#Waitressproblems

Alright, I know this disappointing, but tonight I'm going to take a break from my food blogging to try to amuse you a bit. (However, I have set a new record and cooked a new recipe every night this week! So I have two more to share with you tomorrow)

I have recently become more addicted to twitter. Hashtags are fun. One day I posted a silly tweet about work with the tag #waitressproblems only to discover that such tag was a MAJOR conversation if you will, on twitter. I read old #waitressproblem posts for the better part of an hour last night.

Then when deciding what to write about today, I just couldn't resist. Seems like most people I know have waited tables at one point or another and can relate to these little pet peeves of the restaurant business. (DISCLAIMER: this is not meant to offend, just to be funny. If you do any of the things listed, it's nothing personal)

For any of you that have waited tables and can think of more that I forgot please feel free to comment with them! :)

#Waitressproblems:

• "Can I get 75% unsweet tea, and 25% sweet. Not half and half.. 75/25"
• Really? You can tell the difference? (I like to make it 50/50 just to see if they really notice)
• Making $25 on a 6 hour shift one day, and $150 in 4 hours the next
• Waiting on a husband and wife when they're fighting... AWKWARD
• Asking your table if they're ready to order, they say yes then continue to read their menus
• Uhhh... I can come back if you'd like
• The awkward moment when you can't decide if a couple is on one check or seperate
• Same side of the booth sitters
• No offense to all of you love birds, but it's just weird!
• Verbal tippers: You know what I mean, the ones that go on and on the whole time about how great you are only to leave you a below average tip.
• Mom:"Do you have chocolate milk"-- lady this is a sports bar, not McDonald's
• On the same note: when parents let their kids run around the restaurant like it's a playground. NEWSFLASH: it's not a playground or chuck e cheese!
• When your table splits everything(i/e: pitchers of beer, wings, nachos) but then gets upset because the check isn't seperate.. umm.. everything was together?
• People that tell you over and over they're in a rush... (So why did you come out to eat? Wouldn't fast food make more sense then a sit down restaurant?)
• People that show up to watch a sporting event on TV, order a water, say they'll order later, and then just leave when the game ends.
• Similarly: When a customer takes up your table for hours working, chatting, internet surfing, etc. after eating their meal and then leaves $1...ya, thanks buddy, please come back again.
• When customers ask if the money they give you is a good tip... like I'm going to say no?! AWKWARD!
• Customers that get mad at the server when their food isn't right. I write it out, I explain it to the cook, I don't make it! Face it, the general restaurant cook population are either on drugs or prison work release, not the most reliable workers in the world!
• Why yes I enjoyed waiting on your family of 3, making you 3 bowls of chili, bringing out entrees, refilling your drinks 5x a piece, so much that $1 tip on a $30 bill is sufficient! (I'm trying to pay bills here people and I make $4.23 an hour! We LIVE on tips- 20% people, it's not that hard!)
• Mom to child: "What do you want to eat/drink?" Kid: "I don't know"... blank stare.. I do not have all day, you know what your kid eats, just order for them!

Any of you current/former servers hear me on this list?!?

Any I forgot that you want to add?

I must admit, I'm feeling much better after making this list about the crappy day I had at work. I think I'll survive another shift tomorrow. :)

Happy Thursday y'all!

Bring on the cold!

It's been a little dull around these here parts lately.(Yikes... channeling my inner redneck! ;)

I've been working(waiting tables and subbing) quite a bit and enjoying spending time at the house with my hubs and pup or getting a workout in. No fun projects. New recipes are about as exciting as it gets around here. I really need to find some fun new pinteresty things to take on. My walls have empty space and I have too much free time that I'm not using wisely!

The husband has been working on finding a full time job since his active orders ended and he's only doing the Air Force thang as a traditional reservist now. I'm secretly crossing my fingers that he gets offered one of the flightline jobs he has been applying for in a new city. I've lived in this one my whole life, and while I love it, I'm up for some new adventures! (And maybe find a big new job for myself there.)

In the mean time, the only blog worthy thing we've done lately is a nice little trip to New Orleans, Louisiana last weekend! Love that city! My beautiful cousin got married at Preservation Hall, so we made a family vacation and spent the weekend there. Complete with spooky old hotel, lots of yummy cajun food, and a few trips to Bourbon Street!

I'll spare you the gory details, and just share some of my favorite pictures from our weekend.

Who doesn't love a little rejuvenation in NOLA?!

