Good to be off on Good Friday

Looks like Caterpillar's new plant is coming along very nicely in town. I sure hope they give tours when it's done. I'd love to get an inside look. All along IH10 as well as in town, you can see plenty of construction happening which may surprise some of you. It surprises us quite frequently.

Spring Flowers

More loveliness of spring blooming all around us.

Fields of Color

Today we went driving on Hwy 90A towards Gonzales in order to check on the bee yard out there. It's gorgeous along the way! If you haven't seen enough wildflowers, then you need to go out that way. I love how the blue and the red flowers are mixing in this area. Last time we were out that way (a couple of weeks), the Bluebonnets were not even around yet. This time, you can find many fields of blue. And yellow, purple, lavender, violet, white and so on. It's a great spring so far with the bright sunny days after a good dose of rain.

The Mockingbirds are back!

Now I am sure spring is in full swing because the mockingbirds are back and they are likely to start prepping their nest in our Crepe Myrtle again out front. I love it when they come back each year. Most of the nest is still there but I'm sure we'll start seeing the pair of them rebuilding and stabilizing their nest for a new batch of eggs to come. I love spring!

Red Wildflowers

The flowers are starting to really pop around here and I can't wait to see how they develop over the next month. The rainy winter should really be just what they need to shine this year. I love looking at all of them! I have not seen these red flowers in such quantity before this year. If you know what they are, please let us know. :-)

It's Spring!

Well, guess who's busy running around the yard being a nuisance? No, not Smokey. The squirrels!!! LOL. This guy has a weird sort of smile, in my opinion. After I snapped this, Mark threw a rock at him and actually hit him! That was sort of funny. Not to worry animal lovers, he was FINE. He just moved and resumed staring at us. Smokey was with us and was not amused whatsoever.

Hope you guys have a wonderful weekend. I hear tomorrow will be wet and chilly! Yay! A good day to snuggle on the couch with a book, knitting or your love. Enjoy!

Redbud Beauty

Yes, I realize there's a theme going here but who can blame me when there's a million blooming beauties all around town now?? This redbud is right in our front yard but as you drive around town, you will see this along with other gorgeous blooms. Today I even saw my first batch of Bluebonnets along Interstate 10 on the way to San Antonio.

In this shot, the female bee is checking out our redbud and she already has pollen on her hind legs, which she'll take back to a hive. That hive isn't in our backyard so I wonder where she's from. The entire tree is abuzz with bee activity! We have another redbud in the backyard and that's full of bees also.

More of Spring in Blooms

Another shot of spring for you this week. The peach tree in our backyard bloomed and we were very happy to see bees on the tree! In past years, the bees simply didn't do the job for our little tree, sadly. Maybe this will mean good peaches this year for us. :-) We don't have our hives in the yard anymore (moved to another bee yard), so I'm not sure where this little gal came from this day.

It's been really great weather lately with spring in full swing it seems. Flowers are everywhere and trees are putting out little leaves. I enjoyed our nice winter this year but I am also enjoying the spring. Tonight we are to have some rain and tomorrow will be in the upper 50s but after that...more sunshine! That's great for lifting spirits I think. We could all use a lot of that, right?! Hope you all have a great week.

Spring in Bloom

The past few days have been a bit on the dreary side but last weekend, we did enjoy an absolutely gorgeous day that beckoned us out. So, out we ventured to visit our bees, which was just awesome! And...NO stings! Yay! That makes like seven or eight straight visits without a sting so that is awesome to me. :-)

Isn't this beautiful? It's flowers on bok choy that is growing at My Father's Farm. Normally, they would not get to "flower" since they'd be harvested before that point. We are so lucky and so are our bees - the farmer let these go to flower so they'd have food! And boy, were they enjoying the bok choy. It was really fun to visit there.

