Dedication To My Duff Family

My song to you:

Love you guys!
See you when I see you . . .

Last Duff Day - Part I

My last day at The Duff Law Firm was on Friday.  It was a sad day for me to be closing one chapter of my life and starting a new one. But, when I arrived, I came in to find a dozen beautiful red roses from David and Nancy and happy little gifts from my Duff divas that made me giggle and smile, as well as cards that were very touching and made me cry.

Each of the girls gave me framed pictures of us.  Dani's frame was fun & creative like she is, and had all of our sayings and reminders of good times written on it; Sandra's was sparkly and very fashionista like she is; and, Cami's was happy & cute like her.  All special reminders of my divas!

Cami also got me a cool coffee cup, along with a notepad and pen that sings to me for my new desk! I'm sure I'll annoy my new co-workers playing with it.  :P

So, while I won't get to see my Duffers and my divas every day, I have little reminders of them all around me, but - most of all - I hold all my special memories of them in my heart.   

Duff Family:  I love you guys and I miss you already!!

Happy Halloween!

On October 29, we had our office Halloween party, which was really a surprise baby shower for Peter and Jen.  Chip and I decided to go as pirates, which was a great choice because he made a very awesome (and natural) looking pirate!

While I can't post a lot of the photos due to our office social networking policy, here are a few from our spooktacular night that I can post:

Although Chip drew the line at me giving him Johnny Depp-like black eyeliner, he did let me paint his nails black!  He didn't even complain the next day when I realized I had no fingernail polish remover!  LOL!!  He's such a good sport!  I, on the other hand (badumpbump), was rocking skull nails.

On our way . . . Who needs GPS when you have a pirate compass??!

Much to my surprise, I won best costume!!
It must have been all that channeling of my inner pirate! :D

See what I mean!  He looks great!

Arrrrrghhhh!

Me and Christine

Sandra as (foxy) Cleopatra!
Eat your heart out Elizabeth Taylor!

Cleopatra and Mark Antony
(a/k/a Santiago and Sandra)

Christine is a Starbucks addict and proved that you are what you, urrr, drink.  :D
She won the award for most creative costume!  She drew the design freehand all by herself.
So talented!
Way to go Christine!!

Me and my Flower with Lola

The house was decorated fabulously and the food was awesome!

Chocolate fountain was yummy deliciousness!
My favorite dunker was the punkin' bread! 

These give new meaning to "gag me with a spoon!"

Knowing how much we girls love going to Uncle Julio's for our girls'
nights, Nancy got us guacamole from there - SO YUM!!

It was a great night, everyone looked fabulous, and we had lots of fun!  Thanks to my hubby for taking such ghoulously great pictures!  I can't wait to dress up next year!!

Tricks and Treats

Chip and I were so excited when the fall weather hit that we immediately ran out and bought three pumpkins: one for him, one for me, and one for Mamba & Tessa.  We sat them on the front porch until we could get to carving them.  Well, much to our surprise, the carving didn't exactly go as planned or turn out like we were expecting.  One of our neighbors decided to take it upon himself to whittle away at our pumpkins and make his own "feast" de resistance for Halloween:

This is what I came home to the day after we bought the pumpkins

After a few days of diligent carving.
After another few days, the little one was all gone.

Hard at work on Chip's pumpkin making it into something special
 and still fat from his feast.

Grunt.  Streeeetch....Gotta get the inside all clean!

All ready for Halloween guests!

Oh boy!  His first trick or treater. . . 

The treater gets tricked!

So, while our Halloween carvings did not turn out as planned, we took it in stride and enjoyed watching our diligent little neighbor hard at work.  Mamba watched too from the front door, dying to get out to seek her revenge!  Next time you dastardly squirrel, next time!

A Season of Change

On December 11, 1998, two weeks after I moved to Northern Virginia, I started working at The Duff Law Firm (f/k/a The Law Offices of David L. Duff, P.C.).  I still remember when I walked in for my interview, I was overcome by the professional and elegantly decorated offices, with nice art work and matching furniture and wallpaper.  This country girl immediately thought, "I am completely out of my element."  I have come a long way since then, gained a lot of experience, learned a lot, climbed the ladder, weathered many storms, and grown to love each and every person there as family.   It's hard to believe that it's been 12 years since I first walked through those doors.  It's even harder to believe on November 18, 2011, less than a month shy of my 13-year anniversary, I will be walking out of those doors for the last time.  I turned in my notice today, as I will soon begin a new journey with a new employer in the town where I live.  While I look forward to not having 12-14 hour days filled with a four hour commute, I had to begin saying goodbye to those that I love and it was very bittersweet for me.

On the other hand, I needed a change of pace, a better quality of life, and prayed for the Lord's guidance.  I truly didn't think that I would get this new job. I wanted it, but it required a pay decrease, so I was worrying if it would be the right decision for me and my family.  I had prayed to the Lord for His guidance and provision, and even asked my prayer warriors for their prayer intervention.  At that same time, and much to my relief, the Duff's graciously decided to change my hours (an option not open to them before).  I thought to myself, "Well, I guess this is the Lord's way of answering my prayers and letting me know I didn't get the job."  Then, I got the call and the answer I had been waiting for.  Much to my surprise, the job came through.  So, while I am sad to move on, a bit scared about leaving my comfort zone and my fabulous team of Duffers, I am excited about the opportunity and possibilities that lay ahead because I know the Lord has a plan for me.  So, thank you Father for your abundant blessings.  Thank you for answering my prayers and making a way for me.  Thank you also to my hubby, family, friends and prayer warriors for your love, support, guidance, and encouragement.  I couldn't have made it though any of this without you.

And, so, my new chapter begins . . .

To everything there is a season, and a time to every purpose under Heaven.

Newby

Well, here I am!  My first blog!!  Woohooo!

My friend, Danielle, has a blog and I always enjoy reading it, so I have been considering creating my own for a while now.  She has encouraged me to give this thing a shot.  I thought this would be a snap, but apparently there are a lot of decisions to be made about backgrounds, layouts, fonts, font sizes, gadgets, photos, content, etc.  I've been sitting for about two hours tinkering with this thing because I'm totally Type A and want everything to be juuuuuust right.  Of course, now it's past lunch time and I'm starving, so I'm just going to do this post for now and obsess later.   Obsess.  O-b-s-e-s-s.  Obsess.  (insert squint here)    Ohhhkay!  I'm so tired/hungry that I'm obsessing over the word obsess because it just looks plain weird to me.  Do you ever have that - where you spell something, but it just doesn't look quite right?  I guess that's kind of a fitting description for me.  I look normal, but if you look really hard you'll think there's something about me that just isn't quite right.  Mwahaaahaahahaha!

Anyway, welcome to my blog!!  I'm sure I'll be making changes and rearranging things (and quite  possibly driving Dani crazy asking her questions), but this should be fun!