Today Laura and I went to the Austin Empty Bowl Project event. It is a fundraiser for organizations that feed hungry children in the area. Potters donate bowls, food vendors donate soup, musicians take turns entertaining the crowd, and tons of Austinites show up to make it all work. $20 gets you a bowl of your choice and a delicious hot bowl of soup. It was great! This is the one I brought home.
Category: Fun
I’m on vacation, …
I’m off work until the monday after thanksgiving ! Can you feel the joy?!
Monte baked a lovely birthday cake today. Do the maracas, cactus and sombrero look a bit familiar? We have recycled them for a few occasions, lately.
Viva amigas!
I went out to dinner tonight with a bunch of my girls. We went to one of a kind Rainey Street in Austin – my first time there. I had a wonderful time. We ate at NO VA Kitchen & Bar. The food was delicious. Their white sangria is amazing. The service was great. I highly recommend it. Afterwards we hopped around to a few other places and enjoyed sitting outside on the patio, with the sky flashing with the lightning of the cold front approaching from the northwest.
A cool light fixture above our table at NO VA:
And a shot of part of their menu. The ingredients listed for their white sangria include: armagnac / aged rum / spiced pear / sage / vino blanco
delish!
Orange you wishing you were here?
Saturday on the lake. Raftup with Kurt & Kevin on Dancer. What a glorious sunset sky.
The full moon rose as the sun set.
If the clouds break we might get a glimpse of the Leonids meteor shower or the comet ISON.
Four month high.
We rafted up last night with Lori, Dave & Jake on Camelot, and Rory & Greg on Sapphire. It was a fun night in the cove, as usual. It’s a treasure, to me… time spent with friends, just sitting outside, on a boat, on a pleasant evening, playing music, dancing a little, and chatting and making one another laugh.
After the rain of the last month the lake is actually up about 7 feet. The bulk of the deluges that hit Austin missed the basin that feeds the lake, so we are up only 7 feet instead of 20 or 30 feet. At 625.5′, Lake Travis is back up to what it was 4 months ago. My blog post on July 6th included a shot of the cove at the same level as it is today. On that day, 625.5′ was a 50 year low, and dropping. Today it’s a 4 month high. I’ll take it, though. Keep praying for rain.
This is a shot I took of Nirvana at anchor, as I was paddling around the cove this morning.
Pizza artistry.
Friday. Yahooty!
Monte made some pizza dough and we slung a few pies while we visited with Joe tonight. It was nice to see him. Our visits with b-dock folks have been too few and far between, lately.
This was one of four perfect pizzas tonight. A thing of beauty:
Midweek medley.
Venus was next to the moon and in clear view tonight. Kind of blurry, but you get the idea:
I had a lovely dinner with girlfriends tonight. My fortune:
A few dozen.
We went to the Austin Oyster Festival this afternoon. Lots of oysters, shrimp and bloody mary’s to go round. And tequila.
Cheers to the weekend.
Saturday is here. I’m so looking forward to a weekend break.
I ran errands today, made calls home. Didn’t work! Woohoo Saturday!
Oh, yeah, and well done Longhorns. Hook ’em!
Happy Halloween!
Back home (yay!). Before dinner, we carved our pumpkin, and hung inviting lights out front. But it’s already 10pm and we’re woefully low on trick-or-treaters. C’mon, people!!!
Paddlin’ round.
It got a little chilly on the boat overnight. I fired up the oven this morning to bake scones and that warmed things up.
I got in the water today with Colleen. Brrrrr! The water temp was 73. That may very well be a record for me – latest dip in the lake: October 26!
Colleen took the kayak for a spin. Then we sailed for a bit. A nice day!
Lake bound.
Hit the lake after work with Colleen and Julie. We’re anchoring out tonight.
Saw two of these flying contraptions. One of them flew right by us as we were sailing and circled the mast.
Later, yet another stunning Lake Travis sunset.
Working on my wannado list.
I don’t have an actual bucket list. I do have a long-memorized list of things that I’ve always wanted to try once. One of those is scuba diving. But, my aversion to larger-than-me fishes with sharp teeth has kept me from that one. Snorkeling will happily suffice for me.
Another one from my wannado list is skydiving. Well, this year I watched the construction and grand opening of an indoor skydiving funhouse in Austin called iFly. It’s basically a vertical wind tunnel in which you can experience free fall without the hassle of planes and parachutes. Works for me. And boy is it FUN!
Colleen and I each went 3 times. I will definitely go back again.
Check it out!
Vroom vroom.
This weekend Lori & Dave are out of town, and Jake is staying with us. He’s a great kid. I don’t know who is keeping an eye on who. 🙂 We had a fun pizza / game night last night with Doray, Tom, Sue & Marty. It is so nice to spend time with friends.
Jake and I have been racing Mario Karts on the wii quite a bit this weekend, but today we headed to K1 Speed for the real thing. It’s a pretty awesome indoor venue for kart racing. This is not bumper cars, folks, these karts can go over 40 mph. It was pretty fun! That’s Jake in #25 in the shot above. And I couldn’t resist taking a selfie in my cool racing hat…
Sheila365 