Today and tomorrow are windy and cooler here in the RGV.

Starting Sunday, it’s going to be extremely hot and humid for the next seven days.

I’m so happy for the timing of the hot temps, because my cousin from Sask, Canada arrives on Saturday to spend six full days with us. She’s never been to Texas before and these temps will nicely accommodate all of the things I have planned to show her.

Because it wasn’t a great day for outdoor things today, I decided to make my first attempt at French Macarons since my first ever attempts before Christmas.

I was pleasantly surprised at how stress-free everything came together, right from the meringue to the macronage.

I had purchased silicon mats with hearts imprinted on them. I decided that I’m not ready for the new shapes. I want lots of practice on the typical round macs before I venture into the world of piping shapes.

These macs have unflavoured shells. The filling is a chocolate ganache with a dollop of homemade strawberry preserves in the centre. My Mahjong group will do the taste test tomorrow.

Photo Note: Because it was so overcast today, I had to rely on my overhead LED lighting for my feature photo. This resulted in a big distortion of the Mac colours. They’re actually a soft light pink with sliver glitter dust and a bright white with gold glitter dust. I did several corrections in Snapseed, using the vignette tool and the selective tool. The end result was ok at best … nowhere near the actual colours. Once again, it’s obvious that natural light is always best – not only for portrait photography, but also for still photography.

“Climate is what we expect, weather is what we get.”

Mark Twain