Christmas Decorations

My office is having a cubicle decorating contest over the next few weeks. Now, I am pretty sure this is an attempt to prove that our office is just as fun of a work environment as other offices.... I'm not sure it has another purpose. My suspicions come from the fact that our Austin office had a Halloween decorating contest that was much talked about and our office decided to do this (for the first time) about 2 days after hearing about the Austin experiment.

Well, at first I kept telling people that I wasn't going to have time to go out and buy decorations and then put them up, blah blah blah. The truth? I'm too competitive. I know that I will go overboard and end up spending a ton of money and then if I don't win, I'll get bitter. It's not all fun and games to me.... I may pretend like it, but for things like this I want to win. I want mine to be so much prettier than anyone else's that they will have no choice but to crown me queen of decorating and hail my creative abilities.... not in front of me of course, I'm not comfortable with that kind of attention :) But it would be a topic in the breakroom. People will remember it next year and look at the other entries and say, "Yes, but it could never compare to Abby's last year." Interesting that I want to go down in history but not have anyone compliment me to my face :P

So long internal debate short, I'm gonna do it. I have a plan and it's not too intricate. It does involve a dowel rod hanging from the ceiling, yards upon yards of tinsel, paper snowflakes, white lights and possibly fake snow and a likeness of Santa's backside..... I'll post a picture when I'm done :)

WHOOP!!!!

This is a tad late, but I have been internet-less since Wednesday so I couldn't post.....

Ags 12
t.u. 7

GIG EM AGS!!!

Work for the Holidays

There is something so fundamentally wrong about going to work when over half of your friends aren't going. Then you get there and way over half of your coworkers also are not going and your boss sends out in an email to another office that you aren't working on Wednesday either.... wait, so.... nobody else is here, nobody knows I'm here, there isn't much for me to do.....why am I here? Well I really have nothing to blog about, so this will be a Seinfeldian sort of blog.

-I had ice on my windshield yesterday morning.... ICE

-I am the queen of weird medical problems. Yesterday was the second time (for two different things) in a couple months that I heard this from a doctor..." Well, you aren't imagining it, it's definitely there. I have no idea what it is, what is causing it or how to get rid of it. The x-ray/bloodwork didn't show anything bad so I just wouldn't worry about it. Hopefully it will go away on it's own. Anyway, there is definitely something wrong but I wouldn't worry about it... we just don't know what it is (insert big fake doctor smile)"

-I think I have more pet peeves than the entire country of Bolivia. I am working on a peeve-tastic blog entry wherein I record everything that bothers me that shouldn't.

-Confession- I love to make lists. The only thing better than making a list is crossing stuff off of one.

-Confession #2- sometimes when I'm bored at work I get on our payroll system to look at how much PTO I have and calculate how much I will have by the honeymoon (or whatever trip was coming up before that came about). It's always the same result, but it keeps my somewhat sane.

-I treat my TI 89 calculator like a member of the family. The smartest member of the family.

- I think if I could only shop at one store for the rest of my life, that I could survive quite well with a Super Target. The only hitch is that I can never find cute clothes there although everyone else does.

- Pet Peeve #895, When I ask people where they got the cute skirt and they say "Target, just this week" and I KNOW I went to Target this week and I KNOW I looked through every rack because everyone else seems to find fun stuff, and I KNOW I found nothing.

- A can of Raid a fearless bug killer doth make. It's so much easier when you don't have to squish them... or get within 4 feet :)

- A hand that cramps easily is a bad thing to have when you are writing massive amounts of thank you notes.

Beatnik Bride

I'll confess, I like the title of this entry more than the content I actually have to fill it. I had a moment yesterday where I realized I had joined the ranks of beatnik brides. Few escape it, few realize they've become it. Beatnik bride is my term for describing women who, as soon as they become engaged, stop cutting their hair. Suddenly the girl smiling back at you from all of your shower pictures has the same hair cut... long and straight. At the next shower it is straighter and longer, and longer, and longer..... For girls with curly hair, they become afro brides or perhaps lion brides. Their hair grows out instead of down. They suddenly find themselves with a head of hair that can be tamed by no invention mankind has yet stumbled upon. And all this so that a hairdresser can look at you on your wedding day and see the potential to do pretty much anything you want.

