The good news is that all the snow made it so we got to chillax some, and I got some mad cookie skills from Wylie’s mom. (I have been practicing them here at home…excellent skills to have, I must say!)  In between the chilaxing we were very busy! We visited Concord, where I learned that it is REALLY fun to kick snow piles. And we went to Boston twice, and it made me want to go back when it is not 7 degrees with the windchill because everything is so cool! I saw Harvard Square (though not Click and Clack, even though I was looking!), and Boston Common, and Newbury Street and the “T” (not named for me, though I will continue to tell myself that it is), and the North End (where I had some amazing manacotti and a canolli and dined next to some very adorable old men, who in the story I made up in my head about them had something to do with important Italian families…if you know what I mean , and lots of historical things like the place where Paul Revere is buried! It is very cool to see the things I learned in history class.

We also squeezed in a road trip to Pittsburgh to see Wylie’s sister in The Nutcracker. It was really awesome and some pretty incredible stuff that those dancers can do. Along the way I saw the ACTUAL Eerie Canal (and I sang the song, and it made my heart do a little backflip to be right there singing about Sal!). And a trip to the beach at Plum Island. Again, it made me want to go back in the summer, but I was pretty enamored with a snow-covered beach!

It was a jam-packed trip, and I was glad that I had taken an extra day off to rest up before going back to work.  The spring semester looks like it is going to be pretty amazing at the SCS. I will be co-leading a group for first generation college students this semester, and I am super excited. We are also starting to think about looking for jobs for next year (if you know anyone who needs a really incredible, though unlicensed, psychologist, I’m SO your girl!)…which is kind of stressful. And, I am dedicated to finishing my dissertation this semester…in between practicing my cookie skills.

This week was really fun because we were having interviews for the next round of interns, and three awesome kids from my program at Auburn got interviews here, so we had some REALLY fun company!

Today was for relaxing, and I did it like a champ. I finished reading (for the second time) Holidays on Ice by David Sedaris. Can I just say that he is maybe the most funniest man alive. We also went and saw The Imaginarium of Dr. Parnassus. It was very pretty and visually amazing, though I felt that the story left me wanting a little more. That being said, I am sure it’s not that easy to put a movie together when you didn’t get to finish it as planned, so I am overlooking some of that…

OK, one of my resolutions is to write on here more often so it’s not these mini-novels every month or so, and then I can start sharing more funny stories about our neighbors and their eternal quest to get their cat inside at odd hours…

I hope you are all having 2010′s that are off to great starts!

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In the meantime, I have had some good reasons for being absent. In the few weeks leading up to Thanksgiving, things at the Student Counseling Service really kicked in to high gear. I was seeing a ton more clients, and hence, was really wiped by the time I got home. It has been really great to be learning so much about therapy and being a therapist full time, but I will be honest that there is a bit of an adjustment period. Luckily, Wylie is very nice and supportive. In addition to all those students who somehow just realized that they should have been doing their homework all semester, we have been reviewing applications for interns for next year. I am enjoying being on this side of the process, that is for sure. The SCS got about 90 applications this year and we will invite about 30 folks for interviews…it is very interesting to see how it is done.

We have been fortunate enough to squeeze in some R & R on the weekends–today we went and got massages, which was awesome. And the weekend of Nov. 14 we went to Houston to see some friends. (The son of my dad’s BFF from his Air Force days and his wife). I was pleasantly surprised by what Houston had to offer, and it was really fun to see Joe and India and their wonderful pooch, Lennon. We went to a showing of The Big Lebowski in a park downtown, explored the Montrose area vintage shops, and saw the butterflies at the Museum of Natural Science.

It was a really wonderful weekend, and a much needed break…and a nice getaway from Bryan/College Station. We are looking forward to getting back to Houston in the spring for some rodeo action, and some NASA action as well…

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The next day was spent walking around again. We walked from our hotel to downtown, all around the River Walk, over to the The Institute of Texan Cultures. That was okay. We learned that lots of different cultures moved to Texas many years ago. We also learned that the tickets are a little overpriced, and that the lights in the building were acting funny. We thought of going up the Tower of the Americas, but we were getting tired and hungry and needed to sit down for a while and not pay $12.00 for an elevator ride.

Off to the River Walk we went. We found ourselves a boat rental station and headed out on to the water with a bunch of other people and a tour guide. We learned of many things while on our boating adventure. We learned when every hotel along the river was built, and even a thing or two about some of the restaurants. The guide also threw in some facts about the flood gates and other things like that, but the most interesting thing had to be when we boated by the mall! The guide did focus a lot on some odd things, but it was a good ride, and I think we both would recommend it.

After the boat ride we decided to eat at the oldest restaurant along the river, the Rio. It was nice, we had a table right next to the water. We got to watch ducks swim all around, some boats pass, and a girl have her 16th birthday. Fun was had by all!

