The book fair

Remember book fairs in elementary school? Best days of my life. So many brand new books. Brand new books and money. Money from mom and dad, cause everyone knows it's ok to spend money on books. I remember always having a hard time choosing between the "How to draw 50 dogs/horses/other animals" books (anyone?) and the Garfield/Calvin and Hobbes/Far Side comic books.

Clearly, I was born with great taste in literature.

Haven't been to a book fair in over a decade, but just yesterday I came across this.



And it's so much cooler than the title lets on. It's everything book: papermaking, letterpressing, bookbinding, free book appraising, rare book eyeing. Probably not a lot of Calvin and Hobbes reading, but this... this will be cool.

Five dollars to get in, and you better believe I will be there. Everyone knows it's ok to spend money on a book [fair].

Please excuse

But today was my last day in the office. Like I said, I'll be working remotely from Houston, but today was my last day to drive in so that I could see and work and laugh with my coworkers, who have become my dear friends.

They threw a going away lunch for me. It was perfect. They made delicious foods, we played bananagrams, they let me win once... you'd think it couldn't get better. But then they gave me sweet cards and said sweet things and gave me sweet hugs. Plus a travel pack for surviving the driving. (Did I mention it's a 24-hour drive?)

So please excuse the reminiscing, but I have to say thank you. Thank you and I'll miss you and please learn how to use video conferencing.

And please excuse if I'm still in pajamas when you do.

and in the classifieds...

Just a few items looking for a good home. Pass it along to any good homes with space for a few items.

• surround sound stereo system and dvd player
• snowboard, boots, and bindings--size 11/12
• a used car! (said in your best rod roddy voice)

Five days and counting!

I declare a time out

Let me set the stage for you.

We're in the middle of a volleyball game. In what is supposed to be a noncompetitive city league. Our team, made up of some of my favorite coworkers, is losing miserably. Our "noncompetitive" opponents, with their "bump set spikes" and their "overhand serves" and their excellent "coordination" are chewing up all our fun and slamming it in our faces. Fun? There will be no fun.

So I deal with it the only way I know how.

TIIIIIIIIIME OOOOOOOUUUUUUUT!

I'm screaming it. Waving my arms frantically in the air. Spinning a little.

The ref was confused and probably a little concerned, but it didn't work. He motions for the other team to continue with their serve. Meanwhile, our team has completely lost it. I'm laughing myself dizzy and can barely take another breath when Jenny finally signals to the ref (that's all it takes) and he calls a time out.

It was a little like this.



Anyway, now that we're only a week away from packing up the truck, I'm wishing I could call a timeout on life for a bit. Just to slow things down. Pull a Blossom or a Zack or any other early 90's TV show character who could freeze everyone else in place for a few minutes. Cause I like where I'm at and I like where I'm going, but it'd be nice to have a minute to enjoy the in between.

Good news

Looks like I can keep my job! Just got the news, one week before what would have been my last day, so I couldn't be happier. I'll be working on some new projects, which = lots of writing. And lots of fun.

Speaking of work, if any of you are looking for work, and I mean really fulfilling work, email me. We're hiring people in just about every department imaginable, and I'd be happy to put in a good word. 

And speaking of email, here's another recent bit of good news. A couple months after Ryan and I got married, I tried to get the classic firstname.lastname@gmail.com email address for my married name. But, sadly, it was taken.

A couple weeks ago, I discovered that lisa dot tingey at gmail dot com was actually taken by me. Apparently I had snagged it a few months before we got married. And then immediately forgot it. So now I have at least three or four known gmail addresses (when I saw that lisa.tingey was taken, I'm pretty sure I took lisavtingey and possibly lisa.v.salazar to make up for it), but who knows how many others I've created and forgotten.

Are you an email address addict?

Speaking of addicts, I must be addicted to good news tonight cause I've got one more piece for you. We're having a going away bbq this saturday at noon. Ryan will be in town and so will some grilled goodness, so stop by sometime to say bye. Email me at any of my dozens of addresses for more info.

World Teachers' Day

A little video we created at work -- thanks to all those teachers out there!

Move

This is our moving truck.

This is our moving truck on Google Sketchup.

Yesterday I started getting nervous that our 16' truck might not be big enough to pack all our stuff into. So I gave Ryan measurements of all the big items in our house, he recreated them in Google SketchUp, and then he played Tetris til he fit everything inside our allotted space.

All our lives, right in that little box. Good news is... it looks like it fits.

Btw, if you haven't played around in SketchUp, you should try it out. It's free (thank you, google), and you can explore inside 3-D models of famous buildings all over the world. For example, in the model Ryan sent me, he put our little truck right outside the Colosseum and an Egyptian pyramid. He also set it up right outside this.

Bonus points for anyone who guesses what famous building this is...








You also might be Ryan's true soulmate...








Did I mention that in the last couple weeks, I've packed away two LOTR book sets, two LOTR DVD sets (including the creepy/random animated children's version), AND a LOTR audio CD set? That's devotion.








That's right. It's the Tower of Mordor. Courtesy of Google SketchUp.

You're welcome. (The black dot is our truck.)