Follow the Snow Brick Road
From when I step foot in my office every morning until I leave around 5:30 every day, I must get 20 questions about when I am leaving for Utah. "So when are they sending you out there?" "Got a move day yet?" "When is the office finally opening?"
Next to questions about me being a Jew in Utah, it's the most common conversation subject. I should just get a t-shirt that says "Soon to be ten Jews in Utah" on the front. Up to now, I didn't know what I would put on the back. However, I can now announce for certain that the back of that t-shirt can read, "The Adventure Begins - March 20, 2006".
The other night, Deb and I were sitting around and I told her we had to finalize this thing because we needed to let the movers know and start the process of helping everyone grieve. I am half joking on that last part but the truth is that there are a lot of people saying some very touching things to us these last few weeks. I knew we would be missed but I never thought it would be like this. I won't get too mushy here but I can tell you that we are really feeling the love these days. It's nice on one hand and, of course, on the other hand it makes it more tough to go. Deb has had her crying spots and after every one she reassures me that she's excited about getting out there but the actual move it becoming more and more real. I know. It's not going to be easy but we've had lots of time to prepare and there are exciting times coming!!! So - I won't dwell on this too long. Just wanted to let everyone know that March 20 is the day.
We settle on our house tomorrow! We signed all the papers today and had them notarized. They are going to Utah by FedEx in the morning. Our first mortgage payment in four months will be due on April 1st. It's good to be a homeowner again. I've now owned more homes than my parents have in their lifetime!
It's amazing - when Deb has a sad moment and cries a little, Elijah always runs over to her and comforts her. He says everything is going to be fine. He hugs her. It's adorable. I really think he's ready for this move. He will start school immediately and karate as well. We also just got some good information on the JCC Summer Camp out there so he will spend some weeks doing that this summer. He's been wonderful about all this.
Hannah just wants to take a purple plane to Utah. Nothing else matters. Purple plane. I keep thinking about her on the Soul Plane to Utah.....
More updates coming soon. Gotta get some sleep now. Night.
WAIT!! I almost forgot....
My bud Jules from Tales From the Stirrups tagged by butt and now I have to answer these questions...
Four jobs I've had in my life:
1. Working at Dad's retail store, C&J Discount (I was the 'J'!)
2. Working for an advertising company placing ads on the sides of NJ Transit buses (Aunt Helene got me that job)
3. Bill Collector!! Three companies. Yes, I had a few alises (Paul Britton and Randy Jackson to name a few)
4. Selling gold plated jewelery business to business. The biggest waste of time EVER.
Four movies I can watch over and over:
1. About Last Night
2. Anchorman
3. Planes Tranes and Automobiles
4. Girls Gone Wild Volumes 1-80 (does this count as 1?)
Four places I have been on vacation (in order of favorites):
1. Carribean cruise. Ahhhh......
2. Disney! (headed back this October!)
3. Mexico
4. Israel
Four websites I visit daily:
1. MelodicRock.com
2. CNN
3. ESPN
4. Philadelphia Daily News
Four of my favorite foods:
1. Sushi of any kind
2. Beef Stroganoff
3. Deb's milanesa and pude
4. Mom's chicken soup
Four places I'd rather be right now:
1. None. Right here in my bed next to Deb is just fine!
2-4. See above.
Wednesday, February 22, 2006
Wednesday, February 15, 2006
Wednesday, February 08, 2006
Tuesday, February 07, 2006
This Little Piggie
Time is flying by so fast and so much is happening! Here's the update...
Deb, Sadie and I spent four days in Utah last week. We were on a house hunting trip. Elijah and Hannah stayed home with my parents (thanks guys!) and we took Sadie for her first flight. The flight was great - Sadie was amazing - and our first day looking at houses was very interesting. We looked at about a dozen houses all around Salt Lake City and saw some very nice potential houses. Friday morning we got back together with our realtor and went to see another house before our realtor had to go attend other business. We spent the rest of the day together and attended services at the synagogue at night. Notice I say "the synagogue"? That's because I don't need to specify which one because there really is JUST ONE. Anyway, the Rabbi knew we were coming and pointed us out in the congregation. After the service, dozens of people came to introduce themselves and we got into some great conversation. In the car back to the hotel, we made a crucial decision.