But now back to the real world, and the hope that the weather people are right and we will be getting a cool snap after the rain today. Bring on the fall weather, AND...

Hubby's birthday!

That's right my sweet husband will be the big 25 on FRIDAY!

I'm thinking we'll have to have a little bloggy fun for him this week... there's some great pictures of him I'll have to borrow from his mom... so stay tuned!

Love you honey!

Happy Tuesday y'all!

Finally Friday!

It has been a week let me just tell you!

I fail at taking pictures though so we'll just have to go with my incredible story telling skills here. Let's start where we left off:

The furniture escapade on Tuesday. Whew! It was about as much fun as it sounds. We got up at a decent time got our old furniture moved out of our room, drove across town to borrow my dad's trailer, picked up our furniture(which wasn't even all there due to an ordering blunder, but luckily the floor models were in good shape and my impatient self took those), then got home to unload them.

The new dresser was MUCH heavier than I had anticipated for just Stephen and I to move. Eventually we got it into our room.. but it wasn't fun. By this time my sweet hubs was more than a little irritated, and to top it off, the new furniture didn't fit right in our room. It fit but not in the way I had anticipated it would. So the furniture required rearranging. Stephen wasn't keen on this idea, and I was tired of listening to him, so I kicked him out and I went to work situating everything. Nothing was heavy, I just slid it around on the carpet, but it wasn't easy manuevering an over crowded room. Eventually I got it all into place and we both love it now!

New night stands(bed set we bought after the wedding but I still love) Please excuse the uber lazy dog. Watching me move furniture had exhausted him.

New dresser, not a great picture(and the room is a wreck because I have yet to hang pictures and situate the little knick knack thing) but we love it! It's a huge improvement to our mismatched childhood dressers we both brought from our parents houses!(YIKES!)

So that about sums up our Tuesday. The aforementioned night stand for our guest room that I was working on is still under construction. I'm hoping to finish it and have pictures tomorrow! :)

After all that we went to Stephen's grandparents' for dinner and a little family time since it's the first time we all had a chance to get together since our wedding in MAY! Never a dull moment and we both had a lot of fun laughing and catching up with the whole fam damily!

I slept soooo good that night!

Stephen left Wednesday and has been in Orlando visiting his brother and enjoying Halloween Horror Nights at Universal Studios in Orlando ever since.

I've been holding down the fort here.

Dinner with a long lost friend Wednesday night and thenvisited my parents.

Worked Thursday and then took my first Zumba class. (AWESOME!!!) I think I'm hooked. I had the VHS tapes when they first came out(yes, I realize this is making me sound older than I am.) when I was in middle school and absolutely loved them. I had been meaning to go try one of the classes since that's become all the rage around here, but just hadn't gotten there til Thursday. But I think I will become a regular. The hour flew by, I had so much fun, and I could feel it working! I'm sore today and getting more sore by the minute! I definitely recommend it to everyone looking to shake up their workout routine.

After Zumba I had dinner at my parents house.(Yes, I do spend pretty much every night hanging out over there when Stephen's gone.) Then mom and I watched Grey's Anatomy, and I made the trek home to crawl in my bed and see my sweet boy, Natty!

This morning was my first attempt at subbing in an elementary school. I filled in for a 4th grade class and it was quite the adventure! I love the school, teachers, and admininstration, but this particular class was more than a little trying! I'm not swearing it off yet, but boy did they wear me out! I will elaborate more on that later, I'm pretty tired from my adventure!

I also had a 4:00 shift at my other job after my long day of subbing. I got off about 7:15 though so it wasn't so bad. I still had time to meet my Mom, Aunt, Cousins, and Trae man for dinner and margaritas and made it to the mall to continue my hunt for a dress for my cousin's wedding next weekend. Whew.

I'm wiped!

Stephen gets home tomorrow and I could not be more ready to have some company! I think even Natty is starting to think I'm crazy for talking to him so much! Unfortunately I have to work 5-cl tomorrow night and 10-3 on Sunday so I probably won't actually get to spend any quality time with him until Sunday night, but it could be worse so that will be the end of my complaining!

This girl is hitting the hay! Hope everyone has a wonderful weekend! I can't wait to get caught up on all my blog reading tomorrow morning after my gym sesh!

Happy Friday y'all!

First day..

Thanks again to Ashley at Be Bright and Jovial for the award! That was such a sweet surprise today! :)

I don't know about where you are, but here it has been raining ALL day. The dreary, nasty, makes-you-want-to-stay-in-bed-all-day, kind of rain! If I didn't have to work today I would have stayed in bed all day, but since I did work today I have a feeling an early bed time may be in my near future!

