I Broke the Window!!
Ok, I did break the window, but not how you would imagine. My week has definitely not gone the way I intended. Avery & I had play date for Wednesday & then another get-together on Thursday with the women in my bible study, but instead I came down with the stomach bug on Tuesday night. Therefore, I’ve been in bed for the past two days! Anyway, I’m finally feeling better today and so I thought I’d begin the lovely task of cleaning my house & getting rid of all the sick germs. I got Avery all set up in his chair in the kitchen & then I thought “I’ll open the windows to get some fresh air in here.” Good idea if all of your windows opened Heidi! Ok, so I really thought both windows in our kitchen did open, so I opened the right one & then the left wouldn’t budge. So, I grabbed a chair, hopped on the counter & pulled the window open, and much to my surprise it came right out of the frame on top of me!! Fortunately I didn’t break the glass, but I did laugh my head off. Apparently that window was one that DIDN’T open. 
Since our house is so old, one of the previous owners thought it would be really cool to paint about 95% of the windows shut-real smart, let me tell ya. So, after putting the window on the floor, I had to call Kyle. But, I was laughing too hard to explain to him what happened. After explaining it, I think he was still dumbfounded. Needless to say, I think we may have decided to go ahead and restore those two windows so I don’t need to break any more. Here’s a few pictures for your enjoyment…
Here’s the window on the floor…
And here’s where it SHOULD be…(on the bottom left)
Peace & Quiet
Yes, that’s what I am enjoying right now, peace and quiet. Lately Avery gives me very little quiet time around the house, so I do enjoy his afternoon nap time. I get to do just about anything I want for an hour and a half to two hours-its awesome! Lately I’ve been using this quiet time for a quick nap and lunch, but today I just get to sit here in the quiet house with a glass of sweet tea (thank you Kyle) and chill out. Ever since I can remember I’ve always been going going going. In high school I was super involved in dance, French Honor Society and I was an editor for the high school paper-yah I was a dork, but I enjoyed it. Then in college I spent a good amount of time studying, working, dancing with the dance team & of course having fun. And since I’ve been married its been work work work and some school too. So I never really realized that having an hour or two of peace and quiet in my house could be so enjoyable. So that’s my tidbit for the day. I’m thankful that the Lord provides this little bit of peace in my house!
And, on a side note, Avery had a few firsts this weekend…his first tooth finally cut through-woohoo!; he started sucking his thumb for the first time, and managed to fall off the couch-still not sure how that happened with me sitting right next to him.
Classic A-dawg moments
Ok, so we don’t call him A-dawg, but his future Uncle Matt has called him that on occasion and it just cracks me up. Ok, so continuing…I haven’t posted a lot of pictures of my little guy in a while-mostly because I left my camera cord at my parents house, oh well. So, I thought I’d post some of the best from the past few months. Sit back and enjoy, there are quite a few!
Look Dad I’m a big boy, I’ll drink your sweet tea!
Learning to program at such a young age…
Look at those cute little shoes!…
Ooh, a spoon, me like spoon…
Boy I made a mess…
I found daddy’s magazine…
Thug…
Ok mom, enough pictures!!!
Coffee shops that don’t stay open
Several years ago, I had the pleasure of working at Greyfriars Coffee & Tea, in my opinion one of the best coffee shops out there. We opened early, and closed late…midnight in fact. In fact, we had the market cornered on coffee shops that stayed open past 10pm. I never understood why there weren’t other coffee shops that would stay open at LEAST that late. After Lookout’s games, Concerts at the Tivoli, or any other downtown event, we would always get a good rush right at 10pm. Customers might have preferred other coffee shops, but they would come to Greyfriars just because they knew they could get a beverage AND have time to enjoy it. So after your big rush, you’d have a 1-2hr lull where most everyone was contently enjoying their beverages and the company of their friends. Recently (in the past few months) Greyfriars abandoned the midnight closing, and turned to the 10pm closing. Now, they are just like every other coffee shop downtown at night…closed for business. I’ve talked with employees at Greyfriars, and they allude to the fact that no one was buying anything past 10pm, so it was easier to close early and save on the overhead. Why did they stop caring about the customer experience? They have essentially cut off one of their selling points, they traded overhead costs for customer experience, and that dissapoints me. Staying open late made Greyfriars a beacon of reliability. People knew that if they were around, or wanted to drop by late, or for an extended amount of time, Greyfriars would be there for them. Many customers have put up with the change patiently, hoping that it was a temporary solution, but I imagine that many of these customers will start going elsewhere, places that are more convenient.
So if anyone from Greyfriars actually reads this post. Yes, I understand the business aspect of closing early, but I think your approach is way wrong. Instead of adapting to the conditions that the market hands you, why not capitalize on this difference, and make the market change to suit your needs? (Hence, instead of closing early due to lack of business, why not find ways to bring more people in during those late hours?) Sure, my recommendation may cost money up-front, but it will pay off.
Quick Vacation
We hadn’t planned on a vacation this year, since we knew Avery would be here, but earlier in the summer we planned to go on a quick weekend trip with a group of our friends. We headed down to Gulf Shores and we had a blast. The weather was wonderful, the beach and water were great and it was an overall relaxing trip. And, it was Avery’s first trip to the beach, so it was fun to take him in the water. Unfortunately we were having too much fun to get the camera out of the diaper bag for pictures. So before we headed out of town on Sunday we stopped at the beach again for a few pictures. Thanks to the Rowe’s and Taylor’s for a fun weekend, we look forward to it next year! And, Rich & Heather we missed you!
Here are a few pictures that Briana sent. I’ll include more of ours once I get our camera cord. Enjoy!
The Rowe’s…
Briana & The Shark…
The Posey’s…
Da Boys…
The Ladies…
The Group Shot…