From the River Walk and the restaurant we walked over, closer to our hotel, to a pedestrian street with many Mexican things on it. Mexican shops, Mexican bands, Mexican food carts, Mexican girls singing Journey songs… just watch the video.

On Sunday we drove home, but first we stopped by Cascade Caverns for a peak inside the Earth’s guts. It was a nice sidetrip. We learned some about the “living” walls and why we should not touch them. We got to see some bats, hit our heads, and have a good time in the cool, damp caverns. If you are in the area I would say you should check them out.

After posting all these pictures I realized, I forgot about the Alamo! We went there on Saturday, and it truly is something you can forget about. I am sure there is plenty of interesting history that one can know about the Alamo!, but they were not telling anybody that history when we were there.

We drove out to the lake, which took about 20 minutes, and drove around a little to find the best spot to park. Then we walked around a little. Since we are in a bit of a drought here we were able to walk along the not-usually-there beach. Tons of jetsam was on the beach; beer cans, water bottles, various other garbage, and a bikini top. It made us want to come back with garbage bags and pick some stuff up. It seems like it can be the kind of lake that college kids, or just kids, go to and do stupid things on. Such as; driving boats too fast, drinking too much beer while driving boats too fast, listen to bad music on their fast boats, and other such shenanigans. Thankfully the day we went was the day of a football game, and the lake was not as crowded as we thought it might get. Though there were a few knuckleheads who seemed to like going fast on their watercraft.

So, after walking around for a while, we decided to put our blanket down on the grassy, shaded, area near the beach. I laid down, and relaxed, while Teresa slowly immersed herself in the water. As she was doing that, we both watched some of the knuckleheads try to get their boat out of the water. Their pickup kept spinning it’s tires and not going up the ramp. Eventually some other knuckleheads offered their “expertise” on the situation, bouncing up and down on the back bumper. This actually worked, and the knuckleheads with the boat problem were able to drive away. I was kind of hoping that they would be stuck there, and that maybe their pickup would end up in the lake and some drama would follow. Oh well, maybe next time.

It was a good outing, something we will have to do again, and hopefully with more people. The only problem with the whole thing, besides knuckleheads, were some unusual bug bites. We ended up with red dots on our arms and legs, only a few for each of us, but still more than we would like to have.

I am happy to report that school has started for the students and I STILL love my internship! We had a full 4 weeks of training before the students came back to school, so I was definitely ready to start seeing some clients and getting busy. My schedule is filling up and I am excited to be doing an assortment of Counseling-Center type things this semester–group, outreach, supervision, learning about the afterhours HelpLine…WOOOOHOOOO!!!

As far as fun stuff goes, I will work backwards since Wylie beat me to it for our weekend in Aggie Land…though I will have a few comments to add there!

TODAY–Sat. Sept. 12: It was very rainy and we were feeling lazy at first, so we caught up on some of our TV watching…that was nice. We thought that the rain would stop us from heading out to Caldwell, TX (about 20 miles) for the Kolache Festival…but we were wrong! We made the trek in the rain and found that at 3pm most of the kolache vendors were ready to get the heck outta that rain, and so we got 1/2 price kolaches! We sampled about 8 different kinds. My favorite was the poppyseed, then the raspberry, and the cinnamon roll (although I don’t think this counts as a kolache). Other than that, they all kind of just tasted like a danish. Some of them were gross and we didn’t even try them. I had a major attack of the sugars by then anyway…I understood why they were also selling giant sausages on a stick…something to cut the sugar! There was a polka band playing fine tunes and some people even dancing in the rain! I wished that the day had been nicer for their sake, but there were still quite a few folks enjoying the festivities.

We then went to Target because Wylie had some gift cards that were burning a hole in his pocket and I needed socks for when I wear dress shoes to work. Now I am writing this and we are relaxing. I still feel a little sugary, and am looking forward to some black bean and corn tacos when I get done here…

YESTERDAY: Fri. Sept. 11: HOORAY! Wylie was born today…well, today, but a couple years back!!! We had a very fun day…I get done with work on Fridays at 12:30 (because I work late other days, not because I am a slacker) so he also took the afternoon off and we went to a fancy-pants place in town with a vegetarian menu for lunch, and then to see Inglourious Basterds. (The movie, I will note, was actually pretty funny. I laughed out loud a few times and didn’t think that the trailer was accurate for the amount of violence–I had been wary of seeing it because it looked like it was going to be non-stop…it wasn’t that bad. I did cringe and hide my eyes a few times, though.) Then we came home for a little birthday celebrating at home–we had 2 kinds of pie (pizza and Dutch Apple, which I found at a local place that makes them from scratch and sells them to you unbaked so that you can feel like you are part of the process. I appreciated that. Except, some of the guts of the pie spilled out during baking and were on the bottom of the oven and made it very smelly and smoky in the house. I did not appreciate that. I think our oven needs to relax. It is an oven. Things will fall to the bottom….)

