Northern Charm?

The following thoughts come from something I saw on TV a while ago and the time I recently spent in West Palm Beach. 

Part One: I don’t remember what I was watching, but that’s beside the point. This woman on the show was talking about how she moved to New York from Virginia and was trying to figure out “how to be a New Yorker” because people were so rude to her and didn’t appreciate her “Southern Charm.”

Part two: I recently spent some time in West Palm Beach. There are a TON of transplanted Yankees in Florida in general, but West Palm Beach is littered with them. They make our home, a “second home” or a “winter place,” and we let them. Something about it’s good for the economy (whatever!)

These two things got me thinking. Why can the same northerners be rude to someone who has relocated from the South to the North, but when they transplant themselves or come down for “the winter” we just have to accept them? What’s up with that?

Something else that made me think (not at the time, but now that I’m writing) was when my mom and I went to breakfast in the hotel. She ordered a sweet tea, and THEY DIDN’T HAVE ANY!!! The lady said they didn’t have any made in the mornings. SERIOUSLY???? If that isn’t proof that northerners have taken over the South, I don’t know what is. (Well, it’s that, or we were actually far enough South that we weren’t in “the South” anymore, and we were actually closer to Cuba than the South.)

Why I hate Facebook

Remember when Facebook was cool? It was new, and only for “College Kids.” Although I am guilty of taking part in a few of these activities, for the most part I have to agree with Mr. Smith. Just for the record, you can skip over asking me if I want to join the “Join this group or you hate Jesus group.”  That’s just as bad as the stupid E-mails saying that if I don’t pass it along I don’t love Jesus. PUHLEEASE!

1. 25 Random Things (guilty! Now it kinda reminds me of all the chain emails that went around about yourself: favorite color, number, childhood pet, color shirt you’re wearing… )
2. poking
3. “Happy Birthday” wishes (I happen to like these, they make me smile!)
4. Compare People App
5. Pillow Fight Requests (or girlfriends request, or ninja request or whatever request)
6. Facebook Chat (Not going to lie, it’s rather annoying, I stopped IMing for a reason!)
7. Gifts
8. Abusing Status Updates (SERIOUSLY! I don’t need to know when you poop, shower, work or go to class!)
9. Old People on Facebook ((Or young kids on Facebook)It used to be for COLLEGE KIDS! What the heck!?!?)
10. Event Invites (Depends on how it’s used, if I haven’t talked to you in, oh I don’t know, a million years, don’t send me this stuff!)
11. Group Invites (See blurb above video)
12. Top Friend Drama (yeah, that’s one reason why I don’t have mySpace anymore. Seriously. I had someone ask why he wasn’t in the Top anymore! Peace Out!)
13. Webcam Video Comments (Yeah, I don’t know)
14. Flair (Dude, I was totally addicted for like a week, then they redid the whole site, (again) and I couldn’t find it so I forgot about it)
15. Bumper Stickers (I don’t know about Bumper stickers, but Flair was better)
16. Detail Requests
17. Relative Requests
18. Bad Tagged Photos (Seriously, don’t be hateful!)
19. “Lost Phone” Facebook Explosion
20. People You May (not) know (Uh-hu, just because I’m on your list of people you may know, doesn’t mean I want to be your Facebook friend! And the same goes for the girl I hated in high school, we weren’t friends then, why would we be friends now? Stalker!)
21. Creepy Ads (how many triangles??? I’m pretty sure the percentage of people that get the number right changes drastically daily, it’s all BS.)
22. Threads
23. Picture Shrinkage (That is annoying! Post your own pictures!)
24. Duplicate Pictures
25. Facebook Relationship Gossip (haha, yeah)

Church signs of America

My sister-in-law has this book with pictures of church signs from all over the country. I love looking through it, the things that churches will put on their signs cracks me up. I really wonder what they were thinking. Then I wonder if it is effective or if it just makes people think that particular church is nuts. I’ll let you be the judge.

  And my personal favorite……

….really????

Cantina LaCrapo

Friday Devin had a gorgeous display of two dozen roses sent to my office for Valentine’s Day. Saturday we spent most of the day relaxing and being bums. That evening though we headed to the St. Johns Town Center to try out one of the new restaurants. When we got there we decided to try out Cantina Laredo, which is gourmet Mexican food. I wasn’t quite sure what I thought about “gourmet” Mexican, I’m kinda partial to the dirty Mexican at La Nop. Nonetheless we waited the 40 minutes to eat the so-called gourmet Mexican.