Anyhoo, my hair has gotten long.... not such a weird thing for me as this is how I spent my childhood and my sophomore year of college, but it is certainly longer than I have been used to it in recent years. I am looking forward to being married and being able to cut my hair and maybe, just maybe learning how to fix it two different ways.... oooooooo, variety :)

On a side note, I think i'm getting sick (just in time to spend the holidays with Nate's family, don't ya know) and I think I got sick from my insane boss who came in sick as a dog all last week and coughed all over us (she sits next to me.. happy times) even though she has plenty of sick time to take off. I am now plotting my revenge upon her. I'm not sure what type of evil plan will prevail, but I think cough drops might be involved :P

Sunshiney

I have to admit it.. I'm a sucker for a sunrise, or a sunset, or just a sunny day really. It seems to be the way that God reminds me of how faithful, powerful and beautiful he is. Today I got up here and was booting up my computer and a guy I work with came in and told me that the interior light in my car was on in the parking garage. Drat! I very much dislike having to go back down there once I'm settled. Not desiring to have a dead battery when I make my Friday escape this afternoon, I thanked him and went downstairs. As I walked through the garage, I saw the beginnings of a sunrise through the opening in the second level of the garage and I instantly smiled. It was in that pre-sunrise stage where it isn't bright or anything, but the whole sky begins to change color from the horizon up. Today it was a deep orange. Suddenly my mind was flooding with thoughts.... "This is the day that the Lord has made", "His mercies are new every morning" and "great is thy faithfulness". I love that God uses the sun as a reminder to me of his person.

On a separate note, I've had this song in my head all week....

" I don't know how the stars hang
Or how there's night and then there's day
I don't know how you spoke into the black
And made it all obey

All I know is the bleeding in my heart
And the healing in your touch
All I know is that you gave everything
So let that be enough
'Cause it's all I know

I don't know how your love works
How you cover me in grace
I don't know how you swallow all I am
When I can't stand my taste

All I know is the bleeding in my heart
And the healing in your touch
All I know is that you gave everything
So let that be enough
'Cause it's all I know

I can't explain your mystery
But I know the answer

All I know is the bleeding in my heart
And the healing in your touch
All I know is that you gave everything
So let that be enough
'Cause it's all I know"

'All I know' by Matt Wertz

So sad....

I was watching the news yesterday and they were talking about Renee Zellweger's divorce from Kenny Chesney after a 4 month marriage. (I will spare you my list of reasons why this isn't news and shouldn't be playing alongside Fort Bend murder stories at 9pm) I was getting ready for bed and heard in passing a quote from Renee explaining that the marriage came about because she "needed a break from acting". In an article this morning I read her as saying~

"I was looking for something else. I just needed to put acting aside. I needed to sit still and not to worry about the dresses and the hair and the travel and the interviews.
"I was going through huge life changes at the time. I wanted to stop and be a girl for a while."

It saddens me that she used marriage as a way to break up the monotony and 'be a girl for awhile'. What ever happened to a good old fashioned vacation? When I need to feel like a girl I watch sappy movies, eat more than I should, go shopping, play MASH or have massive unexplained mood swings. Perhaps I should send her a list of suggestions.....

AP- Acronym Patrol

It seems that not a day goes by when I don't get at least one email utilizing acronyms that I don't understand.

Some examples from last week include:

"OK, I have 10 minutes and IS wants to take computer down. I have the IOA ready except to refine the Houston Scope of Work."

"I need to get this to SSO Billing today."

Um ok, I think that problem is that I haven't been here long enough to be able to read through these without stopping for a while to try to remember what the acronyms mean. Do you suffer from the same problem? Have no fear! I found a website that has common acronyms... you just type in the one that is stumping you and it will give you all of the possibilities it knows of that your acronym is used for. http://acronyms.thefreedictionary.com/ Besides a helpful tool for deciphering emails, this is also a form of entertainment. I was thinking about my initials.... what do they say to people? If I signed them in an email, what would people think? According to the website, my initials (AJE) are portraying the following-


African Joint Effort (ILO/WHO Joint Effort on Occupational Health and Safety in Africa)
Alliance for Jewish Education
American Journal of Epidemiology
Anti-Jam Equipment


Exciting... right? ;-)

I'm not copying Laurie... ok, just this once I am

Things I have heard this week and were just too good to not pass on.

