A wee bit of snow fell outside my window today. Not enough to play in, but still pretty. I’ll be back home in a couple days. 
Howdy, neighbors!
We have many deer that roam our neighborhood, being located close to a number of greenbelts. We enjoy them. Like most of our neighbors, we restrict the tasty and ornamental flowers to our fenced backyard, and have learned to plant the more pungent deer-resistant greens in the front yard.
This week I noticed two deer have taken up residence in our neighbor’s large fenced backyard. It’s unlikely that they cannot get out of the yard, so I assume they are just very content to stay put. They are not overly concerned with us tramping around our back yard. I took this picture using my telephoto from about 150 feet away.
Love-ly day.
Tulips! I had a very nice Valentine’s Day. We went to the lake for the afternoon, and enjoyed a great sail up the lake a ways. Kevin, Kurt, Marty & Sue joined us on our boat, and Lori & Joe sailed along on Camelot.
And to cap off the day we had a delicious dinner at Andiamo. They were serving a special 4 course dinner with wine flight, and it was wonderful.
Now, I’m trying to get psyched up for Monday…
And now for something completely different…
We heard about a play near campus called Shit-faced Shakespeare, and went to see it tonight. Yep, you guessed it: one cast member is supposed to be very, very drunk, while the show goes on. I suspect it actually involves more acting than inebriation.
It’s not for everyone, but whether they are actually sh!t-faced or pretend, it’s a funny show.
It’s showing at Spider House Ballroom – little over an hour long. And they have a bar in the back.
At dawn’s door.
Not as pretty as a sunrise, but I love watching the sun light up the windows in the morning. Enjoy the day.
Chillin’ & grillin’.
Chicken thighs on the ‘bachi. Yum. 
Bringing home the Jackson.
We watched the Superbowl at Dave’s house tonight with a bunch of friends. We played the dollar-a-square pool. Look who won at halftime (Broncos 13 – Panthers 7)!
A fantastic weekend, so far.
And it’s only Saturday!
In my life, I’ve picked up and moved from one city to the next over a dozen times. Each time saying goodbye to old friends, making new friends, and making a home and new memories in a brand new place. My last move, to Austin, was different. Not only did I stay, but when I moved here, so did over 700 of my colleagues. One day we were all working together on one campus, in one state. A few weeks later, we were all back together again, but everything else was different.
Many of us took root here, getting married, having kids, living out our passions, and spending a very big chunk of the time that we’ve been given here on Earth loving living in Central Texas. We’ve scattered. Some moved back home. Some moved on. Some have passed from this life. But, this week marks the 20 year anniversary of our migration. So, last night we held a reunion to celebrate. A hundred and fifty or so people turned out. And it was amazing!
I don’t know what the next 20 years holds for me, but I’ve enjoyed this last round. 🙂
TODAY, we headed to the lake, of course. The winds were blowing 20-30 knots. So Lori and Kurt jumped aboard Nirvana with us and we all headed out. This is a shot of Lori at the helm. Sunny. Windy. A tad chilly. But a wonderful day.
How’s it hanging?
I’ve crossed off another project from my growing wanna-do list in my head this weekend. As you may have come to know through this blog, we like to make homemade pasta. A lot. Spaghetti, fettucine, ravioli, waddevah. It’s the food of the gods. Over the holidays, I ran across a fresh pasta hanger on Amazon and it looked so simple and easy to make, that I refused to put it in my cart. We have a gynormous wood shop out back. So I did a little recon and found what I needed already in the shop and… voila! Ye olde pasta hanger. I made it without glue, so I can take it apart to store easily in the cabinet.
Tonight I tried it out. So, here’s how it went down:
- 2 1/4 cups flour
- 3 eggs
- stir / mix with a fork, blending the egg & flour crater from the inside out. You may not need all the flour. When the dough stands on its own, knead by hand for 10 minutes. Till it looks a like more or less like this:
- Wrap dough ball in saran wrap and let sit at room temp for 30 mins or so.
- Afterwards, I cut the dough ball into 3 equal-ish sided pieces, ready to put through the pasta roller.
I used our Kitchen-Aid roller, starting on setting 1 – ending on setting 5. Rolling and dusting the dough with flour several times on each setting. After rolling each of the three balls into a sheet at setting number 5, I cut each in half. I found that each of my six pasta sheets ended up making about 2 ounces of pasta – a serving. So 3 eggs + 2 1/4 cups of pasta yields approximately 6 servings.
Next, I put the fettucine pasta cutter on the Kitchen-aid
I hung each section on my new, handy-dandy pasta hanger. (Awesome!)
Then I threw the pasta into a pot of boiling water. I sauteed the other bits in a skillet with some olive oil and I let the flavor develop.
Yummm!
The sun sets on January.
Wow. That was fast. January flew by. This weekend is very un-January-like, though – sunny, with temps inching into the 80s. I took this shot as the sun was dropping last night. The light through the trees was gorgeous.
We’ve decided to leave the signpost up that I made for last summer’s family reunion. It just seems right.
Currying f(l)avor.
We roasted a whole chicken the other day and I took both cooked breast pieces and transformed them into a magnificent, mouthwatering curried chicken salad.
Simply delicious.
Here’s more or less what went in. It made 2-3 cups of chicken salad.
Curried chicken salad
- 2 cooked/skinned/boneless chicken breasts, diced
- 1/2 c mayonaise (I like Duke’s light olive oil mayo, tastes just like regular)
- 1/2 c sour cream
- 5-7 tsp curry powder
- salt & pepper to taste
- 2 scallions sliced finely
- 1 apple (I used a sweet, crunchy gala), peeled and diced
- 1/8 c sliced almonds
- juice of half a lime
Mix well so everything is coated with yellowy goodness. Then put it in the fridge – for several hours before serving, to make the flavor pop. Be patient, it’ll be worth the wait.
By the way, the baguette came from Baguette House over on North Lamar. They make the best baguettes I’ve ever tasted. Hands down. Go get you some.
Breezy day.
Yesterday we went to the lake and Joel joined us with his out of town visitor, Chris. We sailed up to the basin and back. Winds gusting in the high 20’s & low 30’s made for a great day.
This is a shot of Kurt & Kevin on Dancer, who sailed along with us for the day.
Got him!
This post isn’t really photoblog-worthy, except that it is a follow-up to a post from last week. Monte had built a trap to catch the armadillos who were turning our waybackyard into a lunar landscape. Well, we caught one! He’s a Nine-banded armadillo. They live to be 12-15 years old!
I was very excited to see, from a distance, that the trap had triggered. And after sneaking a peek, I was happy to find a dillo inside and not a skunk! We released him in a wooded area far enough away (I hope) to keep him from returning.
We’ve reset the trap out back, in case there are others in his crew.
Us 1. Them 0.
I can see clearly now.
Yay, new glasses!! This pair was long overdue. My last pair were 2 or 3 prescriptions old and simply fell apart. My backups were even older. The pair I’ve been wearing for the last week and a half are missing an eye pad and have a paper clip on the corner to hold the left lens in (most of the time).
Made my day. However, now I can see how dirty my windows are. Time to book the window cleaners. 🙂
Sheila365 