holiday stuff

i got my special order form back from king soopers a few weeks ago. first thought: my boiled custard hath been delivered to the store!!

the front of the card that i filled out in store...

noooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo!!!!

well, damn. andy was almost as disappointed as i was, then proceeded to buy egg nog. yak. i asked my mom to buy me some boiled custard from the kroger in georgia and save it for me when i'm there on january 5th. i don't know when the stores stop carrying it, but i think she's gonna be awesome and ask the dairy manager when the last batch comes in. hallelujah. and mom, if you're reading this: i will need ginger cookies to go with the boiled custard.

and another holiday-related disappointment/rant:

my apartment complex participated in an adopt-a-family type gift giving thingy a few weeks ago. they posted a few flyers around the complex telling people to stop by the leasing office or the business center to get a list of items to purchase. i got the list and purchased item X, and planned to buy items Y and Z. i notified the people in the office that andy & i would take care of items X, Y, and Z so that they could cross those items off the list. the very next day we got a note in our door (as did every resident) reminding us of the holiday party and the adopt-a-family wish list. and of course, the items we purchased had not been removed from the list. the next day i had to retrieve a fedex package from the office, so since i was already down there i expressed my concern to the assistant manager that the family was going to get duplicate gifts, rather than have everything on their wish list covered (which is the entire purpose of having a list, right?) see? you like what i did there? rather than accuse him of having crappy logistics i played the demure, worried, humanitarian who wanted the family to get everything on the list (which, i do want that). his response was something like this:  "oh, well, i mean, the way we look at it, if the kid gets three pairs of shoes, then that's great, because that's more than they ever had before." what?! no way. 

so, a few days later when we got around to buying the remaining two items, i sent another email to the leasing staff confirming that we had purchased items X, Y, Z, and would wrap them and drop them off at the party. we showed up at the party with the gifts, and one of the staff members asked us to write down our names and what we had purchased. seriously? i sent two emails with this exact information. anyway, at the end of the night i checked the list and - yep - richard would be getting three black coats, and lisa would get two pairs of slipper boots. good thing we included the gift receipts with ours.

so yes, the family got things that they wanted, but my point is that the people who manage this place are a bunch of ass clowns (and i'm a control freak). had this been better organized, the family would have gotten more of what they wanted. it's really quite simple. just assign items to participants depending on how much they choose to spend. the way my church used to do this is they had a small christmas tree adorned with notecards. each notecard had two items written on it. this is nice because you can see all the items and pick which two fit your budget or shopping habits, then take the card from the tree so no one else will buy the same stuff. genius!

legend of the famous chron

a bit of background:  my name is anne rouse gurley.  rouse was my great-grandmother's maiden name. as a kid i hated it, but it's not so bad anymore - people have so many more things to make fun of me for now than just my middle name.  anyway, a while ago my brother took to calling me "grouse," or any variety of grouse depending on my mood or the time of year, ie. "spruce grouse" during the holidays. one day in mid-october i was in a silly mood so i posted a link to wikipedia's spruce grouse entry on john's facebook wall. a few clicks later i ended up at the famous grouse website. after poking around a bit i discovered that you could customize/personalize your own label for a bottle of famous grouse.  oooh, sign me up. again, it was mid-october so i figured this would be the perfect Christmas gift. unfortunately the company was unable to ship to countries outside the UK, but i figured i'd ask them anyway to see if they'd make an exception:

and the reply

i don't know anyone living in the UK, so it looks like a trip to scotland is on the horizon.  but wait, i know someone who *probably* knows someone living in the UK. my buddy daniel travels extensively and has friends in every corner of the globe, so if anyone had friends in the UK it was him. i asked him about it, and he hooked me up with his friend kathlene, who told me she would be travelling to the US for the Christmas holidays. i told her the story and gave her the game plan. by the time i worked out these logistics and purchased the whisky it was early november.  clearly ahead of schedule. so after the whisky arrived to her in london, i told her how to complete a fedex slip with my account number so that she could simply drop the package off when she got to the US.  still ahead of schedule. unfortunately kathlene's travel plans got messed up due to the ginormous european blizzard that hit right around Christmas, and i failed to remember to give her adequate instructions for shipping alcohol. fail. thanks to her dedication the package arrived in nashville on january 5th.

at last i present to you, in all its splendor - the famous chron:

There once was a Chronathan G. 

who enjoyed his fair share of whisky.

He was known far and wide

for his knack to imbibe,

and this bottle right here - 

it's on me!

i have the best grandma ever

so what did your grandmother get you for Christmas this year?  a sweater? a coffee maker?  some other random junk you don't need?  now's my turn to brag: my grandma got me & my brother falcons playoff tickets.  it was a complete surprise!

here we are looking stoked with falcons fanatic lee sims (mom's brother)

and another falcons-related gift i received, courtesy of my dad:

all i wanted for Christmas was matt ryan, but i 

just got this poster.  oh well, it'll have to do.  

i got loads of other thoughtful gifts and things that were on my list.  the thing i have used the most is the shower radio from andy's parents.  man, i love that thing.  my brother got me some new converse all-star shoes that i desperately needed. there's a hole in the bottom of one of the green shoes but i just can't find it in myself to throw them out.   check it out, i wrote "BEAST" on the sole.  i recall doing that in mrs. andersen's 9th grade english class, which would have been... 1996 or 97.  wowzers.

i don't see myself letting go of these easily. 

someone may have to take these from me by force.

oh and i know i mentioned in the previous post that i'd blog about the awesome snow, but i don't really feel like typing anymore, so i'll just leave you with this photo of andy pulling me in the sled.  there really weren't any good hills within walking distance so i just sat down and ordered him to pull me around.  it wasn't really that much fun.

Christmas Day snow...and ice!

great snow day on Christmas.  around 5pm andy & i were packing up to head back to atlanta. i was scrambling around for all my bags and realized my cooler was out on the porch.  and guess what was right next to it? guilty parties include mary ellen gurley, john gurley, and matt hughes.

iced on Christmas Day.  is this even legal? 

check back again soon - the snow day deserves its own post.