Greetings from Irving, everyone.Here's a shot from the garden - it's amazing how fast it's growing with a little rain! Though we are a little late putting the seeds in, we still enjoyed doing it and we'll just have to see how they do. I love the way the cover of the seed is being pushed off here. Looks pretty neat to me.
We pass this lovely cactus on our walks and yesterday during my outting, I approached it from a different direction and I'm so glad I did. This little heart caught my eyes immediately! It made me very happy to see such beauty. It also made me realize that sometimes you just have to take a new approach in order to fully appreciate the situation. And while it helps to do so with your eyes wide open, maybe it's even more important to keep your heart and mind open as well.
This morning I ran a bunch of errands while Mark rested as he was feeling a bit under the weather. There were so many people out and about today since Trade Days happened down on the square (I have blogged about this before) so it seemed like everyone took advantage of the event and tagged on their own yard/garage sale or cookout fundraiser. All I know is that there was a ton of traffic. Not SA "ton" but a lot for our little town. While I was out and about, I took some time to just roam around and enjoy the blooming beauties about town. Not only are the gardens fully engaged (though ours is a bit behind since we waited so long), but there are plenty of flowers to enjoy as well. I shot this along Camp Street. The wind was gusting a bit and it was fun to try and sneak in some shots between gusts. I like this one because it reminds me of the fun I had trying to beat the wind. To me, I can feel the wind in this shot.All I think about when I see flowers now is that our little bees are hopefully enjoying all the pollen! :) They are doing well. We took a look at the three backyard hives and they were active. We watched them for a while and noted that they were carrying in plenty of pollen on their little legs. So cute. And the pollen was all different colors. I really enjoyed it. Smokey sat with us for a while also. He loves it when we're out there with him. He's so like a little kid sometimes.What we did this evening and are doing now:- Went shopping for work clothes for me. Thanks honey! Mark gives awesome fashion advice and I really trust his opinion on my outfits!
- Had dinner at the Noodle House in SA. We both did pho. Yum.
- Listening to Diana Krall. I love her!
- Blogging and loading pictures onto Flickr.
- Mark's playing with his new webcam. Now I can see him when I'm on the road!
- Thinking about work. And what I SHOULD be doing. :-\
Hi everyone, I'm back in Seguin again. Last time I went with Mark to check on the country bees, we noticed the prickly pears were starting to bloom. I love the beautiful yellow of the blooms and if you drive around right now, you'll notice many of the cacti are in bloom. I hope the bees are enjoying them and I hope you all have a great weekend!
The green of the new leaves coming out on the Hackberry tree out back is really refreshing. Though I'm not looking forward to the hot days of spring/summer, it is nice to see things blooming and budding. Green is beautiful. This past weekend we got about two inches of rain! We sure needed it and could still use more. It'd be great if we could get an inch a week for a while (at the least)...still in drought around here. But beggers can't be choosers so I'm very happy with what we did receive.We're about to head off for game two of the Spurs/Mavs series. Ugh. Can't believe we lost the first game to them. And at home! Oh well, I won't dwell on it. I'll just go and enjoy tonight since it could possibly be our last home game. I hope not but you never know! :)
We just got back from exercising and then dropping of the first round tickets to friends who share our season tickets package with us. We play the Dallas Mavericks in the first round and the first game is tomorrow night! Go Spurs!In case you haven't noticed, I'm a huge Spurs fan. My coworkers here are teasing me that I must now be a Mavs fan since I go to Dallas all the time. Let's get this straight....I go to work. Not to see the Mavs. And the only time I would see the Mavs would be if the Spurs were also in the house. :-)
I'm back from Dallas. It has been a really hectic week so sorry for no posting. I'm so happy to be home though I did enjoy seeing folks up at Corporate office. Here's a shot of a soothing flower that makes me feel calm and tranquil. I hope everyone's had a good week. Happy Friday tomorrow!
I hope everyone has had a wonderful Easter today. We started off with our baskets...yum! I got these cute M&Ms and my favorite -- marshmallow bunnies. :) Mark got a good looking basket also and then we enjoyed a great breakfast of pancakes, eggs and bacon. After that, off to see the 9am youth presentation at church -- the kids did a GREAT job reciting their lines they learned about the meaning of Easter. It was soooooo sweet. After service we had a great lunch at Chili's with our friends and then home to a nice, long nap. The evening was also very nice as we enjoyed baked rosemary chicken for dinner. This has been a wonderful, wonderful weekend! I hope you all have a great week!
