I made another run to the Armadillo Bazaar tonight with some friends. This is a shot of some prints from Texas Photomontage artists Carl & Betsy Crum. There are over 150 other artists there, too.
Another of my favorite musicians was playing tonight – Marcia Ball w/ Bill Kirchen.
Today we headed out to the lake to spend the afternoon on the boat. It’s been a long time since I have been out there. I’m happy to report that our dock is still attached to land. It has rained several times since the beginning of November (thankfully), so the lake has risen several inches, and at least has not dropped, so they are holding off on moving us offshore.
I made a steaming hot batch of cocoa for the thermos, so that we could fend off the cold, and packed the peppermint schnapps and mini marshmallows.
We picked up Joe on B-dock and motored out into the cove armed with Joe’s fishfinder and several poles to see what we could catch. I caught a small catfish. Monte got a small bass. Mostly we just listened to Christmas carols on the iPod and watched the blobs go by on the fish finder.
It was a nice way to spend a Sunday.
Earlier today we were baking cookies and grilling wings to bring to a party at Kurt and Barbara’s tonight. With all those preparations done we headed downtown to the 36th annual Armadillo Christmas Bazaar, which kicked-off on Wednesday and runs through Christmas Eve. It’s an Austin-style combination of art and music festival, with local artists selling their work to Christmas shoppers, and 3-4 musicians/bands per day scheduled to play sets on the floor among the artists’ booths. You can gather round the stage and watch, or listen to the live music from anywhere in the event center, as you’re doing your shopping. It’s an event I look forward to, more for the music than the shopping, and I usually go a couple of times each year.
Today one of my favorites, Eliza Gilkyson, was playing at 3:30. I enjoyed her set.
We were back home in time to get ready for the party, which was a great time. We got a chance to visit with all our B-dock buddies — with the onset of colder weather and the shorter days that Autumn brings, it’s been a while since everyone saw eachother. Mark your calendars for Wednesday, December 21 at 11:30 PM, which is when the winter solstice occurs in Austin, after which the length of each day beings to increase again (yay!).
Well, I ended up working all day yesterday, and most of today. An “emergency” set of meetings came up out of the blue. At least I didn’t have to travel to New York to attend in person.
One of my goals for this vacation is to get back on a normal sleep schedule. I would really like it if the sleepy leg syndrome would stay away until at least after 9 or 10pm. As it is, i’ve been falling asleep on the couch early in the evening and getting up at 1 or 2 to offically turn in. This morning, I woke up on the couch about 1 AM. Before I went to bed I checked my email and learned that my uncle in San Antonio, who’s been ill, passed away a few hours earlier. Makes me very sad. But I’m very glad that we had a visit with him recently. On the other end of the happy/sad emotional spectrum, a friend’s first grandchild was born yesterday. Life. Happens. We should enjoy every minute of it while we’re here. And hug those important to us as often as possible.
I peeled myself off the phone at about 3PM and decided to finish decorating the tree. This might actually conclude the hall-decking at our house. If i get the tree decorated, a wreath on the door, a little manger put up, and the stockings hung, I feel like I’ve got most of the bases covered.
With cooler weather in town, it’s time to make soup! One of my favorites is lentil soup. As I made this tonight I flashed back to 2 years ago when the kitchen remodel was finally over, this was the first thing I made on the awesome new gas range.
Here’s the recipe I mostly stick to each time:
Lentil Soup
1 lb dry lentil beans
2 Tbsp olive oil
salt & pepper to taste
1 cup chopped onion
1 cup chopped carrot
2 cloves garlic minced
1 14 oz can petite diced tomates
1 Tbsp tomato paste
8 cups chicken broth
4 oz diced lean ham
Rinse lentils well in colander. Heat large sauce pan to medium high. Saute onions and carrots in olive oil, add salt & pepper. Add garlic a little later to prevent it from burning. After about 5 minutes, add diced tomatoes & juice and tomato paste. Stir for a few minutes and then add broth, lentils and ham. Bring to a boil, and then lower heat to a simmer and cover. Cook for about an hour.
Serve with grated parmesan cheese on top. Makes 6-8 servings.
Monday of VACATION for Sheila! Today Lori played hooky, and we hit the San Marcos Outlet Malls (north and south). We showed up before the stores even opened! It was awesome. We had the entire place to ourselves (almost). I don’t do this very often – i think the last time I made it down here was 2 years ago. But when I do go, i like to perform a surgical strike on only the stores I am interested in seeing. No leisurely windowshopping for me. I expect a call any time now from my credit card company asking if my card has been stolen.
We cleaned up! I ran into Santa and he gave me some of the presents he got for monte – said it would save him a trip.
I also (finally!) found an area rug to replace the one in the game room that is showing lots of wear and tear. I don’t enjoy shopping for rugs. They all look the same, and nothing ever grabs me. This time, i found one – at the Pottery Barn outlet. The price was right… AND it fit in Lori’s car, so, even better.
