Alabama + Graffiti

So in order to rock my world a little bit, my work has decided to put me down at 280 today. Which I’m not totally opposed to; it’s very peaceful down here. It’s just me and the Christmas music (thank you Joel for your magnificent radio, which, without, I would be a very very lonely little girl, and blasting Hanson/Nsync/American Idol/Steven’s Mixed Christmas all day).

They have been cracking down on overtime hard, as we are fully staffed, which means shorter and shorter days for the likes of the hourly employees. This is where my schedule sits as we sit it for this week:

Monday, worked a glorious 7 hours, from 6-2:30, with a lunch mind you.
Tuesday, working the fabulous Taj Mahal from 7-6.
Wednesday, due to the fabulous Taj Mahal’s 11 hours working, I work today 6-3.
Thursday, I will open and then to make sure I don’t get overtime, I will be allowed to leave at whatever time will not put me in OT.

This thrills me to no end; I like to work out after work, and usually bennett doesn’t like to go, so this allows me to go and be done by the time he gets off work.

So I decided (by request) to put the wedding details in this post, so if you are a boy or don’t care about wedding plans, I will warn you now, this is the place to stop reading.

The only thing I’m semi-bummed about with the wedding is not being able to use sparklers. They make for such lovely pictures, but I guess we will be reduced to Auburn shakers, which we were going to use to begin with.

The chair covers and tables will be all white, with white ribbon. The centerpieces will be square vases with pink hydrangeas and tea lights. The arbor where the ceremony will take place will be lit in the back with white tulle hanging. I’m not sure how much I really like that; I might change my mind about it; it just seems like it would look tacky to me. Anyway, I’m planning on the wedding being simple and pretty, so basically that’s about all for the massive details.

Yesterday Rusty called Bennett my husband on accident, but it still made me smile.

So my poor little Focus finally got his 6 month washing (it really should occur more than once every six months, and I promised I would take better care of this one, but that didn’t really happen), and his wheels have a nice shine thing going on too. He’s a pretty happy car today.

So once again, it’s Sunday and I’m at oxmoor. And once again, it is slow so I’m blogging. I have checked in one truck, and I have one reservation that is actually during business hours today. I mean, I can’t complain, because there is nothing going wrong today, it’s not busy, and I have the time to blog with you wonderful people who don’t read my blog.

We got our engagement pictures back, and they are fabulous. I will post some on here as soon as I’m not at work so I can get them. But the pictures have left me at a crossroads; blonde hair or dark hair? At the moment those pictures were taken, my hair was dark, with a pretty tint of red. Today my hair is blonde. I have the hair dye sitting at home under my sink, and it only takes one moment of insanity for the blonde to be “cinnamon stick.” I have always had this mad obsession with having the perfect hair, but it has become painfully obvious and expensive that my hair will never achieve true perfection. And then I have to think about what will look good for the wedding and the white dress and…my face is beginning to show the effects of stressed-out ness in the form of zits, which until recently had been extinct from my face. And they are not of the unnoticeable sort; they are the ones that are the size of texas and red and hurt.

So while it is beautiful outside, it’s cold, and I can be thankful that I have discovered how to make it warmer in this place. And that I also have a job, and finally a church to go to. Bennett and I have been going to Cahaba Heights United Methodist, and we love it! We finally have our preacher for the wedding and they accommodate to my sunday schedule by having a service at 4. Wow, I made that sound like they do it just for me; they don’t. It’s a more contemporary service with more music and the like, and though Bennett and I prefer the more traditional, we will accept the fact that they have drums and guitars in church for the time being, anyway.

And now that I have bored you to tears… I will leave you with one thing.

Rammer jammer yellow hammer, go to hell alabama! Go Florida!

SO the wedding is officially planned. We went to Gabrella today and did it in under an hour. They were super impressed with our awesome planning skills. I kept thinking they were looking at me like we were a bunch of freaks, but oh well.

