Today...

• our server and internet were both down for the first 3 hours of work this craptastic morning.
• one of my favorite New Yorkers comes to visit for a few days and I get to see her tonight! Looking forward to dinner and drinks with Em.
  
• and last but not least, Austin's population just got a little higher today, since Patrick's sister, our brother-in-law and their adorable little one are in the midst of moving back to the little blue oasis in Texas.
  

Wearing Uncle Patrick's boots

Register to Vote

Today (October 6th) is the last day you can register to vote, at least in the state of Texas. Make sure all your information is in order!!

Locks of Love

After growing my hair out for a couple years, I finally had it long enough so that I could donate to Locks of Love. The ponytail ended up measuring a good 11 inches. And with record breaking heat here in Texas, I'm so glad to have that hair off my neck! Patrick took a couple steps back when he walked into our apartment that night...I guess he was just a bit surprised to see me!

Before

new haircut with Locks of Love ponytail

Zebras!

Over the course of two weekends, and driving all over the Hill Country tasting wine, Patrick and I got to see a lot of different wildlife, beautiful plants but most notably, animals you don’t normally see in urban Austin. I see a number of deer driving around the hills of west Austin, but it seems that parts of the Hill Country can pass for Africa. Yes, there are cows, calfs, and Beefmasters but we also saw havalinas, llamas, ostriches, sheep, antelope, and at one point, even zebras. As we were driving around a bend, I looked to my left, across Patrick driving, and noticed some rather large elk-like animals and the only thing I could come up within the two seconds before they went out of sight was, “Stuff over there!” Between the long day of driving and all the wine, I guess my mind was pretty useless at that point.

Winos - Part 3

The continuation of our Wine Trail experience...

Saturday, February 16, 2008

Mandola Estate Winery – We had missed the two wineries in Driftwood the weekend before, so we decided to start off there on Saturday. And to our surprise, our friends Tracy and Brent also decided to start there and also follow the same route as us for the day. So, we met up with them in the tasting room and all four of us got to try out some yummy wines. Patrick and I took away their Canto Felice which was a slightly sweet blend of 5 grape varieties, which tasted so good with the Chocolate covered cranberries paired with it. I just wished we had known that Mandola also had a restaurant at the winery, we just might have to take another trip down to Driftwood to try it out.

Driftwood Vineyards – This place was up on a hill which overlooked the rows and rows of grapevines. I would’ve loved to have seen the sun setting from the porch, but since it was about 3 in the afternoon and drizzly, that wasn’t going to happen. The only wine we weren’t too fond of was one of their white. And to be honest, I can’t remember if it was the Chardonnay or the Viognier, but whichever one it was, it tasted like a combination of asparagus and feet. Not good. Their Super Texan, Lone Star Cab, Longhorn Red and Syrah were all tasty, but for something a little different, we ended up bringing home a couple bottles of their Sangria.

Texas Hills Vineyard – By the time we had arrived at Texas Hills, we had visited a number of wineries, but the person guiding us through this sampling was by far the best. And I’m sad that I didn’t write down her name for future visits. She lead us through the list, and even though we were only alotted 5 samples per person, she just kept pouring so that we got to try almost all their wines. They had 3 Cabs where each came from a different vine: a 5 year old vine, a 20 year old vine and a 22 year old vine. I was amazed at the difference 2 years make! We bought the youngest and fruitiest of the three, from the Drew Tallant Vineyard and also the Cinque Vino Rosso, another blended grape wine which has a beautiful peppery finish. Next up is to buy is their Orange Muscato… At this point, we had to say goodbye to Brent and Tracy as they headed over to Fredericksburg and we headed home with a short stop at McReynolds Vineyards.

McReynolds Vineyards – I wasn’t quite sure we had pulled up in the correct place at first. There was a dog barking at our car out front, and I didn’t see a door to enter. We were concentrating so hard on not running over the dog, we didn’t see the construction of the new wine tasting room on our right. So, the McReynolds have a temporary place until the construction is finished. We crowded in there with a few other groups and were handed a number of generous pours by Mr. McReynolds himself while munching on his wife’s homemake brownies. I was a fan of their 2004 Merlot, while Patrick really liked the 2006, so we decided to take home both.

Make Your Vote Count Twice!

This is the first time in my short voting history where I have felt excited that my vote might actually count for something. For a moderate-liberal who usually votes democrat, living in a "red state" usually means that my vote gets thrown aside and forgotten about. And by the time the democratic primaries have made it to Texas, the candidate has already been chosen.

For the first time, I am seeing potential presidential candidates in TV commercials, visiting Texas, and even debating in my town, at my alma mater! Yes, I'm sure this will get old after awhile, but it's nice to finally be considered.