Here's another shot of when Mark "installed" the queen to one of our city hives in the yard. I was fascinated by how quickly the bees smelled her and gathered round. And as I watched them clammer all over her little box, I can see why she needs a little protection at first! I learned that it may take our bees a little time to get use to their new queen. And if we're lucky, they will like her and start feeding and caring for her. The other scenario would be that they don't like her and they will kill her. Then you hope they make a queen or you hope you find out soon enough that they killed her and you place another queen in there, if you happen to have another one on hand. :) So far, so good for our hives. Mark checked on them yesterday and all three hives in the yard appear to be doing just fine. That's great news to hear! I have enjoyed being home again. Man, last week was gruelling but awesome up at our corporate office in Irving. I am really enjoying my visits up there because I can see how it helps us move along on our projects. Face-to-face is just necessary at times, especially since many people don't know who I am. :) BUT....being home rocks. AND having yesterday off helped me recover and catch up on sleep. I should be able to attack next week with gusto. Hope everyone has a wonderful Easter!
So it's not Seguin...but I didn't think anyone would mind seeing Navasota's wildflowers since we didn't have any to speak of around here. After we got the bees, Mark helped me find nice spots to snap photos of the flowers. It was gorgeous! Before I came to Texas, I had no idea what a Bluebonnet was and once I saw my first blue sea of bonnets, I was in love. It's breathtaking when you see a field of them! I got some great shots of the flowers and it was all worth the fall I took while trying to get to the field. I think my excitment got the best of me and I didn't see the barbwire on the ground so my feet got tangled in it all and I went face down...hard and fast! Mark said one second I was there and then next blink I was gone. All I know is that I was stunned. Too stunned to yelp or scream and then I was motionless for a little bit. It was funny, it really was. I save the camera in my left hand and the phone in my right. My forearms arm are bruised and upper arms hurt but all of that is subsiding already and I'm grateful I didn't break anything, camera or body. :) Like I said, the photos made up for it. But I do notice my body is NOT as forgiving as it once was.
Last week was a real challenge at work and I was too exhausted to catch up on blogging so forgive me. I decided to give myself the weekend to just chill out, regroup and re-assess where I'm at, where I need to go and how I should get there. Do you ever feel like there are so many things coming at you -- people, email, phone calls, your projects, other people's projects, everything -- that you don't even know when you're suppose to stop to think? I don't often feel that way but I did last week and it weighed on me heavily. Anyway, I won't dwell on it here. What I will say is this...it felt GREAT to disconnect from the computer and work Friday as we headed off to Lake Jackson and Navasota in order to see family and to do a little beekeeping business. I had a blast!We have family in Lake J so we went to visit overnight and also to pick up Mark's uncle, with whom he kept bees in the past. Lake J is near Houston and the drive was really nice and relaxing. It was really fun to catch up with them all but early Saturday, we had a hearty breakfast and then we headed out on a two hour drive to Navasota. There we visited Bee Weaver Apiaries in order to pick up three queens Mark ordered some time ago. It was my first time in that area and I was so pleasantly surprised by how lovely the countryside is there! It looks more lush than here and once we were in Navasota, the rolling hills with ponds and wildflowers just wiped away all the stresses I had. It was just what the doctor ordered. Thanks for taking me away honey.The picture above is a little box with one of our new queens in it. Here we have arrived home and Mark was prepping the hive in order to place the queen in there. The bees buzzing on top of the little box are our City Bees, checking out the queen, whose scent they detected rather quickly. If you want to see other shots of our beekeeping fun, you can click on the picture and it will take you to my Flickr page. I have so much to share but I will end it here as this is long enough. I'll share more with you soon. I still have to tell you about my little tumble all in the name of photography. It was worth it but I'm still sore. :)
This evening I am feeling somewhat rebellious....I am not checking my work email. Well, I tried earlier but kept having some tech issues so I got out slightly frustrated. It's been a long, tiring week and I feel absolutely drained. I think I could have gone straight to bed when I got home. I don't want anyone to feel bad for me; I often find writing helps me to let go of things - writing therapy. We have so much going on at work but I still enjoy being there and as always, I am learning so much everyday. And I am so blessed to have encountered plenty of wonderfully nice people to balance out the not-so-sunny personalities.Anyway, to escape a bit, I did or am doing the following this evening:- Watched Mark finish up splitting the hive in the backyard. Now there are three!!! I'll snap it in good day light.
