An Anniversary to Wine About...

This month Michael and I hit the four year mark of being married and while it was actually a week and a half ago, we weren't able to do anything to celebrate it until this weekend. And really, there was no whining involved, but there was plenty of wine!  My friend John bought us tickets to go to the Austin Wine & Music Festival out at the Domain and we had a great day tasting wines from local vineyards and listening to live music.  The only whining was about the weather, which was hot and muggy, but even with an unexpected downpour in the middle of the festival, we still had a great time!

We started off with a light lunch at Tomo Sushi.  That's John in the back and his friend Amy.

And by light, I mean a lot.  John just kept ordering roll after roll, dish after dish.  The above is sea bass, escolar, butterfish, salmon, and albacore tuna.  My favorite was the escolar; it was like butter and so tender.

This was our favorite roll at Tomo.  It's called the "Say my name!" and was jalapenos spread with cream cheese that had scallops, tuna and crab mixed with it, and is then lightly fried.  It had a spicy chipotle type mayo on top and the texture was amazing.

We were definitely fat and sassy after all that and definitely ready for some wine tasting! (And note to self, Mama and Daddy were right about the slouching...gotta work on that)

It rained for about 30 minutes while we were there so we went under some tents to stay dry.  It was a welcome relief from the heat, but when it passed it just got muggy and gross.

So we cooled off with some frozen yogurt from Mambo Berry.  This stuff is amazing.  This is their swirl with their green tea and original tart.  Yes, I said tart.  The yogurt has very little sugar in it, but you don't miss it at all.  It was so refreshing and delightful without being overwhelming!  If you want to try some, they can be located down on South Congress Tuesday through Sunday next to Hey Cupcake! in the airstream trailer food park.  Seriously.  You need to try it at least once!  And yes, you can get sprinkles on it if you want :o)

John and Michael convinced Amy and I to do a cigar and port seminar with them which was very educational and actually pretty fun.  I love a good port and we were able to sample ports from two different wineries, Dry Comal Creek's 1096 and Stone House Vineyard's Scheming Beagle.   I personally preferred the Scheming Beagle although both were excellent.

And yes, I smoked my first cigar.  It really wasn't that bad since you don't inhale it, but I don't think I will be making a habit of it--it makes it hard to taste anything for a bit afterward and my nose was not happy with me the next day.

All in all, a lovely day.  We are so grateful to our friend John for giving us the opportunity to enjoy this milestone in a way we love best! 

Here's to four years...may there be many more!


Bottoms up,
Kelly

Room Redo: Part Deux

Billa's room redo has begun!

The last time I posted about redoing her room, I had started a list.  Well, it is with great relief and accomplishment that I can actually cross the first item off of it:

• Finish canvases and hang them
• Make new curtains (and hang them this time!)
• Make quilt and buy solid colored sheets to coordinate
• Get big girl bed and refinish/paint if needed
• Procure a couple of cute woodsy themed accents

Yes!  Here's a sneak peek at the finished canvases:

And here they are hanging up:

I'm one step there! Hurrah!

Here's what I am working on next:

Stay tuned!
Kelly

Saturday Silly Soakiness

Last Saturday Michael had to work overnight, so Sybilla and I went to spend the afternoon with my mom while Daddy got some sleep.  Billa's favorite thing about Boppa is that she lets her run amok in the garden and outside.  We live in an apartment, so it's not often Billa has a big 3 acre backyard to run amok in.  The most exciting thing that day was when Boppa let Billa water the garden.

I just get tickled pink when I see this picture!

Making a swamp in the right side of the garden.

Making a swamp out of the left side of the garden.  Equal opportunity swamp maker here!

We also visited with Gumerry, our former cat.  Look, he's the size of Texas!  REALLY!

If I ever had doubts about whether he was happy where he was, I have them no more.  Gumerry is one fat and sassy kitty and it shows! (Should you be worried about his weight, never fear.  The vet says 22 pounds is normal for a farm cat built like he is, plus, he has more fur than fat...my allergies can attest to it!)

Time to clean up!  Mom just hosed Billa off in the mudroom sink.  Good thing it's big enough to be a bathtub for Billa...that kid LOVES to splash in the bath!

Besides making a swamp out of my mom's garden and playing in the mud and whatnot, I also got some time on the sewing machine and started on the quilt for Billa's room redo I'm working on, plus I got to experiment with a new recipe featuring a star ingredient: serrano peppers.  Yes, my friends, it is the first thing we have harvested from our garden boxes!  I made a honey serrano cornbread that was very delicious, but I think it could use a little tweaking. 

After our fun and wet day, we packed up and headed home, just in time to send Daddy off.  Billa will get to play with Boppa again this Saturday while Michael and I finally go celebrate our 4th wedding anniversary.  I can only imagine what hijinks Boppa has in store for Billa this time!

Cheers,
Kelly

Kickin' It To The Man!