I have never voted in a primary and when I found out that Texas has a "two-step" process, that confused me even more. For those of you in the same boat as I am, check out the below information:

If you want to make sure your vote really counts (in effect, counts twice) for your candidate of choice, you do in fact need to do two things.

What to do:

1. Cast your vote in the usual way, either by Early Voting or on March 4th
2. At 7:15 PM on March 4th, after the primaries close, head (back) to your polling place. There, you sign a form that indicates your support for your candidate of choice. You can leave then, or you can stick around and help appoint delegates to the State Senate seat convention.

Special note for Austinites: Our State Senate district, represented by Kirk Watson, is the most powerful Democratic district in the state of Texas; we get eight additional delegates in the caucus portion. That's why it's extra-special important that if you feel very, very strongly about your candidate of choice, you need to get your arse to the caucus, stat. You don't have to for your primary vote to count, but if you want more than just party insiders to do the voting at the caucus, go!

For a more lengthy explanation of the delegate choosing process, go here.

Lunar Eclipse

I remember sitting on the porch at the Blanton Dormitory my freshman year watching the lunar eclipse with Patrick and some other friends. I was so amazed at the brightness and richness of color that the moon cast off.

Just after 9 pm CST tonight, the moon, the earth and the sun will line up so perfectly that the full moon will turn a gorgeous shade of orangey-red for the last total lunar eclipse until 2010. So, if your somewhere it is not cloudy (unlike Austin), enjoy the view! It's an amazing experience. I'm sad that we won't be able to drag Patrick's telescope out to see it this time.

Winos - Part 2

This is all about our second day trip through the Hill Country Wine Trail.

Sunday, February 10, 2008
Dry Comal Creek Vineyards – Patrick got the Red Flight and I got the White/Sweet Flight so that we could try 6 of their wines in addition to the sample of the Black Spanish we had. We couldn’t decide on what exactly we wanted to bring home with us, so we got a bottle of the Shiraz/Syrah and the Dry Comal Red. The Dry Comal Red is supposed to be a dual use wine – it goes great with barbecue or spicy foods as well as chocolate, so we can’t wait to put it to the test!

Comfort Cellars – We had started a little late on Sunday and after pulling up into the parking lot, we decided that we would rather just keep moving on to the other vineyards. We didn’t feel too adventurous about trying their Jalapeno Wine.

Singing Water Vineyards – This was quite a drive, but the scenery was totally worth it. This place focused on merlot the most, which isn’t usually a wine we reach for. But their Sweet Lupe (named for their dog) was wonderful and had a fruity sweetness to it that I’ve never tasted in a merlot before. We learned that MT-TH on the wine barrels mean “Medium Toast with Toasted Heads” which references how long the oak barrels have been toasted and whether the top/bottom are toasted as well.

Sister Creek Vineyards – At Sister Creek, we bought our only white wine of the weekend, the Muscat Reserve. Lightly sparkling, well balanced and I can’t wait to try it with Patrick’s cheesecake.

Winos

We headed out to the Hill Country Wine Lovers Trail which is an annual event for the two weekends around Valentine's Day. We drove from winery to winery tasting flights of wine samples and ended up with bottles to fill our new wine fridge.

After visiting all these places, it's really neat to go into Whole Foods, HEB, or Central Market and see a wine we tasted out on the trail. "Hey, we've been there!"

Here's the first installment of the reviews by day:

Day 1 - Saturday, February 9, 2008
Fredericksburg Winery – It was the first place we went and weren’t too sure what to expect. They had a Dry Pinot Noir and a Sweet Merlot which kind of confused us. We bought the Christmas Trail mulled wine that is served warm. Later, when we went to other places, wineries would kind joke about this winery… “they’re kind of ‘out there’…”

Grape Creek Vineyards – After trying all eleven of their wines, we brought home a bottle of the Black Label Bellissimo which was really brought out by the salsa they paired with it. Beautiful place, but so busy with all the tours. And I'm not sure if it was the crowd or the wine, but I started getting pretty warm at their Black Label bar.

Torre di Pietra Vineyards – This was one of our favorite places on Saturday. Very busy due to the tour buses and limos that people had rented, but they had a wide range of wines to choose from and we only got to sample about half of them. We bought a bottle of Red Flirt and would have loved to have gotten a bottle of their Tango Port, but chose not to this early into the trail. We sat outside and enjoyed a couple of sandwiches we brought and played with the friendly vineyard kitty that roamed around.

Becker Vineyards – They had so much to choose from but the Zinfindel was by far our favorite here. Beautiful grounds with a lavender field, a tiny cottage, and band on the porch fiddling away.

