Merry Christmas!

Well, we are off to the lake house for a fun Griner Christmas. I'll post again after the new year. Work is under control again for me so maybe I will even be clever!

10 years!

Dec 6 was our ten year anniversary. Normally we go somewhere for our anniversary, but the final Regions merger event was that weekend so we settled for a nice dinner st Standard Bistro. How we celebrate is really unimportant to me. I'm just so thrilled and happy that I love Jamey even more now than I did 10 years ago. I highly suggest everyone marry their best friend. I wasn't ambitious enough to scan in a wedding photo, but here is a 5 year anniversary picture from us in 2002 (the first year we had a digital camera).

The Palace

There's a reason I call my workplace the palace. At Christmastime they really go all out. They have the Alabama Symphony Orchestra play in the cafeteria one day. I often wonder if they built the cafeteria for that purpose because it sounds wonderful. I checked Ruby out from her company day care (see how much it rocks?) and took her to the show. In true baby style, you can never predict what a baby will like. She didn't mind the music, but she LOVED when everyone would clap at the end. She fell asleep before the end of the show which included a Christmas medley of sounds, my favorite of which was "Making Christmas" from the Nightmare Before Christmas.

Next up was Breakfast with Santa. On Dec 8, they turned the building into the North Pole complete with fake snow. Ms Claus hung out in the cafeteria serving juice and muffins to kids. Meanwhile, the kids would go to the corporate conference center and wait for their picture with Santa. Ruby tried to eat his beard this year, but he was very gracious about it.

I also took this cute picture of her outside the building in front of a ridiculously large Christmas tree. She enjoyed pulling up the grass. Too bad kid. You don't have any grass in your backyard to play with!

LODO

Recently I was reading a paper about Enterprise Architecture (don't ask) and noticed an phrase I hadn't seen before. "LODO" LODO means effort and money spent on "Lights On, Doors Open" activities. Recently, I've noticed that we stink at LODO. Our trash can gets repossessed, our home insurance lapses and, to my great dismay I pulled up to an all dark house one night last week. So dark that our fun Christmas lights around the arbor to the courtyard were not on. I knew, even before I saw the disconnection notice on the door, what had happened. In Jamey and I's defense, we had a slight miscommunication about who was in charge of what. However, I would like to submit to the jury in defense of my side, who has the previous track record hmmm????? Anyhoo, the electronic payments did not work on the new house when we added it to our account. I did do the transfer and when they asked if I wanted it on one bill, I said Yes. I did assume it would keep deducting as we have setup. After Jamey's failure with paper bills, we had established a new procedure. I would handle paper bills and he would handle everything that gets paid electronically. I mentioned to him that he would need to check the paper bill to see if the electronic payments were still working and he said "Sure." I should have known that meant, "I'm not listening to you but I don't get picked on if I say the word 'Sure' after you are done talking." Well, I am now in charge of all bills. We'll see if I do any better. Power was pretty bad, but I would really hate to lose water!

BTW, we stayed at the old house (that was still paying electronically) for a few nights. Ah, I feel so rich having a back-up house! Too bad it really means I'm poor. Here is the first pic of the front of the new house dressed in its Christmas duds!

Falling into Christmas

I have to apologize for the somewhat lackluster posts lately. I cannot be creative in any two aspects of my life at once and work is getting all my intellectual effort this month. So I will continue with my series of pictures with brief descriptions and hope for a New Year of clever posts.

First of all, the new house is working out great! The short commute to work, the beautiful porch and landscaping (which really showed awesome this fall), the fantastic kitchen...total happiness.



If only the previous house didn't sit lonely waiting for an owner. A neighbor of my sister-in-law looked at our house for sale. This sounds like a good thing, but she really had no intention of buying (just wanted to look) and brought her highly destructible 2 year old with her. She told my sister-in-law "They need to get the guitars hanging in the music room down. My little girl was jumping up and down on one of the guitars when we walked in." Wha? Lots of people show their house when they still live in it lady. It is not a free for all playground for your little heathen. At least we moved the expensive guitars with us! The other fun item to transpire was a LARGE dead tree fell in the backyard of our previous house. Luckily it missed the fence, neighbor's house and our deck by inches. Still, I love that house and hold great hope that the right person will see it and enjoy it as much as we did.

Next of all, Jamey and I decided to be very careful about introducing Ruby to food. The doctor recommends starting with vegetables so they learn to like food that isn't sweet. Well, Ruby loves her vegetables, but observe her reaction to any and all fruit we put in front of her. She's a fruit hater.



On to other important events. Hoody Towel of November. I changed it up and took a picture of Ruby in one of my absolute favorite gifts (thanks Kellys!) the BABY BATHROBE. Oh awesome. She just looks hilarious in it in my opinion. No hood needed. I have no idea what's up with the off the shoulder look.





Finally catching up to last weekend! We put up our Christmas tree and instigated two new Xmas traditions.

1) Christmas Martini - Gin, Peppermint Schnapps, Vermouth While normally I detest Gin, I loved it in this drink. For some reason it just screamed Christmas. I used frozen cranberries as ice cubes.
2) Chicken and Dumplings on tree raising night. YUM!

We bought LED lights for our tree this year. Very bright but cute. I have no idea how to decorate the outside of my house. My mom is going to come help think of ideas next weekend. Maybe it will take a rocket scientist....

And finally, we partied like rock stars and played ROCK BAND, the new game for the XBOX that let's you pretend to play music without actually having to be talented (except for drums, wow that's hard!). Well, Ruby did not appreciate Jamey's rendition of Sabotage, but other than that we all had a great time and played till 1 AM. The next morning however, Jamey was not feeling so well. I watched Ruby till 10 AM then he took over. When I woke up from my nap, I walked into the living room to find Jamey entertaining Ruby as best he could.


So much more still to cover. I owe lots of pics of the new house. Maybe as I decorate it for Christmas I can take a few pictures. I love Christmas time! Buying gifts, making cookies, lots of lights yippeeee.