Nice Napping Weather

Hi everyone. I hope you had a chance to enjoy the lovely weather of the weekend since we are now cloudy and cold again. What strange weather. This is Smokey's idea of how to work with a beautiful sunny day. He got tired of sitting at the door, hoping Mark would let him in to hang out in the bee house. The next time I looked out the kitchen window, he was napping. He's a riot. But not very bright at times as he chose a terrible spot for a snooze.

I haven't posted lately because I haven't had the heart. Last Friday, we had a big round of layoffs at work and it was very sad. I lost my entire team of trainers and I miss them so. Please send positive thoughts and prayers out to all the families affected by this round of layoffs. It wasn't our first there but it was a very significant one, especially for our IT department. If you are local, you've probably been hearing about the layoffs already. We are all still a bit stunned by all that occurred Friday. :-(

Don't Recollect Their Names

Hi everyone. I have been down with some health issues lately so I'm not publishing regularly but I just had to share this bit of news with you in case you can join us tomorrow night at the local library. This is Mark's second presentation and it ties in with the book #2 he's been working on about how to use different types of records to confirm the identities of individuals being researched. He's presented this one already in Corpus Christi and San Antonio and those went very well. It's always exciting for me to see how he helps other researchers find new avenues to explore in order to get beyond roadblocks they may have encountered.

I'm feeling better and plan to be at this event so I hope you will be there, too! If you are, please be sure to introduce yourself if we haven't met. I love to meet new people who follow the blog. Well, I just love to meet new people anyway, even if they don't read the blog. :-)

Sky Watch

Thank goodness it's Friday tomorrow. The week has flown by and I sure feel tired so I'm just going to say goodnight. But before I do that, here's a shot of a sunset I shot while visiting another potential bee yard with Mark recently. What a great sky we saw that night.

For more of this week's great sky shots, be sure to visit the Sky Watch page. Good night folks!

Kolbe Flower Shop

Did everyone survive the crazy weekend? I hope you had a nice one with the beautiful weather! For Valentine's Day, I received a beautiful arrangement of flowers from one of the nicest flower shops in town - Kolbe Flower Shop on Austin Street. I love their quaint shop and the service is awesome there. They also did an arrangement for our wedding and Mark's gotten me numerous gifts there (thanks honey!). Below is one of the pretty flowers from my special gift. :-)

Valentine Preparedness

Are you ready for tomorrow? If not, you should get in your car and head over HEB on Court Street. Along the way, you will see vendors selling flowers, perfume, gift baskets, balloons and who knows what else. I saw all of that as I drove to HEB to pick up some groceries and flowers for Tet tomorrow. These are shots at the store - there were a lot of folks looking and buying Valentine's Day goodies. I liked the orchids they had (right side of the top shot). Cupid was good to me and brought my flowers early :-). Thanks hon!

Beautiful Birds on a Beautiful Day

Does anyone know what these birds are called? I don't recall ever seeing them here in our yard before last weekend and I am fascinated by them. They're gorgeous. And they provided me with my first photography session in a long while. I saw a bird commotion while looking out the kitchen window and after a few shots from inside, I went out, accompanied by Smokey. That was interesting.



Got some great shots and a cool video of them (on YouTube if you want to see it) doing their bird thing, whatever that was. I couldn't tell if they were drinking or eating. I have never seen birds gather like that in that hole in the pecan tree. I have, however, seen squirrel activity up there. Perhaps the birds got into a stash hidden by the squirrels. Not sure and it's too high up for me to check. Darn.

The beautiful blue sky day last just Saturday. It's been cold, gray and rainy since Sunday and we are all ready for some sunshine. The great news is that the rain will hopefully mean gloriously rich fields of color as the wildflowers bloom this year. I'm hoping for millions of wildflowers. I miss them so and our drought last year meant very few flowers. It was so sad. Here's to a better year this time around.

Speaking of starting off a new year, guess what Sunday is? NOT just Valentine's Day. Guess.

