Well, I just decided I would continue the previous post as I way to finish out the year. I'll have you know that one of my New Year's goals is to blog more consistently. It's so easy to get out of the habit and I sure have.
Let's see, where did I leave off . . .
6. On Friday, the 9th, E and I spent the whole day shopping, eating and just plain having fun. I don't know when I've enjoyed a day more. You know we went out on Black Friday but that just comes with it's own set of issues. So going shopping on just a regular day was just delightful. We started off with our traditional breakfast at Chick-fil-A and then did all of our shopping within about 3 square miles of where we started. We had to laugh; we kinda kept going around in circles until we got it all done. Well, not done completely but done for that day. We had the best time.
7. D and I got up bright and early the next morning and made our way down to Statesboro to see our boy. The GSU Eagles were playing in the football quarterfinals that day and that sounded like as good as excuse as any to go see G. We met for lunch and then gathered up our things and headed to the ballgame. Yes, they won but I was more focused on the blessing of sitting between my two favorite men in the entire world for 3 1/2 hours. We went to G's house after and hung out with lots of his friends who were in town for the big game. It was fun to be in his environment and a great way to spend a Saturday. We left bright and early the next morning to get back home. Our church's annual Christmas Presentation was that evening and we made it just in time to change clothes and get there. The sounds of the season are just so wonderful - adults and children singing about our Lord's birth. Loved it.
8. On the 14th, we attended our Christmas Communion at church. Traditionally, our whole family goes together but this year G and N couldn't be there. We sure did miss them. I love this service. It's so beautiful and meaningful. I always do supper afterwards at the house and this year's selection was chili and BLT wraps. Quick and easy. Check.
9. On the 15th, the Birthday Girls got together for our Annual Cookie Swap Extravaganza. Oh, this is so much fun. Seriously, food, gifts and cookies with your best girlfriends - what could be better? It's a blast every year. Every one's cookies were amazing. My contribution - Toffee Chocolate Chip Shortbread. I'll have to post the recipe for you.
10. On the 16th, D's immediate family gathered - D's sister and husband traveling from Tennessee and their children coming from the Atlanta area. D's mom has been experiencing some health problems so we opted for dinner out at Red Lobster and then went to their house. We had such a good time but we had a big ole hole - G was missing. He has gotten a job in Statesboro and his schedule wouldn't allow him to be home. First time in 22 years that we haven't all been together. Made this momma's heart a little sad but in the big picture, it was okay. G did get home on Christmas Eve eve and for that I was grateful.
11. On the 17th, E and I worked our final wedding of 2011! This was kind of a last minute, 2-week-before-the-wedding panic call from the bride's mom in need of some day-of assistance and we were happy to help. Let me just say that a Christmas wedding is just gorgeous. The church and reception site were already beautifully decorated. It was just lovely.
12. My birthday present from D this year actually allowed me to check something off of my bucket list. In the 70s one of my favorite bands was Pure Prairie League (or PPL as us cool kids called them back then). I first laid eyes on their new guitarist in 1978. Let's just say it was "love at first sight" or the best it could be on an album cover. I wanted to know all there was to know about this handsome guitarist who could sing as smooth as buttaaah. This little known talent (at the time) was Vince Gill. I have followed his career ever since but had never seen him in person. So you can imagine my thrill when I opened my birthday gift and it was tickets to see him and Amy live at the Fox Theatre for their 12 Days of Christmas Tour. So on Monday the 19th we headed that way. I was mesmerized from the moment he took the stage. The man is so incredibly talented that I just couldn't take my eyes off of him. That Amy was pretty good too but honestly, I could have cared less that she was there. Aren't I terrible? Just honest. Although, she did provide quite the interesting fashion show. She changed clothes four times and all equally gorgeous choices. So for that, I was glad she came. :)
13. The next day, we hosted the store's Operations Staff and their spouses for a Christmas Open House. We had never done this before and now I'm wondering why. It was so much fun. We honestly enjoy these folks so much and loved having them in our home. I had a blast cooking for this party. I'll have to post the menu in the next couple of days.