THURSDAY Sept. 10, 2009–Our first softball game was rained out! BOOOO!! We did, however, have 2 lovely practices before this. There were rainbows at one of them. There are actually a lot of rainbows here because there are tons of tiny little rainstorms that come and go in 10 minutes or less and the sky surrounding them is blue…kind of wonderful, in ym opinion!!! Good for leprechaun hunting, too!

LAST WEEKEND! See Wylie’s post for the details. Parts of it were pretty incredible. The dinner at the General’s house was kind of odd. I managed to insult his wife a little bit on accident…but I didn’t get fired on Monday, so that was good. Apparently the hiring of the general as the VP of student affairs is frought with a bit of political drama that is interesting to hear about, if you like that sort of thing…I usually do. He mainly roamed the lawn with a cigar, and that was awesome. Then we headed to the Dixie Chicken, where we also made friends with two gentlemen from San Francisco who were here on business with the university. It was nice to have some fellow outsiders to share in the awe of midnight yell. I think Midnight Yell was one of my favorite things. There were probably 30,000 people there. At midnight. To Yell. You get to kiss at the end though, which is fun. And whenever the Aggies make a touchdown. The game was cool to go to as well. I am thankful that my training director is generous with her spare tickets and her tailgating spot! Tailgating is one of the best inventions to go along with sports, if you ask me! I liked seeing the differences in the football culture between College Station and Auburn. I will say this: The students at A & M are WAAAAAYYYY more mellow than the students at Auburn, and the scene was more relaxed here. Although, the whole student section yelling in unison is pretty intimidating!!!

Well…that’s about it. I told you I would have a lot to say. I will try not to wait so long next time!

As Wylie mentioned, we had dinner with most of my cohort and their families on Thursday and we discovered that pizza rolls are better than pizza at Double Dave’s…we will have to sample some others. The other awesome thing about that night was watching 4 year-old’s make friends. It seems like they have it right—the eyeballed each other, saw they were the same height, said, “My name is ____” and they were off and running. That was it. Seems so easy that way. Why does it seem to get so much more complicated later in life? After dinner we walked around campus a little bit and ended up at the Dixie Chicken for an adult beverage. We saw many people playing dominoes and many animal heads on the wall. It seems like a nice place to hang out. Although, the college kids come back next week, so we are not sure how much we will go there then…

Yesterday I got to go to “Fish Camp” with the other interns and the director of the counseling center. Freshmen here are called “Fish,” so it was not something nautical, but rather a whole lot of freshmen doing a whole lot of cheering. We left here at about 6:30am and drove 2-ish hours. The “Fish” spend about 3 days up there learning the traditions of A & M and how to do all the cheering that will be required of them during the football games, etc. It seems like it is probably fun. It reminded me of student council conventions or something–where everyone is trying to show that they have the most spirit for their team and some very zealous folks dress up or dye their hair to match. We talked to them a little bit about the counseling center and showed a video about the services we offer. We did this for 3 groups and then came home. It was a very interesting day. I was tuckered out at the end of it, and happy for a nap and a nice dinner at Cafe Capri.

Today we tried the bagels at Blue Baker at about 11:45, and we learned that “breakfast food” is only to be eaten at Blue Baker before 10:30am–they had turned the toaster off, so we ate our bagels untoasted, which was fine. However, since Wylie and I are rarely up and moving before 10:30 on a weekend, Blue Baker is probably off our breakfast list…Then we ran some errands–got a softball glove for me, and braved the “best” grocery store that is near campus. That was kind of bad thinking on my part because it was a little crazy with folks moving in to town. They do have lots of good stuff though, so I will remember that at a later time, when it will not be so crazy.

We just finished the third Indiana Jones movie, and it was good. I liked them all! (The second one was a little cheezy, but Data was in it (from the Goonies), so the cheeze was overlooked, for the most part!)

Getting ready now for another week of working and maybe planning an adventure for next weekend…any thoughts on where we should go?

On Friday evening Teresa and I walked over to downtown Bryan for their First Friday event. They have live music, restaurants have special things going on, and the streets are busy with many local people. We started off the evening by going to the Village Cafe for a drink and to cool off. It was a little loud in there, so we moseyed on over to Los Norteños Cafe for some dinner. We had passed by this place a couple weeks ago and liked the looks of the outside, we liked the inside even better. And with $3.99 breakfast tacos, how can one go wrong? Just a tip, two people can share one, these tacos are huge, and kind of like burritos. After getting stuffed on tacos, we waddled a short distance to the Revolution Cafe (there are a lot of  cafe’s in Bryan it seems) to listen to some bluegrass. I was wondering if the bluegrass in Texas was different than that of the bluegrass in Asheville. The answer is no. They are pretty much the same. We stayed for a little bit, but being stuffed on tacos, and at the tail end of a work week, we were tuckered out so left after only several songs. You can hear one of the songs they played below.

