If I were to write our Christmas letter...

I love getting Christmas update letters in the mail. This is not sarcasm. I particularly like it when my name is mentioned. I always feel though as if I would never have enough to say to merit an entire letter, should I write my own. However, I do imagine it would go a little something like this...

Seasons Greetings and Happy Holidays from the Jerry McWhorter II -Electric Boogaloo family!

It's been an exciting year for the McWhorters, but you would know that already if you had Facebook.

In January, Gina began a new job with a Business-to-Business advertising agency. It was nice at first, but has since been ruining her personal life and kind of making her bitter. Her boss made her route her work email to her mobile phone and keep it with her at all times, including the week that she and Jerry were in Las Vegas getting married.

We officially became "The McWhorters" in April. We were married in a lovely ceremony at the Chapel at Planet Hollywood Resort. No, silly, we didn't have an Elvis impersonator perform the ceremony! Wouldn't that have been unique and not a stereotype at all? We were blessed to share the day with our closest family and friends, as well as the World Wide Web. We were also blessed to have this time to vacation as it would be the only break that we had all year.

Back home in Ohio, we vowed to take greater advantage of our home town and all it has to offer. We got to see the Cyclones win the Kelly Cup and were live to view the walk-off home run by Jay Bruce that gave the Reds the NL Central title. We also enjoyed the annual craft brew series at Habits Cafe - a new brewery every Wednesday throughout the summer! Our social calendar was full, but I can hardly remember much of it - maybe it was all that craft beer or the fact that my boss managed to interrupt every social event we attended with something asinine. But I digress.

We made some major updates to our home and became good friends with the tile department of every Lowe's in the tri-state area. But now we have nice bathrooms, have eradicated the 3 (yes 3!) layers of disgusting linoleum in the kitchen, and enjoy an updated look on our screened-in porch. Thank you Obama for the first-time home buyer credit!

In August, we added to our little family. We adopted Corby, a seven month old lab mix, from the Butler County Humane Society. Turns out that by "mix," they simply meant that he looks like a lab, but who knows what's in there. After his first visit to the vet, we were told that he might gain a little more weight, but he was as big as he is going to get. We are thinking there is some terrier in him. This made us a little sad as he's gonna be the little guy who gets picked on at the playground. However, he is ridiculously handsome. That's not a proud parent talking - that's what we hear everywhere he goes. We can't help it if it's true. He's as rotten as he is handsome, though.


Jerry permanently hung up his FedEx Kinko's/Office apron at the end of August to start a new career as an estimator at KDM Pop Solutions. There are a lot of similarities with his previous position, but more differences. He now has respect and works with mature adults. This gives us less to talk about over the dinner table as all he can say is, "I love my job." 


We are looking forward to spending the holidays with the family so that Corby can meet all his cousins: Jacob, Jared, Jordan, and Joshua. This will be our first Christmas as husband and wife, so... I don't know... will it feel any different than the last 3 we have spent together? 


Merry Christmas and Best Wishes for a happy and healthy new year!


The McWhorters

Feeling "poor"

I suddenly had a feeling today that I appear poor to some people. I also realized that most of my friends seem ridiculously greedy this time of year...

Jerry and I decided to sponsor two children in foster care whose foster parents do not have the ability to buy them gifts. Jerry sent me a message stating that we have so much that he would like to share it with others this Christmas. Somewhere along the way (somewhat through a miscommunication), this thougt turned into, "Let's spend money on these children and forego exchanging gifts with each other." I have to tell you that this is a GIANT sacrifice for me as everywhere I go, I see things that I want to buy my husband.

It's true though, we are not needy. Anything that we want for ourselves, we either buy it right away or establish a plan of action to get it. We both come from amazing, giving families who have never and will never let us go without being able to meet our basic needs.

I have been extra stupid-sappy this Christmas because I am so proud to be married to a man who never asks for anything and seeks primarily to make others happy. Just yesterday, we invited a friend to join us for the Cyclones game this evening. He laid out a laundry list of reasons why he couldn't go, finally ending with, "I can't afford it." As if on cue, hubs and I looked at each other, nodded, and having never said a word to one another turned to this friend and offered to treat him and his daughter to the game as a gift. I love that we both have that attitude and the relationship to know we are each thinking it.

I have been asked by many people what I am getting my husband for Christmas. They are often shocked to hear that we aren't exchanging gifts. My co-worker even made a comment about how she and her husband are fortunate enough to have stupid amounts of money to spend on each other at Christmas. I felt like she was looking down on me and calling me poor in that singular statement. (this would be the same person who once told me that she would consider divorcing her husband if he didn't get her an extravagant gift for Sweetest Day - a made up holiday!)

On top of that instance, I read facebook status updates all the time about people who are requesting some perfect, unattainable gift from a spouse or family member. And I see them as purely greedy. It kinda makes me sick and a little sad for them at the same time. Yes, I have given people Christmas wish lists - upon request. But I do it hesitantly and only because I know that I will be receiving a gift from them either way, so it may as well be something that I like.

I don't know exactly where I am going with all of this other than to say that I am not poor. I have more wealth than it is fair for Jerry and me to keep to ourselves. I just wish that being charitable did not leave others with such a bad impression of me, particularly when the response should be quite the opposite.

Ugh... incoming boss rant!

Yesterday, my boss saw an open tab on my computer that said "Careerbuilder." Had he asked me about it at the time, I would have shown him that I was reading an article about the professional fields that are showing growth for 2011 (IT or engineering, anyone?).

However, he didn't ask me.

Instead, he sent me a message about 3 hours later stating that he was upset that I was seeking a new job and that I should be discussing such things with him. He also insisted that he is making personal sacrifices to ensure that everyone in this company is happy and had a job in such difficult economic times. By sacrifice, he means (and he has told me this on more than one occassion) that his take-home pay is less this year than it was last year.

Then, today, I found out that he hired a new copywriter without letting anyone know that he had started the interview process. This is particularly disturbing as I had given him the resume of someone I thought would be a great fit for the job. At that time, he said that he would not be contacting people for interviews until he had publicly posted the position and had solicited a few more resumes. Well, the job was never posted and the ONLY time that I saw anyone in the office was yesterday when he met with some guy, who he then took out to lunch. Today, I found out that this guy has been offered the open position and will be starting tomorrow.

To call someone a two-faced liar is bold, but perfectly applicable to this situation.