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Fa la la la Ficus Tree
Last year our company started a “friendly” competition between the business units. The objective was to decorate a ficus tree for Christmas using only office supplies. Our floor threw ourselves into the spirit of competition (I mean we will do anything for a beer Friday) and had what we thought was a pretty outstanding tree. One floor only used food items such as crackers and condiments and another was only allowed to work on their tree after hours (boo). Needless to say our tree blew the competition away.
This year we knew we needed to step up our game. I mean as the winners of the last competition we knew we had to “beat” ourselves. Well forks that is EXACTLY what we did. For 2 days straight one of my co-workers decorated our Ficus with a little help from myself and a few others. We are fortunate that our marketing group is pretty awesome so they had some wonderful ideas and helped out. I almost felt as though we were cheating having them on our team. After 2 days of cutting and copying we had a tree that was worthy of a win. It had focus and direction, a color scheme and was pretty darn amazing, if I do say so myself. (Everyone else thought it was amazing too, I think even Martha Stewart would like it.) Well apparently not everyone thought it was amazing, because son of a bitch we lost! Yeah we were all shocked.
After the winner was announced a few people went next door to see the winning tree. Let me just say that the bar we set last year was not met. (And I’m going to tell you the tree we did last year pales in comparison to this year’s tree.) It seemed pretty obvious to several of us that they didn’t just stick to “office supply” items. Our group tried to be diligent and follow the rules, for the most part. 😉 But really we we used items we had.
So I don’t have pic of the winning tree for 2011 but I do have a pics of our trees from both years. As you will see the 2011 tree should have set the gold standard for Ficus tree decorating.
2010
As you can see we were pretty creative. We used what we had and it was a pretty good tree. Good enough to win the prize last year. And that pic is not even the finished tree, it was close but not finished.
2011
But this year’s tree. Well what can you say?!?!?! It’s specatacular. We used balloons as a tree skirt. Spider webs from Halloween for snow and clouds. We used solo cups as spiral thingys. We even hung a PHONEBOOTH from the sky!!!!! Please tell me how this is NOT a winning tree?~k
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I’m officially a collector
Of Nutcrackers! YAY! For years my mom has collected Santa’s for Christmas. Each year I normally add one to her collection. Needless to say it’s gotten pretty large. So a few weeks ago I was in the mall, walking past the Christmas store, when this amazing Nutcracker caught my eye. He was purple and amazing. At that minute I knew that’s what I wanted to collect. I said something to my mom that I wanted to collect them. A few days ago she told me she put something in the mail for us. She said we could go ahead and open it before Christmas.
For the past 2 days I’ve been waiting on mom’s package to arrive. Finally this morning it was at the door when Matt left for work. I was excited to get home and open our gift. And of course what did mom send? She sent me 2 Nutcrackers, a little cheese plate and a stress ball for Matt. 😉
I put
myour Nutcrackers on the fireplace mantel. They look beautiful.
A crappy pic but you get the idea.
~k
ETA: I wrote this last week but for some reason it didn’t get published.
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Train away
I’ll try to make this a short story since it’s work related. A while back my co-worker and I took over credit. We were basically handed an out-dated SOP, trained with the girl who had done it for a few days and then we were on our own. For the most part we were doing pretty well. Until the other day that is. People finally realized we really had no idea what we were looking at. 😉 So today a received word that we are now going to get some training. WOO HOO! I am really excited. I love doing credit and it will be nice to finally know what I am doing.
Bring on the training!
~k
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Christmas Craft Extravaganza
That’s what happened at our house this weekend. I finally finished the paper Christmas trees I’ve been working on for, oh 2 weeks. I also made an ornament wreath for over the fireplace. I have a lighted wreath for the front door but I knew I wanted to try an ornament wreath. I also got the mantel finished complete with dollar store stocking holders.
They don’t look too bad. I couldn’t really find any stands for them. I also didn’t have room on the mantel for them so they are downstairs.
This is our mantel. I think it turned out pretty well. The garland has pretty much had it so it will get tossed at the end of the season. Overall I think it looks nice.
