A few goings-on

Recently, I've been realizing what a lovely family I have. Maybe it's because of being in the season of thankfulness (my favorite holiday by the way) or maybe it's because Tricia and David were just here or maybe it's because I had to make a genogram last night. I don't know why, but I have been overwhelmingly thankful for everyone. I am NOT saying that anyone is this family is perfect. That would be a lie. :) Everyone is far, far from perfection. Rather, I'm saying that I feel really blessed to have a fairly good relationship with everyone -- I think. If I'm estranged from one of you, please let me know! That was something I was supposed to put in the genogram.

This is finals week for me. I should be studying right now, but I decided to procrastinate some more by doing this. This Thurs. night our first-year class is having a tacky Christmas party. It's going to be hilarious.

Phil, a friend we met in Korea, is coming to visit this weekend. He's at Heather's right now, and then he will be driving over. He's from England, so I'm trying to come up with some very American and Louisianan things to do and see. Wal-Mart and Sonic are about all I've got right now. One night some friends from church are getting together and going to this cajun restaurant in the country.

Tricia and David came this last week for Thanksgiving. I really enjoyed them being there. Our meal was quite excellent, if I do say so myself. Especially for a first time. We all cooked in some way. I especially enjoyed our dressing and pies -- thanks, Mom, for the recipes. A girl in my program came over to eat with us and brought a couple of dishes, so we had tons of food. We ate a lot. I ate a lot anyway. Pretty much no restraint. Thurs. aft we played games and then in the evening we watched Home Alone and ate some more. By Friday afternoon it had been raining a lot and we all had cabin fever, so we decided to go out. We ate lunch at a place called O'Charleys. Trish and I got catfish. Yes, that's right, I ordered fish. Officially, I like catfish. It was delicious!! Very popular down here and it didn't taste fishy. Maybe because they get it right out of the bayou? After lunch we decided to battle the crowds and go to the mall. It really wasn't as bad as I was expecting. The mall has super cheap movies, so we saw the new James Bond movie for $2.50!!! That's what I'm talking about!! I thought it was good. Then we went home, ate more food and hung out and talked and David worked on his photography class. I admire David's artistic talent a lot -- especially with writing and photography. He holds most of the creative talent in our family for sure. That evening we made caramel apples and drank wassail (sp?). David went home on Sat. morn. After he left Trish and I went to this big park in West Monroe to exercise. It was cold and misty still, but definitely needed the exercise. The trees here are just now at the peak for changing, so the park was especially beautiful. I haven't seen trees this brilliant in a long, long time, maybe never. Really gorgeous. We didn't do too much the rest of the day. Oh, we did try out a new coffee shop. Wouldn't have known it existed except that Trish looked some up. We ate dinner and watched Mary Tyler Moore on my computer. It's my new favorite show. Fancast.com. Then there was church on Sunday and Tricia headed out after lunch. Annnnd, one of the most exciting parts of the weekend was that Trish brought me a dresser, and put it together!!! I'm no longer living out of a suitcase. Also I had some curtains I had found really cheap at Ross, and have been trying and wanting to get them up, but to no avail. So, she put those up, single-handedly. I told her like 50 bazillion times how glad I was that she did it, but still there's no way to put my gratitude into words. Yes, this may seem like an extreme response. But, if you are the kind of person who does stuff like that well, you are a great person in my opinion. Whether you like to do it or not, that is a big service for the rest of us who don't have a clue. Tricia will now confirm that I don't have a clue after some of my dumb questions while putting the dresser together. I do NOT enjoy building things or anything that involves any kind of mechanics and when I say mechanics, I'm talking about anything from working on a car, to putting a vacuum cleaner together, to hammering a nail in straight, to using a screwdriver. My brain does not work that way. I was, still am very appreciative. It's been really nice having them up. My pictures didn't turn out that well, but here's the idea.

Tricia with her handiwork and she's wearing her new cute glasses.

This really does not show them in all their glory. I love them.

Bring on the snow. Or rain. Actually, I'll be happy if the weather stays just a little cold. "I'm Tom Dubwakva, wight heah in the weathuh centuh." Anybody remember that guy? I don't remember if he was in York or Abilene. Happy first week of December!!