I'm done!

I'm finished with Sub for Santa! The gifts were all delivered on Friday and all the loose ends were tied up yesterday.

I can't even begin to tell you the great feeling I had when it was all done. It was a mix between satisfaction and incredibly relief. It was a lot of stress, and I came to find that there are a lot of unreliable people that work here. Some people would sign up and then just not pick up their name/money, or they would not even care about what they were getting and just get a lot of lousy crap that wasn't even on the wish list. One person took the 80 dollars we gave her and got two t-shirts, and then put the rest on a $50 gift card to wal-mart. Are you kidding? Would it be that difficult to just spend that $50 and get a toy and some books? They were supposed to get two articles of clothing, two toys and a book, at least. If they make the money stretch farther then great, but at least get those items. There were a lot of people that had $6-$15 in change that they gave back. I don't know why they wouldn't just use that extra money and get something super cheap. OH WELL, what can you do?

Overall, it was such a great experience and I'm so glad that I was able to be such a big part of it. Knowing that we were able to bring Christmas to 142 kids that otherwise would go without this year is such a great feeling. I'm happy to work for a company that is so committed to helping the community. We are afterall a "family business" so to speak. Our mission is to connect families across distance and time, and that doesn't only mean through genealogy.

Here's a cool pic of the gifts gathered together in the lobby before they were picked up from the United Foster Care Foundation.

That is not even half of the gifts. Of the 142 kids we sponsored, 85 was for United Way families and were delivered directly to the families. So these are the gifts that go to 57 Foster Care kids. Pretty cool if you ask me.

My Christmas Tree

So, I have heard some people's tree erecting nightmares, so I thought I would share mine. (it's a long one, sorry!)

My tree took several days for the finished product, and multiple trips to the store. First off, let's go back to last year:

I really wanted a tree, and decided to get a cheap one at good ol' Walmart. So off to Walmart I go-a-skippin' and try to find a good tree that would be both inexpensive yet good quality. And thus I found a good one that was pretty cheap (I don't remember what "pretty cheap" exactly amounts to) and it was prelit! Which meant I not only wouldn't have to buy the lights, but I wouldn't have to string them either! I giggled to myself, and then my heart fell; the prelit lights were colored, and in my heart contained the graceful vision of a tree with white lights, color cordinated bulbs of white and red, and gold ribbon. I searched for a better deal, but one was not to be found. I sucked it up and decided to deal with the colored lights as it was better than no tree at all, since I couldn't justify a tree that was any more expensive. I went to get the ribbon, but couldn't find the right ribbon anywhere! Could Walmart really have sold out of ribbon? Seemed like it. So I made do with red and silver beads. Then I sought the bulbs, and there were no whilte bulbs (what is going on here?) so I had to settle with siler and red. Nevertheless, I was proud of my beautful tacky tree.

BUT, this year I was determined to have the tree I envisioned last year. I had considered buying a whole new tree, either prelit with white lights, or with no lights at all, but couldn't justify that cost, especially since I just got the tree last year. Then I thought of getting white lights and pulling out the colored bulbs, and replacing them with the white ones. However, it took me a good four minutes to get one bulb off, and I didn't have to do the math to understand that was not worth it. Then, I tried to pull the colored lights off, so I could restring it with the white lights, but they sure weave those things in there good and tight.

Then Jordan came into the room and in one second said, "Just don't plug the colored ones in, and put the white ones on." What a guy, I knew I married him for some reason.

I felt incredibly dumb, and then went to work on stringing the white lights. I was determined to make it thoroughly bright, so I took it apart, plugged in the first strand of lights, and strung them in sections to make it easier to get the lights on the inner layers of the tree instead of just wrapping it around the outside. I worked the lights until I was sufficiently satisfied with the arrangment and moved onto the second strand of lights, and second layer of the tree. I plugged in the next strand and went to work . . . and it wasn't long until I noticed the lights had a short and only the top half worked and the last half of the strand kept flicking off. Needless to say I was pretty pissed.

I went back to the store the next day and lo and behold all the lights I wanted were sold out (I wanted the longer strands). I just got several shorter ones to make up for it, and rather than gold ribbon I found this red ribbon with gold stripes that was much prettier than the gold one I had in mind, and went home ready to create my vision.

I finally got the entire things strung, and went to work on the ribbon, which Jordan protested saying a ribbon was too much and I think he thought it would be too femmy. When I finished with the ribbon Jordan came in to help put the bulbs, took in the ribboned tree and smiled. Ha, he totally loved the ribbon! Victory!