The dollar store stocking holders. Not quite what I was going for but for a buck each and some spray paint they aren’t too bad. I got 2 Joys and 2 trees.
And of course the piece d’resistance. AHHHHHH! My wreath. It took about 30 minutes, a wire hanger and about 70 balls. Once I got my pattern down things went pretty well. I was lucky the tops to my ornaments were pretty tight, they were plastic, so I didn’t have to hot glue them on. Once I was to the end Matt helped me close the hanger back and Viola.
The Christmas table. And lastly……
The TREE!
~k
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Is Frankie’s fun?
You bet your ass it is. Today a few groups from work had a team outing to Frankie’s Fun Park. I’ve been to fun parks before but I’d never been to Frankie’s. We all left work around 1:00pm ready for some fun. We ate lunch when we got there and then we hit the go-carts. Everyone had a blast racing each other. Then we headed back inside for laser tag. The first round was boys against girls and I had the high score for the girls! Whoop whoop! The next round we broke out by groups. Of course my group won. 🙂
After that we were all so hot we headed back outside. Frankie’s has 3 go-cart tracks so a few of us decided to try the slick track. OMG! That track was hard. It took me almost the whole time to finally figure out how to drive my car. I’m not going to lie, I was a disaster on the course. I was all over the place. I was sliding everywhere and running into the corners. The cars have no turning radius so you have to find the right amount of speed needed to get you through the turns. Once I figured out you had to give it gas through the turns I was pretty good. But then the race was over.
I still have one event left on my card. I wonder if I can convince Matt to go to the fun park sometime. 😉
~k
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Let there be light
On the tree that is. The tree is now fluffed and lit. For some unknown reason the top looks crooked or not fluffed right. And the left side looks dark. Obviously I’m having issues. If I could only find the energy to put the decorations on. Ughh!
~k
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I’m a holiday slacker
I just can’t get in the mood to decorate the tree. I don’t know what it is. It is currently chillin’ in the corner of the den waiting to be fluffed, lit and decorated. Right now it is a sad sad tree. But I DON’T WANNA decorate it right now. I still haven’t finished my decorative Christmas trees from last week. Not to mention the stack of Christmas cards that need to be addressed, stamped and mailed. Ughh, why do I suck right now? I think tomorrow is my day. Matt is going to the State basketball game with the guys so hopefully I can find my Christmas cheer and decorate.
I’ll post pics once the house is done.
~k
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Thanksgiving
Went really well. This was mine and Matt’s first year really hosting. Matt fried the turkey and I made maple sweet potatoes, mac and cheese and green bean casserole. Matt’s mom made the corn casserole and two stuffings. Everything was delicious.
I must say I’m pretty impressed with my cooking skills. Everything I made, with the exception of the chocolate meringue pie, were new recipes. I know most of this stuff isn’t super hard anyway but I am still proud of myself. They are recipes that will be added to our Thanksgiving Dinner menu.
Thanksgiving table
Matt prepping the turkey
The bird
The fried turkey
Corn casserole, stuffing, mac and cheese
Mac and cheese
My dinner plate. Yum!
Last but not least, delicious chocolate meringue pie.
I hope everyone had a wonderful Thanksgiving!
~k
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Hello November
Today I had lunch outside with the hubs. Actually we’ve had the windows open for a few days now and one might even say it’s a bit warm in here. Literally, it’s kind of hot in the house, in NOVEMBER! I am not going to complain though. This weather has been amazing for this time of year.
I hope the weather stays this way for a few more days. With Thanksgiving only a few days away, it would be nice to enjoy the season, a warm season that it.
And while I’m at it, wish me luck. I will be cooking my first Thanksgiving meal, mostly by myself. Matt will be frying our turkey in the new oil less turkey fryer. {We did a test run over the weekend with a small turkey breast and it turned out pretty nice.} Tomorrow night I will start working on the desserts. EEEKKK!
I’ll be back next week to let you know how it all went.
Happy Thanksgiving!
~k
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Martinis at work
Probably not the best idea ever but, its Friday! 🙂