Goat Sighting

So here's a sight you just don't see everyday, right? Well that's what I thought last week when the goats had gotten out from a nearby field and were grazing on the luxurious field across from our mill. At that time, there was too much traffic to stop and get a shot. THIS week, they are at it again! And since they were right next to the road, I just stopped at my stop sign, lowered my passenger window and snapped a shot or two. It made me laugh to see them. Reminds me of that Brady Bunch episode with the goat in the attic...

Durango's Mexican Restaurant

If you haven't been to our new Durango's, then I would recommend it. Very yummy breakfast, great service with a great smile and a very inviting environment in which to enjoy your food. Mark took me to breakfast this morning before we both went our separate ways to our separate work.

This is located near HEB, behind the Baytown restaurant, which we haven't been to yet but a friend of mine said he and his wife enjoyed the food there and recommended it also. I'm beginning to think I am turning this into a tour of food/restaurants. :-) But that's part of the fun of exploring our little town. Now, if I could just see a great Thai or Vietnamese place...

Local Office Depot

Today we had a gorgeous day though a bit on the nippy side. Check out our gorgeous blue sky! We had a lovely lunch with wonderful friends at a Mexican restaurant I had not tried before, Casa del Sol (very good chicken flautas, great service and clean environment). Afterwards, we stopped by the office supply store in town to pick up some organization tools - hanging folders, folder bins and a label maker! Isn't it cute?



Technology and the convenience it affords us these days continues to amaze me on a daily basis. This gadget was pretty affordable, compact and required no special software to be loaded on your computer. Very nice. I don't like bogging down computer performance with a ton of applications on the hard-drive. Anyway, it was so easy to use! You plug it into the USB port and it pops up a window and you start typing your labels. Though not a fancy model, you can still edit with simple graphics and font styling. Amazing. We are now organizing like crazy. Well, Mark is. :-)

I SHOULD be organizing. Instead, I am making soup! One of my favorites that I have not made in a while - lima bean and pork riblets soup. I'll let you know how it goes. I posted about it in January 2008 on La China blog if you would like to see what the soup looks like.

A Friendly Friday Face

Happy Friday everyone!! :-) I was a bit under earlier this week but thankfully it was just a 24 hour bug and not that yucky stomach virus going around (knock on virtual wood). Yikes. That one sounds bad though a friend of mine said he lost six pounds and used it as a launching pad for his purge and the beginning of hardcore dieting. What a great way to look at a stomach virus, right? lol

Here's a sweet new friend I made while I was photographing Mark out at the bee yard at My Father's Farm. I've seen this horse from afar but last week he actually came over and let me say hi and pet him a bit. He seems very calm and peaceful and he comes over to check us out now and then when we are looking at the bees.

This is one of the wonderful things about living in a small town like Seguin and being very near "the country." You can drive a few minutes and see some great landscape and all sorts of farm animals. And wild ones here and there. It's very peaceful and I enjoy it despite missing San Antonio and other cities of my past. But I only miss them occasionally. :-)

The Shrimp Barn

I've been meaning to post about this restaurant for about a month now! My friend Hope had told me about it and raved about the delicious food so I went with some girlfriends for a Christmas lunch and gift exchange. We loved it!



This is the plate I got. I can't recall the number or name but I believe it's the seafood combination, which includes shrimp and crabcake. It was yummy though I still feel no one has matched my mom's crab cakes. Still, this was a great lunch. The salad bar includes gumbo, which is awesome. Just the right amount of okra - it's always disappointing when you get gumbo and there's only two pieces in there.



And these rolls are baked fresh everyday we were told! The restaurant is SMALL so when you go, go early, late or plan to wait. It's worth it, however. The facility was very clean and the staff was super nice! It's the kind of restaurant that makes our small town awesome and welcoming. Go try it out!

Welcome Back!