Woodrose Winery – After a long day of driving and wine tasting, it was nice to sit down here and be served wine restaurant-style instead of standing at a bar. They had a small blues band playing on the deck outside and when we walked out, they were playing our song: At Last by Etta James. There were a couple of wines we liked here but ended up buying the Rosé of Sangiovese for something a little different to add to our growing collection.

Plates

Here's your chance to vote for the new standard issue Texas License Plate. Voting is from February 4th - 11th.

My Thoughts on the Designs:

• My Texas - An updated version of the current plates. Looks ok.
• Lone Star Texas - Looks so cheesy - kind of like a Nascar hat.
• New Texas - Not a huge fan of the "composite skyline". Texas is BIG and everything is spread out!
• Natural Texas - As much as I like all things "Natural", this just looks muddled.
• Traditional Texas - Simple and to the point. I think this might be my favorite.

Creepy Crawly

Today has been my day for all things creepy crawly.

Early this morning, I opened my front door to leave for work and saw this in the hallway, about 4 feet from my front door:

We've seen a couple of tarantulas around the apartment complex over the past week, but none on the third floor! I know that these are not poisonous and are pretty beneficial to have around as they love to eat roaches and scorpions, but man do they freak me out!
Background: while playing with my cousin's pet tarantula, it bit me and I ended up accidentally killing it after jerking my hand around to get it off of me.

This evening, as I was getting dinner ready, imagine my surprise as I cut open a bell pepper and saw this:

And in case it's hard to see, he decided to make more of an appearance.

Is Fall Here?

Austin, TX
71°F
Cloudy

Right now it is currently 71 degrees here in Austin, Texas. This is the second day in a row where I have walked outside and felt a bit chilled. I love this weather! Actually, yesterday was even better because it wasn't overcast but gorgeous outside. It's so nice walking out to my car and not sweating!

Now, can we please just put away the Christmas decorations and enjoy fall first?

How It All Started

Eight years ago today, Patrick pulled me aside in a 1942 house on Peck Avenue and spoke those words that I will forever remember as bringing us together: "Would you like to go see a movie?" He later told me that after much contemplation and thought of how to go about asking me out, all the plans and clever words went out the window at the last moment.

The movie would have to be put off till the following week, as I was heading up to attend the TX/ou game in Dallas that weekend. And he was going up to Dallas as well, but to see one of his best friends sing. I stayed with a bunch of friends Friday night and went to the game the next day, where he picked me up and promptly told me that I stunk. I had just spent the better part of 3-4 hours in the heat surrounded by other sweaty Texas fans, what do you expect??

We didn't end up seeing Mike sing that night. We got lost and finally showed up right as they were walking out of the building. I couldn't have even imagined that night that almost 8 years later, his friend whom I just met, would be singing at our wedding reception.

I mentioned to Patrick that I was going to be meeting my parents for brunch the next morning, so I'd need to go get my car from my friend's house fairly early. He responded, "Oh, I get to meet your parents?" So, only 4 days after he asked me to the movies, Patrick and I ate blueberry pancakes with my parents and my very talkative sister who probably helped relieve any anxiety or nervousness of meeting my parents for the first time. All a little unorthodox, but hey, we got it out of the way.

So, here we are: two Austinites who have been together for eight years, married for two, living with two neurotic cats in a "little place near Lake Travis," as Patrick likes to put it.

Happy Eight Years Honey!

I wish I may, I wish I might...

A couple of weekends ago, Patrick and I took a late night drive just to the outskirts of town to get away from city lights, which for us is about 20 minutes. A friend had tipped us off to the meteor shower happening that weekend and since we are the 8-5, Monday through Friday work-type-people, we decided to check it out Saturday night but had to miss the big show on Sunday. We brought a couple of beach towels and laid down in the back of his truck on the side of Pale Face Road. Every once in awhile we saw something out of the corner of our eyes shoot across the sky, but nothing really bright in the center of our view. It was already pretty late (at least for us) and we still had to drive back. Patrick said, "Ok, give me one good one so we can go home!"

Nothing.

Couple of crazies just staring at the sk- "WHOA! Did you see that???" I was so shocked that I stood up pointing towards the streak of light.

It went so far and was so bright, that it left a trail which led to where it landed out in Marble Falls.

We used to be able to see these meteor showers right outside of our apartment, either sitting at the pool or just by walking down to our car. But now that there is a Walmart just down the street, we can barely see the major constellations. I don't even want to imagine how far we'll have to drive to see the stars when our kids are old enough to recognize the big dipper.