It was good to check out the First Friday and I am sure we will check out some of the others that go on during our year in Texas.

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It wasn’t a bad ride, about two thirds of the way has bike lanes, and some of the roads are not that traveled by cars. Some parts of the route are a little sketchy, but that is a problem with biking on most roadways. Usually it’s the big intersections that are the craziest.

We got to Teresa’s office, and back home, just fine. It was good to get out for an actual bike ride. I think I need to raise my seat about an inch though. I will remember that for next time.

Here is the route we took both ways.

Want to read the Texas biking laws? They are a good read, really.

And, here is a good movie on some basic road biking techniques. I had found one a while ago that I liked a little better, but this one is good, and quick, and informative.

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Saturday was a busy day for the two of us. We ran several errands for some semi important things that were needed around the house. We purchased one new three-speed cruiser for Teresa. We ate some sketchy Mexican food, and we danced some serious Contra Dancing.

The errands were only semi important, and I can only remember one of them now. We purchased a new TV last week and needed a cable in order for our eyes to see the best movies that they can. I also had to return something to Best Buy, so it was a two-birds-with-one-stone kind of thing.

The bike purchasing was great. Teresa had gone to a couple bike shops, and many place online, looking for a new bike. She had a cruiser, but it was only a one-speed. She wanted gears. So, she found a bike she liked over at BCS Bikes right near texas A&M’s campus, so we went to look at it and possibly buy it. When we got there the bike she had test rode and liked had been sold! Thankfully this shop has more than one bike, and she saw another that she liked. After a test ride and some serious thinking, she decided that this new bike was the bike for her. It is a nice cruiser, copper and cream, with three gears. Exactly what she was looking for. Now she just needs a basket and some streamers for the handle bars.

After bringing home her new bike we needed to head right back out in order to make it to the Contra Dancing. Though we did leave some extra time for dinner in there. Nobody wants to contra dance on an empty stomach, or 30 minutes after eating. We decided to try a place semi near the contra dancing location, a restaurant by the name of Los Cucos. Sounds like a nice name right Well that is about the end of the niceness. Except for the Funky Face Disguise machine by the entrance, that was pretty awesome.

After our sub-par dinner we headed over to the Unitarian church for some contra dancing. It was pretty awesome. We were nervous at first, wondering what kind of people would be there, and if we would have to excuse ourselves after the first dance. Thankfully everybody there was great, and we stayed for the full three hours.

After the three hours dancing around in a hot Unitarian church, we felt the need for ice cream, so we went on over to Ben & Jerry’s for some cool treats. It was a great Saturday, which was followed by a lazy Sunday. Lounging around in the morning. A late breakfast that perhaps should be called brunch. After a while we were able to rouse ourselves and head out into the world for a couple more errands. This time, of the necessity kind. We first went to Academy Sports again so we could get Teresa a helmet so she can safely ride her bike around. I am very glad she agreed to wear one. I like her head intact. After the helmet-a-thon, we got groceries. After that we decided it would be a good idea to break in Teresa’s new bike and helmet, so we went for our first bike ride together around the neighborhood. During our ride we passed by a cop car on the side of the road with the officer outside of it. He summoned to us and asked if we had seen a man and girl from where we had come from. It seems that this man had kidnapped this girl and was dragging her down the street. Unfortunately we had not seen her. Other than that drama, the ride was great. Teresa loves her new bike, I love riding with her, and I love that she wore her helmet. It was a pretty good Sunday, which was nice since the next day was Teresa’s first day at her new job! We don’t need a stressful weekend before that kind of thing.

Now, take a gander at some photos from the weekend, and a video of Teresa contra dancing.

We have had a busy two days here in the Lone Star state. Monday evening involved going to many stores; Bed, Bath & Beyond, Pier 1, World Market, and Office Max, all looking for a basket to attach under our desk to hold computer wires. After we finally found the right basket at Office Max, we had to get something to keep it held underneath the desk, so we headed to Michael’s for some little brackets.

This afternoon involved getting a license plate holder for Teresa’s car. Texas requires two plates on your car, but her car does not have a front holder. Hence our quick trip to AutoZone. After that we needed a drill in order to pre-drill holes for the basket under the desk, so off to Lowes we went. Then we were feeling hungry and decided to have our pizza night tonight, so we searched  for local pizza. We looked around a bit, but decided on Gumby’s Pizza mainly because of the name. When we got there the sign was awesome. The inside was what I imagine a dorm room to be like, dirty and full of college students. Thankfully it wasn’t too dirty to eat, so we ordered one of the best pizzas we had had in a while, and enjoyed ourselves.

Tomorrow we will complete the desk fixin’s. I am growing tired of kicking wires.