To us, that is! Hi everyone. I wanted to get a quick post in before I head to bed. It's been a busy week and an even busier day as we spent most of it tending to the bees at the farm location. That was a lot of fun. I had not seen any of the bees in over a month since Mark checks on them during the week typically and I'm at work those days.

We've been traveling quite a bit lately to get supplies and equipment ready for this year's beekeeping activities. This last trip took us to Georgia but we took a detour to visit my side of the family in Florida. It was wonderful to see them even if it was just for an evening and the next morning. This is a shot from my parents' front yard and in the shadows, you can make out Lake Louisa. Very pretty. So yea, I know it's not Seguin. But since I wasn't in Seguin this week, I've got to share this one with you.

I hope you all have had wonderful weeks and that your weekend will be even better! :-)

A cold, cold January

It's been a while and I realized I had not written since the first of the year! Sorry folks! It's just been busy I guess and time got away from me. I hope everyone's year is getting off to a GREAT start! Our year is wonderful so far and we can't complain.

The weather's actually been rather exciting this winter. For one thing, it's actually COLD. I've been here almost fifteen years now and my body feels it more than when I first got here. It's okay, though, because I love cold weather since that means I get can all layered up and wear my favorite hat and scarves. This week was mild but before this we actually were in the 30s quite a bit with several nights in the 20s. Wind chill lower than that. Cold for south Texas for sure.

The second thing about the weather is that we've been getting plenty of rain! Woo hoo! You know what that means after a brutally hot, dry summer. WILDFLOWERS this year! Last year I was so sad that we had barely a wildflower in the area due to the drought. :-( So let's hope this year will be gloriously lush with blooms! Some of the trees and plants seem to have been hit a little hard by the freezing temperatures while others seem okay. I planted some potted plants recently and luckily they seem to be holding up just fine.

Welcome 2010!

Hope everyone had a wonderful day on this first day of 2010! Did you party hard last night? :-) Hope today found you safe and sound and happy for a fresh new start.

Now don't get too excited...Apple's not in Seguin (unfortunately!). I'd be happy if we could start with getting Target here in town. Who knows, maybe with Caterpillar and its affiliates coming to town, we MIGHT be able to finally get more high end retail in town. We'll see.

Anyway, we rolled into the new year by having an absolutely marvelous day together on a gorgeous day! The sky was blue as can be and the temperature was wonderful in the 50s. Mark's sister came and hung out for a while and brought a wonderful lintyl soup for us all and then we ran into SA to celebrate a very early birthday for my love. This has been an Apple sort of holiday season for us both. We both now have either an iTouch or an iPhone and LOVE them. Technology can be so darn cool, it is totally amazing! I love it. And the service is pretty darn impressive at the Apple Store. That's just so hard to find these days so it's refreshing.

Sky Watch

Happy new year, everyone! Hope you have a very safe and wonderful evening. Be careful out there!

Shot this sky last Sunday evening as we were driving out to a friend's home for dinner. It was so spectacular and beautiful. Great thing Mark drove so I could shoot out the window! :-)

Check out Sky Watch this week for other great shots.

I'm back!

I hope everyone's had a nice Christmas holiday so far and that you have a great new year coming up soon. Be safe!

These are some snowflakes I quilled out of paper I had. Then they were glued to card stock and crafted into a little card for friends and family. Yay! I finally ventured beyond Valentine's hearts like I normally make for folks! :-)

I've been having some technical issues these past couple of weeks. Well, quite a few actually, so that's why I have not posted. Hopefully I am on the mend though I seem to be pushing my luck tonight since this post is not looking quite like I planned. So I will say goodnight for now. It's nice to back though.

Sky Watch Friday

This was a shot I snapped when I was roaming around, away from the bees that Mark and a friend were placing at My Father's Farm, an organic vegetables farm that is now home to ten of our hives. I haven't had time to take more pictures of the farming operation but I will soon. I have been wanting to take a closer look at what's currently growing in the garden. I know I saw great looking cilantro when we dropped off the bees. :-)

Be sure to check out other wonderful sky shots today at the official Sky Watch site! Have a wonderful day, everyone!