"It's too early to be selling Christmas stuff! What about Thanksgiving? Has everyone forgotten about it? What about the Pilgrims, Abby? WHAT ABOUT THE PILGRIMS?!"

"Yeah, it's fun to be naked in Fairfield!"

"It was sprinkling and Little York was flooded."
"Yeah, I'm pretty sure Little York floods when it's foggy."

"Is that pot? It is, isn't it?! I think I'm high off of that guy's pot!"

Smiley Afternoon

My apartment complex smells like Bubbalicious today... what an excellent afternoon :)

Oh mom, Allison Bush is engaged!

Wedding Weirdness - Part 8

I walk into work this Monday and notice a voicemail on my machine. I sit down and call in to check my messages. This is what I hear....

"Hi Abby, this is ___ from Bed Bath and Beyond in Meyerland Plaza. A man just bought something off of your registry and he would like you to come pick it up today. Once again, that is the Meyerland Plaza location.. thank you!"

Ok, a couple things here..... You can make someone go pick up the gift you buy them?? I had NO IDEA!! That is so weird to me, but ok. Second thing, the lady calls at 5:23 on a Sunday and asks that I come today to pick it up.... that gives me a grand total of 37 minutes to get there. Third thing, she called and left a message at my work number.. how likely is it that I will be there to answer on a Sunday? (For the mildly curious reader, you couldn't get from my office to Meyerland in 37 minutes.... even on a Sunday)

Anyhoo, just another oddity of weddings that I had no idea about. I think I'll do this for Christmas... buy things and make my family and friends go pick them up. Should make for some interesting thank you notes at the very least :P It's a weird world my friends, and I'm just getting married in it.

If Houston was a person....

If Houston was a person, would it be mentally unstable? No, think about it... Houston often boldly displays the characteristics of a manic depressive personality. It can be bright and sunny and you think everything is good and then in a matter of 5 minutes it can go pitch black and the waterworks start. In the case of this week, it can be warm and inviting and in a matter of 24 hours you can find yourself driving to work past a bank sign that boldly proclaims a temperature of 38 degrees! Talk about the cold shoulder!

Ok, let's step out of this for a second..... 38? 38!!!?? WHY must it be 38?!! Would it be too much to ask for to have some sort of transition between 85 and 38? Ok, back to the blog...

Houston lures you into a false sense of comfort.. you think you understand it's patterns and then you find yourself inching along the ramp from 610 to I10 only to find that it will take you an hour to get to Silber (for those non-Houstonians, Silber is the first exit and less than a mile from the start of the ramp... sorry that happened to ya Kim) So why would anybody want to live here? I thought I would throw together a quick list of why it's worth it....

-People are more real here. No shiny mask of wealth or effort to constantly be keeping up with the Joneses (go to the Dallas Galleria and you will truly understand the meaning of living outside your means)
-You can go to almost any restaurant in town in jeans and at least half the people there will be dressed the same
-Memorial Park, nuf said
-GREAT TexMex, great food in general
-Houston's First Baptist Church
-Hermann Park
-Miller outdoor theater
-the Stros

There are many more that i'm not going to go into, but check this out if you are more interested.... http://www.houstonitsworthit.com/default/readwhy.asp

p.s.- this whole post started as a way for me to say that I'm cold.... i'm cold :)

Hahahahahahaha...

My sister in law sent me this picture, it definately put a bright spot in my Thursday. I don't think I need to explain why I felt the need to share it :)

Wedding Weirdness - Part 7

Orbitz has the funniest interactive ads on theknot.com. Check this one out, so fun!

http://www.orbitzweddings.com/dancebridedance/

My favorite is Stir the Pot :)