Without going into TOO much detail, it's safe to say that Salt Lake City is not the most diverse place to live. I wrote about that here. Well, after speaking with so many of the congregants at the synagogue on Friday night, it was obvious we had to live as close to the city as we could afford. We would have to sacrifice some of the things we wanted in a home so that we could live in a more diverse setting and make life easier for the kids at school and for social life in general. We decided that we would completely shift our requirements for the house and when we arrived at Remax on Saturday morning to see more houses, they were all within a few miles of the city. Well, the results on Saturday were fantastic. More details on the whole house thing in just a minute...
Trackback to Friday afternoon. We had most of the day to ourselves and planned on relaxing at the hotel and previewing more houses online before going to synagogue at 6:30. Well, sometime after 3pm or so, Sadie got fussy. Not a big deal - babies get fussy all the time. Well, Sadie has never been fussy for more than 10 or 15 minutes before. This time, she didn't stop crying. At times, her crying got severe and it was nearly impossible to console her. Deb and I traded off 5 minutes trying different things. We thought she was hungry so we tried a bottle; but Sadie only ate an ounce before crying again. We thought she had gas so we layed her on her back and pumped her legs to help her; but that only made her cry more. After she finally fell asleep for about 30 minutes, we thought we were in the clear. Not the case. Sadie woke up crying worse than before and we were close to either calling a Doctor or driving to the emergency room when Deb made a joke that turned out to be not such a joke after all!
You see, a few weeks ago a co-worker of mine came into my office and told me about the strangest emergency room visit I have ever heard. His infant daughter had somehow gotten her toe tangled up with a hair that was in her sock and the hair wrapped itself around her toe a bunch of times, cutting through the skin and becoming sort of a tourniquet. They rushed her to the hospital and the doctors had to remove the hair under magnification with a special tool. The case of this "hair tourniquet" was so rare, that other doctors in the hospital asked to watch the procedure because they never get to see such a thing. Strange, right? I told Deb about what happened that night and, although the poor little girl was fine, she could have lost her toe from the wayward hair.
Well, while we were trying the thousandth method to get Sadie to calm down, and realizing that we probably were NOT going to synagogue that night, Deb looked at me in an attempt to break the tension and said, "maybe she has a toe tourniquet." We both chuckled. Well, Deb pulled off Sadie's sock and....viola! Blood. "Oh my God. She DOES!"
Deb touched it and Sadie screamed in pain. I ran down to the front desk and borrowed a pair of scissors. Deb had a tweezer in the room. We thought we had a shot of removing it ourselves because the hair was actually wrapped around TWO toes in a figure eight formation so there was room to try and cut the hair between her toes. I held Sadie down and Deb did the operation. She removed two pieces of hair from Sadie's toe and within seconds there was silence. Success. Sadie was happy again.
The hair had broken the skin and so we treated the wound with Neosporin for a few days afterwards. We made it to synagogue and Sadie slept the entire time. Poor thing. Can you imagine what could have happened if my co-worker had not told me that story? Who ever heard of a hair tourniquet?? Apparently, it's a fairly well-known issue with babies. In any case, she's all better now and back to her happy self! Now I know why they say to wash your infant's clothes inside out!!
So back to the house thing. Saturday afternoon we saw a wonderful house that was just 3 miles from my office in the Cottonwood Heights section of Salt Lake City. It needed some updating but we felt it was a diamond in the rough. We bid on it. Last night we found out that we had successfully purchased a house in Salt Lake!
It's the most interesting layout inside that I have ever seen. I'll post more pictures later. There are FOUR levels inside and a two-level deck with a hottub in back. The views are indescribable, both from the deck and the driveway. It's on a cul-de-sac and VERY quiet! We are going to have time to update the floors and paint before we move in so it will be ready for the family in plenty of time! Settlement looks to be around February 21st and the move date sometime in March! We are close to starting our adventure!
Now if we can keep everybody's toes clean.....
Time is flying by so fast and so much is happening! Here's the update...
