Someone hurt our trees and it makes me sad.

I'm tired of defending my reaction to the poisoning of the trees at Toomer's Corner.


I was sad. I was upset. I was angry. I was irrational at first.


I was hurt.


And I wasn't alone.

What outsiders don't understand is this ordeal isn't entirely about those two beautiful, gnarled 130-year-old live oaks that stand at Toomer's Corner. Losing a landmark with that much history is difficult, to be sure, but there are fully-grown replacement trees. There will always be a Corner.

It's about the memories I have as a little girl of my mom walking me up to Toomer's after 22-14.

It's about my mom's college roommate (whom she met potluck at Auburn in 1975 and along with another hallmate, was best friends with until the day Ann died of ovarian cancer almost three years ago) insisting I accompany her to that fantastic 2001 Florida game that we won on a field goal in the rain.  I hobbled down to Toomer's on what turned out to be a severely sprained ankle. I was in a cast for weeks after that, and it was worth every second.

It's about a sea of people and toilet paper after an Iron Bowl. And a bigger sea after an SEC Championship. And, though it didn't seem possible, an entire ocean after a National Championship.

It's about seeing people you know after games like those. Some are your best friends and some you haven't seen in a while. And never meeting a stranger. They're all family. 

It's about how the the cheerleaders, the band, and the team ride by Toomer's on their way back in town following a road victory.

It's about how nearly every Auburn fan has stories just like these of his or her family and friends and the Corner.

The thing that hurts the most about this situation isn't that some crazy person poisoned old trees in the name of a football rivalry. It's the memory of a kid on his daddy's shoulders screaming "War Eagle." It's parking miles away and sprinting to throw toilet paper at a tree. It's how good that lemonade is. It's that picture split between Toomer's in the 1800s and Toomer's today. It's about the Corner and how much it means to Auburn and to Auburn men and women.

That is what "Al from Dadeville" attacked when he poisoned those trees. He attacked an integral part of our culture.

There are more tragic things that happen in the world. Even beyond that, trees die everyday. I get it. But I don't want to hear it right now.

Give me a moment, or perhaps several, to recover from the gash in my heart. 

Auburn is about more than football. Auburn is more than a school. It's a close-knit community and it's a way of life. God and family and hard work. That's Auburn.

Someone attacked Auburn and it makes me sad.

So leave me alone about it for a little while.

Tuesday Monkey Shiraz

Here we are.

Where is that? Well, dear reader, "here" is Tuesday, January 18, 2011. Several months after I said I was going to blog on the regular again.

What happened to my promises? Well, dear reader, obviously I lied. But I didn't mean to so it doesn't count.

So much has happened in the last few months. I'll just break it down for you in an abbreviated list with pictures.

1. I love my job. Love it. I love the people I work with. I love the work that I'm doing. I love the hours. I love how I can see a visual representation of my efforts in a daily newspaper.

I love the friends I'm making.

 

With Leigh and Tiff, throwin' up that AU :)

2. This will get its own post soon but Auburn football has been especially amazing this year. And I got to enjoy it with friends.

At Toomer's after the Iron Bowl. All we do is win, win, win no matter what!

3. I'm moving! Ben and I are moving into a townhouse on Stage Road in Auburn. We signed the lease yesterday and we start moving everything on Friday. I can't wait to decorate and make it mine!

It's a little dark, but that's the living room. 2 bedrooms upstairs and 1 downstairs.

4. Wait, more football? Yeah, actually. It took up ALL of Fall. We are kinda just milling around wondering what to do in the offseason. I've had to find something new to talk about on Twitter. I can't go without at least mentioning one of the best seasons I've ever seen. Undefeated regular season, Iron Bowl Champions (in a heartstopper, no less), SEC Champions, and after all of the almosts and what ifs, National Champions. War Eagle. War Eagle forever.

One of the signs GameDay took from us. Losers. Ben is a baller, though.

5. I'm starting Couch to 5k on Monday. It wasn't too long ago that I ran two miles everyday. There's no excuse for how I look now other than laziness. Real food tastes good and not running is easier than running. But all that is going to change. Has to.

I want my legs to look like this again, minus the disgusting Romania leg bruise.

This isn't even the full life update, but those are the highlights. I'm not exaggerating when I said football took up all of Fall. If we didn't have a game to go to, we had a game to plan a viewing party for. It was magical and exhausting. But that part is true for every football season. This one just happened to be extra-amazing.

Now that I'm back tweeting regularly again, maybe I can keep up a blog and a Twitter account. I've never been able to do both so this will be a challenge.

It's risky for me to share my plans because so often they don't come to fruition, but I feel like football season needs more than just a mention. I'm planning a post of pictures and commentary but my big goal is going to be an in depth nonfiction piece. I'm going take the story of Secretariat and draw some very interesting parallels (I'm not the only one to have noticed similarities, as I will explain in the piece). Will compared Bama to Rocky. I'm comparing these Tigers to Secretariat and I can defend the hell out of my thesis. It'll be a huge undertaking but I want to make this happen.

I'd say that I'll post something more substantive later, but with my track record, posting anything later will be a victory.

But before I go, here's your "Logan is adorable" shot of the week:

Isn't he adorable?

Keep it real.

I have the best job in the world.

No, seriously.


Layout has changed so much in the last three years. I don't even use InDesign. I use a program that merges ad blockers and their placement with editorial's InDesign file. Isn't that CRAZY?


That probably doesn't mean a lot to you, but trust me. It's crazy.
 
And I got to knock off at 3 today because we finished all 4 papers that we had to lay out for the holiday weekend. Yes, that's correct. I actually got a JOURNALISM job that is 8-5 Monday-Friday WITH holidays.