14. On Christmas Eve, G and I went to the 5:00 service at our church. What a powerful and meaningful service it was. And I was so thankful to be there with G because it seemed as though he had missed most of what had gone on during the season. This service was a great remembrance through baptism and communion about what Jesus' gift of life really means. I was moved to tears and held on to that boy tightly as we left. That moment will be with me for a very long time.
15. Ahhh and Christmas Day! Joy to the World, the Lord has Come! It was a great one. I woke up with all of my family under my roof. What a great thing! D fixed breakfast and I fixed lunch and in between we opened more presents that we really deserved. I am never happier than when all of my family is in my house. It is a thrill I will never tire of. Thank the good Lord that He provided that blessing on that day! We had a great day!
Well, that was kind of an abbreviated version of a very busy month. I'll post some recipes in the next few days and then we'll start thinking about the new year. Have you made any goals for 2012? I've already been evaluating those from 2011 and refocusing on the new. I'll be sharing.
Tuesday, December 27, 2011
Tuesday, December 13, 2011
What I Love about December 2011
Well, good gracious, what’s not to love about December? It is the most Wonderful Time of the year. So let’s just jump right on in:
1. On Thursday night, December 1st was our annual J&J Foods Christmas Party at the Gainesville Civic Center. Actually, annual may not be the correct word because we didn’t hold our Christmas party in 2009 or 2010. Those were hard years for our stores as well as the country as a whole and D made the decision that only “mission critical” (as he called it) expenditures would occur. The Christmas Party? Not mission critical at that point. While we are adjusting to a new normal way of doing business, D decided that it was necessary to honor this our 35th year in business with a little holiday cheer. One of the highlights of the party for me is the presentation of the service awards. For a company of our size, it is amazing that we have several employees that have been with us 10, 15, 20 and 30 years. While those are all impressive, we honored one employee who had been with us 35 years. J&J opened in June of 1976 and this gentleman came to work that August. He’s a fine one to be sure. He are honored that he chose to work with our company for all these years.
2. On Friday night, the 2nd, D and I headed down to Emory University where our niece is in school. She was participating in the Choral Concert through their Department of Music. While she is not a music major, she has a beautiful voice and was selected to sing in their 100+voice choir. Now if an old church, with beautiful stained glass windows, lit by candlelight, filled with Christmas trees isn’t enough to get you in the Christmas spirit, add to that a choir singing like angels accompanied by a full orchestra. It was fabulous.
3. That afternoon before the concert, D and I got to thinking that if we were going to Emory in Decatur for the concert then back to Atlanta on Saturday, perhaps we should just stay in the Atl for the evening. So my every economical husband goes on the Priceline app on my phone to find us a hotel. I’m sure you’re familiar with the whole Priceline procedure, bidding on a hotel without prior knowledge of the actual hotel. So the thing about that is that you never really know what you’re going to get as far as quality of hotels go. You get to pick the number of star rating that you desire but let me just say that a four star hotel say in New York City is a little different than a four star hotel in Statesboro Georgia. No offense to Statesboro but it’s a fact. Believe me, I know. Anyway, D put in the info and out came our hotel. Well, this time we got lucky because for a whopping $69 we stayed at The Westin at Perimeter. It was fabulous and I just wished I could have slept in that bed for longer than 7 hours. This bed was so good that D and I might have pulled off the sheets to see what the brand was. Okay, we did. It.was.that.good. oh my word, I didn’t want to get out of it. Except for the fact that if we didn’t get to that Dome in time, we wouldn’t get to see the BULLDOGS PLAY IN THE SEC Championship!!! And if you can’t tell already, I was just little bit excited about the whole adventure.
