factoid for the day:
Capital vs. capitol
As a noun, capital refers to (1) a city that serves as a center of government, (2) wealth in the form of money or property, and (3) a capital letter. As an adjective, it means (1) principal, (2) involving financial assets, and (3) deserving of the death penalty. There are other definitions of capital, but these are the most commonly used ones.
Capitol has two very specific definitions (outside ancient Rome): (1) a U.S. state legislature building, and (2) the U.S. Capitol building in Washington, D.C. State capitols are located in the capital cities of U.S. states, and the Capitol is located in the capital city of the U.S. If you’re not talking about any of these capitol buildings, then the word you want is probably capital.
The Capitol building located in Washington, D.C. is spelled with a capital C, but state capitol buildings ordinarily don’t have the capital C (which is not to say that some writers don’t capitalize them anyway).
And now, a few of the shots I took. The nouth entrance:
The dome, taken from the 4th level:
Several levels of the rotunda under the dome:
Have a great day!
A hill (and a thrill) with a view.
One of many familiar images of Austin is of the Pennybacker Bridge at Loop 360, overlooking a stretch of beautiful Lake Austin. The 360 Loop drive and its Hill Country views are one of my favorite parts of Austin. I crossed off one of my must-do’s by hiking up the cliff overlooking the bridge to take in the view for myself. In the panorama above, you can just see the downtown skyline peeking over the hill on the left of the image. I’m not afraid of heights, but I have to say my heart skipped a beat or two as I stood on the rock on the edge of the cliff.
For reference (from google streetview):
I think I like this shot better. It’s taken from a vantage point slightly farther west, down the trail along the top of the cliff.
Just another gorgeous day in my little corner of paradise.
Sunpocolypse.
I know that my friends in the Northeast have been hit by a snowstorm today. But what a BEAUTIFUL day here in Austin! The Butler hike and bike trail around Town Lake (oops, i mean Ladybird Lake) is always a nice destination, with loops of varying distances depending on which bridges you choose. Last year the boardwalk on the southeast side of the lake was completed. I set out today to walk the Mopac / I35 loop. The Butler Hike and Bike Trail maps say that loop is 6.9 miles, but I must have dilly-dallied, because I logged a bit more.
It was a simply lovely day. I leave you with a few pics from my lap:
I would love to be able to come down here every day.
Land lubbin’.
This weekend has been a glorious January one for the books. Yesterday we kind of got rat-holed by what should have been a 30 minute project at the house, but it ended up consuming the day.
Today, however, i was determined to get outside. The level of Lake Travis continues to remain woefully low at 624′ above mean sea level. Happily, though, the rain from last week raised the level about 9 inches. We just have another 684 inches to go before the lake is full!
One of the features of the land that surrounded the original river that the drought has uncovered is the piece of land referred to by locals as “Sometimes Islands.” When the lake basin is flooded, the peaks of this piece of land sometimes stick up; sometimes they are covered by water. Well, for the last 3 or 4 years, Sometimes Islands has become For-the-Foreseeable-Future Peninsula.
We set out today to walk the length of the peninsula. So we packed a few snacks for lunch, brought our GPSes, and tossed my Christmas present from Monte – a metal detector – in the trunk for its maiden voyage.
We stopped briefly at the historic site for the original Anderson Mill – the mill that operated near Cypress Creek in the 1800s – a NW Austin neighborhood and road still bear its name. They have a museum here as well, but it is only open for a few hours on the 4th Sunday of every month between March and October. We’ll have to come back for the tour.
Then we headed for Mansfield Dam Park and started our trek.
This is the old highway that used to cross over the top of the dam. It is closed to ordinary folks these days, and Highway 620 is the throroughfare now. I’d love to get a chance to stroll across the old road now, though.
I walked the length of the peninsula – about 2.5 miles out from the park – and found all the geocaches that didn’t require scuba gear. Monte marked a couple of points on his GPS that will hopefully be boating hazards and/or navigable cuts once again at some time in the future. This was the view from the park looking out over Sometimes Islands…the structure on the top of the hill in the center of the picture is the Oasis.
We also tried out the metal detector for the first time. And I have to say: “Pretty nice!” We were able to detect and reliably find nearly every piece of metal (aluminum, lead, iron, steel, …) that it sounded on, even if we had to dig 6″ or more to get to it. I’m looking forward to bringing it along on some of our cove-explorations when the weather gets warmer. No treasure this time. But it was fun.
I go back to work a week from tomorrow. This weekend was a nice adventure. I’m hoping to squeeze in few more next week.
How sweet it is.
It’s a beautiful Saturday. Temps in the high 60s for a change. We are anchoring out in our cove.
We have the place to ourselves.
Tutti a tavola e mangiare!
And for dessert: HOT BUTTERED RUM!
Cheers!
We tried Emeril’s recipe and it was just right!
Sheila365 