Tag: postaday

The view from 14A.

Enroute from HPN to ORD.

I made it home tonight by about 11:30.   Yay for no delays or major travel issues.

I am an aisle seat person.   If you want to ask me to swap my aisle seat with your non-aisle seat on a flight so that you can sit next to your honey or your friend, you’d better be a little old lady, or a newlywed.  Ok.   Well.   If it was a window seat, I’d probably swap with you, but *that’s* what I’d be thinking.   You’ll have to bribe me (alot) to swap for the dreaded middle seat.

That being said, I do love looking out the window.   I suspect I look a lot one of those people that you’d think was on their first plane ride.  Oh, and I take pictures out the window, too.   Sometimes even when my electronic devices are supposed to be turned to the off position and stowed.

The plane I flew from White Plains to Chicago today had single seats on the port side of the plane, so my window seat was also an aisle seat.  About as good as it gets on a little regional jet.

Here’s your meaningless factoid of the day…  did you know that American Airlines saves lots of $ a year in lower fuel costs (plane weighs less) because they don’t paint their planes?   Now ya know.

Walk with me.

Not my walking shoes.

I had a long day of meetings today.  Tomorrow evening I fly back home – always the best part of a business trip.

I didn’t take my camera with me this morning, so by the time I got back to the hotel it was dark, I was tired, had little material to work with, and was searching for inspiration for a blog post.  During my daily catch-up on blogs I read a post on the wordpress blog itself from last week.  It was an announcement for the 2nd annual WorldWide WordPress 5K, on Sunday, April 29th.  The WWWP5K is a virtual 5K, originally conceived by the employees at Automattic, the company behind WordPress, to get their geographically-dispersed fellow employees to run or walk a 5K “together,” each in their own locations.  They invited the entire blogging community to join them and to blog about it.   Last year I did.   And I plan to again this year.

Thanks WordPress for a fun idea, and for providing me with the inspiration for a photo for today.  I didn’t bring my running shoes on this trip, so these will have to do.

Mark your calendars, and walk with me!

Tuesday. Tax day. Traveling. And a troll.

Troll doll.

At the party, over the weekend, several little kids were there… all about 2 years old.  Monte brought out a box of toy trains and track that they played with at the picnic table on the patio.  I think these were toys that he had as a kid.  In the box was an old troll doll. Remember these guys?    I couldn’t resist….

To those fellow-procrastinators out there…. get those tax returns in today!

I’m off to New York for the week.  Ta-ta!

Sunny morning.

A view inside.

A Monday haiku for you.  Have a great week!

More tulips in bloom.
Tall, pink, yellow…one bent down.
A star is inside.

Friday night lights.

Homeward.

Today is Friday the 13th.  It passed without incident.

After work we headed over to Lori & Dave’s house – several friends of ours make an annual visit to Austin, and it’s always a big party when they get here.  Lots of laughs…and lots of mob dancing to 80’s tunes.   🙂

The car in the center of the picture was what I was trying to get a shot of… an old timey volvo or something.  Didn’t turn out, but I like it anyway.

Goodnight!

Beer me, Marge.

Rover's neon.

I love that it’s getting dark later these days.  I can get more things done after work.  But it does tend to make the days longer.

Tonight it was 8:30 by the time we both sat down and and starting thinking about what to do for dinner.  So, we decided to pop out for a quick, late, bite.  We ended up at our local pub, BB Rover’s.

BB Rover’s is a great bar.   Good food.  Nice patio outside.  Tons of beer.  They have over 300 beers from all over the world to choose from every night.   They have a tradition at BBs – once a patron has tried 100 different beers, their name goes up on the 100 Beer Club wall of fame.  Don’t worry, you don’t have to drink all 100 of them in one night.  🙂  To help keep track, they have a form that you can use to check off different beers as you drink them.

We’ve been going to BBs for a long time…over 16 years.  We have friends that have made it to the wall of fame.  But, I can never seem to make progress towards the 100 milestone.   Oh, I’ve tried.   I just dug up my old scorecard.  I have 23 different beers checked off, so far.  But, try as I might, I usually just end up ordering a Stella on draft.  I guess I know what I like.   Maybe I’ll give it another go.   It could happen.

In our travels to the Caribbean, I’ve found some local lagers that I like:  Carib (Trinidad & Tobago), Kalik (Bahamas), Hairoun (St. Vincent & the Grenadines).  But they are hard to find in the US, so they haven’t made it to BB’s checklist.   I guess we’ll just have to keep going down to the islands for a cold one of them.

I’ll leave you with this (source unknown):

The Beer Prayer 

Our lager,
Which art in barrels,
Hallowed be thy drink.
Thy will be drunk, (I will be drunk),
At home as it is in the tavern.
Give us this day our foamy head,
And forgive us our spillage,
As we forgive those who spill against 
us.
And lead us not to incarceration,
But deliver us from hangovers.
For thine is the beer, the bitter, and 
the lager.

Barmen

Little lilies.

Alstroemeria.

