And for those paying attention, still no butterflies, but here is a view of the top of the critter container with all the caterpillars!
More of dem caterpillars! This is the first one - you can see he is working on his butterfly wings - the stripes are just barely visible. It's getting crowded in the critter container - there are several caterpillars hanging as well as a few chrysalises. Hopefully we'll have a butterfly soon!
Mmmm Hey Cupcake! Linda arrived in town today and we promptly hit SoCo for some shopping and dinner at Enoteca - a fav. Afterwards, is there really any other way than to top off a SoCo visit than with a Hey Cupcake?! Delicious. It was a 24 Carat, but now it's just more of my spare tire to work off at bootcamp on Monday!
First, a moment about the previous post. It's annoying the crap out of me that I can't get the font to resize properly. But don't let that hold you back from the soup. 
Well I probably needed this recipe yesterday when it was actually cold in Austin but here it is today! Spicy Black Bean soup. It's so easy and totally stick to your ribs!
Spicy Black Bean Soup
Ingredients:
1 tsp olive oil
1 medium onion, diced
4 medium garlic cloves, diced
45 oz canned black beans, undrained, divided (three 15 oz cans)
1/2 tsp red pepper flakes, or to taste
1 tsp ground cumin
14 1/2 oz fat-free chicken broth, or vegetable broth
10 oz canned tomatoes with green chilies, such as Rotel Tomatoes
11 oz canned yellow corn, drained
Coat bottom of a large stockpot with olive oil. Add onion and garlic and cook, stirring frequently, until onions are soft but not brown, about 5 minutes.
Place one can of beans in blender; add sautéed onion mixture, red pepper flakes and cumin. Cover and blend on high until smooth, about 30 seconds. Pour mixture back into stockpot.
Place second can of beans and broth in blender and puree until smooth; add to stockpot.
Stir third can of beans (do not puree first), tomatoes and green chilies, and corn into stockpot. Bring to a boil, lower heat to medium and simmer for 20 to 25 minutes. Yields about 1 1/2 cups of soup per serving.
I happened to have totally forgotten the chicken stock, but I think it still turned out OK. Watch the simmering because this stuff can really stick to the bottom of the pan! Stir frequently!
I had with a nice side salad of baby greens and a toasted sea salt and rosemary ciabatta roll. Delicious!
New neighbors! After quite the lull in neighborhood construction they are finally moving on building on the street behind me. The house behind my next door neighbor's house is getting constructed. Of course the house behind me is waaaay too much house on the lot and it looks like this person is following suit. They both have three car garages which really cuts into the already small side yard space. I think there can only be four feet between the two sides of the house and there's a fence in between! I'll have to take a picture of the close-ness when this house is further along in construction so you can see just how close they are together!
What a great view of the city! Saturday morning Laura and I got up early to walk Town Lake and this is the sight that greeted us! Ugh, on the upside it wasn't too cold. We saw the whole collection of Austin weird: crazy hairy dude running, fun run fundraiser, Bark in the Park people running with their dogs, etc, etc. 
It's really hard to go wrong with chicken, lemon, rosemary, and garlic. Sunday night dinner was Tuscan Lemon Chicken which I finally managed to cook all the way through on the grill - It stayed on for about 10 minutes extra. We had sides of Nutty Quinoa of which I had to substitute the garlic for garlic powder because *gasp* I ran out of garlic! Still delicious a nice balance of nutty and sweet with the raisins. Then a crisp Zucchini Salad which was surprisingly good. So few ingredients to make a big flavor difference! We all ate twice as much zucchini as usual. Then finished up with a favorite Baby Spinach Salad. The verdict was deliciousness. Although Jack did ask what we were having for dessert. I had *thought* about strawberry shortcake, but it just didn't happen with 3 sides!
Saturday was all about the computer recovery. I've almost got the thing back into fighting shape. I sat down at about noon to work on it for just a bit and then looked up and saw that it was 4:00pm. Much of the day and evening was thrown away in searching for my Photoshop Elements CD so I could reload the program. I finally broke down and just ordered the new version - I can't stand the searching any more - where could it be!??
The hard drive has arrived and it's time to operate on the system. While Jim thought this was loads of fun the stress of it drove me to my favorite peanut butter fro-yo sundae! Vanilla frozen yogurt with heated peanut butter and Reeces pieces: yum. Thankfully the hard drive slipped right into place and the computer is alive again!!! Now to get it all set back up. ugh.
We're having one of the best years for wildflowers in the past decade. The week the blue bonnets peaked and the brighter colors started to come out. The Mexican Paint brushes are out in force and because I have had long commutes home lately, I've had ample opportunity to snap roadside pics from the comfort of my automobile! At least the flowers make the long drives pretty.
Let's all have a moment of silence for the death in our family: my iMac hard drive died on Sunday. Monday I took it in to the Genius bar at my Apple store and there really wasn't much they could do. They did however manage to grab the contents of the hard drive (whew!) so it wasn't a complete loss. Next step order a new hard drive!
Chicks man! Happy Easter cupcakes. Adorable little yellow chickies with happy faces. For some reason when I made these I had all the beaks going in the other direction. I think it looks more beak-like, but they all looked like unhappy chicks. Even if they are going to get eaten, they shouldn't be depressed. So I scrapped off all the unhappy beaks and put in happy beaks!
Back just in time on Thursday morning to take my number one girl into her late afternoon vet appointment. Lumpy, as I will now call her, had to get poked in her new lump to make sure she's still just growing fatty tumors. The good news is she is still only growing fatty tumors. We're up to three so far for this year - girlfriend needs to slow down!! 
Room with a view. Wednesday night was spent on the 12th floor of the Hilton in Long Beach so we could be close to the airport for our Thursday morning flight. A fun day at work today, after a long Tuesday. We got to visit our customer E! and got a tour of the offices and studios. We met Gulianna Rancic, Ashlan Grose, and Jason Kennedy. All very nice folks, they each chatted with us for a bit. I promise I'll take a picture of the signed headshot when I get them!!
Special Treat! Well I might as well get to see a few people I like when I'm in town right?! Tuesday night Bridget was kind enough to let me crash at her casa. We hit 3rd street for a bit of cold shopping and picked up a great and much needed jacket (on sale!). Dinner at The Border Grill was delicious!