Deb, Sadie and I spent four days in Utah last week. We were on a house hunting trip. Elijah and Hannah stayed home with my parents (thanks guys!) and we took Sadie for her first flight. The flight was great - Sadie was amazing - and our first day looking at houses was very interesting. We looked at about a dozen houses all around Salt Lake City and saw some very nice potential houses. Friday morning we got back together with our realtor and went to see another house before our realtor had to go attend other business. We spent the rest of the day together and attended services at the synagogue at night. Notice I say "the synagogue"? That's because I don't need to specify which one because there really is JUST ONE. Anyway, the Rabbi knew we were coming and pointed us out in the congregation. After the service, dozens of people came to introduce themselves and we got into some great conversation. In the car back to the hotel, we made a crucial decision.
Without going into TOO much detail, it's safe to say that Salt Lake City is not the most diverse place to live. I wrote about that here. Well, after speaking with so many of the congregants at the synagogue on Friday night, it was obvious we had to live as close to the city as we could afford. We would have to sacrifice some of the things we wanted in a home so that we could live in a more diverse setting and make life easier for the kids at school and for social life in general. We decided that we would completely shift our requirements for the house and when we arrived at Remax on Saturday morning to see more houses, they were all within a few miles of the city. Well, the results on Saturday were fantastic. More details on the whole house thing in just a minute...
Trackback to Friday afternoon. We had most of the day to ourselves and planned on relaxing at the hotel and previewing more houses online before going to synagogue at 6:30. Well, sometime after 3pm or so, Sadie got fussy. Not a big deal - babies get fussy all the time. Well, Sadie has never been fussy for more than 10 or 15 minutes before. This time, she didn't stop crying. At times, her crying got severe and it was nearly impossible to console her. Deb and I traded off 5 minutes trying different things. We thought she was hungry so we tried a bottle; but Sadie only ate an ounce before crying again. We thought she had gas so we layed her on her back and pumped her legs to help her; but that only made her cry more. After she finally fell asleep for about 30 minutes, we thought we were in the clear. Not the case. Sadie woke up crying worse than before and we were close to either calling a Doctor or driving to the emergency room when Deb made a joke that turned out to be not such a joke after all!
You see, a few weeks ago a co-worker of mine came into my office and told me about the strangest emergency room visit I have ever heard. His infant daughter had somehow gotten her toe tangled up with a hair that was in her sock and the hair wrapped itself around her toe a bunch of times, cutting through the skin and becoming sort of a tourniquet. They rushed her to the hospital and the doctors had to remove the hair under magnification with a special tool. The case of this "hair tourniquet" was so rare, that other doctors in the hospital asked to watch the procedure because they never get to see such a thing. Strange, right? I told Deb about what happened that night and, although the poor little girl was fine, she could have lost her toe from the wayward hair.
Well, while we were trying the thousandth method to get Sadie to calm down, and realizing that we probably were NOT going to synagogue that night, Deb looked at me in an attempt to break the tension and said, "maybe she has a toe tourniquet." We both chuckled. Well, Deb pulled off Sadie's sock and....viola! Blood. "Oh my God. She DOES!"
Deb touched it and Sadie screamed in pain. I ran down to the front desk and borrowed a pair of scissors. Deb had a tweezer in the room. We thought we had a shot of removing it ourselves because the hair was actually wrapped around TWO toes in a figure eight formation so there was room to try and cut the hair between her toes. I held Sadie down and Deb did the operation. She removed two pieces of hair from Sadie's toe and within seconds there was silence. Success. Sadie was happy again.
The hair had broken the skin and so we treated the wound with Neosporin for a few days afterwards. We made it to synagogue and Sadie slept the entire time. Poor thing. Can you imagine what could have happened if my co-worker had not told me that story? Who ever heard of a hair tourniquet?? Apparently, it's a fairly well-known issue with babies. In any case, she's all better now and back to her happy self! Now I know why they say to wash your infant's clothes inside out!!
So back to the house thing. Saturday afternoon we saw a wonderful house that was just 3 miles from my office in the Cottonwood Heights section of Salt Lake City. It needed some updating but we felt it was a diamond in the rough. We bid on it. Last night we found out that we had successfully purchased a house in Salt Lake!
It's the most interesting layout inside that I have ever seen. I'll post more pictures later. There are FOUR levels inside and a two-level deck with a hottub in back. The views are indescribable, both from the deck and the driveway. It's on a cul-de-sac and VERY quiet! We are going to have time to update the floors and paint before we move in so it will be ready for the family in plenty of time! Settlement looks to be around February 21st and the move date sometime in March! We are close to starting our adventure!
Now if we can keep everybody's toes clean.....
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