Feeling flush?

Although most of us aren't these days, if you are feeling flush, there is an online auction that ends tomorrow with some great stuff for sale. All the money goes to the Roy family, one of the Austin Mama families who are having a crazy hard time right now. We've been doing a series of fundraisers in the past few months to help them with medical bills, and this is the one that we've been working on for awhile. The online auction ends tomorrow and there is a live auction on Saturday from 5-7 at Ruta Maya. If you are in Austin and looking for something to do on Saturday, come to the auction! Even if you're not feeling flush, there will be food and drink. Only $5 to get in.

Say cheese!

Earlier this week I suddenly got a bee in my bonnet about trying to make cheese. I think if you are going to make cheese, one requirement is the use of old colloquialisms. So, I found a place online to buy cheesemaking supplies, and gosh darn it, they had a kit for mozzarella and ricotta which said it was super easy and only took 30 minutes, although I didn't trust that as far as I could throw it. But, I ordered the kit, got a gallon of my local milk on Thursday and waited for the mail man. He brought the supplies yesterday and I immediately started. I didn't take any photos, since I wasn't sure how sensitive the whole process was and didn't want to mess it up. And I started at 5 pm, which meant I was doing it with a needy toddler clinging to my legs like shit to a shovel.

But, it turned out great. It didn't take 30 minutes, it took an hour. But it worked and it was easy as pie. Easier than making pie, actually. We're going to start having weekly pizza night with homemade pizza dough (using some of the whey) and homemade mozzarella. Yum.

Wait, Wait!

Today I got Graeme and I tickets to go to a taping of Wait, Wait don't tell me when they come in Austin in late May. We listen to the podcast of the show every week and we're really excited to go to a taping. It will be the first time they've come to Austin and I think it will be fun to be in a room full of NPR listeners. It will be liberal, geeky fun. The best kind.

Sunday sweet

Weekend recap

Not this weeked, the last one. I have been looking through the pictures to find ones to illustrate what we did during last weekend's reunion, but all the pictures are just us sitting around. No action shots, or even location shots save for one of the Gruene water tank. But we did do stuff, although we mostly sat around and talked. And talked. And talked.

On Saturday morning, we had gifts and surprises. We do secret santa gift exchanges every year, so we had those to open and we also had surprises for both Ada and Tasha. For Tasha, the rest of us had been working on a collaborative wall hanging. It had been nearly a year in the making and planning, and it was (nearly, and actually was by the end of the weekend) done. She was totally surprised and loved it. We loved it too. I think it totally matched our vision and yet was more beautiful than we expected.


The surprise for Ada was a non-wedding shower wedding non-shower, or something like that. Ada and Katja have been together for a long time now, and we wanted to celebrate and fete them with presents. Katja was present for the party through iChat, and they were both surprised and maybe a bit overwhelmed by the presents. It was so great to celebrate them.

Once the presents were done, it was nearly Kate's nap time. Once she was asleep, the five of us headed down to Maria's Taco Express for lunch and then over to South Congress for some poking around the shops and a long coffee break at Jo's. Dinner that night was fajitas at home and a fire until very late at night.


Sunday morning we decided for something a little more active and we headed out for a hike on the greenbelt. I don't remember very clearly what we did during nap, but I think we just hung around the house and some people napped while other read or knitted or just sat. That evening we went to the Salt Lick for bbq. Yum. And we perfectly timed our return into Austin to drive over the Congress bridge just as the bats were pouring out. We'd been planning to stop and watch, but the view from the slow drive by was so perfect, we just headed home for another evening by the fire.

On Monday, Graeme had to go to work, so the rest of us piled into the van for a day trip down to Gruene. Lunch at the Gristmill, some window shopping and a beautiful drive on the back roads back into Austin.

It was a perfect weekend. Now it's time to plan the next reunion.

Some photos from the weekend

It's going to take a few posts to cover the whole weekend. Let's start with my beautiful friends.

All of us - together for the first time in three years.


Sara:


Natasha:


Melody:


Ada:


Kate at the creek during our hike on Sunday morning:


And me, in the sweater I just finished knitting for myself:

Weekend recovery

My girls left this morning, and I've been spending the day recovering. Unmade extra beds, laundry, sweeping, grocery shopping. Plus just being sad about the quietness of the house. I got a nasty cold while they were here, so I'm going to have a nap. I have lots of great pictures though. I'll post some with a weekend recap later in the day.

Why am I awake?

It's 12:30 am and I'm awake. I just can't fall asleep. This is probably only the second time in my life I've had insomnia and, boy, does it suck. I have a huge list of things to do in the next two days, which is what I suspect is keeping me up. I just wrote them all down in the hopes of purging my brain. I suppose I could get caught up on some email or something. I'd really rather be sleeping.

Swimming lessons

(photos added)
Today was the first swimming lesson of the year. We did swimming lessons at this time last year and it worked really well to get Kate geared up for the cottage and pools. We definitely wanted to do it again this year especially because she gets very upset in the bath if you put her on her back in the water. She loves the bath and loves water of any type, but we were a bit nervous about this one thing.


The lesson went great. It's at the YMCA in the small, very warm, therapy pool. She loved it right from the start and even let me tip her onto her back. She was a bit nervous at first but didn't fuss at all. And by the end of class she was (very tentatively) sort of jumping into the pool to me. It's going to be a great summer of swimming.