On the road ahead of sunset. A long evening work session awaits. Ni ni.
Tag: postaweek
Room with a view.
I made my way to the bottom of Manhattan for a meeting in the financial district today. The conference room we were in all day had this great view of the Hudson River. The ferry on the right is headed over to Ellis Island. And to the left is Liberty Island, graced by the Statue of Liberty. My dad and my mom’s dad both entered this country through Ellis island, which was the home for NYC immigration processing between 1892 & 1954 (according to Wikipedia). A very special landmark.
Determined 12th (wo)man.
I ended up traveling to New York today. Unfortunately, the only flight I could make work had me in the air during Monday night football – Seahawks vs Rams.
I worked the technology angle to listen to the game while I was eroute: iPhone + NFL App + NFL Audiopass + airplane mode + inflight wifi + earphones = 🙂
The streaming would drop from time to time, but I followed most of the game.
Paddlin’ round.
It got a little chilly on the boat overnight. I fired up the oven this morning to bake scones and that warmed things up.
I got in the water today with Colleen. Brrrrr! The water temp was 73. That may very well be a record for me – latest dip in the lake: October 26!
Colleen took the kayak for a spin. Then we sailed for a bit. A nice day!
Lake bound.
Hit the lake after work with Colleen and Julie. We’re anchoring out tonight.
Saw two of these flying contraptions. One of them flew right by us as we were sailing and circled the mast.
Later, yet another stunning Lake Travis sunset.
Hump day.
Colleen arrived today for a visit. Tonight we cooked a delicious dinner at the house. Julie joined us. On the menu: prosciutto-wrapped cantaloupe appetizer, grilled chicken, risotto Milanese, sautéed brussels sprouts and homemade lime sorbet for dessert. Oh. My.
We add wet applewood chips to the charcoal briquettes while the chicken’s on the grill, which adds a mouthwatering smoky note. Colleen called it “bacon flavored chicken.”
High praise from a bacon-o-phile. 🙂
Prosciutto & Cantaloupe Appies
These aren’t pretty, but they’re delicious.
1 ripe cantaloupe
8 oz prosciutto di Parma, sliced thin
Melon baller tool
Toothpicks
Halve and remove seeds from cantaloupe. Scoop out melon balls. Wrap with prosciutto, Skewer with toothpick.
Tada!
Late bloomers.
These 2 guys showed up as part of a late set in the zinnie patch. They missed the memo about summer being over.
Let the baking begin.
Fall means baking! I made a loaf of banana bread this morning. Yumm!
I used a variation on a recipe from Monte’s America’s Test Kitchen cookbook.
Banana Bread
2 cups all purpose flour, sifted
3/4 cup sugar
3/4 tsp baking soda
1/2 tsp salt
3 very ripe bananas, mashed well
1/4 c plain yogurt
2 large eggs, lightly beaten
6 T unsalted butter, melted and cooled
1 tsp vanilla extract
1 1/4 c pecans, chopped coarse and toasted
Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Toast pecans on baking sheet in oven while preheating, 5-10 mins.
Combine flour, sugar, baking soda and salt in large bowl.
In separate bowl, mash bananas with hand masher, then add yogurt, eggs, melted butter and vanilla and stir by hand to mix.
Fold banana mixture into dry ingredients with spatula until just combined. Fold in pecans. Turn into greased and floured 9 1/2″ loaf pan and smooth.
Bake at 350 degrees for 55 minutes. Then test for doneness with toothpick. If still too moist inside, put back in for 5 minutes and try again. When done, cool in pan for 5 mins and then turn out onto wire rack.
Varmits in the pantry.
I think I might have brought home the Halloween candy a bit too early…
Home.
Touchdown ABIA.
It’s good to be home. I’m very tired. And, I’m on call this weekend for work, so I won’t be able to venture very far. So while it’s nice to be home to recharge, there’s still lots of things to keep me busy. Monte has dart night at the house tonight, so I’ve slipped away to putter around til i fall asleep.
