Manjoyment Monday: Lulu's Hero

This morning, Lulu and I had quite an adventure. And whenever there is an adventure where Lulu is concerned it morphs into quite the Saga.

My morning started out a little off to begin with. For some reason the heat in my bedroom is set to come on at like 5:30am at 10000 degrees. So I was warm and irritable.

I hit the MOTHER OF ALL POTHOLES on Peninsula Boulevard right before the Hospital. It was regretably unavoidable even though I knew it was there from previous drives down the road. There was some other car in the left lane riding the line so I couldn't really go around this MASSIVE pothole.

So I'm on the Southern State and right around the Meadowbrook this fun little light pops up on my dash. It kind of looks like this: (!) and it is also a very vague light. It could mean anything from Lulu requires windshield wiper fluid to holy hell the rear axle is going to fly off at any second!

I don't smell anything strange leaking out from under the hood, nor can I hear anything that sounds remotely threatening so I just slow down and continue on.

By the time I am approaching the Wantagh and I realize, yeah, that's the tire. I get off on the Wantagh reasoning to myself that at least I'll be closer to my Dad's office and he can come and help me out if things get ugly.

Things got ugly.

I couldn't make it to the Sunrise Highway exit (although I wound up stopping within sight of it), and when I called AAA they said they couldn't send someone because the Wantagh doesn't have a shoulder and their trucks are not allowed. So I'd have to call a tow, have it tow me off the Wantagh and then call AAA back again.

At this point my Dad was on his way and he told me to call the HELP Truck and see what they could do. Before I even called he pulled up behind me and pretty much all he could do was give me the tow truck's phone number. Awesome.

Dad arrives with a pump and we get some air in the tire and drive it off the highway and into a parking lot nearby and inflate some more.


Yeah, it was a fun morning.

Finally we get to the nearby Subaru dealer's Service Shop and drop off the car. I'll definitely need a new tire and I might be in the market for a full new set (which wont' be so happy for my bank account) but we'll see what the prognosis is later today.

So here he is, Lulu's hero and today's Man. M'Dad.

Don't he look so cute in his little safety yellow vest?

DPF: One Minute!

In celebration of the Big Red Freakout tomorrow, here's a touchdown dance for the record books.

To me it shouts

"Goooooooaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaal!!!"

Leaving for the Capital Region this afternoon. Lots to do, lots of fun to be had, and important people to see!

Dance Party Friday LIVES

It snowed again. I had a few excellent conversations with my father this morning...

Dad: Looks like 3" of snow.
Mom: 3" isn't that significant.
Dad: 3" is significant to me, I have to shovel that shit!
Me: It could be worse, it could actually be shit.
Dad: 3"of shit covering everything? Yeah, that'd be worse. It'd be like the Susquehanna rose up and tried to kill us.

I'll miss these sorts of exchanges when I move.

Leaving work early today to hit the road with Casey and head down to the MD to visit Julibean.

We plan on watching horrible girly movies, go wedding dress shopping for her, put together a bed frame, and look at color swatches for her invitations.

I hope "Prince-Edward" has been as distracting to you as it has been to me...

STDs, the fun colorful kind

When it came to Jason and my Save the Dates (STDs) for our wedding I knew I wanted to do something so over the top quirky and us that people would open them up and be like, well damn, that is SO them!

I can't remember where I first saw it but I came across a couple's wedding invitation that were printed on long skinny posters and basically it was the story of their seven year relationship and how much of a whirlwind it was over the years. Not only was it funny and a little silly, but it was also a brilliant piece of typography. When I saw them I knew THAT was what I wanted to do, so I set out to make a fun little story of us.

This is what I came up with:

Originally I was going to get some shiny mid-weight paper to print them on but after the great paper search of July I wound up with 400 11x17 sheets of the Astrobright Glisten and figured I might as well use what I had on hand instead of buying more.

Here they are, in all their majesty!

They were mailed in 5.5"x5.5" Astrobright envelopes.
I designed and printed mailing labels on adhesive paper.
Our return address is on the back.

An STD cost analysis:

• Paper - As I mentioned before, it was difficult to track this paper down. I really really wanted the Astrobright Glisten paper that matched the blue dotted washi paper I had my heart set on using for details. Because the paper was discontinued I had to buy a whole case of it which was 400 sheets. Each sheet came out to about $0.50 and I made two STDs on each sheet. I believe I made 84 STDs, so I used 42 sheets. Grand Total = $21.
• Envelopes - I purchased these envelopes from envelopemall.com. I have always found envelopemall to be easy to work with and I go to them to purchase samples often. These envelopes specifically came to about $0.11 a piece (when you add in shipping and taxes). I used 82. Grand Total = $9.02.
• Labels - I purchased Astrobrights Print & Stick Adhesive paper. It came in a pack of 30 for $10.85 from amazon.com which comes to about $0.36 per sheet. I used 14 sheets for the labels. Grand Total = $5.06.
• Postage - Since they were square and slightly heavy, postage was $0.64. I guess what I saved on not buying any additional paper I paid for in postage. Grand Total = $52.48.
• Printing & Cutting - Was free. I was able to print the STDs at work and a family friend who works at Kinkos cut them down to size for me because he's awesome. Grand Total = $0.

STD Grand Total
Including postage: $87.56
Individual price: $1.07 ...Not bad!

Not including postage: $35.08 ...man, if only I could have hand delivered all of them! They would have only cost $0.43 a piece!

I've already gotten a few phone calls from family members and txt messages from friends saying how much they loved our STDs. I can't tell you how satisfying it is to hear that when I worked so hard on making them special.

Now we get down and dirty and start making invitations!

Uhhhhhhhhhh FREAKOUT!

First off, I'm not dead yet. We moved Jason. We made and mailed out all the save the dates. And I am in the midst of making all the pocketfolds for the invitations. Things have been extremely busy. Updates on those things soon.


But in other news...

FREAKOUT!!!

The Big Red Freakout is the BIGGEST Men's Hockey Game of the year at RPI. Only one year did I manage to get tickets to the game and I didn't even get to go.

It turned out we had an a cappella competition the same weekend as the big game and I had to give my ticket to a roommate.

It was so upsetting.

And since I've graduated there has always been something going on the weekend of Freakout but this year, everything changes.

This year I'm GOING.

Hooray! Yippie! Go Red!

Laura and I (along with some friends) are getting tickets through the awesome Alumni Association and we're even going to Ice House beforehand which is a happy little dinner.

Things to pack: red scarf, new RPI hockey jersey, red vest, RPI hat, FREAKOUT shirt bought years ago, red hoodie, the Devil's panties.

Sickly

Again I have entered the realm of totally sick.

Part of me kids that I'm allergic to Jason. Whenever I spend more than a long weekend with him I get sick.

In February when we went to Vancouver I came home with the worst case of strep throat I have ever had (and that's saying A LOT).

After Thanksgiving and seeing Jason in Baltimore, I felt like death and wound up with Coxsackie.

I spent a whole week with Jason in NH and now my face is peeling off.

WTF?!

I'm headed to the dermatologist this afternoon and hopefully he can give me some sort of diagnosis that makes sense and some sort of salve to make my skin stop drying up.

In the meantime not too much is happening. I'll be working on the Save the Dates the next two weeks, we're moving Jason from VA to NH this weekend, and I'm on the search for an affordable Hope Diamond.

So yeah, not too much happening.