It's already been a long week and it's only Wednesday! Sunday night I went to the Jason Aldean concert at the wharf with one of my best friends, Whitney. I posted a little about the concert before. My sweet sweet husband bought us tickets as a surprise back in July, but the original show got rained out. (BOO!) So it was rescheduled for Sunday. It was an AMAZING concert! Aldean puts on one heck of a show, for any of you country girls like me out there, if you ever get the chance to see him live, GO! He's well worth every penny. It was a late show though, the opening acts didn't start til 8, and Jason didn't end up going on until a little before 10. The concert ended around 11:30 and we still had an hour drive home and traffic to deal with, so it was about 1 a.m. before I crawled into bed(this is late for me now, sad I know!)

Me and Whitney at the concert

Jason Aldean!(we were pretty close)

Monday I caught up on some errands and housework and got in a good but long overdue work out at the gym.

Tuesday was the big day! I subbed for the first time! My Mother-in-law has been subbing at the high school for several years now so she's pretty well known by all the teachers and gets called on a regular basis. Now that she's also a flight attendant she can't work as many of the sub jobs as she used to. This is convenient for me because I can take a lot of the jobs that she can't instead of waiting to find an open job online. Monday she called me and asked if I would be interested in taking a 9th grade class for Tuesday. Boy was I! Initially I was really going to concentrate on subbing for elementary schools, but I was open to anything to get started.

I was a little nervous. I didn't go to this high school so I wasn't real familiar with the school lay out or the policies of the school and teachers. I was also nervous about subbing for freshmen all day, because let's face it. They're not always the most well behaved! I didn't know how well they would listen to me, since I'm not all that much older than them.(Except I realized that I'm actually 8 or 9 years older than them.. YIKES! Didn't realize how old I'm getting!) But to my pleasant surprise, they were all really good and very respectful. I didn't have any problems! I can't wait to sub again, and I'm still looking forward to working with different ages so I can see what I like best.

I was also a little afraid that I would just blend in with the students and teachers would stop me for a hall pass. But only one administrator at the very end of the day stopped to ask how my day went, and told me that I blended in with the students and it took him a minute to realize I was a sub.

My "teacher" outfit

I don't think I mentioned it before, but this is the high school that my husband went to. He graduated in 2005. #oldman

At the end of the day when I was signing out and turning my stuff in to the office, I found this little beauty on the wall of the main hall way:

Oh yes, you guessed it! That's the Hub's senior picture! Gotta love living in a small town! ;)

Hope everyone has a wonderful rest of the week! Happy Wednesday y'all!

Not sure if I've mentioned it lately...

But I have the best husband ever!

Just sayin...

I had to work the later shift today.(Which I despise!) This meant that I came into work at noon(which I admit is kinda nice), but also means that I'm stuck here until 8p.m. VERY BORING! Now that summer is winding down we have been unbelievably slow! A little before 6 everyone else in the office had headed for home, and I was settling in to catch up on blogs answer the onslaught of phone calls that were to come.(The phone has not rung a single time!) I keep the door locked after everyone leaves since I'm here by little ol' lonesome. I heard a knocking on the big front door, and I looked up to see my very sweet and thoughtful husband standing there! He had brought me dinner. There is a delicious hot dog place down from my office that I try not to eat at so I won't weigh a million pounds, but it's SOOO good! He had picked us both up a chili cheese dog and a big coke to share. It was such a nice treat, and makes me very thankful, yet again, that I married such a sweetheart and my best friend!

Not much else exciting to report around here. We kept it pretty low key around here this weekend.My sister was in town so we spent quite a bit of family time. But since I have nothing new and exciting to update you on, I thought I'd share some of our most talked about conversation here lately.

Babies.

Yes, you read that right. There's something about being newly married that just makes babies the topic of conversation. Everyone starts asking "when you're going to start having them". If you even yawn too long the girls in the office are accusing you of being pregnant. (WHICH I MOST DEFINITELY AM NOT!) But, it has generated some interesting conversations for the husband and I lately. It's not really a new conversation, we've talked about wanting kids since before we were married. We both agree we want to wait at LEAST two more years, we agree we want 3 kids(ok, usually we agree on this, sometimes I think 2 would be plenty), and we agree we want all boys(again, sometimes Stephen says he'd like at least one girl. Not happening.) We agree on parenting styles, the things we say "we'll never let our kid do", or "ya I don't think that's a big deal, I'll tell them so and so", or "they'll be allowed or encouraged to X". But what we don't agree on are baby names. 

