Well, our guests have gone back home. I had a really wonderful time with them. I took many photos during our visit, but have not yet sorted through them.
Today, I went to the woods for some photos of birds. Doray and I headed out at about 7:45am. It was chilly, for a change.
We stalked them. Or they stalked us. Not sure who won. But we did get a few good bird shots. I have been playing with longer exposure shots of moving water. I like this one. You can see water bending around the leaves and the rocks in the stream, and the flow of the water.
Today we tried out a “puzzle room” a.k.a. “escape room” with our visitors; a first for all of us. We went to Puzzle Room Austin. The general idea is… you are locked in a room for 60 minutes. The room has a bunch of clues and physical puzzles in it, and the goal is to work out all the puzzles to find the key to get out of the room. We almost made it, but ran out of time. The good news is they will let you out either way. 🙂 It was lots of fun, though.
No photos of the puzzle room, but here is a bowl of Seahawk M&Ms, which we finished off even though our team is out of the playoffs. GO HAWKS!
We have out-of-town family visiting us this week, and today we headed to San Antonio. It has been a long time since my last visit to the Alamo. So, it was nice to visit again to get a Texas history refresher.
The rain finally let up, the sky cleared and the sun came out, making for a nice afternoon.
We took a roadtrip to Fredericksburg today – one of my favorite Texas Hill Country haunts. This trip we toured the National Museum of the Pacific War. And, let me tell you, this is one amazingly detailed set of museum exhibits. We spent about two and a half hours walking through the museum, and we still didn’t see everything. You must go.
On the way home there was a rainbow on the horizon, after a few late afternoon rain showers had rolled through. I was taking some random photos out the window as we drove. When I got home I scrolled through the photos I captured, and liked this one in particular, which has been significantly cropped. I liked it because I can see the faint colors of the rainbow through the branches of this tree. But, it wasn’t until I zoomed in that I noticed the hawk perched at the top of the tree, and the two gravestones underneath its branches.
Crittercam caught a critter last night! I believe it is an eastern screech owl. I heard it calling during the night but didn’t venture out. The camera caught (most of) it.
Today took me to Westcave Preserve with my friend, Doray, to participate in the annual Audubon Society Christmas Bird Count. I’m still learning how to identify the many bird species beyond those that frequent my own backyard. There’s much to learn, but I am enjoying the time spent out in the beautiful hill country of central Texas immensely.
We counted birds that we saw or heard. The counts get rolled up for each locality and are used to monitor bird populations from year to year. A very nice day spent in a place that I love.
I used a recipe from Southern Living‘s “Christmas at Home” 2009 special issue that I’ve had for years.
Sparkling Sugar Cookies (made 4-5 dozen medium sized cookies when I made them)
1 cup butter or margarine, softened
1 cup granulated sugar
1 large egg
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
3 cups all-purpose flour
1/8 teaspoon salt
Coarse sparkling sugar sprinkles of your choice
Beat butter at medium speed with an electric mixer until creamy. Gradually add granulated sugar, beating well. Add egg and vanilla, beating well.
Combine flour and salt. Gradually add to butter mixture, beating until blended. Divide dough in half. Cover; chill 1 hour.
Roll each portion of dough to 1⁄8-inch thickness on a lightly floured surface. Cut with desired cookie cutters. Place on parchment paper lined baking sheets.
Bake at 350° for 12-14 minutes ( 14 worked perfect in my oven) or until edges of cookies are lightly browned. Cool 1 minute on baking sheets, then remove to wire racks to cool completely.
Add glaze (recipe below) and sprinkles (while glaze is still wet). Leave flat until completely dry (this took quite a while for me).
Enjoy!
Simple Glaze (makes about 1 cup)
1 (16-oz.) package powdered sugar
4-6 tablespoons hot water
Liquid food coloring (optional)
Stir together powdered sugar and hot water until smooth. If desired, divide mixture, and tint with food coloring. Spread on cookies with spatula or dip, whatever works best for you.
The Blanton Museum downtown currently has an Andy Warhol exhibit, running through January 29th. It is called “Warhol by the Book.” It contains his artwork associated with bookcovers, album covers, playbills, books that he published, and other of his works associated with authors. I enjoy Andy Warhol’s art, and saw things in this exhibit I’d not seen before.
Hands-on album cover exhibit. You can handle the albums and even play the LPs.
There was another visiting exhibit by Xu Bing called “Book from the Sky,” which runs through January 22nd. I knew nothing about this artist nor the work, but thought it was interesting. Over 4 years, Xu Bing hand carved thousands of wood blocks with non-sensical chinese characters/words of his own design, and then crafted traditional-format chinese books and scrolls made up with his hand-crafted characters. So, if you know Chinese, it looks like gibberish. If you don’t know Chinese, it looks like, well, Chinese. 🙂 I guess it’s supposed to get you thinking about the power of words, and also the beauty of Chinese calligraphy. It was a beautiful exhibit, nonetheless.
Their permanent exhibits are currently not open, as the museum is doing construction on the 2nd floor. But those will reopen mid-February.
I enjoyed learning something new. After we fed our minds, we had lunch downtown. A nice day.
We went to a party at Julie’s house last weekend. Her roommate’s parents were in town and made one awesome pan of paella. Very pretty to look at, and delicious as well. Lucky us!
Sheila365 