The Proverbial Wire

We're in the final countdown now--the paperwork is all signed with the new tenant, services are canceled, we're eating off paper and plastic, and the end is in sight. It's kind of disgusting how much stuff I have in the kitchen alone. My mom saved up all her newspapers for days and I went through them in just a few cabinets.

I found a cool thing though, well I guess I didn't FIND it so much as decide to trust in a commercial. I took the glass castle that was on my wedding cake over to the UPS store to have them pack it for me. It took about 10 minutes and less than $10 and now I don't have to "worry 'bout a thing." But the real test will be unpacking it in Ohio and seeing how good a job they really did.

And now on top of packing and saying goodbye and all that, now I also have to type up a statement for a deposition. Fun stuff. My former boss is being sued by a former employee of hers who is lying through her teeth about everything including me and my actions. Buffi should have fired her long before this ever happened.

But enough of this nonsense--I have so much crap to do today. It's my goal to have everything packed by tonight, and even though I know that's not going to happen I'm going to do the best I can to alleviate stress at the end of the week.

It's a Bird! It's a Plane!!!

Here's another moment from my beautiful boy.

He put on Zoe's tinkerbell wings and ran around the livingroom yelling,
"I'm TINKERMAN!!! the Fairy Boy!!!!"


Oh yeah. I shoulda known this would happen when I agreed to marry Chris...

Jim Croce

Yesterday I went golfing with the Dispatch Gang, namely Chris, Brett and Carlos. I was worried about it at first because I know that Carlos golfs more than I do, like that's hard, but then I found out that Brett had only gone golfing once before in his life so I figured we were pretty closely matched. I was fairly ok when I first started golfing, but then I fell down the stairs and I hadn't gone in 2 years. When we got to the clubhouse there was a sale on women's golf balls, specially made to accommodate a lower powered swing, and I thought I should give them a try. The fact that they were pink had absolutely nothing to do with it. Brett said I'd lose them so I shouldn't bother, but I figure that I don't ever hit the ball hard enough to lose it so I might as well.

So my first few holes were right by the road (we were on the U course), and I was really rusty so I didn't use my new balls just in case. And I was right. I certainly didn't hit ANYTHING hard enough to lose it. But I didn't do terribly horrible either. By the third hole I decided I could break out the new equipment and I really like them. I don't know if it was just getting back into the swing of things (I just made my own head hurt with that one), or the boost of confidence having a cute girly ball, or if they were really better, but i started doing pretty well. I even got par on 2 holes! I also didn't lose the day, either. Brett did. Ha ha. But not by much, so I shouldn't be mean. I was 20 over, which for 9 holes makes just over 2 extra strokes per hole. Not bad considering I'm so out of practice.

Anyway, the rest of the day I spent in the office packing. I assumed it would be about the same as the last day I spent in the office packing--unfortunately the last time I was just emptying bookshelves and the hardest thing I had to do was decide which of the 37 thousand Mary Higgins Clark books should come with me and which I should take back to the DI where I found them. This time I was packing up piles and piles of papers and notebooks and a basket of laundry probably from when we moved in that got stuck inside a box accidentaly. It seemed like every box and pile had pictures in it, which had to be looked at. I was browsing through one such pile and came across one of my mom holding tiny baby Jimmy at Snowbird. I couldn't see the next one because I was crying all of a sudden for no good reason. Then after that I found my marriage certificate signed by my Dad as the officiator and that set me off too. Even the pile of laundry was difficult because it was so old it had tiny Jimmy clothes from before his gigantic growth spurt that were given to him for various special occasions by various special people. I found a broken key chain my mom brought me from Paris, pictures of Zoe building a snowman in my mom's backyard the week after Jimmy was born. I think you get the idea.

The main problem is, basically, that if I cry on my husband's shoulder, he'll start feeling guilty and get less excited about his wonderful stuff that he's doing. And he shouldn't feel guilty, because what he's doing is for everyone's benefit and if I didn't want to go I would have said that 3 years ago. But I can't cry on my mom's shoulder either because then I'll make her even more depressed and she'll be upset because I'm upset and we'll all be upset together and that would make my last week horrid.

Sooo, instead, I'm going to blog about it so EVERYONE can be upset. That makes sense. No--I'm just crying on a virtual shoulder so that people can scroll down really fast and pretend like they read it while really thinking that I should have just sucked it up like a big girl. So that's what I'm going to do now...after I listen to the appropriate Jim Croce song.

10 days and counting

Columbus

Sooo, I went to Columbus last week. Chris was in some dumb little park in PA working for his brother, and he met me there so we could look around. First of all, as I'm flying eastward, I'm noticing a disturbing trend in the way the ground is getting flatter and flatter. We landed in Chicago, I didn't have to change planes, but I did get to get off and use a REAL bathroom and grab some food. I sat on the plane and looked out the window at the city-it was SO pretty. When we took off we kind of circled around so I got a great view of the biggest city I've ever see, and then we went off over the water. I was practically giggling it was so cool.

So then we got to Columbus and everything was so GREEN. Everywhere you look there's trees and grass and rivers. One of the coolest things, to me anyway, is that there's baskets of flowers on all the lamp posts downtown. Big baskets of pretty flowers! That aren't dead! The airport is only about 4 miles away from our house, so we got there pretty quick thanks mainly to our TomTom. Our neighborhood is very odd. It's not a typical suburban neighborhood. It looks to me like there was a big farm or open field in the middle of a bunch of normal neighborhoods, and someone decided to plop some houses down on it. There's no sidewalks or fences, everything is green green grass and the houses are abnormally spaced. It's really cute and nice, just slightly odd. And full of FIREFLIES!!!!!!!! I've never seen fireflies before, and our block is so full of them! It makes me think of Shakespearian woodsy parties, like Midsummer Night's Dream.