But that doesn't seem to be too uncommon because my family turns their noses up at my names too. But my rule is, until they are the ones pushing a 7+ pound baby out they don't get much of a say. (Side note: I'm a big talker. I will never name our child something that Stephen just absolutely does not like, but I will relentlessly argue my side of each case!)

So what are these great names you ask?

For a boy:

Nolan Dominick

Landon Jeff

For a girl:

 Rilynn Grace 

 Layla Faith

Eh, eh?? 

 Now that you've taken the time to read my completely random and pointless post, I figured I would at least share an awesome giveaway I stumbled across today!

I love the adorable blog over at Beautiful Mess! Well, since she reached 400 followers she's giving away a complete, new blog design to one lucky winner. How cool is that?! I've been working on revamping my blog for a while now, but I am not a pro by any means. If you are in the same boat, enter this fun give away and win yourself a new look!

 That's all for now folks.. it's quittin' time! Which means I can blow this popsicle stand and head home to my amazing husband! Happy Tuesday y'all!

Tuesday, Tuesday, Tuesday

Day 2 of a very long week, so far not so bad. (But I'm knocking on some wood!) This is our busiest week of the year at work. 4th of July and the Blue Angels homecoming beach show falls in the same week this year which is just crazy! We have 0 vacancy, and mind you we manage over 140 properties on the beach! It's going to be nuts. I work Monday-Saturday this week, but then I'm off Sunday, Monday, and half a day Tuesday. I'm pretty excited about 4th of July! We don't have plans yet but it's one of my favorite holidays! Last year it was depressing because it was the first weekend Stephen was gone to bootcamp, so I'm excited to be able to hang out this year!

This past weekend, we were both off Sunday so we went to Hurlburt and went to the pool with some friends then went to Destin and did some shopping and had dinner. It was a great little date night and we both had a blast! I'm thinking of trying to talk Stephen into going over there for the 4th, but I don't know with all the tourist traffic!

We've made some progress in the house and it's starting to come together. I'm still shopping around for some various furniture to fill up all this space we have now so it's hard to get it all put away until then. I ordered an entertainment center from Target for the living room that should be here this week that I'm excited about. Tonight I need to order a pull out futon for Stephen's "man cave" from walmart.com. Hopefully they'll both be here at the end of the week. I'm excited for them to get here so we can get stuff situated!

This Saturday we're having people over to the new house for the first time. At first I was dreading it because I have a busy day at work that day, and was afraid the house wouldn't be "ready" for company. But Stephen finished his beer pong table, and we've decided to make a big slip n slide out back and just hang out. I think it will be just what I need after a long day of work!

I'm sure you've noticed, (if you have ever visited my blog before!) that I finally got around to changing the layout. Let me know what you think! I'm not very good at this design thing. I don't have the software. I want to buy some later on and learn to do it myself, but in the meantime, this is what we have! I may attempt a new button here eventually... but we'll see how ambitious I get. I'm finally content with it for now though :)

Well, I hope you all have a wonderful day and don't work too hard! Happy Tuesday y'all!

Saturday AND a day off!!

Saturdays off work have become rare with my new job. I work for a vacation rental company on Pensacola Beach and we typically rent our properties from Saturday to Saturday in the summer. Meaning: Saturdays mean all hands on deck!

This is my weekend off, which is SO nice I have to say. Last night, I made dinner and my sweet friend Whitney and her precious baby girl came to eat with us. It's great getting to catch up when she's in town! Stephen and I were pretty beat and went to sleep pretty much right after Whitney and Annisten went home. Stephen had to work today, but gets off tomorrow all day! Needless to say, I was wide awake this morning by 6a.m. and never went back to sleep. I caught up on some of my favorite tv shows, did some laundry, dishes, and straightened up some more then went on a hunt for some furniture for the new house.

We have two extra bedrooms now and they're practically empty. I'm on the search for a full size bed for one room, a futon for the other, and a new entertainment center for the living room. I drove all over Milton and Pace today without much luck. Back to Craigslist searching I go! I came home and had lunch and played out back with the pup for a bit. Now I'm debating a nap or the overhaul of my blog I've been meaning to do. I'm thinking probably nap now and then blog updating when I wake up :) I get frustrated with the computer software I have pretty easily, so I'm thinking being rested will help... wish me luck!