Sometimes I create playlists on iTunes just based on a word search in the title or the lyrics of the songs in my library. Tonight, I searched for songs with “home” in the title and found many hits. Here’s a sampling, in order of when i first remembered hearing them (sorry ’bout the goofy ads before many of each of these…hopefully you can click through). I have a story to go with each of these, but for now I’ll just share the links. Maybe you’ll enjoy and/or remember them, too. As for me, i love how music is woven into my memories….
– Carole King’s Home Again
– Alice Cooper’s I’m Going Home
– Tim Curry’s I’m Going Home from Rocky Horror Picture Show
– Cecilio & Capono’s Home (and I’m staying this time)
– Bonnie Raitt’s Home
– Edward Sharpe & the Magnetic Zeroes’ Home
– Phillip Phillips Home
Red foliage.
Westchester county in the fall is pretty. This tree is in the courtyard outside my room. Gorgeous.
I ♥ LGA.
I’m in NY for a few days for work. I’m headed upstate but I prefer to fly into LGA and drive, as opposed to flying into one of the smaller airports up north.
I was on the wrong side of the plane to get a great cityscape shot from the air. So this one from the runway will have to serve.
I’ve always liked this ironwork/fence outside of baggage claim – get it? the big apple…
American Airlines has been a fixture at LaGuardia forever. The first airline VIP lounge debuted here in 1939 now known as the Admirals Club. What a great idea, AA! I don’t travel as much for work as I used to a few years back. It used to be that the bartender in the lounge would greet me with my “usual” when I walked in. 🙂 I’ll have to try it again on this trip home.
One more pic. This one from the gate area as we were pulling in. One of the original vintage but still in use American Airlines hangars, with one of the new logo jet paint jobs parked beside it.
A (more specific) prayer for rain.
I’m very happy to see all the rain that has been sent our way. It’s an answer to countless prayers over the last few years of severe drought in Central Texas. I’m sure the Austin City Limits music festival-goers are bummed about yesterday’s cancellation, but they did have an extra weekend of music to enjoy this year.
My trees and lawn are drinking in this much needed water. It’s truly a gift.
However, the rain this week and in the year past seems to fall where it flows into the creeks and river below the lakes. Onion Creek is raging right now, having received 6-10 inches in the last few days. Barton Creek and Williamson Creek were flooding for the same reason, but all of them dump into the Lower Colorado river below the Highland Lakes. E.g,:
I see that there is more rain in the forecast for this week. So, more thanks in advance for that. But I’m sending a humble prayer for that rain to drop in the Lake Travis watershed. Right over Marble Falls and Burnet would be simply awesome. Or even a bit southwest of that, in Fredericksburg, Johnson City or thereabouts would be fantastic, as all that rain would end up in the Pedernales River, which feeds into Lake Travis.
After all the rain in the past week, Lake Travis is up only 2′. And I do sincerely appreciate every drop that ends up in the lake. But we need to come up more like 50-60′. So, I’m praying for it to dump buckets of rain in the shaded are below. That would be divine. Seriously divine.
I have another prayer for better management of our lakes and water reserves than what the LCRA has provided over the last decade or so, but I’ll leave that for another day. Just please keep the rain coming.
Amen,
Sheila
Vroom vroom.
This weekend Lori & Dave are out of town, and Jake is staying with us. He’s a great kid. I don’t know who is keeping an eye on who. 🙂 We had a fun pizza / game night last night with Doray, Tom, Sue & Marty. It is so nice to spend time with friends.
Jake and I have been racing Mario Karts on the wii quite a bit this weekend, but today we headed to K1 Speed for the real thing. It’s a pretty awesome indoor venue for kart racing. This is not bumper cars, folks, these karts can go over 40 mph. It was pretty fun! That’s Jake in #25 in the shot above. And I couldn’t resist taking a selfie in my cool racing hat…
Sheila365 