Once I put it on the floor I decided that now we need a new couch, chair and ottoman to go with it. 🙂
I’m taking my time getting my jolly on. I baked a bunch of cookies yesterday for a friend’s party. We picked out a Christmas tree yesterday and put stood it up in the house, but didn’t get the lights on until today. Maybe tomorrow i’ll dig out all the boxes and finish decking the halls.
Maybe it wasn’t the best idea to leave nearly 5 weeks of vacation for the end of the year, but that’s the way it turned out. So, after a long-ish Thanksgiving vacation just a couple weeks ago, we are now both officially on vacation for the rest of the year!
To ring in the vacation season, I made crepes this morning. They’re SO YUMMY! If you now have a craving, you can find the recipe in this previous blog post.
I hope I can decompress a bit in the coming week or so. But as much as work can seem to mess with my life and mindset, I really have nothing to complain about.
My mind this week is especially on family members that are experiencing real challenges. My sister-in-law is in the hospital recovering from surgery to treat recently diagnosed breast cancer. She is a strong woman, though, beating her first bout with cancer several years ago. One of my uncles recently was diagnosed with cancer as well a few weeks ago, and is preparing for surgery. Another uncle is dealing with long-term health issues as well.
So, today I’m sending thoughts and prayers their way, and starting this vacation acknowledging how very blessed I am — and celebrating with crepes.
Today was another welcome, wonderfully drizzly day. We just need another 100 or so days like it.
My cousin graduated from the University of Texas yesterday with his bachelor’s in Electrical Engineering. Today we drove to his parents’ house in San Antonio to celebrate with him, his family and friends.
On the way home we could see the UT Tower lit up in burnt orange from I-35. But today, instead of the #1 on the tower, reserved for times when the Longhorns win a national championship, there was a #11, to honor the class of 2011. Monte drove me around to at least 3 different vantage points on campus to try to get a decent shot. This was the best one I captured.
Congratulations to all the new Texas-Ex’s!
A few weeks ago, I saw a birdhouse in a catalog which had sides that were hinged like doors, which when open revealed plexiglass walls inside. The idea being that you could open the birdhouse to peek inside if any birds decide to nest and take up residence.
The design seemed simple enough, so I sketched something on paper and whipped one up out of cedar. I think I’m more pleased about making it than I will be to find any birds inside. But, stay tuned…
Thanks to monte for help on some of the work that required table saw cuts. I’m certified to use all the tools in the shop, except for that one. 🙂
The shot above is of the newly finished birdhouse. The wall on the left is opened up and you can see through to the inside through the plastic wall.
By the way, we have been blessed with some intermittent rain showers over the last week, so as you can see in the background, things are starting to green up a bit. I was pleased to see the bluebonnets starting to leaf out, as they should in the autumn. I guess months of searing, endless, scorching heat does the trick on cracking their tough seeds for germination. I hope this is a good sign for lots of bluebonnets in the spring — though we’ll need LOTS more rain between now and then.
It is not my intent to post lots of pictures of our bird, but I couldn’t help this one. Keeto likes to walk around my desk, investigating everything. He makes frequent trips to the keyboard to get his head scratched. What a sweet bird 🙂
His cere is still a bit ambiguous – not quite all blue yet. But he’s started vocalizing and mimicking, so my money is on male.
Before you can stand around watching paint dry, you have to apply the paint. I took this shot as monte was painting the dining-room-extension-table. One of the things we got around to on this chilly day today.
With Thanksgiving safely in the record books, now I’m ready to look ahead to Christmas. But it’s stunning how early all the retailers and television channels start to decorate for Christmas. I saw Santa decorations out before Halloween this year.
As I was walking through the back the red berries and green leaves caught my eye. I think this is a yaupon holly. Very festive!
We had a crowd-sourced Thanksgiving meal today. Monte and Tom provided 2 delicious grill roasted turkeys. Kate and Glenn brought green bean casserole and Kate whipped up the best mashed potatoes (and peas!) that I’ve ever tasted. Doray and Sandy made their sweet potato baked cup thingies. Sue & Marty brought delicious, home-made cranberry sauce, squash, and irresistible bourbon balls. I baked up some dinner roles, made gravy from the drippings of the birds and whipped up a pink-jello-whip-cream-cottage-cheese-pineapple dish in honor of all our favorite aunts. Everything was DELICIOUS! Laura joined us after dinner, too.
The picture above is of one of the brews that Glenn opened. He got it part way down before someone noticed the foam on the inside of the bottle formed a perfect number 10! Pretty funny. The poor guy wasn’t able to finish this beer for a while, for all the excitement it caused. But it was a good omen for the day… it was perfect.
I wish all of you a very happy and blessed Thanksgiving Day.
Stopping to create posts on this blog every day (or so) has caused me to pause long enough to reflect on things in my day and life. I have so much to be thankful for.
Sheila365 