You know, after looking at the length of that above paragraph, I probably should have devoted an entire post to this but oh well, too late now. We dragged ourselves out of the One. Fabulous.Bed, put on our red and black, loaded up the car and headed downtown. Now, I love the Bulldogs and the energy on this particular game day was enough to cut with a knife. It was great. Oh and the best part, we realized from talking with one of D’s employees that we had two more tickets than we originally thought. So who can we call that could come last minute? Oh yes, E and N. Yay! I think before D could get off the phone with her she was already in the shower getting ready. I honestly could go on and on about the great time we had at Fan Fare because who wouldn’t when there was complimentary fried macaroni and cheese and an appearance by the Red Coat Band and Hairy Dog (who I hugged by the way). And that was all before the game even started. We had fabulous seats in the Dr. Pepper suite. Now I usually don’t name drop because well, I don’t have any names to drop, but I will say that there are perks for selling 50,000 cases (give or take a few thousand) of Dr. Pepper every year. The folks there were so gracious to invite us to sit with them and we could not have enjoyed it more. You know the absolute best part about sitting in a suite? The private bathroom. Oh yes. Thank you Lord. This made the fact that we lost the second half of the ballgame a whole lot more bearable.
On a totally unrelated note, I love to go to events like this and just people watch. Oh at the cute fashions you see. I’ve never seen the like of cute dresses, boots, sweaters, sweater dresses, tights, scarves, etc. I could go on and on but the highlight for me (and I so wish I would have taken a picture) was the LSU fan with the gold-sequin encrusted cowboy boots. Boy, howdy, those were a classic I tell you. You just wonder where she might have bought those or was this a do-it-yourself project with an industrial strength Bedazzler. We’ll never know.
4. On Monday night, the 5th D and I had another great music opportunity. When D opened his music store in 1984, one of his first employees was a very talented trumpet player. So talented that he had just come off a 4 year travel gig with the Christian music group, Truth. I loved Truth. Still do. I always dreamed of singing with them because they always had the best looking guys in their group. (I was very spiritually mature). I was and still am, a sucker for a good-looking man who can sing. Oh, I digress. Anyway, I had Truth’s albums (and they were actual vinyl albums) back in the day. Then I had their 8 track tapes in my car and then I had their cassettes. This year Truth is celebrating their 40th anniversary. They actually stopped traveling back in 2004 but decided to tour one last time for this, their anniversary year. And on Monday night, they came through Gainesville to Blackshear Place Baptist Church. And our longtime friend, the trumpet player, was invited to play in their trumpet section. It was a very special evening.
5. On Tuesday, the 6th some girlfriends and I headed out for our annual trip to see another good-looking man who can sing, John Berry. I won’t go into once again how much I love John Berry but I will say that he has a new gospel CD out and it is awesome. You should get it. I have it in my car and cannot stop listening to it. We had a great night of music, laughter, and Mexican food. And, in my humble opinion, it just doesn’t get any better than that.
We’ll friends, I’m going to stop there for today. There’s lots more to tell but I’ll save it. I think that’s all the rambling one person should be subject to for one day.
1. On Thursday night, December 1st was our annual J&J Foods Christmas Party at the Gainesville Civic Center. Actually, annual may not be the correct word because we didn’t hold our Christmas party in 2009 or 2010. Those were hard years for our stores as well as the country as a whole and D made the decision that only “mission critical” (as he called it) expenditures would occur. The Christmas Party? Not mission critical at that point. While we are adjusting to a new normal way of doing business, D decided that it was necessary to honor this our 35th year in business with a little holiday cheer. One of the highlights of the party for me is the presentation of the service awards. For a company of our size, it is amazing that we have several employees that have been with us 10, 15, 20 and 30 years. While those are all impressive, we honored one employee who had been with us 35 years. J&J opened in June of 1976 and this gentleman came to work that August. He’s a fine one to be sure. He are honored that he chose to work with our company for all these years.
2. On Friday night, the 2nd, D and I headed down to Emory University where our niece is in school. She was participating in the Choral Concert through their Department of Music. While she is not a music major, she has a beautiful voice and was selected to sing in their 100+voice choir. Now if an old church, with beautiful stained glass windows, lit by candlelight, filled with Christmas trees isn’t enough to get you in the Christmas spirit, add to that a choir singing like angels accompanied by a full orchestra. It was fabulous.
