Goodbye, Thanksgiving... Hello, Christmas!

What a great Thanksgiving! We started the holiday with a trip to Hattiesburg to celebrate with my family. There was only six of us, but we literally made enough food to feed 20. It was a bit ridiculous, and we still have leftovers now four days later after eating it for EVERY meal since Thursday...

Here's Granny frying some okra as an appetizer... not that we needed it before the huge buffet of turkey and all the fixings, but it was delish, as usual...

Dad and Derek frying the turkey... we had fried turkey AND baked turkey. Ridiculously good...

Dressing, hashbrown casserole, peas and giblet gravy...

Rolls, yams, corn casserole and cranberry sauce...

If that doesn't make you hungry again just looking at it then something's wrong... not to mention TWO desserts (yes, again, for six people) - pecan pie and white chocolate Oreo pudding pie.

We recovered on Friday and decorated for Christmas! It was exhausting but so worth it. I've decided I could make some extra money for the holidays this year by charging admission to see our decorations. It's like Santa's workshop in my house. ;)

On Saturday we headed to Vicksburg for Thanksgiving again with Derek's family... we had TONS of delicious food once again and continued on our all-we-can-eat binge. Here's a pic of Papaw Gary with his girls...

We took it easy the rest of the weekend thanks in part to all the food we ate over the past few days and sitting by a warm fire in awe of the Christmas decorations. The tree is up, gifts are wrapped and it SMELLS like Christmas, which is the best part. You would never know it's not even December in our house. I LOVE IT!! :)

Thankful for Thanksgiving

I am thankful for many things, and this is the perfect time of year to be reminded that not a thing should be taken for granted.

I am thankful for a family that loves and supports me and keeps me grounded. I'm thankful for friends who have been there through the years and who laugh and cry right along with me. I am thankful for my health. I'm thankful for a house that I have made into a home. I'm thankful for my job. I am thankful for the two furry animals that greet me every day after work and love me even on my bad days. I'm thankful for my husband who really and truly is my other half. I'm thankful for sooo many other things, too. I can't complain.

Of course, on a lighter note, I'm also thankful for DVR, Ruffles Reduced Fat potato chips, Ward's burgers, Diet Coke, holiday decorations, Coach purses, my weekly planner, gorgeous jewelry, Lifetime movie marathons, naptime, comfortable shoes, date nights, the E! channel, girls' weekends, college memories, Aveda bath products, and the white fudge Oreos that are only available during Christmas, just to name a few...

Happy Thanksgiving to you and yours! Eat all you want because it only comes once a year. My stomach is THANKFUL for that. :)

Great Weekend

We have enjoyed a fabulously low-key couple of days this weekend. On Saturday morning, our new couches were delivered. I'm in love! I think they're perfect and really change the look of both rooms (we bought a couch/loveseat set and split them up in our living room and den areas).


We went to see Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part 1 Saturday afternoon (LOVED it), then went to the Bulldog to catch the last half of the Ole Miss-LSU game after the movie. What a game! It was a nail-biter til the end, and although Ole Miss lost, it was a great game to watch. Saturday night we made a fire, and neighbors Ben and Tina came over for a bit.

Then Sunday we slept late, made breakfast and wrapped Christmas presents! We now have about 10 wrapped and ready to go once we get the tree up. I felt a great sense of accomplishment. :)

It was such a nice, quiet, relaxing weekend, which was perfect right before Thanksgiving. Yay for good weekends and short work weeks!

Random Thought Thursday

• I, like most females in the world right now, am thrilled about the royal engagement of Prince William and Kate Middleton. It's exciting because it's a throwback to the old world idea of royalty and the dream that every little girl has of becoming a true life princess. I (like my friend Mallory said) will likely even get up at 3 a.m. whenever the wedding happens to watch the glorious ceremony. It's a once-in-a-lifetime kind of happening, and one day, when she becomes queen, we'll all be able to say, "I remember when she and Prince William got married."



• Part 1 of Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows opens tonight. While I will not be making it to the midnight premiere tonight, you can rest assured that this big HP fan (and her husband, who's an even BIGGER fan) will be heading to the movies over the weekend. I'm excited, even though it's not 3D. :(



• We're getting really close to booking our trip to Japan in the spring! We've been watching the ticket prices for flights, and we've decided on our dates, so I'm ready to make this idea a reality. Guess that means I need to learn to like sushi in the next few months...



