bluebonnets!

 so, i've been checking for the past few weeks on our local bluebonnet spot.  on 3/18, it was mostly just mounds of green which i was not quite certain were the beginnings of a full field of blue.  on 3/24, i saw blue blooms here and there, but they were very thin & sporadic.  i was afraid that our cold winter snow and near zero temps had zapped any chance for a bountiful showing.....

boy, was i wrong!!

it turned out that the main entrance gate to our bluebonnet field was locked (gasp!!) so we followed the surrounding roads around until we spotted a place to park (in a residential neighborhood).  it was a beautiful, sunny yet windy day and the girls had gussied themselves up at my request.  i was so happy to see such large, picturesque areas in full bloom!  had the gate not been locked, we never would have discovered this hidden treasure of retaining walls and hilly spots.  yay!!

after last weekend's tinkering with my new professional camera, i felt confident that i would get some awesome shots and did not take one photo with my phone.  now that is real trust!!

soccer saturday

first up: little sister refereed two games and was standby on one - earning herself $46.

next, we took her almost an hour away to her second u19 game of the season.  i brought along my new fancy sony α6100 camera with 55-210 zoom lens.  i took over 200 shots, and here are a few of the best.

but this one has to be the very best shot of the day (both on the camera and to poor #2's gut!):

the girls ended up winning 9-0, and one of those nine goals was scored by little sister.

all in all, not a bad saturday. ;-)

pre-uil concert

we finally got to see a live band concert tonight!  woohoo!!  it's only been 390 days since we last were able to freely attend a concert in the school's auditorium.....and it felt soooo nice, even though we are still wearing masks and social distancing.

the girls are both in the symphonic winds band, and they played three songs for us that they have been rehearsing for the upcoming uil contest.

declaration overture
(little sister played bells)

 

lightning field

(little sister played suspended cymbal)

fairest of the fair
(little sister played snare)

percussion shenanigans in the band hall

all the girls' bandmates and supporters!

side hustle

 timeline: wednesday 3/17
my neighbor found herself in a jam, needing some custom decorated sugar cookies in only 4 short days.  the occasion: her daughter's 9th birthday.  she wanted dolphin cookies as treats.  she knows i dabble in baking, and in her desperation i decided to give baking & decorating 60 cookies by sunday a try......

i quickly ordered a few things online for delivery tomorrow - dolphin cutter options, piping bags, meringue powder,  & treat sacks to individually wrap the finished cookies.  i also took 1.5 lbs of butter out of freezer to start softening.  i dug out my tried n true sugar cookie cutout recipe and sifted thru the royal icing recipes i've been collecting.

timeline: thursday 3/18

i made a double batch of cookie dough before leaving to get my 1st covid vaccine dose.  i didn't have time to waste in case i came down with any side effects later that day, but i also wanted to get ahead with the dough in case i did....

i was also working from home on my real job, so in between meetings and calls, and over my lunch break, i made another double batch of dough.  once my online order arrived, i was able to start rolling dough and cutting shapes.  i also made a batch of grey royal icing, but in doing so used up all my icing sugar.  by 8pm, i had all the shapes cut and decided to get them baked.

thanks goodness for my double ovens!! :-)  i went to bed leaving the cookies out to completely cool so icing could begin tomorrow.  really, i think this was the easiest part.....i was feeling good, with the only side effect of the shot being a sore arm.  whew!

timeline: friday 3/19

i woke with more arm soreness, but it was not too bad.  i made a quick run to the grocery store for more powdered sugar, then logged in to my real job for another day of working from home.  i made more icing and decided which dolphin design i had sketched to use.

by about 3pm, i had 20 of the 60 cookies completed.  now i just hoped they dried hard so they could be bagged.....

after dinner i cranked out the rest of the cookies and left them to dry overnight.  i was really seeing cross-eyed by the end, but it also was relaxing once i found my groove.  i ate one of the broken cookies and was pleased with the taste - sugar cookies just seem so boring to me with there are so many other yummy flavors of cookies out there!

timeline: saturday 3/20

i waited until the afternoon to start bagging the first batch i had decorated.  it was then that i noticed that the black candy sprinkle i had used for the dolphin's eye had bled color into the surrounding icing.....oh well, nothing i could do about that at this point.  i'm thinking of it as a unique birth mark on each one....lol.  i hope my neighbor sees it that way too!!

60 bagged 4" cookies!  i did it!!!

after deducting what i had to purchase, i made a profit of about $80.  would i do it again? probably.  it was a fun little challenge.

agave a-goner

i think our front-yard agave plant might be a goner - the week of deep freezing temps did it in....i trimmed all the soft leaves off of it last weekend but it seems to be declining still....

day 2 with snow on it - 02.15.2021

day 4 - 02.17.2021

it's starting to show signs of overload and fatigue

day 5 - 02.18.2021 - getting weaker

day 7 - 02.20.2021

rather mushy, no big surprise since the inside is mostly liquid...

day 20 - 03.05.2021 - finally the day i gave it a haircut, which was not an easy task, and it smelled bad to make it just that much more unpleasant.

before:

after:

today, i noticed it is tilting forward, losing more color on the leaves it still has, and rather weak and wobbly if you touch it.  nothing to do but wait and see.

tiptoe thru the tulips

 the only other activity that i wanted to do over this year's spring break was to visit a local tulip farm.  after all the cold weather we had, i was happy to see that the farm was still on track to have a field full of blooms.  this was our first time, and it sure was a popular place today!  we waited in a car line for 20-30 minutes to even get into the parking lot, but once we were in and paid the $5/each admission, we were in business!!

there were so many varieties that i lost count, and kept finding a new "favorite"!!

of course, we could not resist posing with the gorgeous blooms!