3. That afternoon before the concert, D and I got to thinking that if we were going to Emory in Decatur for the concert then back to Atlanta on Saturday, perhaps we should just stay in the Atl for the evening. So my every economical husband goes on the Priceline app on my phone to find us a hotel. I’m sure you’re familiar with the whole Priceline procedure, bidding on a hotel without prior knowledge of the actual hotel. So the thing about that is that you never really know what you’re going to get as far as quality of hotels go. You get to pick the number of star rating that you desire but let me just say that a four star hotel say in New York City is a little different than a four star hotel in Statesboro Georgia. No offense to Statesboro but it’s a fact. Believe me, I know. Anyway, D put in the info and out came our hotel. Well, this time we got lucky because for a whopping $69 we stayed at The Westin at Perimeter. It was fabulous and I just wished I could have slept in that bed for longer than 7 hours. This bed was so good that D and I might have pulled off the sheets to see what the brand was. Okay, we did. It.was.that.good. oh my word, I didn’t want to get out of it. Except for the fact that if we didn’t get to that Dome in time, we wouldn’t get to see the BULLDOGS PLAY IN THE SEC Championship!!! And if you can’t tell already, I was just little bit excited about the whole adventure.
You know, after looking at the length of that above paragraph, I probably should have devoted an entire post to this but oh well, too late now. We dragged ourselves out of the One. Fabulous.Bed, put on our red and black, loaded up the car and headed downtown. Now, I love the Bulldogs and the energy on this particular game day was enough to cut with a knife. It was great. Oh and the best part, we realized from talking with one of D’s employees that we had two more tickets than we originally thought. So who can we call that could come last minute? Oh yes, E and N. Yay! I think before D could get off the phone with her she was already in the shower getting ready. I honestly could go on and on about the great time we had at Fan Fare because who wouldn’t when there was complimentary fried macaroni and cheese and an appearance by the Red Coat Band and Hairy Dog (who I hugged by the way). And that was all before the game even started. We had fabulous seats in the Dr. Pepper suite. Now I usually don’t name drop because well, I don’t have any names to drop, but I will say that there are perks for selling 50,000 cases (give or take a few thousand) of Dr. Pepper every year. The folks there were so gracious to invite us to sit with them and we could not have enjoyed it more. You know the absolute best part about sitting in a suite? The private bathroom. Oh yes. Thank you Lord. This made the fact that we lost the second half of the ballgame a whole lot more bearable.
On a totally unrelated note, I love to go to events like this and just people watch. Oh at the cute fashions you see. I’ve never seen the like of cute dresses, boots, sweaters, sweater dresses, tights, scarves, etc. I could go on and on but the highlight for me (and I so wish I would have taken a picture) was the LSU fan with the gold-sequin encrusted cowboy boots. Boy, howdy, those were a classic I tell you. You just wonder where she might have bought those or was this a do-it-yourself project with an industrial strength Bedazzler. We’ll never know.
4. On Monday night, the 5th D and I had another great music opportunity. When D opened his music store in 1984, one of his first employees was a very talented trumpet player. So talented that he had just come off a 4 year travel gig with the Christian music group, Truth. I loved Truth. Still do. I always dreamed of singing with them because they always had the best looking guys in their group. (I was very spiritually mature). I was and still am, a sucker for a good-looking man who can sing. Oh, I digress. Anyway, I had Truth’s albums (and they were actual vinyl albums) back in the day. Then I had their 8 track tapes in my car and then I had their cassettes. This year Truth is celebrating their 40th anniversary. They actually stopped traveling back in 2004 but decided to tour one last time for this, their anniversary year. And on Monday night, they came through Gainesville to Blackshear Place Baptist Church. And our longtime friend, the trumpet player, was invited to play in their trumpet section. It was a very special evening.
5. On Tuesday, the 6th some girlfriends and I headed out for our annual trip to see another good-looking man who can sing, John Berry. I won’t go into once again how much I love John Berry but I will say that he has a new gospel CD out and it is awesome. You should get it. I have it in my car and cannot stop listening to it. We had a great night of music, laughter, and Mexican food. And, in my humble opinion, it just doesn’t get any better than that.
We’ll friends, I’m going to stop there for today. There’s lots more to tell but I’ll save it. I think that’s all the rambling one person should be subject to for one day.
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