• We've been itching for a different look in the Grey house lately, so hopefully we'll have some new furniture to enjoy soon. We got spoiled by the leather "king" chair we bought last year, so we're ready to upgrade to leather couches and loveseats. Stay tuned for pics. It's amazing how exciting a new piece of furniture or two can be. I remember how I used to say that about shoes and purses... my, how times have changed.



• I'm on Chapter 21 in GWTW. I'm totally into this book and can't wait to read more over the holidays. I never realized how scandalous the Old South could be. :)

Shop Til You Drop

This past weekend I headed down to the Coast for a Christmas shopping weekend with my college friends. We got there late Friday afternoon, ordered pizza and got our plan together for our all-day shopping extravaganza.

Saturday morning we all got ready bright and early, loaded up on carbs from Christy's delicious breakfast casserole, fixed some coffee to go and hit the road to Foley, Ala. We shopped the outlet mall from about 10:30 a.m. to 3:30 p.m. with a 20-minute lunch break at the food court. When I say we power-shopped, I'm not kidding... they had some major deals, and we totally took advantage of all of them.

After the outlet mall, we drove over to Malbus, Ala., to stop at the Eastern Shore shopping center, mainly just at World Market. I had never been in there, but I LOVED it. We ate dinner at the Original Oyster House in Spanish Fort before calling it a day and getting back to Christy's house about 9:30. We were WORN OUT!

The good news is that I got the majority of my Christmas shopping done while getting in some quality girl time with some of my besties. I'm officially in the Christmas spirit! Now where's my tree??

Customer Service

It's really sad that good, quality customer service surprises you these days. I think we all get used to expecting everything to be a hassle and for nothing to be easy. That being said, I wanted to share a little story about the good and not the bad...

A little over two years ago, we hired Integrity Restorations to reglaze our porcelain sink in our guest bathroom. The ENTIRE bathroom was that 1950s mint green - the tub, all the tile, the sink and the toilet. Overkill, for sure. We replaced the toilet, put down some new laminate tile and had the sink reglazed white. It made a huge difference and really brought the bathroom into the 21st century.

We noticed recently that part of the sink near the drain was starting to bubble up and rust. Danny with Integrity Restorations told me when they did it the first time to call if we needed it touched-up in a few years. Of course, that was never in writing. So, I emailed him last week about it and even attached photos to the email, expecting him to tell me that it would cost another arm and leg to reglaze it again and that no, there never was a warranty. His response? He'd be happy to touch it up for us, and it would only cost me a Diet Coke.

He came yesterday and reglazed it in two hours and now it looks brand new again! He did a heavier coat so hopefully this won't happen again.

If you're interested in having a sink or tub or even tile reglazed, call this company. They did a FANTASTIC job, and they stand by their word, which says a lot these days. It's just nice to be pleasantly surprised by great customer service. :)

Ah, the weekend...

We enjoyed a lovely weekend close to home, starting with a relaxing fire Friday night. I think I've said it a few times, but just in case you missed it, this is my FAVORITE time of year! I have been looking forward to evenings spent by the fire for months now. It's finally cold enough, and I'm loving every minute of it.

On Saturday morning we headed to the wedding of our neighbors across the street, Ben and Neelima. The morning ceremony was Hindu and the evening ceremony was Episcopalian. Since we had never been to a Hindu wedding, we decided we'd check it out. It was very interesting. I forgot my camera, but Neighbor Ben (another neighbor, not the groom) got some pics on his handy iPhone, so here's a glimpse.

The ceremony itself was really unique to witness, and the decorations were beautiful. After the wedding, we had brunch at Julep, then did a little shopping Saturday afternoon before going to Drew and Kristin's for our "fall" Grey-Gor dinner.

We grilled steaks and sat outside by the fire and talked about planning a camping trip to the Ozarks after the holidays. Not sure if it can beat our NOLA trip a couple of months ago, but we can sure try.

On Sunday we enjoyed an extra hour of sleep thanks to daylight savings time, then headed to Vicksburg for an afternoon of lovin from Baby Frances and Ryan Hadley, then dinner for Ryan's birthday.

The weekend went by too quickly, as usual, but I have no complaints! We're just that much closer to the holidays now. This is a four-day work week for me, so I'll welcome Monday with a smile. :)