A sampling of Billa's newest obsession...soccer lessons aren't far off:



Happy Friday,
Kelly

Random Tuesday Thoughts 5/11

At the rate of which I've posting over the last seven days (read: nil), I'm doing pretty good by giving you yet another peek of random crap in my life.  I wish my randomness was as funny as the Un-Mom's, but my funniness in real life doesn't seem to translate as well on the interwebs.  Or I'm possibly not that funny.  I really hope it's not the latter because then that makes me wonder a bit what everyone is laughing at whenever I'm around...

Anyway, it's Tuesday.  I'm working from home (again), trying to save gas and my sanity.  I somehow managed to forget I had back to back meetings this morning and early afternoon and I'm just now finally able to get some work done!  Ok, well I will be in a minute when I finish this post.  I needed something to transition my brain towards Excel and mindless tedium.

Someday when I get to posting about it, you'll get to see the pictures from strawberry picking and my birthday.  Oh wait, there aren't any pictures from my birthday.  Probably a good thing in hindsight considering that my skin decided to erupt in he worst case of acne I've had since I was a teen.  An article a friend posted on her Facebook says it's a sign of spiritual awakening.  Personally, I'd rather that enlightment didn't make me want to crawl under a rock and hide until my hormones die down.

My birthday was quite lovely besides the acne.  My friends made me hot wings (my favorite!) and I didn't make my own cake.  I didn't have any cake, but that's ok.  I'm not much for eating cake these days.  They gave me Final Fantasy XIII for my birthday which was awesome...until I opened the package and discovered that the disc had been stolen.  My spidey sense started tingling when I showed my husband the blank disc and made a comment about how it was strange that it didn't have any logos on it.  I ended up going to bed early in a huff because I couldn't get my game on.  Luckily, my friend's husband raised some hell at Best Buy and got me a new copy which I played all day long on my day off.

Mother's Day was lovely. My mom and Michael's mom came over for brunch and we made garden stepping stones with Sybilla for their gardens, natch.  Yes, I cooked and cleaned some on that most holy of holy days, but it's ok.  I got to play my game, read a book, and sleep in, all of which I don't normally get to do unless I slight someone or unplug myself, both of which do not bear pleasant results.  Except on Mother's Day, thankfully :D

Saw an article on MSN about macarons.  Now I must try to recreate them for the baking blog.  I love meringues, but I don't know if I can handle aged egg whites.  Wines are supposed to age.  People are supposed to age, but don't want to.  Egg whites?  I have my reservations, but hey, if it's all the rage in Paris, I have to try it.

Speaking of Paris?  A coworker is going in two weeks.  I'm jealous.  The only time I was in Paris I was stuck with a snobby brat who wanted to do four star hotels on a college student's budget.  Needless to say, it made for some interesting adventures, but I didn't get to see half of what I wanted.  I'm going on a wine tour in a couple of weeks to local wineries here in the Texas Hill Country and my friend suggested we swing by Paris, Tx.  Sorry, dude, it just isn't the same.  I've been to both, and I much rather prefer the one where I must present my passport to get in the country.

Time to get back to work.  Au revoir, mes amis!
Kelly

Strawberry Picking

Grab yourselves a nice tall glass of something cold and delicious and sit back…this post will be a bit long, due to my laziness over the last week!

The Sunday before Mother’s Day we drove out to Sweet Berry Farm out in Marble Falls to go strawberry picking. Our friends the Marinos have been there before and for one reason or another, we were not able to join them for an excursion last year. Instead of having a big party for my birthday this year (which never happens anyway, so I was bound and determined to have SOMETHING happen) I asked my friends to go strawberry picking. It’s family friendly, it’s fun, and it would get us all out of the house for a bit.   Plus, I had a hankering to make stuff with strawberries!

Sweet sweet berries!

Getting ready to go pick berries.  I honestly don't know what she's doing here or why.  But it's cute.

Prairie doggin' in the strawberry patch

Helping Mama pick "bay-oh's" as Billa called them

Wait for me, Daddy!

We were only out there for about an hour, which some might say isn’t worth the almost hour and a half drive out there, but I disagree. The weather was perfect, the kids had a blast, and I don’t think I can ever buy strawberries from the store again! The berries were so sweet and yummy. In fact, Sybilla can agree with me on that:

I dunno about this, Mama...are you sure it's good?

Hey, this ain't so bad!

Billa and what was probably her 200th berry...she could give a Japanese hot dog eater a run for their money any day!

Yargh! It’s Red Chinned Billa the pirate!

I had to laugh; she wasn’t the only child running around with stained chins and lips. We were laughing about the "Children of the Strawberries" (as opposed to Children of the Corn, FYI) and more than once the word “vampire” was thrown around. The kids really did look like they had been feasting on blood thanks to the super ripe and delicious berries.

Resting in the shade for a bit.  Yes, her chin really was that red!

Feeding goats...we didn't buy any goat food so the kids were picking up pieces of grass and leaves to give to the goats.