Hope everyone is having a wonderfully relaxing weekend! Happy Saturday y'all!

Catch up and What I'm Loving Wednesday

I know it's been forever since I've participated, but here it is! I'm finally back with one of my favorite Link-ups, What I'm Loving Wednesday! Head on over to This Kind of Love's blog to link up and tell everyone what you're loving today!

I'm loving getting back into the blog world! Including all the new ideas I have to overhaul my blog. Our lives have changed substantially.. time for the blog to catch up too! (**Be patient, this will probably take some time!**)

I'm loving that after a VERY long hiatus we're finally getting settled and into the swing of things again in our new house, which I'm absolutely LOVING!

Once I get the inside under control and clear these boxes out I will post some pictures of the inside! I am loving all me ideas for the inside though! I am also loving the HUGE yard for Natty dog to play in. He's been wearing himself out everyday!

I'm loving my job! I'm also loving how busy we've been, it certainly makes work days fly by, and it's great for business on Pensacola Beach!

I'm loving all of our wedding pictures! However, I'm not loving having to choose which ones to print! Here are some of my favorites taken by friends and family!

Here are some sneak peeks of the amazing pictures our wonderful photographer, Tara Cook Photography, took:

To see the rest go to our proofing on Tara's website at http://www.photoreflect.com/store/thumbpage.aspx?e=8058529 (WARNING: there are a million!!)

I'm loving that I finally have time to blog again! I promise I will get better at keeping up with my favorite weekly posts and just catching up on all the wedding details and honeymoon stories! It will take time, but I will get there!

I'm loving that it's summer! It's been hot here for a while, but it finally feels relaxing! Time for cookouts and nights out on the town!

Of course, as always, I'm loving our wonderful friends, supportive family, adorable dog, and sweet sweet HUSBAND!

Until tomorrow.. Happy Wednesday y'all!



Monday, Monday, Monday

Oh Monday you came again too soon! We had a fabulous weekend! Unfortunatley I am slacking with picture taking, but that's because I discovered my digital camera is broken. My sweet sweet fiance bought us a new one so we would have one for the honeymoon, and I can't wait for it to get here!!! :) He got a great deal on it from eBay too.. he also became addicted to eBay in the process which isn't so good! Haha

Today I was off of school and work(I know, crazy!!) It was so nice. Crossed several things off my list for the wedding. Finished a take home final, cleaned the apartment, got in a nice long work out, AND got to lay out with my sweet cousin, Mandy for a couple hours! Wonderful day!

Now my work week gets in full swing tomorrow and my last finals are Wednesday! I don't even care because I graduate on Saturday! Woo hoo! :)

My current major items to cross off the wedding list: Marriage license(pretty crucial, right?) and finding some really cute jewelry for my bridesmaids to go with their dresses.

Oh, oh, oh! I forgot we got our first 2 wedding gifts today! :) So exciting!!! I can't believe how close it is!!!!!!

Well anyway, it's sadly my bedtime already! I promise to catch up again soon, I know I have been a slacker!

Happy Monday y'all! :)

Quick Monday hello!

Hello all! I know I have been M.I.A. since Thursday(very BAD on my part!) But I was in Panama City Beach all weekend working for my dad at the SeaBreeze Jazz Festival with my cousin, Mandy. It was a loooong weekend of working, but we did manage to sneak in some fun! :)

Got home late last night and had to be up early this morning... started my first day at my NEW job!! (YES, I did get the job I interviewed for last week!! :)) I'm so excited! The people are so nice, and I love the work so far. Also, I got good news when I went in this morning that they decided to pay me more than they initially had said! The downfall is now I have to quit my current job. I'm going in the morning to put in my 2 weeks and it's going to be sad. I really loved the people I worked with!

I finally talked Stephen into moving the month after the wedding so I'm already in the process of looking at houses.. I love starting fresh in a new house! :) On the same note, we're now just over ONE month away from our wedding! WOW! So much still to do.

This is my last week of classes, just one presentation and 2 finals seperate me from graduation next Saturday! Since I was gone all weekend I'm in the process of catching up on some cleaning, laundry, organizing, and homework/wedding stuff. Needless to say I'm one more thought away from a mild panic attack! So I apoloize in advance I will probably be M.I.A. again this week since I work everyday until Sunday and need to wrap up homework and last minute wedding details.. hopefully I'll have a more interesting post soon.. i'm almost DONE!! :) Happy Monday y'all!