Happy Anniversary, to us. 🙂
(our song)
Category: Projects
He built that.
“Retired” is a state of mind. Monte has been working every day out in the shop making sawdust and pretty furniture. This is his latest project, one of a pair of LP cabinets. Made out of beautiful walnut with a gorgeous custom finish. He designed and built them. Quite the craftsman!
The drawers have heavy duty full bottom-mounted slides. And he designed an angled, adjustable back-stop for each drawer.
Below is the “before” picture 🙂
I wonder what’s next?!
Basil invasion.
The basil patch overfloweth. We’ve started handing out basil to our neighbors. Come and get some!
Been a long time.
It’s been thirteen days since my last post here. So, this has been my longest break in posting since I started this photoblog over 2 years ago. I’d better catch you all up.
The week before last was busy with work. Monte was working on a project in the woodshop. I had to travel to Raleigh for all of last week. A very long week, indeed. I brought my camera with me, but given my work schedule and meetings every day starting early and ending late, the only interesting subject matter to capture ended up being TV screen shots from the Olympics (especially the women’s gymnastics team gold). I decided to spare you and skip posting those.
While I was in Raleigh last week, Monte closed on the boat. I got home close to midnight Friday night, so Saturday morning I was anxious to get out to the marina.
We moved in Saturday afternoon and slept on the boat for the first time Saturday night. On Sunday morning we took Nirvana out for the first time together. The winds were very light to non-existent, but we had a blast. We raised both sails and ghosted along for a while. Getting Nirvana was a big step for us, but I am very excited about this next phase of our sailing-life journey together. This is a shot that monte took of Nirvana from the water.
At the end of the day we stopped by b-dock for a float. By the time we got home tonight we were both pretty exhausted but somehow found the energy to split up cooking duties to make lamb chops (monte) and risotto (me) for a delicious dinner.
G’nite all!
The old and the new.
The marine survey was scheduled for today. I took the day off work so that I could be there with Monte for it. The marine surveyor was fantastic. He spent about 10 hours on the boat with us, inspecting virtually everything on the boat while explaining how everything worked as he went along. He didn’t find much wrong, and no surprises. So, pending getting the final report from him, I think we will be upgrading from our beloved, homebuilt wooden catboat that we’ve been playing on for the last 8 years, to a big-kid, plastic boat that we will be enjoying for the next 15 or so years. 🙂
Baby broccoli!
I planted broccoli a few months ago. The plants have grown to about 2 feet high, and now the floret heads are getting big. I can’t wait for the harvest!
Brush be gone!
One of the perks of being a customer of Austin Utilities is their Large Brush Collection program — twice a year you can put as much brush, tree trunks, branches, etc on the curb and the city will haul it away.
This year we had alot of trees that had died from the drought and monte went to town on them with the saw. We had about 30′ of frontage piled about 4 feet high with brush.
The city is pretty darn efficient in hauling it away. It took them less than 5 minutes at our house, and they were off to the next pile.
Moving on up?
We went to the lake today early, to finalize an offer we’ve made on a new boat. It’s not a done deal – we still have to take it out for a sea trial and have a marine surveyor inspect it, but if there are not problems found, this may be our new ride in a couple weeks.
We have infinitely enjoyed sailing and playing aboard our unique, homebuilt wooden catboat for eight years. We treasure the friends we have made at the marina in those 8 years, too. We are not ones to make big decisions lightly. But we recently decided to make a move up to a bigger boat, and this is the one that presented itself. If it doesn’t work out, no biggie, we’ll wait for the next one that feels right. If it does work out, I look forward to another 10-15 years of fun aboard this boat on our beautiful lake with our sailing friends.
I’ll keep you posted!
First zinnie of the year.
We headed to the lake today to spend the night. Before going we spent time in the yard watering, trimming and tidying. This is one of 2 zinnias that Monte cut to bring in the house. These were the first ones to bloom. Many more to come.
Florae and faunae. And Friday.
Yay Friday! This was a great Friday though. I got to sleep in until 7:30AM (!). Then I finished my last meeting at 3:00, so that I could run to a couple of non-work related appointments, one of which was a well-deserved, self-indulgent, overdue pedicure. 🙂
Then we went to dinner at one of our favorites, and the best Indian restaurant in Austin, in my opinion, Bombay Bistro.
Monte planted a huge patch of basil from seed earlier this spring. Today he thinned out the patch and brought some inside. It’s gonna be a great year for basil!
Then, i saw our resident deer grazing in the front yard, munching on grass and the leaves of the crepe myrtles. He, or she, was not very startled by us tapping on the window to get it to look our way for a shot. I think this is the same deer that we saw a few months ago with an injured leg nesting next to the window of our guest room. The leg looks like it has healed, but there’s a huge knob on the knee of its right foreleg. I’m glad to see it grown up and fending for itself.
Unfortunately, the light wasn’t great, as the deer was standing in the shade of the red oak out front. But he did strike a great pose.
Have a great weekend!
Le pâtisserie.
Monte made a beautiful dessert tonight: tarte aux pommes. Right out of Julia Child’s Mastering the Art of French Cooking.
Fantastique!
My niece, Rachel, arrived today for a few days visit. We made cedar plank salmon and leek & mushroom risotto for dinner. The apple tart topped off the evening.
Julie’s birthday is tomorrow, so we’ll have to celebrate in style.
18 carrot gold.
When I planted the carrot seeds, I put them way too close together. They really need to be thinned out. This is the first batch of carrots from the garden. They are small, but this will hopefully help thin out the bed, allowing the others to grow bigger.
They’re small, but they’re tasty!
One more time.
Tonight was my third foray into painting at Painting with a Twist, this time with Jen. The shot above is the palette we used.
And…. VOILA!! I give you…. Wildflowers at the Park:
Please hold your applause.
The one the teacher guided us through didn’t have any bluebonnets (!). Well, i simply couldn’t paint a hill country scene without bluebonnets, so we improvised.
I’m just realizing that the clouds look a bit like hats. Oh well. I’m sure Picasso had to work at it a bit before he got the hang of it, too. 🙂
Plyboo?
Our friend John has been working in the shop all week on a desk for a client. Monte’s been out there making tables. It is a magnificent shop, if i must say so myself. 🙂
The material that John is using to make the desk sides and top is a plywood made out of bamboo, called plyboo. Pretty cool looking.
Sheila365 