As we were waiting, it occurred to me, I know it’s Valentine’s Day, but who says you have to dress (1) like a tramp or (2) in red? Everywhere I looked, every girl (or old lady) that walked by was either dressed like a tramp and/or was wearing red. I don’t get it. Wearing a short tight skirt is not attractive. To me, it screams desperation. And I think wearing red on Valentine’s Day is tacky; it’s the equivalent of wearing a sweater with jingle bells and reindeer at Christmas.

So while the experience of Gourmet Mexican was a nice thought, I don’t think it’s someplace we will be visiting again. The queso dip appetizer we got was basically just Velveeta cheese and a spoonful of tomatoes and beef. The garlic shrimp (yes, I got shrimp at the gourmet Mexican restaurant) was about what I expected, but the variety thing Devin got, let something to be desired. I don’t even want to talk about my strawberry daiquiri (virgin, strawberry daiquiri). It was more of an Icee with not enough juice. It still had entire ice cubes in it, definitely disappointing, to say the least. Someone else may think it’s the best place in the world to eat, but I’d rather go to La Nop 10 times as opposed to the Cantina one more.

We left the Cantina, walked around the Town Center and shopped for a while. Although the food at dinner left us feeling disappointed, the actual day was great. I had a wonderful time with my husband celebrating another Valentine’s Day together and I look forward to many more.

I know, that’s why I put the sign up!

Yes, I’ve been MIA, nothing blog-worthy has happened, until today.

This morning when I got to work I opened the door to the ATM. It STUNK like something was on fire, only there was no smoke. Come to find out, the power source to the actual ATM BLEW UP over night. So when the power source blows up it means that the ATM doesn’t work, at all. This means that all the people come inside to do what they would otherwise do outside, at the ATM. This means, I have to do whatever they want me to do. This means, you get an interesting blog post (finally).

For several hours customer, after customer, after customer came in and made some comment about the ATM being down. We decided that enough was enough and we put a sign up that said something to the effect of “sorry temporarily out of service.” I know that if I see a sign that says “out of service” I’m pretty sure that the employees know about the issue. The same cannot be said for the residents of Green Cove Springs. I still had customers coming in and telling me there was “something wrong with the ATM machine.” Two things wrong with that statement:

1. I know, that’s why I put the sign up!

2. It’s not an ATM MACHINE! ATM stands for Automated Teller Machine. Therefore, ATM Machine is redundant, as in NOT NEEDED, it is NOT and Automated Teller Machine MACHINE!

I had SO many people telling me about the ATM issues, I though maybe the sign had flown off, it was a windy day after all. So I printed a new sign and walked outside. Guess what? Yup, the original sign WAS STILL THERE! Guess what else? I still put up the second one! I thought maybe if the people didn’t get if from the first one, they would understand the second one. Yeah. No.

Seriously, I thought I was going to tell everyone that “reported the issue” to me, "Yes, I know the ATM is down, THAT’S WHY I PUT THE SIGN UP!” Stupid people. UGH!

The One With George Stephanopoulos

Devin is at some sort of political forum with one of the guys from our Sunday School class so I’m getting to spend a quite relaxing evening at home curled up on the couch in my pajamas. He sent me a text message, shortly after they got there, to tell me that Wayne Weaver was standing next to  them. This combines two of his favorite things, politics and the Jaguars. Anyway, one of the people speaking at this forum is George Stephanopoulos. Naturally, when I hear his name I immediately think of the FRIENDS episode and want to say, “oh the little guy!” So I took advantage of the evening to watch the forth episode of the series that originally aired on October 13, 1994. A night to myself and FRIENDS, pretty much an awesome Tuesday night if I do say so.

Desktop Fashion

I read Gary’s blog and since I love my desktop picture I though I’d share it. It’s a picture that I took last Memorial Day in St. Augustine. I also have the matching picture of the shadow of the cross on the grass (see below) also very cool. Devin and I went with Chris and Ashley and their daughter (six months old at the time) Anekah, to St. Augustine for the day. We got pizza, walked around the fort, then went to the cross and the sun was in the perfect place. The little picture in the right corner is a slideshow of pictures on my computer. I love that Devin added that for me, it’s awesome.

 

And the matching picture that didn’t make the desktop cut….

I remember having a serious conversation with Ashley at the time we were walking around here and we saw the cross on the grass and it was like God was talking to us saying, “I am here.”