Footloose & Chinese Food

Good day everyone. It's quite a blustery day today. Kinda like a hurricane. I'm not looking forward to walking Elijah to playschool. I think of all weather, the wind is the most annoying. Tonight I'm goin' out with the girls to overeat at a Chinese buffet and then go see Footloose in Canterbury on stage. That'll be a good time.

Last night Paul and I woke up to the sound of quarreling foxes. That was a new experience for me, I've never heard a fox. It's an extremely unpleasant noise - I can't really describe it. Kinda like half meow, half bark. Strange English animals. I had another new experience yesterday, I tried rhubarb. That crap is WEIRD - have you ever tried it? It's like sour celery! I don't understand. I think I'll be steering clear of rhubarb from now on.

Grandma & Grandpa Martin got Elijah a big boy booster seat for their car, and he is so soooooo excited. I put a couple pictures up of him in it. He was so proud to be using a big boy set. It even has a kitty on it.

The house is really starting to take shape in the back. We had the Martins over for tea on Sunday and Paul set up the couches and made a coffee table out of a recycle bin and a wooden board so it was homey. Haha. We sat and looked at the view and imagined the finished room - it's gonna be nice! We just have to put crown molding up on the left wall, finish the wall behind where the toilet is going, finish that bathroom, and do the floor. Then put on another few coats of paint and we'll be done with that section! Then when we're rich we'll do our whole kitchen. I figure that will be perhaps in the year 2040. No - I think it could be sooner - I shall be rich off my business!

Speaking of my business, I've ordered invitations from some of my competition, and yesterday I got one from who I think is my biggest competition. Last year they won the biggest wedding award possible in the UK for "Best Wedding Stationery" (check it out, it's like a posh awards ceremony and everything - http://www.wrapitawards.co.uk/), so of course I had to check 'em out. Well, I was pleasantly surprised to find out that mine is like, way better. Hahaha. I swear I'm not just being snobby. It is better. I swear. Plus they're more expensive than me and don't offer what I do. So - my goal now is to win that award. Oh yes, I will.

Well, Elijah is sleeping late today - looks like I have to go wake him up!

The Return of the Toof Gnome

Through dangers untold,
and hardships unnumbered,
I have fought my way here, to the castle beyond the Goblin City,
to screw up Donna's teef some mo'. Weeeheheeeeee!

That's what the little jerk of a Toof Gnome said today has he wreaked more havoc in my mouth. Ok, so you know my bottom teeth are no longer completely straight, one of my teeth overlaps the other ever-so-slightly. Well, sometime today, while I was minding my own business, Mr. Toof Gnome somehow sneaked into my mouth without my permission, and took a little chunk from my tooth! Yes, I'm overreacting about my teeth as usual, but that's beside the point. At about 3pm this afternoon, I rubbed my upper lip with my bottom teeth and felt a weeee bit of a scratch. I went straight to the mirror and saw that the same tooth that has recently overlapped its neighbor now has a CHIP! What in the heeyyyyllll is goin' on? Ok, ok, it's only about a 1mm chip outta the corner of that tooth, but it's still reality. I'm figuring it has to do with recent pressure on my teefs - it seems to be more than coincidence that it's the same tooth with the other unsightly problem. Well lemme tell you what I'm gonna do. I'm gonna trap dat Toof Gnome and stick him in my rat well. No no no, I'm gonna get some dentures and somehow make a clever contraption with a mouse trap so I can catch him and do a lil' somethin' somethin' oral surgery on his punk ass! I think I might actually have to go to the dentist now. I hate the dentist almost as much as I hate Mr. Toof Gnome.

This weekend was nice. We had some family time (I put some pictures up of our front garden festivities) and yesterday we went out to eat for Father's Day. I'll put a few pics of that up in a minute. We had traditional English Sunday roast - roast beef, 3 boiled potatoes, 2 halves of a roasted potato, carrots, cabbage, swede (not like as in Swedish, as in turnip), Yorkshire pudding, and gravy. It was not very good. Paul makes a mean Sunday roast, I was spoiled with that a few weeks ago, so nothing will compare now. Anyways, though the food wasn't so good, it was a nice time hangin' with Ma & Pa Martin and Paul & Elijah. Elijah has been on and off with the whole sickness thing - he's in bed now at 7:30 which is very early for him these days. He's sleeping already, so there must still be something wrong. Poor little man.