I have the best job in the world.


I know I keep saying I'll post something more substantive later, but I'm serious. We are tailgating tonight (since we are going to see Jake who is leaving for basic Tuesday) because we are missing the first game tomorrow. Only for an American patriot would we miss the first game.

But before I go:

War Eagle!!

Bad timing

I need to write a blog, but I also need to go to sleep so I can get up at 6 in the morning.

If I promise to actually blog later can I go to sleep just this once?

Please?

Yes?

Awesome.

But before I go, here is another Logan picture:

Logan gets pitiful when he has to take a bath.

Being unproductive

Today has been a very unproductive day.

While I did get up at 7:15, the majority of the day has consisted of lying around doing nothing, which I guess is what days off are made for. But I can't help but feel like I'm wasting my day off when I don't do anything productive with it.

Right now I'm fighting off the urge to take a nap. I rarely let myself take them because I can't sleep for 10 or 15 minutes. It turns into a 2-3 hour ordeal. And since I have to be at work at 7 in the morning, I need to be as sleepy as possible at 9:45 tonight when I attempt to go to bed.

(I'm taking bets right now: Over/under on when I actually manage to get to sleep)

Tomorrow will mark one week left at WalMart. 7 more calendar days after and 7 more work days including Thursday. I'll be so glad to get the heck out of there. I'm thankful that I've been able to work there while I was trying to find a good job, but my blood pressure really couldn't handle it much longer. Between the customers and the co-workers who weren't worth a damn, I was struggling to stay sane. So. Next Thursday, I'm gone. And I'll have a lovely three day weekend before starting the new job.

I really need to be cleaning out my closet and looking for appropriate work clothes, so I guess I should wrap this up.

---

So. I saved this blog as a draft and then took a nap.

Fail.

Oh well. I cleaned up the dishes from dinner with my parents and have made plans to do laundry so I'll have work clothes for tomorrow. That's about all I can say for today. Is that pitiful? Yes. But at least it was a day that I didn't have to work.

I'll write something more substantive later. I'm still getting back into the swing of this blogging thing.

But before I go, I think I'm going to share one adorable picture of Logan with each post. He's my baby.

So here's my favorite:

This is Logan. He likes coconuts.

Ah, blogging. So we meet again.

After talking with a dear dear friend tonight, I have decided to return to the blogging world.

"Why?" you ask.

Well, friend(s), it's simple, really. I'm about to start a new chapter in my life, and I want to document it.

"What chapter is that?" you ask.

Well, friend(s), I GOT A REAL JOB!

And I'm excited about it. 

As of Friday, I accepted the position of "layout specialist" for the advertising department of the Opelika-Auburn News. I'll be making dummy pages (FOR THE ENTIRE PAPER), double-checking color processes with the press, and double-checking insertion orders. Plus a bunch of other stuff! It's a significant pay raise, better hours (Monday-Friday, 8am-5pm), paid vacation, benefits, and best of all, I'll be using my degree.

Actually, that is second best of all.

Best of all, I AM QUITTING WALMART IN 11 DAYS. My hatred of WalMart is a whole blog entry in and of itself. So I'll save that for another time. But suffice to say, I'm really really really really really really really happy that I got this job.

Lots of other stuff is happening in my life. Exciting things, tragic things, things that take time to work out. I'll spare you the middle school diary details, but I'm moving forward a little each day. But I still struggle.

In other news, football season is right around the corner. I mean, like 20 days. And I'll have that day off due to the amazing work schedule of the aforementioned NEW JOB. So if I can find some student tickets for the boy and myself, we'll be right there in our orange and blue, screaming "War Eagle!" and loving our Tigers.

Yes, student tickets. We're young, and the student section is more fun. Real people seats are for people 30 and over who like to sit down. Not there yet.

My plan is to do a "Last few months of Peggy's life that she hasn't blogged about: In pictures" post eventually. Not tonight. I have work at 7 am and need to sleep. But it's coming.

Regular blogging is coming. I promise. For real. Furreal, furreal.

It's been a while, huh?

I got distracted by life. I'll be back soon.

So I wrapped the side of my car around a tree

I'm an idiot, obviously.


I don't remember any of it, but here's the end result:

 It crushed my door and my seat.

 Yeah I don't know. But I walked away from it. God was with me.

Props to George

I haven't really gotten settled back in from our trip to Florida, but I just wanted to share an amazing video that George made of highlights of our trip.


Not gonna lie, it made me tear up.






Such a great video for such an awesome trip. Thanks for putting it all together, buddy.

War Eagle.

Sad times

We are checking out of our hotel in about an hour and heading back to Otown.

Sad times.

This trip, despite the opinions of others who think drinking and the Ikea store are more fun, was legendary.

War Eagle.


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War Eagle!

So Eric had the BRILLIANT idea to make signs for our recruits playing in the Under Armour All-America game. We were definitely on ESPN while they were talking about Michael Dyer, our number one recruit.






After the game, Dyer brought a bunch of our guys over and they cheered and War Eagle'd with us. Eric Mack, who had been previously verbally committed to South Carolina, put on an Auburn visor and took pictures with the rest of our firm commitments. Does anyone else think that's huge?

It's great to be an Auburn Tiger.

War Eagle.


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War. Damn. Eagle.

What a game. We are exhausted.

And full. After the game, we stuffed ourselves silly with Outback.



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On the way to see the Tigers play!

War Eagle!!



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Slurpeeeeeeeeeeees

We got Slurpees!


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Made it!

The view from our hotel!


We are in Downtown Disney and loving it :)


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