- Went for Chinese food. Comfort food. Some nights, you simply do not feel like cooking.
- Listened to Mark tell me all about his day with the bees! I wish I could have watched him split the hives of Country Bees.
- Learned that the queen bee does not just walk out the hive "door." One of the hives did not have a queen and Mark has theorized about how that could have happened...that's another post altogether.
- Cruised around town, talking through things that concern me with the greatest guy ever. You know who.
- Talked to my niece about things. Laughed.
- Missed all my nieces and nephews.
- Caught up A BIT with blogging and Flickr. Just a bit. Oh, and Facebook too.
- Listening now to some of my favorite songs, currently we're on Yoyo Ma essentials.
- Got showered and into my softest jammies.
You know something? I don't think the recession has fully hit Seguin the way it has in other areas of the US. If you look around our little town, you will see a LOT of construction activities, including this project. It's an expansion to our tiny, tiny hospital. I'm very glad to see that it's very modern looking with plenty of windows. The original structure is one story and quite dated. Good for us for modernizing!We're suppose to get Caterpiller in here but I'm still waiting to see construction. Meanwhile, I have already posted about the GVEC office going up and there's school construction as well. The only thing not moving is the housing market. There are plenty of very nice homes in Seguin that would have flown off the market in about a week if you were shopping three years ago. Now we have some great houses that have had signs in the front yard for a long, long time. Rough time to try and sell. We're very happy sitting tight with our little old house. :)
I love sunsets. We saw this one on the way home from Dallas the other evening. It's not technically Seguin but it's what I want to share this week. Sorry for the lack of posts. It was pretty busy in Dallas and then we hit the ground running when we got back to Seguin. Work certainly is interesting and I continue to learn a lot every single day. These days I am working very hard to try and be a better person. I try to be positive and it's not hard most of the time. I am so happy these days and so thankful of all I have that it makes me want to make other people happy or better or anything positive. Even if it's simply a smile or sharing a joke or stopping by for a hug or editing their work for them. And it sounds like a cliche but you know what? It actually ends up making ME feel good to make someone else's day a little better. Anyway, I don't know why I'm all sappy today. I love our new high activity level at work but I do miss my old team and the quiet spells we used to enjoy in our old corner office...listening to music, laughing with friends, working in our little training world...I think those days are gone forever for us.Be sure to check out other Sky Watch photos this week! There is always a ton of gorgeous skies to check out from other bloggers.
It was 87 degrees today. And the allergens were killing me and Mark. Blah. And the Spurs lost to the Rockets by one point. And we went to a Spurs Fan Event but no autographed winnings this year. Oh well. And my head is hurting.On to better news and a brighter look on things more important...we got tomatoes on the plants!!! Mark pointed out four of them. I love the way they smell right now. When you get close, you can smell the fragrant plants and it's wonderful. Gives me a nice feeling. Busy week for us with travel here and there. So if you don't see a post for a day or two, that's why. Take care and I hope you all have a great week.
We need your energy and your wild, wild games! We lost to the Celtics last night. And Texas just lost to the Dukies. :(Got pretty warm today again. I was helping Mark out in the yard a bit and I went to check on the bees in the backyard. There were a number of them hanging out at the entrance though I did see many carrying in pollen. I told Mark they were doing something and he came to check them out. He pointed out to me how they were checking out every bee coming and going. And they were pushing out the bees that didn't belong to the hive...ROBBER BEES! Shame on them. Mark says that the bees have the queen's scent and if they don't, then the hive's bees know it and kick them out. That is so cool to me! They sure a interesting and smart little creatures.