A Soggy Fourth

This is tame compared to how Mansfield Dam looks now with four flood gates open.

I'm glad we hadn't planned on eating on this picnic table.

While we were inspecting the flooding, we heard some high pitched screeches and finally a couple of honks. I think the geese might have been a little confused as to why there were trees in the middle of Lake Austin.

Passing the Time

A weekend of staying up late and waking up early makes for a difficult Monday morning. Combine that with rainy weather, a view from my cube of gray clouds and wet feet and all I want to do is go home, curl up on the couch with my husband and cats while watching the last two episodes of Sports Night.

On the drive back from the retreat this weekend, Patrick called his sister who answered with a "No baby yet!" Yesterday was the due date, but it appears that our niece is not quite done cooking. I'm sure the future parents are just on the edge of their seats anticipating their new arrival, because I know we are and the Lord knows Patrick's parents are!!!
***Just a reminder, at our wedding, in his toast to our marriage, Patrick's dad stated that they would have to resort to making their own grandchildren if they didn't get any from his kids soon.*** So, I'm glad it didn't have to come to that because I'm not even sure how that would work.

In other news, the bluebonnets are blooming here in Central Texas and they are beautiful! I am so sad that I forgot to pack my camera over the weekend because the road to the retreat was lined with a sea of blue and green, speckled with reds, yellows, and pinks. I love how gorgeous Texas gets in the springtime.

Austinite or Austonian?

I thought that it had been decided long ago that those who called Austin home were referred to as Austinites, not the pretentious sounding Austonian.

Check out this article from the Statesman: How to tell an Austinite from an Austonian

Which are you? I am definitely an Austinite!

A Kitty Christmas Adventure

I stayed up until about 12:30 am last night folding clothes and packing my suitcase. And today, after I leave work and do about a million errands, Patrick and I are going to pack up the truck and head to Houston, then a few days later, to Arlington. I can't wait to see family and friends, especially ones that I haven't seen in over a year.

It will be interesting travelling this much with two cats. We've done it with one a couple of times, but riding in a vehicle with two cats can be a little much. They feed off each other. One will meow, then the other, it almost sounds like they're talking (or yelling) to each other. I guess it's just another thing to prepare us for having kids, kind of like what happened last night...

To get them all pretty for Christmas, we gave the cats a bath last night. Well, I helped with Calliope, who didn't complain too much, and then while the bathtub was filling up for Chloe, I started dinner. Then, a good friend who I hadn't talked to in awhile called, so I was a little distracted. Even though the bathroom door was closed and I had closed the door to the bedroom, where I was on the phone, I could hear Chloe meowing pretty loudly and even Amy could hear it over the phone. Finally, Patrick walked out with a swaddled up Chloe and I eventually hung up with Amy. A little while later, he told me that Chloe had done something she had never done before while giving her a bath. She peed on him. I guess she wasn't too happy about getting in the water, or maybe she was just that excited.

Wrapping Up for Christmas

In two weeks, Patrick and I will be heading to Houston for our annual Christmas Triangle Trek. We spend a few days before Christmas in Houston, celebrate with his family on Christmas Eve, then drive to Arlington early Christmas morning, celebrate with my family that day and spend a few days after Christmas in Arlington, then drive back to Austin. It can be exhausting, but I can't wait!

I can't believe that there are only two weeks left. I still have a number of things to order or buy and right now, everything else is piled up in our closet ready to be wrapped. Growing up, my mom was always the expert gift wrapper and bow maker. She always creates beautiful presentations for gifts, always topped with a handmade bow. She tried to teach me a number of times, saying "You can do it, it's so easy! All you do is..." But I usually just stole one of the gently used ones she had already made because I was too busy, lazy or preoccupied with something else to sit down and learn. It wasn't until I worked at The Container Store a couple of years ago that I finally learned how to make a decent bow (but nothing compared to those my mother makes) and some variations of it as well (the Aster bow is my favorite.)

Christmas seems to be the only time I sit down and wrap presents and actually look forward to it, every other time of year for birthdays, I'm just a bag and run type of girl.

A Wintry Mix

That is what the weatherman said last night, that we should expect a "wintry mix" today. And between the rain coming down as I drove to work, the ice on Patrick's windshield wipers and the snow flurries I saw as I walked into my building, I think that the forecaster was actually right this time! I know that I should be used to this since I've lived in Texas my whole life, but it will always surprise me when we have 80 degree weather one day where I'm wearing my flip flops and then freezing weather less than 12 hours later and I'm bundled up in my down coat.

So, if you haven't yet been hit by the cold and you're missing that white powdery substance, you can make your own snowflakes here.