Been Busy!

Yeah, yeah, yeah… I’ve been gone awhile. But I’ve been busy.

Work, wedding stuff, more job stuff, ran for JC president (lost), etc.

But it’s been fun. I’ve gone to Disney again (finally broke down and bought a season’s pass – for if you go only 8 times in a year, it pays for itself)… and we’re going another time in about 2 weeks.

All my time these days is spent working, Turkey Shooting (no, not shooting turkeys www.raleighjaycees.com for more info) and Haunted Housing (www.jchauntedhouse.com). I guess I have a pretty limited life… but that’s ok. After the TS and HH are done, it’ll be back to HOBY (www.hobync.org) for me.

But I really promise to write more.

Really.

I swear.

I HATE moving!

So I’m homeless at the moment. All my crap is in storage with the exception of my car, dog and computer (ok, and a few clothing items, too).

But it’s the PROCESS that I hate. I think it’s because I’ve done it too many times.

Starting from birth here are the moves that have involved 2 weeks or more in a given location:

1. Moved from home for unwed mothers (come on… it WAS the 70s) to Adoption Agency.
2. Adoption Agency to my parents home.
3. Parents first home to Texas (Dad had to do basic training).
4. Texas to Germany for Dad’s Army assignment in Frankfurt.
5. Frankfurt back to US (Flossmoor, IL).
6. Flossmoor to Valparaiso, IN.
7. Valparaiso to summer camp in WI.
8. Valparaiso to summer camp in MI. (4 times)
9. Valparaiso to private school in Bath, Maine.
10. Bath to home at the end of the school year.
11. Valparaiso to military school in Mexico, Missouri.
12. Mexico to home at the end of the school year.
13. Valparaiso to summer camp in Indiana.
14. Valparaiso to military school again.
15. Mexico to home when I was dismissed from military school (interesting story… ask me sometime).
16. Valparaiso to summer camp in Indiana.
17. Valparaiso to summer camp in Indiana. (yes, again… three summers in a row)
18. Reverse move… I stayed in Valpo for college… my parents moved to Northfield, Illinois.
19. Valpo to Michigan summer camp to work for summer between Freshman and Sophomore years.
20. Valpo to Indiana summer camp to work for summer between Sophomore and Junior years.
21. Valpo fraternity house to Valpo dorm.
22. Valpo dorm to first apartment.
23. First apartment to second apartment (1.5 years later).
24. Second apartment to NC (3 years after that).
25. NC extended stay hotel to NC apartment.
26. NC apartment back to Chicago for work.
27. Chicago to NC when work and personal life conflicted.
28. NC apartment to NC house.
29. NC house to NC homelessness.

Wow. I’ve moved almost one time for every year that I’ve been alive. I should really stop doing this. I have a good idea that I’ll be moving again in the relatively near future – becoming UNhomeless is my goal. 🙂

Feed the homeless here:

🙂

Tina and I went to see Duke play Valparaiso University (my alma matter) in basketball at Cameron last night.

Want to guess who won?

90-something to 50-something.

It was a slaughter. But we had fun there anyways! I received lots of stares as I was wearing a maroon Valpo sweatshirt. 🙂 Next year they’re playing at the United Center in Chicago. So Tina will look out of place in a Duke sweatshirt. Heh.

OK… time to get back to invitations. We have to address the INNER envelopes now, then put everything inside. Then lick, stick and send ’em away.

(Note: This is a cross-over blogisode – meaning that it’s the same post here as on the Wedblog with minor differences. Thanks for playing along.)

Aaaaaaaahhhhhhhh!!!!!

I’m tired of addressing wedding invitations.

My fingers feel like they’re going to fall off. But at least the outside envelopes are done, now to do the insides.

What’s that you say? Why am I doing it by hand? What possessed me to grab a caligraphy pen and hand-write 200 or so invitations?

Well, I’m a sadist, really. And I’m cheap. An addressing service (yes, folks, there are people paid to address envelopes) will do it for about $1.50/envelope. This includes the outer envelope – the one with:

Mr. and Mrs. Full-first-name-middle-name-last-name
Fully spelled out street address
Fully spelled out city, state and zipcode

And the inner envelope:

First name of each adult on the first line
First name of each child on the second line

But as I’m only done with the outer envelopes, I still have to repeat the process with the inners. Sound simple? Sure. Simple for me? Of course not.

First we had to order the invitations – you can read about some of that adventure on our WedBlog. We paid a little extra so the envelopes would arrive sooner than everything else (with the idea being that I would actually get started addressing them sooner. I tried.

I say, “I tried,” because my first few envelopes were done with a caligraphy marker… and without me knowing that I was supposed to be doing the full-name-no-abbreviation thing apparently required by formal southern tradition. OH, and I had wanted to do the caligraphy in purple. Apparently, only black is the allowed color. Oops.

So first was a trip to get black caligraphy markers. I came back, did a few envelopes and Tina then informed me (after an hour of addressing) that while these were fine for my friends, it wasn’t going to work for her family. I realized that this meant that I was doing it wrong for everyone and was going to have to go back to the store.

See, the marker has a wide tip. I needed to see if there was a smaller version. I found two more black caligraphy markers and returned home to discover that nope, they’re the same size. Which meant that I just wasn’t going to be able to use markers for this. I was going to have to (insert dramatic pause here)… buy a real caligraphy pen. (I also had to get a “light box” – a little translucent table with a nightlight installed under it – so that I could project guidelines drawn on a piece of paper inserted into the envelopes. This way, it appears that I’m really great at making letters of equal height and in a straight line.)

Three guesses on who doesn’t know the first thing about caligraphy pens but had to learn quickly while standing in the aisle of the store! 🙂

Yes, I found what I thought I wanted, went home and opened the box. These pens aren’t the $2 bizillion pens that they used to use for nice writing. They’re idiot-proof pens for people like me. I followed the directions to insert the ink cartridge, attach the right “nib” and tried to start the ink flow.

Hmmmm… no ink flowing. I wrote with a down-stroke, an up-stroke, a side-to-side stroke. No flow. I tried a damp paper towel to help siphon the ink down the nip (this is a real suggestion made on the instruction sheet… I didn’t just make it up myself). No flow. I tried shaking the pen. No flow. Finally, I shook the pen in sharp downward motions (like I was ‘resetting’ a thermometer) and then used the paper towel method. Flow.

Now I started addressing. It’s an amazing thing to see how small I can get the letters with a real pen.

And today, two weeks after I started (and LONG after the rest of the invitations arrived thus showing us that we wasted a bit of cash on the envelope rush order), the outer envelopes are complete. But only because I did 80 of them yesterday.

So my fingers feel like they’re going to shrivel up and fall off.