Boxed & Shipped

We made it to the post office today during lunch so that we can get these boxes shipped off to family and a friend. Today was the last day to ship in time for Christmas using parcel post and even with that they couldn't absolutely guarantee it'd get there in time. This year, we noticed that with priority mail, if our box exceeded certain measurements, they were going to tag on some surcharge. WHAT?? When did that happen?? I guess I should have thought to read the US Postal Service site or something. I just had not heard of that and on some of our boxes, it more than doubled the priority mail cost. Needless to say, those went parcel post. Hmm...might be time to look at FedEx and UPS next year. :-)

CMC Christmas Party

Today we attended the CMC Christmas Party and had a very wonderful time. Even during these touch economic times, the company still held to tradition and I think that does a lot for employee morale. We are very active in the community and I am so proud to be a part of it.

I won a door prize and so did my friend Sonia! But more than that, I really love seeing everyone together and I always have a great time working the gift table where we distribute gifts to each employee and their family. Fun! I got to work with a friend and I also met someone from another department. I am very thankful for a great group of coworkers at CMC Steel Texas! It's great to be able to enjoy this cool event.

Spurs Love

Despite a bit of a slump, I still love my Spurs. Going through pictures for posting, I wanted to share something fun that makes me happy to kick the week off right! Here's my favorite mascot ever - the Coyote rocks and so do the wonderful Spurs. They are a great part of the community, not just in SA but in all the surrounding areas. This was at a fan appreciation event last week and I am really glad we went. That day had been a really rough day for me at work and it lifted my spirits to be with Mark, having fun at the Spurs event.

Hope everyone has a great week!

Skywatch Friday

Good morning, everyone! What a wonderful Friday it's going to be for me. I am on VACATION today! Though I'm not traveling anywhere, I have a packed day and a busy weekend lined up for myself and I'm looking foward to some Thien time.

It's pretty cold outside and we wait expectantly for some white fluff to fall from the sky. I so miss seeing snow but I'm not going to hold my breath today. I'm just happy it's cold. I can't really get into the holidays if it's 80 degrees! :-)

This is my Skywatch shot for this week. This is off FM 775 on the outskirts of Seguin at My Father's Farm, which is a farm growing all sorts of organic veggies they take to local markets. (That's a separate post for sure.) This is the bees' new home and in the shot, Mark and our friend's son, Chris, are unloading the ten heavy hives and placing them on their stands. Here's a shot of them placed -



As some of you know, we recently drove to Mississippi to pick up some bees from JN Russell of Russell Apiaries. Very fun time - roadtrips with Mark are awesome! Snacks, laughs and lots o' bees. But NO stings! Yay!

Check out the other Skywatchers also! Great shots this week.

A Visit to Green Gate Nursery

Before we left on our pick-up-the-bees trip, I went to Green Gate to pick up a pretty poinsetta for our daughter and her husband. If you haven't been to Green Gate lately, you should go soon. Christmas is one of my favorite times to go because of all the beautiful plants they have for gift giving and decorating your own home. The poinsettas are always lovely, as was the case when I went so it took me some time to decide. In the end, I went with pink since I know Melissa likes that color and it's pretty unique. I love pink, too!



I posted about Green Gate and a certain bird back in 2007 also.

Bill Miller Pies

Yesterday a big group of us from work met at Bill Miller in order to celebrate a friend's birthday (yay Terry!). It's located along Interstate 10 and should be seeing a lot of business from all the workers building the Caterpillar site.

I noticed all the activity in the back room and watched several workers getting pies into pie boxes and found it fascinating. They were moving pretty fast - I would have worried about dropping pies. I am getting clumsier by the year it seems. lol. Anyway, there were all sorts of pies ready to go for ordering in, taking out for now and taking out for Thanksgiving! I opted for vegetable beef soup (very yummy) and a baked potato. For Mark, I took soup and a peach cobbler to go.