We had a very nice weekend at the homestead.  Soon weekends will be full of lake activity, so it’s nice to play homebodies for a while.  We watched the Master’s final round coverage yesterday.  And I grilled a ham on the weber, and topped it off with sweet potato casserole and baked beans.  Everything turned out great.

These little lilies have been blooming every spring that we’ve lived here.  The bulbs are extremely hardy, and can stand drought and hard freezes.   But, their blooms are short lived, lasting only a week or so.  I looked up their name online and am pretty sure they are alstroemeria, aka peruvian lily or lily of the incas.  Your flower factoid of the day:  alstroemeria flowers symbolize friendship and devotion — faithful bloomers.

 

Happy Easter!

Golden "eggs."

Happy Easter to you!   They’re not Easter eggs.  But they’ll serve.  Monte, these are hidden around the house for you to find…go get ’em!

Good Saturday.

Yet another volunteer

Today was beautiful.  Hit Home Depot.   Worked outside in the yard.  Got my new flowers planted.  Fertilized the lawn out back and watered it in.  Hoping a lawn will spring up any day now.  Dug out a dead yaupon holly and replaced it with a new one.  Grocery shopping.  Filled the bird feeders.  Some indoor cleaning.  Reversed the ceiling fans – it’s officially spring now.   (In case you were wondering:  counter-clockwise for summer, clockwise for winter, as you look at the fan from below).  Some work-work.  Cooked a couple of yummy steaks.  Watched Darjeeling Limited with Monte.  Fell asleep on the couch.  Just yer average Saturday.  Waiting for the Easter bunny to show.

Eastside eats.

Dinner at Justine's.

Tonight I went out to dinner with some friends to celebrate a couple of birthdays.  We picked a place in East Austin for tonight – Justine’s on E 5th – a casual french bistro.  It was my first time here.  The food and wine was delicious.  I recommend the scallops, though the sauce was a tad bit spicy.

The place was crowded and hopping after about 8 o’clock.  And it got very noisy by the time we left about 9:30.  Apparently this is a hot spot hangout for lots of the beautiful people in town. 🙂

It’s starting to get warm these days, but it was still cool enough to sit outside.  In their courtyard they had a huge neon sign of a burlesque dancer that I wish turned out better, but here ’tis.

Ooo-la-la.

Happy Birthday to Irene & Lori!

My cactus.

My prickly pear cactus out back.

When we bought this house, we went from a yard that was about 1/10 of an acre to one that was about 3/4 of an acre.  I enjoyed taking the first walks around the back to discover the trees, flowers and other features that came with the deal.  One of them was a tiny little cactus, which uncharacteristically started growing in the very shady wooded part of our back yard.  But, still it was my first cactus, and the only one on our property, so I wanted to keep an eye on it.   In that first year it was pretty small, and ended up being run over by the lawnmower a couple times (you can see a cut on the top of one of the pads in the middle of the plant).  So a couple years ago I marked it with stones.

Several years I’ve had to go out and dust it to deter an infestation of cactus-sucker-bugs. The droughts have been tough, too, but, hey, it’s a cactus.   This is the 6th year since I discovered it, and this spring it is covered with lots of new pads.  And it’s finally getting some height.  The spines on the new pads are soft and green… but will soon turn into those horrible little spikes that you never want to touch.

Baby cactus pad.

Maybe next year we’ll be treated to a flower.

If you build it, they will come.

Bewick wren egg in nest.

Exactly 4 months ago today I posted a picture of a birdhouse I had just made.   The sides are hinged and open to reveal clear plastic walls inside the birdhouse – a “peek-a-boo” birdhouse.

The birdhouse sat on the table next to the couch for a long time, because Keeto liked to perch on it while we were all sitting in the gameroom.  But I finally hung it up outside about 6 weeks ago.

Well, I couldn’t help myself, so I finally peeked inside and saw a nest and an egg!  My friend Doray said it could be a bewick wren, when I described the momma bird to her that has been keeping watch in the birdhouse and nearby.   I looked it up online and sure enough, i think it is a bewick wren.  Just one egg, though.   But, I’m so excited to see a birdie in residence.

I was also happy to see mom come back to the birdhouse afterwards.  I’ll leave them in peace now and resist the urge to take another look.

Mom returns.

Monday.

I don't like Mondays. But I do like these little flowers.

Today started with a dentist appointment.  Lots of meetings.  Lots of new todos.  Too many things to do in one day.   Hard to keep up.

It didn’t stop me from taking a walk outside to watch the flowers grow, though.

“Flowers are those little colorful beacons of the sun from which we get sunshine when dark, somber skies blanket our thoughts.”  ~Dodinsky

A blank wall no more.

The result of my 2nd Painting With a Twist class.

Yesterday I joined a bunch of friends at Painting With a Twist – my 2nd time.  It’s a BYOB painting studio where everyone in the class follows along with the instructor and paints the same picture.   I have had my eye on this red landscape for a while.  I knew exactly where I wanted to put it… the blank wall in our (not so) recently remodeled master bathroom.

So, today I hung it up.  It’s smaller than what the space calls for.  But, I like it!