Tonight the Spurs play the Celtics -- GO SPURS!!! First quarter looked pretty good except the last play. Not good. I saw these shoes at the last game we went to this month...cool! I liked them a lot.I'm so glad today is Friday. It's been another exhausting week but a good one. Yesterday I had some friends do a work intervention...no emailing or working late into the night. LOL. But how am I suppose to get through emails if I don't do that, especially since during the day I spend most of my time in meetings. Hmm. Well, last night I met my best friend in San Antonio and we had the best time catching up after months of not seeing each other! We ate at Pei Wei at Huebner (not impressed though I did like the edamame) and then a great cup of coffee at the Grind, which is in the same shopping center. That Huebner area is crazy! After driving into SA traffic around 6:30p, I am reminded of why I really like living in a small town. No doubt our traffic jams are WAY BETTER than SA's. I miss living there, but not the traffic. :)Bee update: It's warm (upper 80s) this week so they are really active. Mark says the bees in the country are doing well. I'm going to have to think of names for our backyard bees and our country bees. :) Oh, maybe I'll call them City Bees (since we live near downtown Seguin) and Country Bees. Ok, so Country Bees are great and Mark saw the first drones. I call them the Queen's Mates. She has lots of them, which is fantastic since that will help our hives grow. The City Bees are also doing great. As a matter of fact, the other day after work, I went outside to check on Mark as he worked on his shed project and I saw that the bees were very active. They were flying everywhere and all over the hive. Mark reminded me that they were on their "first flight" and I thought it was really neat! Our little baby bees were everywhere. There were so cute...I don't know how to explain it but you notice they are flying differently but you don't know what is it. Well, I didn't. But Mark did. Good thing I got myself a real beekeeper to teach me these things.Here's a different Bee First: this week, a sweet little bee landed on my arm as we stood on the deck. I remained calm with Mark's coaching and i watched as she wiggled her little body, especially her rear end. And I just kept thinking she's going to sting me. But then she flew off. And Mark said she left me a present...she POOPED on my arm!!!! It was hilarious. I didn't even know bees did that. It wasn't bad but I won't go into details here. If you really want to know, ask me if you see me out and about. LOL. Have a great weekend!
GVEC is building a new office and it looks great! I can't wait to check it out when they open to the public. What I like is that it's not just another metal building...this one looks nice and that's what we need more of in Seguin. PLUS it seems to be pretty "green." It made me happy to see wind and solar energy set up there and they also had what looked like rainwater collection tanks. I'll investigate more when construction is complete. I love the blades here. Looks cool!
It's ten o'clock and I'm hungry. And I would love to have this plate in front of me right now. I love breakfast anytime of the day!!! I shot this at our local Int'l. House of Pancakes (IHOP) a few weeks ago. Yum. The Spurs just won. I'm still working on work emails. Well, I took this break to post. And I'm hungry. Oh, I think I wrote that already, right. LOL. Sorry!I like work. I wish I had more time for everything. I love our training projects. I love meeting and getting to know new people. I love that there are a lot of fun and wonderful people at work. I love that I laugh so hard on so many days that it doesn't even "feel" like work sometimes. I'm a lucky girl.Okay, back to work. I'm excited about tomorrow. Mark and I made a breakfast date before work. Nice!One last note. Mark started working his workshop out back. That means he's tearing down the old shed and taking down one of the trees blocking that space. I wish I could be home to help him because it sounds like quite an adventure! What with the ladder falling over, Mark straddling beams like a gymnast and then the "oh, I just hurled myself to the ground once the wood gave way..." WHAAAAT???? He really had me rolling with his stories at lunch time. That man is hilarious.
Today I saw turkeys just outside the plant -- it was so neat because I've never seen any out in the "wild" before! I was told that the male turkey is called a tom and the females are hens. Learn something new everyday. I liked those names. So in the first picture they are wandering quite peacefully out in the field across from the mill. Occasionally, the tom would puff up; guess it's mating season, perhaps. Anyone know about turkey calendars?
Of course I feel compelled to pull over for photos. I mean really...I'm almost forty and this is the first time I've seen this so no telling how long it'd be before I see turkeys out and about like this. So, I'm amazed and I think it's neat to see this but then I also start to worry about what a nuisance the tom is making of himself. He was attacking every vehicle that passed by slowly enough for him to peck. He was going for the tires. It was getting to be quite a traffic distraction, especially since it was a little after five o'clock and people were leaving the plant. On the one hand, you don't want to hit and kill the bird so you slow down. But on the other hand, if you slow down or stop, he attacks your tires and then you don't know if you should move for fear of killing the crazy bird. 
Of course, I think it's hilarious until he spots me and moves in to attack. Those turkeys are NOT pretty up close. LOL, almost as appealing as a goose chasing you down (had that happen before in NC). Anyway, he wasn't a cooperative subject and he was staring me down pretty good so I decided it was a good time to leave. That was a great way to end the day. My friend called to make sure I had seen and photographed the birds and we had a great laugh over it all. I think every work day should end on an interesting note such as this.