My business is coming along. I finally got Paul and my wedding invitations. They're a little off, like the perforation isn't quite in the right place, and the insert card's wording aren't centered, but whatever. I'll learn as I go. They're good enough! I'll be sending those out sometime before the end of the month! I've finished almost 6 design collections, so only 3 more to go, then finish the website and do, um, tons more stuff. I've set up a schedule for myself so I know what I should be doing every day, and if I stick to it, I'll be up and running by August 1st. Yeah!

That's all from England. If you see the damn Toof Gnome, please trap him for me. I'll pay you £5 for him.

Here's some new-ish videos for your viewing pleasure:

Elijah "reading" a story

Pillow Fight

Race Track

Aeroplane!

I also added an album under the Pictures section of old school stuff. I was going through all my old photos and found some I thought I'd share!

Croup

Elijah has croup - again! What the heck?! I took him to the doctor, again, and he said yup, it's croup. Kids outgrow croup by the time they're 5, so we just have to deal with it. He said kids that are prone to getting allergies are more likely to get croup, so there ya go. Last night was bad, he had a really high fever and at one point his lips turned blue cause he was having so much trouble breathing. He gets himself so worked up crying that it's that much harder to breathe. Anyways, the doc gave me a dose of steroids to give him if it ever gets so bad that he really can't breathe. Let's just hope that was the last episode of croup foreva!

Not too much to speak of here in England. It's been pretty nice out lately - the summer here reminds me a lot of Massachusetts. Perfectly warm during the day and cool at night. Paul's parents are coming over tonight so me and Paul can get outta here. That'll be nice! I think we're just gonna walk up to the pub or something.

Uhhh, my life is boring at the minute, so I have nothing interesting to say. Like, at all. I'll try to take some pictures and think of something good to say this weekend. Ha.

Cinnamon Toast & a Banana

Buongiorno everyone. It's been a long time since I updated this thing, again, I have no excuse. I've been spending every spare minute I have working on setting up my new biz. It's taking SO long. Who would think this kind of business would take so long? Well, let me explain where my time goes. First of all, for those who don't know, I'm opening a wedding stationery business. I've come up with some creative ideas (well, I think they're pretty cool ideas) and hope it takes off. My whole concept is I'm offering certain design collections, and my clients will have their choice of 40 colour schemes, and they can add their own photo and quotes/poetry - kinda like build-it-yourself without actually having to build it yourself. I've done a ton of research on the market and competition, and it looks promising. Girls spend an unfathomable amount of money on crap for their weddings, and there's very few contemporary wedding stationers in England, so, there ya go. If I market myself well and offer a good product, there's no reason I won't do well - that's my attitude! I've signed up to do a bridal trade show in September, so it's for real! Anyways, to give you an idea of my time, I want to offer 9 design collections when I open shop. Each collection will have 8 components (invitations, save-the-dates, favour tags, etc...) and each component has 2 sides. Plus, I want to show each collection in 5 different colour schemes to give people an idea of what they can get. So, if you add it up, each collection consists of 18 design files, each file must be made in 5 colour schemes, and that's for each design collection, so I have to design, tweak, and perfect 810 files before I can even think about starting. That's a bit overwhelming. I've finished 3 total collections, and I've designed the invitation for the other 6 collections, so I have about 530 files left to finish. On top of that I have to design every piece of my website, create a really smart multi-page online order form, figure out advertising and promotions, sort out the business side of it (phone line, taxes, accounting software, blah blah blah) and all sorts of stuff like that. I'm really hoping to be able to open shop officially at the beginning of August. So anyways, now you all know what I do with most of my free time. I'll make a big huge announcement when it's up and running!

Elijah is sitting on the couch right now eating his usual breakfast of cinnamon toast and a banana, watching Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles. Can you believe they're still making that show?? Must make serious money - Elijah sure loves it. Paul is still in bed - he had too much to drink last night. He was being hilarious - he gets reallllllly giggly if he has too much to drink. Hahaaa...he cracks me up. I had just one drink (mind you it was a strong drink), and I got tipsy and feel ill this morning. Stupid drink. I think I shall never drink again! Ha.

Paul and his friend Charlie and Paul's dad worked really hard on the house yesterday. They got a lot done - the whole ceiling of the back room is plastered now - it just needs sanding and painting. I put a few pictures up under the House Progress section of the website. You can also note the colour on the back wall - that's one of the colours we're using for the room. Haaaa - I just realized I've been writing "colour" through this whole email. I knew that was gonna happen one of these days.

I also put a few new pictures up in the Pictures part of the website. There's only a few, I haven't been taking my camera around lately. I'll have to start doing that again.