So while during the Auburn/Alabama game, I got to thinking about a couple of things. Mostly how Nick Saban is an ass, and that I got to thinking, there isn’t a Nick that I came by that I liked.

Example 1: Nick Adams. We all know this story. He probably is the biggest asshole I’ve ever met in my entire life. Wow how I don’t miss the days of having my clothes thrown at me, while hiding my phone or being locked out of my own room, the incessant crying because he thought he was the best damn thing since ever and letting me know that I embarrass Auburn. FYI to you dumb ass, I had a much higher GPA, therefore making them look better not worse.

Example 2: Nick the ex-boss. Yeah, don’t really miss being sexually harassed every day at work. I don’t know if he truly believed that I actually liked him or not, but he would have had to have been pretty retarded to have thought so. Not that he didn’t make coming to work a freakin nightmare anyway, it would have been even worse if I chose to report him.

Example 3: Nick Saban, the anti-christ. It is so not classy to call a timeout after the ball has been snapped. Also the faux timeout called after you had already gotten a penalty for a false start. I hope the gators beat you; scratch that. I hope they shut you out.

Now, there are a couple Nicks that I thought about while writing this that I do sort of like; Nicholas Cage and Nick Cannon, maybe some St. Nick action too. But for the most part, I have never met them, so who knows. Something with that name, must be.

So after a very yummy Thanksgiving, Bennett’s mom and I went shopping on Friday. There weren’t that many good deals out there, but we ended up buying a few.

But in store after store, we kept noticing something strange; A pickle as a Christmas ornament. (We also saw a bunch of mushrooms, but thought the pickle was stranger). So that night we just had to find out what the hell a pickle had to do with Christmas. This is what we found:

The Christmas PickleBy B. Francis Morlan
It is a quaint tradition that nobody wants to claim. And its story would not be the first tradition of Christmas born of a total fabrication. It is the little-known tradition of the Christmas pickle.
The Christmas pickle is not really a pickle at all. It is a pickle-shaped ornament that is the last one hung on the tree on Christmas Eve. The first child to find the Christmas pickle gets an extra gift from Saint Nicholas. Or so the so-called legend goes.
There are two other versions of the origins of the Christmas pickle. One is a family story of a Bavarian-born ancestor who fought in the American Civil War. A prisoner in poor health and starving, he begged a guard for just one pickle before he died. The guard took pity on him and found a pickle for him. The pickle by the grace of God gave him the mental and physical strength to live on.
The other, perpetuated in Berrien Springs, MI, is a medieval tale of two Spanish boys traveling home from boarding school for the holidays. When they stopped at an inn for the night, the innkeeper, a mean and evil man, stuffed the boys into a pickle barrel. That evening, St. Nicholas stopped at the same inn, became aware of the boys’ plight, tapped the pickle barrel with his staff, and the boys were magically freed.
Berrien Springs calls itself the Christmas Pickle Capital of the World. They celebrate with an annual Christmas Pickle Festival held during the early part of December. A parade, led by the Grand Dillmeister who passes out fresh pickles along the parade route, is the featured event. You may even purchase the German glass pickle ornaments at the town’s museum.
Rumor and speculation place the origin of this tradition in Germany. However few in modern-day Germany recognize or have even heard of the Christmas pickle. Some in West Germany blame generations of East Germans who may have had nothing more than pickles to decorate their Christmas trees with after World War II. But even families and historians in East Germany shrug at the mention of the Christmas pickle tradition.
Regardless of where it came from, the Christmas tradition survives. Ornament manufacturers continue to make the specialty decoration and enjoy perpetuating the myth of its legendary origins — false though they may be.

(taken from mymerrychristmas.com).

Bennett’s mom got us this ornament yesterday, so we are now the proud owners of a glass pickle ornament, and a new tradition begins.

Anyway, only one thing left to say…. GO GATORS!!!

haha…christmas pickle.