Mom's gotta brag

I know I have been MIA for a while.  We recently returned from 2+ weeks in Turkey and Greece!  We flew to Istanbul, where Mike visited MD Anderson's Radiation Therapy facility at the American Hospital.  We spent three days in Istanbul, then took a Windstar Cruise from Istanbul to Athens, stopping at Ephesus, Rhodes, Bodrum, Santorini and Mykonos along the way.  It was fabulous! After two days in Athens (the Acropolis is amazing), we flew back to Istanbul for two more days of sight-seeing.  It was really a once-in-a-lifetime experience.  I have 600+ unedited photos on Flickr, if you want to plod through them...this one of us was taken on the Bosphorus, under the bridge from Europe to Asia. 

When we returned, I found this book awaiting me.  I had pre-ordered it from Amazon because my beautiful and very talented daughter did all the photography for it!  Pretty awesome, huh?

I LOVE the internet!!!

I know, I know... I have been a very bad blogger. It just seems that I have been very busy lately, working a fair amount and getting organized for some upcoming travel. We are going on a trip to India (yes, INDIA) next month and have been trying to get that all in order. We have our tickets from Houston to New Dehli, but still have lots to do in preparation for the trip. Our ultimate destination in Hyderbad, where Mike will be giving several presentations at AMPICON. Today we got online to fill out our visa applications, which I will take to Travisa Outsourcing on Tuesday with our passports and, oh yes, the obligatory passport pictures. Now we could just drive over to Walgreen's and spend the $12 to have some high school student take some really bad pictures of us, but I thought "There must be a better way." And there is. I Googled "passport photos" and the second hit was http://www.epassportphoto.com/. Five minutes later I had this:



Probably the best passport pictures he has ever had taken, for only the cost of photo paper and ink. Now I just have to get him to take one of me. I'm sure I will be more critical of mine.

Technical difficulties

I know I promised a real blog post yesterday, but we had a big thunderstorm in the afternoon which caused us to lose power momentarily, and also caused our DSL to go out. I still don't know if it is a problem with the line or if the modem is fried. I am working today, but hopefully tomorrow I will be able buy a new modem and determine if that is the problem. AT&T is scheduled to come out Friday morning if a new modem is not the solution. I already uploaded pictures of my latest quilt, a 50th birthday present for my sister, which hopefully I will be able to share by Friday afternoon, if not sooner!

Birthday dinner and breakfast the next morning

My birthday was yesterday and we went for the first time to DaMarco. We had heard good things about it and our foodie daughter had told us that is was listed in Gourmet's America's Top 50 Restaurants (the only other two on the list we have eaten at are Zuni Cafe and Sanford). The food and service were both great. The menu has changed a bit from the one on their website. I had branzino carpaccio with pine nuts and seared foie gras, gnocchi with wild boar sausage and fava beans, the veal chop and a cheese course. Mike had a yellow beefsteak, arugula, goat cheese and salami salad, the papardelle with rabbit, roasted swordfish and panna cotta. I had thought about taking my camera, as Kate had requested pictures, but I decided that I would just enjoy my dinner. (I later regretted not having my camera when we were leaving and outside was parked a humongous Rolls-Royce with a baby carseat in the back...that I would have taken a picture of!) I did find this picture of the fabulous wine we had with dinner, though.


We were so full last night, even with bringing home half of our secondi, that I didn't think I would ever be hungry again. But around 10 this morning we were both ready for breakfast. I remember having seen this recipe in the new Bon Appetit.

Poached Eggs and Parmesan Cheese over Toasted Brioche with Pistou

We had all the ingredients (except the brioche bread, so I substituted some sourdough I had in the freezer), and it was delicious! I was actually going to take my own picture, but had inadvertently left my camera on and the battery was dead as a doornail, so I stole this one from the Bon Appetit website. Mine looked pretty much like this, except greener because I used all of the pistou. We will definitely make this again.


Mike is off to DC for a few days, so I am off to leftovers for dinner...his swordfish as a primi and my veal shank as a secondi.

Another vintage pattern

I found this on the Flickr vintage apron patterns group.

While I don't have the actual pattern, I do have this picture of my brother and me on Easter 1959. The dress was a brown cotton with tiny blue flowers and the pinafore was a pale blue organdy, both sewn by my mother.

My brother is the one who turned 50 last February. He's taller than me now.

A tribute to my father, from my daughter

My daughter Kate and her husband Kyle (remember the wedding last October?) have just bought a 108 year old house in NE Minneapolis. Before my dad got sick, I had planned a trip up to give them a hand (and some sage advice from someone who has owned a few OLD houses). We have been pulling up carpeting, tack strips, nails and staples in preparation for floor refinishing and have now moved on to painting. Kate is a manager for Trader Joe's and works 50 hours a week, in addition to having a small wedding photography business on the side. Photography is really her passion. When we were in Mansfield for the memorial service, she took some photos of his workshop and has been posting them on her photo blog. It is such a fitting tribute to him...he loved building and fixing things and spent many happy hours working there.

More photos

My daughter, the photographer, is clamoring for more photos from my new camera, so here a few random shots. Probably not the artistic stuff she had in mind , but all that I have taken so far.

I don't know what kind of bush this is in our front flower bed, but thought the red berries were pretty.
Here are some of my Mary Engelbreit Christmas figurines, adhered to the shelf with museum gel to protect them from Graycie the cat. She is quite the climber and has broken a few things in the past.
And my "feather" tree with Waterford ornaments, also secured but with a wire coat hanger and clear duct tape (I never knew there was such a thing.)
One of my favorites...You'd Better Not Pout nutcracker.
And here is our fireplace. Yes that is a picture of the Buena Vista over the mantle. Mike is a native of San Francisco and we always go there for an Irish coffee when we visit.
Well, Kate, I know these aren't what you had in mind...maybe I'll take some pictures of the cats today :-)

They've bloomed...

Here are the first shots with my new camera. This is the amaryllis we planted November 11, exactly one month ago. It has a second, unopened stalk that I didn't get into the picture. And here are the paperwhites. I'm afraid Martha's tip about the 10% alcohol solution didn't work...they are still quite long and leggy...
...but still quite beautiful, and they have a wonderful fragrance.
I had three bulbs left over that I had stashed in the refrigerator, so they should bloom for New Year's and prolong our enjoyment of them.

Santa came early...

...and look at what he brought me!
I must have been very good (or very naughty in a good way :-) The man at the camera store asked me what I wanted to use it for. I was too embarrassed to say "To take pictures for my blog" so I mumbled something about food photography. We looked at a couple of Canons, but I've always been a Nikon girl. Pictures to follow...

Oh, and here is shirt v 2.0. I couldn't stagger the motifs like in the original because the panels closest to the placket weren't square...the original was a XXL, this one is a small. Still cute though, I think...

Wedding photos...at last

We finally got the photographers' images from the wedding. Well, at least Kate has the images...I sent the check and they mailed the disc to her...go figure. She did upload some for me because I want to get busy on our Christmas cards. This is the one I am using:

You can see all the pictures online here.