Per Jordan's brilliant suggestion we ditched the silver bulbs from last year (also dubbed too much, and this time I agreed) and kept only the red ones. Jordan and I adorned our tree with the red bulbs, and stood back to take in the scene.

It was better than my mental picture, but let's see what you think. . . .

Le close up.

And then, after all that work, here is Kea on her way to mangle the tree. I should have gotten a pic of Kloe, 'cause she's the one most facinated by the tree.

The tree has been up for maybe a week, and every morning I wake up and walk around the house collecting all the bulbs and picking up the lights and ribbon that's hanging down, and putting it all back on the tree. What's better than putting together a tree that leaves you self-satisfied? Putting it back together every morning!

Stay in the Mountains Where You Belong!

SNOW! And that's not a giddy shriek of excitement, that's a bellow full of terror. Prepared by the weather report, I woke up this morning fully expecting a blanket of snow, but that doesn't mean I have to be happy about it. I don't know why snow plows only come out to play until after everything is slushy, but pulling out of my parking spot I just prayed that State St and Center would be plowed. Well, State was a nightmare and Center was even worse. But, if you're curious . . . I made it to work alive. And if you were curious then you're stupid 'cause of course I'm alive- I'm writing this post aren't I? Golly!

On a happier note, I'm almost done with Christmas shopping. If you would have asked me an hour ago I would have said I was done with my Christmas shopping, but I ordered some stuff online last week, but haven't gotten one of them yet and found out that it is backordered and it won't come until after Christmas, so I cancelled the order and will just have to buy it locally. Which kinda sucks 'cause it was such a great price online. Oh well. At least I don't have to cross my fingers and hope it comes in time, now I know for sure I'll have it.

Normally I'm pretty good with Christmas, and am very adament that we wait until Christmas Day to open anything, and Jordan's the sneaky peeky wanting to open stuff, but this year there's a big ol' heavy one with my name on it and I'm desperate to know what it is. I've bee trying to make deals with Jordan, like you can open one if I can open one, but he hasn't taken the bait. . . YET.

What I'm most excited for is my family getting all together. My favorite thing is Christmas Eve we go skiing and spend the whole day out playing and come home exhausted to an awesome dinner. This year my mom reserved the mutal dell, which will be even more special 'cause my mom has been trying to get it for 5 years or so. It will be a lot of fun, and we won't have to cram into my parent's house again, which will be nice to have some elbow room. And it's looking like Jared is going to be coming up, and we haven't had the entire family for Christmas in a very long time. I think I'm most excited to have them up for Christmas and be able to go sledding with my neices hopefully.

What a crazy blog- I started out ranting and ended with sledding. That's weird.

Wedding Pics!

I finally go my wedding pics back! Actually I got them back about a month ago, but now I'm finally posting them! Hurray! I went nuts and posted a bunch, so enjoy!

Yeah, I'm kinda cheesy.

I really liked this one. I like the background of the valley, even it it's hazy

Tender tender

Super cheesy, but I like it anyway.

So handsome in his tux!

El Rings

The center peice on the table at the reception. Yes, I know it's not at the center of the table . . . this is the serving table.

Close up of the bouquet. Why not a full pic of the bouquet you may be thinking? 'Cause it was horrible! Seriously, it was the fugliest thing. It was huge and definitely not what I had in mind, especially since I wanted something small that I could just hold with one hand! Bah, still a little bitter . . .

The groom's cake, and wedding cake. Jordan really really wanted a chocolate wedding cake, and I was adamently against it, there was no way I was going to have a chocolate wedding cake, it just had to be white. So, he was super bummed about that, but I surprised him with super chocolatey chocolate groom's cake. He was so happy, and I was happy he was happy (and I got my white cake, so it worked out nicely).

Me and all my neices and nephews. I just loved their outfits! My mom made them all, what a clever little lady.

A personal favorite pic o' mine. :)

And off into the sunset . . .

Ok, well there isn't a sunset yet, but you get the idea.

Who's counting?

So lately I have had a really hard time going to sleep, I just can't turn my brain off. I'm constantly thinking of all sorts of things; what I need to do tomorrow, what I did today, things that need to get done, and just general thoughts on life, love and the pursuit of happiness. So, there was no way I was going to be able to just not think of anything, so I decided to try to direct all my thoughts in one direction, something that so menial I couldn't help but fall asleep. So, I started to count.