There were also goats at the farm and we spent about fifteen minutes trying to feed them and pet them. Billa was in heaven and she passed out the moment we got on the highway to head back home. We stopped at P. Terry’s for lunch before heading home and Billa had her first milkshake. I don’t know which was her favorite: strawberries or milkshake!

All told, it was a great day and I am so glad that we made the trip. The blackberries will be ripening soon and I am looking forward to going out there to go pick those next!

Cheers,
Kelly

Mother's Day 2010

"Making a decision to have a child -- it's momentous. It is to decide forever to have your heart go walking around outside your body."- Elizabeth Stone

This was how Sybilla’s godmother phrased it to me when she spoke of the joys of motherhood. And out of all the quotes about motherhood, it is the only one that has really stuck with me.  I am above and beyond blessed to be a mother and to have a mother present in my life.

To all my mothers, whether they be my "mother" through biology, marriage, or friendship, my heartfelt love and admiration to you.

And to my darling daughter, thank you for allowing me to be part of the best creation I've ever made!

Happy Mother's Day,
Kelly

Random Tuesday Thoughts 5/4

Randomness is awesome!

I turn 28 on Thursday.  It snuck up on me this year for the first time ever.  My birthday I mean.  I've already been thinking of myself as 28 or 58 depending on how I feel when I wake up in the morning these days.  Mostly 58, but I'm working on that.

Read an article today that just irritated the hell outta me.  Sandra Bullock is adopting a black baby and apparently people seem to think it's for publicity.  Now, I don't Sandy personally, but people here in Austin don't take kindly to anyone badmouthing her because she is genuinely a very nice person and we love her here.  One of the other beefs is that people are like "Black kid? Why not white kid?"  Really?  Who the eff cares?!  Love doesn't care about race folks, and if someone, even a celebrity, wants to adopt a kid, let them.  Too many kiddos without homes in this country and everywhere.  Kudos to you, Sandy, for adopting from here in the states and not caring what color your baby will be.

My husband and I got the movie Where the Wild Things Are through Netflix the other night.  That was the biggest cinematic disappointment I have ever seen.  I'd rather watch Pirates of the Caribbean 3 instead of that tripe.  I realize it was based off a 20 page kid's book, but Sendak managed to cram a plot into those 20 pages and there was a moral to the story.  All this movie had was needless violence, some weird ass dialogue, and a child that needed some serious therapy and medication.  If Max learned anything, it was that he can run away from home and his mom will give him chocolate cake as a reward. Worst. Movie. Ever.  My mom's science fiction atrocities are looking real good right about now!

Now I'm hungry and it's dinner time!

Peace out, y'all!
Kelly

Gardening Update!

Despite the forecast rain for the weekend, Billa and I headed out to the La Casa Della Marino to check on our garden boxes.  If you'll remember, this is what they looked like when we began this journey a little over three weeks ago:

This is what they look like now:

Pretty awesome, right? Right?  We are very excited by the amount of growth we've achieved in four weeks.  Let me take you on a tour of our garden.

This is what we call the "Shade Box" or "Cool Weather Box."  It's called this because it does not receive full sun all day long due to a two story house on the other side of the fence.  Anyone who has visited Texas in the summertime knows how brutal the sun can be in these parts, so having a partly shaded bed for some full sun plants is actually not a bad thing.  In this box, we have planted onions (white and red), carrots, spinach, Bibb lettuce, romaine lettuce, blue adirondack potatoes, white russett potatoes, black beans, pole beans, and strawberries.  The strawberries are the blank spot.  We got these strawberry root things for about a buck, so we figure since they're not coming up, we didn't lose out on too much.  I transplanted some of my lettuce to some of the blank spot since I overplanted them a bit.  Oops. I'll probably leave the rest of the strawberries though and see if anything comes up. 

This box is our "Full Sun Box" or "Hot Box."  We have Moon & Star watermelons in the back, with tomatoes and tomatillos in the middle, and serrano and bell peppers along the front.  I'm super excited about the tomatillos; you have to get two plants in order to make baby tomatillos and I got two different kinds.  One of them makes PURPLE tomatillos and the other regular green ones.  On a side note, anyone know the proper plural spelling for tomatillo?  Is it like tomato, where you add an 'es' or do you just add an 's'?  I'm going to go with the 's' for now.

And this is the Corn Box.  It's pretty straightforward.

This is my lemon tree.  It's not doing so well right now, because the wind keeps blowing off leaves and blossoms and now I am worried it has something else going on because the leaves are beginning to yellow.  I need to contact the folk at Natural Gardener and find out what I need to do to resuscitate it, otherwise, I may not have any lemons this summer and that will make me super sad, considering how long I've been waiting to get some from it!

So there's our gardening update.  It's so much fun to see everything grow and Billa loves helping us water.  I can't wait until we actually start getting produce so that we can cook and eat the fruits of our labors.

Until next time,
Kelly & the Gang