I hope you all have a wonderful Thanksgiving break with family and friends. May it be filled with love and happiness as we are blessed with so much to be grateful for in our lives.

Book Talk - Corpus Christi Public Library

The weekend before last, we went to Corpus Christ for another presentation about the research Mark is doing for his books (book #2 in process). The library system there is celebrating their 100th birthday and all year there are keynote speakers visiting their fair city, with former first lady Laura Bush headlining. :-) Pretty neat stuff. We had a great time on our little getaway. Mark gave a great presentation about how to use local resources in doing African American genealogical research. We had local customers as well as library staff in attendance so it was a lot of fun.

Green Pastures

Shot this one on a trip around the outskirts of Seguin one weekend. I love seeing the new babies out in the field - they're so cute! And even cuter when they stare at you from the field.

Bank Cameras

This is new at our bank, Randolph Brooks. It allowed us to see our bank teller as we completed our transaction and I assume she could see us also. Pretty neat since it's nice to have a face to go with the voice.

Sky Watch Friday

It's another beautiful south Texas sky for your viewing pleasure. :-) Isn't it a great looking spot? I snapped this on one of our jaunts around the countryside around Seguin. I always enjoying exploring new areas (and even familiar ones) with Mark. It's one of the ways we like to relax - cruising and talking or listening to music. Check out other Sky Watchers this week for more great sky shots.

I just got home from Irving this evening and I must say it's been the best trip I've had in a very long time. I actually was there to do training observation and assessment. Nice. I love doing that sort of work. And writing up trainer evaluation. So the big news for me is that I am transitioning from my current role to a new one that will allow me to focus on what I love -- trainer development and training delivery. Monday my replacement and new boss will be joining the company. I am VERY happy about this! And because I have an abundance of that great feeling right now, I hope that you will also have a wonderful day tomorrow that will bring you the same happiness that I feel right now. Have a great one!

City Cleaners

Here's our cleaners we like to visit. Mark's been going to them for many years now and I take my things there also whenever I need special care for my clothes. This is family run and they are really nice folks who remember you and if you forget a Spurs pin on your lapel (several times), they will keep it safe for you. :-) We like frequenting family operated business like City Cleaners.

Downtown Seguin

Gosh it's been a tiring week and today was another eventful and draining day at work. It's the weekend, however, so that's a chance to relax and do fun things for ourselves. This evening we started with another great workout at the Wellness Center, a yummy pizza (yah! no cooking!), a great visit from my step-daughter Melissa, playing online, finishing up my James Rollins book and watching the Spurs (though they are losing, again!).

I was going through some pictures I snapped recently and I liked this one enough to share. I shot this downtown on River Street, just outside the doors to City Cleaners. I'll post about them soon since we like taking our clothes there. As you can tell, it was a gorgeous day with a beautiful sky to go with it.

Tomorrow's fun? Bee activities and then lunch with a great friend from SA. Hope you all have a wonderful weekend!

Sky Watch Friday

Hello everyone and happy Friday. The Caterpillar plant is coming along nicely and looks to be quite a big and great looking site. And lately, the weather has been absolutely gorgeous here! It's been a great fall so far with an awesome amount of cool days of sunshine and slightly chilly nights. I love it like this. As you can tell from the green of the grass and the amount of water in the retention pond, we've been getting a decent amount of rain finally. Things are blooming still and everything's beautifully lush.

I pass this site going to and coming home from work. All I have to do on the way home is pull up to the light at Kingbury, roll down the window, point and shoot. Hence the power lines. I could have edited out them out using PhotoShop but most of the time, I like to keep my stuff simple and unaltered. :-) Maybe next time, I will park and cross the road for a clear shot. Maybe. It's a busy intersection.

Be sure to check out other Sky Watchers if you want to see some cool shots of skies around the country and world.