But the house itself is perfect. I was so relieved! The front room is very large, and the carpet all through the house is brand new. The kitchen is nice, with more counterspace than it looked in the pictures. Chris' office is very very long and will work perfect for his office at one end and the laundry at the other. The kids rooms are large and my room is not huge, but comparatively, it's gigantic. There's enough room for everything to fit inside and still have walking space. There's also 2 full size closets. The little bathroom is already painted PURPLE!! ha ha ha ha . The big one is white, but I'm sure I can spruce it up a little. I'm totally in love with my new house, and I wish I could show everybody...sniff. You'll all have to come visit me. So there.

The city is really nice. We're 15 miles away from Ohio State, but it doesn't feel like we're really far away from the center of everything. We looked around everywhere, Campus, just outside of campus, German village, campus, the stadium, campus, and then for kicks we poked around campus for a while. You have to figure a University has to be pretty big to have Barnes and Noble as it's official Bookstore. But it was a beautiful campus, and much the same as the U with all it's quads and cuteness, and much different in all it's lakes and hugeness and blessed flatness. I tell you, if anywhere should be flat, it's a campus and a zoo. We didn't go to the Zoo by the way, although everyone said it's fantastic. We figured we'd wait for the kids and go all together.

We were only there for two days basically, so it was a whirlwind tour, but I'm really glad we went, because now I know a little more about what I'm getting into. Instead of this vague nowhere place called Columbus Ohio, now we're going somewhere I've been before and I liked. I have a kitchen that's already stocked with chips and salsa and even some plastic cups. There's toilet paper in the bathroom and extra lightbulbs in the garage. I'm able to get really excited now--which is good, because if I think too hard about it then I get upset...12.5 days and counting

My son

I have to share something my wonderful son said the other day. We were talking about names, and how they each were named after someone--Zoe Elizabeth after me, and James Robert after my dad. So I asked Jimmy if he knew what his middle name was.

Jimmy: Jimmy
Me: No, that's your nickname. What's your middle name?
Jimmy: Jim
Me: No, your first name is James, your nickname is Jimmy, like how Daddy's name is Christopher but his nickname is Chris. What's your middle name? What's your whole big long name?
Jimmy: I like cheese
Me: That's fantastic. But what's your big big long name?
Jimmy: (shouting) James Robert Hill Put That Down!!!!!!!!

I guess it's true that children are a reflection of their parents. I just wish the mirror was a little more blurred.

Here it is! My name and my logo. However I have to say that all the names suggested by my brothers were absolutely hilarious and well worth a click on the comments link for my last post. Chris spent about 3 hours getting this logo together exactly right and making templates for stickers and things.

Just so no one thinks I'm nuts (like my husband did) faerie cakes are cupcakes. So I can sell pretty much anything I want under this name because cupcakes are so loosely defined. Plus I like that she's a very woodsy faerie, and yet has a cute little star wand. So I can play up either side of the coin depending on who I'm targeting with a specific product. I'm very happy with this.

I think it is time now to post one of the funniest things my daughter has ever said, and for those of you who know her, that's saying a lot. We were talking about onions at lunch the other day:

Jimmy: I'm never gonna cut onions cause I don't ever wanna cry!
Me: You'll have to get your wife to cut all your onions.
Jimmy: I'm never gonna have a wife either!
Chris: Why not? A wife is a great thing to have, they help you all the time and they're nice.
Jimmy: Ok, fine. I'll have a wife. I'll marry Zoe.
Zoe: NO!!! Sorry Jim, we can't get married, you're my brother.
Jimmy: Why not?
Zoe: I don't know.
Me: First of all, ew, and second of all, if the Mommy and Daddy are too closely related, like brothers and sisters or cousins, then the baby usually has birth defects.
Zoe: what does that mean?
Me: It means the baby just doesn't come out right.
Zoe: You mean it comes out your butt?!?!


Yes Zoe, it comes out your butt. A prospect so horrible it's no surprise there's a law against it. Chris laughed so hard I thought parmesan chicken was going to come out his nose if he didn't have a heart attack first! That's my darling daughter for you!

Fine, I'll do it myself.

Okay, so no one wants to help me come up with a name. That's okay, now I don't have to give anyone cookies! I came up with one all by myself, and I think I like it a lot.

"There's No Cake Like Home"

Chris is helping me make a logo, which is slow going because he knows what he thinks it should look like, and I know what I think it shouldn't look like, but I have no idea what I DO want it to look like. He's tinkered with it so that it's pretty good but I think it's still missing something. I tried to put it up here but it's still a pdf and so it doesn't like it. I'll get it up here soon.

I also found out yesterday that the week after we arrive there's a festival called the Taste of Reynoldsburg, and they're going to have tons of booths and advertisement and stuff. Like an Arts Festival of food. I am so excited about this, because there's all kinds of advertisement involved and it will have my business name on it, flyers and signs and everything. People will get to sample my stuff and PAY for it! You can't give anything away for free, everything has to be $1-3, so I'm trying to plan what I'm going to make and how much to charge. Last year 5000 people came to this festival, and while I don't want to end up with boxes of uneaten cookies, I can't run out in the middle!

I'm so excited about this--what a great way to start out my little business!