A visitor visits

We had a special guest in town this weekend: Sam's mom! We hadn't thought she'd be able to come down and visit us in Austin, so it was an exciting, and last minute, visit. While most of our time was taken up with necessary, but not terribly exciting things, we did manage to show her around town a little bit. Here are just a couple of photos from her short visit:

We took her out to La Fonda San Miguel which is a wonderful interior Mexican restaurant in Austin. The restaurant itself is beautiful with quite a gallery of eclectic art. The entrance also has this beautiful old wooden door, which is what we were trying to photograph in this picture, but it didn't come out at all. We also almost got dinged by the door when we tried to photograph us a bit closer, but that's one of the hazards of standing in front of a door (no matter how lovely it is) at a busy restaurant.  Still, it was an enjoyable and delicious, if poorly photographed, outing!

I insisted that we get a picture of Sam and his mom in front of our house as proof of their visit. The front porch seemed like a fitting place because they enjoyed sitting out there while I was in my Saturday morning class. We put a couple of chairs on the porch because it looked silly without something there, but to the best of my recollection we'd never actually used them.

I guess those two pictures and variations of them are the only ones I got. Which is a shame because I also encountered what had to be have been a 35 lb cat this weekend, and not recording that feels like a missed opportunity now. 

Growth

I've become a rather spotty updater as of late. I'm sorry to say I don't see that changing any time soon. The masters program I started is intended for people going to work full time, but at the same time is busy enough that I can't balance full time work, reading and classwork, and rigorous blog maintenance. I will still update about exciting stuff like trips, but no guarantees on weekly updates about daily life.

That is with the exception of today which is both about everyday life and exciting things. Specifically, my fall garden has finally born vegetables. Edible ones. I mean I've been eating arugula and mixed greens for a while, but now there's also broccoli and cauliflower and cabbage. I need to document this exciting moment.

Arugula, greens, and in the back bed some brussel sprouts. I've yet to get anything edible from the spouts, but the plants themselves are thriving. 

My beautiful yellow cauliflower! It looks small here, but the plant is really big. It was slightly smaller than the cauliflower heads I buy at the grocery store, but now much. 

I have yet to eat the cabbage because I have no idea when to harvest it. Obviously something else has been eating it though and has not been dissuaded by organic pesticide. 

One of several broccoli heads. You can also see a red cabbage plant in the background. Those have not done so well. 

Thanks for any one out there still checking this thing! I promise to not abandon it entirely. I'll at least update every time my phone hits critical mass on cat photos, and I need to unload some.