faith4jesus247
It only took me 10 months of being in a house to put up frames with personal photos on the wall. Don't get me wrong - I put the frames up a long time ago! I suppose I thought frames with ANY pictures in it would make it more home-y. They simply had photos of my distant relatives from Kohl's, Wal-mart, and Target in them. Farewell, cute kids without a name. You will be sorely missed...

My parents inspired me to finally do something with my frames by giving me a canvas of one of our wedding photos for my birthday. We decided to put it on the red wall! Not the clearest shot of it - but just to give you an idea:

I took letters from my scrapbooking collection and put the following collage together. I love how it turned out!

The next one I'm most proud of. I had pictures left over that I didn't know what to do with. We had a frame with a characature drawing in it that I didn't really care to hang on the walls, so I took it out and got creative. Based on the comments we got from some of our engagement photos.....well....you'll see! :)

All in one night! I'm so proud of myself! We now have walls of OUR photos! Come see our homey home sometime! :)
faith4jesus247
Secretary's Day is comparable to Valentine's Day in the life of secretaries.

You get your hopes up, excited....ready to be showered with love and appreciation in the form of cards, gifts, or food (my fave!). The morning of, you wake up bright and cheery, ready to do anything for anyone with a smile on your face, so that their appreciation for you will be doubled by the single act of sending a fax on their behalf. Although simple "thank you"s are rare throughout the other 364 days of the year, it's on THIS day that you forgive and forget their inability to show appreciation on any other day, as they redeem themselves with gift cards to your favorite store, a box of chocolates to indulge in, or a special lunch of your choice. All the complaints you have about the people you work with disappear, as a solid 8 hours of pure workplace bliss takes its place. There's nothing better than knowing that the individuals you become an operator, answering machine, giver of excuses, ultimate organizer, expert googler, flawless typer, miracle worker, graphic designer, and calendar guru for - truly recognize and appreciate all you do.

But wait. Just like any other day - it comes and goes. No cards. No flowers. No chocolate. Not even a "thank you". It's the ultimate Valentine's Day gone bad. You sit at your desk, googling (after all - you are an expert at it!) Secretary's Day 2011, just to make sure you got the date right. And you did. But no one else seems to notice. And if you DO have the guts to mention it - there's an awkward moment of surprise as they say they didn't know. The awkward moment continues as they nervously chuckle....tell you when they "thought" it was....and find a reason to leave your office as quickly as possible, leaving behind the 125 copies you just finished stapling for them.

Don't worry - although Secretary's Day was yesterday, Secretary's Appreciation Week goes until Saturday. You still have time. Go appreciate your secretary. Go do it. Do it. Go. NOW.
faith4jesus247
Monday was an exciting day at work. Well...exciting might not be the right word. Eventful is more accurate.

The clock hits 5:00, and I'm starting to close 'er down. I'm organizing papers on my desk, putting items in my purse to take home, wiggling my feet back into my shoes....when I then decide to close my work email, and shut my computer down. But wait. I have a new email! I'm one of those people that can't leave work without making sure every email of the day has been taken care of. Although it's 5:01 now....I gotta see what it is.

"This is a message from the FSU emergency notification system...... FSU officials received information that a non-Fayetteville State University student has made threats to come to the campus at approximately 5 p.m. to shoot unnamed individuals."

I'm sorry? You send me an email at 5:01pm, telling me that an individual is going to shoot people at my workplace at approximately 5:00pm? Don't you think the email should have gone out....at say....4:59pm? At least give us a minute to run!

So then I think....*cue music*....."should I stay or should I go"? The emails continues, politely informing us that this individual is known to "frequent" the student center and University apartments. (Does some calculating in head) So if I walk at 3.287 miles/hour from my building to my car, which is exactly .057 miles away from the front door....he would have to cross my path within the same 63 seconds it will take for me to get from one safety point to another. So my chances of being shot in doing so are.....

Eh...needless to say...I took my chances. I made it to my car safely, without witnessing any "suspicious activity"....no thanks to you, FSU!! If I left my safety up to you, I could have been shot a mere 30 seconds before I got the email, warning me of the danger!

Thank goodness for my amazing mental calculating skills...
faith4jesus247
I'm pretty sure it was because I was exhausted. Almost certain that's why this was so funny. I haven't laughed that hard in yeeearrrsss! My belly was hurting, and tears were coming out. I just couldn't stop! Oddly, though - I was alone in my laughter. Usually someone else finds the same thing funny, or my uncontrollable laughter gets them going a bit. But not last night. Chris didn't find it funny. Not at alllllllll....

I had just crawled into bed, and Chris was double-checking the locks on the doors. I hear him say "You've got to be kidding me!" and wait for him to come to the bedroom to ask what's wrong. He walks in, holding this:

I know instantly what it means. And I just lose it!

(A quick refresher - we live in a small house, where the keys are apparently as old as the house itself. Built in 1950, both doors have double-sided key locks.)

As he was locking the front door, the key broke in half. With the top part in his hand, and the bottom half still in the lock. That wouldn't be such a big deal, since we have 2 doors....but our second door doesn't have a working door handle on the inside. So anytime we want to go through the kitchen door, we have to go outside the front door and walk around the house to come in from the outside. But now we can't get out the front door. And we can't get out the second door.

Typically, we would end up calling the person with the spare key to our house to come get us out. Which would be my parents. But I had to take it back from them the last time I got locked inside the house. Now we're REALLY stuck! Chris's tools were outside. I couldn't stop laughing! The comedy of the situation combined with my exhaustion sent my body into spazmastic laughter. I couldn't breathe! Locked inside - no tools - no spare key - almost midnight. Awesome. Chris left me to my insane perspective on the situation and went back into the living room to try and get the other half of the key out. See it in there? No? Well that's how far in there it was!!
Chris begins by grabbing a pair of tweezers to try and pull the key out. It doesn't budge. I eventually stop laughing and get up to try and help him. I decide that (after taking pictures, of course!) it might work better with two steak knives, one of each side of the key. So I work for a few minutes with steak knives, trying to wiggle the key out of there. No luck.

Then I have a brilliant idea! Why not just try to unlock the door while the key is still in there, rather than taking it out? Several attempts with the tweezers, and I was able to unlock the door. Yay! We're out! Then Chris is able to go outside and get his tools. Where he then attempts to use his handy-dandy, brand-new pliers to pull the key out.

Nope....doesn't work. So he decides to just take the whole shebang off the door. At that point, I decided to go back to bed. I could rest easy now, knowing that I didn't have to call out of work for the second time this year, simply because I was locked inside my house!