It didn't really work because then I was faced with the age old dilemma . . . do I count in hippopatamus, mississippi, alligator or one-thousand? So, it got me wondering, who decided how long a second is? Who decided how long any time period is? Someone sat around and said, ok there are 60 seconds in a minute, and 60 minutes in an hour. So now I'm thinking what this guy had with the number 60? Was he 60 years old? Did he have 60 prize camels? 60 fantastic pairs of shoes to pay homage to? Why 60? And did he just decide how long a second is?

Now, here is my biggest confusion on the length of time a second is: If you count in hippopatamus that takes a little bit longer to say than one-thousand. So if you say one-one-thousand, two-one-thousand, then you're going to go faster than one-hippopatamus, two-hippopatamus. And yes, I did have to look up how to spell hippopatamus to make sure that I was spelling it right (I was/am). One-thousand has 3 syllables, while alligator and mississippi has 4, and hippopatamus is bringing up the rear at a whopping 5 syllables.

So, my question is this- how long is a second really? I mean, really? Is it a one-thousand, an alligator/mississippi or a hippopatumus?

DON'T WORRY! I won't leave you wondering, I wouldn't do that to you. With my handy stopwatch in er, hand I watched the seconds tick away and I tested and retested each one. And the resutls are these; Hippopatus is way too long, mississippi took longer than alligator which was also too long. In the end one-thousand was just right.

Ok, now you think I'm a crazy person, but it was more idle curiosity than an adament burning craze to discover. And maybe others are curious so I thought I would share.

Not The Easierest Thing To Do

Yes, a coworker of mine actually used the word "easierest". The exact sentence was "Yeah, I think that would be the easierest thing to do." And she was serious, she wasn't trying to be silly and use crazy non-existent words like guesstimate, or fantastical either.

So the last couple days have been crazy. As I've mentioned I am the chair person for the Sub for Santa project here at work. When I agreed to do this, I didn't really stop and consider what an undertaking it would be. And when I started in on I began to understand just what I signed up for. Now that I'm up to my eyeballs in the darn thing I'm confident I would have chosen (hmm, what's a drastic metaphore to show my frustration?) to have my toenails plucked clean off before raising my hand and cheerfully offering my services.

Ok, ok I know what you're thinking: "Your toenails Bre, really? That's not only disgusting, but it can't be all that bad." All right, you caught me- the pain of a detoenailing probably wouldn't compare, but I maintain it's not far behind.

Thankfully I have some pretty awesome coworkers, and when I say "some" mostly I just mean Amy. Seriously, what a doll. Her and my FSE (Favorite Sister Ever) pulled through in crunch time to help me stuff packets and get everything all together. Amy has helped me a great deal yesterday and today and even taking some stuff off my shoulders all together. I had told her I would write a haiku in her honor and was totally kidding at the time, but it's starting to feel like a good idea . . .

Amy Makes My Life Easierest

You're so organized
You don't forget the gift cards
With nice handwriting

I think that pulled together nicely, 5 syllables isn't much to work with.

So, I handed out all the packets with the names, money, gift ideas and instructions and thought I was out of the woods. Then the onslaught of emails came in from everyone with additional questions and problems with their packets that weren't really problems at all if they had bothered to read the instructions.

Oh well. At this point all I can say is meh. I'm already past my fear of public failure, and i'm fastening my seatbelt for all the stress and problems I forsee coming with the delivery of the gifts.

And what it all comes down to is I'm proud to be part of such a wonderful company that is able to help out all these kids. We're sponsoring 142 kids, and the company is not only providing the money for each child, but we're giving $50 Maceys gift cards to each family to buy their Christmas dinner with. That's a lot of money when you think about it. I didn't have to think about it- I got to hold it all in cash with my grubby little hands. My hands weren't grubby until after handling all that money, just to clarify.

Originally I was told we were only going to sponsor 100 kids, but I pushed and prodded until the committee chair person said I could two more names. TWO? Seriously? So I prodded more, and a little more until he said I would add five more families. So I asked United Way for five HUGE families, and the United Rep said that she would be able to work of a specific child number that I wanted. I thought about it for a second, and tried to decide what I could pull off, did the math real quick and told her 42. Hee hee hee. I then emailed the chair person and said I hope you're ok with it 'cause I already did it! Luckily he was.